#xenophobia mention

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Bumble's Curse AU (DOTC) (half-baked)

The Bullshit

I think what really annoys me about Bumble's death aside from the sexism and xenophobia and the sending her back to an abuser and not doing anything against Clear Sky is the fact that THEY AT LEAST COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING WITH IT.

Think about it. The first main character of the series was Rusty/Firestar, a kittypet who proved himself over and over in spite of his origins and became legend among the Clans.

Then we flashback to the creation of the Clans and have Bumble, who was rejected for her kittypet origins and.......nothing comes from it. Literally nothing reasonable.

What They Could Have Done

They could have still killed her, much as that scene absolutely sucked, if it was to intentionally show the Clans' xenophobia, to show the Clans' flaws and how that will eventually lead to Firestar changing things. But rejecting Bumble as a Clanmate was seen as a completely good thing??

Like they could have deliberately made their stories correlate in opposite directions.

So what if the Clans actually faced consequences for literally not helping Bumble when she was abused and leading her on the path of death?

I like the idea of her relating to water or ice, as that's the opposite of fire.

My Main Idea

She becomes a crying spirit, so distraught from her death and how she was treated by everyone--friends to enemies--in her life, that her ghost, if seen, is seen always crying

(cats can't cry, but in the books they shrug, show the whites of their eyes, have kits talk and open their eyes at like one day, so I think it's fine)

The emotions engulf her entirely, so that all she can feel in her death is utter sorrow. And because ~spirit powers~ those tears are the waters that flood SkyClan--the Clan that was founded by her killer. Because she sees how many kittypets reside in it, and if she wasn't so destroyed, so constricted in how she could feel as a spirit doomed to always feel only sadness, she would have been glad for them, she would have been happy!

But because she was a crying spirit, she could only cry at the unfairness of it. Why could they get the life that she had wished for herself?

And, as Patchpelt once said in Forest of Secrets: "I remember the last time the river overflowed, many moons ago. Cats from all Clans drowned. Prey drowned, too, and we went hungry even though our paws stayed dry. This is not just RiverClan's problem."

Maybe Bumble had to do with that flood as well? It's not seen in books, so it could have happened for a number of reasons. Maybe when Featherstorm met with a kittypet or had a kittypet's kits? Maybe, to tie them further, when Firestar was born and she could feel the prophecy, and knew of a kittypet that would be accepted into the Clans and become a wonderful leader?

As well, there's the flood in Bramblestar's Storm--though the kittypets join afterward. What if Benny was destined to become someone great, almost like Firestar, but this knowledge upset Bumble further, resulting in the flood.

As well, Shadowstar lost a life to drowning--and she was the leader to reject Bumble.

To make this short and not put in detail every water-related incident, here's a list of those that drowned, and thus could have possibly been killed (unintentionally and unknowingly) by Bumble:

Splashpaw [died offscreen in Dawn]

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Woodkit + Robinkit [Leopardstar's Honour]

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Tadpole [Tigerstar and Sasha] (kittypet that would have joined the Clans, as would Hawk and Moth, but they survived)

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Lichenfur [Skyclan and The Stranger]

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Flametail [Night Whispers]

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Blackstar [offscreen in Bramblestar's Storm]

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Seedpaw [Bramblestar's Storm]

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Pebblefoot [offscreen in Bramblestar's Storm]

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Grasspelt [offscreen in Bramblestar's Storm]

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Snipkit [Hawkwing's Journey] (Skyclan + being chased away by someone who was once a kittypet possibly induced Bumble's crying??)

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Juniperclaw -[AVOS]

IMPORTANT TO NOTE:

You may say that Bumble's no killer, and I would agree with you! In this case, the deaths are not murders, Bumble is not killing them intentionally--she likely doesn't even realize that she's killing them at all.

She is constantly crying in her afterlife, and whenever she sees something that especially triggers the deep sorrow inside her (like something that reminds her of her own pain or the life she could have had), a flood results--and the flood could kill anyone that gets caught in it, regardless of if they, specifically, caused her sadness.

Then, what if someone--Firestar, Princess, Echosong, another kittypet or kittypet-turned warrior finds her, and breaks the trance that had engulfed Bumble for years?

