#personal discourse

[xirae]

Slominous vs Slynth

Slominous music is kind of a flop tbh.... Slynth is the REAL underground music genre right now and everyone who disagrees is a poser and I'm BETTER than them

[leandra-kinard]

About the other day...

I’ve had a few days to think about the whole debacle and the successive fallout; I’ve talked to people outside of the tumblr-sphere about it who were various degrees of constructively critical and empathetic, and I’ve read and looked up what people elsewhere said about the very same issue. I’m not going to get into that part in detail, but I want to get something across – as a general PSA if you will.

First of, I am going to concede that it wasn’t clever to post my opposing viewpoint in the same post; I should have made my own one. People who are passionate about a point and think they’re being righteous in expressing it (because they do come from a good or at least valid starting point of wanting social justice and awareness for specific issues) don’t want someone disagreeing with them in their own post. I personally always found that to be a pity because I truly believe we need discourse to open our eyes to other viewpoints, which is needed to find common ground and to live together in society instead of succumbing to pure tribalism, group think and polarization. But it is what it is. People will get defensive (sometimes justly, sometimes irrationally), and that’s a fact I should have understood long ago instead of naively hoping for something else.

Secondly – and there was my biggest mistake – I allowed myself to be petty about it. I thought I had laid out my argumentation rationally and factually, and for the most part I did, but I slipped into smug pettiness with one part of the argument, namely the part with the slashes being too much effort. That’s not even something that matters to me in the grand scale; it’s just the surface-level ‘symptom’ of the initial conclusion and resulting claim. It was always about the logical fallacy first and foremost to me, and I didn’t bring that across in the right way.

So, for those two things – assuming other people, like me, generally welcome debate on most issues, and allowing myself some pettiness and thereby irrationality – I apologize. (Which most of you who have made up their minds about me will see as a non-apology, but I do have some integrity and am not willing to give it up to suit you).

Despite what I just said in parentheses, I can’t deny that the whole fiasco didn’t wear on me, even hurt me. I’ve had an incredibly difficult year mental-health wise; the state of the world and the political landscape more than just worry me; I’ve had personal setbacks and challenges, and on top of it, a ‘fandom war’ that’s impaired my enjoyment of my main fandom to a not insignificant extent. So, all in all, 1/10, would not recommend.  

In light of all that, what happened those few days ago on here directly but also elsewhere was tough. The wild conclusion jumping, the unchecked lies that some people found okay to spread to other users via anon messages – just blatant generalizations without context – were infuriating and hurtful. I should not care what some strangers on the internet think and say about me, and for the most part I don’t, but I do care when it affects online relationships I valued, when even mutual accept these claims without taking a moment to go “Wait a minute, is that really so?” i.e. “Is she really this and that type of bigot or are people jumping to irrational conclusions here?”

But that’s a general flaw with tumblr-culture. One person marks someone or something as problematic, and the rest of the group – or a large part at least – automatically accept it. It’s the same way with fictional characters, or themes/storylines in TV shows. When one person says Ted Templatechar is a racist/homophobe/misogynist, a good portion of the fandom who also didn’t really like Ted Templatechar will agree and will pat themselves on the shoulder for recognizing the problematic aspect in the media they consume.

Here lies the hypocrisy that I so often observe and find very frustrating, because the same people who make Ted out to be a misogynist will defend Rod against another group in fandom who accuse Rod of being a homophobe. And so on.

All of that stems from an initial bias. None of these people are completely neutral or rational when they make these claims about characters (or actors… or other fans), because they will pick and choose what they agree or disagree with and then defend their position with passion and vehemence.

And, in a way that is fine. We are allowed to defend our beliefs, and we’re allowed to “curate our experience” and to cut out people who defend beliefs that annoy us. 

What we should NOT do, in my opinion, is always setting these beliefs up as absolutes. If someone brings up enough and solid enough arguments against an initial interpretation, we should at least open ourselves up to see it as an alternative and maybe equally valid take. Few people are capable of doing that, especially here on tumblr – which is at the very least disappointing, given the level of (often academic) education people on here have as opposed to other spheres.

Now, opinions on fictional characters and how we interpret their actions should not matter as much. In an academic environment they would not (and nobody would accuse the interpreter for being a bigot just because they don’t see the same kind of bigotry in the fictional character as someone else interprets there to be), but, despite the aforementioned higher educational standard, tumblr is not academia (and here’s another of my mistakes, because I too often treat it as such).

