#( involved myself in discourse that i didn't involve myself in )

[lettersiarrange]

hey are you a terf ? you've been reblogging stuff from radfems ...

No, I'm not a terf, I support trans people 100%. Also terfs are uncomfortably cozy with the alt-right and that's uhhh... a whole other layer of awful.

But I think I may be following a secret terf? Tumblr keeps showing me these posts that are like "liked by someone you're following!" And I follow 4k people so I'm not like. Keeping track of anyone but my mutuals. And some of the posts tumblr shows me are obviously terfy which makes me go HMMMM but then some of them seem fine? So it's hard for me to tell the difference between "posts tumblr reccomends me that are normal and in line with the regular leftist and feminist things I'm into" vs like "posts tumblr reccomends me because they're liked by whatever secret terf I'm following and have suspicious undertones that aren't immediately obvious to me". I'm certainly not intentionally following any terfs or following anyone who publicly identifies as a terf* or puts terf shit on my dash but I'm apparently following someone who doesn't blog about terf shit but LIKES terf shit (and I think it might be a fandom blog so that makes it harder to identify) and then those likes show up on my dash and it's not always obvious that it's terf shit or from a radfem blog-- it's just a random posts from a url I don't know. And sometimes the posts themselves are fine on the initial read.

So pls let me know what the radfem blogs in question are so I can identify and remember them if they pop up on my dash again

*caveat that I've been on this website for 10+ years and follow 4,000+ people and it's theoretically possible that a blog I followed multiple years ago that I never see on my dash now publicly identifies as a terf, but I'm not gonna go through all 4k of my following to try and find out if any of them have become publicly shitty in a way that doesn't affect my dash in the years since I've followed them. People get unfollowed as they bring shitty views to my attention. Hence the conundrum with the undercover terf bc they don't post terf shit, they just like it.

[blujayonthewing]

sometimes I get weirdly in my own head about 'is the way I draw nyssa Good Representation For Fat Women' and then I remember she's my fucking OC and Good Representation is not actually my job

[deadveiled]

( i think it's okay to hate me, actually )

[snickerdoodlles]

one of my most formative fandom experiences was a comment i had gotten on a fic i wrote for a halloween themed fandom event.

this was for a manga/anime, so the fic was a general ghost story obviously set in Japan. the beginning of it involved a pizza delivery and while writing it, i had spent like 30 minutes just double checking tipping customs and the types of pizza they serve and even fell down a wikipedia rabbit hole looking up the history of pizza in Japan.

now, i just like the research part of writing, i do stuff like this because i have fun doing it. and while i was writing this particular fic, i had laughed at myself for my 30 minutes of googling that amounted to 2.5 offhand lines in a 3500 word fic. i didn't think anyone would care about or even notice those particular details except for me, especially since none of them were relevant to the ghost part of this ghost story.

except, when i had sent this fic to a Japanese friend, the first thing she said to me about it was "OH MY GOD YOU GOT THE PIZZA RIGHT"

and that was the moment when it had really clicked for me. what had just been 30 minutes of effort on my part had become a moment of relief for her. my friend was far more used to reading ethnocentric fic that ranged from unintentional ignorance to outright superiority against part of her culture (the original story's culture no less). and even with the "innocent" ignorance (heavy quotes on that) far outstripping any outright maliciousness, that's still so many people saying her culture was not worth learning about. the pizza in my story was a small detail, but i had cared enough to put in some effort to check it. and for her, coming from a fic experience where her norm was bracing for hundreds of inaccuracies born of ignorance, especially at that time after a flood of stories centered around "Halloween as a cultural holiday in the US" premises instead of the "Halloween is a commercial gimmick in Japan" reality, seeing someone put in some effort even for minor story details meant something to her.

this also throws me back to the discourse that arose in a french show fandom a few years ago because there were a lot of fic authors that wrote 'dollars' instead of 'euros'-- but when people brought this up as a prevalent issue across the fandom but an easy one to fic/watch out for, many of these writers instead pushed back to complain that they were posting stories for free and it wasn't that big of a deal. which really upset a lot of people, but then this upset was met with a new wave of indignation that people needed to 'get over it' because they're writing fic ~just as a hobby~. but, even if 'dollars' instead of 'euros' wasn't a big deal, by digging in their heels about the issue, they were saying "your culture isn't worth even five minutes of my time or effort."

I've been thinking about these things lately because the ethnocentrism in Thai drama fandoms is...staggering. just over the turn of the year, there were waves of Christmas fic for Buddhist characters. and just. Christmas in Thailand is a tourist thing at best. sometimes a pop culture gimmick for international audiences or maybe an offhand high school thing to blow off steam between midterms. it's not a cultural thing. and even if a character is a part of the Christian minority, a Christian Thai's holiday customs and culture are going to be vastly different than a Christian's customs in the Americas or Europe. and while the Christmas fic is at least finished for now, I'm already bracing myself for the Easter fic wave that also seems to pop up for Thai dramas. it's so frustrating to see this sort of cultural overwrite all the time, especially since most Thai drama holiday works aren't about Thai holidays.

but the thing that really got me bristling about all of this again was i saw a post the other day where op said that they weren't going to write [thai drama] fic because they don't know much about thailand.

what an absolutely appalling statement to make.

