#not sure if its racism but it definitely feels like it

[arlathvhenan]

I think it’s weird that people try and point the finger at Solas for being racist and bigoted when I don’t think I could name a single character in DAI who isn’t?

Except maybe Cole and he’s the exception as he’s a spirit who’s newly crossed over and therefore can’t possibly have been shaped by the world’s prejudice.

But as for the rest, has no one listened to their dialogue? Even at their most well meaning, each character has had their actions and world view shaped by a certain form of prejudice. Casual racism is kind of everywhere in Dragon Age.

Just look at Dorian. He says some genuinely racist things to Solas over the course of their banter. And remember that Dorian is an incredibly privileged man who was born to and benefited from the culture that built itself on the ashes of another civilization and enslaved/abused/dismantled the personhood of the survivors for generations. Tevinter is actively a slave state, and at no point does Dorian really give the impression that he’s all too bothered by it. He outright denies the personhood of Spirits, an assessment we definitively know to be not just inaccurate but deeply immoral.

Then there’s Bull. His banter with Solas reveals so much about them both. In particular, it reveals that Bull looks down on pretty every other culture. He holds up the Qun, an ultra authoritarian nightmare state, as the pinnacle of civil order and admits that he thinks the world would be better if they simply conquered and subjugated everyone.

Even Cassandra, Blackwall, and Varric, as much as I love them all and consider them genuinely good people, have their prejudices.

As for Solas, I’m honestly not sure you can call him a racist? It’s just a gross misreading and oversimplification of his character. People point to his plans for the Veil as being genocidal. But they aren’t. Solas hasn’t set out to wipe all Non-Elves from the face of Thedas. He’s not trying to purge the world of all other races. He’s trying to fix a mistake that he made long ago, one which has left the world in a state he can only perceive as nightmarish and doomed.

I feel like people forget that Solas was only back in the world for about a year prior to Inquisition, and in that year he likely experienced nothing but violence and cruelty. The few redeeming things the world had left before he put up the Veil are all but gone. His people have been scattered, subjugated, and enslaved. They’ve had everything taken from them by this new world he helped create, and that clearly horrifies him.

Solas is absolutely misguided, and he’s absolutely stubborn. But racist? I don’t really think you can call him any more prejudiced than the rest of the characters, except in his case we’re talking about someone who is quite literally from another world. He is as alien to the world and its people as they are to him. And still he shows care and respect to others, despite how awful they’ve been to him.

He respects Cassandra and comes to enjoy her company despite how hostile she was towards him at first. He genuinely befriends Varric, reads his books, jokes with him. He never attempts to fight with Sera, despite her being an outright bully towards him. He shows compassion for Blackwall. He even comes to show respect for Bull and Dorian, despite their various ideological differences.

So, bigoted? No I wouldn’t say he is. Bigoted implies that Solas is incapable of tolerating a worldview outside his own, which is demonstrably not the case. Solas can and does accept the arguments and opinions of others. More than once he concedes to Varric. If you’ve played a Dalish Inquisitior who either befriends or romanced him, he changes his opinion about the Dalish, too.

The only subjects he won’t budge on are the ones that a person really shouldn’t?? He sure won’t entertain the idea of slavery being anything but a horrible atrocity, and that’s a bad thing? He’s a hardliner when it comes to Spirits being recognized as people, because they are and it’s the morally correct stance to have. Again, why is that a bad thing?

What is it with people taking characters who have been made victims by either society or circumstance and are vehemently anti-slavery and trying to cast them as monsters who go too far? I keep seeing it in different franchises cough gameofthrones and it’s starting to make me genuinely uncomfortable.

#solas dragon age #solas dread wolf #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #dragon age dreadwolf #reposting an old meta for organizational purposes

[moghedien]

Lupe, Carson, and Gaydar

I've joked about the scene when Carson confronts Lupe in the gay bar constantly. It is maybe my favorite scene in the show, definitely the one I’ve rewatched the most, and it's my motivation for writing this. Because while it is an extremely funny scene, and it's very funny that Lupe seemed to be the only one that didn't realize that Carson was gay, I feel like it reveals a lot about their dynamic up until this point. I've made jokes about Lupe having a busted gaydar, because on the surface, sure, but I feel like its a lot more complicated than that.

Ignoring the scene itself for now, let’s start in the beginning-ish. Carson and Lupe don’t really interact all that much in the first episode. The one significant scene they do have is when all of the Peaches are at the bar (not the gay one), and we get the ending of a conversation they’re having. Lupe has apparently told Carson that her dad didn’t want her going there, but she went anyway. Then Carson says that she kinda ran away too. Lupe asks if that’s why she looks so different now (given her recent haircut from Greta) and Carson says she doesn’t look that different. Lupe says she does and then walks away. It's not an unpleasant conversation. There's not really anything negative going on here, and it honestly seems like Lupe is flirting at the end there. Carson doesn't really pick up on that though, and Lupe just sort of leaves and they don't really have any similar interactions after this.

This scene alone shows that while Lupe might not have straight up known that Carson was gay, she was at least willing to test the waters to see if that was a possibility. But even though their interaction here ends well, she never really attempts to flirt with Carson again. There is probably reason for that.

In the second episode, again there isn’t much in the way of interaction between the two of them. However, this is where you can begin to see that they’re in very different worlds. In fact, they’re both living in very different worlds than the majority of their team. First, let’s address Carson, and to explain Carson’s big divergence from the rest of her team, I think Greta actually explained it best.

During Charm School, it's made apparent that Carson is more or less immune to the danger that a lot of the girls are in here. Not only is she not masculine presenting like some of the girls are, she’s married. She’s not a danger to the team’s image, if anything she’s an asset. Because what better way to prove that they aren’t destroying womanhood than to have women who are not only married, but married to men currently serving in the war. Carson isn’t fucking going anywhere. Lupe on the other hand, is at risk, and she seems to know it. 

She is trying to smile and give a good attitude and appearance when she's being judged.

While Jess and Fern (the girl who gets kicked out) are joking with Carson, Lupe is taking this all very seriously. You don't see her often in these scenes, but when you do, she's focused. It's almost bizarre when you notice it for the first time.

And then afterward, when they pass and the surviving Peaches are going out to eat, Lupe isn't visibly uncomfortable in the same way that Jess is. Jess is physically uneasy with herself. Lupe, maybe has some of that too, but she seems more to be trying to mentally snap out of something. As if she had to put herself in a headspace that isn't comfortable or easy for her to get out of.

Lupe isn't the only one uncomfortable after Charm School, but she definitely was one of the ones that was, where again, Carson wasn't. Carson was always safe, and she wouldn't have even realized how unsafe the others were if Greta hadn't been blunt with her about it. They are exceptions within their team, but while Carson's exceptions makes her safer, Lupe's puts her in danger.

So let's jump ahead to their first game.

So the very first game starts for Lupe with racism. Not only are they playing on racist tropes in order to get the "customers" interested in her, but they also also have to lie about her to make her more palatable. Her being Mexican isn't appealing and might actually upset people, so the league has decided to make her Spanish instead. This along with the sexism that all of the other girls received from the announcer, is what she's greeted with on her first game.

Now, maybe Carson received some sexist comments too. I'm sure she did to some extent, but she's again, married to a man currently serving at war. I don't think that she would have gotten nearly as much as the unmarried girls, especially since the announcer seems to feel the need to point out which girls are single. And she definitely didn't get any of the racism that Lupe (and probably Esti, though I don't recall a specific instance of that) got while playing. Not to mention that when the girls get their first pay checks in episode 3, Lupe and Esti are the only ones that Bev feels the need to tell this to:

For some reason they are the only two that Bev feels the need to suggest they be patriotic. I'm sure its nothing.

None of this specifically connects their relationship, but it's important background knowledge to keep in your head when looking at the next few episodes. Because this is the world that Lupe is living in when she really starts to see Carson very differently than her initial flirting.

So episode three is where you really start to see the conflict between Lupe and Carson develop, and for the most part it initially just revolves around them independently trying to deal with Dove. No one on the team seems unaware that Dove is an issue, though it seems on a surface level that Lupe doesn’t notice it, given that she appears to just goes along with everything Dove says without question. Even the other girls think that Lupe is “up Dove’s ass” and would rat them out if she knew they were doing secret practices, so they don’t tell her. They all exclude her. Even Esti. Even Jess. And she knows that she’s being excluded from something because she wakes up for breakfast and nobody is there. 

Now, the secret practice itself isn’t entirely Carson’s doing. They all came up with the idea more or less together and went along with it, but Carson is the only other one on the team that is seen trying to deal with the Dove problem (outside of Jo telling him something and him lashing out on her). Her initial attempt was to give him a conversation pie. Now to literally anyone with eyeballs who isn't experiencing this show through Carson's point of view, it would look like Carson is sucking up to him. This is after Greta repeatedly made jokes about Dove being her “daddy,” and making Carson reveal that she and Dove have talked privately. So, Carson looks like she’s sucking up to Dove. Not only that, she made him a fucking pie. Can you get more stereotypically conservative American housewife than making someone a pie and then trying to talk to them about some problems you want them to fix.

