#i'm not ready for that can of discourse yet so

[dalia9334]

jeff sedecki is not an angel.

@alvinjrsgun's reblogs triggered this rant.

i'm here to criticize jeff sadecki and how this fandom has collectively decided he's some misunderstood angel when he's actually a walking red flag factory.

let's start with the obvious: jeff pressured his girlfriend into having sex. jackie literally tells him she's not ready and he keeps pushing. but somehow the discourse around this is crickets while we dissect every micro-expression shauna makes. weird how that works.

then there's the cheating. multiple times with his girlfriend's best friend. but here's where it gets really wild - apparently jeff just "fell dick first" into shauna because that's how agency works, right? he had absolutely no choice in pursuing jackie's best friend. it just happened to him, poor baby.

except that's not how cheating works. nobody makes someone cheat - it's a choice. their choice. so why does jeff get painted as this hapless victim of shauna's seduction when he was the one who willingly shat on his relationship with jackie?

and let's talk about that marriage timeline because it's absolutely unhinged. finds out his ex-girlfriend died after missing for over a year, immediately marries her traumatized best friend who he'd been hooking up with before the crash. romantic? or predatory? you decide.

but wait, there's more! after marrying shauna and having a whole life with her, jeff decides the best way to handle their financial problems is to... blackmail the yellowjackets about their biggest trauma. the thing that broke them all. the secrets that weren't his to know or weaponize.

then when shauna starts showing signs of paranoia and instability (gee, wonder why), jeff has the audacity to complain about it. bro, you literally triggered her spiral and then acted surprised when she spiraled. you poked the bear and then complained it was growling.

and here's the thing that really gets me - after setting off the dominoes that led to multiple deaths, jeff just... leaves. abandons shauna when the consequences of his actions come home to roost.

the yellowjackets did horrific things in the wilderness, but they had a reason - survival, starvation, psychological breakdown from extreme trauma. it doesn't excuse their actions, but it explains them. jeff doesn't have that excuse. he's just selfish.

yet somehow shauna gets all the hate while jeff gets treated like a victim of her manipulation. she's called crazy, unhinged, a monster - while he's the poor husband dealing with his unstable wife. the double standard is staggering.

yes, shauna has done terrible things. yes, she's not innocent. but you hear that take everywhere. what you don't hear is how jeff is equally complicit in their toxic dynamic, equally responsible for the cheating that started it all, and arguably more at fault for the blackmail plot that pushed everyone over the edge.

jeff sadecki isn't a soft boy caught up in circumstances beyond his control. he's a man who consistently chose the selfish option at every turn and then acted shocked when those choices had consequences. stop giving him a pass.

oh, but he's a decent dad so it's okay! (it's the least he can duckin' be...)

[legandairy-horror]

Does anyone else feel a strange sort of dread waiting for new deltarune chapters?

It sounds crazy right? I admit it's a weird feeling for sure, and I'm not even 100% sure if dread is the right way to describe it. But as more info is revealed and the next chapter inevitably gets closer and closer to releasing I can't help but feel a strange sort of, melancholy? Longing? The only way I can describe it is "when you know the goodbye is coming". The strange somber feeling when you know you’re going to have to leave stuff behind, but aren't quite ready for it yet.

warning: words. Homestuck

In 3 months Chapter 1 will be 6 years old, and in 2 months Chapter 2 will be 3 years old. Deltarune is ostensibly in Early Access but this release schedule puts new chapters closer in time scale to whole sequals if anything, which they most assuredly are not trying to be. This has created a strange situation in the fanbase that I don't think I've ever truly seen anywhere else. One where, In the time between chapters It feels like everyone has had their own chance to decide what Deltarune is to them. To create their own version of this story, to write their own themes that they want to see explored, to imagine their own events and plot twists they want to see play out.

@lynxgriffin Paper Trail Comic Being an Alternate Story following off of chapter 1

@lilybug-02 The Chara Timeline Being one of many interpretations on the popular Asriel & Chara roommates headcannon.

@huecycles Andromeda Chapters being their interpretation on the full game

The innumerable Deltarune Theorists and analysts like HalfBreadChaos, Andrew Cunningham, Stuffed Alpaca, etc. etc.

@vyletbunni Deltatraveler being a whole ass fangame based around a chapter 2 meme that it has long since outlived

And that's kinda the thing isn't it? Once more deltarune comes out, a ton of these projects will just become outdated, it's an inevitability. So what will happen to them? will they become forgotten? maybe, maybe not, it's impossible to tell. but either way it feels kinda sad to think about yknow? that one day all the time and effort spent and all the memories made might one day just cease to exist.

There's a lot more I could say on this topic if given the chance but to keep this tumblr post from morphing into a 2 hour long video essay in text form let me leave off with this.

In the age of the internet and social media there will always be a fan of something. Nothing truly dies quite like it used to anymore, regardless of whatever influencers want you to believe. But that doesn't mean things stop changing, that there wasn't a past that has since been left behind. I'm a Homestuck fan. more specifically I'm a Late Homestuck fan, one who came in after the comic had already ended and it's peak in popularity was long behind it. The fandom's still around all these years later. But it'd be foolish to admit that, 8 years after the comics controversial end, the inescapable trend of new fans replacing old fans has left the fandom wholly disconnected from the monolith that it once was. the only remnants of which lie in decades old discourse and fanfiction. Like old relics of a long forgotten city, waiting to be excavated under a fine layer of dirt.

Before I close out here I just want to make it clear: I'm not saying that we should be trying to return to some nebulous "glorious past" that never really existed. I'm not trying to deride Toby Fox for not working in the sweatshop hard enough to produce more content™, or whatever you wanna try and spin-doctor this post into. It's just a thought that creeps into my head every now that I wanted to share, see if anyone feels the same, yknow?

Besides it's not all doom and gloom. For those of you OG Homestucks who read till the end. You remember Heinoustuck? Guidestuck? Nightfall? Fucking Ke$haStuck? yeah those are still going by the way! after years of inactivity they've now started back up again. some under new authors and some by the same author but still!

You could say a lot about that but to me at least, it makes me feels hopeful in a way. That, even if not everything will survive. we'll at least have some mementos to remember what came before.

[alovelyfrenchworld]

Your Neigborly Orc Part 1

Meeting an orc was not something that anyone from your village ever expected. Even with your village being the closest human civilization near the river orc territories, it was still considered strange.

Half-orcs were proof of the interracial relations, but they were rare in your part of the country. A half-orc hadn't been spotted for around 50 years. You never thought you would be one to compete with the discourse of your people.

You met your warlord lover perchance after hunting one day. THe border between the orc territory and the human territory was divided by a small river in the forest. Few ever ventured that close.

There was knowledge that other orc territories had blurred with the humans in other regions, but yours had yet to do so. The overall interactions with orcs had increased across the lands and it was becoming a small shadow in the thoughts of the human civilizations of what these interactions could mean.

Regardless of their opinions, you tried to stay near to your homestead you had established in the blissful wood. You decided a change of pace to create a space for yourself was beneficial. You lived close to the river that divided the territories as it gave you a water source, but when hunting and foraging, you tried to stay as close as possible. If one was not paying attention, it was easy to cross the borders between territories. Even in your land did the borders begin to blur.

You had begun to make a living from selling animals meats and forage herbs in your village. Living in the wood gave you access to many resources and a source for profit. Living solitarily was not as lonely as many thought.

**********

The winter was growing harsher as the weeks went by, making it all the more pertinent to stay stocked on supplies. Primarily, that meant firewood was in constant need.

