#personal opinion so posting separately again but I will have more memes latter

[silwer999]

[thehollowprince]

"Pretty girl, pretty boy, and boom, instant couple." fandom and shipping culture has just completely warped our brains hasn't it? As if it isn't still important to see interracial couples in media, the fact that they are (presumably) heterosexual doesn't make it any less groundbreaking. Same with Scott and Kira, because how often does a popular show feature an interracial couple where neither party is white?

Oh, you are preaching to the choir!

Fandom has gotten to the point where it's so far removed from its source material that they might as well be two entirely separate entities.

For example, I saw a post recently that really hit the nail on the head.

Squid Game.

I can't tell you how many memes I saw making light of the show's incredibly heavy and dark subject matter. Or the fanarts that sexualized the guys in the red jumpsuits and geometric masks. Hell, I even saw celebrities that were having Squid Game themed parties, where they dressed up in costumes from the show. Fandom looked at this show about the exploitation of the poor by the wealthy for their entertainment, and said "it's all about the aesthetics".

It gets worse when you add shipping into the mix.

I have said it before and I'll say it again: shipping is the death of fandom.

Too many people are concerned with making their coffee shop AUs or their Soulmate AUs (or whatever) and not the actual text they're supposed to be basing everything on.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good AU as much as the next person, but I base my opinions on characters and ships on what actually happened "on screen".

What is truly baffling about the whole thing, particularly in fandoms like Teen Wolf, is how shipping not only completely dominates the fandom, but attempts to rewrite canon as well.

When I started to get involved in the fandom, season three was airing. I had only just finished season one, and so you can imagine my confusion when I saw that Sterek was such a big part of that fandom. At first I thought that maybe something had happened in the second season that I hadn't gotten to yet, but once I watched it, I was even more confused. There is literally nothing behind that ship except two pretty faces. Their entire relationship throughout the actual show was either sarcastic barbs or being outright antagonistic to each other. To make matters worse, they then rewrite the entire show to make the ship seem plausible to them and others, so that everything that created these characters and the story itself is now meaningless, because they've moved completely into an AU.

But then, when you criticize said ship, you get either harassed by A, or accused of being a homophobe. With the latter, I got a lot of messages back in the day, because I was more interested in Danny... y'know, the actual gay character on the show. But no, fandom chose to focus on a crack ship composed of two characters that had never been described as anything other than heterosexual.

But like you said, interracial relationships are important, and yet sadly incredibly rare, especially those where both parties aren't white. Sadly, that brings us back to the racism that permeates fandom. It's neither surprising nor unexpected, though maybe a little startling in its ferocity, but no, never a surprise. After all, racism is built into every aspect of our society, from our infrastructure to our politics to our educational system. Of course it'll be in our entertainment as well.

Racism and heteronormativity are the cornerstones that our society is built on. And you may be asking yourself, what does the latter have to do with a slash ship. Well, after looking at it for years, I can tell you that Sterek is a slash ship written for (and by) straight people. It's one of a number.

[cry-stars]

Hershel Layton and LayClaire for the meme?

Thank you so much! I’m sorry, this is super long.

Hershel Layton: 

How I feel about this character: 

I love Layton! I really love how, even though he’s a Sherlock Holmes-style genius and puzzle-solver, he has none of the arrogance that usually shows up in those kinds of characters. He’s gentle and kind, and always tries his best to protect others. He just has this calming effect on everything around him, somehow. I love how he shows mercy and kindness even to people that are rude to him or who have hurt him. He’s a true gentleman and really inspires me to be like him, honestly.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: 

I don’t actively ship him with anyone, but I have some fondness for both Layclaire and Layemmy, the latter mostly because of my friends who like the ship!

My non-romantic OTP for this character: 

Layton and all of his students/children, but especially Clive, haha… the two of them are very similar in a lot of ways, and I really love the idea of Layton deciding to extend mercy to Clive and helping him become a better person, and along the way, learning that maybe Clive also has some ways to help him as well.

