#alluded to in discussion

[helloanthy]

i struggled with captioning this and decided to just say ''untitled'' bc i rly didnt kno what to say abt it in the end but im glad there r others who saw and understood anyways :+) and with the purview of the tags to help with articulating ... shoutout

23.06.2025 🔴 today's anthy!

untitled

[wackywatchdotcom]

while im doing this i need to say this: the digital lake line from the first episode is absolutely slated to be one of ONLY two options. the first option is that it was a one-off gag and nothing more. this is likely. the second option is also likely imo, that it WILL come back but this is gonna be in either episode 6 or 8- and if its not in those it wont happen at all

[ducktracy]

hi sorry to drop this long ass ramble in your inbox but god you and that anon are both so right and the tlts post made me realize something

so i personally don’t mind that much when the looney tunes’ characterizations are off, just bc of how often they seem to change. even in the original shorts it seemed like every director had their own spin on the characters’ personalities, to a point where there’s never really felt like there was one “correct” way for them to be, at least to me. but they’ve always been funny is the thing. even when i don’t care much for an interpretation of them, if the show has strong enough writing it’ll still make me laugh! gonna be honest, i really don’t like TLTS Bugs a lot of the time, but he’s still funny! I think about the bit where he gets addicted to energy drinks and punches a hole in the wall for no reason at least once a week! 

but then we get into the thing you mentioned about fandom-ification, and THAT is what ends up bugging me. when we get into the same tired incorrect quotes and snowclone memes and “bugs is gone so i’m gonna cut off all the sleeves on my shirts bc he’s 80% of my impulse control blah blah blah STOP ITTT!! it’s not funny anymore and that’s like the most important thing the looney tunes have to be!! i love TLTS but oh my god it’s so clear a lot of people have never engaged with any other LT media and they just want archetypes to project the same years old fandom tropes onto. if you make the looney tunes unfunny you have failed, go watch a roadrunner cartoon and write me a paper on what you’ve learned about visual gags /j. This is also kind of the same reason i don’t like space jam 2 or a lot of the 90s stuff that does the “heh.. in case you didn’t know, we’re the looney tunes, and yeah. we’re pretty wacky” thing. if you have to tell me how looney you are i don’t believe you.

sorry again for length i had a lot to say abt this dhsjdjd

MY FRIEND you are sending this to the long ass ramble BLOG!! IT’S MORE THAN WELCOME! especially because i um. kind of exploded in this oops. you are not the long rambler here

and before i get into this too deeply, i just wanna say THANK YOU—both for you sending this and the receptiveness of these Hot Takes. it’s hard for me to put my usual positive spin on this subject because my opinions are so strong, and i’ve ended up annoying a lot of people over this in the past and so i just end up kinda grinning and bearing it.. plus it’s not conductive to my time, spiraling over what i don’t like does no good.. but i do feel so strongly about this because it’s tied to what i do love and. just. YEAH. we all know this. but i still feel the need to apologize because i hate coming off as gatekeepy or like a know it all, it’s not my intent or belief at all. so i’m grateful for you guys giving me the chance to rant and knowing that i’m not alone, because very often i feel that’s not the case :’)

I AGREE WITH THIS.. and thank you for reminding me, i probably should clarify that, again, LT has no canon. these guys are always changing characterization and context. we have shorts where Daffy is miserable and calling Bugs despicable and getting his beak shot off, and in the same release year we’ll have a short where the cartoon ends out on him going HOOHOO HOOHOO and he’s the one with the relatively calm disposition. these characters are always changing! there is no canon! and so i guess when i say i don’t think TLTS is “in character”, i moreso am saying “TLTS doesn’t preserve the integrity of the characters in my eyes”. i’ll get into this in a bit

