#whether voluntary or not

[lemonys-place]

heyyy gentlest reminder, my friends, that you do not have to disclose your trauma and mental illnesses to justify your age regression. it's perfectly fine to regress/dream "just because" and strangers are not entitled to your sensitive information/past just because they want to validate it FOR you. don't let anyone make you feel like you have to explain yourself just for coping/soothing/self-parenting in a way that feels good + healing for YOU. there is no criteria to meet to be yourself!

but also, it IS sensitive information and there are some people around the community especially predators who will use that information to get closer to you and/or hurt you. so please practice internet safety, be careful who you share your details with, and block ANYONE who doesn't seem right or play nice.

protect your space and be safe everyone! 🙏

[angstandhappiness]

You should correct the Ozpin's system with KoV's system because he's the one who designed it, and Grimms are a problem before Salem was anyway. Other than that, interesting

on reflection i’m betting the identity arcs in v9 will turn on the fulcrum of the discussions in 2.9 & 2.10 regarding why the kids wanted to become huntresses—in part because the emotional contours of those discussions align quite closely with the emotional crises set up for yang and ruby in v8, and in part because those discussions also laid the foundations for the identity arcs weiss and blake went through in v4-5.

so–oobleck asks yang, weiss, and blake why they chose to become huntresses, rejecting yang’s first answer (that she did it to fight monsters) because “no, that is what you do. i want to know why you do it: the honest reason as to why you want to become a huntress.”

their answers are:

YANG: The honest reason? I’m a thrill-seeker. I want to travel around the world and get wrapped up in as many crazy adventures as I can, and if I help people along the way then that’s even better. It’s a win-win, you know?

&

WEISS: It’s exactly as you said, I’m a Schnee. I have a legacy of honor to uphold. Once I realized I was capable of fighting, there was no longer a question of what I would do with my life. It was my duty.

&

BLAKE: There’s too much wrong in this world to just stand by and do nothing. Inequality, corruption—someone has to stop it.

OOBLECK: Very well. How?

BLAKE: …I—uh.

he, notably, does not ask ruby the same; but she does ask him, and this is how he answers:

OOBLECK: Look around and tell me what you see.

RUBY: Lots of old buildings… uh, empty streets—

OOBLECK: I see lives that could have been saved. As a huntsman, it is my job to protect the people, and although I am capable of doing it with traditional weaponry, I believe I can make a much larger impact if I do it with my mind. As a teacher, I am able to take knowledge—the most powerful weapon of them all—and place it into the hands of every student that passes through my classroom. I look at this wasteland and see lives that could have been saved, but I also see an opportunity; an opportunity to study these ruins and learn from this tragedy, and therefore become stronger. I am a huntsman, Ruby, because there is nothing else in this world I would rather be.

and the distinction between his response and those of the kids makes his reason for asking quite clear: the kids have these emotional needs, these abstract goals that they are trying to fulfill through the act of becoming huntresses, because it feels right to them, but they don’t really know how to fit the pieces together. in contrast, oobleck is able to immediately, succinctly articulate exactly how he understands himself and his place in the world, what being a huntsman means to him, and say ‘i am this because this is what i want’ with an absolute confidence that the kids don’t have yet.

the apparent implication—certainly this is how the kids take it—in oobleck declining to ask ruby this question is that it isn’t one she needs to hear; that she, like him, has such a clear and profound sense of purpose that she doesn’t need to be prompted to think about why she’s here.

but!

there’s another layer here that emerges in the next episode, when yang, blake, and weiss try to talk about the deeper underlying meanings behind the answers they gave and as a consequence end up sharing their deepest insecurities with each other:

WEISS: When I said I wanted to honor my family’s name, I meant it, but… it’s not what you think. I’m not stupid. I’m fully aware of what my father has done with the Schnee Dust Company. Since he took control, our business has operated in a… moral… grey area. […] Which is why I feel the need to make things right! If I had taken a job in Atlas, it wouldn’t have changed anything. My father was not the start of our name, and I refuse to let him be the end of it.

&

BLAKE: All my life, I’ve fought for what I thought was right. I had a partner, named Adam—more of a mentor, actually. He always assured me that what we were doing would make the world a better place, but of course his idea of a perfect future turned out to be… not perfect for everyone. I joined the academy because I knew huntsmen and huntresses were regarded as the most noble warriors in the world, always fighting for good, but I never really thought past that. When I leave the academy, how will I—how can I undo so many years of hate?

