#hint anon : it's not calling nabateans lizards that make people see a parallel it's everything else around them

[randomnameless]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while but tbh I was hoping it'd stop before it became a regular thing, but that didn't happen... so anyway, I'll just cut to the chase, why do you keep calling the nabateans lizard people? This just feels wildly inappropriate tbh, to give a *fictional* group a label that carries such heavily antisemetic qualities. You are full on calling a group of shapeshifting dragons, one of which is head of a continental institution of power, and who hide their ability to shapeshift, an antisemetic label, and you are missing how this is actually worse. It has been exactly 0 weeks since I've seen people calling the nabateans 'lizard people' and then turning around saying they're jewish coded, and then calling people who don't like rhea antisemetic. Bc theyre 'lizard people' and therefore 'jewish'. This is literally so fucking offensive. Can you please at least come up with a different thing to call them? Bc this shit is just blasted in the main tags literally every single day and tbf it's extremely draining to see people constantly throwing that term around like it's nothing

I was debating whether I should reply to this given how I received a similar ask a little over a month ago from a notorious troll, but for the 1% of chance that this ask isn't another troll, and because I feel like it's important to put words on things, I'll give a complete answer -

under the cut, because it's long!

First of all, unless I missed a post after checking on the archive, I do not think I ever used the words "lizard people", except when it is to talk about the varying degrees of "weird" and "yikes" some takes in the fandom smell like.

If I did, however, I apologise, it was obviously not meant to make an antisemitic statement or whatever it is you think it was, as you might now I am not an english native speaker, so some idioms or association of words don't immediately lit a red light, I made some blunders some time ago and immediately corrected it when someone pointed it out (like, the word "bamboula" refers to an african dance, but the second you say "bamboula" in France you're immediately suspected of being racist, because it was used as a common slur in the 1910s and is still used in some, uh, far right conventions, I guess). If you have a post in mind, then feel free to share, and I'll edit it accordingly!

The tag I use for general Nabatean content is "lizard family time?".

Now, as you can guess after, I supposed, reading this blog and especially, content tagged with this, well, tag, I use it to tag cute/warm/random/fluffy artwork, headcanons, shitposts and whatnot. As the name suggest, I use it to tag content I like about Nabateans acting like a family.

As for, I supposed, the "lizard" mention that might make people confused, Nabateans are a race of fictional people in a fictional game who can turn in giant beasts, all beasts we have seen so far have reptile-like qualities or are, generally speaking, from the reptile family (a dragon, a turtle, and a... bird/griffin thing). Now, calling them "reptilians" felt a bit too close to a slur, but there were harmless jokes around about Rhea, because of her draconic form, having cold blood thus liking to sit on warm rocks, and I found it cute, thus I adopted the "lizard fam" denomination, and ended up with the "lizard family time?" tag.

Short story, long story : this tag is obvioulsy not meant to convey anti-semitic theories and thoughts about real people in real life, but to tag content about a fantasy race of shapeshifters who sometimes shift in giant reptiles who act as a familial cell.

Which brings me to my second point -

(and one I already developed a bit in the previous post)

Fire Emblem is a series who always had fantasy "humans" interact with another fantasy race of people being able to turn in other creatures, mostly dragons.

Fire Emblem Fodlan's take on those creatures is :

People who were genocided,

People racially profiled by their enemies who had a hand in said genocide,

People who hide those traits,

People who are religious,

People who are depicted by someone as ruling over the world in secret,

People who are depicted by the same someone as "hoarding money" and deceiving everyone,

People whose blood, according to the same someone's rhetoric, corrupts humanity and is the reason why the World sucks,

People who are constantly othered by their enemies, who cannot see them as being able to live with them, nor having "human feelings" because of their race,

+

The someone mentionned above comes from a country that names its people with names and surnames (and evern particles!) kind of similar to a real world country.

I do not think the developers of this game wanted to make a "Godwin Points : the Game" version of Fire Emblem, but there are a lot of clues someone who knows even very little of the recent World's History might catch and compare to, well, some events that happened.

As such, I do not think me calling Nabateans "lizard family" is an antisemitic label or calling them "lizards" is the only reason why, to some people, Nabateans are "jewish coded", to borrow your own words. I just made a bullet list of other "reasons" who might lead some people to believe this.

Anyways, I always advocate against insulting people or giving them labels based on their opinions about a bunch of pixels from a fantasy universe, so you can dislike Nabateans and not be called anti-semitic, just like you can not vote for a female character in a harmless poll and not be called a misogynist, just like you can like a bisexual character and not be called a homophobe, etc, etc.

Racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, antisemitism... are real-life legal concepts and notions that exist and encompass real situations, with real people, and real consequences.

Suggesting I might be anti-semitic because I quote Zephia call the Divine Dragon Alear a "lizard" is ridiculous, when we all know, even you, who sent this ask, what anti-semitism is and what it entails in real life for real people who are subjected to it.

Using real life notions and legal concepts to defend a bunch of pixels is puerile and ultimately says more about the one who is using those notions, thinking they can be easily distorted and used to talk about fantasy characters from a video game made by devs who forgot to hire a continuity guy, than whatever point he wanted to make.

As such, I do not think calling fantasy men and women who can transform in dragons/turtles/griffins-bird things "lizards" is offensive, but bringing up real-life discriminations and situations people are experiencing as we speak, to win an internet argument over fictional characters, is, imho, offensive.

If you do not agree, then you are free to block this blog and the contents I post (curate your Tumblr experience, the block button is here for that!), you can even report it to whoever is in charge of moderating this platform ; I do not think I breached any ToS and if I did, I would much prefer the Tumblr staff to tell me how and why, than someone who sends a message via anon asks who is, from what I can deduce from your ask, annoyed at seeing opinions - as smelly as they can be - about a video game.