#they are incapable of understanding nuance

[theballadofthesunandthestars]

Hello! I'm an aroace lesbian, here's my thoughts on the soulmate trope! I'll be talking about real life too, but I promise it all relates back to ship tropes and fanfic. And sorry it's kinda ramble-y!

So, I am not really a fan of the idea that each person has only one soulmate, and I especially hate the idea that soulmates are purely romantic. But I actually do believe in soulmates! I believe that each person has multiple soulmates, but soulmates are not necessarily a romantic partner that you're destined to be with. I believe that there are people that are meant to be in our lives one way or another, sometimes forever and sometimes temporarily. I think that soulmates can be not just romantic, but platonic and familial as well. All soulmates are just people that you are meant to have in your life.

A big aspect of this belief is that I don't see love between friends as lesser than love between romantic partners. I absolutely despise the phrasing "more than friends" when talking about romantic relationships, because friendships are just as nuanced, wonderful, and powerful as romances. And maybe that's just because I don't experience romantic attraction, but I don't think that's why. I know straight girls who have boyfriends, yet they share this deeply intimate connection that goes almost deeper than the feelings they have for their romantic partners. There's nothing romantic or sexual about their relationship; they just love each other deeply, and cannot imagine life without each other. In my mind, they're soulmates. They're meant to be in each other's lives, and they're linked to each other. In a romantic sense, we all have multiple people in the world that we could be romantic soulmates with. You can lose a soulmate due to bad timing or the relationship not working out, and there's still someone out there in the world for you if you want them. Some people dedicate themselves to one soulmate. Others have multiple throughout their lives. But one lifestyle is not above the other.

I've read one soulmate AU fic that I kind of liked. It was one where soulmates could feel each other's pain, and it was incredibly well-written. But there was one plot point I adored where it's revealed that one of the main couples in the story are actually not soulmates; both of them have different soulmates that they met, but realized that they were terrible with their soulmates romantically, and so while they keep in touch with their soulmates, they ultimately fell in love with someone who was not their soulmate, and found just as much fulfillment in that. And I LOVED that plot point; it made me like that relationship so much more. There was also an aroace character in the fanfic who had a soulmate, but he didn't want to be with him romantically, and so he wasn't. And I loved that plot point too because it showed that aroace people aren't incapable of deep love and aren't missing out on anything when they don't feel romantic attraction. That fic was super good in other words.

And I also think that my belief on soulmates is what makes me a multi-shipper and makes me not understand ship discourse in the slightest. Because first of all; polyamory anyone? I think that you can totally love multiple people at the same time, and it doesn't take away from the love you experience with any one person. Secondly, since friendship is not below romance in my mind and is just as valuable, I can totally be chill with a ship that I like being platonic or romantic in a given fanfic or universe. It doesn't feel like a loss in the relationship in the slightest.

I get the appeal of a soulmate trope; the idea that there is someone out there destined to love you no matter your flaws and shortcomings? Love that! But I guess I hate the idea that's usually promoted that everyone only has one soulmate, and it's romantic. And on the rare occasions when those fics include an aroace character, that character just doesn't get a soulmate of any kind. And that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. So I generally don't read those fics, though I hope people never stop writing them because you should not let some weird fuck like me on the internet stop you from writing what you want!

I recommend this world view personally though because I was able to heal so much for it! I was so scared that I was broken, that I was missing out on a big part of life, but no. Like Chappell Roan said, love is a kaleidoscope; even with all the colors and shapes, it somehow all boils down to the same emotion. And my friends that do have romantic attraction, I think that believing platonic connections are not lesser than can really help with a lot of insecurities and anguish that come from dating and engaging in romantic relationships. Because you don't need them to experience true love, and so there's no pressure anymore! You can explore romance at your own pace and leisure. You can be unafraid to let people go that you need to, because there's someone else out there who'll love you just as much! It makes life so much more fulfilling in my opinion!

But as I said, I'm a weird fuck on the internet and you know your life better than I do. So if this doesn't work for you, feel free to say "oh no thanks!" and live the life that's best suited for you! You got this!

