#white people...i'm not feeling you

[perrieedwards]

i feel like people are skimming over the uk riots in a way that makes me want to tear my hair out. muslims in the uk are in active danger. immigrants in the uk are in active danger. refugees in the uk are in active danger. people of colour in the uk are in active danger. asian communities in the uk are in active danger. black communities in the uk are in active danger.

there are massive far right riots throughout the country right now and people like fucking elon musk and nigel farage are inciting it and still have a platform to speak. people have used three young girls deaths, people's genuine grief in southport, to try and gain traction for their own racist bullshit and it's working.

a lot of refugee charities have been forced to close leaving many people without support, homes, funding, food, etc. if you aren't able to donate please consider sending a message via the conversation over borders campaign! it will send a hopeful, welcoming letter to a refugee in the uk. there is also a guide to staying safe here.

please do your own research and donate to refugee charities, anti-islamophobia charities, mosques who are trying to rebuild after being destroyed, counter protesters, here are some i've heard positive things about but the list is extensive; southport strong together (support for the southport victims and their families), southport mosque rebuilding, riot repair fund, middlesbrough vulnerable residents, nasir mosque rebuilding, hull help for refugees, bristol welcomes migrants,

[panstarry]

my final from last semester that i made into a zine. cooked this one up in a couple hours before the critique (the ink was still wet!), so it's very raw and kind of sloppy but the sentiment is there. i love you trans people of color. we are the backbone of this community 🌟

[bixels]

I'm not explaining why re-imagining characters as POC is not the same as white-washing, here of all places should fucking understand.

[literaryspinster]

I hear a lot of talk about how Hollywood isn't comfortable with showing romantic relationships, interracial or otherwise, without a white person involved. But I'm not sure that fans are actually comfortable with that either? And I don't think they're comfortable without a significant white (white male specifically) presence in their favorite genre shows.

[solitaireships]

I feel like I should say since there's been a recent uptick in a lot of communities I'm in/see stuff from a lot of white people pretending to be Asian, but you are not welcome here if you are in anyway stealing from Asian cultures for clout or the aesthetics of it

This includes if you're white and you give your self inserts Asian names, I truly do not care if your f/o is from an anime, you should not be using an Asian name under any circumstances. I hate that whenever I see someone using an Asian name online, I feel like I have to start searching their account to see if they're actually Asian or just a white person who likes the aesthetic of it bcs far too many white people will use Asian names here just bcs it sounds cool, with no regard for the actual cultural meaning behind it. Meanwhile actual Asian people will be mocked for their names, or treated like their names are too hard to learn to pronounce, or discriminated against based on their names

Asian cultures are not a fun little costume for people to dress up with. They aren't just a nice aesthetic, they aren't just a thing you can borrow from bcs you think it sounds cool

[dubiousdisco]

Johnny's ass keeps pushing Sento away from the support on his back because it's too big btw, do you think Sento knows. Is Sento aware that johnny's cheeks are constantly pushing it. And if so, do you think Sento cares at all, being a sword and all. Is that mundane for a sword. Does Sento compare whose backs or waists or butts or hands felt nicer. Does Kenshi know. Would it tell Kenshi that his hands are the most caring but Johnny's ass is the biggest.

[glorioustragedykid]

[naivety]

So long as the political and economic system remains intact, voter enfranchisement, though perhaps resisted by overt white supremacists, is still welcomed so long as nothing about the overall political arrangement fundamentally changes. The facade of political equality can occur under violent occupation, but liberation cannot be found in the occupier’s ballot box. In the context of settler colonialism voting is the “civic duty” of maintaining our own oppression. It is intrinsically bound to a strategy of extinguishing our cultural identities and autonomy.

[...]

Since we cannot expect those selected to rule in this system to make decisions that benefit our lands and peoples, we have to do it ourselves. Direct action, or the unmediated expression of individual or collective desire, has always been the most effective means by which we change the conditions of our communities. What do we get out of voting that we cannot directly provide for ourselves and our people? What ways can we organize and make decisions that are in harmony with our diverse lifeways? What ways can the immense amount of material resources and energy focused on persuading people to vote be redirected into services and support that we actually need? What ways can we direct our energy, individually and collectively, into efforts that have immediate impact in our lives and the lives of those around us? This is not only a moral but a practical position and so we embrace our contradictions. We’re not rallying for a perfect prescription for “decolonization” or a multitude of Indigenous Nationalisms, but for a great undoing of the settler colonial project that comprises the United States of America so that we may restore healthy and just relations with Mother Earth and all her beings. Our tendency is towards autonomous anti-colonial struggles that intervene and attack the critical infrastructure that the U.S. and its institutions rest on. Interestingly enough, these are the areas of our homelands under greatest threat by resource colonialism. This is where the system is most prone to rupture, it’s the fragility of colonial power. Our enemies are only as powerful as the infrastructure that sustains them. The brutal result of forced assimilation is that we know our enemies better than they know themselves. What strategies and actions can we devise to make it impossible for this system to govern on stolen land? We aren’t advocating for a state-based solution, redwashed European politic, or some other colonial fantasy of “utopia.” In our rejection of the abstraction of settler colonialism, we don’t aim to seize colonial state power but to abolish it. We seek nothing but total liberation.