After enjoying a humble breakfast and attending to your minimal, but helpful, livestock, you set out into the nearby wood to refill your kindling.

Supplied with your rucksack, simple ace, and rope for bundling, you set out for the day. The weather had killed off many of the berry bushes and herbs you often used, so meat and wood had become the primary subjects of your searches.

After finding a decent spot, you chopped away at some smaller trees that would be easier for you to carry. Carrying everything by hand was not your usual method, but your wagon was not properly equipped for travelling in the snow, so you you could only bring home what you could carry. That fateful day, you were not the only one who decided to go out deeper into the woods.

Some distance away, across the river, was a big, burly, orc chopping away at a large log. Methodically and skillfully, he was chopping the wood and bundling it together.

You were mesmerized. You had never seen an orc in person before. He fascinated you.

Having noticed your staring, you went back to chopping wood. The noise must have alerted the orc, who then took his turn to take note of you when you were looking away.

You, unknowingly being watched in return, bundled the bits of ash tree you had chopped and readied yourself to go back home.

"It won't be enough," spoke a gravelly voice.

You turned to see the orc standing closer to the river, his kindling hanging from one arm.

"I'm sorry?" you hadn't expected him to speak to you.

"A few more bits of wood will help you. It's an awfully freezing winter." He was right, but you wouldn't admit that to a stranger.

"I appreciate your input, but I can handle my own. Have a good day, sir." At that, you turned around to head back home.

Regardless of whether or not the orc was right, you wanted to be self-sufficient. You had all you could carry and that was more that what many could do, so either way, you were proud.

[johanna-swann]

The thing is like. Even if you take Buck completely out of the equation Eddie's actions and decisions throughout season 7&8 were so shitty. A lot of fans seem to think of this as a "Team Eddie vs Team Buck" discourse or even a "Buddie vs Bucktommy" discourse, but tbh this isn't really about Buck at all.

Eddie started seeing Kim without telling her his true intentions. She probably thought she was just going on dates with this hot firefighter and didn't know her crush was already in a relationship or only interested in her because she looked like his dead wife.

While that was going on he also basically cheated on his girlfriend at the time. Eddie may not have had any romantic feelings for Kim (which I sort of doubt tbh due to the Shannon of it all), but he still met up with a woman and took her on date-like outings (romantic dinners and boat rides) and lied to Marisol about where he was going, who he was meeting and why.

Even when he finally came clean about the whole story to Kim he brought her into his house where there was a chance Kim and Christopher might run into each other - which they did eventually.

Then the whole mess with Chris leaving happened. Now, I personally wouldn't have let Chris leave in the first place, at least not to a city that's 800 miles away. Eddie's parents are retired, they could've stayed in LA (even in Eddie's house while Eddie crashes with Buck or Pepa) for a while. Or Chris could've stayed with Pepa or Buck.

But okay, I'm not Eddie, Eddie isn't me, he did let Chris go to Texas. I would've acted differently, but I'm also not judging this decision. Why didn't he go get Christopher after a few weeks though? Like, not to be insensitive, but what happened between Kim and Chris wasn't a huge new trauma, it more reactivated an old one. He came home and saw a woman who looked just like his mother in his living room. Of course that brought back old memories and old pain. But dare I say that also would've happened had they run into Kim at her shop? It was pure coincidence that only Eddie spotted her that day. It was still reckless of Eddie to risk bringing her around the house, but he probably could've cleared the whole thing up with Christopher a lot sooner had he just talked to him. Teenagers can be stubborn pricks, but sometimes having uncomfortable conversations with your child that they don't want to have is part of being a parent. It is still your duty to sit them down and tell them the things they need to know about the world and about life. Sometimes you need to apologise even when the other person isn't ready to accept the apology. In that situation Chris needed to know that Kim was just a friend Eddie met by accident, that the reason Eddie befriended her in the first place was because he also misses Shannon and that he's sorry he hurt Christopher.

Instead Eddie neglected his parenting duties for months, at least half a year. And I use the word neglect here on purpose. Eddie let his parents take Chris away, he let Christopher isolate himself from everything in LA, he took Chris out of his old school that they jumped through all kinds of bureaucratic hoops to get him into, he didn't visit his child for months and months (Bobby would've given him time off immediately had he asked and Chris is only 13, Eddie at least should've visited and tried to talk to his son in person at some point before the 6 months mark). Eddie is the grown-up, Eddie is the parent and he should've put his big boy pants on by the end of summer break at the very latest, gone to Texas, sat Christopher down, had an open conversation and taken that boy home in time for the new school year.

Eddie did not do that. Maybe because he was scared that he'd screw up again or that this wasn't fixable, maybe because he felt too guilty to see Chris in person yet, maybe because the thing with Kim rattled him so much he himself hadn't recovered by the end of summer. In which case he at the very least should've gone back to therapy. If you feel so scared or guilty or overwhelmed that you can't even vistit your child and have a conversation with him, then go to fucking therapy. Eddie didn't do that either. He just grew a mustache. I'm sure that helped.

Anyway. Eventually Eddie did decide to go get his son back. Several months too late imo, but ok, good for him. Why the fuck did Eddie buy a house in Texas for that? Does El Paso not have rentals? Was there no way he could've lived with a relative (like Isabel) while doing apartment hunting? He went there to get his son back, right? Eddie's best case scenario was to got to Texas, fix things with Christopher and then both of them go back to LA, right? That's why Buck didn't take over the lease entirely he just sublet, right? So why buy the murder shack? That's incredibly financially irresponsible for someone who had only just been scraping by in LA and expected to take back in his special needs kid soon. It's also not logical at all? Why buy a house in a city you're not sure you'll live in for more than a month or two? And tbh? Helena was not entirely wrong to worry about that house being safe for Christopher. Didn't the cupboard basically fall on Eddie when he tried to open it? Yes, Eddie did a lot of repairs around that house, but if I was Helena and if I had raised that kid for the past six months I also would've been protective.

Before he even moved to El Paso though Eddie tried to keep the move a secret from his colleagues. Again, why? Bobby was already Captain again, it's not like he would've kicked Eddie out of the 118 before he actually had a moving date. What did Eddie think was going to happen if he gave his colleagues a heads up about leaving the team soon(ish)? If I remember correctly he tried to keep it a secret right up until the last second. Does the LAFD not have rules about handing in your notice? Does Eddie not care that if he leaves suddenly from one day to the next Bobby will have to scrape by with a) an understaffed team, b) a temp that won't stick around or c) a permanent new member who he had to pick quickly without having time to consider more candidates? Does Eddie not think the 118 might need a bit of a warning before they're suddenly one team member short? That's kind of a dick move, but what makes it worse is that they're not just colleagues, they're supposed to be friends, family even. And he just. Doesn't tell them he is moving to Texas in two weeks? Wtf.

Anyway, he then arrives in El Paso and fair enough, he should get settled before he dives into the deep end. But even after weeks he still doesn't talk to Christopher about what happened. Instead he gets pissed that his parents got used to parenting Christopher in the 6 months when he didn't take care of his own kid. He could've had a calm conversation with his parents about how he is thankful for all they've done (and they have done a lot for Eddie and Chris here, beginning with getting on a plane in the middle of the night to fly halfway across the country because their grandson called them for help and ending with raising Chris for half a year because Eddie refused to get his ass to Texas sooner than that) and about how he understands that they got used to this new dynamic, but that he is still Christopher's father, that he has the last say when it comes to parenting decisions and that they have to keep him in the loop and include him more now that he's in Texas too.

