#race talk tw

[soleminisanction]

There are very few ""headcanons"" out there that get a bigger side-eye from me than people who try to make Stephanie Brown into a Black girl.

Firstly because that is not a headcanon. That's just a whole-ass retcon created out of thin air. A headcanon would be saying she's a natural redhead like how Morgan Kohan played her on Batwoman, or that she's mixed-race because of the curly way some artist draw her hair. There's definitely flexibility in race interpretations for comics but looking at the blue-eyed blonde-hair white girl and declaring her "actually Black" is not one of them.

Secondly, because I have seen (and sometimes gotten) a lot of harassment from Steph fans aimed specifically at Tim's actual, canon Black love interests and teammates. I still seethe at the memory of this one CBR interview I read back when YJ2019 was running, where Brian Michael Bendis and David F. Walker were clearly there to talk up Naomi and Teen Lantern, and in the middle of their heart-felt conversation about the importance of representation for young Black girls, the interviewer butted in to interject, "But you know who I want to see more of?? Stephanie!!!" This going on while Steph fans on Twitter were going on racist tirades because the book dared to highlight the history of Teen Lantern, a character who was actually advertised to be a part of the book and a new member of the team, instead of giving them more of their white-blonde fav who had never been affiliated with YJ and was never part of the advertising.

Thirdly, she was created and so often written by Chuck Dixon, a blatant racist, and as a result there are so many little scenes of her that have uncomfortable racial elements to them. Like the one where he created a pair of Black girls just so Stephanie could call them "raging morons" to their faces and then later talk about how stupid and immature they are compared to her. (Which I am still convinced was Dixon directly criticizing the much better teen pregnancy subplot from Icon & Rocket). Or the borderline-blackface white savior ""demon"" where she wears a dead gnu and maybe accidentally calls herself a bitch in Swahili. (Disclaimer: I do not speak Swahili, and thus do not know how a sentence structure that should read "I am thorn" turns into "I'm a bitch" or "I'm crazy," but I checked that translation with three different robo-translators and got the same results so, shrug.)

And finally -- god, Steph is just, such a walking avatar of white women's privilege. Her entire thing is demanding that she get her way, never letting anyone tell her no, and still being treated by the narrative as a pure-hearted ""beacon of hope"" that everybody needs to protect and nurture at all times.

The inciting incident of War Games can be boiled down to, "A white girl got told no, and made it everybody else's problem." The first attempted Black member of the Batfamly fucking died during that event and got almost entirely forgotten because people only went to bat for the white girl who caused the whole mess and the white woman who got character assassinated to kill her off.

If Stephanie were Black, she wouldn't exist anymore. Fuck, if she were a brunette or just as butch as Carrie Kelly, she probably wouldn't exist anymore. She certainly wouldn't be Batgirl, I can't imagine Dan Didio replacing Cass with another woman of color.

And it's not even just her? Her father is also a very white character. It is incredibly easy to summarize Arthur Brown as a mediocre white man lashing out at the world for not handing him the success he felt entitled to. Take that petulant entitlement away from him and you lose his entire character.

I'm ranting about it on my own blog instead of picking a fight because everybody's entitled to their own fandom experience and blah blah, but this is just. Yeah. Ugh.

[woomycritiques543]

Charlie is a Hellborn demon. She's not white. She's not a human.

Do you even know what "coding" means anon?

It means "applying racial traits and or sterotypes to a non human character." Are you people just trying to gaslight at this point?

She's white coded asf, the people that are shown as the "worst" in the series are poc coded asf or are darker skinned. Those are some weird asf implications. Considering that her appearance is inspired by a white, European doll (which still makes this the "white" savior trope if the main character is implied to be based off of the appearance of a white person. She's also a person in power. So having a white coded rich character + poc coded characters being shown as "more evil" = huge disaster.) most of the poc characters are greywashed despite the show clearly being ok with giving demons human looking skin colors, yet Charlie is shown to be the "heroine" of the story while the "sinners" she has to "save" are (almost) all confirmed to be poc.

They're showing demon with the physical traits of a white person to be the "savior" of demons with the physical traits of a poc. While showing the poc coded ones as "c^nnibalistic savages" and the rich, white coded one as the "sweet preppy one who wants to make them good again!" (somehow) while her poc gf works under her as a manager to her hotel. Same with how the show presents a victim mentality with a british sounding monarchy who's shown to mistreat a minority (sound oddly familiar poc followers?) yet the show wants to present him as the victim and not actually hold him accountable for this. While his "love interest" is one of those minorities, who ive heard, "used" to be his slave that was sold to him by his rich, british sounded father for a day. Yet ive also heard that despite that, the british sounding rich character still uses his past slave to his advantage and constantly treats him as "bellow" him on top of it.

They also named the only character who has an afro and darker skin "COCO." after the fact that she's based on a black woman while naming another black character "RAT."

Yet much of you still find that these implications arent weird?

Because as someone of a minority, this combined with the "slave" plot from Season Two of Helluva Boss is EXTREMELY weird.

What the fuck?!

(This is describing things that are canon and said by the creators themselves. Please dont spam me about quoting the wiki.)

(The series also never explains what they were arrested for (not like Verosika was performing "illegally" and they wouldnt have known whether Verosika caused the sea monster since they dont know about demons. So with the "SICK DEVIANTS!" and the "pig dick" along with the constant hate comments from the script on their sexual nature. Theres a huge chance that the script (the writers) choose for them to be arrested just for being... sexual. Yeah um... a person of color getting arrested for showing their sexuality... being played off as a "joke." You legit cant call yourself "progressive" and then constantly pull shit like this towards minorities (autistics and all) and not somehow be seen as a hypocrite. Jesus Christ...)