Whew. Sorry for the cheesiness

Curious, I haven’t really seen any real trend among aspec people and the ship tropes they do like, however I think I kinda seen a trend in what they dislike. So in the tags tell me if you’re aspec (ace and/or aro) and if you dislike soulmates, and I mean the most straightforward romantic non subverted kind (but if there are versions you like feel free to elaborate)

[chocolate-cream-soldier]

....//

[saints-who-never-existed]

Another thing that pisses me off actually is that Franklin doesn't listen to McDonald re: Young's condition, insisting that Stanley will be able to find out something more.

I do wonder if it comes partly down to prejudice against McDonald as a Scotsman, just as such prejudice exists against Crozier as an Irishman.

But I also wonder if perhaps it's just a negative reaction on Franklin's part against nuance and uncertainty in general?

McDonald provides a diagnoses and gives specific evidence for how he arrived at it (a sign of real intelligence, I always think, and something he does again later in discussing Morfin's affliction with Goodsir) but he's, quite rightly, transparent about the fact that he can't be 100% sure.

I think that that uncertainty is a big part of what Franklin balks at. It doesn't fit in with the often very definitive, unyielding worldview he holds - black and white, right and wrong, with no room in between.

[quaranmine]

On Wednesday before I gave my presentation I confessed to a new employee that I was worried it would be too long and she brightly told me her life hack was to just let AI rewrite things for her. She said I should put in all my talking points and ask ChatGPT to give me a five minute exactly presentation. I was like....how is the most polite possible way (since this is a new colleague I shouldn't get off on the wrong foot with) that I can express that I will Not be taking this advice. Ever. I told her that I didn't think we were allowed to use ChatGPT at this job (we most certainly are not, it is a nightmare for any type of protected information) and also that I prefer to write all of my own work. Despite my best efforts the last part of that was still passive aggressive, lol.

Something about being a writer makes it so that it's almost offensive to me for someone to suggest I use AI to do my work instead? Like, the day I reach the point where I let AI write something for me is the day y'all need to be checking me for brain damage because clearly I'm losing it

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

the amount of effort that goes into figuring out what to cook and eat every day is RIDICULOUS. i used to think people were so weird and boring for eating the same thing every single day but it truly does make life so much easier

[zaynfag]

Why won’t you share your feeling on Larry?

it’s actually not that serious so consider this the official 2025 indigogirled statement on larry lol

i was a larrie for many years and while i personally don’t see it as being real anymore i love my larries and see where y’all are coming from <3 rpf 4ever

[girl-of-ink]

Posts about gaylor by non gaylors and especially non swifties are honestly so funny. They're like "STOP listening to Taylor Swift and critically analyzing her writing 😡😡😡" like. No???

[light-lanterne]

just went on twitter and the first thing i see is people defending and glorifying a serial killer,,,

[semperama]

I don't know that this nuance really matters, but I don't think Buck is selfish so much as he is self-absorbed. I feel like selfishness kind of has a connotation of like, wanting himself to have things (understanding, support, love) at the expense of others, or greedily grasping those things for himself without caring if others have them, and it's not really that. It's more that when he's upset, he becomes temporarily incapable of getting outside of his own head. He is certainly not indifferent to others' feelings (the grief surveys prove that); he just doesn't really see or understand the way others are feeling, because he's too focused on the way he is feeling.

The only reason I say this is because Eddie actually does the exact same thing, it just manifests in a different way. He is so focused on how he is feeling that he projects it onto others--like accusing Buck of making him choose between him and Chris when he wasn't, or preemptively getting mad at Buck for not being happy about the El Paso job when really he isn't happy about the El Paso job--and then he reacts to the feelings he projected instead of what's actually happening.

But also, it's important to realize that all people get self-absorbed when they are unhappy, and that's not really a true reflection on a person's character. We also see this in the scene with Athena and Karen, when Athena admits she's being unfair, and Karen says, "You're grieving. Fair can mind its own damn business." We are meant to understand that people need some extra grace when they are hurting and are temporarily incapable of seeing past that hurt.

[cryptotheism]

There is a little devil in my brain that says "we understand like two extremely complex ideas with genuine elegance and nuance. This makes us ontologically incapable of posting cringe."

[theactorbat]

Why I don’t like people calling Maomao from The Apothecary Diaries Aro/Ace coded.

