Sorry that this post is long but I would appreciate it if other white people read it and thought about it. I've been reading a lot of posts and the tags on them and I just want to make it very clear that this conversation isn't really about Ray getting 'attention' or his talent getting acknowledged. We should not be minimising this to “we need to acknowledge that Ray is an excellent guitar player” because everyone knows that, all you need is ears. True, it went largely unappreciated by fans at the height of mcr’s fame, but at least that's different now. What we're talking about now is about so much more than that - in fact, part of the problem is Ray getting reduced to nothing but the guy who shuts up and does the solos. We're talking about a pattern of behaviour that has been so deeply rooted in this fandom for so long that it's almost invisible to white people. It's a collective problem but it's perpetuated by individuals and needs to be addressed at an individual level first before it can begin to change.

I will acknowledge that, at least in my circles, things have started to change a little bit this tour in regards to people noticing him and discussing him beyond just his solos. But on the flipside that's only highlighted the larger issue, which boils down to how differently Ray is treated from the rest of the band. This is a consistent pattern. If he's not being ignored, he's behind separated out and set apart from the others - either being put on a weird pedestal or given suspiciously backhanded compliments.

Back in 2020 when I'd be lucky to see three posts about him a day on my dash I used to spend a lot of time scrolling through old inactive blogs to queue Ray pictures. Back in the pre-breakup days, if he wasn't being called "princess fro fro" he was being called ugly or he was the target of straight-up racial slurs. There was a weird narrative that he like, lowkey bullied Frank or took more credit than he deserved for mcr's guitar parts (which is painfully ridiculous and only proves that nobody paid attention to a single word Ray's ever said). Until very recently, the punchline of one of the main "jokes" (quotation marks because the word joke implies it was ever actually funny in the first place lol) in this fandom relied on Ray being at least casually homophobic. And these were blogs that posted Ray - I can only imagine how much worse the people who actively didn't like him would have been.

Nowadays, I post a lot of Ray content so I see a lot of tags from people outside my circle of mutuals. Let me tell you, there are Patterns. First of all, there's the classic "tags that completely ignore Ray to make the Ray post about Frank and/or Gerard instead." But more and more often what I'm seeing is if he's not being infantilised, he's being treated as some hyper-masculine, omni-competent, suave sex god or something - each of these things are equally reductive and dehumanising - and each of them are different manifestations of racist stereotypes and common fandom attitudes towards people of colour. Sure, Frank also gets weirdly infantilised a lot, but in a very different way - Frank is woobified in the way people often treat their fictional faves out of affection and horniness, whereas Ray is just reduced down to a personalityless nice guy - something that is also very common with fictional characters of colour. Then there are people who act like he's some kind of long-suffering untouchable genius who puts up with the little weirdos in his band because they worship his talent or something, as if he's not on equal footing with them as their peer and creative partner. And then you get the people characterising him as some kind of rough macho domineering dude because he's…tall? I guess? And plays guitar with confidence? Or is it just because he's brown.

I just..genuinely want you to sit down and think about a reason Ray might be singled out and separated from the rest of the band like this.

Is it because he's quiet in interviews? Mikey was always quieter. Also, Ray has done a lot more interviews than you think, they just haven't been circulated by fans as much. Also, he's literally the second-most featured band member in lotms - you know, the almost sole source for their fandom-driven personalities back in the day.

Is it because he's less feminine than the others? Both Mikey and Frank regularly present as more traditionally masculine in their fashion choices and mannerisms etc. The only thing “more masculine” about Ray than the others is...his body type I guess. There’s a whole conversation there about the intersection of gender and race and racist perceptions thereof.

Is it because he's private and keeps out of the public eye? So does Gerard.

Is it because people historically found him less attractive than the others? I shouldn't have to explain that that was the racism all along (yes, I know there's no accounting for taste, but Ray was regularly and actively mocked for his non-white features, and noughties beauty standards, especially in the alt music scene, were overwhelmingly white and racist. I regularly get tags to the effect of "when did Ray get so hot???" and honestly it's pretty telling that he's only widely acknowledged as attractive now that he's lost weight (whole other important discussion on fatphobia in this fandom here btw) and his hair has changed texture and beauty standards have shifted so certain racial features are fetishised rather than mocked.

Is it because he wasn't involved in one of the iconic bandom boylove duos? News flash, all "ships" are made up fan theories. Rpf and/or tinhatting is based on what fans notice and what rumours they perpetuate. Besides them kissing on stage a few times to make a point over 15 years ago, you know frerard lore because people talk about frerard lore. You know petekey lore because people talk about petekey lore. The truth is nobody cared enough to pay attention to Ray back then. (To be clear, this isn't me trying to tinhat anything about him, I'm just once again pointing out the obvious disparity in how Ray is treated compared to the others.)