(self explanatory 👆🏾)

(the lower class minority of the series (imps) being sold as a slave to the british monarchy of the show and the series labelling the ex-slave's relationship with his past master who takes advantage of him constantly as a "cute" and "romantic" relationship.👆🏾 Did I mention that they are also showing the minority in the situation as "theives" towards the monarchy with a british accent?)

(The representation of Voodoo as "evil"/only showing the evil spirits/misrepresenting harmful spirits as "evil.")

I swear that I am this close to making a video on this.

Yikes!

[fumifooms]

do you happen to have that page that talks about the beauty standards of each race?

Yeah sure. While scavenging pics for this I found this neat reddit compilation & chart & theory talk too. I had um, way more to say than I anticipated (I know you only wanted the one page. I have nothing to say for myself. Like most topics in Dunmeshi things snowball because they’re so interconnected. Mercy…) so, many races and observations are only mentioned near the bottom.

Beauty standards and race in Dungeon Meshi

Not pictured there’s also how elven society is harsh on visibly disabled people, and how the demon took away Mithrun’s silver eyes and ears to take away his pride. There’s also how Senshi might have fit in with the orcs more easily because of the dwarven wide body shape, and how they tend to have more body hair too I suppose. In the extra on orcs we see Senshi living with the orcs and he gets judged because of the hierarchy rather than his looks.

What is fashionable also differs from culture to culture, and there’s how tattoos only seem common with elves, though dwarves and others do also sometimes have some. They seem to not raise much brows, which makes sense since for many essentially they’re for professional (magical) purposes especially with elves. Gender roles also differ in type and importance, but generally they are similar to irl ones for the races we see. Elven society seems to be the least gendered, which would be an unsurprising logical outcome of having lesser sexual dimorphism aka they look more androgynous. Comparing fashions and gender roles and how they affect beauty standards would be a whole other compilation and conversation. Kui has great worldbuilding partially because she’s got such a good grasp on sociopolitics and geopolitics. History affects cultures and beauty standards greatly. Kui’s oneshot Distant Utopia was very eye opening on her way to worldbuild and the consideration she gives these things, I do really recommend reading it.

Out of the big 5, we know the least about gnomes, but their sheet does say both culture and region are similar to dwarves’ and they end up being confused together often, so we can imagine the beauty standards are similar to dwarves’ as well.

I wanted to touch on this in a post eventually, but how one daydream hour page said half-foots tended to be curvaceous like in the artwork below puzzled me for a long time, all the half-foot characters we see during canon are rather slender and lanky after all, Chil’s succubi also being more curvy than plump. Economics are for sure a factor in that I imagine, the half-foots characters we see are all implied to be some flavor of poor or malnourished, as are half-foots depicted as empoverished oppressed minorities in general. Even comparing the artwork with the half-foot sheet’s depicted average half-foot, the ones on the left seem bigger. Wouldn’t it make sense though, if unlike dwarves half-foots don’t have similar naturally wide bodies, yet due to idolizing dwarves they work towards having a similar body shape/type to emulate them?

It’s said half-foots tend to stick to pretty ethnically homogeneous regions (aka half-foots-only communities) unless they move to the big city with ambition to try and make it big (like Chilchuck and his wife & kids did), and that’s interesting imo because then that would mean that in a ton of half-foot communities, they rarely see or interact with dwarves whom they try to emulate. Of course, one thing about beauty standards is that when they get adopted, at one point it stops being "this is how dwarves look and so this is how half-foots should look" and just becomes "this is how half-foots should look", most people feel as though beauty standards aren’t learned but innate, so I figure the half-foots wouldn’t have any problem still seeking dwarvish traits when there are no dwarves around.

There’s also stuff you can glean here and there if you want to extrapolate more. Like how in the race swap artworks, Mickbell is only smiling in the dwarf portrait, and Rin’s elven portrait looks very close to her elven one- Rin who is stated to be beautiful in her profile blurb. Benichidori’s extra does teach us tallmen can definitely have harsh beauty standards, but also since the text portrays her as very dysmorphic that’s likely reflected in her thoughts to a much more intense degree than is common, not an accurate strict baseline to go off. Ah, Kabru’s blue eyes are also why he and his mother lived a rough life in Kabru’s hometown, but that seems to be regional. Good post here on the topic of Kabru’s blue eyes and ties to irl history. There’s a lot to be said about Kabru being a man that in many ways is close to elven beauty standards, and how that might have affected or been affected by his upbringing with elves + his persona as someone that can effortlessly charm most people. Marcille’s section here in this essay also goes into Marcille’s struggles to fit in with the ideal image of an elf.

Looking human

Also notable are beastkins and demihumans: Demihumans are all dehumanized which makes people treat them worse. So if you differ from the visual idea of "human" (an in-world subjective categorization just as much as demihuman is) most people do judge you negatively. Elves and dwarves get to fight about which type of human is considered the prettiest, but demihumans are below tallmen and half-foots, they are considered as simply below the beauty contest, incompatible with it.

