#The Discourse™

[beardedmrbean]

[lunarriviera]

alright [rolls up sleeves] so i'm not afraid of top/bottom discourse, it scares me about as much as a flying clam. go ahead, use clichéd gender/sexuality preference terms! LET'S DO THIS SHIT Y'ALL.

BRING IT ON, I AM NOT AFRAID, DO YOUR WORST TUMBLR

[jam-n-jay]

I was basically completely unplugged from Tumblr for the better part of last week (best decision I've yet made) and now that I've come back I've had to repay that debt by spending 18 hours in the discourse mines

[azatas]

"we need more complex female characters" you couldn't even handle her

[tesco-finest-aromantics]

i feel like the queer community lost when we started policing labels and making sure everyone used the Correct™ labels instead of letting a person decide what feels right for them

[jingerpi]

I think the thing with Linux is it is more difficult, but a lot of that comes from it being different more so than innately harder. Windows is not a magical operating system that we're all born with innate knowledge of, we grow up learning it and getting used to it's quirks, so much so that they begin to disappear and we forgot we had to learn them in the first place. Linux might require "more" knowledge, but it's knowledge that is absolutely learnable if you're willing to go back to the headspace of being a kid again and trying to figure out how stuff works. it's okay to not know how to do everything immediately, it doesn't mean you're stupid or doing something wrong.

In response to seeing calls to switch to Linux I've seen a lot of people cry that it's too complicated and we can't expect people to all jump ship on windows/mac, and I get it, I really do, but so much of it is an experience problem, a problem of community knowledge, more so than it is an actual problem with Linux itself. at this point Windows is tradition and it's so engrained in people it's hard to switch. and that's not a moral judgement! it is hard! I'm not someone who pretends Linux is secretly super easy and everyone and their mother should use it. but... i do think we should recognize why it's hard, and not pretend it's impossible to overcome that difficulty for the sake of more independence in our lives

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

not spop-related but i can't post this on my main blog so.

i do find it funny how most of the fan depictions of belos were far more interesting and detailed than s3 belos. i've seen fanart and fanfics of him where he's a complex villain struggling with religious guilt and then the canon is just like.. lmao yeah he's pure evil. kill him.

[edennill]

If Silm characters had Tumblr blogs (Years of the Trees):

Galadriel:

url: flowers-glade

pfp: probably a cat picture

blog title: have a voice and won't hesitate to use it

bio: 240s * mixed heritage (all three<3) * disrespect any and I am not liable for the consequences * anti-fëanorian * involved in politics to a reasonable extent

blog is a mix of aesthetic/poetry/literary analysis, strongly-voiced political views (no, she's not 'reasonably' involved), and personal posts that sound a lot like bragging tbh

Maedhros:

url: 12russandol

pfp: a picrew

blog title: Even scholars have their doubts, even painters have their missteps

bio: eldest brother of seven • yes, my father's Fëanor • probably won't reply to any asks about family matters • busy existing

posts like once a month on a very varied array of subjects. always polite

Caranthir:

url: you-are-the-blood-in-my-veins

pfp: something with a dark background

blog title: I just f**ing hate this world

bio: You're not going to like me, but maybe you'll stay to watch the trainwreck

very emo about it, song lyrics and edits, cultivates a deliberately edgy persona (is not really like this irl). steers clear of politics

Finrod:

url: manifestations-sevenfold-daffodil (bastardisation of some hyper-complex philosophical term + something random added on for good measure; if you ask him about the meaning he won't shut up)

pfp: cartoonish snake on a green background with yellow flowers (suspicious similarity to the arafinwean badge)

blog title: Edginess kills

bio: We could also just get on well with eachother :)

posts once a few days, reblogs anything that catches his eye. has contributed to various heritage posts though he isn't tumblr famous, has the epitome of a tumblr sense of humour. rarely makes original posts that aren't about complex philosophical questions.

Bonus - Fëanor:

has no consistent url because he gets banned every two months and has to make a new blog. is a troll. gets into a vicious fight with galadriel every week, neither knowing it's the other. very occasionally posts something more wholesome about his family or craft, but it's rare in comparison.