Writing helps me organize my thoughts so I want to get this down before I attempt to make a video about it. It’s a subject that deserves to be treated with nuance and care so I will do my best express myself correctly.

Let me start this off by being clear, in no way am I disparaging people headcanoning Maomao as aro/ace or any sexuality for that matter. I personally headcanon her as Demi/Bi. I am only and specifically referring to people implying that she is CANONICALLY aro/ace or coded that way.

I find it unfair for people who are genuinely seeking aro/ace rep to be told that Maomao is that, when she is not. I have seen multiple cases of people who are understandably upset after reading the light novels, because they were told going into it that she was aro/ace coded.

I will be discussing things from the light novels in the rest of this post so bear that in mind and here is your spoiler warning.

Maomao is deeply repressed and in denial of her own feelings. This is something extremely obvious in the subtext of her character, and then overtly revealed in light novel 12. She does, at first, believe that she is incapable of love, but we as the readers also know that that is connected to her trauma and upbringing, along with her skewed perception of sex. She believes her feelings could only bring trouble, so she pushes them down for as long as possible.

For a long time there has been an extremely harmful stereotype that aro/ace people are just repressed and can be “fixed” by the right person. And if Maomao was genuinely intended to be aro/ace it would be perpetuating this really awful and untrue stereotype.

Maomao’s feelings realization and acceptance comes from a very important quote in the story. “I know you have your circumstances, Miss Maomao. It’s important not to get carried away by your emotions! But...” Chue brushed Maomao’s cheek again with her bloodstained hand. “You can’t let that be an excuse either.”

I personally would not like aro/ace being reduced to an “excuse”, frankly I would find that really fucking uncomfortable.

Now onto the sexual aspect of it. Maomao’s only frame of reference for sex comes from the verdigris house. I will tell you this as a sex worker, if you were raised adjacent to this industry and had no understanding of sex outside of the context of SW (and pornographic literature), you most likely would have the same skewed perception of sex that Maomao does. She looks at it like work, a performance. Which is the main reason she is so nervous about it in light novel 13. She is scared her “performance” won’t be good. She knows the mechanics of sex and how to give pleasure, but nothing about intimacy. She’s also pretty clinical about it, because there is political reasons why sex between them could be literally dangerous to the safety of the country…. Not really conducive to the relaxed and fun environment that she deserves for her first time.

But in conclusion, it is very understandable that aro/ace people have found comfort in her as a character, ESPECIALLY anime watchers because the romance subplot has barely even scratched the surface of the long LONG development arc it gets. Headcanons are also always okay, do what you want. Read and write whatever fic you want. But telling other people that Maomao is canonically aro/ace or coded that way is not only inaccurate, but could bring disappointment to people wanting rep, or people hating on the author for “perpetuating bad stereotypes” when she never intended Maomao’s character that way in the first place. This ship has already left the port and has sailed to the western capital and back, there’s no turning around now.

[elysianholly]

So I got sucked into r/buffy again over the weekend (I know I know) and the amount of misogyny disguised as performative feminism is killing me. As is the attempt to distill S6 into a "Spike bad/Buffy victim" when the actual story is so much more complicated, nuanced, and heartbreaking than that.

I will say I absolutely sympathize with Buffy 100% throughout S6, more than I do Spike. This is a big reversal of how I felt 20 years ago, but reflective of my own experience with self-hatred and depression. That said, I also 100% sympathize with Spike and recognize a few fundamentals that antis can't seem to grasp:

He's trying to be what Buffy needs

He can't be what Buffy needs, but he doesn't understand why

He doesn't have a soul, ergo he's incapable of meeting her at the level she needs. This is not a choice on Spike's part; it's simply fucking nature.

Death/darkness/disassociating from society is a GOOD THING in Spike's mind. He found the ultimate freedom once he rejected societal pressures and stopped trying to win the approval of his peers. He fully believes Buffy will be happier if she does the same.

Is it selfish? OF COURSE IT'S SELFISH. He can't not be selfish because of the no-soul thing. But that doesn't mean his motives are inherently bad; it means his understanding of the situation is fundamentally flawed.

In Spike's mind, Buffy seeing things Spike's way is what will set her free. This mentality is of course wrong and toxic, but his intention is not to break her down, rather cut the chains he sees holding her back. Being human did him no favors. He's trying to share his experience and becomes increasingly desperate as these attempts fail.