YANG: I’m sure you’ll figure it out. You’re not one to back down from a challenge, Blake.

BLAKE: But I am! I do it all the time! When you learned I was a faunus, I didn’t know what to do, so I ran! When I realized my oldest partner had become a monster, I ran! Even my semblance—I was born with the ability to leave behind a shadow of myself, an empty copy that takes the hit while I run away.

both of these statements, as noted, lay the emotional groundwork necessary for the arcs of personal change and growth that weiss and blake undergo in v4-5; weiss ultimately cleaves herself from her father and strikes out alone to carve her own path, and blake sheds the self-hatred adam left her with and finds the courage and confidence in herself to stand and face what she’s afraid of.

which makes what yang has to say pretty tantalizing for v9—not just with regards to yang herself, but also ruby:

YANG: At least you two have something that drives you. I’ve always just kind of… gone with the flow, you know? And that’s fine, I mean—that’s who I am, but how long can I really do that for? I want to be a huntress… not really because I want to be a hero, but because I want the adventure. I want a life where I won’t know what tomorrow will bring, and that will be a good thing. Being a huntress just happens to line up with that. I’m not like Ruby; she’s always wanted to be a huntress. It’s like she said—ever since she was a kid, she dreamt of being the heroes in the books, helping people and saving the day, and never asking for anything in return. Even when she couldn’t fight, she knew that’s what she wanted to do.

two things here:

1. yang expresses some latent frustration with this rootlessness that she feels and this painful dichotomy it creates in her of feeling simultaneously insecure and uncomfortable in that rootlessness but also wanting it–she wants to be unsure of where she belongs or what happens next but for that feeling to be good somehow, instead of bad, and she’s latched on to ‘adventure’ as a way to achieve that. she is at once proud of being a go-with-the-flow kind of person and terrified that it isn’t sustainable, and being a huntress to her is a way of trying to reconcile those contradictory feelings. which she still hasn’t done by the end of v8–all that’s changed between this discussion and now is that yang has added real moral conviction on top of this stuff.

2. on the face of it, ruby would seem to be the closest to oobleck’s “i am a huntsman because there is nothing else in this world that i would rather be”–but i think it’s important that we hear this from yang, not from ruby herself, because while it does align with what ruby said about herself in v1, this is less about ruby than it is about yang’s perception of who ruby is. and that makes it part of the unrelenting drumbeat of characters putting ruby on this pedestal of being the perfect huntress-in-training, the leader, the ideal they all want to emulate, to such an extent that by v8 this thing she’s wanted to be for her entire life has become the suffocating burden that is slowly breaking her. and that means that she is at once facing the question of what she does now that she’s achieved her dreams and been so deeply harmed by that success and how she navigates that internal struggle in the face of the absolute, unwavering faith her teammates have in her ability to lead them and be the ideal they want to follow.

which brings us to the last beat of the discussion in 2.10:

WEISS: Well, she’s still just a kid.

BLAKE: She’s only two years younger. We’re all just kids.

YANG: Well, not anymore. I mean, look where we are! In the middle of a war zone, armed to the teeth—

BLAKE: It’s the life we chose.

WEISS: It’s a job. We all had this romanticized notion of being a huntress in our heads, but at the end of the day, it’s a job to protect the people, and whatever we want will have to come second.

this was simultaneously something that it was important for the kids to come to grips to and also a line of thinking that makes it really dangerous for them to think of being a huntress as their identity and the thing of preeminent importance in their lives, because as long as they conceptualize the job of being a huntress in this way they are huntresses first and people second. and that is something that the narrative of rwby is clearly aware of–the importance of taking care of oneself first is a major plot point earlier in this same volume, and the trauma of continually sacrificing personal well-being for the sake of performing the duties of huntresses and huntsmen is made the emotional centerpiece of v7-8–so i think the identity arcs in v9 are probably going to involve a degree of reckoning with what being a huntress actually means and trying to conceive of a new way to be huntresses without destroying themselves in the process.

because it’s a job but it’s also a lot more than a job–it’s an identity, it’s an enormous part of who they are, and six volumes later the kids still haven’t figured out how to integrate that identity with the rest of themselves in order to achieve the balance and confidence that oobleck expresses when he answers the question of why.

…i also think the “no, that is what you do; why do you do it?” theme is likely to make a return with regards to the huge importance denizens of the ever after appear to place on one’s purpose in life. “what are you?” is an easy question. “why are you?” is harder, and “who are you?” perhaps even more difficult than that.