Voting Is Not Harm Reduction - An Indigenous Perspective

[autumn-foxfire]

People don't lean into the imagery of demon and sinner that Akako graciously provided us for Shinichi and Kaito enough.

It's me, I'm people.

[lunarharp]

played dragon age 2...just simple scribbles

[uncanny-tranny]

If I'm honest, the whole "love in every stitch" saying for fiber artists does not apply to me, like. I'm trying to get this fucking hook into stubborn yarn and I'll be stabbing it like it owed me money. Is that love because I hope not 😭💀

[utilitycaster]

I need to let this cook but it feels like the D20 fandom's tendency to reduce all messages within the story to fit within a fairly flat understanding of modern US-based leftism, and the CR fandom's tendency to project homophobia onto villains are very linked. Like, both feel like people are saying "I need to have very clear lines of who is a Good Person and who is a Bad Person and I don't want to have to think about why they may be categorized as that let alone that things are far more complicated than Good/Bad, so I'm using things I know are bad, like capitalism and bigotry, and if a character falls outside these buzzwords I don't know how to assess them."

[thepoisonroom]

'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.

I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.

About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'

-Casey Plett, Consciousness

[mastersoftheair]

on the point of including black people in the show (or any period show), a lot of the outrage can sometimes come across as performative to me. it's one thing to feel upset about how little screentime black characters get compared to white characters (a valid criticism, believe me, I Know! give me an hour and i could talk your ear off about how this constantly annoys me as a black person who's damned to enjoy period pieces), but it's another to Only get upset while not actually creating content for said black characters, Especially when fandom (not just hbo war, but in general) is famous for taking Extremely minor characters and creating entire worlds with them, to the point where you wouldn't know they're minor characters at all until you check out the source yourself. richard macon, alexander jefferson, and robert daniels each have only 20 or less posts about them (at the time of publishing this post). in my own fandom experience (within fandoms both big and small and old and new, whatever), i've seen more content (posts, art pieces, analyses, fics, etc) made for minor white characters in less than a mere week's time (it's not a competiton lol i'm just giving a perspective here). so idk. obviously, there's nothing anyone here can do about a show that's already been filmed and released. we got what we got. thas it. at least in the great wide world of fandom, you can actually do something about it, turning the big into small. there's precedent for that. otherwise it just feels like complaining for the sake of complaining

[tunastime]

A Minute in the Morning

so I started playing pokemon legends arceus. crumples to the ground. (2762 words)

In a hazy, rusty morning light, Ingo wakes up.

It’s a slow start—like his office computer, taking a whole ten minutes to finish booting, enough to stir sugar into his morning coffee and dissect his breakfast sandwich into parts. It feels like it takes just about that much time for Ingo to become aware of where he’s lying, which is in bed. Which is not where he fell asleep to begin with, which means that someone lifted him to bed and tucked him in. Which was rather sweet. Because he’s burrowed into the covers like a happy drilbur, keeping the cold from his fingers and toes and nose. He finally blinks his eyes open, and it’s sunrise that fills his room. Not his room. Scratch that. Emmet’s room. No wonder the blankets are so much lighter than he remembers them being. Nevertheless. Happy drilbur. He weasels a little more into the pillow. From either side of him, something moves. It’s slight, if there, but as he cranes his neck, slow and careful, he can see a dark head of hair on one side, and silver-white on the other. 

Ingo’s heart swells a fraction too big and too warm for his chest as he sighs out.

Elesa and Emmet haven’t woken up yet, which is a plus. If he were to move too much and move them he might lose the warmth from either side. Elesa’s shoulder rests against the crest of his back, and Emmet’s holding onto his elbow with one hand. The grip is loose at best, but the warmth, both from shoulder to spine and hand to elbow, seeps through him.