I consistently see people acting baffled at how he's been behaving this tour - skipping or bouncing around the stage, eating his solos up, being physically affectionate with his bandmates. I can tell you he has literally always acted like that. Sure, this tour is special - he's certainly a lot more confident than he used to be and seems happier than ever, but really the biggest thing that's changed is now we get full footage of every show so it's literally impossible to overlook.

I also see people acting baffled when others point out the way Ray's been mistreated by fandom - being shocked that anyone would crop Ray out of band photos etc. I guarantee you that almost every single one of you has reblogged pictures where he's been actively cropped out, because some of the most iconic Frank-and-Gerard pictures that constantly get passed around on here are just that. "But how would we know" - sure, it's not your fault, but it's a small example of the way the more blatant Ray erasure from the past gets passed down to new fans and perpetuated by them unknowingly in turn. Cropping him out of pictures is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of how his talent and personality and significance to the emotional heart of the band has been overlooked. I can't tell you how many iconic well-known quotes from interviews or paragraphs from Not the Life it Seems directly precede facts about/quotes from Ray that nobody seems to have heard.

So again, this is not really a popularity thing - it's hard to measure but I'd say in the past few months Ray's overtaken Mikey in terms of mass popularity, at least on tumblr. You don't need to performatively post once a day about how Ray Toro Is God or how much you want him to rail you or how much you want him to rail your white fave because "he's the only one who can top" (you Realise how this sounds right?). I'm just asking you to confront your internalised biases and the external biases ingrained in the culture and history of this fandom, and start treating Ray the same way you treat the rest of the guys. He's not an untouchable god and he's not a sunshine cupcake, he's just Some Guy who's really fucking good at guitar. He's a proud stay at home dad, he's cringe as fuck, he loves to cook, he listens to podcasts about fucking Apple products for fun, he writes (very) shitty poetry, he takes his sons to women's rights marches, he invests in bitcoin, he cries when his mom sends him postcards, he drives a douchey car, he loves children's cartoons, he's a corny liberal just like the others, he loves his friends wholly and openly. Just…please acknowledge the history of racism in this fandom, think about how you as an individual might knowingly or unknowingly perpetuate it, and try to do better. And please just treat him like a human.

Um, Sun, did you LISTEN to that new SDJ audio on patreon?!? Jack’s dirty talk, him saying that he wants to fills us up, ordering us to not waste a drop of his cum, M/C being referred to as a perfect slutty little sundrop, the GROWL!? SO HOT! Idk about you, but that whole audio of Jack jacking off (pun intended) puts a WHOLE new perspective on how he is in bed. Sure, we had that praising, cuddly talk in the yes route of the game that is similar to how the birds and the bees would be discussed with a child, but this MFER was pulling out all the stops (him saying cock, cum, slutty, etc.) which means that he ABSOLUTELY can degrade the hell out of us with filthy dirty talk. Praise mixed with degradation? Yes PLEASE! But now I’ve got to hear MORE of that side of Jack instead of the innuendos he was using in the demo. How do you think that would go with m/c if he got more comfortable showing that side of himself? I mean, his bdsm test DID say he was a exhibitionist, primal(hunter), dominant, degrader, AND a sadist, so that domineering side is definitely strong in this one! (Of course I know there’s others, but I can’t pull them all from the top of my head lol)

Of COURSE I listened to it!!! Every part about it was So Good...

But absolutely, I think there's a lot more to Jack sexually than what we've seen in the game! I haven't seen the bdsm test results (were they in the patreon discord server? Cause Moon and I aren't part of that...) but those all sound about right imo!

I think that Jack would very much want to ease his Sunshine into his kinks, and would of course respect their limits (when it comes to the game. In fic, well... that's our choice :3c). But I think the more up for things Sunshine seems, the more he'd gently push them towards what he wants. And if his Sunshine is kinky themself, well he'd want nothing more than to indulge them too~

I definitely think that his main goal is his Sunshine's pleasure, so I don't think he'd bring it up if he thought it would make them uncomfortable. At least, not outside of sex. There's definitely always the chance he could let something slip in the moment. Calling Sunshine his perfect little whore or telling them to keep their voice down unless they want everyone to see what a cockdrunk slut they are for him.

Even though he'd be happy with any Sunshine, he would obviously be the most sexually satisfied with a Sunshine whose kinks aligned with his own. Someone who could keep up with his needs, and wants to do so. A masochist who likes being degraded and manhandled and everything.

