#the weird racism is BAD of course

[clonewarsahsoka]

What I hate most about shadow and bone is that the world is actually pretty interesting and cool but the story and writing is SO FUCKING BAD

[nemovanilla]

Quoth the guy in my class this morning: “it’s just a word, people get offended by everything so we shouldn’t have to dance around it for their sakes.”

Anyone wanna take a guess at what word he was talking about?

[subternia]

Still thinking abt that one yt video that viewed burton's work with a more critical eye and then tried to argue why we should actually give him more credit for a nightmare before christmas while conveniently leaving out that the director barely if at all recieved credit for it

[iatrophilosophos]

Correct me if I'm wrong but aren't the conditions these assholes r describing in the middle east like, entirely a product of western imperialism? I've heard the line relatively often that like, Iraq and Afghanistan were ~modern~ ~developed~ nations in the middle of the 20th century and just got fucked and destabilized

not that either is a good thing but there is a small cosmic sort of irony to appreciate in the way that the russian invasion of ukraine and the most recent nakba happened so close together and how they through comparison made it undeniably clear how much the definition of war crime and genocide and atrocity &etc depends on the geopolitical interests of the imperial core

[imjustli]

I'm not gonna lie. It's odd how my workplace went from 85% middle easterners last summer, to currently having like 25% people with a non-swedish last name

[worldclueless]

trying to gather my thoughts and put this as eloquently as possible.

if you haven't caught up, recently jenson button gave an interview in which he gave advice to lewis hamilton about his move to ferrari. unsurprisingly, this spurred some 'discourse' (shudders) about how lewis ex-teammates-turned-pundits (mostly nico and jenson Imao) tend to give weird borderline-psycho analysis about lewis even though it has been quite a significant amount of time since they were teammates and who knows if this analysis is even too applicable to lewis as he has changed A LOT since his tenure with them.

and again, unsurprisingly, this brought out a chunk of the fanbase that can never pass up the opportunity to give a dig at lewis and treat guy's like jenson and nico's words like gospel. one frankly gross post went on and on and on about how unbothered jenson was during his time as lewis's teammate (no he was not) and how much of a paranoid weirdo freak lewis was about being challenged by a teammate (never mind the fact his first teammate was fernando fucking alonso).

and this is a worrying trend i see growing amongst a faction of f1 fans who try and ignore the context of lewis and his place in the sport. lewis is a black man in a predominantly white sport. jenson nor nico, no matter how much people will place them on some babygirl pedestal, will NEVER know what that means or what this is like so whenever i hear them recount their time together as teammates, the context of this is always lost.

in 2011, lewis had split with his dad as his manager and was going through a tumultuous time with his girlfriend, nicole. i don't know about you, but if my personal relationships with the people i cared about were on rocky grounds, that would tend to affect how i interact with people at my workplace. nevermind the fact that it was also magazine gossip fodder. that type of spotlight affects you heavy. especially working in the toxic environment of early 2010s mcclaren.

nowadays, lewis, at best, is professional and cordial with both jenson and nico which is not a problem but for some reason some fans think lewis's attention and time should be spent fawning and talking about these men. they're unable to see him as somebody that is not fanfiction fodder for their white faves and it is generally disturbing the lengths they will go to to justify their lack of empathy, compassion, and consideration of his place as he tries to exist within a space that was resistant to accommodating his identity (2007 barcelona testing anyone?).

and if it wasn't bad enough, these same 'fans' have the cheek to imply that hamilton is psychologically weak for not engaging with these guys beyond a professional level. the same man who was racially abused by grown white adults since the age of 12 is psychologically weak. wow. truly stunning. and these fans always give a half-hearted "yeah of course lewis has gone through some racial trauma but-" but nothing. end of. your what fav and you have no fucking clue as to what racial trauma does to black children and how it seriously impacts them. so don't ever try to erase this impact. you're overstepping: it's not your place.

so if it wasn't clear: lewis hamilton does not owe your white fav anything. if he wants to mind his business while rolling by in his scooter, that's not a problem. you brocedes/slagclaren types that only tolerate him for his proximity to these white men are frankly, racist, and your pathetic attempts to hide behind your racism because lewis isn't as perfect as he tries to be' (yeah no shit) make it such a hostile environment for black fans who can smell your bs from a mile away.

[brasskingfisher]

I've actually tried this for myself out of curiosity, and almost every single similar drive I've found in the UK (Sheffield to Chesterfield, Nottingham to Derby for example) is actually *quicker* by public transport than driving (in some cases taking a third of the time).

I mean I know plenty of USians have talked about how shitty their public transport is and how their infrastructure is lacking in accommodation for anything other than cars but still.....this, this is just another level of absolute fuckery

america moment

[implausiblyjosh]

RIP Cohost

Cohost is shutting down because... well, of course it is. Cohost shutting down is the most "writing on the wall" shit for the last several months. The wealthy friend/funder ghosted them at one point in the last 12 months. Despite Anti-Software Software Club saying they were a "not-for-profit software company", they were just a regular LLC paying themselves near 100k/yr for their four FTEs. When they got new funding, after being ghosted, a stipulation of that funding was for them to be consistent in posting public financial updates, which they missed almost immediately. I cannot believe it lasted this long.

That they're still saying that "eggbux", the tipping and support features, fell through because of Stripe policy changes, something that seemingly did not happen, is wild. Can't even be honest at the end. Like... Cohost's early ideas started as a Patreon alternative. They've been working on "eggbux" as a concept basically since inception of Cohost. But up until the last year they were still working on this idea of being this Patreon/Ko-fi alternative without understanding the policy of Stripe and how that would work. I don't think it can be stressed enough how weird cohost's framing of the Stripe Policy Issue is. Nothing meaningfully changed about Stripe policy, ASSC just thought they could be Patreon/Ko-fi on a whim and then realized that's not how it works and had to stop dev on that.