Instead he stays completely quiet, lets his mom walk all over him without challenging her at all, then he follows his father to a chess tournament, leaves him there and blows up at his mom because Chris lied to her about liking chess. Yes, she pressured Christopher too much, but she really thought she was supporting Chris' talent and hobby here. This should've been a calm conversation between all three adults and maybe Christopher as well, not a pseudo-self-righteous revenge plot where Eddie got to play victim yet again. If you have a problem with a person you tell them calmly and figure out a solution, you don't hide that you have an issue with them, bottle it up, yell at them and don't even let them say their piece.

At the end of the season he decides on a whim to move back to LA, uprooting Christopher yet again and leaving behind a half renovated, half dump of a place that he owns now. We don't even know if he asked Christopher about moving back.

Did Eddie at any point think about anything or anyone except what he himself wanted or needed? He definitely didn't think about Marisol's feelings when he cheated on her. He didn't think about Kim's feelings when he led her on. He didn't think about fixing things with Christopher until he got scared he might lose Chris forever, it wasn't about Chris needing a dad or Chris needing to talk about his feelings or Chris seeming unhappy in Texas, it was all about Eddie. He didn't think about Bobby getting into trouble if Eddie up and left basically over night. He didn't seem at all thankful to his parents after they really stepped up for him and Chris (maybe they aren't perfect, but they did Eddie a huge favour and Christopher was mostly happy in El Paso). None of that had anything to do with Buck, it's just who Eddie is and of course that is also reflected in their friendship.

Up until season 6 it was less noticeable because the show was better at making Eddie seem relatable, but recently Eddie has been extremely self-centered and it's almost funny how Eddie keeps calling Buck out for exactly that even though it's Eddie who has been acting like this the entire time.

Eddie lands himself in jail? He gets angry at Buck for not being there to help him. Shannon wants to go to LA to take care of her dying mother? How can she even suggest that. Bobby won't let him back on the job because he doesn't seem ready? He yells at Bobby about killing his children. Eddie feels like a stranger in his son's life because he actually hasn't been in Chris' life for 6 months? Blame the Diaz parents.

Everything has to go according to Eddie's plan and when others don't play along then they're being selfish.

[ingravinoveritas]

I'm going to say this as kindly as I can, but it's already gone too far. For at least the past week--since filming on GO 3 started, but even before then--there has been a nonstop demand for hair dye pics from fans. In particular, I have seen comments on Georgia and Anna's dedicated posts on Insta over and over harassing them about hair dye pictures. (This is not even including comments on stories, which we can't see publicly unless they share them, and how many of those likely involve requests for hair dye pictures.)

All of this in the wake of the Vulture article being published, and the sudden disappearance of discourse around Neil's actions in tandem with a resurgence of discourse around GO 3 filming. And what I have not seen is any consideration or discussion of how this could be affecting Georgia and Anna. They knew Neil, albeit in a different capacity than David and Michael. They worked with Neil on that Dream of a Thousand Cats bonus episode of Sandman, and had at least a professional relationship with him. Yet everyone expects them to jump enthusiastically into GO 3, regardless of whether they've had time to process or grieve, or how they might actually feel about the show themselves.

I genuinely do not think that Georgia or Anna are "teasing" the fans or "playing" with us, at least not in the way people seem to think. I think they are fed up at this point (and rightfully so) and truly don't care if fans are upset about not having hair dye pictures. And I think the difficulty that some fans have with seeing this stems from an inability to see Georgia and Anna as individuals/judge them by their own actions, but instead as extensions of David and Michael. All four of these people might (and likely do) have vastly different feelings about Good Omens/this entire situation, and this behavior from the fandom has a good chance of making Georgia and Anna resent the show and the fans more than anything else.

When it comes down to it--and as difficult as it might be to accept--we are just not going to get the behind the scenes tidbits or posts that we got for the first two seasons. The circumstances now are much more complex, and there are many more reasons for everyone involved to stay quiet/on the down low regarding production--especially given that legally speaking, there are likely major restrictions on what can/can't be shared on social media. And if/when the day comes that something can be shared, hopefully it will be from the guys themselves, when they are ready and able to do so. Until then, and unless the goal is to make them stop engaging with the fandom for good, let's please leave Georgia and Anna alone...

[mscaseys]

honestly, certain shippers insistence that mark/gemma is a doomed ship but theirs isn't is especially absurd when you consider he/ena's role in gemma's abduction and torture.

so they're saying that mark and gemma's marriage is unsalvageable because "it's been two years, they've been through a lot, so they're completely different people now" but they think reintegrated mark will have no issues with the knowledge that hel/yna was, at the very least, a co-conspirator to the kidnapping and torture of his wife????? do they think he/ena getting gemma's name wrong, while being aware of the aforementioned kidnapping and torture, will be a non-issue for reintegrated mark in retrospect???? make it make sense

like if mark/gemma is doomed so is their ship 🤷‍♂️

i get your frustrations and i think a lot of that discourse has to do with what s2 has shown us tbh. like before s2 aired, i fully expected helena being helly's outie to be a huge point of contention for the innies, but they basically don't really care at all? hell, even when omark found out imark was with helena's innie, he barely reacted (though i can chalk that up to him being #lockedin with the rescuing gemma mission). so i think a lot of the audience not caring about the fallout of helly's outie being helena is because the show itself hasn't made it a huge point of conflict yet.

that being said, i too hope s3 addresses that because it's one of the more interesting aspects of the show to me. one of my main issues with s2 is how they gave some huge reveals but then never really follow through with how those reveals affect the characters. and i can make up so many excuses for why they weren't properly explored for thematic/storyline reasons, but i think i'm also allowed to be disappointed about the payoff, especially for a show that strives to be character-driven.

i think it's also why gemma as a character was so well received (at least from what i've seen both on and offline) because her reveal to be mark's wife in s1 had huge payoff in s2 with 2x07 and then their reunion in the finale. she's basically the catalyst for the events of the second season and her rescue in the finale is the most satisfying arc to me (even if i didn't especially enjoy seeing her scream for mark, but that's a different thing altogether). like the s1 reveal was that she was alive and held prisoner in lumon's basement, and s2 ended with her being freed. see? not so hard! we also got a bunch of omark crashouts, which were realistic and satisfying responses to that reveal! and obviously the challenge with her character now would be where her arc goes now that she is free (hopefully, but i seriously doubt they'll recapture her again that would just be bad writing).

i do agree with reintegrated mark having issues, and the thing is, if you look at s1, he wasn't ready to move on with anyone. so that's why i find the whole idea that he's going to miraculously 'fall in love with helena eagan bc love transcends severance!!' a bit... ridiculous. even without all the baggage of being next in line as the ceo of lumon, outie mark wasn't ready to move on from gemma (until the s1 finale, where he is considering quitting his job, before finding out that she was very much alive). and now that gemma is alive and free from lumon, the idea of him divorcing her because 'they're too different from who they were 2 years ago!! no way they could ever come back from this' is such a reductive idea to me (sorry). again, not to say that everything will be fine between them because this was traumatic for the both of them, but them breaking up and him running off into the sunset with the person who was at least complicit in gemma's kidnapping + so involved with lumon (who, from outie mark's pov, destroyed his life) seems like such a leap to me.