google is right there. wikipedia is free. you don't even have to leave tumblr or AO3 to learn more because there are Thai natives in fandom who write essays to explain common elements of their culture. hell, even just watching these Thai stories and considering the values and messages imparted by the narrative framework and story lens tells you something about that culture. the audacity to look at a culture different from your own and say "this is not worth my effort or time to learn anything more about," are you kidding me?!?

the messages and values of a story tell you about the writer's values, which are going to carry their cultural values, beliefs, and biases. Thai culture is going to be heavily relevant to any Thai story, even the ones that aren't explicitly about Thai culture/customs/etc. (hell, Thai bl/gl as a genre alone-- just the fact that queer Thai writers are making these stories in Thailand's current political climate is highly political, even the "fluffy" ones that don't seem to make outright political statements.) to approach any story like it was made in a vacuum is to remove the writer(s)' culture and values and to overwrite them with your own.

especially because this is fandom. these are the lowest stakes to learn! it sucks to see people say things like "but i'm scared i'll get something wrong" and hold up that fear as a shield to justify their ignorance. no one's expecting anyone to get every detail right, especially not for a culture that isn't theirs, just make an effort to learn something new about it. pick out something that caught your eye as different to learn more about and see where it leads you.

and for the record--making a mistake trying to broaden your horizons is a far, far better thing to do than to superimpose your culture on everyone else's because you're scared to confront your ignorance.

edit: check out this reblog thanks

[utilitycaster]

Wait sorry I will discourse over basically anything but I literally do not see the point in having any thoughts over Orym telling Keyleth Imogen is Liliana's daughter other than "yeah Captain Obvious"; this is not like, trampling over someone else's viewpoint, this is "Imogen said something very unclear and the entire interaction made Orym's statement virtually moot anyway":

Probably most importantly, Keyleth isn't stupid and has, per the TCSR, +12 to insight. You think she sees a human woman with hair the exact same not-typically-found-in-humans shade of Liliana's and goes "golly gee who could that be?"

This happens immediately after an exchange in which FCG hedges on whether Liliana should be destroyed, and Imogen (again: looks a lot like Liliana) hesitantly says "well, she didn't help" and then proceeds to talk about how she too has powers that involve a bright white light and strange things happening after, and that it's wishful thinking to believe Liliana did something last minute to help. Again. Keyleth has +12 to insight and a positive intelligence score.

Marisha as Laudna suspects that Keyleth suspects but rolls low on insight, ie, the cast is openly thinking that Keyleth might be aware of the connection.

The exact words Imogen says to Orym are "Do you think you should tell her what y'all saw." This is extremely vague. I did not myself in the moment think this meant "the Raven Queen's vision"; I thought it meant more details of what had happened at the Tishtan site, especially in context of the prior discussion, which was about Liliana and not about Vax. I would not be surprised if Orym (and for that matter Liam) had a similar interpretation.

[drdemonprince]

I'm curious to know your take on the whole fujoshi pisscourse because I'm semi new to it and no matter how much the internet says I should be appalled that some cis women flick their beans to gay stuff... as a queer guy I simply cannot bring myself to care. I have experienced cis straight women in queer spaces being rude or even sexually inappropriate, especially to performers, but I just don't see the relationship between that and the girls watching gay porn. And I've also seen people argue that it's bad because cis straight women who are artists will write/draw stuff about gay men that's inaccurate... but again I don't see this as nefarious as the twinks on tiktok want me to believe it is, like who cares.

Yeah, I'm with you 100%. What a person gets off to is their business and no type of porn belongs to one identity group.

My gay male bestie in high school got off exclusively to straight porn -- he found the women in straight porn easier to relate to than the types of big, masc guys that get depicted in most gay porn videos.

I watch porn of any fucking gender combination because what I care about is the hypnosis and power exchange, not the people involved.

I know this couple of two trans women that broke up when one walked in on the other watching gay male "sissy" porn -- she considered it an insult to her own identity and worried that it meant her trans femme partner wasn't "really" a woman or didn't see her as one. It led to the disastrous, messy termination of a relationship of many years, and the entire basis for the rift was nonsense.

I like a lot of detrans kink / forced detransition porn because of my own insecurities and worst fears. It strikes a chord in a hot way. Before I transitioned, I looked at a lot of gay male porn especially of the silly fanfictiony variety because it gave me something to project my longings onto.

Lots of trans mascs are "cis female fujoshis" like that. And yeah, some cis women are too! They may like the escape from conventional gender role baggage, or they may have some latent gender-fuckery of their own that the fiction is allowing them to explore, or maybe they just like guys a lot and so seeing two guys together is twice as hot to them. No amount of discourse is gonna keep straight men from watching lesbian porn. So let's leave the girls to whatever gets them off!

(incidentally, I know a lot of lesbian fujoshis too).

We shouldn't be policing what others' eroticize. A person's identity has no bearing on what they might find interesting to look at or fantasize about. What matters in terms of 'protecting' the queer community is having guidelines on behavior.

The problem with cishet women being predatory at the club isn't that they're cishet, it's that they're groping people, getting in people's faces, and being rude. Anyone of any identity can do that. The only way we can prevent bad behavior is by having rules and procedures in place for dealing with it in anyone. Not by restricting which identities are allowed in the door -- that will only ever play out in a transphobic way and a way that's hostile to the questioning and closeted, and I'll have no part in it.

