#but i know theres other shit and it feels weird

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN FANTASY AU HOME FINDS WALLY A LOVER AND THAT ITS COMPLICATED?????

AM I SNIFFING SOME LORE????

OK LISTEN YES AND NO YES AND NO it's not so cut and dry!

most if not all of my decisions in au-crafting stems from the source, my understanding of it, and my interpretations. so warlock!Wally & patron!Home's relationship is how i view their relationship in ~canon~(albeit slightly more intense due to the change in situation). in short: devoted, codependent, intimate, a little strange, and unable to be labeled

so i wouldn't say that Home looks at Wally with outright/explicit romantic feelings, because it's more complicated than that. plus i'm an aro Wally truther. i actually have a ramble post queued up about exactly this so i won't say anything more on the matter rn

[puppyeared]

Ouhhhh friendship I love friendship……..

[arts-i-enjoy]

AHHHHHH

[jinstronaut]

this is also why i stopped using my tracked tag for a while tbh

[constantvariations]

I remember someone saying "there's no such thing as a good racism allegory" and it's been bouncing around in my head for a while. I'm someone who typically thinks anything can work if given the right circumstances, but then I really started thinking about it and I believe they're right

Because if you want to talk about racism, you should just talk about racism

(This is unpolished and ramble-y, so strap yourselves in)

Racism is deeply ingrained into our society, no matter where you live. Imperialism and colonialism has ensured that no corner of Earth has been left untouched. Choices from hundreds of years ago are still being felt today. There's practically no end to the discussion of its effects on the world and its people

So, why should anyone feel the need to dress it up in cat ears?

I've consumed a lot of media where writers have consciously echoed in part some aspect of racism in their fantasy story: Bright 2017, Dragon Age, RWBY, the MCU, Harry Potter, Detroit: Become Human, etc. The biggest thing they have in common is that the narrative is told to side with the victims, but it somehow always ends up against them

It always sides with the status quo

It's confusing, maddening even, because the narrative oft goes out of its way to show how horrible the system is and how these folk don't deserve their treatment, so why are we going back to normal as if it's a good thing? Why are the people actively working to improve the system decried as annoying at best and monstrous at worst?

Then you look at the people who write these storylines. The beliefs they hold, the people they vote for, which charities and organizations they give to, and it all makes sense. Centrists (at best) trying to look progressive are the ones who need to dress racism up in cat ears and rainbow freckles. They set aside the long, brutal histories and crushing systemic realities to play pretend that racism is Not That Bad and is only done by Those Bad Individuals

That's why Velvet's ears are tugged instead of culled. That's why the Mantle drunkards say mean things to Blake instead of attempting to assault her. That's why everything surrounding the SDC's labor practices is so vague as to be useless while the biggest evidence of their malice is hand-waved away by a writer who says the victim "had it coming" as if someone can deserve being branded by being too much of a brat

These stories aren't meant to make the audience question why our society works off the bloodied backs of the exploited or demands we take good, hard looks at ourselves and how we've been duped into believing so much garbage about entire swathes of people. They're meant to satisfy the people who only feel bad that these things are happening because they (white folk) look like the bad guys. It's a self-congratulatory wank about how "I'm not like THOSE guys, therefore I'm a good person!"

And then there's the characters meant to convey this story in the first place: always inoffensive, mostly aimless, "not like the other girl" types that pander to that delicate palate. Blake - a conventionally attractive, pale skinned girl in fashionable clothes - used to be passionate about equality but only in the right way, and demonizes anyone who does not conform to this mindset despite having no reasoning to back it up while never once demanding better of the privileged people around her even when they do racially insensitive things

The biggest downfall of these racial allegories, be they about cat girls or orcs or elves or robots, is that they do something that marginalized folk have been forced to endure since the dawn of time: literal dehumanization. There are tangible differences between humans and whatever the allegory is, which undermines the very fundamental fact that black/asian/queer/neurodivergent/disabled/whatever folk are unapologetically, undeniably, exceedingly human. By dressing up their plights in cat ears or spottled blue skin, you're creating theater not for the people who actually live through these struggles as a means of connecting with them and providing them a safe outlet for their feelings, but giving the people who benefit from passively allowing the system to enforce said struggles a pat on the head for not being the grand wizard

I don't really know where I'm going or how to end this, so I'll just sign off with if you're going to talk about racism, just talk about racism

[sidesteppostinghours]

guys i made a mistake.

