R.a. Salvatore Wrote In One Of The Legend Of Drizzt Books “he Died Of Natural Causes, For A Dagger

Rise Dragon Riders

I need to know that the Inheritance Cycle fandom is not dead yet. Please reblog so I can know that there are still people out there who remember and cherish these books. I CANNOT BE THE ONLY ONE LEFT

I’ve seen an awful lot of posts re: the new Murtagh book about how “unfair” Eragon and Nasuada were to Murtagh by railing at him and telling him to turn on Galbatorix in Inheritance. And I find that so shocking? what were they supposed to be doing, whispering “it’s ok sweetie, do your best alright we luv you :) uwu take your time honey”?? Dude has had his will broken and his mind enslaved by an evil mastermind, he’s full of rage and angst– shouldn’t they be trying to bring those emotions to the surface to help him break free? Also, Murtagh is not the kind of character that enjoys a pity party or is even vaguely comfortable with being vulnerable around others, including those he loves (on many levels), as a result of all those years of abuse and torture. I doubt it would’ve felt very compelling to him if his companions stayed silent or just offered platitudes and hollow encouragements– what should they have said, you got this, bro”?

Idk, I think that it’s interesting that as a fandom we can spend a lot of mental energy (and I mean a lot, 20 years of it over here on my end!!) bending over backwards being compassionate towards Broody McWarcrimes because he has been mind controlled and tortured within an inch of his life, but Goodboy Mainkid and Badass Queenieface try to get him out of his broody dark spiral of a brain for once and it’s like “oh my god, they’re so manipulative, they don’t even care”. Eragon had seen and done Some Shit and Nasuada was also a tortured mind control prisoner (by this guy!!), but for not being moody emo kids about their pain, the way Murtagh is, and compartmentalizing it differently than he does (too stoically, possibly), it’s like it erases their suffering for some people, and I think that’s an unfortunate reaction. If your traumatized friend was maybe the key to saving all your lives, wouldn’t you try to snap them out of their misery in any way you could, magic or no magic? Paolini says it himself multiple times in the new book - “Murtagh was feeling bad for himself again”. It’s the way a lot of us would cope with severely traumatic shit, I’m sure, brood and overthink and marinate in our pain. That doesn’t mean it’s compelling behavior for the people who are depending on you. I think Murtagh needed that needling, that boost from Nasuada and Eragon to get the ball rolling, or else he would not have been clear-headed enough to really think about his true name changing, because he would still have been stuck in the dark, sad spiral of the mind control, and it might have taken more time than they really had for him to get right with himself. They’re not chiding him and making light of his plight, they’re reminding him that he is even stronger than he knows and that they believe in him.

I love that little emo-boy blorbo, but he broods too much, and I think it’s ok for them to say it!

“Don’t let sacrifices be in vain, reflect later. To entrust that which can save those who are still alive.. those methods are the most important.”

Person A: Do you have anything to say for yourself?!

Person B: I have a lot of things to say, first of all, BITCH.

they deserve to be happy!!! 👏👏👏

niraikanai

-slamming fists on table- Just! Because! A person! In! A same! Sex! Relationship! Is! The! Bottom! -breaks table- DOES NOT MEAN THEY HAVE TO BE CUTESY AND HELPLESS

let’s talk about racism in the danmei fandom

alright so originally i wrote this for twitter, but i felt like tumblr could benefit from it too. today we’re finally getting the long awaited “deconstruction of racism in the danmei fandom” post. and lemme preface this by saying- i’m chinese-american. i’m nblm. i do, in fact, have the cultural and historical background to know what i am talking about. so let’s get into it. 

this is gonna be a long post, because we have a lot to talk about. first, racism doesn’t have to be as blatant as calling me a chink, or saying all asians look the same, or not wanting to consume asian media, or making ching chong jokes.racism can be as subtle towards asians as it can towards any other race. if you think i shouldn’t have to say that, join the club, bc same. 

second, racism towards asians, especially in the west, has a long history of being overlooked and accepted. now, let’s talk about how racism dictates some of the takes you see in the fandom. firstly, what originally inspired this thread- the mxtx rumors and the jokes being made about her and censorship. now, obvs some ppl are gonna say that they were just jokes made in poor taste. and, sure. but they were jokes made in poor taste, steeped in racism. the jokes being made about mxtx going to jail happen bc ppl do not view her as a real person. not rlly. she’s an author, sure, the author of one of their favorite novels, but she’s not, like. a person with thoughts and feelings and a life. and that sort of casual lack of humanhood and agency given to danmei authors is rooted in the severely racist dehumanization of asians that’s prevalent in the west. this is something that can be seen other places, too- a good example being when parasite was notably nominated for every oscar category *except* the acting ones. 

it’s this lack of personhood, this lack of agency, that allows ppl to have takes like “censorship isn’t actually bad, and here’s why”. yes, this is a real take that i saw. this take argues that the cql is better than mdzs, bc it is “softer and less graphic”. in general, a lot of ppl have the take that mxtx’s works in particular are too graphic, with problematic sexual elements. now, i’ve talked before about how that’s a homophobic take bc gay relationships should also be allowed to be messy. but it’s also deeply entrenched in racism. it’s why white gays can have the take “this is Problematique and here’s why” and claim it’s not homophobic. 