Onis are perhaps the demihuman people we know of with the least cultural influence on the dunmeshi world, and with the least intensely different appearance than other demihumans—they seem to be technically categorized as human to people not from the eastern archipelago?— but even them are treated as lesser than human, treated as beasts to slain for reputation points or useful strength to have around and command. It’s said their "magnificient horns" and fangs are often shaven off when the oni lives in tallman towns, so you could easily make the argument that onis are denied the right to have their own beauty standards, having to conform to other people’s and going through mutilation to take away features they might otherwise have taken pride in. Inutade was bought by the Nakamotos from a dangerous sumo fighting ring that got one of Inutade’s tooth broken on her first and only fight, and kept as a low ranking servant ever since. Remember when I said different fashions existed in dunmeshi and how those could also affect beauty standards? Like the elves, if you look at the portraits pages which include a lot of characters that aren’t in the story you can see distinct cultures within the same races, for example one young elf is bald which is in sharp contrast with the usual elven long luscious hairstyles, and that’s especially true for onis I think. Maybe not only from different regions but different eras as well… They have a bit of population in the very north of the western continent, so I like to think some of the ogres live in very cold, maybe even subarctic or arctic conditions. The point I’m getting at here is that within a race, culture/ethnicity like with Kabru will also influence them it isn’t just tallmen as a whole, different communities will have differing beauty standards. The oni history blurb and third row first collumn portrait remind me of Mongolia (which historically was a lot of different nomadic communities with different cultural identities as well. Something something, the oni empire experienced a decline and then tallmen overpowered them, and now they’re governed and split apart by stronger social classes & slavers and the richness of culture was hurt for it especially if they have no real community left of their own), but obviously many of them are dressed and look rather japanese, makes sense considering living in/close to Wa, and first row second collumn portrait reminds me of ainus which again would be logical considering geographical placement, though I’m far from an expert. Interestingly, ainus are indigenous people both in Japan and Russia- Perhaps the northern western continent ogres are meant to be closer to Russia than Canada like I imagined? Ok tangent over.

The kobold sheet says they’re especially sought after as slaves because they’re "adorable", but locally in the western continent they’re repeatedly said to be seen more as ferocious and dangerous. The dehumanization is most apparent in the first comic below. The language barrier and conflicts no doubt worsen this by a lot, but I think it’d be hard to deny that their canine appearance makes the dehumanization worse. "They’re ferocious beasts, they’re demihumans, they can’t be communicated with". Most characters in Dungeon Meshi’s world are desensitized to slavery and most characters are prejudiced one way or another. Point being, kobolds are fully removed from human beauty standards, but no doubt for kobolds, other kobolds are more beautiful than humans are. They’re assumed to be an uncivilized bunch, but just like any other people they like to adorn themselves with nice clothes and jewelry and keep themselves clean and groomed; they too take care of their appearance and take pride in it.

And the orcs! This one we have the most contact with in canon, with not only there being foreigner characters from the ethnicity or hearsay of their homelands and culture but full on contact with a community. We get to see up close what they’re like and what they think, and of course in turn they’re our introduction to how demihumans are harshly looked down upon and seen as inferior, less human and thus less worth valuing and less dignified. It’s text that orcs are ugly to most humans and humans are ugly to most orcs. Since I judged they didn’t need accompanying explanation the pictures showing this are in the pictures dump at the top.

God forbid you sell vegetables to orcs my god- but then again they do basically mandate adventurers to kill any orcs they come across so yeah the world isn’t above that even a little bit.

So yes, my main point here is simply that orcs are yet another evidence of the physical ideal of "human" being an important beauty standard for human societies globally.

Izutsumi is our glimpse at how beastkins are treated in the world, and in Wa at least that’s ending up being caged and mistreated as part of a freak show. Izutsumi hates her appearance and wishes she could leave the feline part of herself behind to only be human. Interestingly, not that we have a lot of info on them so this is very much a take with a grain of salt situation, but there seems to be less stigma around artificial beastmen, those who can shapeshift at will. The main difference is of course appearance, that most of the time they simply look like average tattooed humans. Artificially creating humans is an illegal practice, and no doubt it’s not well regarded, but being able to hide that makes them less likely to be discriminated at any moment, or even just discriminated less intensely. Again, looking human is important, not only for belonging but for safety’s sake. Beauty standards rule the world with harsh hands.

Mermaids and fishmen

Ok we’re done now right? Right-! But wait… Wait…! Mermaids and fishmen are said to be demihumans too, special separate cases to the main three demihuman species however, which is also represented by how mermaids and fishmen both are in the Adventurer’s Bible chapter Monsters meanwhile ogres, kobolds and orcs are in the chapter World. They’re an interesting topic because they directly tackle this topic, not only in a meta way for the readers but also making characters themselves struggle to quantify their humanity with the goal of knowing wether they should be eaten or not, especially Chilchuck. Chilchuck’s "is it really just a matter of feelings?" mini arc.

The party asking themselves "Should we eat this?" is very common, and often they end up playing a little loose on morality, like eating the red dragon’s meat despite it having digested Falin. Not unsimilarly Marcille freaks out a little over the vegetables they harvested having been grown with fertilizer, aka largely human poo. Half of the motivation of "should we eat this perhaps sentient creature" is out of consideration and compassion, but more strongly and more often, the characters struggle with a sense of taboo at eating something too closely related to humans. Even, feel uncomfortable because of the deepseated impression that eating it would dirty them in some way. Cannibalism is an interesting and relevant topic in many ways, but what I want to mention is how there’s the more or less universal belief that committing cannibalism inherently taints you as a person and turns you more monstrous, morally but also literally depending on some myths such as w*ndigos and onis in some cases, like in Touge Oni. Marcille and Izutsumi both express a fear of eating monsters turning them monstrous. Maybe this is part of what Laios was hoping for, honestly. There are two fears here, if eating a demihuman monster constitutes as cannibalism or not, and so, will eating it taint you because it’s a human, or will eating it taint you because it’s a monster? You are what you eat, until it’s a little too literal. You morally are the means by which you get your food, and you physically are the result of your nutrition. Dungeon meshi manages to mix an exploration of humanity with the theme of food because our relationship to food is very deep and complex, psychological as much as physiological.