Also, there was always this undercurrent of "Uber reinvents cabs and busses" to the whole thing. The Artist's Alley thing was just Project Wonderful, but was being pushed as a wild new thing for user-supported ads. And, like Uber, it was a pretty rough implementation of a thing that already exists because you had to click to a specific area that was just ads!

As much as I had enjoyable moments on cohost, I think it's silly to paint the site as anything it wasn't. I mean, one of the last big culture issues on the site was staff refusing to delete racist comments on a staff post until publicly shamed for their cowardice! Cohost was clearly not good for everyone who posted there. Someone got ran off the site for linking to cohost's official feature requests forum too often to ask for accessibility features, and popular people on cohost waxed poetic about how deserved it was that the person got ran off the site for being annoying. There were near-constant issues with racism not being handled well at all from a culture perspective, especially when people would criticize how white the culture of the site was. Hell, I saw someone be extremely bigoted on bluesky, then run to cohost for sympathy and get it. Even when people pointed out how bigoted they were on bluesky, with screenshots and everything, they justified it and had loads of defenders helping justify the bigotry!

I think teeing cohost up as some sort of "good sites can never exist unless it's corporate sludge" point also doesn't make sense since the site never had a plan for profitability. You can't be funded by a wealthy friend forever. There never seemed to be a plan, which is fine for a hobby but not fine when you're begging for cohost plus subs every month or so to fund your near-100k salaries. It never made sense in the long term, their own reports said so, and people were shouted down for pointing these things out.

No webbed site is perfect, and that includes cohost. It had issues up until the very end. It does no one any good to ignore the bad or pretend it was perfect, regardless of how much the site was good for you personally.

Sucks that a lot of cool people put their eggs in that posting basket, and I hope they find a different place that scratches similar itches.

[lavernius]

Locus as a metaphor for colorism/racism

Some people were interested in this take so I'm going to go over it really quick. I am brown, a lot of the experiences I talk about here are lived (and a lot of them I experienced from this fandom, ironically enough). Warnings for discussion of racism and colorism + abuse.

Don't be weird, keep it civil! I'm not telling you what to think I'm just giving my two cents as a person who has experienced all of this.

Note: I don't think RT intentionally did any of this because they couldn't even treat their real life employees of color well so I don’t trust them with a character of color LMAO. “Colorism” is specified here because being brown affects every part of life in a way that's difficult to explain if you haven't experienced it firsthand.

Locus experiences very true aspects of real-world racial profiling: he's a big, dark-skinned, reserved brown man who is heavily demonized—both by the narrative/show AND in-universe. The fact that the “scary” merc of the duo is the one who was confirmed brown in 14 is likely colorism on RT's part, yes, but it doesn't change that Locus is painted as an aggressive monster canonically (a common stereotype of brown men, and a cause for code-switching in many POC). He's a monster, a dog, a weapon, a machine—all words that are used to describe him in the show, some he even uses on himself. Obviously not words you should be applying to a brown person good lord!

Locus’s apathy isn't inherently part of him. Maybe he wasn't always kind or gentle, but he was forced into a violent situation and TRIED to stay empathetic, wanting to spare his enemies at times, before he was forced out of the mindset—something that still bothers him to this day, even if he's repressed it! Brown people commonly have mental health issues and trauma that doesn't get addressed because of cultural expectations and medical racism, to the point where a lot of our cultures normalize very unhealthy behaviors. More of a stretch, maybe, but it reads like racial trauma if I ever saw it (and I have). Specifically because:

Felix sees him starting to lose his empathy, which is VERY BAD for Locus’s mental health, and takes advantage of it to use Locus as something of a “guard dog”. Erm, white people benefiting from racism and colorism? White people forcing stigma on brown people to gain power over them? What a surprise!

On the note of Felix: while Santa’s reveal that Felix is afraid of Locus can have several meanings, a lot of them can still lead down a road of (abusive) racism. He's scared of Locus because he's a “merciless killer”, isn't the same person he used to be? Who caused that, I wonder? Scared because if Locus found out he was being manipulated he’d immediately abandon Felix? Yeah, because he's being manipulated and abused, of course he’d leave… if I found out I was being manipulated by a white man I'd be uncomfortable too! Victim blaming is EXTREMELY common with racist white people because there is POWER in being white and blaming the brown man.

I like to see Locus’s divorce from his given name and visage as a symbol of cultural isolation. POC are so frequently made victims of identity crises because we’re expected to conform to a white world, whether we try to be white people or try to be what white people expect us to be. The latter in Locus’s case—they want a violent brown man, they have one. It keeps him alive at the cost of taking his sense of self away. He's safer as Locus, the armor, than he is as Ortez, the person.

There's not like, canonical evidence I can point to, but Locus feels like a catch-22 of “I want to be angry that people see me as a monster for being brown, but if I’m angry they’ll see me as a monster because I am brown”. It's a cycle that's hard to escape because when you ARE a righteous brown person who wants to be angry because the world has hurt you, it's so easy to paint you as an animal.

Um the fandom is extremely racist to him in ways I don't think they're even aware of. He's got it all! Fandom whitewashing and stereotyping and sexualizing and demonizing, people shipping him with a white person who hurt him (because a brown person cannot be hurt by a white person without SOMEONE wanting to forgive the white perpetrator for it LMFAO, many such cases where it’s done for the sake of shipping too), performative diversity and a lack of actual depth in his culture bar the fact that he speaks Spanish and has a Hispanic name…I don’t even think the guy who MADE him gives a shit that he’s brown (past it giving him brownie points) and how it affects him. Yeah who’s surprised. (EDIT: did not know Miles was mixed, but POC are still capable of colorism, etc. I still think Miles, as a lighter skinned person, doesn't fully comprehend how Locus being dark plays into the dynamic/Locus's character as a whole. Still, entirely my mistake.)

