#all over people who treated me like fucking garbage and literally USED me

[lightningfilledsaber]

I'm just so fucking glad to be alive

[mr-ribbit]

something fascinating to me about egg discourse is how often tme people Also joke about or question their friends potential to be trans, and it's literally never talked about like this.

my cis and tme nb friends routinely joke about celebrities or characters that have big "nonbinary energy" or who otherwise exhibit behavior we would associate with ourselves. i have tme friends and acquaintances who have approached me or my wife and straightforwardly said "something seems trans about you, have I asked for your pronouns recently?"

similar friends have even talked about other still-cis friends in our circle this way, or joked about "when are you going to transition like the rest of us?" or "yeah cis people are a minority in this group, just give it time" or "no wonder you have queer friends with how comfortable with being gnc you are" or etc etc examples like that

even the actual examples of people in my life that I can think of as being the most "invasive" or presumptive about gender have been tme people:

it was my cishet friends who outed me and my wife as trans to everyone at their wedding, including their boomer parents and hundreds of strangers, and called it "the most queer wedding party ever"

it was my tme nb friend who kept saying they could "always tell" her transfem cousin was trans before she came out, and then proceeded to randomly give us extremely personal details about her bottom surgery

it was my transmasc friend who refused to call me and my wife anything other than "little enby beans" after we met and introduced us with our full genders+sexuality labels to every single person one by one at a party

it was my transmasc nb friend who kept insisting my wife could "still be nonbinary" when she was first considering identifying as a trans woman instead, and it was THAT idea that actually slowed her down from making changes to her life that she wanted

it was my cis friends who approached me arm and arm and cornered my outside of a bathroom at a party right after I took a piss to suddenly ask me what my pronouns were because they "heard something" at the party

like, transfems deserve robust support against this trash so a lot of our defensive discourse has ofc been about how it IS okay for transfems to talk about eggs and be jokey about it and non-invasively approach others about being trans

but i swear to god none of these weird people have even stopped to make their discourse ABOUT anyone BUT transfems. it's so clearly targeted!!

no one has EVER approached *me* as a tme nb person and suggested i was pressuring gnc people with my egg jokes. never. nothing even remotely similar. i joke about other people being trans all the time and no one has ever treated me the way you all are treating transfems over this issue.

important note: my examples are all things I recall as being invasive and awkward, and I'm sharing them to make a point about how often rude behavior comes from the same tme people pointing fingers over this. but I still don't think any of them are worth the crucifixion people are treating transfem egg discourse with.

even when my friends were weird to me in the above examples, my reaction was either to confront them about it as friends who I trust to be able to communicate with, or to cut those individuals off after they proved not worth a relationship in the long run. at no time did I desire to make a call-out post or spread rumors about them or publicly declare all of their gender as a screeching menace to society.

my point here is that even when I do think about moments where others crossed a line, acting like this is a "issue trans women have" is blatantly transmisogynistic garbage that only exists to serve the woman-hating machine at the heart of our society. fucking cut it out

[ninyard]

Honestly honestly the most romantic moment of the entire series is when Neil talks about how he'd never gotten to travel for fun before and the Foxes are planning to take him to the mountains, and Kevin starts to protest that they can't go on vacation but stops because Andrew is holding a knife on him 😭🥺😩 like I don't know that's just just a sweet little moment to me, Andrew threatening Kevin if he takes this little chance for happiness from Neil

Uhhhh literally Andrew “I-don’t-care” Minyard is the most romantic of ALL the foxes. My line of work revolves around intimacy and from all my training and studying let me tell you that man is a master at his craft.

Andrew’s touch is beautiful and sacred; this thing he does not take easily, or give out kindly whatsoever. Yet with Neil it’s as if he can’t stop himself. We see it in how gently he tapes the garbage bags around Neil’s injuries, wordlessly, without being asked. THAT’S intimacy. How he holds his neck to inspect his eyes when he removes his contacts, how he hands Neil cigarettes without a request, how he doesn’t say a word while touching Kevin with the point of a blade because Neil deserves a fucking break. Sure, by technicalities, the shower scene from TKM is intimate by definition, but really it’s in the kiss he ghosts across Neil’s hip, in how he pats dry his broken skin afterwards. How can you look at him wordlessly dropping keys into Neil’s palms, and think, yeah there’s no way Andrew could be romantic. Is he soft, is he gentle, as a person? No. But his minuscule actions are, his unmentioned gestures are. You just have to look and find them.

TKM just has some of the most subtly beautiful examples of a different flavour of love and intimacy that is so unusual and heartwarming it’s insane. That shower scene drives me crazy when I think about how caring Andrew is in it. He came in with the tape and bags on his own volition, knowing Neil needed a shower and couldn’t do it unattended. How he didn’t take away Neil’s autonomy by assuming he couldn’t undress himself, instead waiting until he paused and couldn’t go any further before he started to help. How he drapes the blanket over Neil’s shoulders, again giving Neil a chance to struggle before wrapping it around him. They practically don’t speak to each other really in that chapter at all apart from a bit of flirting in the shower. Because they don’t need to, because Andrew knows how to love, how to be caring, how to wrap up the boy he almost lost in bubble wrap because if he loses him again, it won’t be pretty. He washes Neil’s hair! He covers his wounds! He treats him gently when that is possibly the last word that could ever be used to describe Andrew. I feel like that scene was in part of course him just looking after Neil who can use approximately two square inches of his entire body, but in another part proving how serious he is about Neil. Everything changes between the two of them then, suddenly their actions more relaxed than hungry, not yet a given but instead now just a want.

I don’t know. I can’t help but see so much intimacy and romance in subtleties and things you’d barely even notice, regardless of the people/the characters and their circumstances. I wouldn’t use the word sweet to describe Andrew at all, but the things he does for Neil? The way that he loves Neil? The absolutely fucking sweetest.

