#they go absolutely fucking feral if you even suggest something they consider negative about the text or tolkien himself

[candiedcatnip]

In light of stumbling across yet another thread of (white) people being mad and disappointed about even a singular poc being cast in Amazon's Silm series, I am once again thinking about when people have so little capacity for critical thinking or self-reflection that they have no idea what they're actually saying when they speak.

Whenever someone says an actor was cast for "diversity points" or some other variation of that idea the follow up should be; how do you know that? How do you know they specifically sought out poc for that role? (Doing so is good but people who say this kinda thing clearly ain't in a place where that conversation will do jack shit). The answer is, inevitably; "I don't", regardless of whether they want to admit it outright or not. You have no real way of knowing how that casting call went. Maybe 20 white people tried out but one Black person auditioned and blew them right out of the water. Choosing not to cast the Black actor in this scenario would be extremely blatant racism. For those who worship at the altar of "committment to canon" or however you choose to word it; not all characters are well described in their media of origin. Not to mention some characters are made to fill out the existing cast/world. You have no idea whether there were white people who tried out for a role and did better than the actor who was given it. What you say when you see a person of color was cast and immediately shout "diversity points!" is that you can not fucking fathom that a person of color could be a better actor than any selection of white people. There's no getting around that. You're saying white people are inherently better and more talented than people of color. That is what you are fucking saying.

If you genuinely believe that then you are obviously a white supremacist and are more than likely fully aware of that. If you don't then you need to start fucking thinking about the things you say regarding race before you fucking say it.

*Full Disclosure; I'm white and I also don't doubt somewhere on the internet poc have said this better. I've read posts about fandom/media in general but not seen much of anything regarding work from Tolkien. I don't really interact with Fandoms. Any reccs to relevant posts or blogs by poc would be appreciated though.

[mimiorzea]

4, 9, 12, 13, 22, 23, 29, 33 for disaster pirate (3/3)

(in reference to [this ask meme]!)

4) Who is someone they’ve hurt?

who hasn't he tho

while i can't give an exhaustive list, i think the pirate crew that looked after him from mid-childhood to at least his mid-teens or so was probably pretty hurt by the events that took place. my impression is that something happened that accidentally triggered Vhox's feral state, and he killed someone he absolutely did not mean to in the crossfire, which caused all sorts of uproar amidst the crew (which was thereafter divided on their perspectives of Vhox / what they should do in the aftermath), and Vhox cut ties with all of them in the process of bailing -- even those people who he had formed genuine bonds with and who wanted to support him in the fallout. Vhox refused to let them do so, too afraid of the prospect of reaching back out only for something else to go wrong, because emotional investment is scary and fuck all them, anyway, #yolo, he’s fine on his own. it has nothing at all to do with the fact that the entire thing aggravated all of Vhox's fears of abandonment and being a dangerous monster in all of the worst ways. nope.

beyond that, this boy tends to hurt a lot of people in his proximity without necessarily meaning to, so it's likely that Rin suffers a lot for being tied to him, too -- but at least that's something that he ends up trying to work on. he plays best with people he feels like he can't hurt, for some reason or another. Charlotte works well for this, because she's connected to him in a way he can't deny or really run from (as his blood sister), she's got the same problem he's got going on with the feral anomaly, and she's also a strong fighter in her own right, before one considers that she's got the thick skin and experience to recognize a lot of Vhox's shit before Vhox himself might.

9) What is something that would break them emotionally?

accidentally killing someone he really cares about. (i mean, that would probably break most people, but it’s a very present possibility in his mind.) he's so afraid of doing this that he's already more or less sequestered himself away from people beyond very surface-level relationships, so killing someone like Rin would probably push him so far off the deep end that he would either submit to whatever his blood family wants for him (bad news), or completely abandon any future prospect of emotional investment in people while simultaneously discarding his moral compass (also bad news). in the latter case, essentially he would get so stuck in the idea that he is a monster and destined to hurt people that he would stop attempting to moderate his behavior to avoid doing that, thus doing absolutely whatever reckless, harmful, and hedonistic shit he wanted until he either killed himself by "unfortunate happenstance" or was killed by someone else.

