#but also this is also a very funny message to get completely without context

[blessphemy]

hoW COULD YOU DO THAT 😡😡😡😡😡😖😖😖😖😡😡😡😡😡😖😡 WHY???? WHY 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬

🫡

it'll be okay. maybe.

[dead-inside-demiboy]

....So apparently you can have an "oh shit I love this person" moment without it being a dating/attraction thing.

[genericpuff]

i find it funny that one of rachel’s drawings of herself in the afterword that just went up is just fully persephone. is that something she does a lot?

Alright so I've been making it a general rule for myself to like, not harp on Rachel in any way outside of LO as much because frankly the horse is dead now and there's not much left to say outside of what can be analyzed in hindsight. I think despite everything I have to say about her and her work, she still deserves to get away from this nonsense and I don't wanna spend eternity hovering over her shoulder.

But the afterword was posted within the LO series and is clearly meant for readers of LO in the functioning of being an afterword so let's just call it fair game LOL

I will say, on the whole, it does feel very honest and sentimental and I can respect Rachel for taking the time to write out and illustrate her afterword in a way that was personal to both her and her fans. I can understand why she went at it from the angle that she did and I'm not gonna fault her for that.

But there's also something that feels deeply... disingenuous about her approach right from the starting gun. I will say, before I continue, that I'm well aware I am biased towards Rachel as a creator, and I fully acknowledge that I could very well be reading too much into things. This is just my opinion, take it with mountains of salt.

I can get looking back on your own childhood, your past self, whatever, and going "see! it all got better!" because sure! For a lot of creators like Rachel, it must be wild to look back on where they came from and there's a lot of sentimentality on expressing that through an afterword like this where she reflects on where she came from. Though she STILL didn't acknowledge her other comics outside of LO, I can understand if she wants to leave those skeletons in the closet.

But I feel like her drawing herself as a child who's being given an Eisner by her adult self and all that just feels like some gross attempt to disarm any criticism of her because "don't make fun of me, I'm just a sad lonely baby girl!"

She's not a child. Child Rachel didn't grossly misappropriate Greek myth into their own self-indulged vanity project. Child Rachel didn't claim herself a folklorist of a culture's works only to bastardize them completely. Child Rachel didn't create a hostile environment within her fanbase by bullying anyone who she perceived as a threat, sneaking into critical spaces to try and cause trouble, and writing her own clapbacks into her comic. Child Rachel didn't claim to be challenging misogyny and purity culture only to reinforce misogyny and purity culture through her own self-insert baby-virgin-gets-rescued-by-rich-tycoon power fantasy that regularly glorified abuse towards women and the lower class.

30-almost-40-year-old Rachel did though.

At best it comes across as really cringe sentimentality from a Greek-weeb (heh, greeboo) and goes to show how much Rachel inserted herself into Greek myth without ever absorbing its messages or cultural contexts, it was all about her and her feelings as a sad New Zealand girl with dyslexia who thought Persephone's story was about another sad girl being rescued from her "horrible childhood".

At worst it's an active attempt to play on people's heartstrings by drawing herself as a child who people will naturally not want to criticize. I don't want to assume she's doing it intentionally, I really don't want to leave her afterword on a bad foot, as I can definitely understand as both a creator and a person who struggled with learning disabilities in their own childhood how and why she wants to pay homage to her past and where she came from... but let's just say, as someone who's also gotten way too "lost in the sauce" concerning personal self-reflective projects, I think there's a lot to say about how this confirms that Rachel made LO entirely for herself, about herself, without any actual intention to respect the original myths, because she never truly separated them from herself when she was a child. And, in my humble opinion as someone who has Been There with the self-insert OC's and self-reflective angsty plotlines, I can fully attest to the fact that that's not fucking healthy. Even with personal projects, you NEED to learn to get your head out of the sauce, you NEED to learn to objectively separate yourself from the narrative so the story doesn't fall apart under your own hubris and ego, you NEED to learn to draw a line if you want to have any sort of identity as a human being outside of what you make for people. And that's with just normal original stories, this was a story based on Greek myth which doesn't belong to her.

And this goes for a lot of the things she's said and done in the past, so much of her own "sources" even are tethered to things that she read / watched in her childhood and only vaguely remembers, as if she never mentally left her childhood at all, which just... if the point was to highlight her past and the traumas she went through and how they contributed to her present, an Eisner isn't going to validate those experiences. And drawing attention to her past through the lens of her childhood self absolutely 100% does not absolve her of the negative effect her work has had on the modern Greek myth zeitgeist nor the things she's said and done as a 38 year old woman who should absolutely know better.

The community she entered and took from will forever remain changed by her influence and taking, in many ways not for the better. She has the privilege of walking away and never having to think about it again, with all the awards and accolades that were bought for her, the bravado that she built around being a "folklorist" with zero credentials, and the platform she was given over many other creators struggling to even be heard.

That "place" she claims to have now was built entirely on inserting herself into another culture's works and doing nothing but taking, taking, taking, while offering nothing in return but vanity and lip service. That "place" was paid for and brought to you by Webtoons.

[l-in-the-light]

About his "trigger warnings"

I mentioned here on tumblr that I used to have a number one favourite book writer. I guess not anymore. After all the SA allegations and other stories that got leaked by people around him (his collegues, co-workers etc.), I realized he's an abusive asshole and I owe you all to say that openly here. And some of the assaults date back decades now, which means he didn't just wake up one day and changed into an asshole, he most likely was always one.

I read the foreword to his book Trigger Warning again. I feel like I took a peek beyond his fake persona there. He writes about trigger warnings like it's some exotic curious little trend that kids on the internet came up with, finds it a bit peculiar like a daddy trying to understand their kid's hobbies, then proceeds to use them like a funny teasers for his short stories ("can you find the big tentacle hidden among the pages somewhere?"), only to finish it all up with a punch straight to your face: real life doesn't have trigger warnings, so always watch out for yourself. On the surface level? This all sounds like a slightly misguided, maybe even witty intro. Nothing is said with malice, right? And yet, the message underneath it all was always to discredit trigger warnings as a concept. That's why that delivery line is at the very end of that intro. You're supposed to be lulled into agreeing how silly it all is. I dunno if he did it on purpose or did it without thinking much about it, by habit, but that intention is there and it's disguised with concern and attempts to sound kind. A peek beyond the nice guy mask. No wonder I could never finish that anthology of short stories. The cognitive dissonance caused by the foreword sticked with me like a bad aftertaste. My intuition told me this was all wrong, I just couldn't find the words to express it.

And you know why it works so well as a disguise and why we tend to believe he didn't do it on purpose? Because hey, he just said the facts, the truth! Reality indeed doesn't have any trigger warnings, what's wrong with saying that! Yes, that statement is true. Using real statements in carefully woven context to sell a lie, is an example of an excellent manipulation. So allow me to untangle it or, in other words, to reveal the magic trick behind it.

Why do trigger warnings exist? Isn't Gaiman right, aren't they counterproductive, you might think, because by avoiding triggers you will never get better at dealing with them? Indeed, here's the catch, because the answer isn't a simple yes or no here. Yes, often to recover from trauma, you need to expose yourself to it in some way - like for example, through exposure therapy (or even just classic psychotherapy). But also No, because there's no rule that says you will officially recover only after you're fine reading fiction about sexual assault (for example)! Some triggers will dimnish, some will not, and the best you can do for the latter is to avoid them altogether. Triggers are extremely personal, but you can learn to manage them, in ways that respect your own boundaries, but never by giving up your right to selfcare. You see the difference?

Back to therapy bit for a moment. To recover, often you need to go through with it. But here's the thing - you do it in *controlled environment*, accompanied by a specialist that is there to help and calm you down afterwards. And you only start to do that once you feel *ready* to face it. Now compare it to a situation of reading a book (yes, a book, which usually never has any trigger warnings, because that's such a silly fanfiction thing). You come upon your trigger without any warning, preparation or support around you, you're left with the aftermath of possible panic attack or other symptoms completely on your own. It might take you weeks to recover from it, because perhaps you weren't yet in any therapy that could help you manage your triggers more effectively. But then you tell yourself it's fine, minimizing your own emotional reactions, because *it was just a book*. But, you realize, even years later you still remember it and you might finally accept the harsh truth that you're still not fine with it.

Now imagine same situation, but the book did have trigger warnings listed. For example, about sexual abuse. You would see that and leave the bookstore without the book, because you would know you're not *ready* for that. And it's fine not to be ready, be it yet or ever. This is about consent and selfcare, both are essential to process through trauma and recover. The books without trigger warnings rob selfcare, consent and a choice from us. They teach us we should always ignore our triggers and push through. It's sadly a reality that is widely accepted so Gaiman is right, nothing in reality will flash you a warning. But he's also wrong: it doesn't mean we can't make the life a tiny bit easier for those of us who are traumatized, instead of leaving them with all of that on their very own. This part, he doesn't want you to even consider. He doesn't want you to imagine the positive side of living in a world in which real books warn you about triggers, because then it would prove that it *can* become a reality in which real things (like books) warn you of triggers. They can't shield you from everything, but that's also not the point: it's just to make some things feel more safe, for everybody.

(As a side note, being triggered is not the same as stepping outside your comfort zone - those are two different matters! Though yes, stepping outside your comfort zone in an extreme way CAN become traumatic as the result as well).

I guess Neil Gaiman just thinks some people are too sensitive and should just get over themselves. You don't need those warnings, they won't protect you anyway. Have you tried not getting traumatized? How dare you think your selfcare is more important than reading my questionable fantasies? You're missing out if you skip my book (that has no proper trigger warnings) and you have only yourself to blame! I provide you a safe environment to explore your traumatic triggers, you should be grateful! And how is your book providing a safe environment exactly, author? Did you even try to put a safety net there for your reader? Do you even care? Of course you don't. But you will pretend like you do: by providing a very ingenuine effort that is mostly meant to be a pat on your own back for cleverly dismissing the very concept of trigger warnings, while pretending to play along with it and exposing their lack of power in the process. Disguised as a coincidence, lack of understanding or unskillful attempt written by a slightly ignorant daddy-like figure. What an irony that you do it by nearly surgically focusing on the blind spots of the concept, proving at the same time you do know the mechanism behind it pretty well. You knew what you were doing and how you were doing it.