therein lies the rub. there are persistent character traits regardless of director, but there are so many different shades of character. and modern adaptations don’t have this benefit! because the directors who made these guys are dead, but because modern adaptations don’t have the same sort of flexibility in structure. and i very much think it’s possible to make an “amalgam” of a personality for these guys—i do it all the time! you can borrow elements from multiple different directors and shades of these characters. but the TLTS characterizations are the TLTS characterizations, and i think this makes people think that this is how THE characters act, period. because it’s all they know, and because i think the admittedly convoluted existence of these characters can be hard to understand… at first. i’m losing my words on this, but hopefully that makes sense? i think that’s a very big part of this “condensation” of these characters found in TLTS. and, again, that’s compensated for in the writing by replacing many unique traits these guys have with stock sitcom tropes. and most people don’t know these characters well enough to identify any differently. it’s this caricature-within-a-caricature homogenization, and when you say that these characters weren’t intended to be like that, you’re seen as a blow hard or a pretentious know it all. but yes, please tell us about how “um, actually, Daffy’s neck ring is made of diamonds” when speaking about Daffy as a whole/all LT media as a whole. or how um, actually, these characters are actors (i’m more sympathetic to this one, it’s a common angle for these characters and more modern stuff like Back in Action doesn’t do much in clearing this “misinformation”. but i don’t think people realize that they’re actors only in the shorts where they’re established as actors—it’s just a funny way for the directors to “explain” the meta elements of the shorts, running with the joke of “wouldn’t it be funny if these guys were ACTUALLY actors”? it should only be assumed that they’re actors in the shorts where they say they are. it’s a set dressing. Daffy Duck is Daffy Duck. not Daffy Duck, actor. Porky pulling out a script in Porky’s Duck Hunt does not mean that every single short that has him in it means he’s an actor. it’s just a silly gag. sorry this is irrelevant and more innocent of a misunderstanding, but thats always been something i find myself explaining too and people getting weirdly defensive about)

ANYWAY, getting back to relevancy. i agree with you!! there is a lot about the show's writing that IS funny! again, i should reiterate that i LOVED this show! i've seen every episode a minimum of 3 times, there are still things that make me smirk, i once skipped class to watch episodes in the college library lol. i'm very well acquainted with the show because i was once a fan, and it has made me laugh. but anything i have laughed at is purely divorced of the characters. i would laugh probably more if this were a show that had entirely original characters instead, and i wish it did because it would be one of my favorite shows in that case.

but that's The Thing. it's tied to these legacy characters and does them so. dirty. i always rant about Porky because i think they did him worst, and he's already had such a volatile legacy as is, but i'm ranting about his portrayal again because i think it's just the best encapsulation of my issues with this show. here is my every issue with TLTS summed up in one image:

THIS SHOULD NOT BE A VIDEO THAT EXISTS!!!!! IT LITERALLY GOES AGAINST HIS CORE CHARACTER! I!!!! AHHHH!! i know i sound insane ranting about this because it's Looney Tunes. it's fucking Looney Tunes. but the original directors distinctly abstained from having Porky be too hurt because he's a sensitive character, and they knew that it was unpleasant to watch him get beat up! or made fun of! when Daffy makes fun of his stutter in Tom Turk and Daffy, there's a long pause where Porky just blinks and stares at him and doesn't react, before continuing on with his day. because that puts the blame back on Daffy. the joke isn't "lol Porky stutters", the joke is "lol Daffy is a complete asshole here". and there's no "lol Daffy is a complete asshole here, but we love him, right?" like there is so much of with TLTS. i don't know, they have Daffy act horrifically towards him in TLTS, and i know it's not saying "let's all be like Daffy" BUT PORKY GETS NO.. COMEUPPANCE.. OR ANYTHING. there's no "checking in" or "revising" on Porky's part to show that it didn't affect him. or, a lot of times, the originals will have PORKY be the instigator, and that justifies Daffy's retaliation against him! and, again, in the case where this isn't true, where Daffy is just beating up on him for no good reason (The Ducksters), THE SHORT HAS PORKY GET HIS COMEUPPANCE AND DELIVER THE EXACT SAME TREATMENT TO DAFFY. there is a very carefully curated balance here. because nobody wants to see Porky get beat up. the directors were very conscious of this. Porky in Wackyland has him getting hit on the head with a bunch of bricks, and he starts crying--the remake, Dough for the Do-Do, cuts this out because THEY KNEW THAT WAS UNPLEASANT! EVEN FOR A GAG! i don't really like DftDD, but that's one thing i think they did right.