And certainly none of us have any business butting into what sexual thoughts play between a person's ears. There are no thought crimes. There are no emotion crimes. There are no arousal crimes. There are only behaviors that can hurt others, and if someone's actions are respectful and harm no one, their identity and what they get off to is completely their business.

[callout-tee]

this is a post and blog meant to call out user @saetoru, whose blog is archived but now uses the account @ctrltoru. i highly encourage everyone to block both of her accounts.

i assume everyone already knows the controversy surrounding this user, but either way, i made this account to share my experience and the experiences of other blogs with tee.

hi, i'm a mutual of tee's and a little while back, tee confided her new tumblr (@ctrltoru) to me. we've been mutuals for a decent amount of time, but ever since october 2022, my opinion of tee has gone down the drain.

TLDR: as time went on, i found it harder and harder to excuse her actions. she's run many of our favorite writers off tumblr, and frankly, it's not a stretch to attribute jjk tumblr's growing toxicity to her presence here.

[ CW discourse. ]

read @/garoujo's post first. if you scroll through the reblogs, many other writers, including many big blogs that i'm sure you'll recognize, have had similar experiences with tee.

the anons: many big blogs left tumblr or moved accounts because of hate anons being sent on tee's behalf. many of them were death threats that included any number of slurs.

in tee's post meant to explain the archival of her account, she never even addressed the main problem, which is the fact that she, her mutuals, and her anons (most of which were sent by her) are the reason so many writers were harassed off the app.

tee has an ongoing habit of causing drama with any blog she feels threatened by. ever since her haikyuu days, this has happened over and over again. first it was emmie (@/garoujo), then it was yoru (@/anantaru), and then it was karma (@/kazushawty), and so many more and who knows who it'll be next.

as someone who has a decently sized blog myself, i understand feeling frustrated that a blog who hasn't been writing as long as you have is getting as many, if not more notes than you, because it's natural to feel that way. however, what isn't natural is actually doing something about your immature ego and going out of your way to be rude, directly or not to the person involved.

all the writers who reblogged emmie's callout post before leaving had one major thing in common: they kept receiving death threats on tee's behalf. this is both the anons' and tee's fault, because it's a fact that tee knew about this. i knew that she knew about this, but did tee ever tell her followers to stop? no, she didn't.

if you don't speak out against death threats being sent on your behalf, you're condoning them. tee handled it badly, and it was not a mistake. in fact, many of the anons sent were from tee and her mutuals herself: it's obvious, and it's disappointing.

the plagiarism accusations: it's a canon event for every jjk writer to get accused of "plagiarizing" tee. emmie got accused of copying her generic instagram theme, karma got accused of copying her generic mdni banners, sabrina (@/osaemu) got accused of copying her generic title, and so many more people have shared their experiences with tee too.

maybe tee's shots in the dark were right once or twice, but if you're accusing every single writer of copying your themes/banners/titles (bffr, who actually cares about titles) then frankly, you're the problem.

there's inherent bias within people's heads (this includes everyone, not just tee) that makes them want to see similarities between them and others. that's just how the human brain works. however, again, that doesn't excuse making it a canon event for every single jjk writer to have a bad interaction with you.

i'm not the only one who feels this way. back in october, every jjk blog i know had something to say on this matter. anons, writers, and many of my mutuals all knew tee was in the wrong, but it's disappointing to see how even then, she still had a platform.

again, if you want to hear the stories behind why your favorite writers left the app, read the reblogs on this post.

and finally, who remembers the post tee made saying that everyone should be "thanking" her for "what she's done" for the jjk fandom?

moment of silence please, let that sink in.

i don't even need to say anything about that, because her words speak for themselves.

moving on, i hate to be this honest (i don't), but how are you gonna be a grown adult and talk like a fourteen year old kpop stan? being a good writer doesn't mean you can be a bad person: you're not a celebrity. we're all a bunch of losers here to fuck gojo satoru, and if you're going to go out of your way to try to be the queen bee of tumblr dot com, then the rest of us have no problem calling you out.

honestly, it's sad that some people on this app can be such amazing writers but, at the same time, such immature people. this includes tee and many of her mutuals. being good at something isn't mutually exclusive. i can be a good writer, and so can you—we can coexist peacefully, but people like tee are what's making that so hard for the rest of us.

again, block users @saetoru and @ctrltoru. tee doesn't deserve your time.

(tagging for reach, because everyone deserves to know about this. sorry for the tag abuse, i know it's annoying.)

[neressma]

Palworld arguments and how to deconstruct them (+ common misconceptions)

Instead of making call-out posts targeting specific people like an SJW tumblrina in need of attention, I will provide general counter-arguments everybody can use within the Palworld discourse. I am sick and tired of AI-art getting normalized, this issue is getting out of hand and we must spread awareness for the sake of artists everywhere.

YOU ARE ENCOURAGED TO EDUCATE PALWORLD DEFENDERS, BUT DON'T ATTACK THEM PLEASE!

Without further ado, here common arguments by Palworld fans and how you can deconstruct them.

1. "So you're defending a multibill. corp?!"