Let’s talk about Lupe’s reaction to Dove. Lupe is not comfortable with Dove, but like Charm School, she sees it as something she just has to get through. If you think she likes Dove, let’s look at her initial reaction to when Dove gave her the nickname that sticks with her for the rest of the season.

Dove just says a bunch of racist stuff to her face (after indicating that she would be the keeper of his legacy, of course) and then goes on with the interview. Lupe is visibly upset by this, and looks to the other two authority figures that could stop Dove, and she gets told to keep smiling. So she nods, and continues to smile through the interview while Dove strokes his own ego. 

Lupe does not like this man. Lupe tells the reporter that she’s just excited to get some in before Dove interrupts her, and reminds them all that they’re here to talk about him. So it's made clear to Lupe that the way to get through this is with Dove. So Lupe sticks with Dove. Early on, maybe she could have been convinced to go against him some, but why would she go against him later on? When the other girls did so, they specifically left her out.

Lupe injures herself doing Dove’s stupid pitch because she’s not given any other way to make it for herself except through Dove, because her own teammates excluded her. There might have been ways to get through to her if they’d tried, but they didn’t. So now Lupe has to double down and stick with Dove’s plans entirely because its the only one. 

Now, let’s think of some of the reasons why Lupe might think she has been left out. She might realize she’s “up Dove’s ass.” Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. But Carson made him a fucking pie to butter him up. She’s looks like she's up Dove's ass too and she went to the secret practices. So what else could there be? She’s not the only Hispanic person in the house who’s whiteness and patriotism is actively questioned. Esti went to the practice. And she’s not the only visibly queer person. She is however, the only one that hits all of these "faults." Others might be different, but Lupe is too different. At least, she is if you're someone who would be bothered by different things.

We the audience know that this isn’t why Lupe was excluded. But why would Lupe know that? Especially when Esti eventually outs Carson as the person behind the practices. Regardless of whether or not it's actually her doing entirely, she’s the one that gets pointed to, and you know what, that would just make sense, wouldn’t it. 

Little Miss American housewife with the army husband, from a farm in the country excluding Lupe specifically. When Lupe gets injured, Carson is the one that jumps on benching her. Carson seems to be the one isolating her from the team, and is now trying to get her off it. Unlike that first night in the bar, now Lupe would be well aware that Carson is married with her husband at war. That she’s from a farm (not really but ya know). Lupe doesn’t know about Carson’s internal goings on. She doesn’t know about her getting close to Greta or any of the others that might be queer. Lupe sees her own experiences with Carson and has figured out who Carson is: a typical white conservative housewife from rural America that would turn her ass in the second she had a reason to. Genuinely, why would Lupe think anything else of her at this point? She hasn't been able to see any other side of Carson.

So jumping forward quite a bit to when Dove leaves. Lupe has up until this point been doing everything that she was “supposed” to do and gets rewarded by most of the team picking Carson over her as the coach. Lupe was the one that stuck with Dove like management wanted and Carson was the one that lead the coup against him, yet Carson gets rewarded. Wonder why? 

This entire time, tensions between them increase. When they’re playing the night game and trying to call out the cheating, Carson gives some stupid speech about what her soldier husband would want. Lupe actually knows the rules and gets something done about it. Carson is given authority because she’s the token white married woman on the team (except maybe Terri but ignore Terri we have no idea if she’s actually married). She’s the safe one. Lupe ticks too many boxes on why she isn’t acceptable despite doing everything right. 

Then, we have Greta making things a bit worse.

Here we have Greta just sticking her beautiful birdlike neck in where it shouldn't be in order to try to stick up for her girlfriend. Lupe doesn’t know they’re together or even that they're gay. She probably doesn’t even know they’re friends because of how discreet they've been trying to be. She just sees Greta confirming that she’s known all along. Carson is the poster girl. Lupe is the one that’s too much. After Greta leaves, she angrily and sarcastically asks “Why’s that?” and then beats her hat against the post when Carson leaves. The woman is at a breaking point. 

And then the fight happens.

It’s the fucking hick comment that convinced me, really. 

Lupe tells Carson that she hasn’t been able to play because of her, because yeah, from where she’s sitting it does look like Carson’s fault. Carson is the one that didn’t include her in practices. Carson is the one that got her benched. Carson is the one that took the job that she was more qualified for. And every single person has sided with Carson against her. Can we blame Lupe for finally having enough? Because even if she’s missing very important context that would explain things some, she has no way of having that context. 

And to cap things off, when she finally just has enough and the fight happens, everyone still sides with Carson against her. Carson becomes the full time coach, everyone blames her for the fight, and the only person that eventually somewhat understands what the problem is, is Jess. Even then, that’s only when Lupe explicitly points out to Jess that she’s dealing with shit Jess doesn’t have to think about.  And while Jess eventually gets that, she still has more context than Lupe because she not only was included in all of the things that Lupe wasn’t, she also knows that Carson and Greta are fucking. So she knows that Carson isn’t entirely the impression that Lupe has of her.

And now we get to the scene. 

Lupe has been through all of this. She has had to deal with this woman for the entire season. Things are finally calming down. Then one night when she’s at a gay bar, where she is explicitly safe from people like Carson, Carson fucking follows her to the bar. 

Now this is terrifying. Because while Carson could only argue and complain before, now she caught Lupe doing something no one is supposed to do, someplace none of them are supposed to be. Like, literally, Carson is now a serious danger to Lupe, a danger to Jess, a danger to Lupe’s date, and a danger to the entire bar. It initially seems to Lupe like Carson knows exactly what is going on and is disgusted by it. And if she said something, people would believe Carson. Because they always have before, and honestly, who wouldn’t believe it if Carson outed Lupe? 

See I joke about Lupe’s broken gaydar here, because it is funny. Like, literally every other queer person knew something was up with Carson, but none of them were Lupe. None of them had to deal with things that Lupe had to deal with, and none of them were excluded as much as she was. Lupe’s gaydar is broken with Carson because she never had a chance to have any other impression of Carson. And clearly it wasn’t actually broken, because she tested the waters with Carson the very first night in Rockford. It was everything that happened after that made it seem like that initial impression was very wrong.

 This revelation that Carson is not only queer, but sleeping with Greta really flips everything for Lupe. Because what she thought she understood as passive aggressive hostility was clearly just Carson being fucking stupid and clueless. And now she’s not the bigot that is gonna turn her in and ruin her life and dreams of pitching, but she’s a little baby gay who didn’t even know that places like this existed. That didn’t know the Jess and Lupe were gay, or what butch means, or that half of the league is gay. Now Lupe's laughing with Jess as they try to explain queer shit to Carson, and that is the first time she really seems comfortable around Carson. Because this is when Lupe realizes that Carson has been excluded from something this entire time that she didn't even know existed.

It's not just that she hated Carson and so assumed that she was straight, or that she learned that Carson is gay and so suddenly likes her. It’s that she didn’t have any reason to believe anything but the worst about Carson, and now she has the context that makes a lot of things suddenly make some sense. And because now, she’s clearly the authority on things that Carson really wants to learn about. Now they actually know each other’s secrets, and they’re shared secrets and it’s found in a place where they don’t have to hide it. This is the first time that Lupe and Carson are instantly on the same page about something.

After this, there’s no real tension between them. It's not so much that everything is ok and fixed. Lupe is still dealing with stuff, it's just clearly not Carson that's the issue anymore. It's not Carson who seems to be doing these things to her. Carson's now one of the few people that's approachable and who Lupe is willing to loosen up and joke with. Whereas before she might have tried to avoid Carson entirely unless absolutely necessary, now she's pulling Carson in to mess with other people and have fun with their ignorance. It's other people that won't know what's going on now.

Now that they share something, it's almost everyone else on the team (and otherwise) that’s excluded from their fun. Now, they’re both actually understanding each other and can work together for the first time.

Now it's not Lupe excluded from the rest of the team, and it's not Carson thinking that she and Greta are alone in their queerness. Now it's all of the queer Peaches having their own celebration together and not letting anyone else in on it. Because as overdone the metaphor is, now they all know they're on the same team.

So, no, I don't think Lupe's gaydar was broken, no matter how funny that joke is or how many times I make it (and will continue to make it). I just think that there was some very understandable interference preventing her from getting a good reading.

____________________________________

Other ALOTO essays:

Queerness, Contamination, and the Neurosis of Shirley Cohen

Greta Gill: Visibility and Isolation

Max in Oz

#a league of their own #carson shaw #lupe garcia #aloto #aloto analysis

[j-ellyfish]

What do you think of Romano's inferiority complex towards Feliciano, and I'm pretty sure you're Italian, so would you say that's accurate to how Southern Italians really feel towards the North?

I wouldn't call it an inferiority complex, but probably due to the centuries it spent split into different kingdoms and republics, Italy as a whole has a pretty strong localism, especially in smaller villages and rural areas, but also among the less educated people and older generations in general. Differences in habits, culture and traditions are still easy to spot too due to the aforementioned long centuries where each part of the Country was subject to slightly or highly different influences and history in every aspect of people's life.