and THAT'S why i get so mad about the Porky abuse in this show. not only because of how it completely misunderstands the Porky and Daffy dynamic and leading people to make bizarre assumptions about them ("Daffy and Porky are toxic together" 1. it's Looney Tunes 2. no your only understanding of their dynamic is from TLTS which is violently misrepresented 3. IT'S LOONEY TUNES 4. IT'S. LOONEY. TUNES.), but because it just feels like it goes directly against these intentions that the directors had with the character. Porky differs per director, but there are still some resounding rules in place

and it just comes off as accidental resentment for the character. i don't think it's on purpose. i know the whole thing is "but Porky's actually nice, he doesn't deserve this" BUT IT DOESN'T COMMUNICATE THAT EFFECTIVELY. your fat jokes about Porky being fat--WHEN HE'S THE SKINNIEST HE'S EVER BEEN--AND HIM TAKING OFFENSE TO IT, WHICH, AGAIN, SHOULD NOT EVER HAPPEN, EVER, ARE!!!!! I. I JUST LOST MY WORDING I'M SO MAD!!! BUT YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN!!!! making an entire song about how Porky is a lonely loser incel shut-in and will never get a date isn't on his side or pitying him. and it's literally just mean for the sake of meanness.

i always feel silly complaining that TLTS is meanspirited, because so are the shorts. this is why we love the shorts. LT is filled with assholes and cynics and characters of every shade of derangement. the shorts are mean. i love Bob McKimson's shorts and they're some of the meanest around. i love them because they're mean. one of my favorite Porky shorts ends with him killing himself and it being played with extreme cynicism. i'm not at all opposed to cynicism or meanness, but that cynicism or meanness in the originals is never at the expense of the actual integrity of the characters. there's a baseline of respect, i guess. the mean-ness in TLTS just comes off to me as putting down the intent of the original characters, and it comes off to me as accidentally disrespecting the vision these directors had for these characters. i again don't think it was on purpose. but you can see how that becomes a chain reaction in fandom circles of fans misrepresenting even what they're watching on TLTS (i've since been told that there are some people out there who say they've gotten into LT, and by that i mean watching those godawful YouTube tumblr-brained compilations that clip things out of context and nothing else. sorry i'm being incredibly mean right now but i just. agh. sorry). and there's just this convoluted chain reaction that ends up feeding into this feeling of disdain for the originals, even if it's unintentional

"Porky would be a more popular character if he wasn't the brunt of so many fat jokes and, in spite of shows like TLTS trying to play it off as irony, it's sort of absorbed by osmosis and subconsciously absorbed into a lot of peoples' opinions about him. the same applies to the stutter jokes through the years" is unfortunately a real opinion i have and got mocked for lol. which, to be fair, there is a lot to mock, it's FUCKING LOONEY TUNES, but it's coming from similarly pedantic people who try to play off their knowledge as gospel and will call you a gatekeeper for saying that that's not representative of the character

ugh sorry im getting on a whole 'nother rant but. like. WHERE'S THE JOKE. WHAT'S THE JOKE HERE. "the joke is that Daffy was wrong the whole time, it's a misunderstanding" OKAY BUT HAVING PORKY TAKE GREAT OFFENSE TO THIS AND NOT EVEN IN AN INDIGNANT WAY, BUT JUST A SAD WAY, MAKES THIS SO UNPLEASANT HOW IS THIS FUNNY. WHERE IS THE FUNNY. "it's funny because he was wrong" BUT THAT STILL DOESN'T MAKE UP FOR THE FACT THAT WE'RE JUST SUPPOSED TO LAUGH AT THIS? "well it's supposed to be meanspirited and Daffy is the asshole" OK BUT THIS IS JUST UNNECESSARILY CRUEL? and THIS IS MY FAVORITE EPISODE OF THE SERIESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!! AAAAHHhhh. AND HE'S NOT EVEN FAT HE IS STARVING GIVE MY MAN A SANDWICH