Tumblr is a melting pot of ‘misfits’, of in large parts members of LGBT+, in large parts mentally ill or neurodivergent, predominantly female, and possibly with a larger POC percentage as other groups (not 100% sure on that part, but possible). In short, we are the ones who get ostracized by society more than people who don’t belong into those groups. I belong to three of the aforementioned groups, so I do know what that’s like, namely living in a real world that is not as accepting and supportive of issues that are specific to my identity and my struggles, and then finding likeminded people on here who just get it.

Until they don’t.

There’s a lot of “us vs. them” group think on here, of wanting to protect oneself by identifying enemies and people that may want to harm us. That is understandable, but it is also very often wrong, and very often causes the same harm that people aim to oppose. In pointing the finger at someone else for an assumed bigotry (and yes, that includes fictional characters because there is always a projection onto the ‘messenger’ when discussing these interpretations; if Ted Templatechar is a racist, then Tumbrluser123 defending Ted is a racist too!), we easily fall into the trap of potentially becoming a bigot ourselves.

“Ted Templatechar is a racist!” – “No, he’s not. But he’s gay, so you’re actually a homophobe!!” – “You’re just saying that to hide your own racism!” – “No, you’re just saying that to hide your own homophobia!” – “I’m a lesbian.” – “Well there’s internalized homophobia.”

And so on, you catch my drift.

Which isn’t me saying it’s never okay to point out things that could, in certain contexts, fall into any of the aforementioned or other bigotries, but the blanket assumption – unchecked, unquestioned, unreflected – that something is what you initially perceive it to be is a sign of intellectual failure and dishonesty, of prejudice on your own part. And more so, the exaggerated generalizations to go from one instance that may be bigoted and mark the whole person out to be a bigot in their entirety is not only intellectually flawed, it’s dangerous in multiple ways. “That thing that you just said? You know, that’s kinda homophobic,” is a completely different challenge than “You are a homophobe.” There’s no redeeming that once you bear that mark.

I know what I stand for; I know what I’ve opposed and spoken out against, and what I've defended, not just online but actually in real life, many times. I remember conversations I’ve had where I challenged people in real life on their beliefs. I know what I believe about others and the rights and protections they deserve. I know my understanding of power structures and systemic oppression. I know what I’m about. It should not matter as much what some highly biased, close-minded strangers on the internet think about me. But, in many ways, it does. It does more than I wish it did, because I, too, am part of this group of misfits and have a ‘home�� here. There are issues that people in real life don’t understand as deeply as people here do. And beyond that, there simply are interests, a type of humor, an enthusiasm for the same things that I do not find even among my close real-life friends.

So yes, the last few days were tough for me, because this is my community. My hobby, my source of escapism from a world that doesn’t ‘vibe’ with my personality the same way the tumblr-sphere does, and from a world that isn’t always so accepting and understanding of individuals.

Apparently, neither is this world, though. People everywhere are guilty of group-think, or tribalism, of bias and close-mindedness. My need to push people to challenge their own views because I naively, desperately want to believe that we can be better than that (better than irrational, egocentric and entitled people who put their own narrow world-view above all others), means running head-first against a wall.  And as I said before, by now, I’ve been ‘concussed’ often and drastically enough to have learned my lesson. And yet…

It’s incredibly hard for me to hold back in such situations because my mind just keeps circling around these topics. I’ve had situations in which I couldn’t sleep because my brain would not STFU about it, to the point where I had to get back up and type out my reply/post on whatever matter bothered me. This is a me-problem, but it’s got a lot to do with my ADHD (for which I finally have a diagnosis now, which explains so much… If I were super petty I could accuse all of you who don’t want to empathize with that as ableist. See? This whole game of being super aware and super social-warrior-like active can backfire so easily!).

I do have to learn to let those things go, and to observe more than interfere, to understand that tribalism is – while regrettable – natural and can only be fought with gentle pushbacks at the opportune moments, and maybe not even then. You don’t deradicalize a neo-Nazi by calling them stupid, and you also don’t deradicalize the “I am offended, therefore you and everyone else who disagrees with me is a bigot” crowd by trying to win a debate contest. To assume I could achieve that was arrogant, I’ll admit that (but, as I said before, also naively idealistic, because I don’t want to be right just to be right; I want to be right to make things better.)

I also have to accept that tumblr isn’t the real world; it’s a microcosm of its own that, in many ways, is very far removed from how the real world operates, and me wanting to combine and reconcile the two spheres is an often futile endeavor. My interests are rooted here, but my mindset is much more rooted in the real world, which certainly is a challenge to balance that I have, evidently, once again failed.

This has gotten really long already, and I doubt most of you will even read the whole thing. I can’t blame you if you don’t, because ‘ain’t nobody got time for that’, but if you just skim-read this and come at me with wild accusations, I won’t take you seriously. If you want to constructively, politely debate with respectful dialogue, I’m all for that.