And she realizes the monster that she had become, that she made herself into, that the Clans made her into--no, the Clan founders, because these cats alive now were innocent. Just like she was. and she breaks down. The numb exterior that had built after decades of living as a crying spirit shatters, and Bumble is Bumble again.

More ideally, everyone who killed/rejected her apologize deeply. Maybe she accepts, maybe she doesn't, she's just glad to have the pain mostly gone, because she spent too long suffering and making others suffer because of it, and she just wants to move on.

And together, they send a message to the Clans to not neglect help from anyone who may need it, regardless of where they come from, and to think twice before rejecting someone based solely on where they come from. -- At least then they could admit the whole xenophobia problem in Warriors and try to fix it.

--

This is still very wonky, especially that ending part. My brain is still fried to blackened ash from final exams, but I thought of this and wanted to get it out there.

I think Bumble would be more interesting of a character if she was, you know, a character and not a prop, written only to be abused, neglected, killed, and forgotten. And I think it would be interesting if the Clans' xenophobia was called out and dealt with instead of something that's treated as perfectly okay and normal.

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

little details that mess me up so bad because this story really does begin and end with violence in the name of upholding borders, doesn't it.

like the jokes about how everything would be all right if Sean just played zombie with Daniel are funny, but stuff like this, and the letter from Esteban in ep 3 about Foster calling the cops on his barbecue (like it's a genuine miracle no one was hurt or killed during that incident), prove how unstable the situation already was. Foster clearly doesn't see the Diaz family as "belonging" in the neighborhood even after they've lived there for years, he's very aggressive at them taking up with he considers an underserved amount of space.

and he's passed that attitude onto Brett, who's confident enough of his place in the neighborhood to harass Lyla and Sean without fear of repercussions, because the whole point of boundaries like the Fosters' is that white people can reach across and harm anyone on the other side, but they respond aggressively to anyone crossing to them instead. Daniel spraying Brett is a result of accidentally crossing the border Mr. Foster has been trying to maintain between their families, and Brett reacts as violently as the cops and vigilantes do in a similar (perceived) border crossing ep 5, since he and his father are working off the same principles.

even if Sean and Daniel had played together that day, there probably would have been some sort of situation in the future, especially since Esteban (reasonably) didn't seem inclined to stop barbecues or pay for a fucking fence, and Foster probably would have found another reason to harass him if he did. maybe it wouldn't have gone done the same way, maybe it wouldn't have been quite so bad, but some kind of violent confrontation was very likely inevitable. they were all doomed from the beginning.

[heybobbygirl]

Istg my dad refuses to refer to the English as anything other than ‘the bastards’ 😭😭 I remember one time he was explaining the prime meridian to me and he said “it goes right through the bastards” to explain that to goes through England 💀 like dude I know we’re Irish but JESUS CHRIST

[insufferable-talkstuck]

Xenophobia

a post regarding xenophobia within The epilogues and HS^²

let me just preface this by saying, if xenophobia makes you uncomfortable you probably shouldn't read the epilogues, there's a long list of content warnings the epilogues have already but i cannot advocate for this enough do NOT underestimate how immensely fucked up the epilogues get when it comes to this.

Dubiously canon homestuck decides, for whatever reason, that xenophobia should be a plotpoint and that characters should go to fucking war. they use Jane as the major xenophobic douche politician

the way xenophobia exists on earth C, starts of as a belief, held by Jane crocker; that there should be reproductive laws for trolls and mothergrub. Jane expresses that the birth rate of trolls and their long lifespans in some cases, will result in the wipe-out of the human race, she says she's attempting to STOP xenophobia from happening.. by trolls to humans. because if they dominate the planet how could human reproduction ever catch up?