This is a common argument used by Palworld defenders. Within their narrative, Pokemon designs are a direct product of their Nintendo (the multibillion dollar company in question) and you're totally bootlicking them if you're pointing out the obvious plagiarism - as if the very heads of Nintendo were the ones creating the Pokemon designs... The truth, of course, is that individual artists provide these designs FOR Nintendo. Instead of "taking from the rich" like Palworld fans claim, their game actually steals from these artists. Hence, those who call out Palworld aren't die-hard Nintendo fans as much as they are people who simply call out plagiarism in defense of artists. I would even go as far as to add that people who defend PocketPair (the developers of Palworld) and those who buy the game just for the sake of controversy (yes, it's been done) are themselves adamant defenders of a corporation. Since they imagine others to be blindly defending Nintendo, it's bordering hypocrisy.

2. "It's not plagiarism"

If you show a Palworld defender one of Palworld's character designs and the Pokemon it's based on, they will in some cases start pointing out the differences between the two in order to claim there's no plagiarism involved. This is easy for them to do because the Palworld design you showed them isn't quite a rip-off of a Pokemon, no. It's actually the rip-off of TWO Pokemon. In fact, most Palworld designs tend to use the model of one Pokemon and some features of a other, along with some final alterations that are unique. Once you point this out, it's easy to notice on most if not nearly all Palworld designs. Here is an example that comes with a visual analysis, provided by @RaphDesLandes (a gamedev!) on X:

3. "There's no proof of PocketPair using AI!"

Not only is there proof of it, but that same proof shows that the devs run servers for AI programs, the same which they use for their game "AI Impostor", a game in which the core mechanic is the use of an AI-image generator. Here is the most flagrant example (I hid the developer's name because I'm not that kinda guy).

Of course, I don't blame people who didn't know this. It's far from being common knowledge amongst Palworld fans, after all. That's why it's important to spread the word though.

4. "Gamefreak should'a made better games!"

It's not a secret: Nintendo and GameFreak have been letting us down with the recent Pokemon games on the Nintendo Switch. From poor writing to bad graphics, many fans (myself included) are unsatisfied. Palworld players praise the games' quality, claiming that it's existance is justified by the fact it's programmed better than recent Pokemon games. While it's understandable that one would want to play games with superior programming, it doesn't justify plagiarism (they could've just made a Pokemon fangame or a mod), and, well... it's simply false and doesn't apply.

Here is a link to a tweet showing one of Palworld's game-breaking glitches.

Not only that, but Palworld is mostly made up of Unity Engine assets, and it's controls are wonky. They're reminiscent of Garry's mod, which came out in 2006, except Gmod is faster.

5. Bonuses

-evidence of PocketPair using Pokemon fans' art to model their characters after (post by @onion_mu on X)

-every Palworld-Pokemon lookalike (source unknown but reposted by @hejibits on X)

-and also: deconstructing the (partial) myth around Palworld's success on Steam

Lastly, it's important that I point this out, even if it's unrelated: Pocket Pair devs have received death threats. This is unacceptable. I encourage everyone reading this to create an online-environment where people discuss and debate with rationality, rather than such shameful behaviour. To me, people who send others death threats are no better than thieves, so please stay respectful!

Thank you for reading 🖤 Please let me know if the link on 4. doesn't work or the post got taken down!

[highpri3stess]

Alright, Imma say it anyways.

Tw. Racism death threats etc

First, I'd like to thank people who told me to do other stuff outside tumblr today. You are real ones and I am grateful because I would have lost my mind if I didn't do something else today. To people who texted and checked up on me. You are real ones. I was getting to a level where my mental state was spiraling and yall talked sense into me. I'm gonna let this go, right after this.

Now, to the controversal statement.

This is the last thing I'll say before I do other stuff on here.

If you expect me to be quiet after seeing "Monica deserves fifty lashes, she's a slave n-word bitch that needs to be decapitated and her boobs cut off" you are racist. No, no, no don't gasp, don't gasp you know it's the truth.

If I unfollowed you after that issue and you blocked me, you prove to me, you are an enabler of racism. No, no, no, don't gasp either, you know it's the truth.

If you were a black creator who followed me and then got mad at me and unfollowed me because if that issue, you are also an enabler of racism. No no no don't gasp, don't gasp hold your breath I'm not done talking.

You know why I said this thing?

Three of the people in these categories were actually defending that guy caught with shota shit. Yes. You people were so ready to defend that guy, one of you even made a fucking alt account to defend that piece of shite, as if his life was in danger. I saw some people I'm exmoots with liking posts defending him while saying "oh his actions are gross". Who are you trying to deceive?

And when I started getting racist anons, some of yall had the nerve to tell me I am a drama blog and yall don't want to hang out with me no more. I was literally getting threats and slurs and that was all some of you said on anon. And you have the guts to still reblog shit on my account? Is it because I didn't expose you? Because I know it was you. Yes you. One of you even caused the entire issue by sending the post to that person. I know you. You caused this. Fuck you.

And yes I called some of you inhumane. You all were ready to jump on that guys dick but to defend someone who was recieving SLURS all of a sudden "I'm not a discourse blog". And when I said it, some of yall appeared in my dms saying I was being too mean. No. That was me being TOO nice, I could have called them something far worse and they would have deserved anything I called them.

And hell, some of you that are black jumped in my dms. I know you would not have the balls to open your damn mouth if it was not your fellow black authors, since you decided you wanted to kiss ass. And I know you don't have the balls because you did not go to the perpertrator and disrespect them like that.