[racke7]

Sooo... I got bored and started trying to make crossovers happen again.

And basically, I've realized how very close BNHA and Worm are to each other, as far as settings are concerned.

Like, there are underlying differences in the world-building, but:

Powers appeared from an unknown source

Heroes and Villains are a thing

Powers are very unique, but tend to be "thematic" in families

In my opinion, the biggest differences between the settings are:

BNHA takes place in Japan, Worm in the USA

Scion is a well-known "all the powers"-cape, AFO is an unknown "all the powers"-cape

Worm has Endbringers

And... that's pretty much it.

Which lead me to think about "BNHA with Endbringers" and... it sure does fuck with the setting a LOT.

[lorephobic]

just read (from an extremely unreliable source) that booth had wanted to give his diamond stickpin to one of secretary seward’s maids who he had a thing for. which is extremely unlikely, (the source also suggests that booth might have already given the pin to her, which is why it wasn’t found on his body—a claim that i have a whole host of issues with) BUT. it does make me even more insane to think that booth had wanted to give the pin to a girl he was in love with, but had promised it to david instead.

or that david knew that booth wanted to give the pin to a girl he was in love with, and tried to claim it for himself after booth’s death.

[swashbucklery]

“IS IT heALthY iF LeSTaT sTalkED hIs BoYfRIeNd and wAsn’T HONesT aBouT wHAt he THoUghT of poLyAmORy”

1) the idea of Lestat wandering through the bayou to watch Louis get a blowjob in the swamp and angrily masturbate about it, then follow Louis home and sneak into the house up the back and pretend that everything is wonderful. And then - AND THEN - to spend the whole following day planning to dramatically fuck 100 soldiers to prove a point? Is objectively hilarious. I love it. 10/10. Who cares.

2) THEY MURDERED EACH OTHER. ALREADY. THEY ARE PROBLEMATIQUE, MES CHERIES.

3) the point of this show is not to role model a healthy relationship THEY’RE GAY VAMPIRES FROM THE TURN OF THE CENTURY just let them FUCK and KILL PEOPLE and YELL AT EACH OTHER while wearing INCREASINGLY ELABORATE DRAMATIC HOUSECOATS

[rejectshumanity]

i really need to sit down and list out all of dio’s powers by verse. there are so many that i can’t keep all of them straight in my head

[unopenablebox]

ok i actually seriously can’t handle the fact that that post was in the second person. “when i see people who i’ve smugly decided are less functional or well-adjusted than me, i want to impose my will on them and make them into productive citizens by sentencing them to TWO YEARS OF HARD LABOR ON THE OCEAN”

are you a press-ganger trying to justify kidnapping street urchins onto your ship? are these the wilde trials??? come the fuck on!!!!

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

Writing Habits Tag

I was tagged by @sergeantnarwhalwrites who I hope has some patience with me being snarky when I don't like the options XD

I'm gonna leave it as an open tag, and the unedited template is below the cut.

write: daily | most days | a few times a week I a few times a month | random

I write most often: when I first get up | later in the morning | afternoon | evening | the wee hours of the night | whenever

In one sitting, I tend to write: a few sentences at a time | a few hundred words | a few thousand words | a complete chapter / section no matter how long | an outline | whatever comes

I tend to write scenes: in chronological order with no skipping | mostly in order but with some filler / skipping | whatever scene I feel like who knows what's gonna come out

The things that comes easiest to me are: dialogue | description of senses | description of action I description of characters | exposition | other

I tend to write: on a phone | on a laptop I in a notebook I on whatever paper I can find I with speech to text I in the blood of my enemies | it doesn't really matter to me | on paper first and then typed up I old school typewriter on a computer

Here we get snarky. What are those options? What does a rainbow sparkly LED clown vomit gaming PC have to do with a typewriter? What does that even mean?