Or at least, this is how I see it: I might be wrong on the details, but I'm sure I caught the gist of the manipulative behaviour there. An abuser always wants you to step out of your comfort zone, get surprised by a trigger, and to make sure you're outside your safety net. Because then you're an easier target, more likely to agree to harmful things (be it real actions or just harmful beliefs delivered to you by the author of a book, like in case of *trigger warnings being pointless*). They want to groom you into thinking that you're just being silly and see things that aren't there.

Trigger Warning's foreword is exactly that and I feel disgusted, now that I finally recognize my own feelings about it. I probably didn't find words for it before, because I wanted to believe Gaiman had good intentions behind it, they just didn't work out very well. Except that was never the case and that's why it never felt right. That good intention was never there, but it sure *looked* like it was. Also it took me way too long to realize people do things like that on purpose. You know what, Gaiman? Thanks to gaslighting efforts like yours it took me also way too many years to accept that selfcare IS OKAY.

So many people now think nothing was ever genuine about Neil Gaiman because his nice guy mask slipped. A mask he used to hide his autism behind and appear neurotypical/feel accepted thanks to it. Whenever a really advanced mask like that slips, the cognitive dissonance becomes a huge gap between a mask and actual self in perception of other people. Still, your autism is not an excuse for things you do and say, and definitely doesn't excuse assault as simple miscommunication - and yes, he did try to justify lack of consent this way. "I'm autistic, I read the body language wrong and wasn't even aware of it". Hey, you could have, like, asked. There's no shame in getting confirmation in words :P but it's just a poor excuse anyway, the truth is he didn't care if it was wanted or not, as long as he got adoration and powertripping thrill out of that, and that's the best case scenario here.

I believe the allegations. I won't be able to read Gaiman's books anymore, I honestly can't see them the same way I used to anymore. I loved Coraline and The Graveyard Book, and Smoke and Mirrors. I feel disgusted knowing that he openly claimed to be a feminist while at the same time assaulted so many people and used emotional manipulation so they won't #metoo him. He even went as far as to claim "always believe the victims", but once the allegations flew his way, what did he do? Blamed the victims, even called them mentally ill! I also feel now like his books are also just full of deception, meant to hide harmful beliefs under quirky words and imaginative tales. And I might never be able to stop feeling this way and I don't owe him a second chance anyway.

Good Omens stays in my heart though, because sir Terry Pratchett put a lot of work into it and it shows. I feel like I would show him disrespect if I discarded it. Let's say it becomes a Gaiman Who Might Have Been But Never Was, for me.

[queermania]

I don't want to start drama and I don't expect you to respond to this but I think you deserve to know what's being said about you. tumblr. com/transfagbenny/738678589192552448/and-id-appreciate-if-we-stopped-using-the-terms

i actually am going to address this because this person has been lying about what's been going on for months and they've apparently been harassing other people for months if not years, so. it's time to put an end to this.

before i start though i want to make it abundantly clear that if you take this as an opportunity to do anything other than block this person, then you are trash. do not send him messages. do not tag him in things. do not harass him in any way. leave him alone. if you need to block, do so and then move on. hate mail and harassment is disgusting behavior and i don't want to be surrounded by anybody who engages in it. and if you do it on my behalf, i think you are worthless and i want nothing to do with you.

so, this is what happened: back in february of 2023, an anon asked me if i had any opinions that would get me canceled with the dean girlies. i replied, "oh now we’re talking!! hmmmm let’s see. i don’t care about benny at all. deanbenny does nothing for me. deanbenny is dust. it is dust. drowley rights forever" and i did not tag it because i'm not an asshole. bear then sent me a message that at the time i thought was funny/cute because his url reflected that he was obviously a huge benny fan. we had a very cordial exchange. everything was good. we chatted a little bit about how neat it would've been if benny had been played by a black actor and how the racism problem with gordon would've been fixed if gordon had been played by a white actor. not all of our conversation is visible anymore (and i also don't think all of it was on this post anyway) because i've since blocked him so his replies no longer show up on my posts. the point is: everything was fine. it was a good tumblr exchange. he continued to follow me. i did not follow him then or at any point.

the problem is that he kept coming onto my posts and into my inbox to try to make things about benny. that is not okay. i had already said that benny was a character (and deanbenny a ship) that i was not interested in. to me, this is an obvious boundary i've established that he repeatedly crossed. it's not an egregious violation, obviously. more than anything it's annoying. what he should've done, if benny was that important to him, was unfollow me and move on. but he didn't and i indulged him for awhile but at a certain point i thought, "okay maybe if i stop indulging him, he'll take the hint." so i stopped responding. he did not take the hint. he got worse and he even started commenting on things that he couldn't make about benny, just to willfully misinterpret things i said and taking them completely out of context. unfortunately, i don't have receipts for any of this because at the time i didn't know it was going to become an actual problem (however I have since learned that this is an established pattern of behavior he engages in, so you can probably find examples on other people's blogs).

it got so annoying, though, that i very carefully broached the subject in a private server with people i trusted. without naming any names or using any incriminating language (i.e. not specifically referencing benny), i basically said that there was someone being annoying about a specific character on my posts and i wasn't sure what to do about it. immediately, a handful of people replied with some variation of "the benny stan? he's been doing that to me too." i do have receipts of this (and an entire server to back me up) but i hope you can all understand why i'm not going to provide those or name names (or ask anyone to get involved publicly). the point is, it became apparent that i wasn't the only one and this was a pattern of behavior. i also learned during that conversation that bear has a history of harassing people and calling someone racist or a transphobe if they block him.

at that point, i decided not to rock the boat. i would just continue to ignore him and maybe he would get bored and move on. well that obviously didn't happen. he kept doing it and as a fun added bonus, he started to make vague posts about me. the thing is i don't actually care if he vagueblogs about me. it's his blog. he can do whatever he wants. it's none of my business. i mean i personally think he should've just unfollowed but, again, his blog, his choice. it is annoying that every single time he would do it, someone would send me a link or a screenshot of him doing it, but that's not really his fault. so, again, i just ignored it.

this is where we get to the incident in question. after a private discussion among a small group of friends, i posted this obviously joke poll at the insistence of @letterstothedevil, a tumblr user who has given me permission to include her in this.

the original message about the poll:

the permission:

now EYE think it's abundantly clear that the poll was a joke amongst friends, but maybe it wasn't, and i'm not going to fault anyone for not magically knowing that. i am, however, totally willing to fault someone for being a gigantic asshole. bear commented on the post and i, admittedly, gave a somewhat dismissive response because at that point i was so tired of him being willfully obtuse and twisting every little thing i said that i just didn't want to bother. he then went and made a series of not-at-all-vague posts calling me racist and claiming that i simply do not care about the racism in the show and it's obvious because i've never ever discussed it on my blog (which is a hilarious lie given that i'd specifically discussed it on my blog with him). at that point, there was no reason not to block him. he was already doing the thing that i didn't want to deal with. so i did. and i thought that would be the end of it.

again, i was wrong.

i then started to get anon messages daily about benny and deanbenny and how i'm racist for not liking benny, etc. this was harassment that EYE was on the receiving end of. nobody else was a victim of the messages i was being sent. they were sent to me and it is not my job to make sure other people are protected from the harassment that i am experiencing. i'm pointing this out for two reasons: 1. because i did try to protect bear from it for awhile anyway. i knew that people would assume it was him and at the time i was still giving him the benefit of the doubt, if for no other reason than the fact that i didn't think he could send me messages since i blocked him. and 2. because when i did finally start to respond to some of the messages, bear acted like he was somehow the victim in all of this (and continues to act that way to this day).

i don't know if bear had (or currently has) anything to do with any of the messages i get (which, thankfully, have slowed considerably). what i do know is that at no point during any of this happening did he stop looking at my blog and vagueblogging about me.

when i finally did answer a few of the messages, bear had a bit of a meltdown about it. i know this because he used a separate account that i hadn't know existed to message me and because he talked to one of my friends about it. (i'm not going to name that person but if they want to get involved publicly of their own accord, that's up to them lol). i'm also not going to share screenshots of what bear said to me because he explicitly asked me not to (it's also the reason i'm not sharing screenshots of the numerous receipts i have of the things he's said and lied about on his blog but, unless he's deleted any of them, you can go and find the posts yourselves.) what i am going to share is that in the message he sent to me, he flat out lied about his behavior. he told me he hadn't been vague-blogging about me, that he would never ever do that about anyone, and that he would certainly never harass someone (all things that i have receipts of him doing).

it took me awhile to respond to this message because i was still trying to be gracious about the whole situation. i recognize that he is much younger than i am and i think it's important for me, as a full blown adult, to take that into account. i had a private discussion with a few trusted friends about how to handle this because it was important to me to not let him off the hook for his behavior and for lying just because he's young. this is what i ended up saying:

his response was to double-down on his lies (while, hilariously, vague-blogging about me and the whole thing) and then go into victim mode about something so completely unrelated and far-fetched that i decided i simply wanted nothing to do with him ever. (this is when he asked me not to share screenshots, so i won't, but this is me saying that i have ALL of the receipts, bear, so if you continue to lie, you will not like what happens.) i blocked his alternate account and tried to ignore him.

the harassment continued. again, i have no idea if he was actually part of it. the vagueblogging continued. he started to do it to other people he associated with me. many of them blocked him because of his behavior. i continued to answer some of the hate i received, continued to ignore and/or block most of it. it got so bad that i was sent seizure bait on more than one occasion, one time bad enough that i actually ended up going to the ER. there are receipts of all of this, too. you can see on my blog the messages i've been sent. i think at one point i even shared a snapshot of what my inbox looked like. i've shared privately with friends (who can confirm if they want to, but no pressure) screenshots of the kinds of messages i get that i don't respond to. the point is, that for a period of months, i was relentlessly harassed. and at no point during this time did i say anything to or about bear (or anyone else). the most i've done is respond to messages that have been sent to me. i've largely sat quietly while this thing happened to me and bear continued to make posts about me and act like he is somehow a victim in this. he's assumed things about me and my identity. he's violated boundaries i've set. he will not let this go. and i'm not the only one he's doing it to.

i'm so fucking tired of it. leave me alone. leave my blog alone. leave my friends alone. leave any and all of the people who have blocked you for your own inappropriate and obnoxious behavior alone. that's it. that's the end. none of this would be happening if you would just respect other people's boundaries. i don't want you on my blog. i do not want to interact with you. i don't want anything to do with you. that's it. the end.