All of you involved plus that weak ass fool going on people's accounts saying those slurs are spineless. Spineless weaklings. Since all of you in these groups of people have decided to be afraid of some disgraced mf who cannot do shit off anon, you all are the weakest links. And you deserved to be dragged by the root of your hair because you rather defend a pedo than stand against racism.

And if this offends you and your Kabal, or your queen mother, since you people are shaking in your boots when you see her, you have yourself to blame. Look in the mirror and reflect. Maybe grow a pair or two.

Anytime I feel bad, I remember you mfs and I feel better about myself. "I may be having a hard time, but at least I'm not spineless."

I am glad I broke mutuals with some of you weird bitches and I am glad my anons are off. Trust, if you ever get harrassed, you do not have my sympathy. In fact, I will tell you word for word, exactly what you told me and I will do it off anon- "Why are you being a drama blog?" "Just stop being angry and touch grass"

If the shoe fits. If you like, send this on your discord server and groups. Fuck y'all.

- love, Monica

[our-aroace-experience]

(TW for vent full of internalized aphobia.)

I'm aroace and agender/genderless, which kind of puts me in a weird spot because I'm not cishet (because I'm... Neither cis nor het), but I'm not confidently LGBTQ+ either because it's a discourse topic that I don't want to get involved in. I stayed in the closet for at least a couple years because I internalized so much of that shit and was convinced my identity was inherently problematic somehow lol.

So, just to be safe and avoid intruding on anyone's space, I just say I'm neither cishet nor queer/LGBTQ+. Problem is, it seems like everyone wants you to be one of those things or the other. If I say I'm not LGBTQ+, people assume I'm cishet, which leads to me getting misgendered and/or assumed to be straight even though I'm definitely not (and that has led to some uncomfortable situations with straight people thinking I might be into them). But if I say I'm not cishet, people put me in the LGBTQ+ community regardless of whether or not I really belong there, so I feel like I'm infiltrating someone else's community and stealing from them.

One time I met someone online who was trans, biromantic, and ace, and she also didn't consider herself LGBTQ+ because she had seen a lot of transphobia biphobia and aphobia in that community. And it surprised me so much, because it had never occurred to me that there are people who don't consider themselves part of the community despite having "real LGBT" identities.

This sounds weird, but I wonder how many others out there consider themselves "neither." It's kind of lonely but for me it feels like the safest option, at least for now.

(I just want to add, this isn't meant to attack ace/aro/agender people who do consider themselves LGBTQ+. That's completely fine, and if I wasn't so jaded by ace discourse I'd probably identify as such too. I consider myself "neither" because of personal reasons related to aphobia, not because I believe A is for ally or anything like that.)

discourse is the worst, and i’m sorry it’s made you feel you can’t be a part of the community, you absolutely can if you want to!

[orange-orchard-system]

Got a hate ask on my other blog (funnier-as-a-system) today. I'm not gonna respond to it directly, but I'm gonna go over it fully just as an example of why I don't take anti-endos or sysmeds seriously and find them to be just bullying assholes who don't know what they're talking about. Apologies for the rare discourse post, but I felt it would be useful to have a personal example I can point to if I ever get any more asks than I already have about why I block anti-endos and sysmeds and don't want them on my blogs.

[ID: A screenshot of an anonymous ask, which reads: ""Systems" aren't real. Please stop being ableist against people with DID and our struggles. Pretending to be one of us while simultaneously mocking us makes you look like a piece of shit. Also, DID isn't fucking funny, you're just cruel and ableist. Go see a psychiatrist, get your personality disorders and Munchausens taken care of, and stop pretending to have DID when you don't. We don't need you, our community is better off without teenagers faking DID as a meme. To be honest, I wish you and literally everyone like you were more likely to kill yourself as someone with a real mental illness, because you don't deserve to be alive if this is what you're doing with your life. You're just a delusional bully and neo-nazi" ./ end ID]

Starting from the top, apparently anyone with DID who's ever described themselves as a system is faking now. Nevermind that it's been a term in psychology and the community for decades now! All systems are fake!

I have DID. I've said as much many times. Not that I think this person would consider this a counterargument, but I feel it deserves restating considering a fair amount of my posts are specifically about my DID and managing the symptoms of it.

If I want to find humor in my own disorder, I'm going to. I'm not going to resign myself to misery and self-hate just to please some randos on the Internet. I crawled my way out of the pit of self-hate and am not just gonna jump in there again just to avoid a couple asks and assholes. And I'd make a point here about systems that don't come from trauma or aren't disordered, but what's the point of that when they think literally all systems are fake?

Ohoho! Disableism towards other mental disorders! Isn't the irony sweet?

Not to toot my own horn, but I just love the lack of awareness when it comes to "we don't need you." No, I guess you don't need me... but you'll be going without the work I've done both online and offline to teach people about dissociation and plurality. Not to mention the terms I've coined that make people feel seen, the experiences I've talked about that make people feel less alone, the building of spaces to let others talk about their own problems and experiences, and the general promotion I've done of plural representation in media. No, you don't need me, but I've been doing work to assist the DID and wider plural communities for years now. And what have you been doing? Sending hate asks to people with DID for being too happy?

I'm an adult. I've mentioned before that I go to university and have a job. Seems like even online, I can't escape the assumption that I'm a teenager, smh. Also, I'm much more worried about the teenagers you might be sending this to than any kind of unquantifiable harm a couple teenagers faking DID could do, considering how clearly you wish to do harm with your words. Especially considering the next few sentences...