Throughout all of S6, with very few exceptions, Buffy pursues Spike. She does in OMWF, Tabula Rasa, initiates sex in Smashed, Gone, Doublemeat Palace, and in Dead Things, save the balcony scene. We also see that she WANTS Spike in her dream sequence, specifically in her bed the way a normal boyfriend would be. Buffy's only source of comfort and support at a time when she needs it most is coming from someone she believes she should be ashamed of, and that is what hurts her more. She's expected to take care of Dawn, of Willow in the midst of her recovery, participate in a wedding, balance being the SOLE BREADWINNER in her home (for reasons that are never addressed, much less acknowledged), along with the intense trauma of having been ripped out of heaven and KNOWING that peace exists out there somewhere and she can't have it. That the only person who seems to see her struggle, understand her, and provide any reprieve is also someone she has been conditioned to believe she shouldn't like, much less love, compounds her intense self-loathing and her belief that she is wrong. She wants the answer to be that she came back wrong because being wrong means being released from the expectations and responsibilities of being Buffy Summers.

This is what Spike can't understand, and not because he's stupid or evil or selfish, but because by the show's own lore, he is incapable of understanding it. His best and only connection to the human world is broken; it's not Buffy's responsibility to be his compass, but she IS his compass. She's the reason he's changed as much as he has, how he models his behavior, the reason he has evolved, and she's emotionally incapable of being that for herself at the moment, much less him. Again, not a burden she should have to shoulder to begin with, but a result of the natural order as dictated by the show's lore. Spike's humanity is nurtured through his connection to Buffy, and his connection to Buffy changes from day to day as her internal processes change.

I don't think "mutually abusive" is the right term as we understand it outside of Buffyverse because that has a lot of real-world implications that are absent from this fictional paradigm. But setting aside those implications, the dynamic is MUTUAL and ABUSIVE. It is intellectually dishonest to apply human motivations and power dynamics on inhuman characters stripped of the very specific conditions that allowed those dynamics to become what they are. It's also appalling to claim that Buffy was Spike's victim when she was calling the shots throughout the bulk of their relationship; it completely strips Buffy of her agency. Women can be depressed. Women can make bad decisions. Women can flounder, struggle, and fail because of themselves and crack under the pressure others put them under without being someone's victim.

Also? Denying Buffy's abusive behavior to Spike is similarly appalling. Slayers are understood to be physically stronger than vampires, the same way as most men are understood to be physically stronger than women. If a man beat a woman bloody in an alley and abandoned her there, would you say she deserved it? Would it be acceptable if you knew she was asking for it? That the man had had a really bad day? That he was going through something and trying to work some stuff out?

Season 6 is complicated, especially the Spuffy dynamic, because these are two broken people trying to not be broken and unable to help each other the way they need. But they were broken people, and that fracture was mutual, regardless of how uncomfortable that is. It's also why Season 6 is one of the show's strongest seasons. It takes us to pretty awful places but also shows us the way out. Trying to minimize that or make it black-and-white is a lot of things, and none of them are good.

[skywalkr-nberrie]

If you think that Padmé saying in the ROTS novel that the most important achievement in her life is being Anakin’s wife somehow strips her of the rest of her character and suddenly makes her into someone who doesn’t care about or doesn’t love being a Queen, Senator, or a true fighter for freedom and peace than you’ve failed to understand her and are incapable to see the layers and nuances that comes with her character. This is why Star Wars and Padmé isn’t for everyone. She’s so easily misunderstood and undermined for simply loving Anakin and prioritizing her husband above her career and is automatically deemed as someone who doesn’t care for her position and duty simply because she loves Anakin more than all those things combined. Courtesy of fake feminism and girl boss attitude that shuns women who desire love and would do everything for the person they’re in love with.

No, there are many aspects to her character that make up her entire being and Padmé loving Anakin more than any of that doesn’t strip her of her identity, same way Anakin loving Padmé and deeming everything else as beneath her doesn’t take away from his character, achievements, core traits, morals, and personality. She still very much is a true warrior, and champion of liberty. She’s just as much the just Queen as much as she is a resilient warrior, as much as she is a courageous senator. Padmé obtaining her hearts truest desire and loving Anakin is a core and integral element of what makes her who she is, she loves him more than anything even her career, but where in any of that did you translate this to Padmé not caring about her life’s work, achievements, and makes up the rest of her story?