I've seen a lot of people complaining about his kinks, which like... rubs me the wrong way. They don't have to be your kinks, but to complain about creators giving their characters kinks just because you're not into them? Kinda entitled imo. Especially since they make it clear that Jack wouldn't do anything you didn't want him to.

If they removed every kink and sexual thing that not everyone was into, there'd be no sex or kink at all, which would make the whole game entirely different (and worse imo). It kinda goes back to the stuff I was talking about yesterday wrt competing access needs and creating content for yourself rather than scrubbing it free of all details so it's palatable to everyone but completely boring.

ANYWAY back on track with the ask, I definitely think that Jack will pull out his dominant side the moment he's sure Sunshine is okay with it. His dirty talk game is strong and he clearly has a thing for talking dirty as well.

Also like... one thing that really stuck out to me was him talking about aftercare while still touching himself. Like idk something about that was so sweet to me? That even in his rougher sexual fantasies, he still gets off on the idea of taking care of his Sunshine afterwards too. Like to him that's part of what makes it sexy, rather than just a boring chore he has to do afterwards.

Jack is absolutely the type to have the roughest, filthiest, most disrespectful sex and then take care of you so sweetly afterwards. And then maybe get hard again while he's caring for you. Which is very sexy of him imo.

KNOWING YOUR PARTNER WELL CAN POTENTIALLY MAKE WRITING TOGETHER A LOT EASIER.

○  NAME:  Pirate

○  PRONOUNS: She/her.

○   PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: tumblr IMs for introductions to discuss threads or chat to established role-play partners, Discord for a select few I gel with or especially if you're part of a server I'm in/a group thread is being written (I get overwhelmed with notifications so I can't have too many people in separate places). Asks for everything else!

○    NAME OF MUSE(S): Loki

○    EXPERIENCE/HOW LONG (MONTHS/YEARS?): Idk like 22 years or something? I've been on tumblr for 10 years.

○    PLATFORMS YOU’VE USED: MSN, Skype, Discord, RolePages, Vulpine Imperium, Fantasmic, tumblr

○   BEST EXPERIENCE: Meeting my best friends through fanfic and role-play

○    RP PET PEEVES / DEALBREAKERS: Vague posts/call-outs/drama, persistent negativity, repeatedly dropping threads or refreshing entire blogs and moving before we can develop a relationship, splicing dialogue/writing it retrospectively in posts, openly complaining about something without being considerate to who might be reading it, jealousy, being fandom police, Pirate whining hypocritically about all this

○    FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT: A decent mix of all tbh. Over exposure to fluff or smut can get dull for Loki. Too much angst hurts him. I like hurt/comfort. Also, my 'smut' is not the same kind of smut that word tends to make you think of. I'm not really one for mechanically jamming two muses together anyway. My 'smut' can be quite plot heavy so it's more erotica-ish? If you don't like smut usually but you're curious, you can try it out with me (if Loki's interested) and see if you like how it goes. I've converted more than one person who didn't like usual smut to start with :P Absolutely no judgement on people who just like to get right on in there, it's more jarring for me without build-up and exposition. Sometimes I'm even happier to fade to black if we've done a lot of the same old thing.

○    PLOTS OR MEMES: Light plot or memes. I don't like heavy plotting unless we've been discussing something specific and got excited. I like to pants my way through threads usually until we spark something up. I don't reblog memes often but established partners can check my /memes tag and send things in and if I want to turn it into a thread I will!

○    LONG OR SHORT REPLIES: Short to medium. I'm very succinct with what I write and I don't always do a lot of introspection because Loki's a trickster so getting in his head sometimes reveals too much to a partner. I've also read too much Pratchett so I get to the point quite fast, except when Loki's waffling the hell on. Sometimes I do get 'hooked on a feeling' or there's a lot to say and the replies get longer. With partners I'm not always a fan of long posts unless there's a good reason for it e.g. Smaugie does lots of awesome exposition and world-building and character stuff. Some peeps however are fleshing things out a lot or they end up godmodding so it's very difficult for me to explain what my character was doing or to further the plot without my brain crying.

○    BEST TIME TO WRITE: Late morning to early eve

○    ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S): I find lying incredibly uncomfortable unless I'm acting, so no XD I am also not a magical frost giant god with a religious following. I am however bisexual, pagan, and wish I could physically flip my biological sex and appearance at a whim. I don't like to take hard opinions on anything so I'm very middle-ground trickstery, but I'm also obsessed with order and schedules due to my (likely) autism. I'm also far more clever than I am wise, though I think I'm gradually exchanging Intelligence points for Wisdom as I get older. God I hope so.

TAGGED BY: @paragonrising :D

TAGGING: Anyone who hasn't done this before or wants to do it again!