now i'm going to gush about mark and gemma so stop reading if you don't care for them in a romantic capacity but i think it's also no coincidence that they gave us a mark and gemma backstory. they really put in the effort to establish that they were married for 4 years and were loving and have been through the good and bad with each other. the show didn't need to show us flashbacks, but they did because they want us to be invested in their relationship. i also know way more about them than any other relationship because we really got to see their dynamic. before 2x07, yeah i knew mark loved gemma but to actually see what he lost? to see how they actually were with each other? i come away from that episode with a newfound understanding of why he severed in the first place, and how high the stakes were in getting her out. i know a lot of people don't particularly like/care for the romance in severance and that's fine, but for me personally i love mark and gemma!! i don't think it's reductive in any way to the viewing experience to root for them, and i don't think it's "dismissing the themes" to like them. i am so invested in their future arc, but for now i'm just going to keep the faith and trust the writers until s3 comes out xx

[drdemonprince]

Re: autistic advice; i keep seeing people making fun of stuff like "are you in a place to hear bad news" or scripts like that. I grew up in an environment where it was common practice to just drop heavy subjects on people out of the blue, & I still find that intensely uncomfortable. But I've now had multiple people tell me that it makes them feel shitty when I ask, for example, "are you up for a dark subject?" & I don't really know how to square it away. I want to make sure that I'm not stepping on anyone's toes or making them feel ambushed or trapped, but apparently it makes some people feel like they're not allowed to have their feelings. I end up feeling pretty shitty about it, because like... it feels like either I have to be Rude (because it DOES feel rude to just drop a dark topic on someone) &/or risk having something shitty I can't deal with dropped in my lap, or else really upset people. I guess... is there a way to navigate this?

I would recommend being more specific.

People find phrases like "Are you in a place to hear something that might hurt you?" and "Are you up for a dark subject?" to be a bit presumptuous about what their emotional reactions will be or what they are capable of handling. It also can make what would have otherwise been a very unremarkable exchange become tinged with anticipatory anxiety.

When someone asks me a question like "are you up to hear something dark?" I might feel coddled and condescended to, rather than emotionally respected. Or if they ask me "are you prepared to hear something that might hurt you?" / "are you up for a serious conversation?" I think they're about to drop some serious emotional bomb on me, like that they're friend-dumping me for something horrible that I didn't realize I did. Then when it ends up being a meme they want to share or a question about a celebrity lawsuit or something i'm kind of pissed at the false alarm and the coddling that, rather than protecting me, made me feel worse.

In either case, rather than giving me time to emotionally prepare or interact when I am ready, these vague questions have introduced some kind signal of social or emotional threat. If anything, it increases the felt urgency to just have the damn conversation already and see what kind of monster is lurking behind the person's words. It makes me *less* likely to exercise control over when the conversation happens or when I see the upsetting thing.

So be specific. "Do you wanna see a disgusting meme?" "I want your opinion on something, but the question touches on sexual assault. Is that okay to talk about?" "I want to talk to you about a conflict I'm having with my other partner." "Can I ask you your opinion on this transphobia discourse?" Etc.

The more specific you can be about the subject and why you are asking about it, the more power you are giving the other person to actually decide what they want to engage with. When someone asks me if I am willing to discuss something dark, I really have no idea what to say. They're imposing their judgement of what is a dark or upsetting topic onto me, when really they have no idea what I might find triggering and what I might really enjoy getting to talk about.

Rather than trying to protect me from something I haven't even encountered yet, you gotta let me encounter it, and actually trust that I will take care of myself. If I don't want to talk about sexual assault I won't, if I don't want to look at gross imagery I'll say no, if hearing one more bad thing about your other partner is going to make my jealousy fume, I am responsible for handling that. You're not responsible for my emotions.

It's good to notice which subjects your friends are especially sensitive to and what big triggers they have so that you can be considerate. My friends know I cant look at lots of blood flowing out of someone for instance and dont send me visuals/fics that feature, say, wrists being slit or blood being drawn. But if they forgot, I'd understand and just look away and squeal oh no i cant look at that get it away. And that would be fine. They are not responsible for my reactions to things.

[sensorydephrivation]

Amatonormative assumptions and the language of a hard launch: a rambly DnP essay thing

I have a lot of Discourse Thoughts about hard launching and all that, but there’s not much I can say that hasn’t already been said. This fandom is one that generally has significant representation on both sides of any major issue; any take you look for you can find someone genuinely believing. What I am interested in analyzing is how some people are insistent, whether or not they want it to happen or believe it will happen, that they haven’t Hard Launched, and others are equally insistent that they have. Because on the surface those should be completely contradictory takes, but a large amount of people believe each to be true.

I’ve seen posts making comparisons to PJ and Sophie, and I definitely think that’s a useful tool because it brings up the real question here: how do we speak about romantic and platonic relationships, and what underlying assumptions are at play when we use or don't use certain words?

Firstly, this issue is obviously mostly to entirely due to homophobia. Why do people assume PJ and Sophie are a couple just because they live together, even though they've never used the words? Because they're a man and a woman. Why couldn't DnP be publicly open about their relationship back in the day? Because they're gay. I'm not going to spend too much time on this point because it's obvious, but I feel like it's important to remember that Dan and Phil's relationship wasn't some Great Secret for no reason. They weren't no-homo-ing because of privacy or whatever, but because they weren't yet ready to face the immense challenges being publicly out sticks you with, especially in the early 2010s. If homophobia wasn't a thing, everything else I'm going to say in this post would still be true, but it would all be significantly less charged. Just remember that gay marriage wasn't legal in the UK when DnP met each other, and that 2000s pop culture overall was routinely, openly, virulently homophobic. Just keep that in mind. (Also, everything I talk about in this post refers to 2019 onwards, after they came out. I wasn't around for the no-homo era and can't speak on it. I'm also not going to be talking about the speculation around their relationship, because that's been talked about so much. It definitely is a factor in all of this, but you know that already)

Onto the main point of this post. The reason DnP haven't "hard launched" (that term itself is incredibly vague, but its popular meaning in this fandom seems to be explicit confirmation of a romantic relationship, which is how I'm using it here) while also having clearly done so is because their use of language does not line up with conventional expectations of how language around romantic and platonic relationships should be used.

The concept of "dating" as we think of it today is relatively recent, and language around it is even newer. The terms "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" only became prominent in the mid- to late- 20th century, and it took a while for them to gain the connotation (of almost always meaning a romantic relationship) that they have today. And yet people have still had romantic relationships for forever! How these things were described would depend on the society's norms around marriage and sex and often on the exact social dynamic of the couple. Today, we think we're better than all that and can find words for anything.

I'm no expert on what makes a relationship romantic vs platonic or even how to define those terms. I find it hard to define the concept of romance in a way that doesn't bring with it centuries of heteronormative amatonormative assumptions. And boy are there assumptions. (No, people who live together for life do not have to be romantically involved, that's a silly thing to believe.) When people see a relationship that lines up or does not line up with those assumptions, they expect it to have a clean, simple label. But the words we used for romantic relationships outside of marriage, due to how new they are, are completely not simple!

While these days they seem to be the most "unambiguous" terms to describe a romantic relationship, "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" are essentially euphemisms that can seem infantilizing and demeaning of the seriousness of a relationship. It's easy to see how they aren't for everyone, even if many people are fine using them for serious committed relationships. "Partner" is kind of ambiguous on purpose, thought like bf and gf, I think it's on its way to becoming a word with mainly romantic connotations. The term "significant other" is out of fashion these days, but just like bf, gf, and "partner," it's basically a euphemism that doesn't mean much in and of itself. We have no words to describe an unmarried romantic couple that aren't on some level unclear or unindicative of the actual nature of the relationship.