[kohakhearts]

me as a student: it must be so annoying for teachers to receive emails from former students, idk if i wanna bother them even if they said i could :/

me as a teacher: if you dont email that story you showed me after youve finished writing it just know that i KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE-

[hauntedtotem]

I think the biggest red flag for me regarding the hopelesspeaches and lio convoy stuff, their entire group (especially lio) has near identical speech patterns and dynamics as my mom's online friend group. Which is less of a red flag and more of a raging wildfire tbh

[fruitsyrups]

ive crossed over into an alternate dimension where side profiles are somehow sometimes easier to draw than other angles. bodies in side profile however... nooo thank you...

[joycon]

honestly one of my least favourite things about online spaces centered around cluster b personality disorders is that they almost treat the disorders as an in joke. like its never quite anti recovery rhetoric but a lot of the times it feels like it becomes this thing where something harmful gets spurred on as a personality trait to nurture rather than a symptom to keep an eye on. freaks me the fuck out.

it could be because growing up i was pretty familiar with cluster b spaces and i lost a couple of friendships due to it becoming this whole "i have this disorder now i have to knowingly indulge the more harmful and dangerous symptoms im supposed to be treating to really prove i have this disorder!" thing.

like babes i still believe youre borderline, you dont need to go full tilt maintaining a numbered and ranked list of the people most important to you and assigning a fp role to someone who frankly is not responsible for your stability.

[todayisafridaynight]

okay nishiki fans may infantilize him but at least they’re not like daigo fans…99% of them are DERANGED and i feel at times they care more about the ships than daigo himself…

speaking of ships if i see one more minedai piss fic i might actually mail someone a pipe bomb. i’m joking, of course. i would never do that nor would i ever send death threats on the internet haha..

i cant even knock you for the idea of people overlooking daigo as an individual and instead sees him as a piece to pair off with

[tortademaracuya]

*drinks alcohol*

*gets suprised when i feel worse*

[bitchkay]

"Did you just she/her me?😕" Me asking if someone still perceives me as a woman because I'm offended they misgendered me.

easy to get over

—

"... you think I'm lying when I say your attractive..?😕" Me being offended that someone dosen't still perceive me as a woman because I have a crush on them and they imply that their straight and I have mixed feelings because yes you did gender me correctly and I love you for it but that means you're not attracted to me because I'm not straight or a woman.

i'm in shambles

[heyitslapis]

Walked out of work today bc long story short a guest decided that she was gonna lecture me/use me & my "abhorrent, disrespectful attitude" as an example of a lesson for one of her student & I decided that standing there & being belittled wasn't worth it

[snekdood]

Dude.. my ex boyfriend totally did get me into conspiracy theory shit, even if unintentionally (i think its intentional im sure he believed in that shit. Would not surprise me at all.) At the time i was already pretty isolated from anyone online who mightve countered any of my dumb spiritual or alien related beliefs because of some dumb shit i said online making most of the friends and followers i made online generally avoid me, depending on who it was. I was just a regular pagan and then he showed me this weird video with all this weird conspiracy theory symbolism in it. I looked it up later on and looked up the meaning of the symbolism and came across a whole bunch of stuff posing itself as Secret Information The US Govt Doesnt Want You To Know About, etc. And then i just fell deeper into the conspiracy theory pipeline, traded my paganism for new age beliefs, and goddamn dude. Like we both got suspended from school bc he had a dumb idea to dumb shit there and i spent my time in detention fucking. Trying to read "the emerald tablets" or whatever tf. Its all coming back to me rn.

[draculuve]

just had my heart broken by a tv show episode (riverdale S7E19)