and again i keep saying it but there's this weird phenomenon of "well, the originals made fun of Porky's weight!" Daffy saying "oh well, i'll be [the bigger person]...........goodnight, fatboy!", demonstrating how he's NOT BEING THE BIGGER PERSON AT ALL and is being an immature little shit is SO much more different than this or talking about how Porky needs to lose weight because he has so much face or whatever. not that it makes the fat jokes in the originals better, they're very much there, but at least it feels like there's some sort of weird, twisted endearment behind them. Daffy calling Porky an "overstuffed cherub" is much different than characters telling him straight to his face that he needs to lose weight. and this is not an issue just with TLTS, it's incredibly common all through the past 30 years of LT content, even LTC has a "lol Porky's lying about what he actually ate because he's fat" joke that gets me :/ because the originals never! did! that! and i just. iunno. complete misunderstanding of the originals

and i want to say again that, in spite of all this, i don't think the originals are the end all be all. i don't think you have to see all 1000 LT shorts to be a fan. if you're just in it for TLTS? THAT'S AWESOME! enjoy it! but my issue comes from people acting like these things are FACT and SAYING these are FACT, and will go out of their way to say "don't correct me because i didn't watch some old ass short" or will accuse you of being uppity and "sophisticated" just because you're saying "that's not how this was intended". my issue is that people will "fansplain" (i hate that term im so sorry i know i sound like such a pompous elitist but it gets the point across quickly) these things to me and insist that these misrepresentations are cold hard fact (like, again, Daffy's neck ring), and then they get mad at you for trying to correct them. and it's not like i think people are stupid for not knowing these things!! but there's been such a violent pushback against educating yourself ABOUT FUCKING LOONEY TUNES GUYS IT'S LOONEY TUNES!!!!!! that has really just... ?????? i swear i've never been in a fandom that takes such pleasure in bragging about its refusal to educate itself than i have in the LT fandom. and yall. i have a very unfortunate track record of having been young on the internet and being in fandoms i should not have been. eyeballing the 10 or so of you who followed this blog from 2016-2018. hi.

god i'm getting off on so many different tangents i am so sorry anon i'm just 😭. in response to the fandomification thing/extension of that, i'm not even AGAINST the fandomification of things... IF THEY'RE DONE RIGHT. i've been a part of it and know it firsthand (hi guys you know how you are👋)! write that fic draw that fanfic have fun do what you want, etc. but it's so clear that the CONSUMPTION of these characters is purely FOR a fandom lens, when, preferably, it's the other way around. characters first, then add what you wanna do on top! but it's always the other way around, these characters are fit into the most stock and milquetoast tropes and it becomes a breeding ground of misrepresentation and turns into a domino effect of people yelling at you for disagreeing with their points that they play off as fact. life is short do what you want HAVE FUN FOR YOURSELF FIRST AND FOREMOST. i've been teaching myself this again. you don't have to have The Official LT Guidebook to draw or write what you want. but there is very much a fundamental issue of people viewing these characters with a Fandomification Lens first and foremost and using that to base their entire perception of the character and acting like that is how these characters were intended to behave, and that you're a pompous gatekeeping asshole for saying otherwise

i'm not saying you can't make your ooc posts, i'm not saying you can't ship things, i'm not saying you can't write or watch or surround yourself in what appeals to you. but i am saying that i take issue with the frequent ego problems i've run into this fandom. THE LT FANDOM. IT'S LOONEY TUNES!!!! i take issue with the ego problems i run into that are based purely on misinformation, and the borderline pride people get out of refusing to budge from it. there's so much proud ignorance and i just. iunno. me getting offended on behalf of a bunch of dead 110 year old men who have offended me on multiple occasions with some of their cartoons doesn't do anything very productive either, but. "Anti-Intellectualism and The Looney Tunes Fandom: An Essay". <- that's it that's the tweet because it made me laugh because of how insane it sounds, but i can't say it's not the point i'm trying to make

i also agree wholeheartedly with the 90s thing too. ugh. these characters and these directors and this franchise has been done so dirty over and over again

thank you so much for giving me a chance to rant i am so sorry for how whiny and obnoxious i've surely been i've just hit my limit 🙃 so many problems could be solved by watching a Daffy Duck cartoon instead (a real one that does his character justice) (just kidding) (kind of) (a little bit) (hypothetically)

how it feels

[mewy101]

guys you do realize that 53 is pushed back a month right. lol </3

[springin2summer]

golden hour by @coolwyous

[aluria-sevhex]

I wanna know about Ademie :0

YAY

Ah, Ademie, where to start with her...