Dan and Phil have acknowledged that they were once in a romantic relationship, have made many many jokes about having sex with each other, and are committed life partners. On some level, you can take the combination of these things as a very clear confirmation of a current romantic relationship, which many do. Yes, this requires making a few assumptions, but they aren't the craziest assumptions in the world. In fact, as one can see from the PJ and Sophie example, they are assumptions that are often normal and expected to be made in social situations. So why do so many others not see it this way?

Well for one, we are a mostly queer community that understands the complexity of queer relationships and how these assumptions do not get applied equally. We see how these assumptions are often used against queer people to devalue their identities, especially those on the ace-aro spectrum and/or in queerplatonic relationships. We also are an extremely online community, familiar with the complicated layers of discourse around RPF and shipping, and hesitant to make assumptions in a way that could potentially damage relationships or invade someone's privacy.

But honestly? It's because DnP don't call themselves boyfriends. They don't explicitly frame their activities in romantic ways (e.g. call things dates). The terms they use and jokes they make, even in 2024, are not the sort of things we expect from the set of assumptions that go with a committed romantic relationship. (This is also where the discourse about whether or not they're open/poly comes from, but that's a topic for another day.)

The Date Night video stretches this to its absolute max. The game is full of cards about kissing and other things that fit cleanly into the set of romantic relationship assumptions, but they didn't use any of those cards. They only used things that were ambiguous, and tried to downplay the romantic implications as much as possible aside from the lampshading of it at the start of the video ("this is a great game to play with your best buddy as well" "phil says no homo" as well as the entire "ugh i can't believe they send us this" tone of the intro). The use of "partner" in this video is the clearest example of this. The game uses this word exclusively- after all, it's a standard, accepted, gender-neutral word for people in a romantic relationship. Phil confidently reads it off the card, with the "I don't care which set of assumptions this assigns us" attitude that's been prevalent over the past year and past few months especially. Dan avoids it half the time, and at the end of the video, seems to clearly mock the term, saying it in a silly voice and then comparing it to how stereotypical cowboys use the word. This stuck out to me; it made it very noticeable that they don't use that word at least in videos, and made me think about the connation of the word they do use-- "friend." That term, unlike any of the words I've mentioned so far, implies literally nothing. "Friends" can be people with a barely positive relationship or people with an incredibly meaningful relationship they center their life around. With no other qualifiers, it also implies that the people in question don't have a romantic relationship (are "just friends"), or even (because of amatonormativity) that their relationship is not especially deep or meaningful.

Dan and Phil have defined their relationship in quite a few ways-- or rather, Dan has, in BIG and in his interviews for WAD. These quotes circulate on here constantly as people discuss the meaning of them. I'm not really interested in talking about those as they've already been talked to death. I do think it's worth noting that we only get these things from Dan-- the one time Phil has ever spoken on his "current dating life" it was just to say "I don't want to talk about that, the door is closed." Obviously some of this is because the interviewers were pushy, but also I'm sure Dan enjoys his elaborate poetic metaphors enough to not be able to shut up about them haha. (Very unrelated but I wonder if this will come up if they end up doing interviews for TIT?) The thing is, these definitions show a deep, meaningful, complex, committed relationship. They include directly romantic terms like "husbands," "soul mates," and "normal gay relationship." You would think being willing to call someone your husband, even with a million other words around it, would mean you wouldn't have a problem calling them your partner, right? Yet these words do not reflect the language they use when speaking about each other in videos!

There are times when they say "friend" "buddy" or "mate" in a clearly humorous, ironic way, and seem aware that it isn't a term that makes people think of a committed, long term relationship. Other times, they use the word as if it is a fully accurate descriptor of their relationship-- in the glue story, Dan jokes about being ashamed to be seen as "the friend of the glue guy," and in How Phil Nearly Died, he quotes himself telling the hospital staff he is looking for "my friend." I use the hospital stories as examples because they are high-stakes (or seemingly high-stakes in the case of the glue story) situations and examples of how other people in their real lives perceive them. The way they choose to tell these stories to the internet is one in which the fact that a random hospital worker would likely interact differently with Dan if he was Phil's friendly roommate as opposed to his life partner doesn't matter. In other words: if they actually do call each other "friends" irl around strangers, those strangers probably have a very different impression of their relationship than we do. Their consistency in describing themselves doing so just means that they want to consistently use the term "friends" in their videos, not that they actually do that in real life. But to a viewer who is unsure about their relationship status, the fact that they are clearly life partners, no matter platonic or romantic, but in all situations opt for a word that does not imply that seems to be confirmation that their relationship is not clearly romantic, or at least that they don't want to refer to it as such.

If I have to draw a conclusion from all this, it's that DnP consider their relationship very complex and unusual (ymmv on if it is, lol) and have had to deal with a ridiculous level of scrutiny about it nonetheless. Again, Phil has almost never spoken on this, but Dan clearly dislikes any descriptor that carries with it a sense of assumptions about the nature of the relationship, hence why he uses like fifty contradicting ones or strange metaphors instead. "Friend" carries with it no assumptions. You can be "friends" and be in a romantic relationship-- plenty of people say "I married my best friend." But our society considers romantic relationships to be more meaningful and important than platonic ones. People assume that if you are in a romantic relationship, you would want to describe your relationship exclusively using terms that carry that set of assumptions, because that is the most important part about it. I honestly think Dan is being quite subversive in refusing to do so.

I have no idea if or when this will ever change, but I hope I've given enough context for those who are convinced they've already hard launched to understand why others are still waiting, and for those who don't think they have to understand why the issue is more complicated than it seems. This topic has fascinated me ever since I first started watching them, and I hope this post can help people reach a bit more of a understanding, rather than inciting more discourse.

[lemotmo]

im in a little hiatus from the fandom but every now and then i log and take a look and i start seeing post about this pride event and how buddie is being excluded

do you know something about this

I admit that I live inside my perfectly curated bubble here on Tumblr. I have so many blogs blocked that I don't see any of the discourse anymore, which is exactly how I want it.

But once in a while I do come across something alluding to the discourse. I have seen some posts about how a certain Pride event has excluded all the (for now) non canonical queer characters, such as Eddie.

Which...

I'm sorry, but it just seems silly to me. Why are people policing who can and cannot be included in fandom Pride events?

These are all fictional characters, which means that they are not real. So... wouldn't it be so much nicer to include everyone who has been heavily queer-coded in TV-shows as well?

Let's face it... Eddie has always been so much more heavily queercoded than Buck. Why should he be excluded then?

So many people recognise themselves in Eddie's story and plight. Shouldn't they be recognised and embraced as well?

I don't know. It just seems weird for people to celebrate an important event like Pride and exclude all the characters who are still in the closet (for now). It just seems counter-productive to the message Pride is trying to spread.

So I urge everyone to keep on posting about Eddie and to keep including him into these celebrations. By including him, we also celebrate and recognise the people just like him who are not yet ready (or not in a position right now) to come out.

There are also a lot of other Pride events that are including and celebrating all the queer-coded or headcanoned queer characters. I've seen some great things on my dash. So support those blogs and events as well.