[arceespinkgun]

I think I've reached my last nerve with how TF fans treat Jazz on here and on AO3, and I feel the need to rant about it. Obligatory "not all Jazz fans" and "not all JazzProwl fans" disclaimer here... if this doesn't sound like it's describing the content you make or enjoy, then it's not. Honestly, I don't think this angry rant is going to convince anybody of anything, but I'm posting it because I want to make it clear that people see this and are aware it's racist.

Never let it be said that racism isn't thriving in the TF fandom on Tumblr and AO3, because so much Jazz fan content is the most blatantly racist shit. And it's nowhere near as bad on other sites that people here usually claim are more racist—I've never seen what I'm about to describe on r/transformers, for example. TF fans on here often claim to love Jazz so much and say he's one of the best, most unhateable TF characters along with Soundwave, but do they ACTUALLY love Jazz?

Tumblr and AO3 users when they see this great, heavily Black-coded hero: We love Jazz! Ooh, what if he was a slave? What if he was hyper-violent? What if he was a disruptive chaos gremlin? What if he was hypersexual? What if he was lazy and never did his work? What if he was a drug addict? What if he was a prostitute? What if he had an evil alter? What if he used to be/was secretly a Decepticon? What if he was a notorious criminal? What if he was literally some kind of bestial monster?

I've actually seen people on Tumblr asking if Jazz being a Decepticon or having an evil alter was ever canon. Well, let this be a PSA: none of this shit is fucking real! I've seen almost all the media Jazz is in, and none of this reflects how he's been portrayed, ever! Apparently people posting links and screenshots and GIFs showing what Jazz has actually been like in canon hasn't caused people to self-reflect, because this shit is still somehow super popular and even filtering doesn't screen even close to all of it! And I've seen in real-time people who are newer to the fandom getting tricked by all this racist fanon and then being drawn into it, thinking it reflects something when it doesn't! That's one of the things that bothers me most!

And then there's the other half of this, which is the immense popularity of JazzProwl. Putting aside how ridiculous it is that a ship between characters who haven't had a positive interaction in fifteen years is somehow the most popular ship in this fandom, half of all the Jazz content I see on sites like Tumblr also stars Prowl, as if Jazz isn't an arguably more prominent character with tons of unexplored stuff of his own going on. But that's the least of it. How the hell do I constantly see people uncritically post shit with this ship like Prowl trying to arrest or pull over a chaotic criminal Jazz? Or shooting at him? Or white savior, copaganda, anti-sex work garbage like Prowl as a cop rescuing prostitute/stripper Jazz from exploitative working conditions (I'm not making this shit up)? (Also, @ people who make content in which Prowl is Jazz's slave—I see you too, and you're not woke. You are still linking Black people to slavery as your first thought and then assuming it's subversive to flip the dynamic you'd expect to see. You're getting off on slavery and still including a Black-coded hero in your shit.)

Even the majority of the much milder content I see is still ridiculously OOC and plays into racist tropes in its own ways. Like how 90% of JazzProwl content shows a lazy, distractible Jazz endlessly trying to get Prowl to relax by disrupting his work or playing pranks or some shit. What media does that come from? Oh yeah, it comes from nowhere, because it's just old fanon that's been endlessly regurgitated by people who aren't realizing how making this up plays into offensive stereotypes about Black men and boys. Hey, if you people love this boring dynamic so much, maybe look at the canon relationships that are similar to it instead of forcing characters who don't fit it whatsoever into these roles without thinking about the implications!

And guess what? I've repeatedly seen literal proof that basically everyone who thinks they like this ship hasn't ever seen the characters interact in canon, too—every so often somebody on here will ask why JazzProwl is popular and ask for fans to share the canon media that made them ship it... and inevitably nobody can share anything, which is hilarious every time. Sometimes people will admit it's all fanon. In fact, the other day I saw a link to a fic from the very early 2000s that claims to be the super-influential, first JazzProwl fic ever making the rounds on Tumblr, and guess what? I looked at it and it was already super fucking racist, with Jazz being described as chaotic and not a hard worker and it had Prowl angrily shooting at him!!!

Jazz is one of my favorite characters and I'm so sick of this shit! Normally I love transformative works and new interpretations of characters, but in this case the fanon is so horrid and has always been horrid, so either try to examine Jazz in canon and portray him based on it, or be a fan of a different character! And fucking REMEMBER that this is a Black-coded hero, damn it! I saw a fic the other day that made me literally choke on my drink because it had Blaster (also a Black-coded hero) describing Jazz as a "spook!" THAT DOES NOT JUST MEAN SPY, THAT'S A RACIST, ANTI-BLACK SLUR!!! And this isn't even getting into how people in fic have Jazz talk! Jazz in all the media I've seen speaks very clearly and rarely has any kind of accent, but I constantly see white people attempting to write his dialogue phonetically in a way that feels straight out of Uncle Tom's Cabin. What the fuck is this?!

Also, petty, but the fans who make and consume this kind of content in my opinion don't then get to relentlessly criticize something like Earthspark, which has a cast and crew of people of color, by claiming it undermined its themes and is racist!

[thatdogmagic]

Remember this smug as hell post?

Well, keep it in mind.

I'm going to give some people here the benefit of the doubt and go into this post with the assumption that they genuinely don't know how fucking awful the Tumblr """"porn filters"""" are for images deemed - or reported by users as - 'NSFW.'

This is a rehash of everything I wrote out before, but it's going over all of it in one big post, because this issue with community labels moves well beyond debates over what is and isn't NSFW. There are doublestandards within doublestandards, and no way at all for artists and creators to know for sure if their post is going to get blacklisted.

We're not merely talking about the fact that these filters exist. We're talking about the fact that they are wildly inconsistent, and that reported images aren't seen initially by a person so much as an extremely stupid algorithm. That's why there's the option to say 'this ruling was made in error.'

There are literally no set guidelines for what qualifies as NSFW, and what doesn't, when it comes to nudity, and to what characters those guidelines actually apply. Staff rulings do not match up to one another. They legitimately do not make sense. You cannot divine how a ruling is going to end up, and it is infuriating that staff is jerking us around like this when the platform very clearly wanted artists like us back.