Never speak on Padmé Naberrie-Skywalker (Amidala) if this is how you view her.

[autumnhobbit]

really hate the modern narrative of bullying, namely that any ‘bully’ is an evil, irredeemable monster and a ‘bullying victim’ is an innocent, purely motivated, incapable-of-wrong little mouse. in reality the victim of one bully can easily bully another person while still being a victim of the first, the roles reverse depending on the positions, there’s extensive nuance because kids are kids and half the time don’t know why they act or react the way they do. is it a moral subject? sure. but it’s a reflection of the way kids are raised and how close a relationship they have with their parents and their parents moral & emotional health and understanding and so many other factors.

[eris-abomination]

Not to be patronizing, but I’m convinced some of y’all don’t know what radfems actually are. Every time I try to speak about how dangerous and reductive radical feminism is as an ideology, I get paragraphs upon paragraphs written trying to “errm actually” me and defending them, so let me clear things up.

Radical feminism’s core belief centers around a form of gender essentialism: that men are inherently violent oppressors and that the patriarchy is to blame for every problem that befalls women and fems. This is not to say that the patriarchy isn’t a major contributor to misogyny, but it completely excludes intersectionality from the equation and dovetails into TERFy rhetoric very easily.

In blaming every issue on the patriarchy alone, radical feminism erases the very real contributions of racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc from our struggles in society. Oppression and privilege are extremely complex and fed into by many biases and phobias upheld by our societal systems, not just the “boys vs girls” mentality that radfems emphasize. The main pitfall of this ideology is the way it places all men and all women on an equivalent level of privilege or oppression respectively, rather than the unfortunate reality: for example, a cishet man having inherent privilege and hypothetical oppressing power over a queer or trans man, or an abled woman having privilege over a disabled woman.

Radical feminism also tends to veer into a defeatist mindset: men are inherently oppressive and women are inherently at the bottom of the societal totem pole, so what’s the point of trying to dismantle these systems? The radfem “solution” is to ignore the nuances of intersectionality and create divisions between men and women as a “safety measure” which, as mentioned earlier, opens the door for TERF-like and tribalist ideologies to take root (bathroom bans, label politics, “gender traitor” rhetoric, and categorization of trans and nonbinary people into their AGABs). The “solution” of creating purely woman-only spaces fails to acknowledge that women can also be oppressive toward other women, but it’s still viewed through the lens of “the patriarchy can’t affect things here because we’re all on the same level of disadvantage”.

I don’t write all this to accuse all self-proclaimed radfems of being knowingly malicious or bigoted, but it seems that not many people fully understand the true implications and reductiveness of what radical feminism really is. If you managed to get through this whole post (congratulations!), I invite you to examine your own ideologies and the biases and faults behind them, and hopefully grow, change, and become a more nuanced and open-minded person from there.

Edit: I can and will delete your comments if you’re incapable of being civil (or scrolling away or blocking me like a normal goddamn person) 💕💕💕

[consultingfujoshi]

I don't know how to explain to some people that their theories about how aziraphale is being mind controlled or how that's not really them or that this is all a big elaborate trick robs the narrative of literally all its emotional impact and makes the slow build this season worked so hard to establish completely pointless if the interpersonal conflict is artificial lmao. they need to have done this themselves, aziraphale needs to have made that decision with his whole brain and his whole chest, crowley needs to have been the one to push aziraphale that final inch back towards heaven, or there is absolutely no tension or stakes going into season 3. you all realise this right. I understand nuance and complicated character drama is uncomfortable when it doesn't get resolved immediately but some of you are so determined to absolve aziraphale (and by extension crowley) of any wrongdoing or guilt that you're literally robbing them of everything that makes them interesting; namely that they are totally fucked up and they did this to themselves. and rip if that's you I guess but personally I like it when my favourite characters are irrevocably damaged emotionally and incapable of accepting a shred of happiness into their lives. that south downs cottage isn't going to be hard-fought and sorely won all by itself <3