[olderthannetfic]

i'm in an OC-centric fandom, one where you have the option of making a custom PC Iaka OCs) or you can play a premade character (aka canon). this is something that i wished for a really long time but now that i'm in one, i'm ready to get out.

it's not necessarily due to me growing to dislike OCs or not being interested in other people's OCs. it's due to the fandom holding the canon characters (particularly the main female ones) to these crazy, high double standards that they'd never hold any OCs accountable to.

like there are entire discourse blogs dedicated to rants about how less than nice female characters are irredeemably problematic or how canon x canon ship with the most popular male character and the most popular female one would never work for a, b, c reasons. even the canon male characters and popular slash ships involving them aren't exempt from being badfaith discourse targets.

what drives me nuts is how the same people are suddenly silent or get indignant when someone brings up how there are plenty of OCs and OC/canon ships that have similar traits and dynamics as the canon characters and canon x canon ships that they hate so much. they claim that it's misogynistic to critique OCs, especially female OCs. yet they don't say anything or even actively contribute to some super misonystic fandom wank when it comes to "problematic" canon female characters. it just seems so hypocritical to me.

--

[sugdendingle]

Saw this ridiculous thread on twitter that really deserves to be taken apart so lets go:

First of all while it's obvious that Buck is attracted to T*mmy (and at this point likes him a lot considering they're now dating) in 7x04 the the main person who's attention he was trying to get was Eddie's. I did an entire breakdown of that ep btw for anyone who is still confused about what was really happening there.

------

1.

Buck goes to see Maddie after the basketball incidient and this is how the conversation goes

Maddie: You didn't mean to hurt him did you?

Buck: I don't know. I was pissed you know. Seeing him and T*mmy being such good friends after only two weeks. I felt left out and I guess I was trying to get his attention.

I know that you B/T shippers desperately want to see 7x04 as Buck sent the entire episode being super smitten over T*mmy but that is just not the story that show is telling. The entire conversation that Maddie and Buck are having in this scene prior to T*mmy even being mentioned is about Eddie. Buck and Maddie are talking about Eddie's injury and how Buck thinks Eddie won't want to talk to him after what he did. The focus is on Eddie. Also it doesn't make any logical sense for Buck to be so upset and emotionally invested over some guy he barely knows. He's upset because he thinks Eddie his best friend can so easily replace him in his life.

------

2.

You're defending T*mmy because you say he left the date not wanting to pressure Buck...yet he almost outed him in front of Eddie (someone T*mmy knows is important to Buck). By the time they were on their first date T*mmy already knew how new all of this was for Buck and how nervous he was, I mean the man was talking about how he was an ally ffs while he was on a date with a guy. And while Buck's comment about finding some hot chicks was embarrassing and I get T*mmy not liking it he should have had a little more understanding given where Buck is in his journey. Instead he made it worse by making that crass closet comment.

It's also just plain rude to go on a date with someone and then ditch them in the middle without making sure they have a way home and without any real explanation (I'm not talking about more extreme circumstances like your date just being an ahole btw). Sure T*mmy told Buck he didn't think he was ready but that was really all he said. Buck was likely left feeling like he was being punished for having a moment where he acted out of fear. T*mmy could have shared an Uber with Buck and talked to him on the way home and they could have seen if they wanted things to continue. But it was like at the first sign of Buck needing more support he bailed.

------

3.

My personal feeling on the first kiss is that T*mmy really should have given something of an indication of his intentions before he kissed Buck.

Speaking as someone who is bi if I was into another woman and they were giving off the kind of vibes Buck was I wouldn't just jump in there and kiss them. I know they try to make everything more sexy for tv and it's the oldest trope in the book to have the hot guy grab the main's face and lay one on them but given all of the signals Buck was sending out T*mmy really should have gotten more confirmation beforehand.

I'm not accusing T*mmy of anything and clearly Buck liked the kiss and it was also clear in that loft scene he was attracted to T*mmy. Still the vibes he was giving off were also really nervous an unsure and he talked about Eddie 90% of the time literally moments before the kiss. Why jump in an kiss someone who seems that nervous and probably is into someone else? I don't know it's just issues I have with that scene.

----

4.

When it comes to a lot of the discourse I see around between Buddie shippers and B/T shippers I feel like a major difference is in how we perceive the show. I feel like a lot of B/T shippers mostly just take the show at face value. If something is written a certain way and presented that way to you on the screen you take that as exactly what the story is saying but you're missing the more subtle messages in the writing.

Like the whole scene with Buck, T*mmy, and Eddie in the karaoke bar had a lot going on beyond just what the dialogue was saying and it was likely missed by those who weren't paying attention.

Yeah T*mmy was on call and yeah that could be a reason why he didn't dress up. Although as many have pointed out there's plenty of things he could have worn that would have made it easy for him to quickly change and get to work and still put an ounce of effort into something that was clearly important to Buck.

But the not dressing up wasn't even the biggest issue it was that when Buck seemed hurt by the fact that T*mmy didn't care enough to dress up T*mmy was just like it's not that big of deal get over it (in the demeanor with which he responded). Obviously it was just a silly bachelor party one Chim didn't even show up to and no one else even dressed up for it (besides Eddie) but for me it's another red flag showing that T*mmy doesn't listen to Buck and doesn't have his back like a (potential) partner should.

Also you can defend T*mmy all you want but very deliberate choices were made with this Buddie and T*mmy scene. They chose to have Eddie arrive first and call a lot of attention to what he was wearing. Right before they had T*mmy come in and have that whole convo about his lack of costume to Buck.

Multiple times in the episode they pointed out that Buddie were wearing a couples costume and that Eddie is the one who picked it out. Not only were they matching in the bachelor party outfits but if you look at their outfits in the later scenes while looking for Chim they're coordinated like spouses there too.

They chose to have Eddie be the one to stay with Buck when everyone else left. They chose to have Buddie partying alone when they could have easily had T*mmy there. Especially when you consider this is a much shorter season every scene and every ep means even more than it would in a normal season. If they were trying to build B/T and get the audience to warm to them showing them partying even showing B/T partying with Eddie would have been a great time to do that instead they only focused on Buddie.

-------

5.

I'm happy for B/T shippers that you got your kissing scene at the end but here's what I saw. In a very overstuffed episode they chose to have a ton of Buddie stuff including having Buck and Eddie show up together multiple times while everyone was out looking for Chimney. Meanwhile B/T got one small scene (which included Eddie) in the beginning and one kiss at the end away from everyone else (that immediately cut to Eddie and Chris). The kiss didn't even feel like it's main purpose was to further develop the B/T relationship, it felt like it happened more to serve Buck's bi storyline so he could come out to everyone.

Also others have pointed this out but just because B/T have physical chemistry doesn't mean they have romantic chemistry. They seem like very different people. Too different in my opinion. In what little scenes of conversation they've actually had I just see two people who won't be compatible long term.

Juxtapose that with Eddie and Buck and just how much alike they are while at the same time being so uniquely themselves. How they're able to call each other out when they need to like when Eddie pointed out how it was maybe not the greatest idea for Buck to come out at his sister's wedding.

You can dislike Buddie and ship B/T all you want but you can't deny how all Buck and Eddie have to do is stand near each other and they exude chemistry and compatibility. People who don't even watch the show assume they're together and there's not even one scene of them kissing. Yet the main reason people ship B/T is because they're two hot guys who've kissed twice. There is no other real point of substance there. Now tell me again which fandom is guilty of fetishization here?

----

6.

You can call us the delusional ones all you want but EVERYTHING is screaming in your face that T*mmy isn't going to last forever. I don't even care if he comes back for season 8. T*mmy and B/T have a giant ticking clock over them and sooner or later their time will be up. There is no way Tim, the writers, ABC, Ryan, Oliver, etc would pass on the phenomenon that Buddie will be once it goes canon. The show already gets a ton of attention just from talking about the possibility of them going canon. Every single article where they even mention Buddie gets attention.