The unification of Italy was led by the House of Savoy, which was the royal family originally ruling on a North-Western area of the peninsula for centuries and whose kings were then crowned kings of Italy starting from 1861. Industrialization, which then-unified Italy was already late to, was encouraged and financed in the Northern half of the Country, whereas the Southern half was neglected and its economy kept focusing mostly on agriculture for a long time. This caused a persistence of poverty and a lower percentage of literacy compared to the North, which was getting more economically competitive and thus wealthier on average.

To make it worse, Southerners who started migrating to the North (especially after WW2) to get a better job and give their family a better life and future, were often faced with racism and prejudice by Northerners.

This whole situation, the whole gap between the two halves of the Country that was caused primarily by how the Savoy neglected the industrial development of the South, would be dragged for so long that nowadays Italy still hasn't evened out these differences and they simply led to other issues for both halves.

This double standard also led to both halves developing their own secessionist movements, as Northern secessionists lamented how Northern industry (and thus, economy) had to "drag" the South and how migration from South to North would in their opinion deteriorate their own working possibilities; and Southern secessionists lamented how Italy favoured/favours the North which caused poverty, corruption and stagnation of the labor market to thrive. Especially among poorly educated older generations, it is not that uncommon to still come across prejudice and a bit of racism going back and forth between the two halves of the Country.

-

As for Hetalia lore itself...

Hima portrayed the unification of Italy in a very straightforward and, in my opinion, quite accurate way, true both to Feli and Romano's relationship and at least partially to history, with Garibaldi (the most important Italian general and revolutionary) basically bursting into Romano's house and go "HEY YOU'RE GETTING UNIFIED!" while barely listening or caring about the brothers' opinion on it, and without Romano even having any real involvement in the process.

I can imagine Feli having had, however, a little more agency in it (though as the picture above shows, he might not have been super happy about unification, and we know Personifications don't really get a choice but comply to their bosses' orders) as he was, among other things, also the embodiment of the land the Kingdom of Savoy was based in. He was definitely treated with more privilege by the Savoy, heck, he was even picked to be the one getting the honor of being called Italy and deal with foreign politics and such, something that Romano has been shown to resent.

Feli is also seen being the brother getting to try his hands at industrialization the most and getting really good at the production of stuff like cars, which furtherly solidifies how the Italian Kingdom seemed to show a preference to one brother compared to the other.

Romano sounds like he feels pretty left out and neglected, and his pre-existing inferiority complex and frustration towards Feli was therefore fed even more.

I feel like I'm digressing a lot though, sorry! 😅

🌸 Big thing I should've mentioned earlier about my own interpretation of Hetalia!! I do not see Hetalia characters as walking stereotypes or necessarily accurate representations of the way their average citizen thinks or acts like.

Because of this, the question for me is not much if Romano's inferiority complex makes sense in the light of the relationship between irl Southerners and Northerners, but rather if historically are there any reasons why it'd make sense for this piece of land to resent another based on geopolitical and/or economic events.

And, in this sense, yes I absolutely think it makes sense, because the South definitely got the shorter end of the stick when it came to Unification, and Romano as a person already felt inferior to Feliciano due to how both Grandpa Rome and Roderich preferred his brother over him. Antonio also initially tried to trade Romano with Feli because he felt like Roderich had scammed him by giving him the 'lazy, high-maintenance' brother. Romano was basically always picked as the second choice anytime someone had to choose between Feli and him, and when he maybe thought he could finally be treated as an equal to his brother through unification, as they are both Italy, his hope was crushed right away once again.

#hetalia #aph italy #aph romano #aph italies #ask #chiedo venia se ho semplificato troppo alcune cose ma spero di aver spiegato abbastanza bene ^^' #the relationship between the Italies seems pretty accurate to me #like it's complicated there is one Italy but there is also so many Italies at the same time #some Italians would probably argue that North and South Italy aren't even enough and a Center Italy should be added too #ary spoke #analysis.txt

[keep-looking-to-the-sky-me]

ok so I've been shipping sidlink for years now and been in the zelda fandom for longer(fandom since 12, shipping since 16) so I'm used to seeing bad faith takes trying to explain why a ship between two adults who aren't related is "problematic" but "if you don't ship z/elink your a misogynist" is definitely the newest and most disheartening.

out of all of my LITERAL YEARS of shipping these two I haven't once seen a post bashing zelda or another female character. Even with the interruption of Yona I haven't seen much hate, sure there has been somethings here and there but for the most part everything's been chill.

what I wish people would do is analyze racism and sexism on the Gerudo, discussing how although link is gender androgynous in botw it comes at the price of orientalism, and how Zeldas powers being connected to birth right calls into question how much sexual agency she has. not you know....trying to prove moral failings based on what you ship(sidenote, please don't read this line and think im p/ros/hip I got beef with yall but that's for another post)

what I have seem instead was toxic z/elink stans putting sidlink hate directly in the ship tags. I can't look up sidlink on here and especially twitter without seeing a post saying that if you ship them you're a pedo when I haven't seen this behavior for all my years I've been shipping. only in the last year that I've seen it. I personally think the problem is (that isn't unique to z/elink) is that fans feel the need to feel justified when hating a ship, it isn't enough to just not vibe with it, there has to be a valid reason. so instead of ignoring it they come up with reason why liking something that's completely fine is a problem. so they come up with a reason like pedo are most recently misogyny. I don't like z/elink but I would never try to make a moral reason as to why.

you can understand sexism in zelda, and fandoms as a whole without shipping the main girl character. infact I would argue its more sexist to imply you can only understand a female character only when they're with a man. so if your gonna callout non-z/elink shippers for misogyny can I also callout z/elink stans for internalized homophobia with their weird need to nitpick every mlm ship?

#rant #ok to interact #ok to reblog #this is kinda a reply to a self proclaimed ceo #but mainly about stuff I've seen in general #mainly from new fans #sidlink #also don't yell at me ill c** #this is getting tagged #zelink #too because it shows my point better #legend of zelda #totk #tears of the kingdom #my post

[pinkomcranger]

Stubled upon your post about saga and it was a very interesting read. I have to say that i havent noticed mich racism, but thats mostly becuse i started avoiding gamming websites when the release date came.

I saw a few ppl on Reddit angry about the "white asshole" line. That line is weird but it makes sense in context. Shes at her absolute lowest, unable to resurface back and fight againts her self doubts. Shes spiraling! And alan did put her in there, kind of. While we can see in their interactions that she doesnt hate him or anything, her feelings of anger and sadness take over, making her lash out as someone rven though she knows its not really his fault. And as some said, it reflects racism of the real world and tells us soemthing about saga - that she experienced this kind of feeling before, implying greater history. And idk, just feels that it makes sense for a black charscter to agnowladge these issues.

i could be rambling but im typing this out on my phone, whoops!

The gaming bros were definitely the worst offenders of it, so you were smart to ignore the gaming websites. It's why I had such high hopes for tumblr and AO3 because I thought for sure Saga would be the most popular new character. Sucks that I was wrong.

The "another white asshole telling me what to do" line CAN seem out of left field, but at the same time, perfectly fits the narrative. Because up to that point, nobody was telling her what to do. The only person who could have immediately took himself out of that position.

At the point the line was uttered, she was at her lowest, like you said and it was evident she had been in that position before. It gave us another character trait in Saga and another hint at her backstory. Alan tried to play God with her life, however unintentionally and Saga had every right to be angry at him.

The fact that she DIDN'T hate him says so much about her, and it's all wonderful. She chose to forgive him. As a black woman, it made sense to reflect on that, however brief the moment was, and I appreciated it.

#alan wake 2 #saga anderson #alan wake #ask #my thoughts #strong black woman #I almost feel like I'm repeating myself #but I just want my thoughts to come across clearly #Saga deserves all of the love

[yellowspiralbound]

Since season 3 of The Witcher Netflix comes out tomorrow...here are some of my concerns on adaptation from this season onward. Potential spoilers for the future seasons and definite spoilers for the books. Long post ahead.

The Hansa's Dynamic

I am so worried about how the Hansa is going to be handled in the show. Like shaking in my boots terrified. The showrunners already really messed up Dandelion & Geralt's dynamic...and that's one of the easier dynamics present in the Hansa imo. The dynamic is already going to be screwy because Cahir is a middle aged man and not a petulant teenager if he's present in the Hansa at all (though I think he will be since Emhyr called him and Fringilla out at the end of s2).

Emhyr as a Character

Speaking of Emhyr...I think they might attempt to give him a redemption arc, and I cannot emphasize how bad of an idea that is. They're going to retcon the whole "wanting to impregnate Ciri" bit, which I have mixed feelings on. Like yes, on one hand that's fucking gross but on the other hand, that bit is in there to show how fucked up Emhyr is and why Geralt needs to get to Ciri so quickly; it adds a sense of urgency to the Hansa's travels. If I see Emhyr sympathizers on my dash after this season I will lose my fucking mind.