In the end, the characters sort of shrug and accept that they’ll never quite understand the world of mermaids and fishmen and how they operate, and what that means about them. Laios is the one always challenging these notions other characters take for granted, it’s not obvious to Laios why people are softer on mammals than other animals and plants, it’s not obvious to Laios why people would be afraid of eating a monster just because it’s a monster, it’s not obvious to Laios why some food is gross to Marcille but not fish testicles, it’s not obvious to Laios why you should immediately regard orcs and kobolds badly.

"Cows are probably closer to humans [aka closer to being human] than fishmen, though they’re clearly intelligent", dehumanization to lessen empathy towards them to be able to eat them. Meanwhile, mermaids seemingly have a less noticeable "civilization" or intelligence, they hunt in groups like fishmen, but they don’t use tools and such, they feel more primal and similarly instinct driven, and yet… Do they attract sympathy more? Mammals, humans, is it because of their nature or because of their appearance?

Both the nature and appearance of fish are ones people don’t typically sympathize with. "Fish don’t feel pain", "goldfish only have 5 seconds of memory", "it’s okay to keep fish in completely empty bowls too small for them until they die from it", so many lies and misconceptions exist that make people less considerate of them. The average lifespan of a goldfish is 10-15 years, the record is 43, but they’re not seen as lives that really matter, so a lot of goldfish die in a few weeks of bad aquarium conditions. There’s a lot of research on animals evolving to look cute and appealing to make some predators want to kill them less and parents want to care for them more, including humans. First good google research result gave me this credible short article on the topic. In Chilchuck’s weighing wether a fishman is far enough from being human or not to eat, "face is 100% fish" is his biggest argument for it being more acceptable. The face, the most important thing for empathy and recognition. The face, the decapitated fishman one that falls into his hands next chapter.

To quote @room-surprise: "Chilchuck can't explain why it's wrong to eat the merpeople, even though it's NOT complicated. But the problem is Chilchuck would have to accept and acknowledge that the merpeople might be people? And that's outside of the worldview he passively believes, so he can't just say that, because he doesn't think that's true. But that IS why he "feels" it's wrong. And it's all you'd need to say for Laios to understand! But it would require acknowledging that maybe the way they're treating and talking about the merpeople is wrong."

The idea of Chil not being able to grapple with how maybe some monsters are more humans than they seem, him who had been an advocate of half-foots rights, half-foots who get undermined and treated as inconsequential sacrifices… Grappling with how he could relate to the merpeople’s situation almost, and pulling away because it’s so existentially horrifying. I do not want to see myself into an hostile fish-faced warrior I can’t communicate with. In a way this also relates to Chilchuck being the only party member who doesn’t see Izutsumi as a cat in the relationship chart, the only one to treat her with full human dignity. He knows the struggle to be taken seriously, he knows being infantilized and he knows what it’s like to be treated as less than human.

Below, you will see Chilchuck draws the line of where they become not okay to eat as when "they already look like mermaids". Above, there’s speculation that the algae hair is partly to mimic "the mermaids’ beautiful female form". Is it because mermaids are their enemies and the ambiguity might give them extra seconds to attack or flee? Is it to trick adventurers instead? It’s striking to me that this is what works, with the adventurers. Sure the fishmen are intelligent, but explicitly here, what makes them no longer acceptable prey to Chilchuck is that they look close enough to a mermaid, close enough to human. Mermaids who of course themselves have this form to entice and seduce and charm the adventurers they prey on. Chilchuck considers the intelligence due to the tridents, but most of his internal debate centers around their appearance, and the image of a fishman skewered sickens him. The power of mimicry… Mimic being a beautiful human woman. Mimic being cute, babies being wired to make us feel protective and softened. Half-foots, sometimes pretending to be children for scams or help or avoiding trouble.

The mermaids are only concerned by their differences and not their similarities, and have no trouble treating the fishmen as food rather than peers. To an outside perspective like us, the audience, all these categorization of "more human" and "less human" between onis and orcs and elves and tallmen etc seem stupid and unfounded, but to the people living in Dungeon Meshi’s world, elves may as well be mermaids while onis are fishmen, not alike at all, unworthy of empathy and thus fine to eat.

Ultimately, Dungeon Meshi promotes unity. It’s about seeking to understand the unknown and the misunderstood, the dehumanized and the inhuman. It shows the good that comes from seeking to understand what you do not, even when that’s one another.

[mxfrodo]

y'all for fucking real. don't fucking write slave fics or x reader fics of aventurine's slavery??? are you guys out of your goddamn minds???