It's hilarious to me that you say the actors and showrunners are what rooting for B/T? In all the the interviews they talk about Buddie now. Tim literally was saying he cares about Buddie too in his response to a fan the other day. He literally said he included Buddie scene specifically for our fandom. Oliver is always posting and liking stuff related to his scenes with Ryan and Buddie. When Ryan gets to do interviews he gushes about Buddie and Oliver. Meanwhile B/T which is supposed to be the canon ship in this important queer storyline they're doing barely gets mentioned. Let me know when that same energy is being given to your ship.

[iminlovewithmybentley]

Hey gang

I was just having a wee think

What is everybody's opinions of the idea that nina is a parallel/mirror of crowley and the idea that maggie is a parallel of aziraphale?

Do we think perhaps there's the potential for it to be the other way around?

Whilst I'm indecisive and I can agree with both sides...

Hear me out

If we think deeper

Nina

Nina is a character i could yap on about for ages and ages. I LOVE her.

But her character in relation to Aziraphale? Nina is in a toxic relationship with her partner. She is made aware of this by AT LEAST two characters from what we've seen so far (Maggie, which becomes more significant if you consider her potential mirror to crowley, and Mrs Sandwich) yet she never left. She couldn't. And she was attached. Of course she was. It was her normal.

Even seeing her after the relationship ended, it upset her SIGNIFICANTLY to let it go, despite the fact that it was SO BROKEN and SO TOXIC.

Seems like a certain relationship that a certain silly angel holds with heaven does it not?

However, in terms of personality, I'd say she and crowley are more alike. The edgy appearing sweethearts with the hearts of gold. "The hard bitten one who can never trust anybody ever again"

And then we look at maggie

Maggie. Maggie's a character that I could DEFINITELY ALSOO yap on about for ages and ages and ages.

But one aspect of her character that I wanted to focus on is actually something that she says which is when she says that "there is" a guarantee that she'll still be there when Nina is ready for a relationship.

She'll be there waiting.

For Nina.

Whenever she's ready.

She could find somebody else... if she wanted to.

But she doesn't want to.

She's found her person! Even if that does mean giving her time to heal

(she's adorable)

Sound familiar? Perhaps like a certain demon we all know and love? Hint hint!

BUT, much like nina and crowley, maggie and aziraphale's personalities more so match up. "Still believes in magic and people being technically good and all that"

I know we don't have too much information nor a deep dive into their characters so it can be difficult the theorise but honestly this is just a little bit of food for thought but I'd love to know everybody's opinions!! I know there's a lot a lot a lot of discourse about this so I'm interested in your opinion

And if u made it this far into my yap then I both thank and applaud you

Muah xxxx

[zykamiliah]

what about bingqiu?

this is my response to this post. i didn't want to reply in the same post because it's going to get really long, and i disagree with almost everything, so this way i may avoid the discourse. haha. anyway, i'm gonna try to answer each of op's points.

-why bingqiu are a couple:

♦ because despite everything, they've chosen each other. not because they're soulmates (though mxtx did pull the string of fate thing), but because they genuinely want to spend time together

it's very subtle but they do share some values and similarities: they both repay kindness with kindness and believe that one should pay back those who hurt you twofold/tenfold. furthermore, they are both petty bitches. as @fireandgrimstone pointed out here, they're both busybodies: they get restless if they aren't doing something.

on that note: self-preservation is not a core value they share. sqq is terrible at self-preservation. from the first moment, instead of minding his own business, he risked losing points (which would terminate his account and kill him) just to protect binghe when he was being bullied by ming fan and co. sqq couldn't stand by watching someone being bullied. then during the demon invasion, he was ready to risk his own life to protect all the cqm disciples. he was willing to self-destruct to take out sha hualing.

the thing is that sqq likes to lie about himself and say everything he does is out of self-preservation, but it isn't true.

so, if it wasn't out of self preservation, why did sqq pushed binghe into the endless abyss? yes, it needed to happen, but he didn't do it to save himself. he can't hurt binghe just to protect himself. he did it because he brainwashed himself into believing this was the best for binghe, that binghe needed to in order to become strong and achieve his fate.

(chapter 4: conference)

♦ because they give each other what they need. consistent love, support and understanding was something lbh really needed, and those 2-3 years before the immortal alliance conference did wonders for binghe to allow himself to feel vulnerable and be more in touch with his own feelings. this will get screwed up post-endless abyss but sqq does encourage him in the extras to express his feelings and talk about what he thinks and feels.

now, what lbh gives to sqq may not seem obvious (thank you for the help, luuny!♥), since sqq's layered narration is tricky to deconstruct, but by the end of the novel lbh can get past sqq's tsundere/savin face bullshit. sqq has all his toxic masculinity ideas and internalized homophobia that he keeps dragging everywhere he goes, and his relationship with lbh, who was supposed to be the epitome of masculinity, has allowed him to shed off some of it. but not all. thus, lbh knows when sqq needs to be pushed or coaxed into doing something he already wants to do but thinks he shouldn't want and doesn't know how to justify (sex for example). lbh also gives sqq the whole domestic package: someone to dote on, someone that does the chores and takes care of him, because frankly sqq is good at many things but he fails at self-care.

♦ domesticity and companionship. for bingqiu it wasn't like other couples who were first attracted to each other from one reason or another and from then on the relationship developed. the first period of their relationship is mostly platonic (poor binghe is suffering the teenage hormones), and was based on the easy domesticity and companionship they shared. and honestly that's such a simple yet beautiful kind of love. they genuinely like spending time together, living together, talking to each other. they never get bored of being together or of each other, which brings me to

♦ the obsession. like, it's honestly hilarious how obsessed they are with each other. sy was already obsessed with pidw protagonist bingge, but in svsss he got to love and get obsessed all over again with his own binghe aka bingmei. and from lbh's pov it's more or less the same: he had a complicated relationship with original sqq, which was the start of it all, but the person he loves is not the cold shizun from the past who he needs to prove himself to, but the one that's always trying to protect him, even if it's from himself. in both cases, their relationship started with distance, with the shadow of the other version of each other they'd known before. but what made them fall in love weren't those ghosts from the past, but the person they could see underneath it all: the hardworking boy that just wanted to be loved, and the closeted man who wants to give love and help others and have a purpose and belong to something (binghe understands that sqq would be unhappy if he couldn't visit cqm, qjp and his sect siblings). this relates to the fact that

♦ they understand each other better than anyone else. it takes them time, but that's the point of their journey and by the time we read about their relationship in the extras, we can see that despite everything, they not only understand each other very well but actively try to understand each other better. they already made the mistake of making too many assumptions, and they're not doing that again.

________________

another point that op got wrong:

off the top of my head an example would be how bingge (he-with-no-shen-yuan) took a harem of beauties so he could control xin mo but bingmei (he-with-shen-yuan) decided to just... cripple people's cultivation (...) what i'm getting at is that binghe was willing to pay other people's lives just so he didn't have to be intimate with anyone except shen yuan.

bingge too was cripping other cultivators to get ride of the excess of demonic qi, it's just that after he captured the three nuns from tianyi overlook they taught him how to achieve the same result using dual cultivation. (thanking @stardust-falling for their notes on this topic!)

(chapter 9: borderlands)

[mrhaitch]

Harry Potter and the Language of Power

[Someone asked so you're all in danger.]

“It matters what matters we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.” - Donna J. Haraway

As you can guess I've got some thoughts about Harry Potter, and this largely going to be a brief discussion about magical systems within fantasy, and how they can be viewed through a political lens. Are we ready? Not yet you're not.