Not only that, they were, yes: that fucking smug about it. In case you forgot, that 'cheater' picture is talking about people who fled the NSFW ban specifically.

Examples follow:

Both of these images were caught by the filters, and then appealed. The first one was (visibly, as you can see) downgraded to Everyone, in spite of the character showing more secondary sex characteristics than the first (breast, visible nipple).

Similarly, a male character showing a pube fluff was left alone, even in spite of being cited in my appeal on the second image.

Last, there is, as noted, this readily available image of Felicia, that you can find by searching 'darkstalkers Felicia' on the search bar. Did people forget that she's bottomless, and those aren't panties?

Using fluff to cover junk is an age-old trick for characters like this. And it clearly isn't a problem with the male character.

Further, you can go through just about any archive and see a ton of images that were not subject to community labels, many of which are much more racy, and much more legitimately "NSFW."

So, yes, beyond the disgust of Tumblr staff treating any body like mine as filthy and inherently sexual in nature, this is also about a system that is arbitrary, penalizes artists for no good reason, and has deeply opaque standards. You never know when a piece of yours is going to run afoul of a bot, or what a staff ruling will ultimately be, or why the ruling is there in the first place.

And that's bullshit. If you think it's anything other than bullshit, you're being a contrarian ass. Especially since a forced label absolutely WILL kill your visibility, where compared to implementing the label yourself. It is punitive, it is punishing, and I will say again: it is completely unnecessary to jerk us around like this when the platform very clearly wanted us back.

And now that we are, we're back to being treated like garbage, constantly having to guess what the rules actually mean, how they apply, and to which sorts of bodies they apply, all while watching our viewcounts on contested posts eat ten kinds of shit.

tl;dr, do not talk to me about 'following rules' when the rules are so ill-defined as to be quite literally useless, to me, and to every other artist on this website.

[jweekgoji]

Yandere! Fern/Reader.

I'm not dead! Just busy with drawing and obsessing over AT this time. Hope you will forgive me for disappearing and appearing with new stuff after a few months. 😔 Warming up, so just small headcannons this time.

work includes: basically yandere themes, small mentions of kidnapping, manipulative behavior, Fern affected by grass demon.

Fern is literally the best yandere in Adventure Time, prove me wrong! His whole “You're going to live here. You're going to be fine” while trapping Finn in this dungeon, having only dirt and garbage as some sort of food... that's cute. He tried, at least. Babies' first kidnapper steps!

Fern is a complex person, he tries to act like Finn, being the hero everyone needs and loves, the grass boy probably would expect from you a lot of reassurance that he is doing the RIGHT thing, that he is doing ,, hero stuff,, better than Finn.

At some point, the more you assure him of his delusional thoughts, the more delusional he gets. He loves how you spoon-feed him with the idea, that you really prefer him to Finn. I think that that would lead him to be even more cruel towards Finn, constantly showing off in front of the other boy like, “Ha! Saw that?! They love ME more than YOU!”

If you show some sort of interest in Finn, whether it's just helping out each other, talking or... just Finn looking in your way, Fern would feel absolutely jealous. He probably has thoughts that «He is trying to steal them away from me" that are in his mind 24/7, Finn might state from time to time that he is not interested in you at all and probably won't 'steal ' you away from him.

Would he believe in it? No.

I believe that Fern is the type of yandere who would treat the person he adores with extra care, even admitting that you are his favorite among all the people he knows. He's actually pretty needy and clingy, as long as you give him the love and attention he needs, but If only you stopped giving it to him, be ready that he would not let it go easily.

His first reaction would be “Wait, what? I thought we were having a good time together” , holding your hand just to stop you from pulling away. The slight fear and sadness in his eyes are visible, what did he do wrong? He's the problem, right? How could he fix it?

Reassure him all you want; give him different versions of why you need to leave him for 2 minutes so badly; that won't work. In such a state, deep in his mind, he doesn't listen to your words. He groans in frustration, ripping grass from his own head, only for it to regenerate in seconds.

Fern fumes in anger, just yelling out everything that appears in his mind. Just angry thoughts about how unfair it is that he can't be enough for you to just leave everything and spend all your time with him. Of course, he is not enough, he is just a shadow of someone so popular and loved that he doesn't stand a chance to even try and win you over.

The only way to deal with his tantrums is just to wrap your arms around him tightly, give him a good squeeze, and lead him outside to enjoy a warm, sunny day. He would make a fuss and hiss like a stray cat, only to relax and lean against you. Maybe he does manipulate you this way, but it's hard to understand whether he actually knows what he is doing or just acts on his impulses. I think, at first, he really just expressed his frustration like that and stuff, but when he noticed the way it works against you, he would do it again and again.

This grass demon thing is really fucking up his mind badly. He would be the type of yandere that grows from someone really sweet and innocent, he still needs a lot of time to understand who he really is. Fern has the same memories as Finn, but still acts shy and nervous about the idea of dating or just being close with someone. But sadly, no matter how much Finn would try to teach him how to be a good hero and be his own person, Fern would not be afraid to use violence when it was needed.

[showtoonzfan]

Maturing is realizing that the Star Vs. The Forces of Evil writers treated Tom like utter shit and he deserved SO much better. Not only did Star herself treat Tom like shit WHEN they were dating, but the way the show bended over backwards for Starco to the point that they ruined everything and were willing to destroy characters around them was sad. Tom went from a guy you could laugh at or legit hate for how toxic and obsessive he was, to a character I genuinely loved to watch and cared about. I will never make the argument that Star should have bowed down to him or anything, but what I like about his character is that he actually changed. He put the effort in to improve himself, and started to respect Star more and more. I also liked how we saw him struggle, he wasn’t used to these things but he pushed though and became a better person.