I’ve been on here for 13 years, and even though I was close to just leaving it all behind Marie Condo style (because yeah, no joy sparked lately whatsoever), I am not going to do that. I’m not leaving. You can’t drive me away just because some of you have set your minds on me being one of the enemies. I know you are wrong in that; like I said, I know what my beliefs are and what I stand for. If you see me vastly differently then you don’t really know me.

I am more than just my online presence. It’s time I fully understand that, too and learn to stop defining myself so much by my fandom activities.

I will also try to not engage in controversial topics (as much). There’s little point to it that actually brings me or anyone else a true benefit.

It’s regrettable, but it is what it is.

[transexualpirate]

this might be slightly controversial but i really hate how bioessentialism has dug it's claws in trans spaces. we used to prioritize individual identity but now it's like afab and amab are the new mbti. yall put it in your fucking bios

[dykehelly]

ok no more rbs because I'm annoyed by this post. thanks for voting!

[xiranjayzhao]

I do not believe that anyone who takes "the US has always been a bully, especially to the global south, and if you are only now starting to be ashamed of it then you need to read more into its history" as a personal attack is actually "fighting for things to be better" like they claim, because you need to have an awareness of reality to fight effectively.

If I saw someone say "Canada is a genocidal settler-colonial state and always has been" you're not gonna see me go "NOOOOOO THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE HERE WHO ARE ALSO OPPRESSED AND TRYING TO FIGHT"

I would just agree because it's true. It's neither a personal indictment nor a demand that I leave when I didn't choose to be here. It's just a demand of awareness.

[bixels]

oh before i forget, here's the design i did for luiz (male lois lane). i might do other characters like jimmy and perry white and luthor and zod. let me know if you’d like to see them get their genders bent.

anyways yeah, enjoy this twink, i'm gonna go get a burger.

[p0th]

[sleevebuscemii]

headlines indicating lestat as a suspect in the mysterious murders of his fans have a million replies from lestat pfp accounts saying ‘actually disgusting to spread rumors perpetuating the stereotype of gay men being violent predators about one of the few queer icons we have in the rock scene right now. yall say you want queer representation in historically white conservative cis het misogynistic male spaces and then tear them down. the internaized homophobia is palpable. touch grass.’

[xirae]

Feel like the disconnect between the pop stans and gay artists is happening again. Lil Nas X defends himself over ppl saying his upcoming single's visuals are boring and just trolling Christians - before the song even comes out - escalates to where he kind of disses M/adonna and L/ady Gaga bc he gets compared to them a lot, and now the pop stans are going to dunk on him for it. Covered by Pop Crave and all. They don't understand at all what it means to be an artist, how it feels for early criticism to run in before he even has a chance to Art, or how it feels to have your art's agency taken away through constant comparisons to The Greats (tm). All they really care about anymore is consuming and have no connection to art or gay artists imo

He said like "idgaf what M/adonna and L/ady Gaga did, I'm doing what I want" and like that's fair and not that aggressive of a statement. It's flippant at most. I literally worship certain eras of M/adonna and Gaga and am fine with him saying that, but stan twitter does as it will .-.

[blorbocedes]

been chewing on a tag I saw @gayferrari type... "wags are the new grid girls"

so what was the point of grid girls - to associate glamour and sex to an otherwise all male sport. too much penis, even the cars are shaped like phalluses they needed that yonic energy. it was a marketing tactic, a ploy to associate F1 with their playboy, drive cars get money bitches pussy aspiration. It was being marketed to men -- hence grid girls, not even women, dressed in the driver's insignia but more scantily clad, to be beside him for the unspoken implication that the driver can have her after winning the race.

it took until 2018 to phase out grid girls and was replaced by grid kids (and many of our presently woke feminist drivers then wanted grid girls to stay), with a growing cultural backlash and feminist criticism to the sexualisation of women as props in sports in an era where f1 was rapidly losing viewership and relevancy.

after the drive to survive netflix blow-up, FOM, Liberty Media started explicitly marketing to a lesser tapped market which is the female demographic. anything that wants to be relevant in the social media age needs stans, and nothing encourages that like parasocial relationships. now we have social media admins engaging specifically in fan spaces, using their language, referencing ships, doing fanservice and moving away from the solely male centric marketing.