[nervousmonolith]

You don't have to answer this and if you want you can just delete it but can someone please explain to me what's going on with twitch rivals sapnap and this couriway guy?? What Happened??? After everything that happened why is sapnap even allowed in these events? Who invited him?? And what did he do that caused couriway to react like that? Who even is couriway??? After sapnap started sucking kick's balls I dropped him and haven't really been keeping up with the guy so idk anything man.

ok so couriway is a wr Minecraft holder, very good at the game good dude

in twitch rivals the final game was bugged and the points were fucked (30ppl were gonna be eliminated and theres 100k on the line) so everyone in the twitch rivals discord got mad

Sapnap is spamming useless shit in the discord chat while ppl were trying to figure out solutions

couri tells him to stfu here

sapnap then replies "who r u"

sapnap on stream proceeds to talk shit about couriway, feinberg & fulham then say "is couriway homophobic because he didn't like me saying i want skeppys cum in my mouth" (which.???)

then couriway says this in twitch chat

idk why sapnap was even invited considering its a pg13 event and he was playing dmca music down the mic💀

[imhereformysciencefriends]

[chainrave]

you know roxas is a CHILD right? he is physically 14 years old and mentally 1 years old. how can you justify shipping him with lea-axel without outright admitting you are pro pedophilia?

usually i ignore dumb bullshit but 1 year old roxas made me laugh so here i made this for you at work instead and got paid for it

[act-more-like-a-dog-sirius]

HP Rants: Things Fandom Gets WRONG

Remus Lupin’s Scars

Or more accurately, his lack of them

Alright kiddos I got a salty HP take and y’all are not gonna like it.

It is basically universal in any fandom depiction of Remus Lupin, whether in fic or art, that he has extensive facial scarring. this is another one of the movies-making-people-think-things-are-canon-that-really-aren’t-canon. the movies are shit. the movies lie. also.

it’s not physically possible.

y’all really never seen the anatomy of a wolf or even a dog?? they? can’t? physically? scratch? their? faces? unless? they? sit? down? on? their? bums? and? twist? around? all? awkwardly? to? use? their? hind? leg? but? even if that was what a rabid werewolf would do… that position/angle would in no way generate enough force to create actual cuts.

and like. most importantly, if Remus was covered in scars, don’t you think harry would have, i don’t know, mentioned/noticed/referred to it at least once??? kid’s visually observant (look I’m not talking emotionally, my man can be fucking clueless, but he paid attention to visual details) he always noticed people’s physical features and appearances. and the only visual/physical attributes ever associated with Lupin were ‘prematurely lined/aged face,’ and ‘[prematurely] graying hair’ ‘shabby’ [‘had an air of shabbiness about him’] he was often ‘worn’/‘wan’ ‘drawn’ [‘thin face’] and ‘tired’ or ‘pale’ and ‘ill-looking’ but never, not. one. singe. time. was he ever noted as having any scars.

NOT A SINGLE FUCKING TIME.

and harry notices those kinds of things. read any book 7 description of Bill. read any description ever of Moody. if remus had scars that could be seen, harry would have said so.

also, if he was so extensively scarred as fanon just looves to make him be, by the time we meet him in canon, he would have been through over 28 years worth of transformations (a very minimum of 336, with the 144 most recent being without the marauders to keep him from hurting himself as a wolf). and most likely he didn’t have ready access to the Wolf’s Bane potion as he was not actually able to brew it for himself—which he fucking said flat out. so. yeah. he would have been even more scarred than mad-eye moody if the whole transformations ==> facial scars thing was true.

This is the actual canon description of Remus John Lupin.

“The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of Wizard’s robes that had been darned in several places. He looked I’ll and exhausted.Though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with grey.” “Professor Lupin’s pallid profile” “illuminated his tired grey face but his eyes looked alert and wary”

also. let’s be real here. werewolf bites are cursed wounds (which is why the scarring from them does not heal). you know what’s not cursed wounds? werewolf scratches. so it is not physically fucking possible for Remus to have cursed werewolf bite wounds on his face. because you cannot bite your own fucking face. and magic easily and seamlessly heals normal cuts and scratches and non cursed wounds. without scarring. so sure, even if he scratched his face with his werewolfy claws, they’re not cursed wounds, so they would have been magically healed as such. same goes for any other injuries he got as a wolf. any broken bones, or scratches not from his claws. they all would have been magically healed and wouldn’t leave any scars.

and i just honestly don’t think that a werewolfs cursed bite mark wounds would be cursed on itself. like. it’s already a werewolf. it’s not gonna become any more werewolf. i don’t know. i just don’t think that any wounds from a werewolf biting itself would scar. it just doesn’t really make sense. plus again, we return to canon.

remus has no visible scars.

sure maybe. maybe. he is absolutely covered in scars on the parts of his body that aren’t covered by clothing or robes. but definitely not his hands or forearms. because canonically there is no mention of him having scars, and harry has seen his hands and forearms (when he just casually rolled up his sleeves so he could murder his former best friend, as one does nbd).

actually you know what. scratch all that. there is canonical evidence. WEREWOLVES ARE ONLY DANGEROUS TO HUMANS. once he became a werewolf, remus was no longer a human. so. any bites or wounds he gave himself while he was transformed were just normal non-cursed wounds. that could be fixed by magic and wouldn’t leave scars. so yeah. there’s my proof.