[clonehub]

I have so many Thoughts on the current HEAVY conservative swing the world is facing rn and how it manifests in fandom, media illiteracy, a violent aversion to making connections between the real world and the media we consume/how we perceive it, and this very juvenile and firm divide that doesn't make sense (anti and pro) but I think the most intriguing part of it would be OP and those like them insisting that by defaulting to what they believe is the norm and then proclaiming "anyone who thinks the clones don't fuck each other all day every day is just shoving their own societal mores onto this fictional sub/species/group of people" is committing the fatal flaw being arrogant enough to think that their ideas about sex, sexuality, and family aren't absolute SHINING through their preferred ships. As in they think "(Brown) teenage boys and men Of Course would have insatiable libidos and no taught or learned guidance around sex and sexuality, and they'd have all my same values about sex and sexuality, they'd just be fucking like Animals cause That's What (Brown) Men do, Duh" is like. The normal and smart and culturally neutral take. And not the deeply milquetoast hegemonic take that's been dominating society for centuries lmao.

(EDIT: I've been told by multiple māori fans and other PI fans that clonecest is a racist stereotype. Through my own research, this is due at least in part to the fact that māori are stereotyped by racists as sexual abusers of family members)

[robinfrinjs]

This has been the case in WEC for a while now and to hear this is absolutely devastating. And the fact Calado ended up hospitalized because of it shouldn't have happened but I hope it does help push for change.

Considering there is three drivers in one car a rule change is probably easier said than done but it still has to be done - and this is not the first time in several years I've heard about it

[lovelylunas-world]

F1 fans being shocked when a wag is racist and problematic 😭😭

[jaybird3756]

Nobody in this fic is okay

HTTYD RTTE fanfic S3.11 Family on the edge

---Dagur makes a suicide joke, Heather does not take it well.

!! Trigger Warnings for discussions of s/h and suicidal thoughts!!

Ik this is the episode everyone and their dog has made fanfics about but I do not care. I'm planning for 3 chapters, still unsure if I'm gonna go with good ending or bad ending. Everyone in this fic is or has been suicidal: This part is Dagur and Hiccup, next part will be with Heather and Dagur because I want this entire family to have issues, and the third part will touch on some other riders but for sure the twins.

"Hiccup Haddock, I cannot believe you kept my Heather from me! I was so worried; was she alive, was she dead; was she even okay?" Dagur whined, rubbing his jaw where Heather had hit him moments earlier.

Hiccup did not get a chance to respond before Heather asked, "How could you bring him here?" She pointed at Dagur with her axe. "Did you forget all the horrible things he's done to me, to all of us?!"

"No Heather, but he saved my life and Toothless' life" Hiccup protested. He protectively stepped between the two siblings, extending an arm to keep Heather from attacking Dagur again.

"How can you protect him Hiccup? How can you trust him? How could you teach him to ride a dragon?" Heather interjected. She glared at Dagur, dark green eyes fuming with hatred. "You set me adrift as a child! You killed our father! You destroyed my village and killed my adoptive parents! You've tried to kill each of us multiple times! You're the reason I don't have a family, Dagur!!"

Dagur couldn't meet her gaze, instead looking guiltily down at his feet. "Most, if not all of those things are true, but-"

"Save it for someone who's gullible enough to believe you! You may have all of them fooled, but not me!" Heather sneered. At her brother's dejected look, she huffed and turned to leave saying, "I wish you were dead, Dagur."

Dagur took a half step back. He knew Heather must have hated him and she did have good reason to, but hearing that was like a punch to the gut. "Trust me Heather, I understand the sentiment, I do. I wish that too sometimes," He said with a half-hearted chuckle, trying to hide the hurt from her complete rejection of him.

Heather stiffened and stopped in her tracks, still facing the door. She whirled on him in an instant, brushing past Hiccup to grab Dagur harshly by the collar. "Don't you ever joke about something like that! You have no idea what it was like for me! How I felt, all alone; you can't joke-"

"It wasn't a joke" Dagur interrupted somberly, staring her straight in the eyes. The other riders were silent, shocked by Dagur's admission.

"What?" Heather dropped her accusatory tone and angry glare. She let go of his collar and looked at her brother's face. She recognized the look of pain and hopelessness in his eyes and she knew he wasn't lying. She had thought he was, had wished he was, but the sorrowful expression on his face seemed just too genuine.

"I know I sounded like I was joking, but I wasn't. I wouldn't ever joke about something like that."

"Then you-" Heather started to ask a question, the question on everyone's minds.

"Yes" Dagur answered before she'd even figured out how to ask that question. 

The clubhouse was dead silent, not even Chicken dared make a sound. Dagur looked past Heather to Hiccup, who wouldn't even look at him. Instead Hiccup was looking downwards and fidgeting with a leather strap on his wrist guard. 

Then Dagur continued speaking, spilling out more secrets than he would have liked, if only to not have to sit in that uncomfortable silence. 

"I've thought about... death a lot. Ever since I was little. I mean, no one liked me, some people went out of their way to make me miserable and sometimes I just wanted a way out. I wanted to make them hurt, make them regret the things they did to me. I wanted to hurt them, make them bleed and suffer or..." Dagur whispered, "I'd want to hurt myself. I was just so angry. Sometimes I'd hurt others and I regret that now, but sometimes I'd take it out on myself. Just to feel something other than anger all the time." 

Dagur sniffled and brought his hands to his forehead, trying to hide the tears beginning to form in his eyes. "And it. Never. Got. Better" He almost growled. "I'd take it out on anyone around me and when no one wanted to be around me anymore..." He crossed his arms and rubbed at his bracers and forearms.

Heather knew Dagur had a lot of scars and assumed they were from fights. A picture came to her of a much younger Dagur sitting on his bed angrily slashing red strips into his arms with the very same knives he still carried around. She wanted to hate him but now she just felt sad for him.