So basically: brown guy gets dehumanized, white guy takes advantage of it, systemic colorism and stigma helps white guy get away with it, brown guy is alienated from himself as a result and thinks he genuinely is a monster because everyone treats him like one. I see myself in him as a brown person who has experienced colorism for having low empathy and not connecting with society. It's awesome.

He is a textbook traumatized brown guy. He's got internalized racism/colorism. He's going to meet other brown people and unlearn it. He’s going to connect with his culture again. He’s going to realize he never owed the white man power over him just because he was convenient to control. He's going to be okay!

No thanks to RT because they couldn’t write a good brown guy if they tried + it falls on us brown people to give coincidences this kind of personal meaning. LOL

Next week (not really) I get into how Lopez is an incredible accidental portrayal of alienated brown people who have pride in themselves and want justice for being mistreated all the time.

[dedicatedfollower467]

okay unpopular opinion but i don't think the colour of magic is actually a bad book.

i think it's a pretty decent book, actually! it's funny, it's weird, it's a loving-yet-vicious parody of a genre that i have enjoyed for most of my life, and it is a genuinely enjoyable read! yeah, there's some underlying sexism, racism, and ableism that isn't so much fun, but most of the time it's honestly trying to critique the sexist, racist, and ableist pulp fantasy conventions of the era in which it was written, even if it doesn't always do that super well.

it's just that terry pratchett wrote so many phenomenal books over the course of his life. like genuinely life-changing, spectacular masterpieces of writing and satire and fantasy. stuff that could and should be considered among the highest echelons of english literature.

colour of magic isn't a bad book. it's just nowhere near as good as some of pterry's other books.

but that isn't a fair comparison to make of ANY book, imo, even if it is something else he wrote.

[littlefankingdom]

I really dislike the idea of the Wayne ancestors being good people.

Mostly because, well, rich people fucking suck. And we are talking about old money in the USA, that means racism and colonialism. AND Bill Finger wanted Bruce to have a family name suggering colonialism, which means, when they created Bruce Wayne, they wanted his family's money to come from colonialism. And they chose Wayne, from Anthony Wayne, known as Mad Anthony by his contemporaries, a big colonizer who hated natives, was against peace with them, and stole their land. So, at the creation of Batman, the Wayne name was meant to imply that the Wayne got rich from stealing from the Natives and treating them like shit (Anthony Wayne burned Natives' fields and homes before winter to destroy their resistance, which probably killed many folks)

But also, Bruce is meant to be the exception. Bruce character is not "some rich people are nice", it's "rich people suck, he's unique" (of course, Oliver Queen is another exception). One of the theme of Batman is "the blood of the convenant is thicker than the water of the womb", he makes his own family. Bruce only cares about the Wayne legacy because of his admiration and love for his late parents. He takes care of the company because he wants to make them proud, and because he doesn't want it to fall into bad hands. He wants the money to go to good causes, and he doesn't trust other people to not just be capitalists. But, apart from looking for his dead parents' approval, Bruce doesn't care about the Wayne legacy much. For a nepo-baby, he doesn't plan to give his company to his kids, none of them have shown real interests (yes, even Tim. He doesn't want to be a CEO), it's more likely he plans to give it to an employee he trusts, like Lucius Fox. And he also only cares about the manor as his parents' house. When it is destroyed, Bruce first wants to rebuild it exactly the same because he is afraid of insulting his parents' memories, but once he is better, he actually build a new one to fit him and his family, with Alfred, Tim and Dick giving their ideas. Bruce's connection to the Wayne family is superficial. He uses the name and the money as a masquerade to hide his real personality and his identity as Batman. He is separated from what the Wayne were. So, making the Wayne ancestors good is kind of weird, as if Bruce's goodness (that he doesn’t believe in) is just hereditary or something, creating a link between him to people he doesn't care about or relate to.

[theacecouple]

omg, your podcast episode on Somerton is exploding on youtube. How are you guys handling it? I've followed you for a while and it's wild to see a video suddenly get 80k views when it was impressive for the prior posts to break 1000. Hopefully nothing but good things come of it, but I imagine it's overwhelming!

Overwhelming, YES!

Thank you so much for asking and checking in. We're over 120k now and that's just on YouTube! We've also spiked in several charts on the podcast platforms these last couple of weeks. We actually charted in our 50th country! An exciting achievement, but honestly not the way we wanted it.

We've received an abundance of emails, DMs, comments, etc, and some of them are COMPLETELY ABSURD! Some people have made fun of us or reveled in the fact that we lost money, basically blaming us for not being smarter. Got a really goofy message basically saying we have the ideology of....terrorists?? But the most common criticism we've seen is basically making the "reverse-racism" argument that we're weird, horrible people for pointing out that James Somerton is a cis white guy. So, y'know, that's fun -_-

But despite all this, we've received an overwhelming amount of love and support! The positive far outweighs the negative. And to our surprise and delight, we've only seen 3 acephobic comments directed at us and/or the community so far. One of those comments was the good-ol' trifecta of acephobia, transphobia, and ableist, go figure, but given how big our episode got, this is PROGRESS! We don't recall ever seeing anything Ace-related to get this much attention but receive this little hate.

We watched the apology video and despite it being an objectively bad apology video...we're a little messed up and very concerned about the implication that James attempted to take his own life. Then he deleted the video, and never sent the promised email to Telos supporters. We, of course, have our own thoughts, feelings, frustrations, and even unique observations that were never mentioned in the original episode, but for now we've decided to keep these to ourselves.