Then it all had to fucking fall downhill after Star and Tom got back together again in season 3. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll defend Tomstar for my life because they had the perfect chemistry and a more intriguing relationship since Tom actually learned from his mistakes and changed, BUT it was the way the show treated him once they dated. Once they dated everyone and their mama who watched this show KNOWS that the obvious pinning and banter for Starco started to happen. The show would slowly start to push Tom to back and not include him, while introducing the idea that Marco is jealous of Tom secretly and is starting to fall for Star. Literally while the characters were dating, Star and Marco started to have more Uwu moments and no matter how many times Star said “I have a boyfriend”, it was her in the end who treated Tom like garbage. If you also watched the show you’ll know that a lot of people starting to really not like Star because her character basically turned into a HUGE annoying and hypocritical brat, and yeah, she did.

I think the scene that signifies just how bad she treated Tom was where he admitted to her that he knew she kissed Marco and SHE had the nerve to be mad at HIM, painting him out to be the bad guy and then storming off. And yes, I get that Marco is the one who kissed her and it took her by surprise, but the fact that she had the nerve to get pissed at him for not telling her is just….WOW. The same thing happened at a ball party, where Tom for once gave her space and let her do her own thing, and Star acted like a brat and got mad at him for not paying attention to her. And even at the end, Tom never put it against Star or Marco that they kissed when he was dating her, or even all the obvious banter they had. He was never mad at them because that’s how good of a guy he became. And the show just bullshitted him, made him break up with Star for absolutely no reason that would make sense within his character, just so Starco could happen. It was so clear that the writers did not give a shit about Tom and it legit hurts. They massacred my boy and did him dirty.

[usernamesarehard1]

Most of the time, I completely ignore Magisterium canon to the point where I forget it exists. But every now and then a reminder of it comes up and it hurts me so much inside.

I hate the canon so much. I am one of those autistic people where I am lower-empathy when it comes to real people, but have hyper-empathy for fictional characters. Especially certain fictional characters. Because some characters become a part of who I am. It's like I absorb them into my emotions and I care about them so so deeply.

And the Magisterium characters are that for me.

But the canon treats them like garbage! First of all, most of what happens is such lazy writing and doesn't even make logistical sense (ie, why is Call getting injured on the log his fault? Why would anyone believe Alma that Call is the EOD?? Why would the Magisterium TELL everyone Call was the EOD, etc????)

But secondly, shit just happens to the characters for no reason over and over and over again. They do nothing to deserve it. They don't do anything wrong! All they do is try to help and be good people and save the lives of other people. They, as CHILDREN, take on responsibility that the adults won't because they care more about people than the authority does, but yet shit just keeps happening to them!

And I hate it so damn much. It causes me such deep emotional pain. It's like what Bones did to Zack and it's hard for me to handle.

It's just so unfair! And it's not even a good story.

It's literally bad writing. First of all, it's lazy. Second of all, I feel like I can say it is like objectivley just bad writing.

I remember in my senior year of high school, we read Aristotle's break down on what makes a tragedy in literature, and it summed up exactly what was wrong with Magisterium so perfectly.

He said that in order for a tragedy to work, you need a character who is flawed but not evil, and relatable but not overly likeable. That way the audience feels bad for his ultimate demise, but also feels it's justified.

He said that if the character was just evil, we don't get sad, we instead are happy when he meets his demise. We feel that he has gotten his "just desserts"

And that when a character is too good, and hasn't done anything to deserve his downfall.....

We get angry.

That if a character is punished despite not doing anything wrong, we will want justice for that character.

THAT is the problem with Magisterium.

Call is told he is a "punishment" at 12 years old solely for distrusting an authority that killed his mother. He falls off a log that he was SUPPOSED to fall off of and gets punished for getting injured. Master Rufus automatically assumes Call would use an anti-scrying stone to cause trouble despite him not having caused any trouble at the Magisterium thus far (the only time he did anything that broke the rules that Rufus knew about was to sneak out of the school and save their precious Makar, Aaron). He gets thrown into literal adult prison at 14 for a murder that he didnt commit of his best friend (slash boyfriend) with no outside contact with Tamara or his own father for SIX MONTHS. He is then kidnapped by Anastasia at only 15 and forced to create chaos ridden. He then returns to the Magisterium at around 16 and everyone still thinks he murdered Aaron and treats him like a murderer. And then his dad, the ONLY person who ever loved him 100% uncondionally and didn't hate him at some point in his life, gets turned into a fucking devoured as a "punishment" for not wanting the very last person in his life to die at the hands of the people responsible for the deaths of everyone else in his life.

That is so fucking bad. That is so fucking bad. That is so fucking terrible.

And the authors don't even fucking care.

I am so fucking mad. Typing all that out literally HURTS me.

THIS is why I need to make the Magisterium movies someday. THIS is why I'm mad at myself every day for not making more progress on getting filmmaking experience and learning about how to make money so I can buy the film rights. THIS is why I'm driving myself crazy every day.

Because I love Call. Call is so fucking real to me and I can't let this be his life. I just cant.

[17gz]

it just ENRAGES me beyond words that i reconnected with a friend from high school (who reached out to me since i was 1 out of 2 people in our grade of 500+ kids that were visibly out as trans)

because she wanted to let me know that she came out and got on E and told me her name and how she's been doing. we'd been talking for a while.

and i knew her pre transition in high school. she was miserable. and meeting her in person, she was a different person. i saw so much happiness and life in her eyes that i'd never seen before. it was so amazing to see her as who she really is.

i told everyone in my group who was going to pride about her. they all knew beforehand that i was inviting her. i expressed how happy and proud i was of her.

and when she arrived i saw a switch flip in my roommates heads. both of them. including the afab intersex one wearing a niohuru x "big dick girl" bikini for pride. my friend fully said "i use she/her. i don't like they/them, i prefer she/her." and these roommates used they/them for her the entire night.

they were so annoyed that she took up any space at all. they were so annoyed that she was excited. one of these roommates talked so often abt how its hard being autistic. and yet that same person made the rudest and most passive aggressive looks and gestures towards my friend because she's autistic. it was disgusting and juice even yelled at this person at dinner when this person kept doing high school bully shit at my friend.