Quick note before most of the stuff: she holds the role of 'main character'! When the cast wakes up, she is the first one to do so :]

(CONTENT WARNINGS FOR DISCUSSIONS OF ABUSE, TRAUMA, AND ABLEISM UNDER THE CUT.)

When she was 5 sweeps/11 years old, an accident resulted in her right leg being amputated above the knee and her subsequent culling. During her subsequent years on Beforus, she was often heavily restricted and harshly punished for the crime of desiring her own autonomy - sure, this may not sound like the coddling ideal of Beforan culling, but any system that treats some people as not people will lead to abuse. Sometimes it was physical, including the witholding of her (culler-picked and deliberately kinda shit) prosthetic leg.

It does not help that despite minors being legally unable to cull, the violetblood who culled her pushed the responsibility onto his descendant, who is her age. For two sweeps, she was functionally an object under the control of a kid her age, and they don't like each other.

The silver lining was her fellow cullee Meiloa Zartan, although their relationship is... complicated.

She also broke/lost part of her horn at some point during those years, but refuses to talk about how it happened. In Fractured Phantasms, horns are a conduit for troll psionic abilities, including rust telekinesis. She can use telekinesis, but it's been unreliable since the incident.

She tends to approach most people with extreme caution and is very cynical and blunt. Holds a distaste for superstitions and blind optimism, greatly preferring to focus on material reality. She used to be a lot less harsh, and used to believe objects are sentient as a religious thing. The former changed as a response to trauma and abuse, and she was forced to give up the latter when she was culled.

Her trauma severely affects her relationships with others. She also - understandably! - despises infantilization and views herself as more mature than she actually is. She was treated like a helpless kid for so long that she has overcorrected and will not allow others to treat her/fully acknowledge herself as her actual age. Intellectually, she knows it is true that she was 11 when it started. However if she let it fully hit and felt how young she was/is, it probably would not go well.

She needs some form of therapy, to be a teen, and for her abuser to no longer be in her life. She's not getting any of that.

[novelry-plurality]

Gentle, tired queer reminder that vocalizing disgust towards gay people is homophobic, and that if you feel disgust towards us, please consider that an inside thought and leave it unsaid. We have to fight enough stigma as it is. Being an ally means not contributing to that stigma.

Having preferences in ships is normal. Saying that you prefer w/m is fine.

Maybe don’t explain at length how much gay ships wig you out, and maybe don’t call attention to how much you’re annoyed by a gay ship... existing popularly. Maybe don’t frame that as A Brave Stand That You Are Taking In A World Dominated By Those Loud LGBTQs. Just enjoy your platonic version of the ship and vibe in your own corner. Part of healthy fandom coexistence is knowing how to block tags and blogs, and not taking snipes at things that other people will react strongly to.

Saying this as someone who is happy to read and write platonic versions of common romantic pairings. We can exist together peacefully, but that requires you not to publically call a group of people I belong to disgusting.

If you fuck up on those points, an apology and not using that rhetoric anymore is more than sufficient.

[mangosaurus]

Do you have a theory to explain why Sammy is not talking to her parents? Was thinking abt it and can't remember if the show gave us info abt that...