"So many times after losing a battle I'd wonder if the Berserkers would be better off without a failure like me. I led them into battle against trained dragons when we had wooden boats! I was a shitty chief and a shitty leader and I knew it. I just didn't want anyone else to know that I knew. So I just doubled down and look where that got me. So many times in Outcast prison I just wished I was dead already. I kept waiting and wishing I would die of blood loss, or infection, or internal injuries before Alvin came back to play with me again. But I never did. Even after I escaped I just wanted to give up. I mean I had nothing anymore, no power, no gold, no armada, no throne, and no home. I couldn't even stay in the archipelago because I'd made so many enemies that if anyone found me, I'd be executed or worse. I wasn't able to sleep again, so I just sat awake at night plotting revenge but sometimes I just wanted to go home so badly I wouldn't have cared that I'd probably be killed immediately. I'd have just let them."

Dagur looked up at Heather expecting to see disgust or cruel amusement and was instead met with shock and concern. That was almost worse. He could handle being ridiculed (maybe), but he hated being pitied. 

"The only thing that made it any better was you, Heather" He explained. "Because you were alive an even though I orphaned you twice, I couldn't even think of ending myself anymore. If I did, I'd have taken your family from you three times and I'd definitely be the worst brother ever. Even if you hated me, even if you ended up killing me yourself, I knew I couldn't do that to you. When I was stranded on that island for months, thinking about all the awful things I'd done, I wanted to throw myself from one of the cliffs or put my sword to one final use but every time I almost did, I thought of leaving you all alone in the world and I just couldn't bring myself to do it."

He took a step towards Heather and put a hand on her shoulder plates. "You don't need to waste your energy wanting me dead, I do more than enough of that on my own. And I'm really sorry, for everything." He turned to leave, unsure of what else he should say.

"Dagur, wait-" Heather called after him, but Dagur had already started to cry and he wanted out of there as quickly as possible. "Good Night." He said with a finality that made it clear there would be no more talking. 

Once out of the clubhouse, he leaned against the wall and wiped the tears from his eyes. Stupid Dagur, why'd you say any of that? Now everybody knows. He scolded himself as he slunk off into the night to find Shattermaster. He used to think it was stupid to have an animal as a best friend but right now he wanted nothing more than to curl up next to his dragon's pebbly scales.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back in the clubhouse everyone was still absolutely quiet, even the twins, trying to process what they'd just heard.

"Someone's got to go after him," Astrid was the first to speak up. 

Heather turned to look at her, then to Hiccup. She still had a stunned look on her face "I- I- uh..." She didn't even know what she was trying to say but clearly Hiccup knew what she needed more than she did.

"I'll go." He volunteered, quickly leaving the clubhouse. Toothless warbled and followed close behind. 

Hiccup found Dagur on the landing platform outside the stables. He was sitting on the edge, feet dangling over empty air below him and leaning against Shattermaster's side. Hiccup felt a twinge of alarm seeing Dagur's precarious sitting position. As soon as Toothless had his paws on the ground, Hiccup jumped out of the saddle and grabbed Dagur by the back of his chestplate and pulled as hard as he could, dragging the berserker back from the edge of the platform. 

Dagur twisted free of him and glared at Hiccup, wiping away the tears in his eyes and asking, "So what? I'm not allowed to sit where I want now?" The unexpected harshness in Dagur's tone made Hiccup flinch a little. "You finally stop treating me like I'm a danger to everyone else so now you're going to handle me like I'm a danger to myself?"

"Dagur that's not what I-" Hiccup tried to defend himself, realizing that his worry had come off patronizing and had really rubbed Dagur the wrong way. 

"Going to take my weapons now? Afraid of what I might do with them? Would you like my belt while you're at it?" He sneered. "I don't need you trying to protect me."

"I'm sorry." Hiccup sat down next to him. "I wasn't thinking."

"Yeah, obviously" he mumbled back. 

Hiccup looked out over the view from the stables. The moonlight illuminated the sea below them. After a moment Hiccup said, "I want you to know, I don't think any differently of you. I'm sorry you went through what you did but I don't think any worse of you now that I know. I've been through some rough patches where I felt like that too."

"Felt like killing yourself? I thought so." Dagur said flatly.

Hiccup flinched, "What? How did you know?"

"Come on, brother. I saw you growing up. No friends, too weak to defend yourself, everyone thinking you're a disgrace to Stoick. I'd be more surprised if you hadn't thought of..." Dagur paused, "well, you know."

Hiccup was more than a little shocked. "That's pretty much it. I was always a disappointment. I felt like no one actually wanted...," Hiccup gestured to all of himself, "all of this. I heard people call me a burden all the time. Sometimes I think I did something so crazy as befriending a dragon because I felt like no one would care if I got eaten anyways." Hiccup scratched under Toothless's chin. "Sometimes I think that without Toothless, I'd still be that scrawny kid with no place in this world."

Dagur nodded. "I get that. But now you're the scrawny pride of Berk!" He said with a genuine crazy Dagur laugh.

"Hey!" Hiccup punched Dagur in the arm and smiled.

"I used to be so angry that you chose a dragon over me", Dagur explained, petting his green gronkle. "But now I get it. I've only had Shattermaster a day and it feels like he's already my best friend. He makes an excellent mediation partner too, you know."

"Toothless is my best friend" Hiccup agreed. "He was the first one who accepted me for who I was. We'll always have a special bond. There's just something comforting about a dragon; they don't judge you, they can't tell people your secrets, and they're always going to give you the love you give them."