It’s blurry. Just everything. It kind of mushes together in his brain, like jam. Or maybe jelly. It doesn’t really matter. If he thinks too hard, his stomach starts to twist in knots, and he’d rather not feel sick while he’s trying to enjoy his morning. He remembers falling asleep while the television played the night prior—nighttime skits and commercials he filtered out until Emmet’s shoulder became the comfiest thing. He supposes that sometime between that point, and the point which he’s just woken up, Elesa came in, and at some other point, he was carted off to bed. It’s nice, though. The blankets make just enough weight over him to soothe ache and anxiety, and it’s warm, and he’s mostly thinking about how nice a cup of coffee sounds right now. Maybe a latte. Something warm. He shuts his eyes again.

The light is surprisingly yellower when he wakes up again. There’s still a warm weight on both sides of him, but it feels different than before. It stretches over him, too, more than just the weighted blanket that’s been added on top of him. He peeks an eye open to find Eelektross slumped over him, his large head curled near Ingo’s shoulder and his similarly large eyes shut as he snores. Ingo snorts, trying to shift to his back with the weight over him, without waking Eelektross. He does after a moment, settling once again, only for Eelektross to huff and fix one, tired eye on his face. Ingo smiles, just a little.

Wriggling a hand free, he pats Eelektross’ forehead, a path well pet and well loved.

“Good morning, you gigantic eel.”

Eelektross trills, nuzzling into Ingo’s hand.

“Mm, yes,” Ingo says. “I’m sure that definitely did not alert Emmet that I am awake, meaning I can’t fake any more sleep. Thank you Eelektross.”

The eel gives a happy sniff.

Ingo snorts.

Typical.

The door cracks open a moment later, the wide eyes of his brother peeking through. He raises his eyebrows, looking over Ingo and Eelektross still in bed. It comes with a little head tilt, something Ingo knows is indicative of an Emmet with a question.

“Sleep well?” he asks. Ingo nods.

“I think so,” he says. “I didn’t realize I’d be carried to bed when I fell asleep.”

“Ah!” Emmet says, eyebrows raising. “I made sure you stayed asleep when we carried you in. You’re a very deep sleeper when you want to be.”

It’s getting better, the gaps in his memory. It’s not enough to trust himself to start his duties as a Subway Boss again, but it's enough to have a few doctor’s appointments and to speak with police and his boss and their coworkers. He’s remembered their pokemon, which is why Eelektross didn’t startle him. And he’s remembered enough for him to fall asleep on Emmet’s shoulder with no care in the world. Enough for life to begin to settle from the chaos. Today is Tuesday, which means Emmet has the day off, and Ingo can tell, even as he reaches to wipe sleep from his eyes, that Emmet is still in his pajamas. He opens the door a little wider, leaning against the doorframe. 

“Ah,” Ingo echoes. “Was it Elesa’s idea to sleep in your room rather than my own?”

“It was,” Emmet concedes, smiling. “But I am Emmet, and I make a very good pillow.”

“You are Emmet and you are a very clingy sleeper,” Ingo says, letting his eyes shut again. Emmet makes a startled noise.

“Go-Go, don’t fall asleep again,” he yaps. “Your breakfast will get cold.”

Slowly, Ingo opens one eye, looking at his brother in the doorway. Eelektross snuffs into his shoulder, wriggling off of him. He grunts as the eel’s weight shifts off, leaving him free, but cooler.

“What’s for breakfast?” he says, watching Eelektross wriggle off the bed and toward Emmet. Emmet opens the door a bit further, takes a step back, and hefts the eel into his arms, knees bending with the weight. Ingo watches Emmet giggle to himself, shifting Eelektross in his arms to better wrap around his neck and arms, weight heavy against him. Clearly.

“Pancakes,” Emmet huffs. He’s still smiling, something almost infectious.

“Alright,” Ingo sighs.

“I also cut some fruit.”

“I’m getting up,” Ingo grumbles, rolling onto his side before he peels himself up and into a sit.

“I think Elesa left her nice coffee creamer, also.”

“I’m already up, Em,” Ingo snorts, trying not to laugh. “You don’t have to convince me.”

Emmet laughs again.

“Just adding!” he says cheerily, wobbling off toward the living room. In the open doorway, Ingo can see the sprawl of their living room and kitchen, lit by yellow daylight. Ingo sighs, stretching his arms above his head, twisting around. When the room settles, he stands, and he realizes that the room is warm around him. Emmet must’ve turned the heat on, and it must actually be working. He hums as he combs his hair back, wandering into the bathroom to wash his face.