When I take a break from writing, it usually lasts: a few days | a few weeks | a few months I it's kind of random

My favorite thing to do when l'm on a writing break is: recharge with other creative hobbies | read / consume other media | do something physical | catch up with old friends | work on my WIP in other ways like with playlists or art I other

Wish I were writing

In general, I think my writing habits are: pretty much what I need them to be | okay, but l'm working on making them better I non-existent I not great I totally random I perfect for me

Fucking unhealthy, holy fucking shit

write: daily | most days | a few times a week I a few times a month| random

I write most often: when I first get up | later in the morning | afternoon | evening | the wee hours of the night | whenever

In one sitting, I tend to write: a few sentences at a time | a few hundred words | a few thousand words | a complete chapter / section no matter how long | an outline | whatever comes

I tend to write scenes: in chronological order with no skipping | mostly in order but with some filler / skipping | whatever scene I feel like who knows what's gonna come out

The things that comes easiest to me are: dialogue | description of senses | description of action I description of characters | exposition | other

I tend to write: on a phone | on a laptop I in a notebook I on whatever paper I can find I with speech to text I in the blood of my enemies | it doesn't really matter to me | on paper first and then typed up I old school typewriter on a computer

When I take a break from writing, it usually lasts: a few days | a few weeks | a few months I it's kind of random

My favorite thing to do when l'm on a writing break is: recharge with other creative hobbies | read / consume other media | do something physical | catch up with old friends | work on my WIP in other ways like with playlists or art I other

In general, I think my writing habits are: pretty much what I need them to be | okay, but l'm working on making them better I non-existent I not great I totally random I perfect for me

[erinmcsave]

I don’t think Erin retired. Her ACL happened in the top of her career, sadly, and never got the spot back because they had moved to Labbé on that year. Getting back to someone who just came back from a long injury and that was “old” was not a smart move (even if she was better than the new ones), so they didn’t. They kept her in the squad but not playing at all, for veteran situation, teaching the young etc. and eventually stopped calling her. I don’t think she took the decision to retire.

I think you may be right

[genderqueerdykes]

going insane thinking about how a lot of people don't understand that the labels FtM and MtF can also be used to describe intersex experiences and don't always necessarily reflect willing changes or inherently trans experiences. it makes me go insane when i realize i'm MtF but it's impossible to talk about because people don't understand that intersex experiences do not mirror trans experiences 1:1 and they don't have to because they're unique experiences that aren't shared by anyone else.

both trans and intersex experiences deserve equal space to be discussed. sometimes someone's sex changes multiple times. sometimes that's willing, sometimes it's not. whether or not it's voluntary doesn't make it any more important or valid to discuss. people who were born one way but were placed on hormones and/or had corrective procedures done still had a sex change done to them.

i'm MtFtM because i want my body to go back to the way it was before i was forced to undergo "corrective" treatment and procedures. that doesn't make me cis, this is an inherently intersex experience, and it does encompass being both MtF and FtM. it's complicated because of what i've gone through, both of my own volition, and against my will.

let intersex people discuss these experiences and be heard. break down the binary in your mind of what these phrases mean. our lives depend on it.

[lackadaisycats]

I hope you know that literally nobody is going to be able to live up to the standard you, V*v, and Glitch have set and your arrogance and exploitation of your fanbase and connections has screwed millions of creatives out of their dreams because Hollywood is a joke that isn't worth telling and wealthy e-celebs like yourself have claimed the indie scene all to yourselves and moved the goalposts into the stratosphere.

Nope. This isn't a zero sum game. There is not some limited, prescribed number of indie trophy slots that a few studios greedily filled up, blocking everyone else out. That is not how it works. Nothing any other creator is doing - short of personally sending hired goons to your doorstep or stealing your credit cards - is taking anything away from you or preventing your success. In fact if an indie creator can manage to demonstrate that they've got something viable going, it may help to map out a pathway for others.

I think I'm not going to bother trying to address whether or not cartoons in return for support from fans - an entirely voluntary exchange - constitutes exploitation. And I'm living in the Midwest driving a 2007 economy car with 200k+ miles on it, but let's just skip past the assumptions that I'm wealthy and connected too.

Instead, let's get to the weirdly myopic notion that the indie scene is held captive by three studios. Maybe YouTube algorithms or Twitter bubbles are somewhat to blame, but in actuality there are so, so many individual people, friend groups, and small production houses out there making independent animation, I cannot possibly name them all.