"People are overrated anyway", Dagur said dismissively. 

"Well, there are some good ones if you know where to look." Hiccup looked over to the clubhouse; Dagur turned his head to look too. "But mostly I do agree, that the average dragon definitely beats the average viking for me." 

"Good thing I'm not the average viking then." Dagur chuckled.

Hiccup laughed, "Oh no you're not an average viking, that's for sure!" They both burst out laughing together. 

"Oh you bring the funny brother," Dagur said when they'd finally stopped laughing. "It's really nice out here tonight."

"Yeah it's a really nice night." Hiccup said. Toothless' ear fins pricked up and he looked at Hiccup. "I think I'm going to go for a night flight with Toothless, wanna come?"

"No thanks, I don't think I'm ready to fly at night yet." 

"Oh," Hiccup sighed. "Do you want me to stay here then, I mean are you okay to leave alone, I'll stay if you need?" He offered, still slightly worried about Dagur.

"Hiccup. Stop." Dagur scowled. "I'll be fine."

Hiccup trailed off, embarrassed that he'd tried to baby Dagur again. "Sorry, I did it again. Goodnight Dagur" Hiccup climbed on Toothless and took off into the night sky. 

"Goodnight brother," Dagur whispered into the night behind him. As he looked down over the edge of the platform again, Shattermaster yawned and snuggled next to him. Now that he had his own dragon, and Hiccup and Heather, it finally felt like he had something real to lose if he were to jump. He knew his tribe would be fine without him, but his brother and sister wouldn't be and the dragon he'd come to see as a best friend would miss him as well. He got up, walked away from the edge of the platform and led his dragon into the stables to sleep for the night. Dagur considered going to sleep in the stables with Shattermaster, but remembered the odd behavior of the riders that day. 

He was glad Hiccup was off flying, and thus away from his hut. Dagur needed to do some snooping around. He was right about one thing, he had way too much to lose now.

[f1dumpsterobssesion]

things about the pironi crash that haunts me

From here:

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/the-true-1982-world-champion-the-tragic-story-of-didier-pironi/455837/

[cowboylikeyouu]

living alone is changing me as a person bc this guy just showed up on the wall next to my pillow and i just had a mini freak-out before putting him in a glass and taking him out, BE PROUD OF ME

[cbrownjc]

Could you explain why you are ok with ep 5? I hated seeing, yet again, the battered body of a black character beaten to a pulp by his white partner, especially since such violence never happened between Louis and Lestat in the books. While I know white people can't understand and probably couldn't care less, I'm genuinely curious about your take on this.

Hi Anon!

Okay, first I'm sorry this reply back took the long time it did for me to answer it but, aside from wanting to think on it, RL things got in the way too. And then I also got caught up with some other writing I'm doing. And, as I said, I wanted to think this out before I wrote on it.

Now, first of all, it's actually not true wrt the books that Lestat and Louis never fought before. Someone other than myself has taken screenshots of passages in the book ITWV where such fights have happened. So I do not believe that it was out of character at all for them to have even had a fight in such a way, as such things did happen in the books. (And honestly, I didn't think it was OOC for Lestat at the time it happened before people started posting screenshots of the passages in the book that showed them fighting).

What has upset people is how visceral and beaten Louis looked by the end of that fight. (And no one is wrong for feeling that way if they do/did). It is disturbing to see a black man beaten in such a way by his white partner. And I actually don't think the writers were completely unaware of that imagery when they did this either. Not when you take into account the other pointed underlying racial dynamics the show did and highlighted throughout the season, before and after that episode. (From basically all of EP3, to Claudia mocking Louis telepathically with the "massa" talk in EP6.) So no, I do not think they were at all ignorant of the loaded racial imagery in EP5 after that fight.

And whether some views can forgive Lestat for it will be an individual thing, at the end of it all IMO. Some views may never forgive it, and I think that is completely okay. However, for me - and why I not only wasn't that shocked by the fight itself but feel I understand what is going on with it is - is 1.) as said, they did have knock-down fights in the first book, 2.) knowing Lestat does have that level of violence-ability in him as I noted when the episode first aired and 3.) and this is the main point - that there, strategically, some clear missing context going on here wrt that fight.

Because the entirety of that fight never once was told from Louis' POV. Until that moment when Lestat took Louis out into the courtyard and then up into the air, the actual fight itself was all told from Claudia's POV.

And that was clearly a deliberate choice. Not just to highlight what it must have been like for Claudia to witness this but because there is clearly something about that fight that Louis is holding back about. And no, not because he's lying about the fight having happened at all, and him being beaten in such a way. The fight did happen, and Louis did get beaten in the way we saw at the end. Because, again, what we saw of the actual fight was all from Claudia's POV, and Claudia would have no reason to lie about such a thing in her diary, where the account of the fight was clearly taken from.

No, it's because I strongly feel that something was going on during it that I don't think Louis can - even now - really process. And I have a huge suspicion about what it is.

We're now headed into book spoiler territory and I don't know how much you might want those, so I'm going to stop with that here. All I will say is that the pauses in the fight when we heard Lestat's voice talking are very, very important, particularly when it comes to what he's saying.

Part of this, and that fight, has to do with the very nature of what Lestat and Louis, and Claudia all are as vampires. Again, I'm really trying not to spoil anything here, because I suspect the show might reveal some of this in Season 2, particularly wrt Paris and the Theater Coven.

Though I don't think the majority of it will be talked about until Season 3 when we finally get Lestat's POV. And it might even be something that carries on over into multiple seasons.