12) What is the fastest way to upset them?

see previous question for an extreme case, see following question for a less extreme case. outside of those two situations, some other things that would probably upset him:

obviously wealthy people looking down their nose at or otherwise mistreating less fortunate individuals. bonus points if they were at all capable of helping said less fortunate individuals instead. seeing someone who is obviously struggling and in need of help try to steal food at the market or lift some gil off of a rich merchant, only to be caught and dragged off by the Yellowjackets, really bothers him in a bad way. encountering the mere suggestion of child neglect also upsets him (even if that just amounts to a kid being left unattended on the street). these are both sore spots because they hit close to home, so to speak.

people (most especially authority / law enforcement) who try to control or tell him what he can’t do also rub him the wrong way, although “upset” in this case looks more like becoming suddenly very argumentative / intentionally inflammatory with them, a lot of the time, unless it’s a situation where Vhox would quickly be in over his head for not keeping his mouth shut (and, admittedly, sometimes even then). he has a fairly childish knee-jerk reaction to people treating him negatively to give them even less reason to like him, possibly as an unconscious mechanism to soften the blow of the rejection.

13) What is something that makes them uncomfortable?

talking about gushy uwu feelsy stuff is one thing. he's also not great at commiserating about trauma. if his ever comes up, he's likely to be playing it off with humor or otherwise talking pretty flippantly about it, and if someone else talks to him about theirs, the best they're likely to get is an underwhelming "that's rough, buddy" sort of response. it's not even that he outright doesn't care -- he's just really uncomfortable processing those things, and rolling up his sleeves to have a deep heart-to-heart is a lot more emotionally taxing than having a morbid laugh and moving on to something else.

he's sort of uncomfortable around kids, too. he likes (some of) them and thinks they're cute, but there's always a part of him that's worried that he's going to fuck a kid up somehow, either by saying or doing something wrong, or, gods forbid, something happens to trigger his feral anomaly and he hurts them. that's one of his worst fears.

22) How indecisive are they?

he's very much a "do shit first, ask questions later" kind of guy, so all in all he's pretty decisive -- at least in the moment. if you start asking him to plan things, or where he thinks he's gonna be in 10 years (the answer: facedown in a gutter), etc. then he might give you an answer, but it's liable to change at a moment's notice, so don't put too much stock in it.

23) What do they want most in life?

if you asked him, he'd probably tell you he wants the freedom to do whatever he wants whenever he wants to. part of him is always hung up on the idea of a lucrative job that will pay him so much money that he doesn't have to worry about not having enough for a place to sleep or for a good gourmet meal or whatever else strikes his fancy in a given moment; unfortunately, he's not very wise with money, so even when he does get a moderate chunk of it he can end up spending it all on an evening of lavish entertainment and a lot of booze. he's gotten better at this over time, because experience has taught him that being completely, utterly broke generally leads to an empty stomach and no roof over your head, which is not fun.

the truth is that he needs, and in his heart of hearts wants, stability. he's been absent stability for much of his life (whether that mean stable relationships, stable employment, housing, etc.), and a part of him sorely desires that, even if he's likewise afraid of the idea of being emotionally tied to someone he might hurt (thanks to that pesky "feral" genetic anomaly) or someone who has the power to hurt or abandon him.

29) What do they do to relax?

smoke fogweed, drink alcohol

Vhox is the sort who finds the (calmer) ocean soothing, be it listening to the waves crashing on the shore or lying on a dock that gets rocked by the waves a little. it's an easy shortcut to relaxing him.

33) Do they have a signature accessory?

do weapons count? Vhox is highly uncomfortable without some kind of weapon on his person, be it a gun or at least one knife. every other feature of his attire would be subject to change, i think; he can rotate through clothing surprisingly quickly as a result of damaging it during jobs or whatever other nonsense he gets up to, and although i can see him owning some other accessories at times (necklaces, etc.) it would rarely be anything he’s particularly attached to, and so would be willing to take it off and sell it if he needed a little extra gil.