Milva's Pregnancy & Related Scenes

I suspect that Milva's pregnancy is going to be cut entirely or play up the rest of the Hansa's concern for her as a weird "men think they can control women's bodies" thing which Milva will have to fight with them about so the show can be appropriately pro-choice without exploring any of the pro-choice nuance the books bring up. I can just see Regis talking to the guys about it being turned into a "the father deserves a say in a woman's choice to abort" scenario instead of the "I will give this woman her abortion regardless of what you all think about that (and I've made that VERY clear) but I think she's making this choice because she believes you all will abandon her/not support her if she wants to keep this baby and someone needs to make sure that she knows that won't happen" scenario that it actually is. This is also plays into my concerns about the Hansa's dynamic as changing that scene changes it irreparably.

Characterizing Nilfgaard as a Nation

Right now I feel like the show could go one of two ways 1) Nilfgaard is wrong in everything it does or 2) Nilfgaard is right in everything it does (if Emhyr gets a redemption arc). The show has already made a show of the Northern Realms' racism, which is book accurate mind you, but I fear this will translate to a sort of "Nilfgaard is the better nation as its less racist" scenario. While Nilfgaard is better in that aspect and a few others, it is still a militant slave nation. Nilfgaard and the Northern Realms both have their evils and their virtues; that's a big point in the books and the games. Neither nation is 100% good or 100% bad - they're just nations. I don't think the show will be able to handle that kind of nuance.

Jaskier & Radovid...

Apparently, Radovid is supposed to be one of Jask's love interests this season. Radovid is a massive racist, a war criminal, and a teenager. I'm sure all of that's going to be retconned but for fuck's sake just make a new character if you're going to age up and completely change the personality and insanity of an existing one. Important note: I am 1000% in support of queer Jask. I have never shipped that man with a woman in my life (even in the books and games) but for the love of God why did his LI have to be fucking RADOVID??

Mistle & the Rats

If they make Ciri and Mistle a love story, I am going to be disappointed but not surprised. Let me be clear: Mistle is a rapist and an abuser. I suspect they will change that to shoehorn in a queer relationship (even though Triss and Philippa are RIGHT THERE if they want a semi-canon wlw couple). The Rats as a whole are definitely going to be made into more robinhood-like characters because God forbid a main character like Ciri is morally grey or does questionable/bad things.

Geralt's Disability

If this season ends with the Vilgefortz and Geralt fight, as I suspect it might, Geralt will be disabled permanently by the end of this season. The dryads do not fix it. Magic does not fix it. Geralt becomes disabled and stays disabled. His disability becomes a hindrance during the books and the reader actively sees him grapple with the fallout of this. I do not trust this show to handle that - especially with how much more closed off Geralt is in the show compared to the books. If I had to guess, Geralt's disability will be handwaved away or mentioned in passing and never actually shown to impact him which is not cool.

#the witcher #the witcher books #the witcher netflix #twn critical #books vs show #the hansa #milva barring #maria barring #regis #cahir #cahir mawr dyffryn aep ceallach #emiel regis #jaskier vs dandelion #jaskier #dandelion #geralt of rivia #cirilla fiona elen riannon #the witcher s3 #spiral's thoughts

[ninja-muse]

This month's last-minute review is brought to you by something of a reading slump. I've read a fair number of good books this month, if you look at the ratings I've given them, but no books that I've gotten excited about, that I've felt were unexpectedly good enough that I had to talk about it.

Until now.

Lovecraft Country was my first Matt Ruff, and it's not going to be the last. It's well-written, with strong characters and good humour, and a really interesting structure. It's a smart book, and feels very grounded and real. Is it an astounding book? No, but it does its thing very well and I enjoyed reading it more than I thought I would.

Let's start with the structure, because that's one of the things that impressed me most. It's a novel-of-stories, with each chapter being a different character on their own adventure, but there's still a narrative arc for the book, clues the characters gather and the readers pick up on, and nastiness that builds and builds until the final showdown. It's a tough structure to pull off, but Ruff's done it.

I also liked that the structure lent itself very well to a sort of puzzle-box story. You get all these clues and hints about what's truly going on, even if you don't realize that till later, and even though you kind of know where the book is going, watching everything slowly slot into place and trying to put everything together before the characters do is a good part of the fun. It's a lot like watching good SFnal TV, which Ruff's author's note says this was meant to be; you get invested in the characters and the individual "episodes", but there's meaning in that key, that comic book, that thing in the forest. Surely there must be, but how?

And the characters! I loved all the point-of-view characters—they're smart, opinionated, complicated, aware of the forces acting against them and doing what they can to avoid them. I was scared for them, I wanted them to succeed, all that good stuff. The white people are also believably drawn, in that they're self-important, greedy, and used to power, but also, when the story allows for us to see it, sympathetic and complicated all the same.

It's hard to say whether this is science fiction or fantasy, but it's definitely in that wheelhouse rather than being a straight-up historical novel. There are ghosts and monsters and grimoires and secret dimensions and a lot of other stuff you might expect to find in a book that's influenced by pulp fiction and early sci-fi and horror. But, as with a lot of genre work that tackles such things these days, Ruff has fun with this stuff while also adding a social twist to them. In this case, having a Black cast allows Ruff to illuminate and comment on the racism inherit to the 1950s. There's humour to it, but in a way that helps the points hit home.

And that brings me to the last thing I need to mention: that this is a book about Black people written by a white man. It's also written primarily for white people, as far as I can tell, because while the characters take redlining and sundown towns for granted, Ruff doesn't assume that his readers will even know what those are or, if they do, be aware how they actually impact people. However, Ruff's also done his research and tackled the subject thoughtfully. The characters don't conform to stereotypes but are definitely informed by their pasts. The stuff they face goes beyond the usual talking points of Black History For White People; there's mention of boycotts of racist businesses, the Tulsa race massacre, the intricacies of buying real estate while Black, the difficulties of loving science fiction when everyone who writes it hates you. And of course he acknowledges that dealing with racist BS on a daily basis and constantly being underestimated puts you at an advantage when there's some really massive BS going down. I thought Ruff handled it all very well, without being heavy-handed or going into anything that he couldn't do justice. (Well, maybe Ruby's story. I need to think about that one more.)

So yeah, I was surprised by this book on a few fronts, and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The humour and love of SF tropes, balanced with the antiracism and social commentary, was right up my alley, and the way Ruff told the story was the cherry on top. Like I said, it's not an amazing book—it might have pushed the boundaries of speculative fiction when it came out but it certainly doesn't now—but it entertains and enlightens and does so cleverly. This won't be my last Matt Ruff, like I said above, but I'm also not likely to pick up another one for a while. Maybe in a year or two when I get a hankering for the sort of stuff he does.

#book reviews #booklr #bookblr #speculative fiction #adult booklr #book photography #read in 2023 #Lovecraft Country #Matt Ruff #book recommendations #my photos

[thelunaticghost]

xvn fic recs !!

i have been meaning to do this for a while : mostly because fic recs are fun to compile and also thee seems to be a BIG shortage of any fic rec posts!! so here are some fics i have enjoyed over the years!! ofc this list is non exhaustive please note the ratings of each fic and heed the tags before reading! sorry, that i am putting in the shorter summary

anyway!! feel free to put in more fic recs too!! :D

End OTW Racism | over the edge of all our knowings by merthurlin [ G, 10,146 words , 1/1 ]

Years down the line, after the whole business with Lumine and her brother has been concluded, Venti decides to go on a world tour. He sends Xiao letters.

merthurlin got me into xiaoven so ofc my list starts with her fic! this is just so so sweet and even if its not necessarily fluffy there is a warmth to the writing it is a comfort read for me! i recommend every work by her (regardless of fandom). though in xvn End OTW racism | never dreamed of nobody like you is another excellent fic!

nocturne by yanrans [ T, 34,540 words, 4/4 ]

In which Venti sells magical music boxes, Xiao is his unwitting customer, and there is absolutely, definitely nothing more to it at all.

modern au where venti is - a scammer? - i mean a music box seller and xiao is just a regular guy and and. its funny and delightful and absolutely breath taking. i wouldnt elaborate more so as not to spoil anything further but the fic has many unexpected surprises in it! yanrans is another writer i definitely recommend to check out more! their writing style is very flamboyant and poetic.

what hides in neon shadow by morii_tea [ T, 7,547 words, 1/1 ]

In which Xiao is a cyborg, Venti is a thief, and the glittering city of Teyvat hides more secrets than they’re prepared to find out.

its so rare to see morally grey venti is potrayed (even though he isnt v morally grey but still. xiao having to remembering that venti isnt as honourable as he appears is yesssss wohoo). this fic has some thrilling action and a v fun cyberpunk world!! i wish it was longer but it is v exciting nevertheless

every morning in the dark by magicites [ M, 77,124 words, 34/34 ]

Stuck in a time loop where he succumbs to his karmic debt, Xiao struggles to see the point in moving forward. Venti struggles to save him.

READ THE TAGS!!! character death and suicidal thoughts are two major warnings. but DAMN this fic it's just so. SO FULL of everything WRONG with xiao!! and venti too but such a GREAT angst fic!! it gets everything so Right. magicites also happened to have written one of my most favourite genshin fic too :] and if you havent read her other works!! you are missing out!!

the half-life of the yaksha is absolute by GStK [ G, 1,000 words, 1/1 ]

Venti digs his thumbs in to keep open the wound but it is too late His gaze snaps over to the teal essence dancing over Xiao’s fingers. Now all those words will belong to him And Venti will belong to him, only.