We genuinely hope for his healing, and after this week's episode, we are unlikely to ever speak about him publicly again.

[dullgecko]

Riz obviously suffers the most from racism, often needing to be disguised when they travel or just straight up murdering the assholes that can’t keep their mouths shut. Obviously the bad kids made a Riz Protection Squad… Wait, why is Riz the president of his own protection squad? “Riz, wait, put down the knife. We’re supposed to protect you.- WHO GAVE HIM A MISSILE LAUNCHER!?”(Missile launcher was a joint effort of Fig, Adaine, and Gorgug. Made to specifically target racists.)

It wasn’t very surprising that Fig also had to deal with racists, mostly from religious humans and elves. She didn’t know what to do the first time a Helio follower berated her for existing, it was one of her old friends in middle school too, she ended up crying in her room and wouldn’t let Sandra Lynn comfort her. After the second time she just started hissing exaggeratedly to scare them off, as well as threatening to set them on fire, it still hurt though.(After sophomore year she started expressing how much it actually effected her, mostly with the bad kids but she did open up to her parents too…Eventually.)

Gorgug was mostly left alone, simply because the racist were scared of him, but the times he does face discrimination he sorta just stares at the person until they walk away or until one of the bad kids just suddenly appears and beats up the person insulting him. (Adaine and Ayda made a spell that signals them if someone is being mean to Gorgug, since Adaine canonically believes that if someone is mean to him then they’re automatically evil. Ayda fully agrees.) The first time it happened was unfortunately in elementary school with his teacher and it continued the whole school year, he didn’t tell anyone until he brought it up during a family dinner in between sophomore year and junior year. No one had ever seen Digby and Wilma look so pissed before, not even Gorgug.

Fabian got a lot of shit for not being a “pure blood” of a human or an elf, but he never actually cared about it. It confused him the first time, like yeah, of course he’s not fully a human or fully an elf, that’s how genetics works. Fig and Ragh had to explain it to him for about two hours before he realized what they meant(Power-points had to be made), which resulted in a very long overdue murder trip to the assholes house. (He’s very proud of himself for finding the address without Riz’s help.)

Adaine never really had to deal with it, at least not towards her. She would get the odd comment of being uptight because she’s a high elf, but they would already be on the ground before they could say anything else. One of the few things her and Aelwyn agreed on while growing up was how horribly racist their parents are and how they would never be like that. After getting adopted she would speak up more openly for her friends and new family, gladly standing in the line of fire to lessen what the others had to hear. She also verbally abused Arthur until he made a system in the school that would make someone unable to speak if they try to be racist, sexist, or homophobic.

Kristen faced racism towards humans maybe two times, and each time she just laughed and screamed “So this is what I was missing out on!”. The others were not impressed, in fact they’re all very pissed and on the hunt for the asshole who insulted her.… “Riz…Get the missile launcher.” (Kristen got a little emotional and hugged them all after they got back. No, she doesn’t care about the amount of blood they’re all covered in. And no, she won’t ask about the weird bag or why they’re taking it to the basement…Or why it’s still moving.)

BONUS! Ayda makes them all write down the names and descriptions of people who hurt them(There’s no way out of it, they have to.), then goes to each person’s home and either makes sure they can’t say anything hurtful again or, if they’re already taken care of, just burns down the place and curses their blood line. Good pirates don’t discriminate in any way, and she will see to it that everyone will pay for hurting her paramour and her friends.

Riz has to deal with it a lot, but most of the time he just ignores it because it isnt worth getting into a fight over. ESPECIALLY when he was younger, and infinitely more puntable (its how he got so good at sneaking, he had to deal with it less if people didnt even notice he was there). It became less of an issue when he started packing heat, and EVEN LESS of an issue once he became a multiple confirmed dragon slayer. Sure, he still encountered the assholes sometimes but absoloutly /ruining their lives/ is just a fun little side hobby now. Oh you called me a slur? Oh no how did your wife find out you were cheating and where did she get that folder full of proof?

Outside of Solace its a bit rougher but he humors his friends desire to protect him, he even accepts a souped up arcubus from them that he keeps as a backup weapon just in case (but he's too attached to his own to use it). Anyone that gets past his friends to attack him though is leaving with more holes than they came with initially.

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Fig just laughs off anyones attempts at being racist these days. Fig is an archdevil, if anyone is racist towards her she simply makes a note of it for later. She might not do anything to hurt them in the moment but there are receipts, and she will be collecting her dues when they finally kick the bucket.

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The generally racist opinion of half-orcs is that they're dumb, slow and violent. Gorgug is none of these things, he's just quiet and actually thinks things through before replying (which might make it seem like he's a bit slow but its more that he's thoughtful). One of his teachers in middle school constantly made him the butt of jokes, and propped him up as an example that none of the other kids would want to be. He was careful to never loose his temper around that teacher just so he wouldnt fit the stereotype the way they wanted.

When his parents find out about it years after the fact, the teachers car is found dismantled in their driveway the very next morning. Every single piece that could be taken apart done so, and most of the metal pieces were left in a bucket of salt water. No one saw who did it and there was no evidence at the scene.

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While Adaine doesnt have to deal with much by way of racism she /does/ have to deal with a lot of gross race-based fetishisation. Especially since she fits the idealised archetype of thin, blonde, kind elven wizard woman. More than one person has tried to flirt with her in a very gross way and been absoloutly /laid out/ by whichever of the bad kids was with her at the time (she's once witnessed Riz notice her getting harrased after coming around a corner, climb a chair, table then partially onto a display shelf to knock a guy out once. Very funny because it was one the only time she's seen him strike someone with a closed fist, rather than claws.).