Here are some anyway:

Far-Fetched Worthikids Satina | Scumhouse Noodle and Bun Punch Punch Forever Ramshackle Noodle Papajoolia | Pipi Angel Hare | The East Patch Jonni Peppers Salad Fingers Monkey Wrench Studio Heartbreak Felix Colgrave JelloApocalypse Odd1sout (started indie, got picked up by Netflix) Allie Mehner JaidenAnimations Lumi and the Great Big Galaxy Cloudrise | The Worlds Divide Telepurte RubberRoss James Lee ENA Godspeed | Olan Rogers Ollie and Scoops Meat Canyon Port by the Sea Kekeflipnote Boxtown Kevin Temmer Weebl Joel Haver CircleToons Long Gone Gulch Atlas and the Stars Animist Skibidi Toilet A Fox in Space Alex Henderson Talon Toniko Pantoja Sr. Pelo Hullabaloo Kane Pixels (started indie, picked up by A24) Homestar Runner Fennah Gods' School Alan Becker Dungeon Flippers JazLyte Psychicpebbles (started indie, Smiling Friends picked up by AS) Piemations vewn Metal Family Dead Sound chluaid Jacknjellify Betsy Lee | No Evil My Pride Cranbersher GeoExe | Gwain Saga Horatio the Vampire Mech West Playground | Rodrigo Sousa The Brave Locomotive Finchwing (+ many other Warrior Cats animators) Quazies SamBakZa Kamikaze: Trial by Fire

By no means a full list. That's just YouTube, and mostly just English language stuff, and I didn't even get to the multitudes of Warrior Cats animation collabs.

The point is, the indie landscape is vast and populated by creators new and old, making all kinds of animated media from skits, to shows, to ARGs, to films. Audience sizes vary as much as the content, stylistic approaches, subject matter, and budgets do. There are no compliance standards, no gateways to entry, no goalposts. There's not even any preset definition of success except what you decide for yourself.

Anyway, instead of nurturing your resentments, consider making something. I assure you, it's a far more rewarding use of your time and energy, and pretty much no one can stop you. ------------- EDIT- Made some additions to the list based on comments. Thanks!

[planetlessmoon]

* HOWEVER FLAREON IS THE ONLY FULLY EVOLVED FIRE POKÉMON THAT CANNOT LEARN SOLAR BEAM

Realized I've never properly drawn Gaster Undertlae

[read-marx-and-lenin]

There is no magic "abolish the state" button, which is why I'm an anarchist, as "when the state has socialismed enough it will just magically poof away in a cloud of smoke" is the leninist position.

That is not the Leninist position, the Leninist position is and always has been that the state cannot disappear until the material conditions for its disappearance are achieved. The withering away of the state, first outlined by Engels, is not a magic process but one that proceeds from the abolition of class and the dissolution of the bourgeoisie.

How are you going to get rid of the bourgeoisie without a state? Are you going to simply ask them nicely to leave you alone? If you are organized and if your organization is suppressing the bourgeoisie as a class, then you have created a state, you have created an authoritarian imposition on the free organization of some section of the people. If you are not doing any of this, then the bourgeoisie who you have left unmolested will invariably come to dominate you once more.

Anarchists have always played word games to get around these simple facts. There are the practical anarchists who will admit to some amount of authority, but always with the caveat that theirs is *just* authority, *necessary* authority, and that is is the *unjust* authority that they condemn. Just authority is not the State, because the State is unjust, and so if they see an authority as just then it cannot be the State. Fair enough, you can call things by whatever names you like, but if you put these ideas in practice you basically end up with Leninism. You want to create dual power? You want to abolish the bourgeois state and replace it with a democratic organ of the working class? Well so did Lenin, and now you know why the Mensheviks accused him of anarchism.

Then there are the quite impractical capital-A Anarchists, who are adamant that anarchy means anarchy and that even voluntary hierarchy and submission to democratic authority is impermissible. Whether pacifistic or militaristic, they are generally unremarkable and ineffective at their goals because they eschew most effective forms of organization as ideologically impure. Even the most advanced anarchists, the CNT in Spain and the Maknovists in Russia, were plagued by economic confusion and disorganization. Their lack of discipline led to their downfall.

If you want to read more, here are some pertinent links:

[jewishvitya]

I remembered this essay from years ago when I was unlearning what I knew of Israel and zionism and I couldn't find it again, and now I see it in a Shaun video, with the source.

Ze'ev Jabotinsky, "The Iron Wall." I downloaded it from the Jabotinsky Institute.

These are the titles he gave this essay:

I said that Zionist leaders explicitly talked about Zionism as a colonialist movement. This is an example of what I was talking about.

Some quotes:

There can be no voluntary agreement between ourselves and the Palestine Arabs. Not now, nor in the prospective future. I say this with such conviction, not because I want to hurt the moderate Zionists. I do not believe that they will be hurt. Except for those who were born blind, they realised long ago that it is utterly impossible to obtain the voluntary consent of the Palestine Arabs for converting "Palestine" from an Arab country into a country with a Jewish majority.