I understand the POV of people who will never be okay with the fight and the imagery it left wrt Louis. But I really do feel the writers didn't do it without one, knowing how it would look, and two, that there is a larger, overall, story arc point going on here which ties into the fact that we are not dealing with human beings here.

This isn't a story about vampires seeking redemption or a way back to humanity. With Rice's vampires, the longer they live, the more apart from humanity they become. That is, overall, one of the things the VC explores here. And they are all going to continue to do some really inhuman things, at least during these earlier parts of the story, towards people they love.

Over time, even as many of them, especially Lestat, learn better how to deal with that nature, particularly towards those they care about and love, those inhuman things about their nature will still be there.

So I think also having that view, understanding that about these characters, as well as everything else I talked about, (including something I strongly feel they are setting up as to why Lestat acted the way he did), goes into my few of that fight and why, when it happened, I honestly wasn't either surprised by it and am okay and want to see where they go from here with it. This is just all, personally, where I'm coming from it with it of course.

[treasure-goblin]

I'm making a new spider like species in order to cope with the passing of my pet spiders, and I've played around with the limb idea, so they have 3 sets of arms, two normal and one set smaller in the middle that rarely get used, and they have legs. 8 limbs in total.

But they often have conversations about whether they should just have 8 arms, 8 legs, if driders are actually arachnids because they have 10 limbs, and one has constant crises about losing a set of arms and becoming an insect, although that is not at all how it works.

[hellsbroadcaster]

TRIGGER WARNING - contains mature topics of racism, rape, and discrimination.

I love Alastor's relationship with women, and I know its due to him being a big mama's boy. He has so much respect for his mom, he wouldn't dare raise his hand to another woman. In the comic of him, he kills the butcher for beating his wife, and it shows that while Alastor is evil, and an overlord, he has somewhat of a code. Even in hell.

When he was alive, i have no doubt his targets were only men of power. Thinking back on how he grew up, the time period he grew up in. His mother being a woman of color, and being a mixed child during those times it only had to mean he was constantly looked down upon, seen as a wretched child. during those times, it was usually slave owners raping black slaves. So the nature of how he grew up was anything but pretty, and I do believe its what caused a series of resentment to grow inside him towards men especially. his mother being the only one able to really see his true smile, while the one he wore in public was for show. giving the illusion. he was charming, he was a smooth talker, there is a reason his talk show was as popular as it was. he was influential, people listened to him. he was described as living his best life, and i don't doubt he worked very hard to build his reputation despite his background.

Alastor was calculated in choosing his victims, going more for the ones who abused their power, were overly cocky, or even ones who thought to take him down.

I think its very interesting how quickly Alastor angered when Husk mentioned his own chains. No one likes to be shackled of course, but for Alastor not having his own freedom is detrimental to who he is, who he is trying to be. Who would think Alastor of all demons was also someone else's bitch? its demeaning. and he's been demeaned all his life.

I also think about how Vox calls him a coward. and I think the word is purely one-sided. I have no clue how that fight went, if it was a fight. we don't know. but vox says he's a coward, implying that alastor ran. we see this with adam too, but self-preservation and being a coward are two different things. i think alastor does in fact hate losing, but he's not above living to fight another day.

he doesnt strike me as someone who would die fighting. what does he get out of that? its why his break down is so gooood cuz people misunderstand his intentions and he hates the idea that he almost died for that. im not saying he doesnt care about the group, but he is prideful, and he wants to be more than. if hes gonna go down, its not gonna be in a way that he isnt approving of if that makes sense?

I think vox likes to call him a coward cuz to him he ran from a fight, and really I think Vox got lucky so he's milking it for all that he can. otherwise why would vox be so fucking adamant to try and get rid of him before Alastor even starts?

im throwing up words here fnksldnfksd alastor is just on the brain brr brrr

[robinfrinjs]

Robin Frijns off intensive care: "I was in agony."

What looked like an innocent crash resulted in the biggest injury in his career for Robin Frijns. The driver from Limburg had a 5 hour long surgery in Mexico-City and could only leave the ICU 24H after the crash.

Frijns (31) retired from the race on the first lap after he hit the driver in front of him, Norman Nato. His team, ABT Cupra thought it was "just" a broken wrist.

"But I didn't just break my wrist, I also have four breaks in my hand", says Frijns "I was in incredible pain. Luckily I'm off the ICU now and am getting pain killers. But the pain hasn't gone away, it's quite the suffering."

How long his recovery will take is unknown, but it will be a while. "The bone stuck out of my hand, it wasn't fun," said the man from Limburg with a sense of understatement. "This is definitely the biggest injury of my career, and hopefully it stays like this."

[a-a-a-anon]

if i had a nickel for every time a male british comedian i like said that on a childhood birthday a patriarch in their family said they were too old to hug and kiss them bc it's girly/gay i would have two nickels???? which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice....

(ade edmondson:)

(jon richardson:)

I went to kiss my granddad once-I would have only been about 7 or 8, but I'd had clearly what my grandad viewed as a landmark birthday. I went to say goodbye, and I kissed my Nana Gwen and went to kiss my Grandad Ron, and Grandad Ron said, "You're a man now. You don't kiss other men anymore." (- meet the richardsons 2.08)

[ftmdilfmode]

Last night was the first time I was ever with a black guy, but between how much I enjoyed myself and how many cute black and brown guys are in my DMs wanting to breed me...

I have a feeling my next baby will be the first that doesn't look like me...