My unpopular opinion about this character: 

Um… I don’t think he’s an awful dad. I think he’s pretty good, if a bit distant. He’s always kind and thoughtful, and always concerned for Flora’s safety (and I assume Alfendi and Katrielle too; I still haven’t finished Kat’s game). Layton’s main problem is that he doesn’t plan on being a dad, but when someone is in need of a guardian or caretaker, he just can’t say no and jumps to helping them, perhaps without being emotionally prepared. His first instinct is to help. Like, for Flora, Layton just wanted to solve an inheritance dispute, but finds a girl at the top of the tower who has no parents, likes him, and wants to go to London with him. How could he say, “sorry, I’m not ready to be your dad?” and leave her behind? 

Layton just needs to learn when to ask for help himself; he has parents and friends that could be a support system if he asked them. I think that he really tries his best, though, and there’s no way that he would ever be abusive or neglectful. I think he really should listen to Flora, of course; I love Flora to bits and I think the way he leaves her behind is awful. I just think that people need to think about Layton’s past, and how he’s trying his best to fill a position that he may never have been ready to take. It’s a grey area, for sure.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I wish Layton got more closure regarding all of the horrible things that happened to him. His long-lost brother vanishes, seemingly dead. His biological dad goes to jail. His best friend returns from the dead, and they never even get a conversation together. Claire dies twice, and while they got a final goodbye, he learned that she was alive and watched her die again all in the space of one day. So many awful things happen to him so quickly, and he never gets the chance to process them.

my OTP:

Layton/therapy

my cross over ship:

Not romantic, but I love his interactions with Phoenix and Maya so much. I want to see them go on another adventure together (this time with Flora! And maybe Trucy or Pearl from AA).

a headcanon fact:

I’ve thought for a long time that Layton has PTSD, but ordinarily manages to hide it quite well. This is why he’s so reticent and doesn’t show his emotions very much, for fear of losing control, and also why he tries so hard to be helpful and understanding to others who share similar traumatic backgrounds to him (for example, why he takes Flora in, why he wants to help Clive, and why he so quickly takes Luke in as an apprentice). It started after Randall’s death, became worse after Claire’s first death, and was re-triggered for a third time after Claire’s second death and Luke’s move overseas. Layton was trying to help Clive after this by visiting him, but seeing the similarities between Clive’s PTSD and and his own, and seeing Flora and Clive’s concern for him, he was finally convinced to go and get help for his own trauma.

 Layclaire:

when I started shipping it if I did:

I’ve always shipped them casually because I enjoyed the story of PL3 so much.

my thoughts:

Layclaire is one of those complicated ones for me, where I like it in canon and don’t have a problem with it, but I don’t get butterflies thinking about them like I do for my OTPs. Recently though, I got a little more invested in shipping them after reading an old post about the parallels between Layclaire and Clive’s parents. (Of course it was Clive related… :P) Basically, I don’t ship them hard, but I appreciate how they work together in the story and how they make PL3’s story meaningful.

What makes me happy about them:

I love how Claire was such a wonderful new part of Layton’s life! After playing the prequels, we know how tumultuous his early life was, and after losing Randall and having to leave Stansbury, I imagine that Hershel felt pretty lost. Claire’s bright-eyed idealism and motivation might have inspired Hershel, and likewise, Hershel’s quieter nature might have been grounding to Claire.

What makes me sad about them:

Claire’s dead…

Also, I wish we got to know Claire a little better! Maybe if we got to play as young Hershel in a similar way to playing as teen!him in Miracle Mask? I’d like to get to know Claire in the same way that we got to know teen Randall; it might make her loss more meaningful. (I know Clark and Brenda didn’t exist yet, but it would’ve been fun to see them too during a flashback!)

things done in fanfic that annoys me:

I haven’t read a lot of Layclaire fanfics, honestly, so I’m not sure. I don’t know if this is the case in any, but I’d be a bit annoyed if Claire was the “manic pixie dream girl” to a depressed Layton and cured his depression, or something. At the same time, I do think she would have helped him a lot, so I might not be too picky with this. 

things I look for in fanfic:

I love fanfics that build on Claire’s character, or give her more of a backstory! Take Two, which is an AU in which Claire survives the explosion and she and Layton adopt Clive, gives Claire a lot of good backstory; she was an adopted child herself, for example. It also lets her grapple with feelings of guilt over having caused the explosion. People often let Layton feel darker emotions in fanfics, but I don’t often see Claire being allowed to have that range of emotion (although again, I admit that I haven’t read a lot of Layclaire-centric stories, just ones that have Layclaire as a part of a bigger plot). Basically, I’d like to see Claire grow as a character, and see her be allowed to feel darker emotions like Layton is allowed to.

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: 

I’m not sure… Maybe Emmy for Layton? And Claire could become bros for life with Dimitri.

My happily ever after for them:

In a canon-like universe, I’m okay with Claire dying, to be honest (although I feel bad saying that) but I wish that she and Layton had a bit more time together. Maybe if they had a week where they could talk through everything they never got the chance to? In a universe where Claire never died, I’d like to see her as a part of Layton’s other adventures, becoming Flora’s mom and being a mentor to Luke.

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

Layton’s the little spoon, I think, but Claire lets him be the big spoon sometimes.

what is their favorite non-sexual activity:

They love to ramble to each other about their projects. They’ll make a pot of tea, and sit down, and talk through what they’re excited about and what they’re having troubles with, and give each other advice. Even though they’re in separate fields of study, they always give each other new ideas. I think that they might have been planning an interdisciplinary project together on Azran technology before the explosion.

[thievingstalwart]

The Thief's Path

Recently, Sothe has taken a direction different than what I originally had in mind. To summarise, he is trying to get closer with his housemates, the Deers, even though the reasons for him doing so aren't clear to an outsider. This started out as a series of ask memes and it seemed fitting (although at the time I wasn't sure why), so back then I decided to go this route and do the reflection later. I believe, the time has come.

The following post is Sothe's character analysis and what his past means in relation to his present (his attempts to become a 'proper' Deer)

Sothe has always been a loner. I suppose, that's how it often is when you grow up an orphan in the slums of a gigantic city, have no one to rely on and barely anyone you can somewhat trust. His younger years were spent earning money where he can and honing his rogue skills, hiding his emotions, thoughts and opinions. As such, he would make a good liar, however, all the other social skills remained undeveloped. This first time it shows in his complete and utter faith in Micaiah, the first person he could truly rely on, his, in some ways, parental figure, in others, a close friend. The abandonment he suffered later down the line likely broke him, and had a great effect on him, since he left the familiar streets and went searching for her across Tellius. Then, Path of Radiance. He tries to stow away on Elincia's ship and, when caught, stays silent, fully expecting to get thrown out the following moment. And yet, he isn't. He stays with the mercenaries and continues his search. However, he is as reclusive as ever. His supports in PoR show that well: his relationship with Tormod back then can be summed up to this: Tormod tries to get him out of his shell, unsuccessfully so. Astrid's are based on class difference and isn't very relevant here, but it did show that Sothe is pretty empathetic, despite what he usually lets on.

Radiant Dawn comes around and so does the Dawn Brigade. In the few scenes Sothe shares with the other three, he is shown to be somewhat standoffish (at least that's how he seemed to me), which means that these aren't the people he would consider close. He cared about them about as much as a medic cared about his patients: a lot, but not on a personal level. His scenes with Tormod, when he returns, show him from a very different side (even from when he is with Micaiah), but unfortunately that doesn't last long.

To sum up all of the above, Sothe has never really had.. a group he's entirely comfortable in. Again, he's had friends, but those were few and he ended up separated from them for long periods of time. With Micaiah, it resulted in plenty of tension. With Tormod, not so much, but only because they kept in some contact and both knew where to find each other. With Astrid, I don't think they ever properly reconcile. And so, we come to the completely and totally unexpected conclusion. We have a lonely rogue on our hands.