[eddieydewr]

since you seem very interested in this topic, the actual problem with Ryan Guzman is this:

a) he constantly talks about how much he loves his culture but when ICE comes to kidnap his fellow Mexicanos he stays completely silent. the man has 1.2 million social media followers-- he could actually make a difference by sharing critical information. hell, even Kim Kardashian and Joe Rogan managed to make a statement against ICE's actions. Meanwhile Ryan is busy posting thirst traps.

b) not long ago he went on a known incel podcast and shared dangerous gender essentialist ideology and referred to the very well-known case of Conor McGregor's horrifically violent rape as a man "stepping out on his wife." he also recently liked an IG reel criticizing the feminization of men's fashion. he's pretty clearly swallowed the red pill.

c) he bragged about using slurs and only issued a half-assed apology when he was basically forced to. then there was the posting holocaust anti-vax conspiracy memes during the pandemic...

d) he's living in a city where 90% of his colleagues in Hollywood are out of work right now. a lot of them lost their homes to the wildfires. so in that context, it is objectively offensive and dumb AF to complain about a job pretty much any actor would kill to have.

As a first gen latina, I legit cannot stand this man. He uses our culture only when it's convenient to him then hides behind it when he acts like a fool.

I hope you post this because if you wanted a real convo, I'm here for it.

yes, i’m aware why people dislike ryan. i just disagree with most of their reasoning! but that’s rly none of my concern, lol. i just don’t get what this message has to do with what i posted? it’s just funny. i’m not asking anyone why they dislike the man. only that it’s interesting how they keep up with non-911 related content whether it’s on purpose or not. they’re letting themselves be upset over something they can control. just stop looking at him, stop assuming the worst when he says something. i don’t like looking at rg criticism so i don’t go looking for it. i’m only aware this time because a friend mentioned something. most of the time, i ignore it because at the end of the day, it’s nothing to get upset over. i made an exception this time only because it’s funny and clearly untrue (re. phoning it in part).

but since you’re up for a real convo;

a) he is an actor, not a politician or activist. he is allowed to appreciate his culture without virtue signalling online to prove he actually cares. we know ostark is vegan without him shoving it down our throats every single time to appease any radical vegans who may be tracking his socials like a hawk. it’s a metaphor! the vegans aren’t actually hawks! no hawks were harmed in the making of this post. ryan can’t even say he’s white or latino, or feel like he’s mixed race without people getting mad or deciding for him. just look at the comments.

kim kardashian just passed the bar, didn’t she? and she’d been involved with legal cases for years now. i’m not surprised she said something or whatever, i don’t pay attention to her. you don’t know what ryan is doing offline. lack of online activity about a certain thing ≠ inactivity irl. if ryan shared something from joe rogan, you’d be tearing him to shreds. doesn’t matter if joe rogan posted something righteous or relevant. man can’t even talk about men’s mental health without criticism even though it’s one of the biggest things he cares about, it’s not new and has nothing to do with his “incel rhetoric”.

b) “known incel podcast” lol isn’t it run by a young woman with tradwife ideals? yeah, that was a strange podcast but it’s clear to me ryan was an outlier as a guest compared to other men she’s had on the podcast. ryan not mentioning the rape doesn’t make him a rape apologist. maybe it’s just not a good idea to publicly speak on a legal case? esp when it wasn’t rly relevant to the line of questioning. he mentioned mcgregor due to his association with mma, one of ryan’s main interests. mcgregor would be a notable example in this case. and the fact is, he DID step out on his wife. it is historically known he’s a serial cheater, lmfao. i’m sorry he didn’t go into gory details about what he did in the one instance where he cheated on his wife by brutally assaulting another woman.

no idea what reel you’re talking about but i’m sure you’ve taken it out of context too. maybe clothes shouldn’t be gendered at all??? i doubt red pillers would’ve taken the whole “babygirl” thing for buzzfeed in stride like ryan did, acknowledging that he (eddie) is indeed a lucky wife and thanked oliver (buck) for taking such good care of him. alright babygirl. show me an incel choking on the red pill who would lean into the bit and have fun with it. show me a toxic straight bro who would seem bemused and endeared by his male coworker’s insistence that he indeed has a slutty waist, even got a “little thing going on”. hourglass gesture and all. ah, the epitome of masculinity.

c) RAAAAHHHHH. i get that 5 years isn’t very long in the grand scheme of things, but 2020 feels like a lifetime ago (and simultaneously like yesterday. i get it!). however, a lot has happened since lockdown. people in LA are going through a very different crisis right now, we know this. they’ve had several different crisises and faced several tensions since the pandemic and george floyd’s murder, the latter which prompted the scandal concerning ryan’s wife at the time. do i need to explain why the whole thing is weird, on the fans’ part? it’s not like the incident happened in a vacuum. it’s not like ryan randomly went on insta live and proudly stated he and his friends say slurs against each other and don’t get butthurt about it. he fucked up, i’m not denying that. but he put his hands up and owned it (satisfactorily or not), even though he wasn’t directly involved, and moved on.

the whole anti vax thing is a bit of a reach, imo. the antisemitism angle too. he got the vaccine. he’s allowed to be critical at the same time. i’m not american but i still had my concerns re. the vaccine (does it work, isn’t it too soon, what are the risks?) even though i intended to be fully vaxxed, and i am. having questions doesn’t make you a bad person. maybe he shouldn’t have shared the posts but that’s over and done with, and he never elaborated.

imo, you’re stuck on the version of ryan from when he wasn’t at his best. he’s literally just a man who makes mistakes and he learns from his mistakes. he’s not an irreedemable piece of shit but tbh, that’s my perspective and i’m not here to convince you to change your mind.

d) sigh. this is ryan we’re talking about. he knows how lucky he is. and acknowledges it often (even though some of you will say he’s not sincere. he’s damned either way). but like most people, he’s allowed to complain about his job. which isn’t something he does often, mind you. the work environment on 911 isn’t even a secret. he has a great work ethic, he likely got it from his father and grandfather. he’s constantly networking and prior to 911, he was consistently working in between movie roles and small tv roles.

re. the podcast, it was more of a criticism towards himself for not having the confidence as an actor at the time (season 3), admitting that he half assed it because the end result wasn’t going to show up anyway. i can see where he’s coming from, he likely wasn’t used to being a main cast member on network tv, especially for a ryan murphy production. it’s a big adjustment from being a lead/decent part in a movie once every 2 years(??) to filming for a network procedural. not in terms of success but the work environment, work hours and such. the process is different. and his mental health was in the shitter at the time, like no wonder he was despondent and felt like he didn’t contribute anything to the show until kenny reached out.

sorry this got long. but if you read all of this, i appreciate it — even though none of this has anything to do with what i posted, lol. you don’t like him, that’s fine. if you seek out his content on purpose, don’t do that. be kind to yourself instead. sincerely.

[bleachbleachbleach]

Hiiiii, re ur post abt goals and the whole being more active in the community thing -- I'll try to remember to interact with u more than just liking/reblogging things! I've been super quiet on my own blog since I had burnout two years ago but I'm trying to get back into doing more than just occasionally posting fic, and honestly I love a lot of ur head canon posts and metas etc. I probably won't read any of ur fic because I'm a Bit Weird in that for some reason I hate reading fic in the fandoms I write for (but still love metas and headcanons? Brains sure are weird) but everything else I'll try to actually Write Words instead of letting my thoughts stay in my head!

This is such a sweet message! <3333333

I would totally welcome conversation, and it’s great to know that you are open to it, too. Because I feel like Tumblr as a platform runs on a parallel play model on purpose, and most people probably just want to do that, and my hesitation in going full throttle about using Tumblr the way I would want is my fear that it is going to be obnoxious/overbearing/overwhelming (e.g. driving people to madness via “Why is this person talking to me… I didn’t want to talk to them...”).

It’s so funny you should say that, re: enjoying hcs/meta but not fanfic in your writing fandoms, because I think about that divide a lot! Half the time I spend writing most* headcanon posts is actually time spent workshopping “sooooo…. how do I say this without saying ‘well, in my fanfic…’” because it’s probably something I already wrote in fanfic or notes for fanfic, but 1) I want to talk to people about it, and the chances that I will get to if it’s written in a fanfic are fairly slim, and 2) I want to hear other people’s versions of it, too. In their fanfic, if they write fanfic, but also their posts or tags!

But that can be complicated because in my mind, [insert headcanon post topic] tends to be fairly situated in context—the context of fic things having happened, or things that are going to happen, or thematic undercurrents/relationships—so it becomes a project in trying to make the proposition NOT sound completely bananas without that context/something being written in a particular way. Which can sometimes be its own kind of fun and is sometimes like “good grief, I could have simply been writing more fanfic!” (I feel like I should emphasize here that no one should feel obligated to read my fanfic. I mean, I want people to want to read it! But I very much do not want anyone to feel like they Have To or like they need to explain why they’re not!)