UGHHH THAT'S THE THING I REALLY HAVE NO IDEA. that's why i'm so interested in learning more about it in s2! i've seen some theories floating around about how it might have to do with sammy smuggling bumpy onto her ranch (or her general involvement with the dinosaurs)? but i'm really not sure.

what i CAN be sure of is that it's not because they suddenly dissaproved of sammy's relationship with yaz. sammy coming out was one of the very first things she did when she reunited with her dad after nublar, and there was no indication of tension or strife between sammy and her family in JWCC's epilogue (and if there was ever a time for that to come up it would be then, considering yaz was visiting sammy in texas at the time).

[godslush]

mmmmmnope

sleeping on that did not make it better

still feel disgusting

and now i gotta go to work

sigh

[phregnancy]

I was with you for a lot of the discussions you were having on your blog but I have to unfollow you now, as this victimization of Phil is not something I want to be apart of, he is and was a huge celebrity at a time, with a keen eye for business and trends and how to maximize his (and the dnp brand) collective assets. He is the logistical head behind a lot of the decisions they made as a duo and this rebranding as a poor ignored “side-kick” is not doing him justice or the fandom. You are also starting to inadvertently do to Dan what you claim was done to Phil in the past albeit more eloquently and subtly by minimizing his impact and creativity. Dan wasn’t just a relatable brand the reason so many people jumped on the Dan and Phil wagon was because Dan was and is to this day an incredible and compelling storyteller. The amount of work that went into his 10 minute videos is the type of structure that fits into video essayists today that collect millions of views. You said to some of your anons Dan wouldn’t stand for Phil slander but Phil is the man that stood by Dan since he was 18 years old not just because of how he made him feel but because of who he was as an individual as well and I imagine he wouldn’t stand for some of your wording either.

putting this under a cut for people scrolling the spoilers tags and are uninterested in random discourse

dan’s branding heavily leaned into the fact that he was a relatable netizen at the height of his youtube popularity, that was not the sole aspect, but that is what drew in a lot of the crowd who weren’t dan and phil fans. they have a large difference in followings, because dan appealed to a wider audience through more relatable content. they referenced this during the show tonight. he is an excellent storyteller and he is just as brilliant. i am not diminishing that, he has worked very hard to get to where he is. i don’t talk about that as much because quite frankly, it does not need to be said. people aren’t writing think posts about why dan doesn’t deserve his career or saying he piggybacked off phil’s fame at the height of their careers or attributing every emotion of dan’s to phil like he isn’t an individual with complex feelings, like people often have done with phil. i’m also not rebranding phil as a sidekick, he isn’t a sidekick, he has often been overlooked as his content was not as popular as dan’s and again, tonight, he brought up the fact that he felt like he was babysitting while people waited for dan to come back. i don’t think dan is to blame and i also don’t think what he does was easy or simple. now if you think i should shut the fuck up because ultimately they’re two rich british dudes who have more wealth than we could ever imagine and are deserving of less empathy because of that, i’d understand that, but that’s not what you’re saying. all i really have to say is that i find it interesting that me talking about phil and mistreatment by the audience is interpreted, by you, as me bashing dan and saying his career was simple - when i have not said that at all or even alluded to it. i just don’t talk about dan as much, and you assumed that my talking about injustices towards phil means i think dan deserves less. you are right to unfollow because we have strong differing opinions on this.

[gotigersiguess]

Oh! So I was right and Stranger Things is inspired by The West Memphis Three case! It's confirmed that Eddie was loosely based on Damien Echols (one of the teens accused of killing the boys). Damien even acknowledged it. I guess it's pretty well-known by the fandom, I just kind of stumbled my way to the right conclusion lmao

[terrainofheartfelt]

Who do you think would most likely have a threesome in GG? I feel like it would be Carter, Blair, and Serena ha!

first of all, I love that you came to me with this question. I'm honored

for most likely, I think Dan, Nate, and Serena -- the clear solution to the whatever they were doing in 4a was to get with each other. Hell, throw Dan in as Serenate's third in s3! I think beloved @mrs-nate-humphrey wrote that fic? ivy? am I correct?

idk if Blair and Serena could handle being in a threesome, honestly. like the competitive & mercurial push and pull of their relationship--I just don't think they would go there. or that blair would let herself go there. (that being said beloved @mysteriesofloves wrote a beautiful dairthaniel fic that evolved so naturally - actually I think Dan may be the only character in the mix that could balance them out. mixing Blair & Serena in a sexual situation feels like mixing chemicals while cleaning -- ultimately toxic)

I remember reading a Carter/Blair/Serena fic -- I think a margottenenbaum livejournal fic lost to the ether, and it was fun. the premise was like, they pick up Carter during their summer in Paris.