Below is a video of M Nourbese Phillips giving a reading of her poem "Discourse on the Logic of Language". It's about seven minutes long and it's a poem I used to teach, and in fact a lot of what I'm going to say comes from one particular class I taught about a year and a half ago. Go ahead and watch it, I'll wait.

Amazing, right?

The central idea of that poem is that language can shape and determine our social realities. The loss of a language can further a community's alienation, feelings of 'separateness' and even dehumanize them. Or, to play on that Haraway quote at the top there, it matters what languages we use to communicate. It also matters, within fantasy, who has magic, and who doesn't - how magic is taught, passed down, enhanced, developed, used, and activated.

Fantasy and magic go hand in hand, with the latter being a staple of the former - you might almost be tempted to call it a cliche, but it's as essential to the functioning of a fantasy narrative as the presence of electricity to science fiction. It is often the very thing that makes the world turn, and can often be used - sometimes deliberately - to articulate an idea of who has power, or even who should have power.

Just touching on the broad strokes, magic is frequently viewed in an academic context and taught much like any other form of knowledge - at school - with practitioners assuming the guise of academics. In other narratives characters arrive at magical prowess by making pacts, deals, and agreements with entities whose own power arises from their connection to or part of the supernatural order of the world (gods, spirits, fairies, etc.). Now I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes when I say that pre-1990 these magic practitioners who typically white cishet men of a typically European persuasion - with the notable exception of Le Guin's Earthsea books, although the protagonists ethnicity rarely survives the adaptation process. There's been a distinct shift in recent years, most noticeably since NK Jemisin's Inheritance Trilogy which laid the connections between magic and power bare, by building a world where magic rests entirely in the hands of a single royal family who participated in the enslaving and slaughter of the gods.

With me so far? God, I hope so.

So let's talk about Harry Potter, a series increasingly maligned for its tone deaf portrayal of race, and its author's increasingly unhinged behaviour - which I won't touch on, others have done a far better job. Instead let's look at the magic.

It's all fairly straightforward: you have a magic tree branch that's bonded to you, prescribed movements of the hand and wrist, and then there's the magic words - which are Latin. Latin holds an interesting place in the western world, both politically and culturally, seeing as its native culture more or less fell apart just under a thousand years ago but has persisted as the lingua franca of power in Europe, especially in Britain. We can largely thank the Catholic Church for that, but a considerable hat-tip to Petrarch and the renaissance for its later revival - particularly the reintroduction of Ancient Greek and Latin to secular political life. Its grammatical rules were later deliberately applied to English in the 16th century, in an effort to centralise the language and diminish and discard regional dialect.

Latin also holds a distinct place in British political life - as it is largely the domain of the upper classes, outside of the medical and legal professions, being taught in only the most exclusive of public schools. Since 1900 there have been 25 Prime Ministers, of which 6 attended Eton college, with a further 11 attending some form of privately funded highschool and 14 receiving their degrees at Oxford. That's not even touching the slew of ministers and members of parliament who have passed through similar institutions of which there are many. Latin and Ancient Greek have been a central part of the public schooling system in Britain since their inception, partially due to its prevalence prior to mass-printing and the push towards using the languages people actually speak for the written word (a decision which, in the early days, could attract a heavy amount of censure, if not execution). It's persistence into our current age, and the exclusive nature of the schools that still teach it, has earned it the reputation of being the language of the ruling classes in Britain.

Using it as a magical language brings some interesting, if not concerning, connotations. I will be charitable and assume this wasn't intentional, but taken in the broader context of wizarding society as a whole and it's relationship with the larger world it contributes to a reading of Harry Potter through the lens of social and political class.

We have a small, naturally gifted, separate society housed within our own who are privy to the innermost workings and closely guarded secrets of our world. They possess godlike powers capable of altering the physical makeup and laws of our world to suit their whims, and they use Latin to do so. There's also evidence, in the later books, of a relationship between their government and ours - where the Ministry of Magic assume the role of shadowy advisors or, even, puppeteers. While this isn't explicitly stated in the books, it's a small stretch of the imagination to believe that in a partnership whichever member can kill the other with a word is steering the ship.

What this all amounts to, in my mind, is a restating of class divisions within the UK. There's no critical element, no serious engagement, let alone metamorphosis - this is a direct transplant informed by an author's preconceived notions about how the world does and, potentially, should work.

Much of this has been coloured and affected by my interpretation of Rowling's politics, and I make no excuses for that.

Does this answer your question?

[ruelin024]

ON BREAK (╯▽╰ )

💀 Intro~ UnderMaintenance ✨

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Remake intro post Attempt #5

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Make my main OCs refs >:3 for Sef, Leiv, Sef's Wife & Sef's 1st Kid.

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Nahh... My preparations for my 1st DTIYS ain't ready... yet 👀

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Can someone please tell me when Dracule Mihawk became an anime sex symbol? Because excuse me, that is my dorky goth dad who doesn't know how to use an air fryer. So when did he become a big titty Goth Daddy?

To start with, I don't even think he bangs. Well, he and Shanks may have had a thing when they were in their 20s. But everyone makes mistakes in their twenties, and that is part of the reason why Shanks drives him crazy. He's the biggest fuckboy to ever whore about the grand line. You're telling me Shanks doesn't have at least a dozen illegitimate kids sprinkled throughout the grand line. I'm shocked Beckman hasn't put that boy on a leash yet, at least to mitigate some of the drunken shenanigans. Poor Beck, that man needs a vacation and a raise. But back on topic, Mihawk’s too mature for that stupidity, so Shanks drives him absolutely crazy now because he hasn't grown up past his fuckboy stage. So I'm pretty sure he's like Zoro. As in, his sexuality is swords, and he falls somewhere on the ace spectrum.

But if he did bang. His lazy ass doesn't have a top/Dom bone in his body. He's a complete pillow princess. Remember, he sails the ocean while napping, and if anything dares disturb his beauty sleep. They shall face his wrath. He will wipe them out of existence and feel completely justified in doing so. And you're telling me that doesn't sound like something your lazy coworker would do if they had the option. So, I don't think he will be your daddy-dom. So I hope you have dreams of doming him. I think he'd like it. Again, I don't think he has the top / Dom bone in his entire body, a complete and utter pillow princess. So spoil that man rotten or take him down a peg or two. He does have an ego. But he's worked so hard to get to where he's at now, so that ego is deserved. It's not cocky if you can back it up

So, be respectful. That is my reluctant goth dad of two. He may not know how to use an air fryer or a TV. But he's a world-renowned expert in his very niche field of expertise. Don't judge

And what is this about his slutty sleeves? Am I missing something?

Defend Your Blurbo #19

Please remember this post is about curiosity and genuine fandom discourse. Be kind with your answers because this is not a debate essay, this is a discussion between fans.

Meet Dracule Mihawk, The World's Greatest Swordsman from One Piece. He did kinda adopt Zoro and Perona, but only after they broke into his house and refused to leave. So, a reluctant father makes sense. If you don't know who Zoro and Perona are, a GIF of them is below

To answer the question, about the slutty sleeves it comes from the live action specifically this one moment I'll find the GIF

If you look, the sleeves are not sewn on. They're laced on. One, it's extremely practical because of freedom of movement. Two, it's historically accurate, and three, it shows just a little extra bit of skin, and the people went nuts. That should also answer your question of why Mihawk is suddenly considered so hot now. The live-action did him a solid, and the actor nailed the performance.

So, One Piece Fandom, I'm already scared for my inbox just based on the content of this one. Get ready and Defend Your Blorbo