and when we were forced to confront this person bc "they didnt understand why we were mad at them" we were completely honest and said that their treatment of my friend was unacceptable and disgusting and transmisogynistic

and this person denied all their behavior and even tried to cover it up by saying "i'm just a silly little guy" i wish i was fucking making this shit up i really fucking wish i was. we were stone faced and said they were treating my friend poorly bc shes a trans woman. they said "they'd never do something like that to someone in the community. they're part of the community!" and when juice said they are not incapable of being transmisogynistic, the crocodile tears were running immediately.

and then my friend i've known for 6 years (whos dating that pos) said we were being racist to their partner. and then within 12 hours we dropped the news that we were moving out. we moved out abt 17 days after that. from an apartment i literally hunted down and did all the work to find. and had expressed ALL year that i didnt want to move out from.

cannot stress enough that this roommates partner was staying with us rent free even though i even said they could pay at least $100-$200 per month to help with household expenses since money was getting tight for us and 4 ppl in there vs 3 ppl was rough (but i didnt want to say $800 -$1000 for them bc i knew they were in a tough financial state) (but also we were not doing well either and they took and broke SO much of our shit without offering to do a damn thing about it and spending their money on dumb shit)

and they'd been living rent free at our place for 4+ months. we were coerced into letting them stay w us. and the entire time they treated us like absolute garbage. they constantly made comments about us being fat and how they thought we were ugly.

not to mention. meatball is brachiocephalic. my ex friend was literally with me at the vet appointments where the vets said do NOT have smoke or candles or anything around him.

while i was vacuuming and getting him air purifiers to put around the house and spending over 2k on vet bills, the two of them were hotboxing him in their room when they smoked. i told them a trillion times to ventilate their room and keep the door closed and let the room air out when they smoked and they never listened. we only found out they were hotboxing meatball in july.

not to mention all the racist shit and the painting my friend made where they painted me as a rapist being eaten by them. never done anything like that, i was not ok w them using my likeness and even told them that, i was the darkest skinned person im that apartment, and they felt 0 shame or regret about it. and now theres a painting of me, depicted as a cis man rapist, darker than i actually am, being killed and eaten by this person.

i cannot even begin to describe my anger and rage and disgust and hatred towards this person. i genuinely hope they die. i wish nothing but misery and suffering upon them

[amorremanet]

disclaimer: blah blah blah, this post is just one person’s opinion, blah blah blah, I’m basing said opinion on my own observations but there are no doubt pieces of the story that I’m missing and my opinions should not be treated as fact, something something, DO NOT harass the volunteers at AO3 support or anyone else over any of this, if you harass anyone over this then you are the asshole, period. not a debate, just a fact.

SO, LIKE. I honestly don’t have anything of actual significance to add to the current round of AO3 Discourse because all of my complicated feelings on it have already been said better by other people

(e.g., axing “all media types” tags was a bad idea; some fans may not like them but they are too broadly helpful to be done away with entirely; this is a complex issue, there is likely no way to make literally everyone happy; there should’ve been more transparency and AO3 upset people more by rolling the change out with little to no warning; lumping former “all media types” works into a specific fandom silo was all but guaranteed to piss people off; the Archive userbase being hair-trigger makes a lot of sense after some of AO3’s very high-profile fuck ups in the past few years; however, the three (3) volunteers handling the support tickets are not the people who made the decision and it’s garbage that they’re the ones who are left dealing with so much of the vitriol from upset fans; etc. etc. etc.)

My big question in all of this is: if the people on the tag-wrangling committee who made this decision actually thought that getting rid of the “All Media Types” tag was going to be a broadly popular decision with a lot of support from users, then why didn’t AO3 do more to announce this change to users before it started being implemented?

If we are supposed to believe the version of the story that has come out from AO3’s people, the one where they really did believe that it was in the best interests of the majority of AO3 users to get rid of “All Media Types” tags, then why doesn’t their behavior about the decision reflect that? Why didn’t they post more to let Archive users know that this was coming? Why didn’t they talk up what a great change this was going to be and how many people and fandoms would allegedly benefit from it?

Why is it that most users (readers and authors alike) seem to have found out about this from popular posts on reddit, tumblr, or twitter, all made by aggrieved fans whose fandoms have been negatively impacted by the decision? Because as far as I can tell, there was a single solitary post on the official AO3 tumblr about this, which went up AFTER the change had started rolling out and got its reblogs turned off because of all the backlash?

Not to treat “say that shit with your chest” as uniformly useful advice, but……… Come on, AO3. If you really stood behind the decision to get rid of “All Media Types” tags as much you’re claiming—if you really, truly believed that it was in the best interests of the Archive as a whole and that the majority of Archive users would support you in it—then why didn’t you say that shit with your chest?

Because to me, failing to announce the change ahead of time—and then only doing the bare minimum to let users know—looks like moves to try and hide what’s happening, which does not make me, personally, inclined to believe the “We really thought that this would be a popular decision with broad user support” story

I do not have any explanations for what could’ve happened instead of the official story. Moreover, I’m don’t actually want to speculate on that beyond saying “The way this was publicly handled makes me personally feel disinclined to believe the official story” because conspiratorial bullshit thinking like that doesn’t help anybody (it’s way more likely to cause unnecessary harm, especially by spreading ideas that may sound true enough but are probably not gonna be based in reality, when you get down to brass tacks about it)

But the way that this whole change was handled publicly makes me personally feel disinclined to believe the story as put forth by the official post from AO3, and as a longtime Archive user with millions of words of fic posted on the site, who donates to AO3 and the OTW when I can? I really don’t enjoy feeling like I have even more reason than before to distrust Archive staff :/

[defira85]

I've got an hour and a half left of the year so let's be introspective - 2023 was pretty fucking garbage, and that's saying a lot after the mess of last year

It was the first time in 8 years that I struggled with active thoughts of suicide again

I really wanted things to get easier this year after the shit that went down last year - the sudden death of my mother-in-law, being absolutely dragged through the mud by my Covid infection, and a colossal mess with work when my boss developed Long Covid and ended up taking 5 months off of work. I thought that, given time, the grief would become easier to manage, and the work stress would ease up when my boss returned to work in January, and my health would be manageable

The larger cracks started forming in around April, and in July I started seeing a psychologist again. The decline got worse around August, and by late October it was... well. It was that.