now wags have always existed as long as drivers have been heterosexual but it wasn't until victoria beckham peak spice girls fame sitting courtside for david beckham made being a wife and girlfriend look glamorous, the outfits she wore and the face she served. the princess story for the new age, where the prince is a handsome famous athlete and you're the prize, the one he's blowing a kiss before shooting the hoop. it's why we still have nicole from pussy cat dolls and lewis hamilton winning world title edits in the year of 2025. it's that camera panning on her, with her gorgeous brown waves and teary eyes as she did the sign of the cross and ran to lewis, kissing him over his helmet -- the fireworks of yas marina in the background.

if grid girls tapped into a purely male heterosexual fantasy, wags tapped into a heterosexual female fantasy.

we can see this with the meteoric rise in social media following of the new age wags. f1 drivers have always dated models and beautiful women, but now those women become famous and build a following off the men they're seen with. what used to be limited to paparazzi and the daily mail, now has hundreds and thousands of independent gossip pages who follow their every move, meticulously detail every outfit and brand they've worn, track their social media activity, even their personal relationships. f1 wags are now bigger than ever, they're parasocially obsessed over and hated on more than ever, every move watched and criticised or smothered in affection just for existing. I'm not here to moralize on celebrity worship culture idgaf, but all this online attention is currency and it is profitable. hence wags build their own careers off the curated, aspirational image of being a wag. of travelling all over the world to beautiful places, wearing beautiful outfits, having a (up to debate) beautiful man by your side -- and brands have certainly taken notice. hence the sponsorships, beauty and fashion brands and self care sponsors all vying to work with them from your rhode lipgloss to your alo matching set

now Liberty Media has seen the shift -- no longer reliant on their official female mascots of grid girls, it's the meticulously dressed, savvy, skinny, gorgeous wives and girlfriends who are the aspirational women on the grid. it's important to note hundreds of women have always worked at f1 races, on the grid as marshals, in hospitality, as team personnel, as engineers and strategists. but YAWN 🥱 bo-ring! everyone knows the most important people on the grid are the drivers and therefore the most important women are the ones at his side. and so Liberty Media pans the cameras on these women and their doe eyed worry/elation as their guy crosses the finish line. it's more frequent, more lingering, and voyeuristic in a way that invites you to inhabit their place in your mind -- what would that be like? after all, you viewer at home are similarly biting your nails watching your guy cross the finish line. in that moment she represents you.

it's ofc misogynistic to imply the aspiration of wags is just for women — the idea of the Hero taking his helmet off and kissing the swooning damsel is literally in bond movies and appeals to the conqueror/winner male fantasy.

but from a purely marketing standpoint, FOM benefits from putting these women in official unofficial spaces as part of the drivers' (and thus F1's new more sanitized, "inclusive" brand image). When the wags are invited to F1 Academy events to promote them, when they're invited to the official F1 movie that's just for the drivers' viewing as the plus one, when they're shown on DTS beside the drivers in their private lives, or a whole segment that's about Ginger Spice riding horses with her sex pest team principal husband, when they're in hospitality and the camera cuts to them every so often signalling to the you, the audience, are supposed to care about this story they're selling you. it's no longer the scantily clad 'girls' by the drivers' side to be ogled, it's the official dowager titled Wives and Girlfriends selling you the aspirational, western, heterosexual, wealthy, conventionally attractive family unit.

not here to cast any moral judgments on wag culture -- I enjoy looking at beautiful women who live such fundamentally different lives too, but rather looking critically at why the larger media complex behind f1 wants to sell you their personal relationships in the era where your attention is currency~

[fozmeadows]

Something I'm working on lately is trying to find healthy approach when it comes to engaging with opposing viewpoints re: discourse and politics. Because yes, there are trolls and bad actors, and it's seldom worth wasting your energy on them; but particularly online, you can't always immediately distinguish these people from, say, a teenager grappling inexpertly with difficult topics, or a boomer working with outdated language and assumptions, or someone who's been given bad information - and these are all people that it can be worthwhile attempting to reach, even if you don't always succeed. I don't want to burn myself out, but I don't want disconnect, either, and so I've been thinking: what approach best allows me to remain optimistic while still drawing boundaries?

Here's my current solution: to treat potentially difficult conversations with strangers like a rewilding project. A sort of social conservationism, where the idea is to untangle what you can in passing, leave behind a few potential seeds, and then move on: a project of impact over intent. Nobody expects conservation efforts to succeed in a day, and it would be foolish to fixate so heavily on trying to plant a single tree in arid soil that you've got no energy left for more achievable goals. Inevitably, you'll encounter areas that can't be recovered - or at least, not by you - in which case, any time you spend making sure of their unviability is just due diligence, and only becomes a waste if you commit yourself to trying to salvage the unsalvageable. But by the same token, you don't want to over-engage with a healthy area, either. You want to see what's needed, give it a push in that direction if it's within your capabilities, and then keep going.