When he finally makes it to the kitchen table, Emmet is sitting at the table, scrolling on his x-transceiver. He’s changed into a cream-colored, high collared sweater, his hair held back with a small headband. Eelektross is lying across the couch, head resting on the arm. There’s a plate of pancakes sitting in front of Ingo’s seat at the table, and a half-eaten plate in front of Emmet. He looks up as Ingo sits, raising his eyebrows.

“Good morning,” Emmet says. He nudges a cup of coffee toward Ingo. It’s a light brown color—likely the way that Ingo likes it. It helps they like their plain coffee the same way. If it were any other type of coffee, Ingo’s certain there would be some big disagreement—type of milk and way of prep and iced versus hot. But Ingo takes a long sip of hot coffee and nearly sighs in relief. Whatever fancy creamer Elesa buys really does make a plain cup of coffee so much better. He sits, nudging Emmet with his foot under the table.

“What are you reading?” he asks, gesturing with his fork to Emmet’s phone. Emmet holds it up.

“Article on a new electric rail system in Galar.” 

Ingo tilts his head, nodding along.

“Interesting. Any good?”

“Very efficient,” Emmet says, nodding along. He eventually pulls back, setting his phone face down on the table and returning to his pancakes. He takes a large bite, and through it, says:

“Maybe Gear Station should get some upgrades.”

Ingo snorts.

“We’re already quite efficient,” he says. “Do you think our trains could be quicker? Easier to board?”

Emmet shrugs.

“Wishful thinking. They’re already automatically driven, so there isn’t much more, but maybe longer cars to hold more passengers. Our trains are quite small.”

“Sounds expensive,” Ingo says, drinking his coffee. He pulls apart his stack of pancakes, poking at them with his fork.

“Maybe they’ve already got an upgrade in the works,” Emmet says. “It’s been a while since we’ve had an all-staff meeting. Perhaps we should inform the director.”

“Especially since I’ve returned and have about three years to catch up on, mm?”

Emmet smiles. It’s a bit tight, though. Ingo glances away, biting into his tongue. Should’ve kept that thought to himself.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says. “Though I promise you that not much has changed in the last three years.”

Ingo hums. He believes it, that nothing much has shifted. It’s hard to say, obviously, considering he wasn’t there to see it for himself, but his brother was never the type to lie without a reason, and this certainly didn’t have a good one. He takes a large bite of pancake and finds them still warm. It’s a quiet breakfast, between pancakes and coffee and Galvantula sleeping underneath the table. Emmet eventually finishes his food, shoveling large bites of pancake into his mouth as quickly as he can. Ingo watches him swallow with surprising difficulty, reaching for his cup of coffee. It takes a moment for Ingo to stomach the rest of his pancakes. Having this much food is a luxury he had not often afforded a month prior. His stomach still wasn’t used to it.

“Where is Elesa?” Ingo asks after a beat. Emmet talks through a mouthful of pancake and strawberry and maple syrup. 

“Mm, she had four battle appointments today, but she’ll be back around. Probably before two.”

Emmet is the first to finish, setting all his dishes together as he stands. He moves around Ingo as Ingo finishes, collecting dishes and setting everything in the sink. As Ingo stands to pass him his plate, he asks:

“Did you have a plan today?

“Mm?” Emmet hums. “No, not particularly. Why? Is there something you wanted to do?”

Ingo frowns, face pulling.

“Well,” he starts. “I was thinking—”

“Ah,” Emmet interjects. “Your first mistake—”

“I was thinking,” Ingo continues, narrowing his eyes. “That it might be a good idea for us to visit Elesa. I need to ask her for a new coat.”

“Mm!” Emmet startles, turning toward him. His face brightens. “That’s right! You do need a new coat. Good thing she’ll be over later, mm?”

Ingo nods. He fetches his coffee mug, pouring another cup of black coffee to balance the sweetened dregs. He leans back against the counter right as Emmet goes to hand him a dish to put away. They work in tandem for a moment, pausing as Ingo works to finish his coffee.

It’s a slow morning, 8:45am, and Ingo gazes back at his bed with longing.

It’s just. When’s the last time he had such a good sleep, right? On a bed that soft? He’d gotten so used to tatami mats and the grass and canvas laid out on the ground and here was a bed, with thick fluffy blankets and several large pillows and another person taking up space. It was very—stop it, Ingo—it’s comfortable. He hands Emmet his coffee mug.

“Ingo,” Emmet says.