The grief never got easier. I'm still waiting for it to be something bearable, but I think the fact that she died of a very traumatic heart attack and - for those who have been paying attention to my posts - I run a practice for a cardiologist means that I have to go into work every day and look into the faces of people who don't want to take medication for their hearts, and who don't want surgery for their hearts, and I want to shake them and tell them that they're resigning their families to unbelievable trauma and heartache that is literally preventable... it's not the same job as it was eighteen months ago

Add on to that the fact that our receptionist got more and more aggressive towards our preventative health measures as time wore on to protect the doctor and enable him to keep working with Long Covid and literally keep us employed, resulting in massive outbursts from her in October and November that I had to just sit and take because I had to be the professional even while she was lashing out and treating me like shit

It's been hard. It's been really hard. Last year was garbage but god this year was bleak

I tried getting back into fandom this year after the start of the pandemic just killed my spirit dead in the water, and it's been miserable. 2020 was only 3 years ago, but the difference in 3 years feels so so stark. The bleak silence in response to "content" instead of community like I used to see and partake in is so demoralising and so humiliating. I write because I have stories I want to share, but who am I sharing them with? I don't know! The numbers tick very slowly up, so SOMEONE is reading, but I don't know them from a bar of soap. I've tried joining conversations in a couple of fandoms on tumblr and it all fizzles out to nothing. Everyone and everything is on discord these days, and I'm just not interested in that for fandom

No prophesying for 2024, but the receptionist quit on the last business day of the year, so I never have to see her again. I'm terrified that the doctor will decide we don't need to replace her and will expect me to be his receptionist and nurse and secretary and practice manager and hospital bookings manager all in one... without the pay rise to match, and without the acknowledgement that I absolutely cannot do all of that by myself without help. I'm glad the bitch is gone but I'm so miserable thinking about the coming years work. My doctor wants to do more mental health stuff including eating disorder stuff and it's exhausting still trying to get that under control when I'm nearly 40

I don't even know what the point of this post was. It's not a happy one. Maybe it's good to spew it all out here with the intention of leaving it in the past

I just don't know what the future holds. I don't know what to hope for anymore. I just want this year to be over though

[cordycepsfem]

So I haven't been able to watch the triumphant (?; I've heard mixed reviews) final season of "The Umbrella Academy" because I've been enjoying struggling with the dual-firing cannons of bad mental health and medical issues blasted directly at my face, with neither showing signs of letting up.

But I still have time to troll my favorite haunts, and tonight I read a post that very correctly encapsulated my thoughts on why Season Three was such a fuck-up. I've written about it before, but one of the things that irritated me about Season Three was the way everyone patted themselves on the back loving how the transition from Vanya to Viktor was so seamless... when instead what happened was the writerly equivalent of being shot in the face with an ugly, piece-of-trash pistol, and then everyone telling you that you should have known better, that gun's been around since Act One, under a spotlight in a glass case on a velvet pillow, no less! Of course it was going to be shot!

I didn't even do well in playwriting in college and yet I know you don't fire off a gun you haven't established existing. So when "Viktor" says things like "I've never liked looking mirrors" it's like "Girl, when?" Not to mention the incredibly insensitive way "Viktor" says that being in a lesbian relationship was what inspired "him" to transition. Really? You were finally happy in a relationship with a woman but realized in order to be in that relationship you needed to be a man? How homophobic does this gun have to be?

Apparently I'm not alone in this. User "Right Cross" over at the New Zealand Fruit Farms was able to succinctly describe Season Three. I know many of us have mixed feelings about the New Zealand Fruit Farms, but despite their reputation they usually have correct information and occasionally thought-provoking posts.

"Everything that happened in the latter half of Umbrella Academy is a fucking tragedy."

Ellen Page transitioning after the scripts had finished causing a massive re-write and Thomas Page McBee, another trans man, was brought on "ensure that the storyline where Viktor comes out as trans was handled with care and respect." So much was done to make sure that Ellen was respected that anything resembling what Umbrella Academy was ceased to exist. Here's a short example: The family, who is always at each other's throats and are vicious with their insults and actions with one another find out that their sister Vanya, (who they all have a significant distaste for even before she ended the world twice), is now going by Viktor. The family is in a heated discussion when suddenly Vanya mentions she is now Viktor. You would expect that any one of these insensitive siblings would comment negatively on this behavior. Even if they are all secretly identity politics progressives, surely any one of these people would find some mean thing to say. It doesn't need to be transphobic. It could be anything. Anything to show that the characters and the writing are still intact, any type of snide remark that could show that the writers haven't completely assassinated all of their characters. Not one thing. Not only do they all accept her, they praise her. From this point on in the entire series, Viktor the character receives no meaningful pushback or character interaction, despite the amount of screen time he is given. Viktor is never on the back foot. Not in combat or dialogue. Viktor is no longer treated as a character, only as a tool. He becomes completely static. Viktor is always the last one standing, literally, in the final confrontation in Season 3, where he is the only one who has the power to do anything about the situation they're in. Every single scene with Victor is pandering garbage. He even gets asked to be the 'best man' of one of the brother's wedding. Everything about Season 3 is so creatively bankrupt that it is insulting. Viktor is the best man? Not Five? Not Klaus? Most egregious, not Diego? Someone who Luthor has had a rivalry with since the beginning of the series, but we have been able to see them grow to be true brothers and friends? Season 3 is a narcissistic love letter. Attempting to write scripture showcasing that she could live the life of a man with infallible masculinity. Wishing that those who she cares about would accept and praise her choice to transition. That she would be asked to receive one of the highest honors another man can get, being the best man at a wedding from someone who truly cares about you. From being someone who is powerless in their own body and hates themselves to someone who is confident, strong, and always in control. Not only against enemies, but friends and family as well.