He's never really got positive attention since he was a child. Micaiah was the first exception to the rule, but she left without saying a word, resulting in his (less apparent now) abandonment issues. Ike was the second, and that's likely where his admiration for him comes from: partially his personality, partially his skillset, but in many ways the group he's built, where everyone cares about each other. Being on the sidelines of it, he didn't expect and didn't want such treatment at the time, actively rejecting it, and still ended up a part of the group, a piece in the puzzle that were the Greil Mercenaries at that time. If you think about his, his thoughts and feelings towards Ike and Micaiah aren't that different and the latter, not used to that, points it out later in her infamous line ("Ike, leader of the Greil Mercenaries, father of Sothe's children..."). After all, he still was an impressionable teen.

And now, the war is over and he comes to Fodlan, a foreigner with no expectations, and is immediately slammed in the face with similar amounts of positivity from Ewan, Claude, Ilyana... And he doesn't want to miss this opportunity. He's grown a lot over the years, became more honest with himself and with others, but the wars in Daein and later Begnion really weren't the best time to make friends.

Now that he's been given this chance, he'll do his best to earn his place. Which might result in some unfortunate expectations (as it was already seen once :3) and other problems, but... We'll see where this goes. And this will certainly be a fun theme to explore.

[ourdawncomes]

10, 14, 20 & 32 for thora & ruth!

inquisitor meme | accepting

10: Are there further beliefs/religious perspectives your Inquisitor is interested in or perhaps despises?

Thora is… relatively open and interested in other religious perspectives. There are some difficulties, especially some she runs into in early Inquisition. For instance, the Skywatcher you meet in the Fallow Mire early on the game has a less-positive reception than the Avvar she meets in the Frostback Basin. At that point in the game she’d only just been exposed to spirits as something more than what you hear Chanters sing about a few months ago at best, and hasn’t encountered any that haven’t tried to kill her. She admits Solas has a point that they could be people when he explains, but it takes much longer (and meeting spirits like Cole, Command, the Divine in the Fade, etc) for her to start internalising that point, so the idea of someone worshipping them strikes her as strange. But she’s not about to turn down his help, and if I remember right he’s not dismissive of the idea of Andraste (in banter in multiplayer he seems to just regard her as another goddess of sorts) so it would be rude to express more than confusion.

The Dalish gods she’s quite sure were never real (in any sense), but still has an interest in them especially as she grows more well-versed in the history. Though the events of Inquisition have her questioning that aforementioned belief even before she meets Mythal. Codices found, written by someone who refers to themself as Geldauran and refers to the gods in a much more personal sense than most religious texts she’s read/heard, etc. Discovering the first Inquisitor seemed to believe in both the Dalish gods and the Maker also resonated with her as someone who believes in both the Stone and the Maker.

The religions she’s most prejudiced against would be Tevinter beliefs, but in that case it’s pretty aimless, and her perception is changed by Dorian. He doesn’t seem too different from other Andrastrians despite the difference in Divine. Still, she finds the history of how they got to be Andrastrian in the first place to be mostly a case of trying to cover their asses. She would be deeply uncomfortable by anyone who worships the Old Gods, but has never ran into them as far as she knows. The Qun is sort of a quasi-religion along the lines of Confucianism, with a lot more philosophy and a lot less belief in a higher power, tangible or otherwise, but I’ll talk about it, anyway. She’s not a fan of it, having been in Kirkwall during Act II of Dragon Age II, and her brother having converted and left. Again, she doesn’t have much of an idea of what it involves, just that it separates families and invades cities. Her opinion of the Qun doesn’t change much for the better, either. She becomes more sympathetic to those living under it, but that’s not quite the same thing.

There’s also a matter of cults that pop up around the time of the Inquisition. Those who worship Corypheus she mostly feels pity for, her hatred mostly reserved for their god (though even he she feels some pity for in the end, she relates to the feeling of being abandoned by your god). And, of course, there’s the cult that’s formed around her. You have the more literal cult in the Hinterlands, who she recruits but sends away to help people, and the more general cult following that all Inquisitors probably have to live with for the rest of their lives– whether they’re Andrastrian or not. Thora’s most comfortable with those in the Inquisition who don’t see her as chosen by the Divine. She doesn’t like telling people they’re wrong, but she can never bring herself to fully believe she was chosen by anyone and that her position isn’t the result of having a good catching hand.