Oh, so we're just moving onto blatant suicide baiting and admitting you want systems to die. Got it. Totally not a bigot, right.

Wait... "Real mental illnesses"? Didn't you just accuse me of having several earlier? Or do personality disorders and Munchausen Syndrome not count? (Also, do they think being suicidal is a requirement to be mentally ill? They know not all disorders or presentations of disorders involve suicidality, right?)

Well, you got the delusional part right (which, side note, do you think it's impossible for people to have both DID and psychosis? Big yikes even if no, but that's what these asks always seem to imply), but I think this post might be the closest anyone can call "bullying", considering I'm not giving you an opportunity to respond as I tear down your argument. But maybe the definition of peer abuse changed to *checks notes* running a blog talking about plurality in a positive manner since I last checked.

These people do know what a Neo-Nazi is, right? They know what a Nazi is? Because it feels like people just use it as a stand-in for "general asshole" when it means a specific sort of ideology and bigotry. Ironic that they'd be so pissed about "mockery" and treating serious topics "as a meme", but then they go and misuse a term for a very dangerous kind of ideology and person.

Alright, I think I got that out of my system. Please be careful out there, guys! It feels like the number of hate asks I've seen people get has been going up. I'm in a stable enough place to make a demonstration out of this, but don't push yourself to have a snappy comeback or write essays responding to these assholes if you don't think you're up for it. Hell, I rarely write things like this myself, I just chose this ask to respond to because it was such a clear example of how hypocritical and foolish this particular brand of assholes is that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to break it down.

[inquebrar]

sighing deeply and here we go again... i didn't think i would talk about this but this time it happened in one of my posts so i'll try to explain something from the point of view of someone who is aspec myself.

from the moment q!Cellbit got into a relationship with q!Roier before the wedding, there was a lot of talk about the honeymoon and q!Cellbit always made it clear by replying "i don't feel interested in that" "i don't like" "i don't do these things" and then this gave us a beautiful scene (which could easily not have happened if it wasn't important to the character) where q!Roier listens to q!Cellbit explaining that he would like them to sleep together but that he will not have sex and asked if there was any problem with that, then we had a moment of understanding and acceptance that only strengthened their marriage.

after that moment there were several other situations where it's clear that q!Cellbit's asexuality is not something superficial and used only as a meaningless label, but since then many people have started to make disrespectful comments, with misinformation and even contradictory to what was being said. no one ever said that q!Cellbit is the definition of asexuality as a whole, but to say that he is a character that brings us asexual representativity is no harm at all, being queer embraces many things and within the lgbtqia+ community there are various spectrums of sexuality and gender identity. there are people who are asexuals who also identify as aromantic but there are people who are only aromantic, they're two different things that can sometimes be together or not, in the same way that there are asexuals who experiences sexual attraction under specific conditions, some are strict asexuals, some experiences sexual attraction more or less, others are sex-repulsed others can have sex even without feeling sexually attracted and there are still many other variations and spectrums, and they are all valid and real.

to have a character who is canonically married and talks about not being interested in sex, is far from being something stereotypical. i have literally never had any representativity like that, especially because it's a big issue "not having sex is a sign of a failed marriage/relationship" now imagine that in a gay relationship. a character doesn't need to constantly remind people "hello! i'm asexual" and carry the flag for people to take it seriously, also many scenes that involve a better understanding of q!Cellbit being on the asexual spectrum he's speaking in portuguese so to people who don't speak this language lose a lot of context and subtle moments because that's how it really happens. and in general, if you want to have a headcanon that he's not asexual or you just don't think he is, i just ask, please be more respectful, it's great to receive asexual representativity in different ways, through different characters on different spectrums! let people feel joy and show appreciation, celebrate and just be happy.

your sexuality is valid and having a character that makes you feel happy and gives you a representativity that you've never had before and to have moments where you can relate is incredible! so please, if you are going to make negative comments or complaints that may make people uncomfortable, please use "neg" or "discourse" tags and don't do that on reblogs that have nothing related to negativity or stuff like that, always keep in mind to be respectful, please, it's not too much to ask 🙂

[iintervallum]

some tma and tmagp meta and thoughts, disclaimer that this does contain some more negative critique

i think i realized why i still think about tma despite not actually fully loving the podcast. i like a lot of the lore and the workings of the avatars and the meta narrative around power structures,and many of the themes it discusses and disects through the subtext are intriguing, it has a very interesting tapestry of the inner workings of it's universe

but the actual way the podcast tells it was, at some points, repetitive and a little bit boring, i would have to relisten sometimes to episodes just to remember what was happening even though i was listening to a lot of it in the same time span and should have remembered, i havent felt as much of a need to revist the story as i have with other audio dramas ive listened to. I do want to say that i genuinely enjoy tma its just not something that ive latched onto as i have with other shows.