[alleycatchitchat]

Okay, so I first started reading Amulet in 3rd grade and it made a huge impression on me. It's an old comfort series that holds a special place in my heart. I'm fully aware that the quality has recently taken a nosedive (I felt pretty good about the books up until Supernova -- that was garbage) but I still wanted to finally finish the series. I've heard the horror stories, my expectations are low, but I think I've emotionally distanced myself enough that I can handle whatever Kazu has to throw at me.

So I'm reading Waverider, and I'm jotting down my initial thoughts and reactions! And without further ado, here they are:

Surprise, surprise! Mr. Elf actually LOVES the shadow, he's totally brainwashed, what a plot twist (Or is it? Entirely possible that this has already been hinted/revealed and I just forgot). Anyway idk something about this seems a little flat, a little unnatural. The dialogue isn't exciting enough to support the scene. or something.

who's this yellow mustache guy

"I can power the ship" Ha! That is SUCH a raw line and it caught me by surprise. This is good Emily characterization, totally badass and totally nonchalant about it. First part of the novel I have strong feelings about

Woah Galiban

Hmm okay

So I actually think this is... huh. Mixed feelings. I actually feel like this makes sense for Galiban; he's a fanatic and motivated by convictions so strong that he can use them to justify almost any decision, even if it would otherwise be out of character. If that makes sense?

But Trellis. Sweetheart. WHAT are you doing. Okay I know you don't like the throne, and I know you have maybe some respect for Galiban, but WHY do you just roll over like that? NO resistance, NO critical thinking, and the fate of your people at stake? Kazu WHAT are you DOING

Wait I still kinda thought they were gonna dethrone him. Is Galiban king now? Why is that a good idea? Just because I understand his motivations doesn’t mean I think he’d be GOOD at the JOB. and what about Trellis?

I actually liked the dream sequence. Idk, just felt right, felt natural. Harkened back to other dream sequences but Emily’s not falling for it this time and she’s not angry, she’s not relying on her rage anymore, and she’s not afraid either, she’s just frustrated.

Yes, the soldiers are just kids. Your brother is a child soldier, Emily. YOU are a child soldier. Your friends are child soldiers. You’ve been literally fine with it this whole series, why is it only now a problem?

“Deagle Swift” wtf why are we introducing new characters in the friggin LAST BOOK

“This is my gift to you” “Find your center, find balance” “come back to us” Too poetic. I get that Emily is no longer an angry angsty ‘it’s not a phase mom’ emo teen on the inside anymore, but can we keep a little of her grouchiness? Just a tad? As a treat?

I officially hate Deagle Swift. What is he doing here

RONIN! R- ron - RONIN’S BACK, GUYS!!!

I actually like Ronin’s return. Sure, it’s random and out of the blue, but so is most of this book, and I’m a sucker for strong women leader characters

WOAH WOAH WOAH SILAS MADE THEM HOLY COWWWW

CRAZY

I ACTUALLY LOVE THIS

NO Ikol you’re not fucking friends with Emily Hayes I know it’s just a manipulation attempt but come ON no way is she gonna fall for that

Aw. I kind of liked Ikol’s death. It felt meaningful and maybe a little anticlimactic but in a good way.

What the fuuuuccckkkk. Leon. You should at least be a short redhead.

“We’re not cursed or anything. We’re just aliens.” Made me laugh out loud so shoutout to that line ig

Whoops false alarm Ikol’s not dead

I’m dying. Riva. What the hell. WEIRD. 

ENZO AND RICCCOOOOOOO WOOOOOO I loved Enzo’s transformation and I like Rico’s human form he’s so dorky <333

Woooow. Wooooooow. Kazu, do the words “Show, don’t tell” mean anything to you? Anything at all? What even was that ending. Okay. All right.

So overall, pretty much what I expected. I started reading with the expectation that it would be total garbage, but there were a few aspects of the story that I actually liked, so there’s that. It’s incredibly obvious that the ending was rushed. And I don’t like a lot of things about this. But I think I’m glad I read it.

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

That whole Gudako anime thread having someone treat me like an idiot when I pointed out their continuity argument is bunk (because apparently acknowledging that Camelot and Babylonia is incompatible because 100 faces and Touta are confirmed to appear in one and are completely absent in another is the "most stupid thing they've ever heard") will be the start of my villain origin story, maybe.

Oh it’s great how they shift their goalposts on why they don’t think a female protagonist won’t work constantly don’t they? 🙄

Like:

The statement: it would mess with continuity to make the protagonist female after having them be male for the other adaptations

The rebuttal: continuity has already been broken by having flashbacks that show characters that then don’t appear in the actual adaptation of that part, suggesting it’s a different timeline

The response: uh well that’s stupid (doesn’t actually address the continuity error or even acknowledge it)

The statement: switching to a female protagonist would confuse anime onlys

The rebuttal: there are plenty of franchises that switch protagonists out, while there may be some confusion the first time it’s done you’re vastly overestimating how much people will be bothered by it. If precure or sentai can hard reset their universe every season with the same core concepts carrying over and literal 5 year olds can figure out the same general rules for the setup still apply then adults should also be able to handle it

The response: hooooowwww dareeeew you act like all sentai use the same basic premise don’t you know ultra man isn’t even produced by toei (you did not mention ultra man) marvel is also tokusatsu I’m going to derail the shit out of this bc you made the rookie error of mentioning 3 franchises made by the same company. I’ve never heard of Warriors or guardians of gahoole or avatar and the idea of a media franchise changing its protagonist scares me

The statement: a female protagonist wouldn’t be profitable, there aren’t enough female players to make it worth doing

The rebuttal: at least 40% of fgo players according to surveys are female and by the most recent survey for the 7th anniversary they’re actually the majority at ~58%. You can’t say that they aren’t a profitable demographic when you’ve never tried marketing to them

The response: uh but that’s a famistsu poll they don’t count my 2019 poll saying it was 30% (still a significant number?) is from an offical source (no you don’t get to know what that source is)

The statement: well they can’t use her because then they’d have to pair her up with female servants and they wouldn’t want the gay implications!