14: Which advisor did they listen to more often?

It’s pretty even, actually. Her morals most align with Josephine and a post-personal quest Leliana (softened), so I think she tends towards Josephine in particular, but not uniformly. Some of Josephine’s non-violent solutions still involved some kind of underhanded moves, and while Thora wasn’t above that, she also sometimes appreciated Cullen’s straightforward methods, even if it did lead to answers like “just stomp hills flat.” One example where I remember she always picks Cullen is when a noble sends a letter complaining about refugees and Cullen’s answer is to send soldiers to help the refugees, which was the most appealing answer especially given Josephine’s was to just ignore the letter. That being said, whenever magic or mages were involved Thora probably only listens to be polite. So overall, she listens to Josephine most, though later I think she listens as much to Leliana.

20: Which abilities did they specialize themselves in? Explain how the trainers convinced them.

Thora already had a specialisation by the time she became Herald, she was a Beserker, albeit the specific tradition that lives on on the Surface, which is to say, likely removed from what Oghren describes in Origins. She got convinced to take up that specialisation by Lantos (the dwarf who communicates with you during the Cadash war table missions) because after every fight she was always sick, or barely holding it back, and the figured if she got so angry she couldn’t see straight it might help. And he was right, mostly. She is still often sick after battles once she comes down from it, but by then she can remove herself from the situation. Lantos used this argument, and told her it was a traditional dwarven technique and Thora, being always eager to connect to traditional dwarf culture how she can, agreed.

The offer to find her a professional trainer, either a former professionally trained Beserker who is living on the Surface (like Oghren) or someone from Orzammar given permission to leave, similar to the armies promised to the Wardens during DA:O. The latter likely happens slightly later in Inquisition than the typical specialisation trainers are brought on, due to having to establish stronger ties to Orzammar first.

32: What are their thoughts on Skyhold? Is there a stronghold they would prefer over it?

Thora loves it. She probably would’ve loved it if Solas had brought them to an empty cave in the mountainside, but it turned out to be perfect. It’s in the mountains, but basks in sunlight, and it’s highly defendable. It feels like a meeting of her identities, although she’d feel stupid saying that, and frankly Thora doesn’t know strongholds well enough to say if there’d be one she prefers. None of the holds captured throughout Inquisition are as defendable or large, and while she can’t feel much about the magic at work at Skyhold, she trusts the people who say it’s there.

What I think Thora appreciates most about Skyhold is having space to call her own. Like, real space. She’s never had more than a little room with the Carta, a shared hovel in Haven. She doesn’t need a whole fortress, but that room at the top is something she might have dreamed about when she was a child.

Leaving it after Trespasser is unsurprisingly difficult. She takes most of her non-essential Stuff to Kirkwall, where Varric has secured her family a seat in the Merchant Guild and an estate, but nowhere will ever be as loved as Skyhold.

[belzinone]

[old] guidelines

// these are my original rules. though they are still generally relevant, my newer, shorter, more concise rules post is here

A love letter from me to you! Please take it to heart.

The Lowdown: mod is an artist & supportive af｜selective｜primarily plot-motivated｜operates on mutual respect｜your friendly rpc fairy godbitch; gimme your wishlists｜zero tolerance for OC negativity & bigotry｜triggers present｜18+ content present｜consistent but occasionally capricious activity｜OOC communication appreciated｜lots of love abound ♡

Mod Sal (they/them/theirs; 24; PST)

     I study medicine and social justice with emphasis on emergency medicine and sex work, respectively. In addition to being a writer I’m also an activist, artist, and scholar. I’ve been writing Bel since 2015. She’s a very intricate and highly dynamic character who has gone through many changes over the years via her interactions. I look forward to developing her even more with your muse(s)!