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Kristen laughs it off at first but she's a little more upset about it than she thought she would be later. She just doesnt have the same experiance with it as the others so she doesnt have the same coping mechanisms.

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

Ayda is a force to be reckoned with and is /usually/ the reason why Figs racist-punishment-wing is receiving their guests early. If they sincerely apologise and make amends she will let them off with a warning, but since she herself is not of the same race as the ones she enacts firery revenge on the ofen double down on the assholery and seal their fate.

[themotherofhorses]

Hi guys, it's Vic! Also known as:

Round TWO at addressing the extreme racism in the CoD fandom!

So it’s both odd and funny that my Indigenous fem!OC has pissed off so many random people, especially with the fact that I created her to ship with Ghost.

(A fictional character that has NO canon love interest, FYI. Sorry to bust y'all's little bubble. Well, there's Mara and Urban Tracker....)

Anyways, I really don't care if this post sounds bitchy in nature. I really don't, not anymore. Some of y'all need a damn wakeup call. Several months ago, in December of 2023, I made a post (here) regarding the sudden influx of hate I began receiving following the posting of my OC, SilentDove Reyes. For around two weeks after that post, the hate died down, and I felt motivated to create more content involving Dove and Ghost.

Until the hate picked up again with every little thing I posted that related to my OC x Ghost.

However....this new hate incorporated the MMIW. A bold ass move, in my opinion.

If you are not aware, the MMIW stands for "Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women." Alternate spellings include the MMIWG & MMIWGTS (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirits). As of 2023, statistics indicate that Indigenous women face a 10x murder rate than any other race/ethnicity. I have made a previous post regarding the issue, seen here. The unfortunate truth is that young Indigenous girls are more likely to be SA'd and murdered than to attend college. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now, I am an Indigenous woman. That is no surprise there; I fashioned my OC to provide myself (and, by extension, others) with Native representation in a franchise I greatly enjoy. What IS surprising, however, is that me doing so has pissed off so many people. I'm very certain some of y'all must descend from Andrew Jackson, or John Wayne cause, christ on a bike driven by a pike.

Here is a screenshot of a hate anon I recently received:

Listen, I don't care who you ship Ghost with. I really don't. I've blocked numerous shipping tags, remained mindful of the content I'm interacting with, and surrounded myself with fellow mutuals who also have personal OCs. It is really that easy.

What I do care about is the fact that some of you CANNOT separate fanon headcanons from canon material.

Exhibit A:

So let’s clear some stuff up!

Soap x Ghost is NOT canon.

Ghost being queer is NOT canon.

And, most definitely, Ghost being a woman abuser who would harm/abuse/murder a woman (either physically, emotionally, psychologically) is NOT canon.

What IS canon is his and Soap's strong bond. In my eyes, that is a brotherly bond, reminding me of a big brother/little brother relationship; in my fanfiction, Soap is Ghost's children's uncle. In fact, his son (second-born child) is named after him.

You are, of course, free to view them as romantic; what you are not free to do is attack OC creators/non-shippers for not perceiving them like that.

That is just fucking weird and delusional behavior. Knock it off. You're giving your fellow normal shippers a bad name.

ALSO! Let’s clear things up!

1. I’m not straight — I’m bisexual and demisexual.

2. I’m only half white (Spanish, with Mexican heritage). I’m QUITE LITERALLY an enrolled Native, so I guess the best way to describe me is “biracial.”

3. It’s y’all ruining the canon gay representation by shipping Laswell—a GAY woman—with Price, despite the fact that she canonically has a wife.

4. My OC does not have a “dumb fucking name.” Her name is an Indigenous name with a specific backstory to it; it’ll be explored further in future fanfics once I find the motivation to return to writing.

Anyways, I highly doubt this will be the last post I create regarding this problem; apparently, a nice chunk of the fandom has this intense animosity towards fem!OCs, fem!Y/Ns, and BIPOC!OC creators. Alright. With that being said, I invite anyone who has similar experiences to share yours, either in the reblogs or in separate posts.

As sometimes we say during pow wows:

“The floor is all yours.”

Thank you!

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

By Your Side

Could you write some Janus angst / hurt/comfort? Maybe something having to do with him being insecure about his scales/snake traits. – monkeythefander

Read on Ao3

Warnings: fantasy racism

Pairings: roceit

Word Count: 3161

The practice of disparaging someone as they sit not twenty feet away is not an unusual practice for human adventurers in this tavern, but that doesn't make it any more bearable. Janus is not a human. He knows this. Janus has snake-like features. He knows this also. He would like to have one day where he is not being aggressively reminded of this. When Roman walks into a tavern to see a group of human adventurers making fun of his wonderful little snake-like, he just has to do something about it.

The practice of disparaging someone as they sit not twenty feet away is not an unusual practice for human adventurers in this tavern, but that doesn't make it any more bearable.

It's been around, oh, ten minutes, and Janus has already had to listen to the topic of snake-like humanoids' weird thing of not blinking, talking slightly too quietly and slightly too slowly. And—okay, it's not like the humans don't have a point at all. Janus does have a bad habit of being incredibly bad at volume regulation but it's not like he won't speak louder if he's asked. And he does try to speak faster too! He only really talks too slow when he's nervous or too cold or if there are a lot of reasons for something, like, say, something's wrong.

Perhaps that's why humans think snake-like humanoids talk too slow.

But still, there is only so much to say about something like that and they seem to be—at last—moving on to…?

Ah. Appearances.

Now, don't get him wrong. Janus is well aware that he is not attractive, at least not by conventional standards. He's been the one to say he scrapes by looking like an eight out of fifteen on a good day, alright? He's not exactly under the impression that he's any sort of thing to look at.