Our approaches are opposite, in that my brain is fanfic forward, both for myself and for others’ fanfic. But I do feel like a lot of RP blogs share your orientation re: not wanting to read other versions of the character they write for! I don’t know if this is where you, specifically, are coming from, but I’ve read on some of the RP blogs that it has a lot to do with having a strong investment in their own particular color on things, and wanting that centered and front of mind. (Which isn’t to say that sentiment isn’t true of most people, I think, because otherwise they wouldn’t write them that way—it’s true of me—but ymmv on how much someone wants to see the other iterations.)

For me, I know that I’m a lot less adventurous about Interpretations That Excite Me for my blorbos than other characters I might read for. Like, to use a silly example, in my mind Soi Fon is 100% Lesbian (which stands out in my headcanon space because I generally assume most everyone in Bleach would be on some level willing to get down with most anyone else), but did I click on Soi Fon/Vegeta when I came across it anyway? Absolutely I did. I barely know who Vegeta is. But my down-to-clown boundaries with Soi Fon are very low, nearly tabula rasa, so go get Vegeta, girl!!!! Whereas for like, Hitsugaya, I’m probably not going to read Hitsugaya/Vegeta because I am not actually a crossover person, my knowledge of DBZ is limited to The Osmotic Experience of Having Grown Up in the 90s, and my favorite version of Hitsugaya’s sex life is the absence of one.

*Of course, there are other headcanons posts in the omake/filler vein that are simply too dumb (affectionate) for me to want to write full fanfic of, like the Gotei regatta or the Gotei bowling league, or that “I think the average shikai user would probably be pretty good at driving a car but they would NOT be considerate or lawful users of said car” post.

[shinakazami1]

I’ve received notice that there was a callout on me in the Stanley Parable Creator’s Club server and I would like to address it as I am a bit tired of people talking behind my back. I wasn't contacted by anyone from the server directly about the issue. 

The specific accusations were that I openly discussed a fic with NSFW themes to a minor, shared NSFW fic online without properly warning it for minors, and encouraged a self insert ship of one of my Narrator designs with a minor. 

These accusations are false, or blown entirely out of proportion. I have never intended to hurt people nor endanger minors and based on screenshots I've received, people have been spreading even more extreme misinformations, like me being a groomer. I want to tell the story with the mentioned earlier things, in hopes to clear up this matter and stop the harassment me and people received. 

1) Sharing NSFW Fic Online

I have been informed that I posted a link to my fic, "A broken promise", without a proper warning. 

I did put appropriate warning in the tags, however I did forget about archive warnings options and I misjudged that the T rating would suffice. I also had only mentioned the rape in tags and not in the ao3 warning. I will be more careful when publishing work in the future.

I've deleted the links on my posts and privated the work, as I do not want anyone else to get possibly harmed.

2) Filk

I was informed my never written fic was discussed in the discord as well with a completely incorrect premise and I would like to mention the idea to give people more insight into what it actually is supposed to be, despite the fact that it was never actually written. 

Filk (Fernator's milk) is based on a joke someone made from another fic of mine, "Bon appetit 1.5 - Chicken soup is served " where Stanley buys milk and pickles, and we called it pilk. Somebody made a joke that this is like a pregnancy craving and I decided that that would make a funny CRACK fic premise. Again, I never have written this fic, and the only place it ever existed was in a series of messages in a private discord.

The whole point of crack fics is that it has a stupid premise. In here, it was one of my Narrator's, Fernator, telling Stanley he would make him pregnant. I know that this sounds like the problem, but that was just a premise.

What really happens in the fic is that Fernator tells Stanley about human reproduction but after that, the majority of the fic is a sfw adventure on how viruses, bacteria, and plants reproduce. 

With bacteria, Stanley just gets copied, with viruses, Fernator creates a computer virus and it doesn't work so they move on, and with plant, the title filk comes in which is milk with fern spores in it. It ends up just in Stanley's foot. The end goal was for them to just get the cutout Baby as their child and then, the main fic that I talked about would end. After a while, they would realise they didn't really succeed and would try to make something, pouring filk onto Fernator and creating Pickle Rick.

The accusations of this being a non con confuse me as Stanley is happy to be brought onto this journey and there are no actual sexual activities involved in this not written project. 

3) Art with minor

One person was very supportive of one of my Narrators, Jester (they drew him a bit), and even started to call him their husband. Since they're my friend, I wanted to make them happy, so I drew something I deemed wholesome and platonic. They also took my drawing this way. 

In my eyes at the time, when I made the art, I never thought of this 'ship' as anything other than admiration for a design. 

However, that context got lost when they reposted my art on that server with my permission. 

I now see how people could think otherwise and I will be far more wary about this topic in the future.

However, while the announcement didn't use the exact word 'groomer', it highly implied it. I feel wronged for that as I received a lot of harassment in my direct messages. 

I would like a statement and an apology from the announcers because their words caused a lot of harm.

4) Conclusion

I want to finish this off with being honest about the mistakes I've made of not properly checking sfw spaces - which started all this - and talking about suggestive matters within them. The fanfiction link was certainly a slip up but I will be more careful in the future of what I post. 

However - I also want to say that it's not okay to harass people who got involved in this.

I myself have received false accusations already and seen my work be misinterpreted. I only learnt about this through buds giving me a notice and I do ask, if a similar situation would ever occur, which I don't plan on, to message me directly first about my mistake.

In the future, I will remember to double check where I discuss my fic ideas and I'll do everything in my power for this situation not to repeat. 

Thank you for reading.

[befuddled-calico-whump]

Uh, hey, I dont know what the fuck possessed me to do this since usually I’m stupidly socially anxious and overthinky and oversharey to a severe degree about messages but hey, it’s fucking midnight and I just spent the last 30 minutes cleaning while listening to dopamine music so maybe I’m high (no I’m not, I’m joking to clarify) but whatever the hell, here I am I guess, I apologize if I come off as unhinged or strange or anything like that (like very much so; I think a good visual representation of how I’d feel if I unintentionally came off that way is a video of a Japanese apology Olympics. If you don’t know what that is, just search it up, it’s quite funny but also I am as sorry as those people are). Anyways,

First things first, just gotta say this, your stuff is fucking epic, drawings, presumably writings as well (I have yet to buckle down and make my adhd mind focus and read but I’ve read a few snippets and they’re epic. I think that’s the word, vocab is not a part of the midnight brain I guess), all of it is the absolute shit. Unrelated somewhat, I hope to also learn drawing (I have no clue if that’s necessary context AT ALL, but you draw cool and the whole “draw the freak shit you wanna see in the world” resonated with me lol)

Anyways, the actual reason is because of essentially just a story I experienced (dur) shortly after discovering your blog some time ago (I’m this person for context:https://www.tumblr.com/idkanonymystuff/764430703294300160/hey-hello-i-am-completely-new-here-but-i-just or @idkanonymystuff with the chainsaw dog pochita image; I’m clarifying because I can’t tell if I got my own name right lol) that I think is just kinda funny. It’s not really that long but (starting a new chunk for readability)

Basically, shortly after that post (for a timeframe), I went to an appointment and I don’t know what happened, I think I spaced out, but I was asked a question and without really thinking, I responded “vivisection”. I think the question had something to do with how my brain thinks things (it was awhile ago shut up) or some sort of “how does that make you feel” type question, I really don’t know, but the exact question that I answered, well, vivisection with made it essentially sound like I was saying I like doing that in my free mind time or something.

Like I swear it went like they asked the question and then this essentially:

*Question*

Me, absent-mindedly: Vivisection

Them: what?

My parent (who’s also present): What?

Me, after processing it: …wait-

Que ensuing confusion and then back to regular

I don’t think I explained it right or did it justice (it was very simple, just a misspoken word so I think it’s fine??), but god damn it was awkward but now I just think it’s funny that at that point my mind was still invested with those thoughts at the time (as in it was just rotating it on the back burner throughout the appointment if that makes any damn sense). Pretty sure it went right back to it after a minute or two after lol

But yeah, just thought I’d maybe share that little experience of when past me was so enamored/invested in reading stories about vivisection it scrounged from your blog and looking at other (granted, unrelated) whump art and just the general content of your blog that it just did that without thinking. And to me, that seems like a big compliment, having someone be the cause of work getting stuck in my head that much (?) so, uh yeah

Hope this isn’t strange, me sharing this, I just thought you’d maybe find it funny (and if not, feel free to dump this) and also, again, midnight impulse so yeah. I don’t know what I’m doing, don’t hold me responsible (joking)

ANYWAYS, I hope you have a good day/night, are taking care of yourself, staying hydrated, continuing to do whatever the fuck you do with undying passion, and that my little story wasn’t annoying or anything like that and that you have a happy new year when it comes (or whatever you celebrate. Apparently it’s also national hangover day but I don’t know if you drink so probably not that one) :)

-idk (this is just my tag. Probably not gonna see much of it though since, again, social anxiety and I am mostly a lurker. Not you, literally my brain sees social interaction as a tiger about to maul me with judgement lol. Speaking of which, probably overthinking this right now…okay shut up me-)

AHHHHHH thank you so much!! I'm glad you appreciate my work and that it resonates with you so strongly 🥰🥰

The vivisection thing is so funny and I personally enjoy how common of a term it is within this community and how absolutely wild it is to just about everyone else. I'm definitely right there with you rotating things in my brain in public skdhdjdk it makes waiting in lines and stuff easier 😂😂

It's great that you want to learn drawing! I'm self taught, so I know from experience it can be really daunting to get started and sometimes really frustrating as you figure out your own style and process, but it's so so worth it. Plus, as you said, it enables you to make the freak shit you wanna see in a whole new medium :D! It's very exciting and I wish you all the luck and motivation and inspiration

Thank you again and I hope you have a great day 🥰♥️

[halfetirosie]

✩‧₊˚ Let's Get Confused!!! :D ✩‧₊˚

(Star Message 01 - 05 React-os!)

1) Wait, so you're telling me that Blade's storytelling put kids to sleep???

That's quite odd!

I mean, yeah, a lot of what he was saying was confusing the kids. But I would think that, with how animated Blade was being, it would still be entertaining enough to keep them awake. 🤷‍♀️

It's funny how polite Olivine is being about it---spinning it into a positive outcome. Bless your little heart!