     Before I talk about the kind of conduct I’d like on my blog, this is the type of roleplayer and friend I aspire to be. I’ll strive to be as attentive and supportive as I can about your muse, ideas, as well as ooc presence. If we’re mutuals, you can expect plenty of inboxes, tag games, headcanons, relationship tags, to be tagged in & sent posts relating to our muses, general interaction, and emotional support proportional to the depth of our interactions when I’m online. I’m an unapologetic 1-person hype squad at heart and will do my best to spread the love and return the love I get.

     If I’m not around here, you can find me on my snk blog and/or discord by request. I muse Eren and Levi as secondary muses, but they won’t be nearly as active as Bel and are only available to established mutuals. I also have untagged resource & nsfw musing side blogs.

Interactions

  When it comes to interactions, nothing motivates me more than an eagerness to develop our muses’ relationship. Depending on what works best for you, we can work on this via inbox submissions, plotting, or simply interacting. I have a tendency to write para/novella-length replies, but will strive to match you in length and style. Please include something I can actively respond to in your reply, because neutral replies can be very difficult to build upon, and please do not godmod her based on assumptions and/or stereotypes about her character/profession.

  With regards to ask responses, please feel free to turn them into threads by tagging me in a new post and cutting your replies. I’ll turn asks into threads if they inspire me, but you’re under no obligation to continue them if you’re not as motivated. When cutting, please don’t cut me out. Also, please don’t reblog asks with your reply or reblog replies with my tag if I don’t reply quickly enough. I track of all my threads to the best of my ability, so please check there first if you want to know the status of our thread. If I’ve missed a thread of ours, please help me out by sending it to me in a message so I can add it to the tracker. If you lose muse for a thread, please don’t feel pressured to continue it. We can always take a break or start something new. I don’t cap my threads and am always open to new interactions.

Selectivity

    Though I run a selective blog, I am not very selective in nature. I do have a preference for original and SnK/AoT characters, especially those that inspire me and challenge me. I’ll primarily look for interactions by checking blog rules for oc-friendliness, reblogging promos, asking to be mutuals in the tags, then follow back after that initial follow is granted. If you don’t want me to follow you, please block me completely because otherwise I’ll think it’s a mistake/glitch and follow you again. On the topic of glitches, they do happen so I apologize ahead of time if that happens above or below my radar.

    I don’t tolerate oc-negativity or ooc bigotry and will handle my blog accordingly. If you align yourself in any way with TERF, SWERF, homophobic, ace-exclusionary, racist, and/or xenophobic rhetoric, please do not interact. It’s important for me to surround myself with enriching content and community. I have boundaries and will be setting them for my own comfort as well as respect yours because mutual respect between muns is key to a healthy rpc.

Sourcing

    Please don’t do it. This goes for starters, ask memes, wishlist posts, and wanted connections. I understand we might not be the muse/mod duo you have in mind and that we don’t fit every situation, but please don’t fill my notifications with this sentiment, especially if we don’t have any established interactions yet. If our blogs have that much in common, there’s so much we could be musing about. If this happens excessively without us having any interactions, I’ll unfollow and/or block because I am a roleplay blog, not a resource hub. If you’re interested in my musing/resource posts, please show interest in muse interactions as well. The latter is why I’m here and there’s nothing more disheartening and discouraging to my creativity than being used and/or ignored when I present things.

Original Character Disclaimer

    It pains me that something like this needs to be said, but Bel wasn’t created to force ship with your muse and/or overpower our threads. I will absolutely under no circumstances tolerate any form of OC negativity. I don’t care if you think they’re “cringey”, “underdeveloped”, “overpowered”, or any other iteration of not meeting your personal criteria of a good character. Opinions are valid but unsolicited bullying is not. It is important to realize that canon characters are still original characters bar their capitalistic franchise. The mods of original characters are a goldmine of free and original content and deserve to be judged by conduct, not content.