side tangent -> and seeing how volatile the fandom was in its peak i don't want to be involved further lol. I'm someone who has a bad habit of looking at discourse and critical tags because i like fandom history and I'm nosy, and seeing posts about jmart being "too fluffy" and the ending of tma having "no impact" and how they were "pandering" right next to posts about how "traumatically tragic" the ending was and how jmart was "extremely toxic" and they made them "do terrible things how dare they" was really funny. there were legitimate critiques of things there as well but the divisive nature of s5 is amusing to me as an outsider that came in late additionally some stuff with how fandom centers whiteness and white narratives, as nice as it that there is a widely adopted fanon of Jon as a person of colour, specially a brown asian man, i think the fandom still didn't really decenter whiteness at all, like sure you're solving the sexy man problem by making them non white but have you done...any thinking into the deeper implications of it? i have, being south asian myself makes it impossible not to. tangent over

I guess some aspects did not feel as tight as they could have been, with some themes the show deals with being hits and misses. i think the structure and the statement format as iconic as it is, restricted the way the story could be told, if i'm making sense? (and the decision to go with more realisitc and more grounded horror that intersected with real world issues are a part of said hits and misses from my perspective, some things i feel didnt fully work from a narrative standpoint but thats a subjective thing that i wont get into)

thats why i'm enjoying tmagp a little more, i think they took what worked well with tma and expanded on it with a fuller cast from the offset,the inclusion of the non statement parts that tma had (the interpersonal relationships and conflicts) and intergrated it without fully losing what makes tma intriguing to listen to. tmagp so far seems to balance the cases and the character interactions well. it doesnt feel like we're just going with the same format and its not too unfamilar either.

like one thing i'm looking forward to is the guest writers, specifically a few of them since ive listened to their work and loved them, and it will be really interesting to see how their writing would work within the tma universe.

and an aspect which makes tmagp intresting as well is if you have proior knowledge of the tma universe, we know much more than the characters, and have our own perceptions of what is going to happen to them based on our previous understanding of the series and the events that transpired. we're just waiting for the characters to catch onto what we know, and all the foreboding tragedy and devastation that will come with it.

some part of me wonders, if this season will be about how tragedies like the universe ending in the way it did in s5 are unavoidable, how even in an alternate universe where the circumstances are different the same things are bound to happen again. no matter what its inevitable, the mark of what transpired cannot ever be reversed,

like there are parallels to be had with how jon was ultimately pulled into everything against his will and had not that much agency in what happened to him, even if he did make the decision to use the power he had(for both good and bad reasons), it was forced onto him in the first place. meanwhile we have sam who is desperate for a connection to something greater, as a part of his self worth is tied to being chosen, even if we know that being chosen is not what it seems, hes willing to endanger himself if it means finding out more with his curiousity overpowering the risk factor. i wonder if the outcome of it all will be the same because that would be very very interesting.

either way the tighter nature of tmagp seems to work well for it and i hope that the momentum continues till it's conclusion, and even if not I had a decent time with it so it still would have been worth it

[utilitycaster]

I've also seen people say (on twitter of course lol) that Matt interjected deliberately and pointedly after Orym's family question which also feels a little wild to me, like there are "sides" between the cast and he's taken one. I don't think I've ever seen how far people in this fandom can run with something, so I'm surprised even though I shouldn't be. The Bor'dor discourse still also bothers me because in-game Laudna was simply not aware of the nod or anything else but what she wanted to do.

Hey anon,

I agree entirely, that this is conspiracy-level thinking. But ultimately I think what's more important is that if the ship I'd claimed to have desperately wanted for months became canon, and when the most recent episode that aired had the two characters in this ship canonically dancing together and one putting their head in the other's lap, I still found myself spending far more time talking about what a guy who isn't even attracted to either of the characters involved did ten episodes ago? I think I'd simply delete my account and walk into the woods never to return.

Like truly, I wonder, what is it? Is it that Imogen still hates Pate? Is it disorientation from the constant whiplashing between opinions depending on which character they've decided to hate this week, of which the rapid flip from "Bells Hells has a tight Found Family Bond, you guys are just haters" to "Bells Hells is on the VERGE of a BLOW-UP" is only the latest example? Is it because not only did Laudna say nothing about the Turn Undead from two weeks ago, but asked FCG specifically to Scry on Delilah and even seemed amenable to them asking the Changebringer for help on this matter? Is it because in that aforementioned dance, instead of doing anything to return Imogen's affections, Laudna just wandered off to make small talk with someone else? Is it because the cast cheered harder for Cyrillia/Novos? Is it because Imogen and Laudna didn't even bother to take watch together on Slival? Is it because nearly every opportunity onscreen seems like a lost one and the fans are running out of people to blame? Is it because the latest 4-Sided dive made it clear that there's been no planning, no intent, no change, and six episodes later still no out of episode conversation, and the Rose City Comic-Con Panel has no new information and is giving "contractually obligated"? Is it because more so than the ship, the people wanted it to be the Popular Ship, and it's not, because there's no connective tissue, none of the little moments that made up the magic of every past canon relationship on the show, just an accommodating blank canvas to play back whatever one is projecting onto it? Is it because if they keep blaming Orym, and FCG, and Ashton, and coins, and dice, and the DM, and the other fans, and every one else, they don't have to admit that they would rather be pining for the actually good slow-burn they dreamed of, instead of experiencing a Pyrrhic victory if ever there was one?

This isn't about Bor'Dor, or Orym, and it's barely about Laudna. Unless a chemistry that has not yet existed comes into being in the next episode, they'll either post some other conspiracy theories about an episode from three months ago, or they'll make up some other bullshit Us Vs Them thing to get mad about that Laudna will again fail to validate for them in game, and then rinse and repeat on this miserable treadmill of their own making.

