#about whatever

[mlarayoukai]

Obviously not every youtube video has to be high effort 4 hour documentaries, I love trashys drama videos too, but having a personality as an online content creator (YouTubers and artists I follow) is part of the appeal to me. I know people get pissy at the words "content creator" but idk the right words in the case fuck off

[narcissa-black-supermacy]

there IS a bias against sirius in the marauders fandom, which ppl don't talk about because like u can't admit to disliking him PUBLICLY but which comes out in a lot of ways and i think it's because he's the character whose flaws are pointed out the most in the narrative and who is the most transparently morally grey and in a fandom centered around OC's which it's easy to sanitize (regulus can't have any flaws if he has three lines dedicated to him), it leads to a lot of shitty takes (cont)

(cont, part ii re: sirius) I have noticed that people who HATE Snape and LOVE regulus nearly always have terrible characterizations of sirius because it's emblematic of this fandom's inability to accept characters who don't easily fit into uwu soft boi boxes and instead have real, actual flaws.

I think there's two separate issues to tackle here in what you mention: one is this fandom's inability to stomach actual morally grey characters that have done too many bad things to be easily forgivable without raising the question of morality, but too many good things to just be written off as evil (Snape, Regulus, Barty Crouch Jr, Narcissa etc).

((I don't want to talk about it here because if I do this post will never end, but if anyone wants to hear my thoughts on it (why?) just send me a separate ask about it. Let's talk about Sirius instead --))

The other issue is the bias against Sirius (which I don't think is related to the previous one, at least not directly) - which honestly confuses the hell out of me the more I talk about it, because I absolutely can not put my finger on where it's coming from.

The worst thing is that it comes from people who claim/think they like him, like in WolfStar - there is an obvious and very clear bias against Sirius in so many WolfStar fics (@ padfootastic has several brilliant posts where she talks about it).

When I see anti-Sirius hate from, say, Snape fans who hate the Marauders - it does not surprise me. It's usually irrational and they don't claim to like him to begin with, so it does not bother me. It's just your typical fandom character hate. I get that.

What I don't understand is when you go to someone's blog, who genuinely believes they like Sirius, and then you read their content (which is usually wolfstar, just bc it happens to be the most popular Sirius ship) and it's just.. Sirius fucking up over and over again and apologising to everyone and everybody else (James, Remus, even fucking Regulus) being just perfect and untouchable and it's like... do any of yall actually like Sirius or is he just a prop to make the characters you actually like come off better?

me and Niki talked about it the other day - how in post-Azkaban wolfstar fics it's always Sirius apologising to Remus over and over for thinking he's a spy while Remus believing the Order that Sirius is the traitor and never doing anything to find out the truth or help him is just brushed under the carpet because "oh but all his friends were dead he was so sad!"; wait, and Sirius wasnt? Sirius lost the only family he ever had, which was James.

I don't think it stems from his flaws being pointed out the most, though. Because there's so many characters who are presented in a much more negative light (in the actual canon people tend to forget), which the fandom absolutely adores (including Remus, Snape, Draco and Regulus themselves, each in their own way).

I think, overall, Sirius is a character whose base is specifically made in a way that's easy to hate. He is rich, pureblooded, famous, he is handsome, he is confident and loud, popular, smart, charismatic, good at everything he does, young Sirius is the typical stereotype of a popular high school jock bully, who is usually the unlikeable anti-hero-- but, and here's the twist-- instead, Sirius is kind, Sirius is loyal, Sirius is selfless, Sirius is good.

(Sirius makes everyone around him better - he makes James less hypocritical and more self aware, he makes Remus more open and less self absorbed, he makes Regulus kinder; Sirius is kind, he is giving, in a way it's his response to the trauma he's been through, he responds to it by being kind, and kind, and giving, and selfless)

He has the data to be unlikeable, but he actually isn't, which is where, if I had to take a guess, I would say the confusion people are feeling is coming from. They don't know how to stomach him. They don't know how to write him. Because if you write him the way he is, it makes everyone else seem worse all of a sudden, it brings out their negative traits (whether it's James, Remus, Regulus-) and we can't have that, right? So instead people go in the other direction and make him dramatic, make him annoying, make him selfish, make him all of the things Sirius actually isn't just to bring up the others.

Which is where we go back to the first point (which I see now that is related, now that we're talking about it) - people are afraid of this, because they've already sorted everyone by good and bad, and made it impossible for themselves to like flawed characters.

But there's nothing bad about a character being flawed - the most frequent reason over which I drop fics mid-reading is when one of the main characters is not flawed enough. Lily and Remus are so often written as Mary Sues (Lily for lack of an actual personality, while Remus because his entire character arc is centered around being a werewolf, so we can't give him any other bad traits right? god forbid), James even in Jegulus fics sometimes lacks any personality whatsoever beyond being a good, lovable guy.