And maybe this is a strange way to think of things, but I'm finding it helpful. The fantasy of completely flipping someone's perspective if you can only find the exact right thing to say is a powerful one, but it's not a realistic expectation to carry around for 99.9% of interactions, and as such, there's a need - for me, at least - to detach the success of the exchange from the visibility of the outcome. I can't see into someone else's head, and in all probability, I'll never speak to that particular stranger again: therefore, my concept of catharsis needs to change. So instead of thinking, Did I change their mind? and considering anything less than a yes a failure, it's better to ask, Did I do my best to give them something to think about?, because realistically, this is all I can actually do. I can't control how a stranger receives what I say, but I can make an effort to be clear, calm and comprehensible, and that ought to be worth something.

[percki]

the state of things

[moyazaika]

Fangdokja baby, unblock me, will you? I just wanna talk :)

Genocide. Antisemitism. Concentration camps. White supremacy. Islamophobia. The klu klux klan. Conversion therapy. Pedophilia.

Listed above, my loves, are only a few of the topics FD hopes to write about when it migrates platforms and leaves tumblr. (I mean thank christ. baruch hashem. alhamdulillah. we're finally free.)

FD says quite explicitly and at length that she has been, in her own words, holding back from writing about such topics due to tumbr guidelines and not, as she makes sure to let us know multiple times and very explicitly so, because of a "lack of desire” on her own part.

Huh. Okay, interesting.

Say, FD, why have you been holding back on writing about the very painful and devastating realities that billions of people in the world face every single day as if they are trivial topics and fanfiction tags you have been permitted to use? :)

Maybe I'm missing something here. Fill me in, won’t you? Why could you have possibly been yearning to write about little kids in a sexual context? How did you put it? Ohhh, yeah;

Infants? So close! That’s actually CSAM babes!

This is not even about yandere content anymore. It’s about your sheer ignorance and prejudice which prevents you from seeing just how fucked up of a person you are. Jesus did not ask you to trivialise and sensationalise incredibly sensitive experiences and prejudices that you will never understand nor live through.

You know what your religion does say, though?

1 Corinthians 10:23 NIV; "I have the right to do anything," you say—but not everything is beneficial. "I have the right to do anything, but not everything is constructive."

Think on that, won’t you? :)

Let me end this by saying, as a dark content writer myself, I firmly reject the idea of censorship and pirating fictional content both when it is created and when it is consumed.

However, I'm also not a fucking idiot.

When adults use their critical thinking skills to separate fiction from reality, I'm all for the exploration/unpacking/interrogation of taboo topics. It is very dangerous to condemn people for what they choose to write as an expression of their artistic abilities or personal experiences.

Fiction ≠ Reality. This idea is nothing new, and rightfully so. Everyone should be able to write what they want.

But a Christian woman shamelessly expresses homophobia? Has said very clearly in the past that the reader inserts in her posts will only ever be written as being pale, skinny, teenagers in mind? And now she wants to turn around and say she's writing about topics like conversion therapy and racism and expects anyone to believe it's from a purely creative standpoint?

Omg baby you must think we're all as moronic as you :(

Your vendetta, FD, is clear as day, and your vindication is utterly disgusting.

I condemn you.

I condemn your content.

I condemn the 'creative freedom' under which you and your supporters will defend your ability to take the lived experiences of millions of queer people, transgender people, jews, muslims, survivors of vicious hate crimes, children, victims of grooming, disabled people, black people, brown people, asians, and survivors of genocide to turn into content for your bigoted anime porn blog.

Whilst I still firmly believe fiction does not equate to reality, I wonder whether you think the same. Every other belief except for your own is up for grabs in a taboo free for all.

So when you say nothing is sacred in fiction?

I wonder whether that’s true of your own God as well—or just everybody else’s.

[bvcktommy]

what do you mean 911 just gave us arguably one of the most well written, well directed, and well acted episodes of, at the very least, the last few seasons, if not the entire damn show, and all a certain group of people can talk about is how it's not worth anything because eddie diaz wasn't in it

[weedle-testaburger]

'sCi-Fi iS tOo WoKe nOw!' may i remind you that in 1972 the doctor corrected his companion on an alien's gender and pronouns

[raventreehall]

sometimes when you guys discuss who is the REAL younger more beautiful queen you sound exactly like cersei. it's no one and it's everyone. it's the idea of a younger more beautiful queen simply existing. cersei thinks it's sansa, then thinks it's margaery, and it is. because cersei's crazy paranoid brain has done the work for her. the ymbq as a figment of her imagination has actually cast her down and taken all she holds dear.