    If you’d like to support OCs, I invite you to scroll through and reblog a thing or two from my OC positivity tag, as well as follow and engage in meaningful interactions with the OCs in your orbit. Your encouragement could be what makes a content creator’s breakthrough, so please be kind and supportive. Saying you’re OC-friendly while providing an extensive grocery list of double standards OCs must abide by to be considered acceptable isn’t OC-friendliness. Likewise, musing an OC doesn’t automatically make you incapable of being exclusive (unintentional or not) so please be cognizant as well  and lets support each other.

Shipping

    That being said, I’m just like every other mun. I enjoy shipping and the occasional smut scene given the chemistry is right and both muns are equally invested in the relationship as well as comfortable with it. The more we develop our muses, the more complicated their relationship will be and the more likely I’ll personally gift you with fanart. Above all, your comfort is paramount to our interactions so please communicate with me. Likewise, please respect my comforts when I speak of them. I am much more likely to be enthusiastic about shipping than Bel is, however, so please be patient with us and respect her boundaries as well.

# FREE THE FPN . SFW // ONLY IT’S NOT

    This is the tag I will use to mark sexually explicit content. Bel is somewhere on the ace spectrum, but is nonetheless a sensual character and has a couple verses that engage in sex work. Bel’s struggles with her identities are a very big part of her personal characterization, so please be patient with her. [Marilyn Monroe’s hinted asexuality] Likewise, if she’s not into your muse, please don’t push such interactions unless we discuss them as a plot element.

Trigger Warnings

    The SnK universe is rampant with violence, gore, psychological trauma, profanity, and grey morality. Furthermore, I enjoy writing dark themes and will provide the disclaimer now that this may be a rather trigger-heavy blog. However, that doesn’t mean you have to be subject to all these themes. If you’d like me to tag things in a certain way, please don’t hesitate to let me know because your comfort is important to me. I’ll gladly create a new tag for you to blacklist/filter and add it to my tag list. Furthermore, this blog will have the occasional explicit content so please don’t interact if you’re under 21.

Activity

   I’m finishing up my bachelor’s so classes and coursework will keep me from here sometimes. Furthermore, I struggle with mental illness and domestic abuse in my home environment, so bouts of these may also pull me from activity. I’ll be doing my damndest to keep my issues off the dash but if things are especially severe and I feel the need to post about it and/or reach out, I’ll use a semicolon tag (#;).  Nonetheless, musing, roleplaying, and plotting helps keep my spirits up so please keep me updated with your muse and share your discord with me, if you’d like. I’d love it so much if we could continue developing our muses as I slip off of and find my way back to tumblr, and I’d appreciate you very much as a writing partner and friend. ♡

Accessibility

    I’m not very savvy with code, but I do try my best to keep my blogging accessible as I tinker and learn. If you struggle with accessing any part of my blog, let it be font size, style, or anything else, please let me know and I’ll do my best to accommodate because I don’t want to perpetuate elitism or ableism in the rpc. As far as reply formatting goes, I’ll usually stick to once small text (particularly in novella length replies via ctrl shift -) and spare use of italics, bolding, and strikethrough text. I may use unicode and/or zalgo for art captions, personal musing posts, crack threads, and other posts that call for it. Every once in awhile, I will blog from mobile and as a result post text in default size, but I’ll still cut my posts and at worst, separate our replies with a symbol or icon if I can’t blockquote text through html.

Permissions

     One of my favorite things about roleplaying is sharing content and playing tag games. If you come across anything that reminds you of Bel and/or our interactions/plotting, please show me! Even more so, if you’re a content creator, you have complete and total freedom to use her and her inspirations in your work. I only ask to see it! Likewise, if I ever create any art for you, please acknowledge it at the very least. If you send in an art request and I deliver, please reblog it. Failure to do this kills my creativity as well as generosity so... please.

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[pezski]

Racist memes and immigration

I meant to write this a few weeks ago when someone - a family member, actually - shared on Facebook a meme showing two pictures. One was a group of smiling white men wearing overalls and mining helmets and the second a photo of a large-ish family of brown-skinned, possibly muslim, people. The text suggested that the first group were being forced to work to 75 because the second group were sponging off the state.