2) Uh-oh! My workaholic wife is back at it again! 😂

My mans really does overwork himself...

If I were the Captain, I would've forced a ton of vacations onto him, too! :D

I personally can't really relate to this side of Edmond's personality---the obsession with his work. I'm the kind of person that has had to do way more work than I was comfortable doing in the past, to the point that my personal life was non-existent, but as soon as it wasn't necessary to have such a large workload I didn't push myself to keep up that insane schedule.

Edmond, on the other hand, has just gotten so used to constantly working, that at this point it's difficult to stop...

Maybe it's because he had that sort of schedule for even long than I ever did, since he's a noble? That, combined with his natural integrity/work ethic?

3) Eiden out here validating the fans' comments about the space-appropriateness of their clothes---

---and Blade giving a very reasonable explanation---

I like to think the the tailor also has a devious mind, determined to bring out the maximum sexy-potential of each project they receive (even if their "added elements" will require them to do an additional wardrobe-change later)!

It's also very possible that Eiden's collaborations with them have tainted their formerly-innocent tastes...

😈😈😈😈😈

4) Edmond, sweetie---no offense, but HOW is this any more scandalous than your usual outfits??? 🤨

Is it because your stomach is showing?---No, that can't be it, because the ceremonial clothes in his Knightly Night SSR show his stomach.

Is it because your shoulders are bare?---No, because the shirt in the prison guard outfit of Vigilant Observer is sleeveless...But then again, perhaps the guards are expected to keep that jacket/overshirt on over the sleeveless shirt, so maybe that really is the reason???

I AM CONFUSION!!!

EDMOND, PLEASE EXPLAIN WHAT YOU CONSIDER "MODEST!"

It is quite nice seeing Blade and Eiden being so supportive to Edmond, tho.

They see him feeling a little uncomfortable, and Blade immediately reassures him [of the clothes' utility] while Eiden hypes him up. It's so sweet!!!

5) Blade and his not-at-all worrying ideas °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

Can I just say---I LOVE the fact that Edmond takes Blade's question seriously.

I (along with many other fans) see Blade as strong representation for neuro-divergent individuals; and IRL, many such people act "eccentric" or ask questions that people think are "silly/weird."

So, Edmond taking Blade seriously---just like he treats everything/everyone seriously---without getting angry or annoyed is such a delight! We love to see it!

6) I love it when Blade hops into Robo Mode at the most unexpected times!

It's funnier when the situation is less serious than this, but hey, I still enjoyed it!

Also, the voice-acting bit during this part was fantastic. Blade's voice sounds so cool!

7) Blade, honey---are you telling me you can catch a FUCKIN METEOR all by yourself????

BRUH.

I knew he was built to be a hella-strong sorcerer-murderer robot, but putting his strength in the context of earth-science terms makes it even more insane.

8) It's quite impressive how nonchalant blade is being about all of this... (ᵕ—ᴗ—)

Like, he and Edmond just stopped a FUCKIN METEOR from crashing into the tower and killing people, and he's over here cracking little jokes!

What a legend!

9) So, as soon as I saw this---

---for some reason, I immediately thought of this;

Which is a fine and dandy meme, but I'd say that Blade is completely justified in his assumption that the thingy from the sky is alien tech; it isn't a crackpot theory, an thus, I wouldn't say this meme is completely applicable... But maybe I'm just being too picky with my meme-etiquette. :D

10) Wait, so this isn't even the first time that "starscape creatures" have sent a message to Klein?

🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

But from what I've gathered so far, the message is just supposed to be a sort of audio message---so how does he know about what kind of environment the starscape creatures live in???

Does the audio talk about where they live??? Do they speak the same language as they do in Klein, or is it somehow possible to interpret the alien language when given no context/prior exposure to that language????

11) Rei, no offense, but you kinda suck at explaining things....

Seriously.

WAT? ∘ ∘ ∘ ( °ヮ° ) ?

Am I just stupid, or did Rei just say the same thing twice but in different ways?

I can't be the only on that doesn't get it, right?

Would this make more sense if I knew more about audio transfer, or like, how radio works???

12) *Voice dripping with sarcasm:*

Oh boy, how reassuring! 😂😂😂

I know for a fact Rei is perfectly capable of making people feel better, but I guess he ain't feeling very charitable right now! (Which, I would think he would be, since they brought him an interesting new thing to research...)

★ End of report! ★

[coffinsister]

Jokes on you I literally love being invested in the drama of random YouTubers I don’t know - spill 👀👀👀

Anon you don't know what you just freaking unleashed onto the world

I gotta spill the freaking tea, but under read more, cuz this got hella long.

But okay, for context, this is about Minecraft Content Creators:: Dream and Tommyinnit mostly, but it's also about another Mexican YouTuber called Quackity

Basically, a super long time ago already actually, Dream announced he was making a new Minecraft server, after the DSMP tragically passed away o7 that was gonna be called the USMP (I'm pretty sure it standed for United SMP but no clue honestly.)

And the exciting new feature about this USMP was going to be this real time translator, so content creators from all over the world could play together (Side thought: I don't think the translations were actually that good either way lol they were machine translated lol)

But literally like that Same night, Quackity announced that actually he was making his own server, the QSMP that had that exact same feature

So they basically kinda fought back and forth over who actually had ownership over the idea or who ripped off who, and while the YouTubers themselves didn't really do much, beyond being way too public about it, but like honestly, what's the Minecraft sphere without incredibly levels of parasociality involved.)

The fanbase was completely deranged over it tho, because you know, Stans gotta be Stans.

A lot of people got doxed, and stalked, literally putting trackers on people's cars, a lot of racism (Hi, hello, that happened to me) just a shitshow overall.

I wanna say that even though I stopped liking Dream ages ago Dream Stans get the worst possible treatment from everybody, just idk, people feel very entitled to mistreating anybody with a ":)" on their bio.

At the end, it finally died down, and then, Tommyinnit, most annoying man on Earth.

Made an ohhh politically incorrect video that was just fake edgy and kinda boring, where at the end he called Dream, basically a crybaby manchild who was gonna get killed by Tommy's LARP Dad Philza Minecraft.

Dream found out, got passive aggressive on Twitter, Tommy doubled down, and then like a stream later, he was being whiny and sighing ,and apparently watching DNF edits of Dream's, new at the time, LP.

Which kinda gave off the message that he really sacrificed a years long friendship to try to get into an SMP that his bestie Tubbo made it into before him

And which he never will, because the QSMP is a very deeply controlled space, with almost no super young content creators, and Tommy's first DSMP video was him literally breaking the only rules of that the server had, so yeah, that's never happening.

(And then, his mom went online to defend him, like boy the way I'm immediately killing myself if that ever happens to me, plus the dream stans discussing with this woman over her son, literally most annoying people in the world.)

And today, Dream made a (In my opinion, super boring) stream just showing the USMP, and talking a bit about Tommy and Quackity.

He kinda implies that the reason the USMP will never see the light of day is because of that drama, but like, that man has never once pushed through on any of his proyects, that SMP was doomed to fail from the very beginning.

I must clarify tho, that my annoyance with Tommy isn't the fact that he dissed Dream. I just freaking don't like the guy, he literally built his entire career on being a mysoginistic lowkey lesbophobic annoying brat.

Kinda sucks that Tommy is the one making the biggest mcyt related videos at the current time, solely because he's got the resources and the connections for it, literally the best part of his channel is being a host for other content creators to be funny and shine.

I still love Quackity tho, he can hit it for free any day of the week, and that's on God

[dragimal]

ok thots abt the live-action Lilo and Stitch. it feels like it would have been a serviceable movie if it was its own thing. not great, mind you, but like. a bit cringe and mediocre at worst. but as an adaptation, this movie is a fucking insult, a goddamn spit in the face. practically NONE of the heart or genuine social commentary from the og movie is present, and the changes feel like they were crafted to directly contradict the point of the og

obviously the biggest issue is the racism, here are some specific points:

the whole point of avoiding adoption in the og is bc adoption is a tool of colonialism against Indigenous Hawaiians, and it serves as a metaphor for colonialism as a whole

this is alongside how the aliens treat the humans, which is much less examined in the live-action. in the og, Pleakley is honestly one step away from calling the humans "savages" at the beginning, and that's kinda the point being made abt the alien involvement. in the live-action, they flippantly make a joke abt how one of the Councilwoman's cutsey aliens wants so very badly to kill the entire planet, "what an adorable psychopath," like HELLO

changing white side characters like Myrtle and the ice cream guy to Native Hawaiian just like completely misses the point of them being representations of white tourists and colonizing residents in Hawaii

Nani's house has the fucking Union Jack state flag outside the whole movie, and it's rly obvious in a lot of shots, but I was willing to cringe and ignore it. but then they use a focused shot on it to make a point to Nani abt being, "part of this land," fuck OFFFF

then the entire Ohana theme statement of the original feels completely smoothed over. it feels like the live-action wanted to go for a more "realistic" message, like sometimes life requires compromise. and sure, a young, grieving woman shouldn't be expected to take on the full burden of raising her sister alone, and she should be allowed to pursue her dreams... but the original already took care of that! Nani already had David helping her, and by the end, she had two weird aliens, a former CIA agent, and a cross-planetary government deal helping her out too! sure, it wasn't all perfect sunshine, but she wasn't just one woman fighting a system anymore, she had a new family to help her out. but then the live-action just says well, the government knows better, and puts Lilo somewhere else. the live-action tries to soften the blow by having Lilo get adopted by a trusted family friend (David's grandma) rather than a stranger, and by giving Nani a portal gun so she can visit Lilo whenever she wants. but if they're gonna do that, then what's the point of even "separating" them in the first place? it completely ignores and softens the horror of the adoption system against both Indigenous people, and "problem" children like Lilo, when everything stays basically the same even after her adoption. this post gets into more detail abt this whole issue, but like. GOD it's bad.