I am also a dairthaniel truther and have written a handful of fics about them. and, my most recent threesome work is Carter/Serena/Dan, and that was real fun.

[scarletspider2the2ndpower]

“Kaine,” Web of Spider-Man (Vol. 3/2024), #1.

Writer: Steve Foxe; Penciler: Greg Land; Inker: Jay Leisten; Letterer: Frank D’Armata

[burinazar]

sooo none of the ship channels on my fandom discord have gotten a single post in them for two weeks but this week a decent amount of people (presumably including many not on the server) voted in a twitter poll asking about the same ships, and my extreme extreme wish for more people to talk to them about is causing me to consider dropping an invite on twitter even though twitter feels like the damn wild west and i really need to not, like, have strangers join and then post lolisho or start talking about how hot Nanch is or something

we have some clearly written out rules so i could simply ban (or warn if mild/mistake) someone who doesn't understand them. i know this. but this stupid fandom gives me so much anxiety (it's not like there have been that many rude people and i know it all roots back to the ff.n harassment campaign when i was 13 lol but still.) my loneliness at almost no one to talk to about my favorite ships in english is directly battling out my anxiety. lol maybe someone should just tell me to go ahead and post the link

[stellarstardust]

Finally got my hands on Volume 10 of SPY x FAMILY

Main thought: Mission 62 fucking broke me. I hate how current it feels and how my heart still hurts 💔

[fallowhearth]

Not going to participate in any of the main threads, but my feeling is that pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding are really the least of my problems when it comes to the prospect of having children.

People's unwillingness to have children now has to at least partly be because of the modern expectations for childrearing, right? Like, parents are expected to spend so much more time with their children than at probably any other point at history. And it's never been harder to offload them for long stretches of time!

Even within my own life, there's been a noticeable shift. For comparison, in my 90s childhood, I spent a lot of time as part of a roaming pack of kids on our quiet urban street. There were quite a few families with similarly aged children; our houses were close by and everyone knew each other. We'd play on the street, in someone's backyard, in someone's house. At most points none of our parents knew where exactly we were. They knew we were somewhere. And if they did want to track us down, they could do so quickly. (Shockingly, they did not track us down often. Our presence was actually not that vital most of the time.) We weren't even restricted only to our parents - for example, there was an older couple without kids on our street and they had a pool (!) which we were allowed to swim in sometimes. That was a treat!

There are even now people who culturally are more likely to send kids to live with a relative for a while. Casting a wider net, historically it's been pretty common for children to be mostly unsupervised - or communally supervised, in a general sense. Or if you were wealthy enough, you'd pay other people to look after your children, from wetnurses, governesses, tutors, etc. If you were a working household your kids would have tasks to do, but otherwise their time would be their own. It's also been pretty common to send children to stay with wealthier relatives as servants, or to related households needing extra hands for whatever reason. Your extended family could care for your kids. Or you could pack them off to boarding school (like my dad was, in the 60s).

It's pretty unusual that now we insist children need to live in a house with their parents and nobody else, and that their parents need to be actively entertaining them for all hours they aren't sleeping. The US has always been more intense about supervision, but even in Australia a roaming pack of kids would be expected to have at least one parent with eyes on them, today. Kids are annoying, exhausting, and frequently disgusting. They just need more time and attention than even two people can reasonably give. Especially if those two people also work full-time.

That's not even to go into the fact that children are so expensive. You're expected to buy so much shit. I can just about pay my own way through life - there's nothing left over for freeloaders!

Of course I'm not making any argument about what is better, here. That's not my point. I'm not particularly interested in that question, in the context of this post. Simply that the calculus of parenthood has shifted and is unlikely to shift back.