But, well…something something, person on the gallows, something something, part of the execution.

"Do you think he even knows that he still has to wash the normal part of his face?"

"Or shave it?"

"I know, sometimes I just want to—" the human mimes ripping off a strip of wax— "like, come on."

Okay. That's a bit rude.

"I didn't know I'd have to interact with a snake and a Sasquatch, that's for sure."

Oh, they know the word Sasquatch, do they?

Of course, there's only so far internal quips can get you when someone's talking about you like that. And there's really only so far it can get when it's not just you as an audience.

The sudden squeak from the other end of the table startles him, looking over to see Roman twiddle his fingers in a wave. Janus's gaze flicks back over to the other humans before lowering back down to his lap.

That whole eight-out-of-fifteen-on-a-good-day bit has a second part to it: 'So keep your 12/10 self on the other side of the room.'

Roman is not like Janus. When people talk about Roman, well, let's just say it's not about how awful they find things. Roman sitting right next to Janus right now is…not good. Not just because Janus really doesn't want to have an audience for this, but Roman's habit of poking and prodding at him really doesn't need any more material.

Gods, I really hope he didn't hear 'Sasquatch.'

But Roman's already following his gaze over and well, looks like his choices are flee now and suffer later, or get at least somewhat prepared for what new insults will be thrown at him and suffer now and later. Slightly less later, perhaps.

"I don't think he owns a mirror."

"Or a comb."

"Do you think he cares enough about how he looks to do either of those things? Have you seen the state of his…everything?"

Okay, wait, no. Janus's spent a lot of time trying to take care of his scales and everything.

"You'd think he'd at least have the decency to wear makeup or a glamor or something."

"No, you've seen what he thinks passes for an acceptable glamor or makeup. It's clown face paint."

Takes a clown to know a clown. assholes, but that one…that one hurt.

He startles when a hand touches the back of his neck, jerking his head around to see Roman watching him. He lifts his hand away for a second, a silent is this okay? Janus nods, a bit unsure, only for Roman to wink and start tracing idle shapes on his neck and back, focusing on the sensitive skin at the edge of his scales. It feels…nice. Really nice.

"I think he should just mask like the rest of them. So we don't have to look at it."

"I mean it's probably a good idea for him too, right?"

Oh, and now we're being explicitly racist. Great.

A rustle and a thud and the chair next to him scoots closer, a sudden solid warmth pressing against his leg. He glances over and sees that Roman's shuffled right up next to him, their legs pressed together, hand now running lazy doodles along Janus's far shoulder. It's an odd feeling, almost enough to raise goosebumps along one side, solid warmth pressed against the other.

It's almost enough to distract him from what he hears next.

"I'd ask if he's ever seen himself in the mirror, but maybe he's like any Gorgon and he'll turn himself into stone."

It's an interesting experience, to be suddenly so far away from his own body. The words echo around and around his head. His hands feel weird. Everything feels weird. And cold. And slow. And…and…

…and…

…and…

A sudden squeeze and he inhales sharply.

He goes to turn his head and he realizes Roman's wrapped his arm around his waist, pulling him almost off of his chair and into his lap. He's flush against Roman's side, Roman's warm side, and he's looking at him with a soft expression. Why?

Oh.

Oh, he heard that too.

"Hey," Roman says softly, far too softly to be talking to him, Roman doesn't talk to him like that, Roman teases him and flusters him and—and— "you okay?"

"I—um—I—uh—"

"Take your time," he says, still too softly, "it's okay. I'm not in a rush."

When Janus still can't get his act together, Roman huffs a laugh and brings his other hand up, tracing the curve of Janus's scaled cheek under the guise of tucking his hair back, lightly rubbing his knuckle against the sensitive scales.

"Hey, cutie."

Again, Roman is not supposed to speak softly to him. He's supposed to tease and be mean and make Janus's face want to explode and make him all sluggish from too much heat. Janus thinks he can be forgiven for the sudden lump that swells in his throat.

Nope. Nope, nope, too much.

First the remark, then the soft, then—then whatever this is.

Too much. No, thank you. He would like to get off this road, please follow the signs to the nearest inn.

"Shh-shh-shh, oh, hey, don't cry."

Things are still happening. He specifically requested for things to stop happening. He would like for things not to happen anymore. Why are they still happening, things need to stop happening.

"Hey…" The hand brushes warmly across his face. "Hey, love, shh, it's okay."

No. Why is Roman speaking to him like that? Roman shouldn't—Roman doesn't talk to him like that.

"Look at me, baby. Hey, hey, just look at me."

Too much. Too much.

"Oh, fuck it."

Something big and soft and warm wraps around him and pushes him into something dark. It curls protectively around his waist and it's humming under his cheek. It cards through the hair at the base of his neck.

"I've got you," a voice says from far away, "I've got you."

Janus blinks. Roman's hugging him. Roman's holding him and Janus is crying and everything is happening right now. But Roman's still holding him and that…that might be…okay right now.

***

The rest of the party teases, but annoying Janus is truly one of Roman's favorite parts of the day. First because Janus is adorable, and second because he's one of the few people who doesn't immediately fawn all over him.

Janus is interesting.

He snaps back and gets all flustered and pushes Roman away—but not in that 'oh, I'm gonna pretend I don't like this when I really do' way. Roman knows he really gets under Janus's skin sometimes. And yeah, sometimes he deserves whatever Janus hurls at him, but sometimes Janus just looks at him like he's trying to understand him and ugh.

Unfair. Truly.

Would he be lying if he said he didn't like how everyone looked and whispered and everything when he walks by? Yes.