also, the ending just misses the point of the og. in the og, there are technically antagonist characters, but the true villains are the systems that are trying to tear Lilo and Nani apart, which are one and the same as the systems trying to capture Stitch, labeling him an "abomination". then the day is saved by Lilo presenting Stitch's adoption papers-- stupid bureaucratic problems solved by stupid bureaucratic solutions, and everyone kind of acknowledges the stupidity of these systems. in the live-action, Jumba is the core "villain" that must be soundly defeated, and the day is saved by the Councilwoman just deciding on her own to let Stitch stay on Earth. yay authority!

less important but still rather annoying is that so many of the og lines/scenes were only adapted halfway, so the emotional or funny beats have no context:

in the live-action, Lilo tells David that Nani thinks he, "has a cute butt and fancy hair," without the context of him trying to ask Nani out first, and then he just awkwardly stands there after Lilo tells him

and with this clear lack of thoughtfulness abt the themes and metaphors in the og, the live-action ends up removing most of the important mirroring present in the og:

Pleakley still emphasizes that Earth is a protected habitat for endangered mosquitoes, but in the live-action, there's no punchline that Bubbles convinced the aliens of that to save the planet. also, the colonial undertones of that joke + Pleakley's treatment of Earth are completely lost too-- in the og, the aliens care more abt endangered animals than the sapient beings living on the planet. that's the POINT

in the live-action, Lilo tells Nani that she, " likes her better as a sister than as a mom," but there's no, "you like me better as a sister than a rabbit, right?" bc that never came up in their argument, so it's replaced with the less interesting line, "do you really think I'm bad?" even worse, live-action Lilo later tells Nani, "I take it back-- I like you as a mom too!" which cheapens the tragedy of Nani being forced into a role that shouldn't have been her sole responsibility. it doesn't even make sense for the live-action, when Nani doesn't even stay Lilo's caregiver!! like wtf did the writers even intend with that line???

colonialism/control is no longer mirrored between social services and the aliens, as mentioned

Lilo just acts like a neurotypical child in the live-action, so Stitch's "troubled" behavior no longer mirrors hers, bc she's no longer deeply troubled and misunderstood in the first place! in the og, they're both "troubled kids" who recognize and bond over shared experiences. there's none of that recognition and bonding in the live-action

on the opposite end, the live-action tries to answer a bunch of questions that may have been interesting to answer in the og... but ultimately didn't really need answers in the first place, and especially not in the overly-awkward way the live-action answers them:

in the og, Lilo trying to teach Stitch how to be a "model citizen" runs tangential to Nani trying to find a job, bc Bubbles told them to do both those things. they're both working together to try to appease social services. in the live-action, the new service worker tells Nani to do specific things (find a job, get health insurance, clean the house) without Lilo hearing any of it or being involved at all. so Lilo is just hanging out with Stitch w/o much meaning or grounding that she's also trying to fix things alongside Nani

"why does Lilo name Stitch that?" well in the og there's no literal answer, it's just an odd name Lilo comes up with on the spot. but the thematic answer is that Stitch is stitching the family back together, so who cares. in the live-action, Stitch tears up Nani's car, she complains abt having to "stitch" it up, and Lilo screams, "that's his name!"

"why didn't anyone notice that Jumba and Pleakley are freakish aliens?" well the original has a particular art style and tone that expects some suspension of disbelief from the audience-- the aliens stylistically match the environment in a way that the audience doesn't question it much. and honestly I find it funny to imagine that most ppl saw them and thought, "what the hell??.. well, not my problem," and moved on. in the live-action, the aliens look too freakishly inhuman to stylistically match the rest of the cast, so they have to use cloaking tech to look like humans themselves.

"how did Bubbles go from CIA to social services?" in the og, who knows! I think it's funny to imagine that he retired to a "less stressful" job, and somehow that was social services. but we don't have a solid answer on that, and frankly I never needed one. in the live-action, he's now a full-on CIA agent that briefly poses as a social services director once he realizes Nani and Lilo have an alien.

like, did we really need answers to any of these questions??

anyways, here are some notes abt specific characters:

Nani: in the og, Nani is DEDICATED to Lilo, no matter how hard it gets. Lilo's all she's got left, and she CANNOT lose her only family. every moment of looking for a job, of caring for Lilo, of trying to convince Bubbles, is so soaked in frantic, desperate love for Lilo, it's heartbreaking to watch Nani try so so hard. in the live-action, she treats Lilo like a problem, and doesn't seem that interested in caring for her outside of obligation. Ohana where?? also why did the live-action give her a marine bio interest? og Nani liked surfing, that was her thing, why does she HAVE to go to college now??

Lilo: live-action Lilo just acts like a neurotypical child to me. no "strange" behavior, really, besides very shallow lip service to "iconic" bits from the og, like Pudge's sandwich. she doesn't even bite Myrtle, smh. you take my off-putting, swag autistic child with anger issues and make her neurotypical?? DIE

Stitch: arguably the only unchanged character? the circumstances around him have changed, but shockingly, I'm p sure he's not all that different. possibly more food-motivated now? but I may need to chew on that more.

David: in the og, he is PEAK himbo-- he may be a bit slow in certain ways, but he's actually p damn observant and emotionally intelligent. some of the best parts of the og are David recognizing exactly what Lilo and Nani need when they're struggling, and then providing it, no questions asked. literally the perfect man. in the live-action, he's just stupid. several mean jokes are made at his expense, and he has absolutely no chemistry w Nani.

David's grandma: she plays the role of a "fun, indulgent aunt", which is fine, I usually like those characters... except that's the role Jumba is supposed to play after the first movie! also, her presence kinda undermines Nani's lack of support (besides David, who's just a young guy himself), before building her new Ohana.

Jumba: in the og, he's supposed to be like, a pseudo-evil villain, y'know? he doesn't rly care abt conquest or anything, he just loves fucking with people. he literally programmed Stitch to do goofy, disruptive shit like steal everyone's left shoe, he's just a scamp! at worst, his turn to "good" at the end of the og is a bit rushed, but, "he's VERY persuasive," is a great joke, and I'm willing to buy the sudden heel-turn for Jumba specifically. he kinda goes with the flow anyways, so it's no big deal to me. and at that point, he becomes the "fun uncle"-type that lets Lilo and Stitch get away with wayy too much lmao. he's a Doofenschmirtz villain at most, y'know? in the live-action, he's not even Russian anymore!!! they gave him a fuckin, annoying computer nerd voice instead, and made him like an arrogant reddit incel who doesn't give a shit abt anyone. like what the fuck are we even doing anymore

Pleakley: in the og, Pleakley is nerdy and kinda the "teacher's pet" in that he's always by-the-books and looking for approval from his boss. he plays a great foil to Jumba-- Pleakley as the cautious bookworm, yet still excited about Earth, while Jumba plays fast and loose, and isn't all that impressed with Earth. they were BOTH exasperated by each other, and didn't really learn to work together until Stitch brings everyone together to save Lilo from Gantu. in the live-action, despite his reputation as the apparent Earth expert, Pleakley is honestly an idiot, without much sense of caution. even worse, he's annoyingly naive and desperate for attention from literally anyone. he tries to latch onto the Grand Councilwoman several times, and insists that he and Jumba are "friends" almost upon first meeting. clingy desperation vs. reddit incel is simply not as fun a dynamic as two different kinds of academics mutually frustrating one another.

Bubbles: in the og he's the main social worker, and the movie plays him completely straight. he sees that Nani is trying her hardest, and tries to give her chances to improve Lilo's situation, but he eventually has to put Lilo's safety first. in the live-action, Bubbles is just CIA and only poses as a social worker for a short time. the movie doesn't take him seriously as a social worker, and Lilo immediately clocks him as "suspicious" bc he "doesn't look like a social worker". he doesn't give a SHIT abt Lilo when she's taken by Jumba, and the other characters have to convince him to help. fuck the live-action version of this guy, fr

other random, annoying things:

evil live-action Jumba voice, "I will make you perfect by removing your capacity for love, 626. and I will do this by making you into experiment... 627!!" WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN BY THAT????? don't those experiments already exist?? can their pods just override other experiment consciousness now??

I mentioned Pleakley and David earlier as examples of "dumbed-down" characters, but it seems like a broad trend throughout the movie. there's a bit where the Councilwoman says something like, "626's density increases in water," which, for one, I was under the impression he's just dense in general, not that his density increases in water, but whatever. anyways, all her underlings look back at her in confusion, so she sighs and says, "626 is too heavy, so he will drown," and all the underlings go "ahh!" and nod in understanding. like are we really doing an, "in English, please?" joke here? these are intelligent, adult aliens with high-level jobs here, gimme a break

select few changed bits I kinda like:

theoretically David's grandma, but I must reiterate that she took over Jumba's later role, so fuck that.

some bits in the new dog shelter scene. Lilo apparently coming in regularly to try to feed the dogs candy is kinda funny. and Stitch trying to communicate with the dogs more than in the og was also a good bit. however, the og is still way funnier with Nani and the og shelter worker's convo and reactions

Nani saving Stitch's life using her aquatic skills got me a little bit, ngl. but the scene only works in isolation-- live-action Nani has shown NO sympathy or care for Stitch up to that point, and half the ppl in the scene have shown little investment in the outcome either (Bubbles, Pleakley). also, hot-wiring Stitch and almost thinking he's dead, before he miraculously revives, feels like it's cribbing off of Lilo and Stitch 2. which is ALSO a far better movie with a far better near-death scene. stop that.

[thequasarwinds]

YES YES EXACTLY I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING YOU SAID HERE

since I see you’ve kinda gone with the analyzing approach let me share some of my thoughts as a character analyst! Though I want to add on to what your saying instead of just reiterating ofc- if I bring up your points it’s just to put contextual evidence with them to essentially say “hey I agree- look canon supports this characterization”

Yes, so I kind of regret not bringing up the nuance of her reasonings- that is my bad. But I think I was just trying to bring up the point that her main motivations are almost ALWAYS rooted in the care she holds for others.