This logic in itself is fucked up enough, Jane wants to control how an entire species reproduces just because humans will be less in the outcome. there is no proper civil way to control this! and about the long lifespans, what would she do? kill the high blooded grubs as soon as they come out? i think you get why this is flawed.

but of course it doesn't stop here, tho at first Jane tries to be polite about this entire thing, more of her racism is revealed via comments that she makes on trolls. She is outright rude to karkat, which is made worse by the fact everyone else is actively ignoring how what she says to him is racist, and even telling karkat he's overreacting.

example one; Jade needed comfort at a funeral and Kanaya comforted her, Jane eyed karkat and exclaimed more of trollkind should be like kanaya.

example two; we can very clearly see she drops the nice act when she's actually mad at a troll, she calls gamzee an insect insultingly on multiple occasions

example three; various comments she makes that are sprinkled throughout interaction such as " im not xenophobic some of my best friends are trolls! " and "what's NOT xenophobic anymore??"

*WORTHY MENTION*

i really should have found a better way to include this because it is IMPORTANT. along with what is mentioned above, and how Jane's polite act falls if she's angered, her racist beliefs don't even stop here! she doesn't JUST want to control troll reproduction but believes trolls should be stripped of many of their rights, and not even be allowed to VOTE

I'm planning to make a list of all the chapters you can avoid in order to not be looking at xenophobia for hours if it's a sensitive topic, but as of now just know, the actual xenophobia spewed here, and the added offensiveness of everyone but karkat ignoring it's an issue can make the reading experience really hard if this is a trigger for you. Proceed with caution

[queerbauten]

also there is a very special pain in walking into work and knowing a very significant portion of your coworkers and managers couldn’t legally vote in the election at all

[wombocombo4x3]

Twitter's Open Hostility Towards Japanese Culture Can No Longer Be Ignored

[chancheols]

The way some of you run to rub someone's fave being problematic (in the actual sense of the word) in their face is deeply strange behaviour to me. Why do some of you treat fans like spokespeople for their faves? Odd, odd behaviour.

[cata613]

It’s unfortunate to see what the world has come to :(

[neighbourhoodtwo]

usamericans please stop putting your "congrats uk!! hope this happens to us in november!!" posts in the uk politics tag please please you have no idea

[angelicsentinel]

Imagine the need to put "not m27 compliant" on everything.

"Dear Father, before I post, I disavow any relation to the CANON. Forgive me for I have sinned mortally. I have fallen into apostasy and ruin on the altar of kaishin. I was an unknowing sinner, caught about on the seas of incest for thirty years, but now, with your divine revelation, I have seen the light!

"Now I only ship the holiest and purest of rivals to lovers, that of the unrelated queers, so their incestuous foreign seed shall not bear fruit.

"In the name of the monocle, bowtie, detective badge, and watch. Amen."

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Jackdaw!

Background colours inspired by @elementaldeityoffood's DF drawings that I love

--

I love his growth as a character.

He was a massive xenophobic in life, so much so that he would kill kittypets regularly and not even view it as murder because of how worthless he viewed them as.

But in the Dark Forest, no one cares where you come from. It's only how you act, how you are, that matters. You're surrounded by cats that also did awful things for a multitude of reasons, you're all in the same boat now, no matter how you got there. It probably took many, many seasons before Jackdawfoot completely, fully accepted that what he had done was not only wrong but awful. (This is a very brief summary of it).

He hates the cat he had been. Sometimes in his free time, he will do what he can to spread this teaching to others who made the same or similar mistakes.

Jackdawfoot said EQUALITY BITCHES

--

Base: FREE Warriors Lineart Pack 1 by LexisSketches on DeviantArt

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

Sean may not have gotten a fancy torture dream but he was forced to sit in a jail cell and argue with the living incarnations of 4chan about human rights so I really do think he suffered more.

[bonefall]

Can I hear more about Villain Thornclaw? The way you described him is a really cool take on his character.

He exudes a sense of detached ruthlessness, something happened and he just never got over it, most of the time he is a model warrior, but sometimes he says something or gives a cold look, and that hints just how much he is willing to do for his beliefs

The first warrior that Firestar named becomes his most insidious enemy.

He was too young to clearly remember Clawface snatching him and his little sister, but he does remember the way it became an early fixation. His favorite games were always reenactments and play fights, and his father Lionheart and kidnapper Clawface would be characters in them. He often would go too far and play rough, actually biting or scratching his playmate.

We, in the real world, may recognize this as a way kids often process trauma. But they don't have cat therapy here.