TLDR: my take is that remus has bad scars from his initial bite from greyback, but doesn’t have any scars from his own werewolf ass biting himself

[aruanimess]

ping-ponging wildly between Armin has no ass and Armin has some nice tight buns for Annie to squeeze and/or bite

[beevean]

A theory I've read more than once is that this one frame of Lenore entering Hector's cell for the second time is proof that she is not actually enjoying what she has to do:

The wiki describes it as such: "Lenore has a sad expression when entering the dungeon to visit Hector the second time."

Also this, from a comment I found:

Like for example when she goes to meet Hector the second time, you can see sadness on her face when she is walking alone in the dungeon, but as soon as she approaches Hector she puts on a smile. I.e. may be she already knew she had to use the ring at that point and felt bad about it but didn't want Hector to realize that. A lot of such small animation details really provide a glimpse into what the explicit writing was lacking.

(edit: turns out that they were the same person)

Okay.

First things first: I doubt she has the ring in mind already. It's hard to tell because Lenore pulls it out of her ass with zero foreshadowing whatsoever, but with the way it was framed, the ring was likely a direct response to Striga's idea of buying mercenaries to make Hector unnecessary, which comes later into the story: Lenore even uses the information she eavesdropped from Striga as a way to lie to Hector about her loyalty to the sisters. In theory it makes sense, because Hector needs to be reliable to be allowed to live, but the ring is... a very poor solution the more you think about it, even if you ignore how S4 neutered it, because it only addresses one of the many logistic problems that come with forcing Hector to make an army of Night Creatures, and it's not the dead bodies/living livestock paradox. And going with the story, it's unlikely Lenore was already thinking of raping the ring into Hector: why would the sisters be amazed at her plan if they were the ones suggesting her to speed up things? And if Lenore came up with it, why would she be remorseful at her own idea? Did she have so little faith in her own manipulating skills that she already felt that she had no choice but to use "brute force", after one understandable incident? Then why even bother interrogating him to understand his motivations and needs? Just skip straight to the sexual molestation to make him believe she likes him. As I pointed out, that interrogation was not for the sake of painting herself as particularly caring: she was collecting intel, intel that she wouldn't need if her plan was already tricking Hector into slavery via a magic ring.

Second: that expression honestly doesn't look sad to me. I would be willing to give the interpretation some credit, because she's looking downwards which can be a sign of sadness, but after that one frame, she switches to this expression:

Now she looks mildly pissy, like the idea of talking to Hector is just soooooo annoying, ugh. She even has the sassy cocked eyebrow lmao.

Of course that can't be it, so I propose the most obvious interpretation: she's serious and deep in thought. That is because their first encounter ended up disastrously: Hector assaulted Lenore with the intent of threatening her, which pissed her off, and she assaulted Hector by beating him to an inch of his life, which is not the best way to win a pet's trust. So she's most likely thinking the best way to approach him again.

And I'll even praise a small detail: the first time Lenore fed Hector, she made him crawl towards her to eat from her hand. The second time, however, she tosses an apple to his feet. Both gestures are demeaning, but after that incident she seems to be more cautious towards him, and being more careful into manipulating him. I'm honestly surprised that her final solution is stupid as fuck when she can be intelligent when she wants to. real reason she's hector's soulmate: both of them have braincells like christmas tree lights :V

Third: oh, do you want to talk about explicit writing?

These are not freeze frame bonuses. The scene lingers on this expression on Lenore's face as Hector is screaming in pain over the ring she put on him.

So, you're willing to believe Lenore didn't want to use the ring but felt forced to because in one frame she has an expression that mildly looks displeased... but somehow you ignore this blatantly sadistic reaction? This screams, at the very least, "haha, sucker, I've won"; but add to this that Hector is visibly and audibly in pain, shocked and scared at the curse overtaking his body during a vulnerable moment...