My readers have a general idea of the history of colonisation in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonisation being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent.

He's saying openly: no land was colonized with the consent of its indigenous population. So we have to do it without that consent.

Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.

That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of "Palestine" into the "Land of Israel."

He said that any zionist who depends on the Arab population accepting a Jewish state on their lands, might as well withdraw from zionism because that's impossible.

Zionist colonisation must either stop, or else proceed regardless of the native population. Which means that it can proceed and develop only under the protection of a power that is independent of the native population – behind an iron wall, which the native population cannot breach.

And then he says that this Iron Wall is the British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration - they're the power that stops Palestinians from resisting us.

He says that despite this, zionism is moral and just, so justice must be done, zionism must move forward. He just wants to be honest about what it takes. He wants to discourage talks of an agreement to avoid signaling to the British that they must try to reach one between us and Palestinians. Just stop them from fighting us, we'll colonize the place.

Zionism was openly colonialist until this language was no longer politically useful.

Editing because I was kinda shocked by the response this got, in several moments. When the slavery of US founders was brought up to dismiss this whole thing. When First Nations reservations were brought up on the same list as the United States as equivalent to Israel, because I said I oppose the existence of a country that prioritizes one ethnic group at the expense of others, and I support democracy that protects everyone equally.

But another thing that's still nagging at me is the idea that this whole essay can be dismissed based on semantic arguments, like sure this uses the word colonialism, but is it actually the colonialism that we talk about and oppose? And what if this word is only used to appeal to the British for support?

This isn't the the first time that prominent zionist thinkers talk about zionism as a colonialist movement. I saw it in old publications, things like magazines, I'd be posting them too if I found them again. I did my own deconstructing years ago, I don't remember where I found all my sources.

I do remember that they talked about the two concepts together - the idea that we're here to colonize, and that we're here to come home. So nowadays there's the arguement that people can't colonize their own homeland, but to them there was no contradiction. I saw it again looking at Herzl's diary last night.

I say I define colonialism through actions and tactics, through the harm that's done to the victims of colonization. Because if we knowingly repeated the actions of colonizers and used the help of an imperial force to conquer a land, having a historic connection to it shouldn't absolve us.

Jabotinsky didn't write to the British in this essay. He wrote to other zionists who wanted to aim for something more collaborative with Palestinian Arabs. And it's true that word choice can mean different things in the context of the time, but there's a reason I chose those quotes. What is he actually saying in this essay?

Consider colonization throughout history - the native population never agreed, so we must do the as colonizers did in the past.

Palestinians will never agree to a Jewish state - so we must do it by force. We should use an imperial force as an "iron wall" to prevent them from resisting. Stop talking about an agreement because then the British will try to reach one instead of holding them back and letting us do our thing.

He's comparing the zionist movement to other efforts of colonization, to talk about emulating them.

This isn't a game of semantics. I'm not just bringing this up just because he used the words.

What he's describing - conquest by force, preventing a Palestinian state, forcibly creating a Jewish majority - is what happened. And it's still what's happening.

This is the branch of zionism that went into practice and founded Israel.

[eowynstwin]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Some good places to start:

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Ain't I a Woman? by bell hooks

We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks

A Burst of Light by Audre Lorde

The Body Is Not An Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi

Being Palestinian edited by Yasir Suleiman

[omgellendean]

In an embarrassing but completely predictable turn of event, it's revealed that at least 330 out of 553 names on the Memorial to the Victims of Communism have potential links to Nazis or fascists.

A 2023 report for Canadian Heritage recommended more than 330 names be excluded to be on the safe side, the records noted. The exclusions were recommended because of the lack of information about the individuals or organizations and whether they might have links to fascist organizations or the Nazis. Some of the entries could also be removed because they have no direct link to Canada. The memorial, which is located near the corner of Wellington and Bay streets, is supposed to honour those who suffered under communism. But concerns have been raised over the years by Jewish organizations and historians that names of eastern Europeans who collaborated with the Nazis in the Holocaust have been put forward in an attempt to whitewash their past. The memorial was supposed to be unveiled in November 2023 but that was put on hold after members of Parliament honoured Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian soldier with the Waffen-SS Galicia Division, a voluntary unit that was under the command of the Nazis. That incident became an international embarrassment for Canada.