And quickly these fixations became unsettling. Brightkit didn't like these games, and their older siblings were disturbed. Frostfur reacted strongly and tried to intervene, but it didn't help the way they wanted.

He got good at hiding it, and he got better at finding other ways to express his fixation. He never knew Lionheart, but he DID know Grandma Speckletail, and she would tell him all about the ways he could be like his dad. When you don't know a person, they can be anything you want them to be.

Turns out if you dress up "I'm obsessively xenophobic of foreign cats and want to rip them to shreds" as "I will ferociously avenge my father and uphold his legacy," suddenly you're golden! It's that simple!

(it's almost like clan culture didnt actually value peace or kindness and just encourages you to channel ur violence towards specific ends)

Thornkit went from Grandma Speckletail to Mentor Mousefur, and she continued to cultivate this. There's a time and a place for aggression. Be good to your clanmates. Use words in camp, not claws. She made a good soldier out of him.

When ThunderClan had a reckoning with Tigerclaw and his ideology in TPB, during his coup, the line of thought that went through Thornpaw and the cats like him was that Tigerclaw was the problem. Who could have known! A shock! Sickening!

...for a while they were "better," devastated by his betrayal, more openminded. But minds don't always trend towards progress.

Eventually, Thornclaw backslid. Let's not throw out the kitten with the tonguewash, here. Yes yes, Tigerclaw was a damn traitor and a hypocrite, but there's worse cats to look up to, you can't deny his nobility, that some of his ideas were great for ThunderClan, that there were lofty ideals he merely took from our grand and glorious history and we can return to those days...

What is so terrible about being a thistle? To lash back when you are attacked? To defend the meadow for you and yours?

We can have Tigerclaw's good aspects without the bad, surely?

And Firestar...

You must understand it's nothing personal. Firestar's a fine cat, for a kittypet. There is no hate for him. But we can't have a leader who stops ThunderClan from engaging in honorable combat. The Clan has become too mixed, and he punished him simply for expressing his concerns. What other choice is there? To do nothing as the clans are destroyed from the inside out?

Bluestar brought wildfire to the forest, to burn it to the ground. Firestar is Thornclaw's natural enemy-- and so is every cat like him.

[whatudottu]

Regarding your cerebrocrustacean headcanons mentioned in the previous ask: they very well could be somewhat canon given how, when asked if Albedo and Dr. Psychobos would be willing to work together, Derrick J. Wyatt responded with "Psychobos seems like a total team up slut, he'll team up with any villain any time" (his words, not mine).

Which he likely meant in the sense of "Psychobos is so power-hungry he'll team up with anyone in order to get ahead", but with your headcanons and the fact he never talks much about his personal life in mind, you could alternatively interpret it as "Psychobos is so desperately lonely he'll accept anyone he has even the slightest similarity with into his clique, even members of a species he's violently xenophobic towards" (probably to cope with/serve as a rebound for his mancrush Azmuth friendzoning him /lh /hj).

Now all of this is making me realize that it was a massive missed opportunity in Omniverse to not have Psychobos' demeanor do a complete 180 around the people he works with compared to everyone else (whether sincere or a thinly-veiled manipulation tactic) if not solely for a few jokes. Especially him acting like an affectionate father figure towards Malware (whether he likes it or not) solely so he can rub it in Azmuth's face that "I'm a FAR more attentive and caring parental figure towards your creation than YOU ever were, and I use the term loosely".

WHAT DO YOU MEAN DJW SAID 'TEAM UP SLUT' HAHAH WHAT!? dear god it's true it's on the wiki what the fuck what the fuck assdfjhghsdlfkgfkl-!

