I want you to know how hard it was for me to choose between these two options
[image description: an illustration of Taako and Lup, twin elves with light brown skin, freckles, and blonde hair. Taako is crouching down, wearing a holographic wizard’s hat, long sleeve pink blouse with holographic cuffs, a holographic purse, a shimmery pink skirt, tall pink socks and holo heeled boots. Lup is standing, wearing a large sparkly, rainbow scarf, blue galaxy-patterned sweater, sparkly rainbow fingerless gloves, pink pants, tall socks in the trans pride colors and black boots. They both have small smiles on their faces. Underneath the image is a screenshot from a message from Anonymous reading “Could I request Angus and Taako? Alternatively, the twins in just,, the gayest outfit possible.”]
Speaking as someone born in the last years of a dictatorship, you Americans are already several steps in one.
Ferdinand Marcos’ greatest trick was convincing people all protesters were communist animals, so when they went missing, few cared. Even after bodies were discovered.
These white people & journalists talking about being civil? These were the rich people, the Fil-Chinese, the mestizos in the Philippines who knew they won’t be affected by many of Marcos’ policies, and therefore could ignore them even as the killings started.
Marcos was also adept at convincing regular Filipinos that “as long as you don’t commit crimes I won’t come for you. I’m only getting rid of the ‘filth’.” He lied, of course. He jailed his most vocal opponents, people whose businesses he wanted to confiscate for his use.
But Filipinos have always been susceptible to strongman personality cults, just like your Republicans.
(Yeah don’t @ me on this one, Repubs still singing Reagan’s praises despite the fact he was FRIENDS with Marcos and helped him retain power, making it 1000x worse for us.)
White people, journalists who insist on civility- you seem to think civility is a common ground you share with opponents like Trump et al. Here’s a clue - whenever you offer these assholes middle ground, they will invade that space & then claim you never gave them ground at all.
Marcos kept pushing. First it was all protesters were communists. All student protesters. Then it was the free press. Then it was the people with businesses he coveted. And then it was anyone who looked at Imelda Marcos or his daughter, Imee, wrong. Arrested, raped, murdered.
And every step of the way there were the same kind of fuckwits here twittering on about how people should be civil, SURELY Marcos wouldn’t go that far, the economy is flourishing surely it can’t be THAT bad.
“It didn’t happen to ME, so it must not be bad.” up till Martial Law.
White people asking for performative civility do the same thing they did, for the same reason - they’re afraid. You’ve never been raised to fear discrimination or prejudice against a system that has always been built in your favor for centuries.
Your argument for civility is a terrified lashing out against an uncertain future that your ancestors / fellow white people have subjected people of color to for centuries. It’s built in POC culture to learn how to cope with this. You’ve had none, because you’ve never needed to.
Because regardless of whether you want it or not, status quo benefits white people best. In any upheaval, white people have the least casualties. That makes them the last demographic wanting to rock the boat, even if the boat is full of Nazis steering it straight into Auschwitz.
Because you know Auschwitz isn’t going to be for you. It’s gonna be Auschwitz for a lot of people in that same boat you’re on, but you know that’s not for you. And that’s why you can afford to be compliant.
And here’s the kicker: YOU KNOW THEY’RE NOT CIVIL. That’s why it’s the liberals you keep appealing to for decorum and politeness. You know you’re not going to get most Trumpsters on board anything amounting to basic decency.
So you shift the goalposts, and you enable the gaslighting, even if inadvertently. “Maybe if YOU hadn’t been so rude they wouldn’t have done that.”
Bullshit. You KNOW they’ll do it anyway because again, your goddamn status quo.
People invested in putting kids in cages don’t want your civility. They don’t want you to extend them the same courtesy they never had - and never wanted - from you. What they want is for you to retreat.
And every ground you grudgingly give, hoping that they’ll construe that as some good faith on your part, is only an incentive for them to push harder until you have no ground left.
Then they’re going to tell you they’ve owned the land all along.
“So much for the tolerant left.” This is why they say this all the fucking time. This is the bait they expect you to fall for. Your required “tolerance” for the things they do, even as they do the exact opposite to you.
The first requirement when approaching any discussion with civility is that both sides must come to the table with it. The side that advocates putting kids in cages and are now thinking of stripping citizenship from legal green card holders, never had that to begin with.
Now: if you are REALLY invested in still keeping civil after this, there are countless unaffiliated Red Hen places in the US (+one in Canada) being egged, getting death threats, etc.