This ties well with how she beat Hector to a pulp not just out of self-defense, but because she wanted to feel strong and powerful when surrounded by people who underestimate her - the writing might imply that she was offended that Hector too saw her as vulnerable and stupid, but she was explicitly laughing and mocking him while showing off her strength (a strength she doesn't display when, say, Isaac enters her cage: he easily intimidates her). You might read the implication that Lenore spoke about Hector so disgustingly to the sisters to be taken seriously as a vampire mistress and didn't actually want to dehumanize him, but explicitly, even ignoring the forced pet play that showed she had fun treating him like a dog, she reduced him to a "problem to be solved" when complaining about her woes, and when she could have apologized or explained herself she minimized or doubled down on the harm she caused, never once expressing any remorse or doing anything worthwile to make up for it (like, for example, talking about the ring and how it's a shame Hector is only there because he has no choice because she feels they'd be good friends without it: that would imply guilt).

In fact, going back to the moment when Lenore decides to use the ring, it is far more likely that it was in response to this part of the conversation Lenore has eavesdropped:

Striga: We can possibly push east as far as Lake Balaton before I run out of soldiers, but that exposes our Western border. Morana: Sleep. Striga: We can't do it without Lenore turning the forgemaster, and she's just taking him out for fucking walkies. Morana: She will land him. Striga: It's going to have to be soon.

Considering that it's shown that Lenore highly resents being seen as a stupid animal lover, it's far easier to think that this is when she got pissy and decided to use a quicker method, even if it destroyed all the hard manipulation work she had done.

One frame might paint her as a reluctant villain only trying to make everyone happy and being stuck between a rock and a hard place, but multiple scenes paint her as a vile bully and abuser who enjoys feeling in power and control, whether she uses kindness or harm to achieve her goal.

I'm sorry, subtext can absolutely enrich the understanding of a story or character, but not when it actively contradicts the text.

Do you want my personal example? I'll play the same game of overanalyzing expressions. When Isaac attacks the castle, Lenore goes to rescue Hector first thing, instead of checking on Carmilla. For one moment, she even looks torn on where to go:

I will praise this moment: this shows her concern for him quite nicely and that she believes his safety is the first priority, without having to spell it out - no declataration of love, no "you're too important to me", the action speaks for itself. However, there is also her reaction when Hector severs his finger to get rid of the ring, after he explains that "command and control flows through [him] to Lenore here and to her friends":

It could be simple disgust because, well, there's a severed finger and pools of blood lying near her. But I also see what the commenter saw in that frame in S3: sadness. Defeat. Lenore has lost control of the Night Creatures. She can't do anything to protect Carmilla and the castle. And she has lost control of Hector, who has gone behind her back and is protecting her at the expense of her sisters and home: he may chose to stay with her, but he also gave Isaac all the tools he needs to destroy her life. She's powerless. Everything she has worked for went up in smokes and was pointless. Which, as it was shown and told, greatly bothers her. (this is also why I believe her suicide makes sense for her state of being, an opinion apparently not shared by her fans)

I see all of this encapsulated into that expression that mixes disgust, concern and quiet, horrified realization: and it's also fully backed up by the context.

This leads to the message I keep insisting on and which is something that more people need to learn, and the reason I keep eviscerating this character because the writing and the fandom piss me off something fierce: abusers can care about you. They can care about your safety and well being, they can want what (they think) it's best for you. What makes them abusers is that they place more importance on their own need of control. Lenore wanting to save Hector because she pitied him, has grown close to him and eventually finds in him someone who listens to her doesn't at all erase in the slightest all the harm she has caused him: which, I reiterate, includes lying to him and taking advantage of his feelings and need for love to trick him into sex with the objective of placing a slave ring on him, and enjoying his suffering when she won - and when Hector called her out on this, her response was "SHUSH, YOU WERE HAVING FUN".

At the end of the day, she has never stopped behaving like a vampire, a creature whose definition of love is "acting to keep something with you for as long as you can". Even in her most wholesome scenes, like this one or the one where she pleads for more of Carmilla's patience, it's easy to see at the core of it all a need to control the situation and people involved, and reluctance to admit her needless cruelty. This is nuance, not "she's actually good deep down, pls ignore all the sexual abuse because it was for Hector's own good 🥺".

On one hand, it's true that when you do character analyses, you will always be biased, because you come in with your ideas and preconceptions. I am biased too, of course, you can tell. On the other, it's dishonest to cling only onto the most convenient hidden details to look like you have fully understood the text, when you dismiss the most obvious ones that are so obvious you have to actively try to.

[bythesigninthescarletprison]

Also, on the topic of Mr. White Boy of the Year, I can only imagine that calling him any variant of "boy", even endearingly, is a big fat no. Like I can see him even avoiding the term boyfriend because it grosses him out a little bit.