READ THE TAGS!! now that i have went into the time loop fic ofc i have to mention the beautiful corrupt xiao prose. the imagery is flowery and grotesque!

foreigner's god by smallghosts [ T, 3,818 words, 1/1 ]

Lord Barbatos falls asleep for a few hundred years. Xiao copes with his absence in strange ways.

a pre-canon fic where xiao becomes - in a way - a worshipper? it's SO GOOD. its about the yearning!!!!!!!!! SCREAMS i dont think i have to explain further

love me like you do by Limerancy [ T, 3,000 words, 1/1 ]

They aren’t the kind of friends that touch.

TOUCH STARVED AND TOUCH AVERSE XIAO!!!!!! this fic makes me a lil bit feral. a little unhinged. i absolutely enjoy reading about the yearning , the desire JUST!!!! AAAA. this writer also writes v fluffy modern au one shots!!! so be sure to check them out too :)

The Kissing Tree by Princeliest [ G, 7,581 words, 2/2 ]

Venti kisses Xiao, and Xiao does not understand why.

VENTI COMMITMENT ISSUES!!!!! as much as i adore reading xiao angst, venti angst is still something i love seeking out and its a tragedy that its not explored enough in this ship :c but anyway!!! such amazing characterization and exploration!! princeliest is one of fav genshin writers and this fic delivers!

wishing on dandelions all of the time by OedipusOctopus [ T, 8,270 words, 1/1 ]

When Venti first catches sight of the swords artfully hung on the wall of his new roommate's bedroom, he regrets putting up the sublease on Craigslist. Firmly believing this guy is a total weirdo, Venti is more surprised than anyone when he realizes the total weirdo is actually adorable. It's not against some invisible Roommate Code to dream about kissing your roommate, right?

ofc there is a classic roommate au fic!! this was one of my most favourite fic from last years xvn week: its hilarious and silly and just a perfect relaxing read!! the characterization and their banter is so entertaining i admit i have read this multiple times!

Where Words Fail by kavvueh [ T, 27,926 words, 11/12 ]

"You're Barbatos," Xiao repeats breathlessly. The young man in front of him nods. "Yep." "But..." Xiao cuts himself off and tries again. "You're the God of songs and poetry." The Anemo Archon nods his head sagely. "More or less." Xiao fixes Lord Barbatos with the most incredulous look he can manage. "... You're failing Music Theory."

this fic is such a delight!! it has some light background lore, some silly shenanigans, miscommunications, pinning - a truly fun mixture! the fic is v light hearted but written with a lot of tenderness. i am v excited to see its conclusion!

what queer sins stain thy soul by Anonymous [ M, 3,232 words, 1/1 ]

In which Xiao, long-established asexual, learns that identity is not as stable as he’d like to believe.

there is some explicit things in it (in non explicit way) i believe religious guilt is one of the best flavouring to xvn. it is an under-explored area in this ship imo and this fic not only has that but also!!! asexuality !!!!!! this fic so so personal and its exploration of desire that gets to me a lot

unholy virtues by morphasia [ E, 17,065 words, 6/6 ]

In exchange for his body in more ways than one, Venti summons a demon to reclaim something that has been stolen from him. It's a just contract. That's all it's supposed to be. That's all it was ever supposed to be.

READ THE TAGS!!! this fic truly went creature/creature. this au is just so fascinating and funny in a twisted way (but not bad). this fic isnt for everyone though but it is definitely worth the shot.

#luna rambles #genshin impact #xiaoven #venxiao #thats all i think ? #anyway this made me realize that i forget to bookmark so many fics..... #whoops #and also that i tend to like fics on how much i like venti's characterization. hehe #but yeah this is non exhaustive list! if someone wants to add they can ofc! sorry for my over commentary #and even though i repeat it in the post itself 13804 times: check out other works by the writers!!! #i wanted to include more but. but the post is so long already you know? like i couldve done a shorter format BUT AAAAAA #i could idk it's just not. the same #making such posts is just a destress activity to me tbh

[tyrannuspitch]

another thing that's really uncomfortable about the comics backstory is that it's very often like. 1. loki was adopted as a ~10 year old, not a baby, and therefore 2. his heritage was never even remotely a secret. and in this circumstance i feel like thor being abusive (esp from the start) is... so much worse?

like, in the mcu with its secrecy and early adoption, you can say that if thor mistreats loki, it's at least partly because he's semi-consciously picking up on their parents not treating loki as equal, but he doesn't know why, so it's just How Things Are (and always have been, literally as long as he can remember!). like, loki being abused is normalised at a fundamental level for thor. and if odin and frigga don't intervene, well, they've already proven their willingness to treat loki as inferior by lying to him his whole life. the mcu is definitely its own kind of horrifying, but it's a quiet and insidious kind, and you can see how the characters could be gradually led into worse and worse actions over time.

whereas in comics canon, where everything is out in the open from the start... thor mistreating loki just looks like straightforward, conscious prejudice. even if he claims otherwise, it's really hard to believe that space racism ISN'T a factor. sure, you just decided your adopted-brother-from-a-completely-dehumanised-enemy-species is your inferior for... no reason. convincing! and the parents not intervening is like... they don't even have anything to hide??? why would you even be hands-off about this unless you literally, consciously want it to happen? it's literally just like. "hey 'dad' you know the boy you told to treat me like a brother last week? well he isn't doing that. he's using me as a punchbag instead" "oh. how sad, my son." "are you going to tell him to stop???" "no."

like, when mcu thor calls loki his brother i believe him. i really do think that mcu thor truly and deeply sees loki as his brother, and himself and loki as fundamentally tied together (to a potentially unhealthy extent), etc etc. but sometimes when comics thor calls loki his brother it's like... okay, but you've never treated him like a brother. you have spent your whole life punishing him for being different at every opportunity. but now that you want to scold him, you're brothers? this is not love! this is an excuse!!!

like. i may not be being entirely fair to the comics here; there may be far better and more complex versions i haven't found yet. but just based on my experience so far... in the mcu, "they hurt you but they're your family" is this elaborate manipulative mind game where everyone involved really does love each but finds ways to justify the abuse anyway, so love and abuse are inseparable and often expressed by the exact same act, and this causes fundamental damage to the sons' concept of what love even is, whether love without abuse is *possible*, whether ceasing to love "family" is *possible*, etc etc... whereas in many of the comics, "they hurt you but they're your family" is like. those are literally the only two things they do. they hurt you, and then they SAY you're their family to stake ownership while doing absolutely nothing to prove their alleged love, not even the barest scraps of affection, ever. like come on??? i would cause the apocalypse over and over too!!!

(and as i said before - the situation being bad doesn't make the writing bad. but this continuous hand-wringing and pretending that thor's part in it is more complicated and more sympathetic than they ever actually show... does.)

#space viking tag #constructive complaining #s: comics #ch: thor #ch: loki #r: loki + thor #th: abuse + empire #th: ethnicity

[museenkuss]

just letting you know the post abt the lashes is by a terf, and talking abt fake lashes and nails is a really common terf thing that specifically targets black and latina women (by singling out trends they started as uniquely vulgar and feminine in the “wrong” way)

Thank you for letting me know! I agreed with the sentiment(more on that below), but was really uncomfortable with how mean it was expressed, so I’d deleted the post before even seeing your ask, but I really appreciate you reaching out with this addition!!

This is going to be a longer message that touches on feminism, and, by association, terfs. I’m doing my best to express my thoughts through the language barrier and I hope I’m getting my points across. It’s also just my personal thoughts because your last sentence rung some bells for me. So there’s no need to read it, of course. My message is mainly a “thank you for letting me know!!”

I just felt the need to say this:

I’m not sure the reason why terfs call out make up culture is because they think it’s “vulgar” or feminine in the wrong way. That sounds more like conservative reasoning, as in, something trad wives or fundamental Christians would say. This is not me defending terf transphobia in any way, please don’t take this the wrong way. I just think it’s important to acknowledge that terfs have feminist beliefs, because denying that that’s what those beliefs are is going to circle back into something akin to “criticising make up in any way is transphobic and conservative”.

I’m saying this because being make up critical is a core feminist issue and while I don’t associate with terfs OR agree with their transphobia, I’m a feminist. So I agree that make up culture is bad, that it’s terrible how women are taught to hate their faces and to spend so much money, time and mental peace on what they get glued to their body or ripped out of their body. HOWEVER, this is very much an issue with society and not with the individual. This is also something I struggle with, because I personally always prioritise empathy — hence me deleting the post. I feel bad for the girl who feels the need to spend hours on “natural make up” AND I can see that make up can be self expression & build community AND I hate hate HATE the beauty industry for making us feel like there is only one way to be beautiful — by being consumerist objects. It’s a very difficult topic to me.

The thing is: terfs agree with that last point. I know because I see many posts I agree with that turn out to be terf posts. That’s because terfs are, by definition, radical feminists. There is an overlap between feminists and terfs. That’s why I don’t think that terfs target make up because they think its “vulgar” — that word really sat wrong with me. This is a difficult topic to navigate, I think. Because they have bad opinions, but also have opinions I (and other feminists, I’m sure) agree with. That doesn’t mean I agree with their hurtful opinions, but it also doesn’t mean their other opinions are bad by association.