Does he know on some level that Janus does find him attractive and shamelessly uses that to fluster him? Also yes.

Does he also want Janus to smile at him in a way that isn't the goofy, flustered, self-conscious one that he always tries to hide?

Jury's still out.

The rest of the party says Roman's hopeless, that he's pining so loudly the trees are jealous, denial isn't just a river, on and on. But really, he's happy just to annoy Janus for the rest of their lives. A perpetual thorn in his side.

So when he sees Janus sitting a ways away from all the other patrons in the tavern, he plops himself down as noisily as possible. He smirks as Janus jerks, looking over, only to frown when Janus barely looks at him for more than a second.

He follows his gaze over to see another adventuring party very obviously talking shit abut someone. Quite viciously too, if the surprising creativity of the insults is anything to go off of. Then he sees one of them glance over and—

Janus. It's Janus they're talking about. They're insulting Janus while he's sitting right in front of them.

He glances over again. Janus isn't really reacting—well, no. He's making little faces and gestures as each insult is thrown out and it's hilarious and adorable—but it's getting to him. And who wouldn't it get to, come on, don't do that. Don't shit-talk someone who's right there.

Alright, options…options…okay. Could go over there and cuss them out. Would be immediately satisfying but also might lead to more people shit-talking Janus and try to get Roman in on it, also would have made this even more of a scene and Janus would hate that.

Could also make a show of choosing to sit with Janus. He knows what his reputation is like and how other adventurers see him, how it would make a hell of a lot of them jealous. Also, though, does have that reputation and it would make a scene, both bad for Janus.

Could distract him. But teasing Janus right now would just be rubbing salt into an open wound and that might have the worst consequences of all. So, no.

He's jolted out of his musings by a particularly nasty comment that makes the plain expression slide right off of Janus's face and he reacts almost instinctively.

Janus startles, looking at him, and Roman lifts his hand for a moment before he's given permission to touch him. Roman rests his hand at the top of Janus's back, scratching lightly at the scales he knows get a little itchy. Janus's shoulders relax a little bit.

A plan starts to take shape.

Roman knows he's sought after, knows that probably half of that damn adventuring party would fall all over themselves just for the chance that he'd touch them like this. So, if Janus lets him—and only if Janus lets him—this is how he's gonna comfort him. And if it makes those assholes green in the face, even better.

…and okay, maybe, he also wants to comfort Janus because he looks like he really needs someone on his side right now but it's mainly out of spite.

And so it goes. He scoots his chair over to press his leg against Janus's, just to be like hey, I'm here, I hear this too, it's not true. Then he's shifting a little closer, like I like it when you experiment with makeup with Virgil, I think your natural blush is super cute too and I like how it looks mixed most of all. Then he wraps his arm around his back to stroke his shoulder because he may or may not have discovered Janus is a bit ticklish on that side and also because being racist is fucking awful.

Then the assholes say—and laugh—at something really fucking vile and Janus goes completely still.

There's no time to glare, he drops his arm down to pull Janus close—almost in his lap close—giving up the facade in favor of actually making sure Janus is okay. He squeezes him tight and watches anxiously as Janus looks at him.

Oh, fuck…

"Hey," he calls, "are you okay?"

Janus looks so small. He looks so small and so scared and so hurt and that's not right. Janus shouldn't look like that. Maybe…maybe something normal? Something Janus might expect? Slowly, Roman brushes the back of his knuckles across those pretty little scales along the side of Janus's face, right where that adorable blush normally is.

"Hey, cutie," he murmurs, but Janus just blinks and—and— "oh, hey, hey, shh-shh-shh, baby, don't cry."

Please baby, please don't cry—

But another tear rolls down Janus's cheek and Roman quickly wipes it away.

"Hey, hey, love, shh, it's okay." Janus is drifting further and further away and Roman can't lose him. Not like this. He cups his face in his hands. "Look at me, baby. Hey, hey, just look at me."

A flicker of something appears in Janus's eyes at the sudden contact but fades almost as quickly. Maybe if he…

"Oh, fuck it," and he pulls Janus in for a proper cuddle, murmuring into the crook of his neck. "I've got you, baby, I've got you."

Fuck this. Fuck the assholes who made Janus cry. Fuck everything that made Janus so insecure and upset. And if that includes Roman, well, then fuck him too.

Not like that, not right now. Maybe later?

Focus!

"You're gonna be okay, baby," he says softly, rubbing his back, "everything's gonna be okay."

Selfishly, he does actually pull Janus into his lap, just to get him closer, wrapping his arms all the way around him, keeping him right up against his chest, almost tucked under his chin. It's okay, baby, he thinks desperately, really, just don't cry, love. They don't deserve you, that's all.

Maybe if he just tries to pull Janus into his chest, he'll be safe.

He doesn't know how long he holds him—not that he gives a shit—but slowly Janus's hand clutches his shirt and he sighs.

"Hey," he says quietly, "you got me, you just focus on me."

"R-Roman?"

"Yeah, love, it's me."

Janus doesn't say anything else, but he snuggles into Roman's hold and you know what, that's good enough.

"You need a drink," Roman declares, "that sounds good, right? A proper drink, some food, not in this horrible place, obviously, we'll go find Patton and Logan and Virgil and Remus—they'll make sure we find a good place to eat. Perhaps I'm just hungry, but that doesn't mean I'm not right."

His chest clenches in time with Janus's grip on his shirt.

"…perhaps we should go and sit in that sweet little grove of trees for a while first, yeah?"

"I can't walk," comes the horrible strangled whisper, "I—I can't."

"I'll carry you."

"N-no, they'll—they—"

"They won't say anything."

"Are you sure?"

