#but then people ran with that and the discourse spiralled

[kipperlillyforpresident]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Dimension20/s/w3Hs9AWn5d to y'all

this is THE funniest anon hate i could ever receive. you can't even be bothered to write your own message...? you're just linking a reddit post...? one has to laugh.

[squgs]

HOTD and Ambiguity

So given that House of the dragon covers nearly 20 years of history (30 if you count the prologue), and a shit ton of characters in ten hours of television there's a lot of events that we don't see and ambiguities around characters. Characters rarely state their motivations and there are reasons to doubt them when they do. It is very easy to make wildly different claims about characters which, while incompatible with each other, can't really be disproved by the show so far. For example Daemon can be a pedo groomer abuser who just wants the throne, or a feminist malewife who will do anything for his queen. Neither of those are explicitly disproven by what we see on screen, though that is not to say that they're equally reasonable readings (I think that the 2nd is pretty ridiculous to be honest).

These different readings of scenes and characters and lines have contributed to the pretty ugly fandom discourse since there is enough evidence for mutually exclusive claims to argue extensively. Whoever your favorite character is you can twist the shown events in order to make them seem like a hero and for everyone who opposes them to be terrible. However I don't have anything worthwhile to say on that, so I want to talk about the writing on its own instead.

Now having uncertain motives can be interesting writing wise (show don't tell and all that), but I think that as House of the Dragon's first season continued it ran into more and more problems around this, especially with the time jumps and actor changes. When character's motives and wants are unclear after the time jumps first impressions are what will decide how most people view them. So when we first see Rhaenyra giving birth, and we first see Alicent trying to separate a newborn from her mother, and we first see Criston calling Rhaenyra a slur and we first see Harwin being a protective father and we first see Aegon bullying his brother, it adds up. Those first impressions are then applied forward and backwards leading to the idea that Alicent and Criston have been abusing Rhaenyra for ten years, and that in the training yard Criston the incel fucked around with Harwin and then found out (my read is that Criston the step-dad took advantage of Harwin being an entitled ass to get him fired).

(Side note about Criston: While the exact thinking behind his downward spiral in episode 5 is ambiguous, the scene between him and Rhaenyra in episode 4 is unambiguously rape given that he tells her to stop and she doesn't.)

In that way the show encourages very one sided readings of complicated and ambiguous scenes, leading to people either being annoyed that the show ignores all the terrible things that the greens are doing, or that it's unfairly biased against them. That's a problem, but things don't completely fall apart until episodes 9 and 10 when people start going to war. For all of the characters we still have no idea what they are fighting for. If we ask why Alicent crowns Aegon we have a bunch of possible answers:

Because she thinks Viserys told her to. This is stupid and I hate it.

Because she fears for her children's lives. This is a good reason, but it has not been brought up since episode 6 despite episodes 7 and 8 both featuring moments that would certainly validate that fear.

Internalized misogyny. This one makes no sense to me, and I haven't seen any convincing evidence for Alicent specifically having more internalized misogyny than any of the other women on the show. However it could be interesting if it was actually seen beforehand.

Ambition and pride. This isn't really seen in the show, but it certainly seems like an understandable feeling for Alicent to have after suffering through an abusive marriage for 20 years and being denied the two things that women are promised through marriage (her husband's protection of her and her children, and the inheritance of her son)

Now if we ask why Rhaenyra wants the crown enough to go to war for it (she agrees to lay siege to king's landing before Luke dies so I'm ignoring that) we have a similarly confusing list of possibilities:

Her dad told her to. This is the reason that I think fits best, but it isn't really delved into. I think there would be a lot of rich interesting stuff with Rhaenyra evaluating her father's legacy and whether she wants to continue it, but Rhaenyra never seems to acknowledge how much bad shit her father has done.

So she can fulfill the prophecy. This is stupid.

Ambition and pride. Also aren't really seen, but certainly understandable and believable.