That’s what I meant at the start: I worry that we see feminist talking points (prostitution, make up, porn, kink…) through the lense of terf transphobia. To illustrate this in a philosophical argument structure:

Terfs agree make up culture is bad. Terfs are transphobic. Therefore, the opinions terfs agree with are transphobic. <- as a feminist, I worry about this conclusion.

DISCLAIMER: I might be wrong. Maybe I read something in the post that wasn’t there. I’m not a terf and I don’t make it a habit to associate with them. So maybe all of this is me being way too kind.

I hope what I’m trying to say is coming through. I think terfs hate make up because they’re feminists. I worry that we are going to start associating feminism with transphobia (and racism, if I interpret your message correctly). I personally (to make my stance clear) will always value empathy over anything else, I support trans people and people who wear make up (I have complicated feelings about make up).

This is a really difficult topic, imo. I’m sorry for making this whole rant, frankly, but I really am worried. This is also not attacking you for telling me, of course!!! I’m thankful for that. I just took this chance to express some thoughts.

[otakween]

Digimon Tamers - Episode 13

Whelp I guess they used up all the budget for episode 12 because this one was really bad. Like unpleasant to watch at times bad. You can't tell from my screenshots, but most of this episode was composed of still images, extreme close ups, and lazy silhouettes. Oh well, this is just the nature of these older, long-ish shows.

Notes:

So from the opening shot I knew this was gonna be a rough one. An overly long silhouetted battle between Guilmon and...some other digimon they didn't feel like animating properly lol. The shot that annoyed me the most though was the scene where Takato is talking with his teacher and the camera is zoomed out on their basically still bodies. Takato's teacher is frozen in this unnatural pose with her hand on her face for waaaay too long. I was like "MOVE!" There was a similar shot at Jian's family's dinner table where one of his sisters was frozen, smiling at the screen while everyone else was moving. These are the things I notice as an adult lol. Really takes you out of it.

Since there was so little animation, this episode compensated with a lot of talk with HYPNOS rambling on about their latest plans. I had to keep rewinding because there was a lot of jargon and I would zone out because there was nothing to look at on screen. The worst offender was the "Zoom call" (I know Zoom wasn't a thing) between the main HYPNOS dude and his colleagues. I thought maybe the images on screen were supposed to be profile photos because they didn't move, but then they moved slightly! Were those supposed to be live videos?? Was one guy just in "swinging-a-golf-club" pose for like 10 minutes straight? They should have just kept them still at that point...

The writing for Asanuma-sensei is so weird. She tells Takato that she thinks she "made a mistake" becoming a teacher. Uh...TMI! You don't say that to your 10 year old student! And then Takato agrees with her, which was so shady lol. I guess I wasn't wrong when I said she sounded dead inside.

Juri's Guilmon doodle was adorable. Glad she's sticking up for Takato. I like her little dog puppet, but can't help but feel if she did that IRL she'd get bullied :/

I really don't like the HYPNOS ladies. Their jobs are just too vague and they don't really have personalities. They always look off-model too.

So...main HYPNOS guy is racist?? Suggesting that Jian's family should pronounce their names the JAPANESE way. Geez. You don't see racism brought up too often in anime unless it's fantasy racism, so I found that interesting. Since their names were Americanized in the dub, I guess its probably left out.

So Jian's dad was one of the creators of Digimon like Oikawa? I didn't see that coming. Definitely the most intriguing revelation of the episode. If he knows about Digimon then...wouldn't he realize that Terriermon is one?

Impmon telling Culumon that his "culu culu" gimmick is annoying was satisfying not gonna lie lol. I want to see more of the two of them together.

Chinese characters always seem to have big families in anime. I guess that's the stereotype in Japan. Seems weird to me because of the old "one child" policy, but what do I know? (I guess Chinese immigrants in Japan would be a different story).

Sooo...mysterious ending with Terriermon acting hypnotized (haha HYPNOS...get it?) Kind of alarming since he was smacking into the window. I was struggling to digest the explanation but I think HYPNOS is baiting the digimon so that they can destroy them?

We get some hint of a potential big bad because one of the enemy digimon mentions his "God..." They're sure taking their time to cut to the chase with this one.

#digimon tamers #digimon #anime

[aevallare]

Hi! Hope you're well :) weird question maybe, but how is it moving to Denmark and living there as a foreigner? I've been a couple times, loved the country and am thinking of maybe moving there. Are people welcoming? I've have great experience there, but I've heard from others that it may be hard to make friends/know new people, and I'd be moving there on my own so that's kinda something I'd need 😆 thanks for all the great content!

yo!

my feelings on denmark are complicated. before anything else, i love it here. the climate and culture (generally speaking) are just about perfect for what i want out of life. there's very little emphasis on hierarchy and a good balance between collectivistic and individualistic values. this is a great country for a queer person to live in. taxes are high, but i find that that's a very small price to pay for free healthcare, education, and subsidized childcare among other things.

as a foreigner... eh. the first thing to keep in mind is that denmark has some of the strictest immigration rules in europe, so if you're looking to move here, make sure you look into whether it's a realistic venture. a lot of people (especially those with danish spouses) actually move to sweden and commute to copenhagen from there because sweden's rules are less uh... tyrannical. lol.

and there are other issues, of course. i miss diversity a lot. there's a racism issue that very few people seem to want to engage with or even acknowledge. i love the summers because the days are so long but the winters are so so so dark.

as far as if people are welcoming or not, it's kind of a mixed bag. my experience is colored by the fact that i came here via marriage to a native dane who already had his social network (and i also don't really need many friends/social interaction). i think, personally, unless you were going to university, it can be very hard to make friends without an in-road. it's not that danes aren't friendly, because they definitely can be (particularly in nordjylland, where i live), but they often stick with the connections they had from childhood. they aren't really looking for friends past that.

that being said, i think once you truly manage to make friends with a dane, you have one for life.

that's not to be a hater entirely. obviously every country has its own problems. but if you're thinking of moving here (particularly as a poc), i would keep these things in mind. i've lived here for years now. i speak the language fluently. i would consider myself well-integrated.

but i think i'll always be considered a foreigner in denmark, even if i get citizenship someday.

all that being said, if you do end up here, drop me a line. there's a guest room in aalborg for you, if you'd like. <3

#asks #obviously i'm speaking in generalizations

[gerardpilled]

this might make no sense.. but it’s kind of crazy how so many lindsey antis are like super long time fans (who more often than not used to stan msi way back when…) and its not hard to see an immediate connection to the people who used to hate lindsey for just being with gerard and didn’t gaf abt the stuff she did (bc again,,, they loveddd msi) like it just seems like they ran to the opinion that’ll let them hate lindsey and still have public favor

Definitely definitely definitely. I’ve always thought a lot of it comes off this way. She was extremely well loved on tumblr circa 2015-2018 (just based on my experience and who I followed, I’m sure there were circles that hated her) and that very much went hand in hand with liking msi for a lot of people. I definitely do think some of the people who straight up hate her have always hated her but that hate was less rooted in pointing out genuine issues and more with thinking she was wrong for Gerard or a bully or whatever.

I do think if you were to get into larger cultural shifts it can get more complicated. Like in general it feels white people (including myself) are better informed on recognizing racism and racist behaviors than we were back then (could also just be me personally growing up, so bias) and there’s a lot of i think extremely nuanced convos around that that I’m not qualified to talk about especially on a mcr blog lol.

#also only tangentially related but I feel like a lot of the younger kids who hate her are also obsessed with South Park??? #and I’m just like ???? msi is literally South Park in music form how do you ‘get’ one and not the other #also also a lot of the white people who talk about this stuff talk like they’ve never had a meaningful conversation with a non white person #before and it’s obvious they just view POC as vessels to prove their wholeness 😭

[moon-andstardust]

A fic rec list for comic Goldenheart(Ballister Blackheart x Ambrosius Goldenloin) as requested by @thatmaladaptivedaydreamer

putting it under read-more cause this got way too long way too fast :,)

1) Take a Step Back and Start Again by lc2l

A story about two partially broken, mostly fixed men; a small child and a cat.

2) Black Flag by wakeupnew

Ballister finds himself thinking of life two ways: Before Nimona and After Nimona.

After Nimona, he has an injured former knight for a houseguest, an alarming amount of goodwill from the general population, and a life to try to put back together.

3) Once bitten, twice spy by bewickedandlovely

Even now with his face covered in claw marks, Goldilocks' smiles did funny things to Ballister. Nimona hadn’t decided if Ballister was still a friend, but she knew for sure that she didn't trust Goldilocks. She had to make sure he didn’t use his weird smiles to hurt Ballister, because Ballister would be too much of an idiot to make sure of that himself.

4) Two Nights in Knights in Knight School by tehta

So, how did the teenage Ambrosius and Ballister get together, anyway? I suspect that, in canon, it was the simplest and most natural process in the world. In this comedy of misunderstandings, it is... not.