So people do everything upside down - they write real, complicated characters as bland and flawless, and then take someone like Sirius, who is so so good, who everyone adores, and drop EVERYBODY'S flaws on him because they don't know what to do with him.

I don't get it.

If someone can explain this phenomenon to me, please do.

[shallyne]

My sweet little cinnamon buns,

Send me asks. You don't have to be shy.

[skyward-floored]

I always hate asking, but does anyone wanna send asks or anything like that?

[mindmythorns]

hey tell me something about you on anon

[im-defalut]

Hey, to the people that follow me.

Do yall get annoyed by me posting everything at once whenever I'm online? would you like better if I used the queue?

[bahoreal]

obsessed with this

[candyskiez]

Y'all have gotta get more insane about platonic relationships like you are about romantic relationships. We need to get more annoying about them NOW. I need to see more meta and losing our minds over them. Get more annoying NOW. More than that. More than that also.

[funkbun]

go play bugsnax

[hell0mega]

people are drawing Steamboat Willie Mickey doing all this crazy shit and whatnot, but you could always do that. you can do that now, with current Mickey, just fine. it's fanart and it's legally protected. hell you could take Disney-drawn Mickey and put a caption about unions or whatever on it and it would still be protected under free speech and sometimes even parody law.

what is special about public domain is that you can SELL him. you could take a screenshot and sell it on a tshirt. you can use him to advertise your plumbing business. people have already uploaded and monetized the original film.

you could always have Mickey say what you want, but now you can profit off it.

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[rabbiteclair]

i have a brain problem that prevents me from understanding people who need so much specifically newly-released TV shows that they're upset by the prospect of going a few months without new ones being produced

like they could stop making video games and books today and I wouldn't notice until sometime in 2026. honestly if they'd stop making new video games for a while that'd be kinda convenient. everyone take a break and let me catch up. I still haven't even played Persona 5.

[orcboxer]

those first couple weeks after escaping a time loop have gotta be disorienting as all fuck. all those little cues that used to tell you what's about to happen are now triggers that cause you to brace for something that isn't coming. you have to relearn the permanence of death -- hell, you have reacquaint yourself with the entire concept of finality altogether. everything keeps changing but it never changes back and you keep having to remind yourself that this is normal. "it won't reset anymore," you echo to yourself, over and over and over, like a broken record, like you're still trapped in a loop, like someone who escaped the time loop but was doomed to bring it into the future with them

[gravitycoill]

lil comic i’ve had in my head for a bit

[cardentist]

hey, so people need to be aware that youtube is now (randomly) holding basic features for ransom (such as being able to pin comments under your own videos) in exchange for Your State ID/Drivers License, or a 30 Second Video Of Your Face.

not to pull a "think of the children," but No Actually. I've been making videos as a hobby since 2015 (and I've had my channel since middle school), I was a minor when I started and I'm not sure I would have understood the kind of damage something a seemingly simple as a video of your face can do.

this is a Massive breach of privacy and over-reach on google's part No Matter What, but if they're going to randomly demand a state ID or license then they absolutely should not allow minors to be creators.

google having a stockpile of identifying information on teenagers is bad enough, but the Alternative of recording your face and handing it over to be filed away is Alarming considering it opens the gates for minors who Aren't old enough to have a license.

and yes, there is a third option, but it's intentionally obtuse. a long wait period (2 months), with no guarantee of access (unlike, say, the convenience of using your phone's cameras for either of the other two), with absolutely No elaboration on what the criteria is or how it's being measured.

it's the same psychological effect that mobile games rely on. offer a slow, unreliable solution with no payment to make the Paid instant gratification look more appealing (the "payment" in this case being You. you are the product being offered).

and it's Particularly a system that (I think intentionally) disadvantages people who don't treat their channels like a job. hobbyists or niche creators who don't create regularly enough or aren't popular enough to meet whatever Vague criteria needs to be met to pass.

markiplier would have no problem passing, your little brother might not be able to. and while Mark's name is already out there there's no reason why your little brother's should be too.

something like pinned comments may seem simple, you don't technically Need it. but it's a feature that's been available for years. most people don't look at descriptions anymore. so when there's relevant information that needs to be delivered then the pinned comment is usually the go to.

for my little channel that information is about the niche series I create for. guides on how to get into the series, sources on where to find the content At All (and reliably so). for other creators it can be used for things Much More Important.

Moreover, if we let them get away with cutting away "small" features and selling it back to you for the price of your privacy, then they Will creep further. they Will take more.

Note: I have an update to this post here: [Link]

[silver-decanter]

Send me asks until I'm sleepy enough?