You know what for this part I’m probably gonna copy and paste what I was originally saying in my response to your ask since I’m probably not gonna finish that anyway 😭😭 (maybe I will some day!) and I feel it covers over the exact reason why I believe her to be as fiercely care as she is! I’m also going to add to it and like…actually complete it since I wasn’t finished with it:

People tend to portray her as like- aggressive or temperamental- due to her argument with Adam and hatred for Thatcher, but people are always completely forgetting the contexts of these. Yes, she is confrontational- but this comes from her refusal to take shit from people, and more importantly, it comes from her deep seated care. Think about what her argument with Adam was really about.

Jonah’s death: Someone she knew, and someone who worked under her died- and Adam didn’t approach it with the care, it deserved. That’s part of why Sarah got so upset. She hardly even KNEW Jonah, yet it was important to her that Jonah was respected in death. You also can’t really fault Sarah for being so angry- as much as I love Adam, bro was NOT acting right what so ever. I LOVE that Sarah calls his behavior out. She did go a little far and intended to say hurtful things unrelated to the argument (“Why don’t you make a memorial video for the only person who’s ever cared about you” and “No wonder Evelin left you.”), but I love that for her though! Since it shows more of her personality. She’s confrontational and doesn’t let shit slide- and can get a little reckless in words- saying stuff she doesn’t exactly mean in the heat of her emotions. (“The only person who ever cared about you”? BE FUCKING FR SARAH- all you really do in TMC is CARE and usually that’s directed at ADAM).

Adams recklessness- and strange behavior. Adam has continually put himself (and others) in danger due to how single minded he is. Sarah’s reasonably very frustrated at this as it DID get someone killed and eventually it may get him too one day. “I don’t give a shit about the footage until you sort yourself out” I think this line and the following “We didn’t need this footage, I don’t care how good it is” show this most clearly. She doesn’t really care what Adam achieved because how he did it was dangerous- and she’s not going to care until he finds a way to do it safely. This right here shows just how much Adam and his saftey means to her, similarly her voice message to him at the end of VOL.4 also shows this- to a MUCH greater extent.

“What’s going on Adam? Who were you talking to? You need to call me back NOW, I don’t know what’s going on…Please don’t make me have to worry about you…Please call me back, please” transcribed the message to VERY briefly pick it apart: It’s funny that she says “don’t make me have to worry about you” when she already IS worried- the urgency in her voice tells you that much. Further more with her wording and tone, she’s still remaining rather assertive (especially with that “now”), probably because it’s kind of implied here that Adam just does concerning shit and doesn’t address it and/or just disappears. (The kind do guy to just randomly drop “Hey both my legs are broken and I’m bleeding profusely, can you pick me up?” Without any further explanation or context). And I don’t think Sarah likes being left worrying- this also shows that Sarah IS someone who worries a lot for the people she cares for- and puts into perspective why she’s so frustrated with Adam. She then takes a softer, gentler yet desperate tone but I’ll talk about that a little more in my next segment (very terrible rundown/analysis of this AGH sorry I’m very tired)

Now let’s talk about Sarah’s hatred for Thatcher- I’ll talk about the context surrounding it as well as bring up BRIEFLY the similarities between the two

Before I continue I want to preface that obviously nobody here is in the right or wrong. There wasn’t much Thatcher could ever do about Mark, he was just a man ultimately powerless in the situation, and Sarah has about nearly two decades worth of childhood trauma carried over into her adult years- her feelings ultimately still stem from that lonely hurt little girl who lost her primary caretaker at the age of three.

Her hatred for Thatcher ultimately stems from her love and care for Mark. She isn’t just some random young adult sending angry emails at this sad middle aged man (OBVIOUSLY YOU NEVER SAID THIS BUT THE FANDOM TREATS IT LIKE SHE DOES)- she’s directing all of the pain and anger she has about her and Mark’s situation onto him because she probably doesn’t have a more healthy place to put it. But I would REALLY REALLY want to preface that Thatcher does not reciprocate this WHATSOEVER.

There’s this common belief that he does, or other wise is cold about it but this isn’t what we’re shown. The only time we see him refer to Sarah, is in his really somber and guilty monologues during Vol.4: “The bellowing of broken parents, cries of sisters asking where their brothers went, all drowned out by the humming of the fluorescent lights”

I’m not gonna pick this apart because this isn’t about Thatcher (though I would LOVE to. I’m not even the main Thatcher person go ask my twin if you want that: @seasonalmoss) but his wording here is sympathetic and guilty. If anything this shows that to him, Sarah’s just a hurt kid. (I’d also like to note that Sarah was about 15-16 in the audio recording we have of her. If its Marks 30th birthday and we know she’s about 14 years younger then him- that’d put her at about 16 when she made that)

Sarah and Thatcher are both characters who seem to ultimately just want to help people. They both are very caring and gentle, though one aspect shines through more than the other (Thatcher’s a lot more gentle and Sarah’s a lot more (outwardly) caring. Also to me personally, though we never see Sarah ever interact with someone much younger than her, both of the parties seem to be incredibly paternal/maternal. You can’t tell me Sarah wouldn’t adopt a scraggly orphan off the side of the road- and Thatcher basically did do that- that orphan was just 21 and a little (a lot) fucked up)

this is shown best in Presto

(side note: as someone who HAS watched both Catalyst and Presto (<- my favorite TMC video btw) recently- dw you remember correctly!)

We see Sarah helping Evelin, who she doesn’t seem to know all to well (as seen with their messages), and further more she lets Evelin vent to her, and gently comforts her. She’s actually not to assertive with it (though I do agree that Sarah would be like that- and to some degree she still was)- just softly reminding Evelin. (THIS HAD ME SCREAMING IT WAS SO SWEET) This scene also shows how worried they BOTH are for Adam. That despite everything they both really do care for him. Then, right after this we get Thatcher, being INCREDIBLY gentle to Adam. He expresses first how much he wishes to help Adam more than he has, and acknowledges how much pain Adam must be in. And when Adam responds with: “I know what you want and I know what you’re trying to do. I’m not afraid of you.” Thatcher says IN THE MOST UNNECESSARILY (/pos) GENTLE AND FATHERLY TONE “I don’t want you to be afraid of me, kid. I don’t care about the warrent, I’m not upset with you. Just telling me what happened…everything.”

AND JUST AGHHHH I LOVE THEM (both Sarah and Thatcher so much) SO MUCHH

But these scenes both show how gentle and sweet they are!!

and the fact they are played right next to each other feels intentional almost

like look at both of them comfort somebody gentlly? Look at these two people with strong mental fortitudes and similar goals??

IDK I LOVE ALL FOUR OF THEM SO MUCH- PRESTO GIVES US A LOT OF CHARACTER CONTENT ON MOST OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS AND I LOVE IT SO MUCHH

Anyways I can talk ON AND ON about Presto and Sarah in general but this is getting WAY to long

you’ll notice that I haven’t talked much about Evelin here, and that’s mostly because Evelin is also primarily up to my twin to analyze (to make the work load easier we designate certain characters to certain people to handle with writing) so I want them to be able to talk about her! Also again, if you want more in-depth stuff on Thatcher, Evelin, and even Sarah I’d ask them! (Tagging again @seasonalmoss )

ALSO SO SORRY THIS WAS VERY INCHORENT AND SORRY FOR ANY MISTAKES OR CONFUSION

Guys... evil tmc headcanon 😈😈😈😈

What if after Mark and Cesar's deaths, Sarah decided as like a kid that she wanted to be a police officer and help stop what happened to them from happening to anyone else.

But then she found out/realised that the police didn't do jack shit to save her brother and were way too late to save his friend so then she gave up on that and decided "I'm gonna fuck with them instead :)" and made the BPS.

Her hopes and dreams were crushed and now all she has is the BPS and her friends, no family or aspirations to turn to.

Do we see the vision here??

Ofc this is just a silly headcanon but I think it's neat :)

I can't tell if she's the ultimate girl boss or girl failure at this point lmao 😭😭😭😭😭

[sepublic]

If there’s one solace Jonathan has in this mess, it’s in his writing where he can at least record his thoughts and express his feelings. But when he visits Dracula, he ends up having to hide and censor them with shorthand, knowing Drac is invading his privacy or at least fully capable by reading Jonathan’s letters behind his back; But at least he has something.

And now Dracula is just being BLATANT about it, he’s completely invaded this intimate space of reprieve that Jonathan has, stepping in between us and our protagonist. Breathing down his neck, forcibly participating and taking away any chances of writing secret messages, the actual truth, in shorthand; And so we’re losing our understanding of what Jonathan is going through as Dracula takes him from us as he’s taken him from Mina. When he alludes to the letters and eventually interferes it hurts; These entries, they’re supposed to be OUR shared secret with Jonathan, no Dracula involved!

And it just makes the thing all the more an infuriating violation of boundaries. It’s like having a save room in a horror game only to find the boss chilling there, waiting for you. And he’s acting like it’s ALL fine and dandy when both he and Jonathan both know, and know that the other knows and so forth, that it’s not. Dracula really looked Jonathan dead in the eye and said, “I need you to help me create an alibi for your own murder. Thanks!” The audacity. The nerve. Like telling his own soldiers to sacrifice themselves for him because their whole existence is meaningless without their grand leader to define it.

There’s the classic dissonance with people saying one thing where it very much isn’t, essential to both comedy but also horror, hence the meta of Jordan Peele the comedian hitting a home run when it comes to Get Out and Us. In another context it’d be funny and it still is tbh, but with a bleak and mocking undertone that’s hard to shake off. A gaslighting “This is fine” reassurance by Dracula, WHOOF. It’s like a big joke to him, fittingly, and I can imagine Jonathan at some point snapping and asking if HE’s a joke himself to Dracula. Honestly, probably. Jonathan is writing less and less as is, but that’s likely gonna get even worse; It’s hard to feel incentivized to bare his soul knowing Dracula is going to be seeing it.