5) When There's Nothing Left To Burn (End Racism in the OTW) by strix_alba

Sir Blackheart could really use some down time to process recent events, but the kingdom (and a few people in particular) have other plans for him. Plan A involves adoring fans and discounts at the open-air market. Plan B involves hospital visits to make sure he won't need another metal arm. Plan C includes a mysterious treatise tacked onto the Institution doors, and posters with his name on them appearing across the city.

6) Lost in Translation by InfiniteCalm

Three months later and things aren't as simple as they could have been. You could talk complicated feelings through, but why put yourself through that? After all, Ballister is excellent at steadfastly ignoring both crushing loneliness and any sort of non-violent tension with erstwhile enemy, current friend, Ambrosius Goldenloin.

7) [a short pause] by nushkush

Goldenloin remembers the past, but not his part in it.

8) A Business Proposal by PlethoraofSweaters

Ambrosius chose success over love. That kind of decision always has its drawbacks.

9) you better watch out, you better not cry by meguri_aite

“If our Santa says she isn’t Nimona, we have to believe her,” Ballister says calmly. “Ginger biscuits, anyone?”

10) The Spirit of Christmas Past by tehta

Arch-nemeses Blackheart and Goldenloin are haunted by the spirits of Christmas past. Actual drinkable spirits play a significant role, as well.

(Basically, Ambrosius gets wasted and tries to call Ballister)

11) Death Will Be My Wedding to Eternity (and I Hope to See You There) by WizardoftheRainbow

A chronicle of the incredibly arduous emotional journey undertaken by one Sir Ambrosius Goldenloin, from his childhood to the end of Nimona.

12) Decision/Mistake by YellowFlannelFrog

After a scheme gone awry, Ballister takes an injured Ambrosius back to his secret lair (house) to recover. It's still early on in his villain days, and there are a lot of emotions Ballister keeps inside. And when dealing with Ambrosius Goldenloin, some of them are definitely going to come to the surface.

13) (Stuffed) Sharks Have No Bones by oflightningandstars

Ballister comes home with a surprise for baby Nimona. Baby Nimona likes pranks. Ambrosius is not thrilled. (Nimona Gay Dads AU)

#nimona #nimona comic #ballister blackheart #ambrosius goldenloin #goldenheart #ballister blackheart x ambrosius goldenloin #ballister x ambrosius #comic ballister #comic ambrosius #fic rec #fic rec list

[snippychicke]

Aftermath--Chapter One

Summary:

Raymond Chestnut gets a harsh surprise when he realizes the body in his living room isn't actually dead. Now he has a severely injured white man, who tried to kill him, to deal with. Thankfully he knows a friend who might be able to help.

Lorelei was used to people coming to her for medical attention. But when Raymond brings Otto to her home, nothing could prepare for how her life was about to change.

--------

Well, if you followed me like... 3-4 years ago, you may remember I was quite into the Swedes from The Umbrella Academy...

I never got over them to be honest.

So here we are, I am proving my screen name yet again with a rewrite of an old story! That I never finished! But hey, my writing skill have definitely improved.

For those unfamiliar, go watch season 2 of the Umbrella Academy. The blonde assassins? Those were the boys that inspired the rise of ol' Ikea Mafia Fam. As well as the following story in which a white woman born in the 80's tries to write the perspective of a poc woman in the 60s. (and prays she is not being offensive in any way and begs forgiveness if she is.)

Also:

Herb did not, in fact, take away the dead body of the Swede Assassin. 

It was still laying in Raymond's living room, long after everyone else had disappeared in flashes of blue lights. Wrapped tightly in the rug his sister had gifted him and Allison on their wedding day. 

Silent. 

Foreboding. 

Raymond watched the unmoving figure as he sipped at his scotch. There was no way in hell he could move it by himself. And who could he trust to ask for help to move it? 

To move him, Raymond reminded himself harshly. It wasn't an it, it was a ‘him.’ That was a human body resting in his living room. 

Who, admittedly,  had tried to kill him and Allison. But still, Raymond could at least acknowledge him as a fellow human. After all, Raymond had tried so hard to be the respectful and peaceful man his grandmother raised him to be. Even when faced with the violence because of his involvement with the protests, or being unfairly treated time after time because of racism, he never raised so much as a hand to another human being. 

He shouldn't try to deny another man his humanity, even if he was a dead would-be murderer. 

But he was still stuck with a dead white man in his living room. It didn't matter that the man and his brother had forced their way into their home (his home, now that Allison was gone, but he didn't want to deal with that heartache on top of everything) with intent to kill both of them. 

All the law would see was a white man dead in a colored man's house. 

He would go to prison… No. He was going to be lynched for this. Old-fashioned hung from a tree for the whole city to see. 

Raymond tipped the rest of the scotch back and poured another full glass as the liquid burned its way to his stomach. All of his work, gone. He had abandoned his education and teaching position so he could do his part for the Civil Rights movement. He had hoped he could do some good.

And instead, he had made things worse. 

It was probably a good thing Allison had…left to be with her family. It was comforting to know she was safe and alive somewhere somewhen. A small, cold, comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. 

His lips touched the glass for another swig when he heard it. A noise so soft and quiet he was sure he had imagined it. Still, it made him freeze, his body tense as he held his breath, eyes darting to the rug. 

No. The man was dead. It had been hours since the attack. There was no way he could be somehow still alive. 

Raymond shook his head, deciding it was probably just the house settling, and shot back the drink once more, feeling the burn in his throat match the burn of his eyes. His whole life had just ended. It wouldn't be long before he would join…

His somber thoughts were cut off by another sound, this one unmistakable. 

A groan of pain. 

Raymond startled and jumped to his feet, throwing his glass out of reflex towards the body, which grunted as the glass bounced off the rug and shattered on the floor. He grabbed a butterknife off the table and held it towards the body; the cutlery shaking in his hand as he stared at the body. 

But there was only silence. For what felt like hours, Raymond stood frozen yet mentally daring it to do something. Anything. If it did, he would… he would…

The rug moved as another groan cut through the heavy silence. There was no doubting the haggard breathing and muffled moan of pain that quickly increased in both volume and frequency. Raymond cursed every foul word his grandmother would've washed his mouth out for and ran back to the kitchen to grab an actual knife. The long thick butcher’s knife his wife had used so skillfully once upon a time. 

He pushed that thought away and stalked back to the living room, gripping the wooden handle tightly in his shaking hand. Raymond towered over the rug, knife poised to strike where he assumed the man’s chest was. He had to do something swift. Otherwise…

Otherwise what? He was already a deadman walking. 

The knife clattered harmlessly to the floor as Raymond regained his senses. He was going to die either way, but wouldn't it be better to die innocent than guilty? Not just for his soul, but for the Civil Rights movement? His brother and sisters? 

Raymond dropped to his knees and desperately undid the knots he and Allison had tied, allowing the rug to fall open. The man's face was no longer placid with death, but grimacing in pain, pale lips pursed as he sucked in haggard breaths.  Blood was caked dry around the remains of his right eye, dark purple and black bruises colored his neck, while the rest of his skin was as pale as his blond hair. 

"Hey, uh buddy," Raymond said as he placed a hand on his shoulder, earning a painful grunt that caused him to yank his hand away. "Right. Sorry. Let's… let's get you to a hospital." Except questions would be asked, and Raymond would definitely be arrested. 

But… what if there was a chance he could avoid that? Someone that could help him and the man before him. 

"Actually, on second thought..." 

~❖~

Lorelei groaned as she fell into the old couch, slipping off her shoes and rubbing the ache from her feet. The third twelve-hour shift in a row at the hospital had left the young nurse sore and exhausted. This week had been crazy between the street shooting and the asylum patients escaping.

Then there was the man found in the woods. She grimaced at the memory of being briefed by the operating room's recovery nurse as she was assigned to John Doe for the rest of her shift because the white nurse had been overwhelmed and needed help (nevermind the black's unit had been just as understaffed before they had dragged her away). Even though the nurse had rattled off the injuries--including the traumatic amputation of his leg-- seeing the young man as white as the sheets, covered in bandages, left her heart sore. 

Dr. Wilson and his team had done their best, but they all had their doubts. No one knew how long the man had been in the woods, wounded. It had been a miracle he hadn't bled to death. But there had been plenty of time for sepsis to set in.

Lorelei's eyes were starting to drift shut when somebody desperately knocked at the front door; hard and frantic enough to rattle the glass panes of the windows. Her eyes shot back open and she jumped up out of instinct, her heart thundering in her chest as she stumbled around the coffee table to open the door. 

She knew it was going to be an emergency, knew that she should expect anything, but yet she wasn't prepared for Raymond Chestnut to be standing on her old porch, a man nearly twice his size leaning heavily on him with an ill-fitting tan suit covered in blood.   

A very pale, very white man.

"What the hell?" she started, automatically shifting to the white man's side, having to lift his arm to sling it over her shoulder to help support his weight. 

People coming to her was no surprise. It was normal for her the way people in their neighborhood would knock on her door for help, ranging from childhood bumps and bruises, injuries from teenagers getting into fights, and other emergencies. 

But that was from people in their neighborhood-- which was very much a black community. And while she was about as white-passing as they could get-- barely passing the paper-bag test most days--her skin was still far darker than the man she helped Raymond half-drag inside. 