I mean, look at his already canon group; Khyber, allegedly the greatest huntsman in the galaxy, teaming up with Dr Psychobos to make a little watch that can sample (specifically predatory) animals; and Malware, a technology absorbing mutant mechamorph, working with the cybernetically enhanced (also listed as a mutant???) cerebrocrustacean in order to make said watch- if liking the concept of animals and incorporating machines as part of oneself is enough to get into Dr Psychobos' clique well, he's certainly stretched what that means far enough to at least snag two others into his initial team up. Same can't be said for Attea and the incurseans which seems to be more of a sponsor type relationship, and Maltruant commissioned him to repair his body but violated the trade agreement so whether or not Psychobos would do business with the incurseans again, he's already squarely sequestered Maltruant in the outest of out-groups :P

Hah, the 'Dr Psychobos adopting Malware specifically to stick it to Azmuth' bit reminded me of a signing-the-adoption-papers version of the 'I throw my used car batteries in the ocean' thing- something along the lines of; [psychobos voice] "You are the most calamitous individual I have had the pleasure of meeting, and I use the term loosely." [malware voice, threateningly] "I have devoured and absorbed the specs of the Omnitrix." [psychobos signing adoption papers] [malware, experiencing the affects of cerebrocrustacean in-grouping and having no frame of reference on how to deal with it] "What the fuck is happening-"

[astorichan]

Can't believe I have to say this, but. People. Behaviour like this is not okay.

Even foregoing the fact that I am not even Russian - this is fucked up on so many levels. Russian people - especially young fandom teenagers, which this person seems to think I am, which this person seems to be targeting - are not responsible for the war, nor are they capable of stopping it. Bullying people on the Internet to jerk off doesn't make you a hero that Ukrainians need right now. Russian-speaking Ukrainians exist and are prevalent in many Eastern regions of the country. People can be multilingual. Russian people do not equal Putin. Harassment is never okay. Coming back to comment again after your comment has been deleted is not okay. Xenophobia is never okay.

What the fuck.

@ao3org tagging to bring a little light to this. I am not much affected by this, but this person might target someone more vulnerable in the future.

[as-tro-nauts]

what actually happened? I used to be big into btd, joined gato’s server briefly when tpof was in development, but haven’t paid to actually stay in the server, so i just see the announcements that it’s closing in 2 days

Hey! I’m glad you reached out to ask. A lot of people are in the dark, it seems to be that way when someone’s fave gets accused of excusing bigotry/g/nm. That being said, I’m going to lay out everything that’s been made public first, and then add in my own thoughts and things I’ve noticed.

The News:

As posted here a member(who I will be calling spieler in reference to their twt handle, and for privacy of their other accounts) of the patreon server(which I was also a member of up until news broke) reached out to Gatobob regarding untoward comments made to them by a mod, Melon who was a prevalent member of the fan community but also has a history of making members uncomfortable enough to leave server. Spieler operated under the assumption of good faith based on the language of the message and based on what myself and others had seen in mutual servers with them. The story develops in the thread and the two ensuing ones linked here and here detailing Gatobob’s handling of the situation. Reminiscent of but FAR worse than her handling of the Carnivorekitty situation. She knew spieler was going to reach out, it is implied she was aware of Melon’s subpar apology, minimized the situation to the fan’s face, and unrelatedly Spieler experienced enough harassment from diehard fans to not feel comfortable in the fandom space anymore.

Reports from members in server prior to its closure confirm that Melon was active until the very end, and did not face consequences for the frankly unacceptable comments made, which were far more than “cringe on main”.

My Thoughts:

Given how she didn’t bother handling the Carnivorekitty situation, and was more focused on smoothing things over here than anything, I’m not shocked. Frustrated and disappointed? Deeply. But it’s definitely a pattern of behavior to weaponize mental health(whether her own or others, as shown in Spieler’s threads), to shut down conversation on these serious matters, and that she doesn’t act like it’s her responsibility to curate a space reflective of her “good values”. It’s really hurtful and evidently untrue, it is the responsibility of a creator to manage the space their fans occupy to create a zone as free of bigotry as possible. Anything less than an enthusiastic FUCK NO to any kind of xenophobia is complacency. She did not boot Tom when he derrided the POC and LGBT+ fans that gave her this platform and this income. She did not remove Melon when confronted with the hurtful and unnecessary commentary she made, and instead allowed the pattern to continue for the duration of the server’s life span. Protect yourselves and take your money to someone who cares about their fan community, and won’t shut it down when confronted with serious issues.

I would like to make it very clear I disavow Gatobob’s actions, the people who harassed Spieler on her behalf should feel ashamed, and no party in this deserves harassment.

I just think maybe I’m tired of creators not doing better, and yet again my trust was ill placed.