Ingo hums. His eyes have drifted to the couch. Maybe standing is a little hard today. He should sit, shouldn’t he?

“Is my brother still up there?” Emmet asks, tapping Ingo’s head. Ingo startles as he does, turning to him.

“I would hope so,” he says. “Otherwise I don’t know where I’d be.”

“Not here, obviously” Emmet says. He finishes rinsing Ingo’s mug, setting it top down on the drying mat. “Though I’m not entirely sure you’re all there right now, are you?”

“Trying,” Ingo hums. “Too much going on.”

Emmet hums, a bit of a laugh showing through.

“You look like you’re about to fall over.”

“I won’t,” Ingo promises.

“I don’t believe you,” Emmet says, shutting off the sink. The clean dishes sit on the rack, dripping water. Emmet wipes his hands with a dish towel. “You know, you should be resting if your engine isn’t working at full capacity. Rest is very important”

“Can’t be a well oiled machine with nowhere to go,” Ingo says, folding his arms. “I don’t understand why I don’t have the energy to move anymore.”

“Does the why matter?” Emmet asks. He’s leaning against the counter now, a mirror to Ingo, like he often was to Emmet. It was a natural progression—one following after the other, a mirror, a shadow, a doppleganger.

“It matters a little,” Ingo shrugs. “It matters to me. It gives me a reason.”

“Your reason is that you’ve gone through a lot,” Emmet says, pushing away from the counter. He scoops up his x-transceiver from the table, moving around it and through the apartment as he talks. “Your reason is that your body is playing catch-up with the world around you.”

“Maybe,” Ingo huffs.

“I am Emmet,” says his brother. “I am tired. I don’t sleep well. Do you think it’s my fault that I’m tired and don’t sleep well?”

Ingo grits his teeth. He hates this part—ever since they were little, Emmet would flip this hypocritical card, showing Ingo exactly how stupid he was sounding. It was good, for the most part, because Emmet was right and next time Emmet did the same thing, Ingo could follow suit with that card. But it was so annoying watching it now, watching Emmet throw open the blinds and shimmy open the window for the fire escape. A tinged-cool spring breeze filters in through the open window, tossing the curtains aside. Emmet keeps moving as Ingo thinks, the gears in his head turning slowly, still dulled with sleep. 

“No,” Ingo says shortly, watching Emmet rearrange coasters on the coffee table, setting game controllers back into their docks. “I don’t think anything is your fault.”

“Well now you are just flattering me, Go-Go.”

“Don’t say that flattery never got anyone anywhere,” Ingo says, pointing at him, waving his finger. Emmet laughs.

“My point is,” he says, gesturing to the couch. “You’re allowed to rest. We can figure out the steps from there, right? Even if we’re sitting on the couch to do it.”

Ingo sighs, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

“Even if I fall asleep?”

Emmet nods, still smiling a little.

“I will wake you if you do.”

Ingo huffs out a laugh, feeling the edges of his mouth quirk up. As Emmet sits on the soft, corduroy couch, Ingo feels himself pulled forward, as if recalled, to sit beside him. He brings his knees up as he settles into his familiar spot between the back and arm of the couch. 

“Do you promise you’ll shake me awake?” Ingo says, leaning his head against the back of the couch. Emmet scrunches his nose.

“Yes,” he says, knocking his knuckles into Ingo’s knee. “I do. But I’m going to watch Alakazam! so you can think without my talking.”

Ingo nods. The television hums to life quietly in the background.

Emmet always watches Alakazam! at 9am. At least, when he can catch it. Ingo watches the last few minutes of the previous game show, something quiet and low despite the flash of colors and excited spread of energy. As the show starts, he watches Emmet’s face shift, that serious pull to his mouth and the furrow of his eyebrows that Ingo only sees when they’re battling. To see that spark again, not knowing how long it’s been gone, turns a question in Ingo’s mind.

“Emmet,” he says.

“Yes, I am Emmet,” Emmet says. “You are Ingo. What do you need?”

“I think I've got an idea of what I want to do today.”

Emmet turns his head a bit, looking at Ingo mostly out of the corner of his eye. His eyes flick back and forth between Ingo’s face and the television, waiting for his program to start.

“Mm?” Emmet asks. Ingo smiles a bit, a laugh stuck behind his teeth.

He sees the glint in Emmet’s eye before he even asks his question.

“What about a pokemon battle?”

[miraculouslumination]

The audacity to be like "there's a problem with racism in transandrophobia discussions" while also unironically using the term "transandrophobia truther(s)"