Roman glares at the assholes and watches with a vicious satisfaction as they scurry out of the back door. "They won't, I promise. Here, let me…"

Perhaps Logan has a point about them pulling off too many drunken shenanigans, but there is something to be said for half-carrying someone out while making it seem like they're walking under their own power. No one tries to stop them as he leads them out of the tavern, down the road, to nestle in the soft flowers underneath the trees where the horses are tethered. He sits with his back against the tree, pulling Janus back against his chest so the last of the late-afternoon sunbeams can warm him up.

"You heard them," Janus mumbles, "you…you heard them."

"I did."

"You…"

"Never, in my life, my afterlife, or any other life I may live afterwards," Roman vows, grip suddenly so tight he knows it'll hurt when he eventually lets go, "would I ever dream of saying something so cruel and vile to you. I tease and I poke fun but Janus, never."

Another little sniffle in the crook of his neck.

"You know I think you're adorable, scales and fangs and all, baby—no, no, don't you pull away from me," he murmurs when Janus fidgets, "you are. Don't you deny that."

"I'm not."

"Oh, but you are. And I'll remind you of it every chance I get."

"Don't tease," Janus says, suddenly sharp and cold, "don't tease me about this, not right now."

"I'm not, baby." He leans back just so he can cup those beautiful scales and see those pretty mismatched eyes. "I really do think you're so, so pretty."

"You're pretty," Janus spits, and Roman tries to wrangle down the warmth at hearing Janus say it, even if it's in the middle of disparaging himself, "I'm not."

"What can I do, then? To convince you that I'm telling the truth?"

Janus laughs, high and loud and cold. "Kiss me, then."

Well, that's easy enough.

***

He was joking. He was joking.

He thought Roman would laugh it off. He thought Roman would shake his head and say let's not go that far, or something. He thought it would break whatever weird thing is going on where Roman is being sweet and soft and kind to him, so he said something ridiculous to Roman like kiss me.

But then there are soft, warm lips on his, a tongue flicking playfully against the tip of his fangs, strong hands gently cupping his sides, and the slow thud-thud, thud-thud of a heartbeat against his.

"There," Roman breathes against his mouth when he pulls back for air, "have I convinced you?"

"You—you actually kissed me?"

"I've been looking for an excuse to do that for a while, now, so thank you for giving it to me, but yes, baby, of course I kissed you."

"Please—" he chokes on another sniffle— "please, Roman, just—"

"You don't need to beg for another kiss, love, I'll give you as many as you want."

"No," and he pulls himself back, just a little, "don't—please don't do this if you don't mean it. I can't—I won't—you'll fucking break me."

Roman looks at him softly, then, so softly, and then there's a hand twining gently in his hair and guiding him back down. "I'll be gentle with you, love, I promise."

"You promise?"

"I do."

And…well, if Roman wants to kiss him so badly, then…then yeah, that's okay.

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[lettucedloophole]

i think it's easier to agree with terfism in concept, that a woman is just an Adult Human Female and this is actually liberatory rather than regressive & confining.

but in practice, in terf spaces you'll find:

cis women sexually harassing each other (some even talked about wanting to rape women, but since they weren't Male it was a-ok. certainly not as much of a biggie as a trans woman peacefully existing online, anyway.) there is also so much shaming of formerly prostituted women, rf or not, & rape/dv victims.

weird racism and nazi shit! much like the rapey people mentioned above, while some terfs wouldn't outright support racism, they'd tolerate it and follow "white supremacist feminists" or "radical feminists" making anti-semitic jokes (cough cough. radfem hitler) some terfs thought they were weird privately but there was no move to push them out of terf spaces like there was with Transfem Lesbians Existing.

this is also racism & nazi shit... when women's march changed their logo, there was a huge backlash in terf spaces about how this silhouette–

–was male, or meant to be a trans woman. of course, a lot of people were like "that's racist because some woc have that nose type." i saw two responses to that argument-- 1), it was actually the brow bone which was male, so it wasn't racist, and 2) women's march did this on purpose to make terfs look bad (and? it worked lmfao.) i was shocked at just how openly, insanely regressive this was, and it illustrated a point to me about terfs-- they will throw women under the bus who look masculine (like, any woman who could've had that silhouette) to keep the trans moral panic fueled.

more on throwing masc (cis) & other women under the bus-- i saw terfs who'd spent time in those spaces for a while began to question if muscular women in wrestling were "real women" or if they were "a man pretending to be a woman." trans women were made fun of for their "male" features, which of course, weren't male specific. they mocked vaginoplasty & dilation to get to trans women, thereby also insulting the cis women who did those things (which, they seemed to either not know about or just didn't care.) at one point, a cis tirf was talking about her experience getting harassed as trans in the bathroom and a bunch of terfs ganged up on her to call her a liar. so, believe women until it goes against your political agenda i guess? and, for that bbc article on cis lesbians feeling pressured to sleep with trans women, they literally interviewed a cis lesbian who'd been accused of rape multiple times, including in bathrooms. but trans women are the actual rapists, right?

one thing that's very sad is how woc in these spaces will see things like, nazis coming to terf events and being Allowed to stay there and plead for the movement to change, as if... anyone cares about woc here? terfs don't care about masc or non-white women considering how their rhetoric negatively impacts both.

crazy amounts of terfs claiming they just care about trans people and don't want them to hurt themselves, thennn calling trans people mutilated freaks & posting pictures without consent, even of minors, of surgery results good and bad.

and concerning the last point, this is just some contradictory things i've seen in terf spaces concerning cis women & afab people, but really the transmisogyny should be enough to stop your support of it. even if terfs managed to liberate all afab people somehow, trans women's well-being is important by itself. i just think these contradictions i've seen personally work nicely to poke holes in terf ideology.