[shizucheese]

I'm going to use some discourse (?) I've been seeing on my feed as a bouncing-off point for some thoughts and theories I have as of TMAGP 8.

So like...I know a lot of people who are arguing about Gerry being goth vs. not goth in TMAGP are basing it off of the idea that he's happy.

"This Gerry isn't goth because he's happy and not traumatized!"

"You don't need to be traumatized to be goth, you can be happy and have lived a good life and still be goth!"

Um...guys? How often does it turn out that the most cheerful people are the ones hurting most?

Gerard Keaye is living with Gertrude Robinson and calling her "GG", and she's calling him her grandson.

Let me say that again:

Gerard Keay, descendent of Friend-of-Jonah Magnus (and finder of books that eventually were stolen by Jonah that may or may not have eventually became what we now know as Leitners) Albrect von Closen, lives with Gertrude Robinson, whose TMA counterpart was the head archivist of the Magnust Institute, and the Archivist, Avatar of the Eye. And calls her "GG." And she calls him her grandson.

Do you seriously believe for even a second that he was telling the truth about not having had much experience or remembering much about the Magnus Institute?

Do you honestly think for a second that those two are actually grandmother and grandson, even by adoption, and that this isn't just a cover? (Didn't they pull this same shit/ let people assume they were related in TMA, too?)

Like here I am smacking myself because I missed the very obvious fact that "there were no survivors"--in reference to the fire at the Magnus Institute--1) may not even be true for all we know (this is the fucking Magnus Institute, ffs), and 2) even if it is true, only means that nobody who was in the building at the time of the fire survived; it does not mean that everybody who worked for the Institute died.

So here's what I'm thinking: Gerry was absolutely part of the Gifted Kids program. Gertrude was an employee at the Institute. Maybe she was directly involved with the Gifted Kids program, or maybe she was Head Archivist again, but somehow had some involvement, even just tangentially, with the Gifted Kids program, or via some other circumstances ended up getting to know Gerry. Or maybe Gerry ending up with her was just pure dumb luck on his part.

Maybe she and Gerry survived the fire (maybe they were two of the very few, or were the only survivors?) And Gertrude took Gerry in after the fact.

Or maybe the Gifted Kids Program was like....exactly the kind of Bad News (tm) that I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking it was, and Gertrude had enough of a conscious that she grabbed Gerry and fucking ran, and so they weren't even there when the fire happened?

Or, wait, like....

What if the fire was a smokescreen to distract from her grabbing Gerry and running, or was to cover up any evidence of their existence or something so they could go into hiding?

What if Gerry isn't Gertrude's only "grandkid"?

The timeline absolutely does not line up for her to have been one of Gertrude's "grandkids," I'm acknowledging this here and now, because by 1999, when the fire happened, Agnes should have been in her 40's. But we also don't know how different the timeline is in the TMAGP universe or how long the Magnus Institute might have been running this "Gifted Kid Program", or what it involved, or what they would have considered "Gifted" in the context of what they were all about. So like...what if?

And if that's the case, who else might be Gertrude's "grandchildren" that we might recognize?

[windvexer]

As a person who has grown up with folk magic and been very interested in witchcraft since as long as I can remember, I’ve always struggled with the aspect of “feeling” magical or feeling energies. I’ve had no problem absorbing the knowledge of witchcraft, what plants and crystal properties are, what to use when and why, but when it actually comes down to performing a ritual or spell, even though I know what ingredients I am reaching for, I don’t feel the “energies” of what I am working with. It mostly feels like arts and crafts that affect the things outside of myself. Im not particularly in tune with the vibes of the rosemary plant on my windowsill or the vibrational tendencies of the quartz crystal next to my bed. And because of this, I feel very alienated from a lot of discourse of witchcraft where a lot of people talk about feeling the lay-lines or magical currents running through the world.

I feel like a dungeons and dragons wizard class who’s jealous of the sorcerer class, cause they were just “born” with it. (If the reference holds any weight)

Hi, Anon. Thanks for sharing.

You didn't ask for advice or anything but maybe some commiseration will do?

I don't feel lay lines or magical currents in the world, either. I am also wizard class (well wait, maybe warlock?) and while I can now "feel the vibes," it didn't come naturally to me. It was a skill I had to learn over years, which involved huge amounts of practice. I worked so hard at it that in the present day I really can't imagine going back to something so intensive.

Even in the present day, "feeling the vibes" is not an automatic, always-on experience. I have to intentionally tune in, and depending on the kind of day I'm having, I still might only get faint whispers. Or, nothing. I recently had a Working experience where I couldn't connect to anything even after I applied concerted effort.

And now that I'm not doing the equivalent of psychism bodybuilding, if I want to strongly tune in for any appreciable length of time, I have to engage in witchcraft that assists with "parting the veil." If I go any significant amount of time without practice it takes a lot of work to get this "muscle" back to a serviceable state.

So maybe there are cool people who are in tune with the vibes 24/7 or who were born with that ability but it's definitely not all of us out here. I don't even know how I could function like that, tbh. I've heard stories from people who are "always on" and from what I've heard, it's not a way you'd choose to be.

On the other hand you're also a success story for people who haven't figured out spellwork yet and are worried they'll never be able to do anything because they can't feel anything. So I appreciate you sharing!

And best of luck for everything that comes next.