[oldbookist]

hi!! okay so first off you're an amazing writer, you don't need me to tell you that, but i read your enjolras x fem!reader (i wanna call it satire?? if that's the correct term) fic and it not only made me chuckle but also your style enraptured me. but i got a little sad because i hoped it wasn't a jab at the fic writers who got into les mis because of joseph quinn. and after scrolling through your blog for a bit i think maybe that was the case? however, i wanted to say: you changed my mind. i actually grabbed a copy of the book and intend to learn more about the characters and enjoy the story. instead of writing enjolras x reader without regard for his personality or the story, i'll stick to a historical au with a character whose personality matches what i want to get across.

i don't mean this message to be rude or angry! genuinely you recruited me as a les mis fan, and i want to learn more about combeferre and enjolras and their relationship. so thank you!!!

oh my gosh thank you?? this is very unexpected…it was in part joking about the influx of enjolras x reader fic we experienced after st s4 (rip eddie) but it is actually also a joke referencing a specific line of enjolras’s introduction in the book:

“Woe to the love-affair which should have risked itself beside him! If any grisette of the Place Cambrai or the Rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais […] had conceived an appetite for that complete aurora, and had tried her beauty on Enjolras, an astounding and terrible glance would have promptly shown her the abyss, and would have taught her not to confound the mighty cherub of Ezekiel with the gallant Cherubino of Beaumarchais.”

and WOW, i am so delighted to hear you’re reading les mis? that is so cool!! it is truly the book of all time to me...it's relevant and heartbreaking and even terrifically funny at times, i promise it's worth it to finish (i still cry.) it's a JOURNEY.

as for enjolras and combeferre all i can say is ummm if you like symbolism and philosophically meaningful relationships and characters who sacrifice themselves for a future they know they won't get to see you will love them.

i definitely have to recommend @lesmisletters, which is like dracula daily but for one chapter of les mis a day. there's a big discord server for it that is really helpful for learning about the historical context and also just fun to chat with people who are also doing the read through. we're not that far into it yet and there are a lot of people reading les mis for the first time, it’s super fun if you want to join!

so yeah wow, wholeheartedly wishing you the best of luck and i hope you enjoy the book. thank YOU for this lovely message, and welcome to the fandom! hope to see you around!

[seesgood]

can we very gently talk about call out posts / culture really quick?  not in a judgmental way, but in like a: i just want to pose a thought and explain why i’m never going to buy into it and why i wish it would become less of a trend instead of more of one? and i’ll add the  disclaimer  here: i totally get not wanting certain people around you for various reasons, that is all your prerogative. that’s your comfort level. but in emphasizing “your blog should be a safe space” we’re kind’ve losing sight of the fact that the rpc should also be a safe space, and as much as your comfort and safety matter, so do other people’s. and not just the person who hurt you, but the third parties and other mutuals and 99.9% of people who are not at all involved in any way in whatever happened. so, anyway here goes, read it or don’t, we all have different opinions or reasons, i just want to be heard:

people are allowed to change.  think back to who you were last year. two years ago. think about the stuff you said when you were seventeen, or twenty-one, or hell whatever age you were. current-you would probably cringe at the kind of stuff past-you had to say. because you grew. you learned. you had life experiences. in hindsight you have the freedom to be like “oof yeah that was not the best version of myself right there damn i don’t want to be like that again.” the growing trend of ‘here’s a 10+ page google doc complete with out of context screenshots that sometimes date back to like 2017 or earlier’ makes this kind of change impossible. because right there, you’ve just frozen a person in time, probably not at their best, removed any and all amounts of context, and put it on the internet and let other people judge it for themselves. 

so that leads into another point that i want to just kinda present to the community at large: the act of documenting behaviors and storing them for months / years at a time, in itself creates a super unsafe environment, not just for you, your friends, the people who have hurt you --- but also for anyone else that isn’t at all involved in whatever happened. like, for example, i like to think that i’m a pretty nice person. i actively try to be a nice person. am i sometimes not having the best day? have people definitely caught me in bad moments? oh hell yeah. but am i, as someone who tries really hard to be nice and welcoming, constantly thinking through every message i send to someone knowing that a) i could have a reputation that makes them read into context that isn’t there and that could contribute to them misinterpreting words i meant in a different way, b) very aware that every post i make, ask i send, message i send can at any moment be screenshotted and posted and taken out of context and either serve as someone’s only opinion of me or pile on to someone’s existing opinion of me? yeah. so in my experience, and based on people i’ve talked to, we now have this thing where you can be surface-friends wtih a lot of people, but if you want to survive in the tumblr rpc you should really only have 2-3 people that you really trust that you can actually talk about shit with. 

and lately i’ve been seeing a resurgence of posts on my dash about like “bring back xyz in the rpc” or “the reason the rpc is like this is because of xyz” and i both agree and disagree with a lot of this, but primarily i think the reason the rpc is Off lately is because everyone and their cousin has a DNI, which is --- again --- your decision and i understand and respect that, but while you know the context of every name on that DNI, other people don’t. and to be honest: other people don’t really care and honestly maybe they shouldn’t care. --- and don’t get me wrong, your friends should care if someone has hurt you. that’s important. but joe billy bob who just wants to write their character with yours is going to read through your rules, they’re going to see “do not interact with me if you follow with or interact with these people you’ve never heard of and if you want me to tell you why just message me” (which no one is ever going to do, i’m sorry to say). and say, joe billy bob also followed that other person because they were like ‘omg this blog looks cool’ --- now joe billy bob, who just wants to write cool plots, is suddenly the middle-man in some type of drama that they do not understand, and maybe they’re able to remove themselves from the situation, but even then it’s still in the back of your mind. 

this is getting long. it’ll be longer, but let’s take a brief break for me to remind you that in some cases, it’s definitely good to give your mutuals and friends a heads up when someone has done something really, really bad. like, remember x amount of years ago when some dude was like ‘i’m gonna make up a new person and say they died by suicide as a social experiment’ or ‘hey this person actively tries to force very triggering plots about abuse / rape / incest onto people and has been doing so for years and does not seem to change their ways no matter how many people try to educate them’ that’s shit people should probably know about. and it’s also okay ( in my opinion ) for your friends to be able to message you like ‘hey i saw you’re writing with x and i just wanted to let you know i had this experience with them’ if that’s something they feel comfortable doing. and if they are comfortable with you still having the autonomy to make your own decision regarding the person. 

i’ll be honest, for a second: i’ve been part of friendships and groups that have turned really toxic for one reason or another. a handful of times. there are probably people out there that are like “yeah this chick is really fake and manipulative and etc, i was friends with her back in 2019″ which, okay. yeah. i’ve definitely done shit and said shit that was not the most representative of who i want to be and who i want to become, and you probably have to. because we are human beings and we are a product of our social groups and the community around us. and you shouldn’t be chained to a version of you that isn’t you anymore. people change. they grow. you don’t have to like them, but you should respect that sometimes people don’t mesh, and that doesn’t mean any of them are bad people, it just means the experience was bad. 

a few additional notes i would like to make but i’ve already gone on way too long:

90% of the callout posts that i’ve seen and the DNI’s that i’ve seen can, in my opinion, be classified as a friend group thing. you were friends with x, x did something, now y and z aren’t friends with x anymore. pain is a very, very real thing and people hurting you should never be minimized, but at some point i just want you to remember that not every friendship is going to end happily, but both you and the other party should be allowed to move on and grow better, healthier friendships after. rehashing Friend Group Gone Wrong instances removes that ability for not only person x, but also person y and z.

you putting out a callout says just as much ( maybe more ) about you than it does about the other person. which sucks. because i’d like to think we all have great intentions, and i’m not saying that you should swallow your pain, but it might not be the kind of thing that impacts the community at large, and maybe you should try to find a better way of working through it with a trusted friend(s)

i’m going to be very real and very blunt on this one: literally no one cares. i say that with love. i’m good friends with people who have each other on their DNI’s. establish a baseline of respect and ‘i’m not going to say anything to them about you and vice versa because there’s no need for me to do so’ and move on. but seriously. no one cares. most outside people read callout posts because they like being in the know about the drama, not because they actually care. 

person a and person b who are mentioned in the DNI / callout aren’t the only ones who are going to be affected. your friends, your mutuals, your writing partners are now all put in a weird spot where you have to pick sides on an issue you know nothing about and shouldn’t have to know anything about. you’re asking people to choose sides on an issue they cannot fully understand, and that’s not fair to them or to you. and it drives great people away. and then we all lose out on having more awesome people in the rpc.

you’re entitled to your safe space, but this is a public platform and you are also responsible for maintaining your safe space. you shouldn’t put it entirely on other people to do that for you. you can block, blacklist, make up funny names for, or spitefully erase from your many anything and anyone that you wish. but you shouldn’t make your friends do it for you.

there’s always an inherent power imbalance when any kind of drama occurs between those who have more followers / friends / connections and those who do not. and the smaller blog is always going to suffer a little bit more because they don’t have people blindly coming to their defense. 

bad moments, bad experiences, bad decisions DO NOT equal bad people. 

allow people to make up their own mind about something or someone

anywho, if you read through this whole thing i think i owe you financial compensation. but also thank you for reading / listening / considering. even if you rolled your eyes through the whole thing like “stfu lia” that’s fine. i’m just presenting an alternative thought. i’d like to once again state: i’m not judging you if you’ve made a callout/DNI or if you’re on a callout/DNI. like i literally don’t care. and frankly, in my opinion, i shouldn’t have to. because i, and you, and your friends, and your mutuals, and your non-mutuals should be allowed the space to make up their own opinion and mind on something or someone without being told that there will be consequences if they don’t agree with you. set boundaries. communicate in healthy ways. you don’t have to forgive the people who have hurt or wronged you, but you also don’t get to decide that their actions make up 100% of who they are as a person, or decide that that is the only side of that person people should get to see.