The rebuttal: assuming that they suddenly get cold feet on lesbian fanservice if it isn’t ‘comedic assault’ like in lwm they could just…pair her with male servants? Those exist? Or, yknow, focus on telling a story instead of solely pandering to self inserts

The response: uh but they don’t want to pair her up with guys bc she needs to be a waifu >_<

My actual response to that: SHE ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE A WAIFU FOR THE MALE PLAYERS. FOR GODS SAKE SHE IS THE ONE CHARACTER WHO SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO EXIST INDEPENDENTLY OF MALE DESIRES AS A REPRESENTATION OF THE FEMALE FANBASE. ILL FUCKING KILL YOU

The statement: uh but she died in the fgo command room in the fuyuki anime

The response: bitch that was literally an Easter egg that wasn’t the actual master

The rebuttal: but she’s dead! They can’t ever reboot or disregard their own canon! Especially a franchise like fate, which is known for being super set in stone and never going back on events that have already happened

And repeat ad nasuem. Like we get it, as soon as a women does anything that isn’t hanging off the arm of a guy it pisses you off but god DAMN the shitty argument tactics piss me the hell off. Just say you don’t want a serious female protagonist with your chest and quit making these garbage excuses

[ninelivesastrology]

Whenever someone treats me nicely after attacking me, sometimes I remember my abuser and I am reminded that I don't want to be on that rollercoaster with a single mf soul ever again. It couldn't even really be that situation, but still... I'm gone mentally in an instant. I don't need to revisit that.

I can't even make it about a present person, like this is me versus me, this is about me understanding what makes me feel uncomfortable and not falling into familiar dynamics. This is about me going where I'm respected and valued, never trying to be where I am not. I don't chase waterfalls or pots of gold.

I really try to honor my choices and a part of honoring those choices is realizing that I have them in the first place.

A big part of self-awareness is just knowing you don't like certain shit and moving accordingly. In my experience, a lot of people take it personally when I move accordingly, like I'm too good for them or better than them or some shit and the whole time I'm respecting the fact that they dislike me and letting them do that. I don't know why it ever has to be more than that. I don't know why indifference comes across as an offense. Indifference is the best response.

I'm not here to impress a single soul and I'm not jumping through hoops in any relationship but the one with my child. I don't need to be liked by people, but I feel like people feel as if I should be stuck in that emotion, stuck wondering, "Why am I not good enough for this relationship/friendship?" That's so fucking tired.

And I guess it's off-putting when people flip flop on me because they're not being true to themselves. It's not about me, it's about them. Like if someone doesn't like me at first, honor that, don't think I'm owed a second or third chance. I had sooo many weird interactions, "I bet you think you're better than me" like literally at the start of a fake 2 year friendship and I swear, looking back, it was like she was holding the hoop for me to jump through and the worst part is that I did... Never take the bait.

If someone already decides who you are, it's not your place to prove it. Prove nothing. Just be sorry they feel that way because they confess in interactions like that.

I faced a lot of rejection in my life, so when someone dislikes me, I read that for the blatant NO it is and I feel like people get so angry at me for reading the room when they wanna spin the block. I'm trying to figure out what changed and when and if I think too hard about it, it's not worth it. Confusion isn't worth it and I learned that the hard way. Me versus meeeee. Like don't do it anymore.

I am never around people I don't like, people I don't care for. I don't need to prove my worth and it's so off-putting to people. I feel like there's this social cue I ignore... It's a catch 22 and I do think it's racially related, like people needing me to be mean so they can start shit with me. I used to be so complimentary and when it was just misconstrued as me being fake or weak, I gave up. And that was when I was really trying to get over my social anxiety and I did probably come off nervous or tense.

And with my physical illness was the constant muscular tension and resulting chronic pain, the stiffness that affected everything, the way I talked, the way I walked, god, even the way I laughed. Maybe it seemed like I was forcing things because my body was forced into working harder.

Once I was on medication, the tension and pain left. Can't say it doesn't hurt to think about all the times people treated me like garbage. Yeah, they didn't know, but they didn't care either. If anything, my physical illness just makes me want to move accordingly even more. There is no choice for me there.

[sevicia]

It makes me so fucking sad to know that "AI" is being used in really awful ways because it falls into bad people's hands. I genuinely think "AI" has the potential to help so much, but like with many other things in technology it has been tainted by capitalism and the need to consume consume consume... like it really breaks my heart because I feel like it's creating this bad reputation for it when it's literally just a tool that acts accordingly to who uses it. The point of technology is that it should help humanity!! But nowadays it feels like we've either forgotten that, or forgotten what the definition of "humanity" is. "Humanity" is not just you, it's your neighbor as well, and their family, and it's also your employer, and it's also the guy you don't like, and it's everyone you don't like! Everyone you DO like too!

I feel like a lot of it has to do with most people's fascination at a shiny new thing, because "AI" IS a "shiny new thing", a lot of people who aren't even slightly knowledgeable in this stuff or just don't care, will see it as "cool! we did a new thing I guess!" which like yeah it is cool! But it's so dangerous! Deepfakes may be a funny way of making your favorite character sing whatever silly song you want, but they are also a way of making fake porn of unsuspecting women, and with the current state of society (sex is always scandalous and women are still being treated like actual garbage everywhere), it's all just so so fucking bleak.

IDK!!!! I forgot what I was saying!!!!! It's literally 7 AM I haven't slept a wink and I'm so tired in general but I'm tired specifically of feeling like no matter how kind I am or how kind everyone is, we've all done irreparable damage to each other and ourselves, and I just don't feel like things will ever be right and I wish we could all start over just once and do things differently