racism against asians has long since created a trend of sexualizing them- thinking asian men are sexy while also removing their sexual agency. asian men can be sexy, but they can’t actually *have sex*. not explicitly. there’s a historical, real world element to this. “not fats no femmes no asians” could definitely be seen on ppls grindr profiles, back in the day. asians can be sexy, sure. look at kpop boys. but they can’t be sexual. they’re infantilized. they have to remain pure and wholesome, or they’re dragged as problematic and homophobic and fetishizing, a word that’s thrown around so often it’s practically lost meaning. fetishizing is my ex-bf telling me i’m sexy bc* i’m asian, it’s bl/yaoi fans approaching a gay couple on the bus and gushing over how “cute and yaoi they are.” fetishizing is *not* showing your 2 male main charas having explicit sex. if it is, then every white fan in danmei is fetishizing asians. 

but i digress- back to the point about racism. the fact that ppl can argue about censorship shows that they, as a whole, aren’t considering the ramifications of censorship on the literal country it exists in, and it’s citizens. i, obvs, do not live in china. but i’ve got relatives who do, and who did. i’ve got relatives who fled china. not everything is about you and the media you want to consume. and then, of course, there’s the casual racism. the everyday racism. the racism that lies in things like saying all the names are too similar and it’s hard to keep track of them. the racism in saying things like “i’m just here to have fun,,,like sure, i’d persevere through dostoevsky, but this is danmei”, as if danmei is somehow inferior, as if danmei isn’t meant to be critically engaged with, as if danmei doesn’t tackle and critically explore some of the deepest and darkest issues. 

asian media is often presented that way, from kung fu movies to danmei. there is a type of racism, of eurocentrism, that exists in the belief that western media has deeper, more engaging morals. asian media is more “fun”. asian media is almost entirely based on morals and deep thought, it’s just not based in western ones. for example, two of my favorite authors are haruki murakami and kazuo ishiguro. both are japanese authors, who’s works i’ve heard westerners describe as weird and without a point, when in fact they are simply telling stories with innately eastern asian morals and teachings. it’s the same type of racism that causes ppl to make jokes about asian food, to not view it as a craft the same way they do french food. it’s asian- it must be “less than”, be inferior, be inherently not worth as much. 

casual racism about asians is normalized, which isn’t a word i use often. it’s normalized to the point where ppl don’t even realize they have that sort of implicit bias, and we know ppl don’t rlly come on the internet to think critically. but unintentional racism is still racism. it still has an impact, still does damage. ppl need to think intentionally and critically in how they consume and interact with media not made for them, but they don’t, instead choosing to come in with their preexisting biases, and bc of that, it’s easy for fandom members to dismiss the cultural concerns of chinese ppl within the fandom. it’s easy, for example, to say “calling them martial brothers is incest apologism”, ignoring the inherent cultural roots of martial brothers. 

now, we’re gonna get in to the current “drama”. i do not ship chengxian. i think that even bears repeating. i Do Not ship chengxian. i have written them, in a modern au, as adopted brothers. but there is a real historical and culture relevance to the idea of martial brothers, of community, that westerners willfully refuse to hear, claiming instead that “you’re disregarding adopted families!” no. that’s not what’s happening at all. what’s happening is ppl are refusing to look at their own, western bias, and placing western values on an eastern idea. community raising of children, community family bonds without being adopted families, is important in east asian culture. there is a long history of community being whats important, and ppl don’t get that you can be a “communal/community family” without being considered familial. jyl choosing to view wwx as her brother, bc he is a martial brother, and chengxian being in love, are things that can technically coexist. whether or not you choose to perceive them as such, refusing to acknowledge the real history of martial brothers, and scremaing “incest apologism” whenever someone tries to explain it, is inherently racist. it’s you assuming you know my culture better than me. it’s you assuming your western ideas are the only ones that exist. which is, at its core, the basis for most racism in the danmei fandom. 

most racism in the danmei fandom comes from this idea that casual racism against asians isn’t *really* racism, and therefore asians don’t *really* get to have a say, and it shouldn’t matter anyway bc we’re lucky you’re even engaging with danmei, with asian content, since it’s shallow and inferior anyway. the racism comes from a place of moral superiority, of ownership, of this assumption that westerners are entitled to not just consume danmei but also bring their western lens and apply it to something that was never written for them in the first place.

I keep seeing posts on social media thanking the OFMD cast and crew for their work and not mentioning Taika, and it's driving me to distraction because Taika is absolutely fundamental to the existence of this show.

There's a huge chance the show wouldn't have been picked up at all if Taika hadn't attached his name to it. And he didn't just attach his name and walk away - he played a key role in developing the show. David has said that he was looking at the history with Taika and they both went 'omg Stede and Blackbeard were fucking' and decided to centre the show around that. Taika pushed for Rhys to play Stede. Taika saw Nathan's comedy on instagram and went 'yep that's Lucius'. Taika was desperate to play Ed, and fought to play him. Taika has spoken about how much he loves playing Ed, how it made him fall in love with acting again, to the point where he wears some of Ed's jewellery and has gotten some of Ed's tattoos actually inked on him. He poured everything he has as an actor into Ed (some of the stuff he had to perform, particularly at the beginning of S2, is difficult) and the show simply wouldn't work without it. Taika directed the pilot. He loved the show enough to juggle filming S1 with post-production on Thor: Love and Thunder. When the show's budget was slashed by 40%, and could no longer afford to film in LA, Taika would have been key to moving production to New Zealand - and if that hadn't happened, S2 wouldn't have happened. When a director went off sick with Covid during S2, Taika jumped in to direct half an episode and then didn't take a director's credit on it.

You do not have to like Taika. You do not have to agree with everything he does/says. But what we are not going to do is erase the absolutely key fundamental role that Taika has played in OFMD. This show simply would not exist, probably not in any form, but certainly not in the form we see and love, if not for Taika's continuing and multi-level contribution.

ready for battle