Try discussing “civility” with those people this time, & see how well that works out for you.
Chapter Summary:
Addison changes the channel. Irene broods. Kardala gives a pat on the back (metaphorically).
__________________
Jamie’s car pulled away almost before they closed the
doors. Nadiya couldn’t really blame her; it was a cramped, tense ride, and
Jamie drove exactly the speed limit. (Like Irene, Nadiya noted; apparently
that’s what you do when you’re on the run. Action movies had lied to her.)
In front of them stood a small, slightly shabby house.
Nadiya glanced from Remy to Kardala. “You think?”
Remy shrugged, walking up to the door and knocking. All
three of them waited, then the door cracked open to reveal the terrified face
of Addison.
“What do you want?” they said. “Get out of here. Tell
Martine we aren’t –”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Remy said, holding his hands up
nonthreateningly. “Why would we be from Martine?”
“I mean, not only were we the ones who fucked her up at the
‘Berg,” Nadiya pointed out, “but she’s locked up.”
Addison glanced down the street, then opened the door. “Come
in,” they said warily. “If you were from Martine, you just would’ve blown the
door open, probably.”
“Jamie brought us,” Nadiya said. Addison looked much like
she remembered them: a person in their later thirties, a little soft around the
middle, thinning hair. Open, friendly face that was currently tense with
anxiety.
They relaxed slightly. “Oh. Well, that’s better, at least.”
[image description: a drawing of Taako and Lup, chubby twin elves with brown skin and shoulder-length dark brown hair. They’re both wearing pointy wizard’s hats and capes. Taako’s hair is dyed white at the tips. Lup’s hair is in two small braids. They’re both smiling and Lup is saying, “sup dipshits.”]
nologsonthemoon asked: everyone always forgets that kravitz tricked merle into thinking he was Pan, so I venture that he’s like, crazy good at impressions.
taako spent his time on the empty world studying bardic college tomes on how to do voices good, so after the day of story and song he’s very, very good at impressions. taako uses this skill exclusively to fuck with people via stone of farspeech. lucas finds himself in possession of a lot of pizzas he swears he didn’t order.
it’s the perfect crime until one night, as taako is ordering a rollie egg cooker from the fantasy shopping channel for barold, kravitz reaches over, plucks the stone from his hand, and breaks out a pitch perfect barry impression to cancel it.
taako is shook. taako assumed kravitz was as bad at voices as he is at accents and that merle was easily tricked. taako assumed no one could stop him from delivering a weird egg cylinder machine to his brother-in-law’s house. how did that voice come out of kravitz’s mouth?
kravitz is good at impressions, turns out, but only when he’s able to listen and absorb the voice. kravitz has met pan. he pops over to see the raven queen
sometimes. they play poker with istus. kravitz smiles at his shocked boyfriend. “i was a bard, love. remember?”
kravitz could have stepped in at any time, but he has no objections to harassing lucas. it’s just that barry’s taste in food is already very bad and they don’t need to risk him getting fond of cylindrical eggs on top of everything else.
i’ve wanted to draw a portrait of my Taako design for months but haven’t had the skillset to do it but now after trying and failing 3 discrete times i’ve finally drawn a portrait of the boy!!
[image description: a portrait of Taako from the neck up. He’s an elf with brown skin and long, curly blonde hair that’s braided and dark at the roots. He has a smattering of freckles across the high points of his face, a nose piercing and a gold stud in the middle of his upper lip. He has a serene expression on his face. The background fades from dark orange at the top to light orange at the bottom, and “Taako” is written in the upper right corner.]
Icon: Mary Sage by @voidfishkid. Elizabeth, aka Birdie. 22. She/her. Gryffinpuff, ENFP, and linguistics grad student. Knee-deep in podcast-town. Herein lies an overabundance of whatever fandom content has caught my attention [currently: TAZ, BB9, Critical Role, The Penumbra Podcast, bomBARDed, MBMBAM, Wonderful!]. Art and fic prompts are OPEN (no NSFW, please!). Accessible content with image/video descriptions (in progress).
![femoids:
“This is very, very much not a good sign
”
[id: screenshot of link to wsj.com article titled “White House to Propose Merging Education, Labor Departments” /end id]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/aecbab24dd56cb8a2ca9a0e448cc3486/tumblr_paooguvu5G1vx5czco1_500.jpg)