Her stomach curdled at the wounds she saw, though the bloody mess of an eye was probably the worst. One slight touch to the unconscious man's cheek and he snarled as he shifted away, his other eye fluttering beneath its closed eyelid. "Shit. We need to get him to a hospital, Ray!"

"I know!" he hissed back, keeping his voice low despite the fact the door was closed and no one else in the old two-story house but them. "But can you imagine me pulling in the ER with him like this? I'd be lynched by dawn!" 

"What even happened?" She asked, noticing the darkening bruise around his neck. Without hesitating  she quickly undid the silk tie and ripped the white shirt open. There was no mistaking the shadowing of hand-prints that wrapped around his neck. Obviously not an accident, but if Raymond got in a fight, and one serious enough to do this kind of damage, why would he bring the man here?

Nevermind that Raymond was as pacifistic as it got, and she couldn't see him doing this. Hell, even if Raymond was fighting for his life, she doubted he could cause this kind of damage.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he said with a dry tone, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Hell, I barely believe it, and I lived through it."

She shot him a look, "I worked in the ER on a full moon on Halloween this year. Try me."

Before he could begin, however, she stood and quickly disappeared into the kitchen. Raymond could hear the faucet running as she rummaged through drawers, and within a minute she was back with a basin of water and more than a few washcloths. "Well?" She snipped as she soaked a washcloth and wrung it out before starting to work on the caked blood around his eye, making the man hiss and flinch but not wake up. 

"Him and his brother came to my house and attacked Ally and I. Allison did that," he gestured to the eye covered by a washcloth, "before telling his brother to kill him. Which I certainly thought he did when he strangled him, but…obviously not. So, here we are."

Lorelei paused and looked at him, confused and sure Raymond was lying to her. In fact, she was about to call out bullshit when she noticed the solemn look on his face. Raymond was a poor liar, and there was no way he could lie about something like this when he could barely keep a straight face about who had stolen the collards out of her abysmal attempt at a garden.

Yet there was nothing but complete honesty when he met her gaze, making her swear under her breath. 

Allison, while always a bit different and headstrong for sure, was still a lady. Lorelei had a hard time seeing the hairdresser stabbing someone. Granted, being attacked in her own home would make anyone lash out.

But the attempted strangulation? And she told the man’s brother to do so, and then he apparently followed through with her command? How? Why?

As perplexing as the mystery was, right now it didn't matter. She had a patient to tend to, the ‘hows’ and ‘whys’ did really matter. She shook her head to clear her thoughts and shifted to stand. "Come on, let's get him back in your car and get him to the hospital.  We can say we found him on my doorstep like this. Dr. Cahoy is working tonight, and..."

The man's hand suddenly shot up and gripped Lorelei's wrist tightly, making her freeze and Raymond tense. The man's other eye was open and staring hard at her, the soft blue somehow violent. "No," he said, his voice hoarse and barely a whisper.

"No?" She repeated, incredulous. "I can't treat the trauma to that eye. We need to take you to the hospital."

"No," he repeated, his hand tightening slightly, his fingers easily encompassing her small wrist. For a moment, Lorelei feared he would pop her wrist out of joint. Yet after a brief moment his grip relaxed, though he didn't let go. 

"You do realize you could lose your eye," Lorelei started, mentally adding 'if you haven't already.' The bloody mess concealed most of the damage, but she feared the worst already. Eyes couldn’t take a lot of damage before becoming blind, or needing to be removed. And, well, this one had been rather severely damaged.

The man stayed silent, his gaze not leaving hers. There wasn't an ounce of fear or worry in his expression. Just stubbornness and acceptance. "Fine," she sighed, giving in. "But in return for my services, you have to promise not to go after Ray and Allie, okay? Or any negro for that matter."

That was a big bluff for her to take, trying to demand that a white man make her a promise? Yet instead of being incensed, his gaze glanced briefly at Raymond before his eye fluttered close and he let go of her in apparent agreement. 

Lorelei stood, rubbing her wrist as she mulled her options. This was a bad idea. A terrible idea. White men could get the care they need at the drop of a hat. They could get quality care no matter where they went. She needed to save her stores for those not so fortunate. 

Yet something in her gut was leading her towards an idea that there was something was not quite right with the situation beyond the obvious. He only said one word, but there was a definite accent to it, and not one she was familiar with either. Her gut was telling her that she had to help him, and not just dump him off at the nearest ER. 

"Ray, start boiling some water.  Grab the pack of gauze and gloves under the sink too."

Raymond didn't ask any questions but nodded his head and followed her directions. Lorelei sighed as she touched the man's shoulder, making him crack open his good eye once more. "I'm serious here,” she continued softly yet firm. “I am not a doctor. I can do my best, but I doubt I can do anything to save your eye. You need a hospital."

"No," he repeated, though this time softer. Almost apologetic, as if he understood the moral quandary he was putting her through. Which, sympathy from a white man was just about as unbelievable as the rest of this.  

She pushed the thought away. "Do you have any plans to hurt Ray or Allie?"

"...no." he closed his eye, becoming stoic but not before she saw a flash of something. Anguish? Regret? Or just pain? 

"I'm holding you to that.” She didn’t much care about herself, but she wanted to protect her old friend and his wife. “Now, give me a name I can call you-- I don't need to be your real one," she continued as he looked at her strangely. "I just need a name you'll answer to."

"...Otto." That time she caught the accent but still didn't have an idea of where. Definitely not any of the local American drawls. Maybe that was why he was so much kinder than the usual white.  

"Well, Otto, I'm Lorelei,” she returned with a tight smile. “And this is probably going to hurt like a son of a bitch."

#the swedes #tua #tua the swedes #tua otto #oscar tua #otto/oc #the umbrella academy season 2

[qqueenofhades]

US-centric racial bullshit is even a problem in Canada. We LOVE pretending that we’re so much better than the United States and that our prejudices aren’t nearly as bad, but the way we’ve treated indigenous peoples has been abysmal for centuries, and most Canadians who aren’t Gen Z weren’t even aware of the worst of it until 2021. I’m not sure how many people outside of Canada know this but in 2021 they found a mass grave of 215 indigenous children outside an old residential school in Kamloops in BC, and everyone was scandalized for approximately two weeks. They’ve since searched like maybe five more schools out of over a hundred and found thousands of more bodies, and the initiative to even look has kind of fizzled out. This was my parents’ first exposure to the idea of residential schools, we’ve been sweeping this shit under the rug for decades, and we still get off to “not being the US”.

All this to say that Canadian history isn’t as flashy as the US but is still worth taking a look at. There’s a lot of harmful institutions still in place left over from like 1873 that symbolize incredibly tense political situations that continue to this day. And even our black history gets boiled down to “Underground Railroad”, oh aren’t we nice, when that’s really not all that happened.

Because I read international news and follow international politics, I am personally aware of the Canadian residential schools scandal, but it absolutely is something that fizzled out after a few weeks and was attempted to be covered up with a few boilerplate apologies and nothing in the way of real change or action. I would therefore gently question your phrasing of "US-centric racial bullshit," since the whole point of your ask is that while Canada pretends to be better than the US, it has its own specific racial and cultural blind spots relating to its own practice of racism. So would this not be more accurately called "Canada-centric racial bullshit?" After all, you're talking about something that happened in Canada, was perpetrated by Canadians, is directly related to the modern Canadian state, and as such as has been denied by white Canadians. After all, the big Trucker March of right-wingers that shut down Toronto took place in Canada, not the US. So yes, there's definitely a need to talk about Canadian racism in and of itself, and not just Canadian racism as a corollary of the US.

Canada is likewise a white settler-colonial state founded by Europeans (English and French, a split still prominent in modern Canada), and that therefore involved equally horrendous legacies of displacement and genocide against the First Nations people. Because Canada is so much smaller population-wise (300 million+ in the US vs just 38 million in Canada), it has thus to some degree been forced to expand its population by relying on immigrants and refugees. And to its credit, it has been more proactive about accepting refugees than the US. But there are still plenty of right-wingers who think that a geographically enormous and empty country like Canada, with only 38 million people, is getting too "crowded" with "foreigners." Likewise, Canada is still officially a part of the Commonwealth, aka the lightly rebranded British Empire, so its formal head of state is the UK monarch. And to the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any serious conversations about breaking that link and reorganizing as a republic, the way there have been in Caribbean Commonwealth countries like Jamaica and Barbados (which in fact just did it). That is because white first-world Canadians can see association with the British Empire as a "prestige," instead of the legacy of slavery and exploitation that was the British Empire against majority-black countries in the Caribbean.

Anyway: Canadians are always stereotyped as the nice people who apologize for everything and mind their business, and yes, the flaming dumpster fire of America would make anyone feel superior about not being that. But it doesn't mean there's no problems or that it's a perfect society free of its own flaws and failures, and Americans are also definitely guilty of treating it as some magical escape valve: witness the "I'm going to move to Canada" refrain when something political goes wrong here. In some ways, yes, that would be preferable, viz. free healthcare and strict gun laws. But yeah.

#murderturtles #ask #canadian history #history of racism