I’m hardly on Facebook, and don’t think this person makes a habit of posting this kind of thing, so was ‘lucky’ it was posted just as I popped on for five minutes. I commented with an exasperated “what utter bollocks!” and left it at that. I probably should have been a bit more constructive, but it was such a ridiculous argument (for want of a better word) I was just annoyed. The poster did quickly respond, asking if he wasn’t entitled to his opinion. I replied that of course he was, but that there was a difference between things which are opinions and things which were verifiably true or false, and this was both the latter and false. Again, I should probably have offered an explanation, so here it is.

I will leave aside the miners - of whom there are precious little left in the UK, and who are certainly not required to work to 75. I will assume they were simply being used to represent the “ordinary working Brit”, although that does bring into question why a group of white men was used but, again, I shall leave that aside.

More important are the false implications and assumptions of the brown, muslim-looking family. There are many, and I doubt I’ll cover all of them.

The points I’ll be making are about the value of immigrants, and are all based on hard fact. Not feelings, not ‘fake news’, not massaged statistics, but well-documented, consistent, incontrovertible facts.

Immigrants claim a lower proportion of benefits than any other segment of the population. These are people who have had the wherewithal to travel hundreds or sometimes thousands of miles. They have already worked hard are certainly not expecting an easy life. When allowed to, they work. As a group, they work hard. They set up far more businesses as a proportion than do native born people. There is a reason the ‘Indian corner shop’ is a cliche.

Linked to this, immigrants pay taxes.So, not only do they not drain the national resources, they actually add to the pot of money from which these resources come.

“Ah!” (I hear someone say) “But that is because they take jobs from honest, British workers!” Well, person who I have heard say that, no; you fundamentally misunderstand how economies work. Most of our economy is based on the consumption of goods and services. Whether it is using utilities (paying for gas, electricity, broadband, etc), buying cars or furniture or groceries or a bagel and coffee from the sandwich shop down the road, this puts money into the economy and is how other people’s wages are paid - gas engineers and call centre staff car mechanics and sandwich makers. Look at Germany, which has brought in more than a MILLION asylum seekers in recent years (on top of the immigration already happening), and has the lowest unemployment since East and West reunified - when, practically overnight, West Germany had to integrate 16.5 million poor East Germans and spend billions of marks changing 45 years of separation.

Then there is the demographic ‘time-bomb’. The largest population spurt we have ever seen are the baby boomers, that generation born after the second world war who benefited so much from the newly created Welfare State (and created so much wealth in return) and have been gradually retiring over the last two decades. Birth rates have been dropping, which means a smaller than ever working population are supporting a larger than ever retired population. Bt most immigrants are in their 20s and - as i said above - more than happy to work and pay taxes.

And, here’s another thing about that, it’s a damned sight cheaper to bring in immigrants than raise our own population to working age. How much do you think it costs - the state, and parents - to raise a child, to pay for 17, 18, 24, years of healthcare and education? Any cost in language skills or integration or even a few months of benefits is literally insignificant next to that.

There are people (mentioning no daily newspapers) that also suggest there is a crime problem associated with immigration, but this is also simply wrong. Immigrant populations, wherever they are from, consistently commit FAR less crime than native born populations. Seriously, a fraction as much.

Lastly, and on a different tack, why assume a brown family are immigrants in any case? I’ve known lots of people of Asian and African descent who were not only ‘born here’ but whose families have been here for generations. My own family are largely of Welsh and Irish descent within the last four generations or so, so are also immigrants. As is everybody else on this island. Yes, there are people who have traced their line back centuries (often to the Normans, who were of course immigrants who didn’t want to mix with the locals and learn the language) but that is only one branch of the family. It is clear that one of the main legions who held Britain for the Romans was the Africanus legion so (despite Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s ill-educated protestations) black people have been in these isles for at least two thousand years.

I’ve only covered the main points, but these are usually the ones made (or snidely hinted at) by racist memes and the EDF and the Daily Mail. All of them are facts and, I think, also make sense when given a moment’s thought. I hope everyone reading this will bear them in mind when responding to knee-jerk emotive posts.

Please, think about what a post is saying before hitting share.