She fears for her children. This also isn't really shown at all, but you could argue that she fears her children will be killed either to protect Aegon's claim or to put an actual Valeryon on the throne of Driftmark. However we don't really know Rhaenyra's view of the political situation.

To destroy the patriarchy. This would be interesting, but we don't really see her wanting to do that. We do see her usurp Baela's claim to Driftmark in episode 8 though.

These issues get even worse with the more minor characters, the worst example being Rhaenys for whom all her possible motivations contradict her previous actions and opinions:

To protect/honor her grand daughters: if this is what she wants why doesn't she take Alicent's offer of Driftmark, giving her granddaughters an inheritance and keeping them out of the war?

To protect Luke and Jace: she never shows them any affection except maybe in the background of the eye gouging aftermath.

Feminism: if she is willing to go to war in order to have a queen on the iron throne why didn't she fight for her own claim?

Because she wants peace: then why didn't she accept Alicent's offer which was made in the name of peace? Literally as soon as she and Corlys put their support behind Rhaenyra, Rhaenyra stops considering making peace.

Because she trusts Rhaenyra more than the greens: Why? She thinks that Rhaenyra and Daemon killed at least one of her children, she saw Daemon murder her brother in law and we have no reason to think she knows of any misdeeds done by the greens.

All these unclear motivations make the themes of the stories non-existent. The dance could have all sorts of different thematic meanings, all built around what is being fought for and against. It would be fascinating if Alicent and Rhaenyra were both fighting for ambition, making the show about how women are pitted against each other by patriarchy or if they were both fighting for their children and the show is about the cruelty of the system that doesn't allow power to be shared and forces branches of families to fight until one side is wiped out. However, for any meaning to be clear the writers have to know what it is and they have to write their characters with that meaning in mind. Hopefully the show can be more clear going forward, but I don't exactly expect that, and I think that without a coherent set up it's not going to mean much when bodies start dropping next season.

[le-agent-egg]

finally did a bit of doodling for a danganronpa splatoon au that i’ll post in a bit but. i wanted to yap since i have some epic ideas and shit

so. this is mostly for octo expansion and side order, so maybe spoilers? idk. btw i’ll be using octavio as the villain but that is subject to change once i figure out who agent 3 would be

first off chihiro takes the role of marina (chihiro goes by she/her in this pwease no discourse)

chihiro was an elite octarian soldier/head engineer back in octo valley, mainly working on big scary machines and shit. in her free time she made smaller, more personal projects, as well as did the occasional thing with vocaloid. that spiralled into making music as a side hobby, with another certain octarian in their base (sayaka, will elaborate on this further)

additionally, chihiro and mondo were colleagues, though they didn’t have much time to interact daily. more like people you would say hi to on shift, maybe grab some coffee together.

now, during the final showdown with octavio, chihiro ended up running away after hearing the calamari inkantation, yada yada you know the splatoon lore. she moved to inkopolis square, starting up some previous projects, as well as trying to get on the music scene.

mondo takes the role of agent 8. before you get all excited, nope daiya is still dead. lmao. the diamonds were an undercover rebellion group against the octarian government thingy, lead by daiya and mondo. both of them were frontline soldiers, though daiya was an elite soldier. daiya, while preparing to fight back against octavio during the fight with agent three, was caught by a lower class soldier, and splatted on sight. everyone else was found out pretty quickly after that, some got splatted, some escaped.

mondo was one of the ones who managed to escape, hiding in the deep sea metro until things blew over. he ended up running into the telephone/tartar, who promised that he would be able to escape to the surface and reunite with the diamonds.

anyway he ended up getting sanitized-

the sanitization process actually ended up failing because of a power shortage (the zapfish getting stolen, power cut out, sanitization machine thingy stopped working) so mondo got out harmed but not fully sanitized. most of his memories got fucked up, plus patches of his skin were that icky green colour. then yada yada octo expansion

ANYWAY MOVING ONTO LEON leon my friend leon. obviously he takes the role of pearl i would be executed on sight if he didn’t.

mkay so. leon comes from a very rich, very skilled family of professional ranked players; obviously he got roped into it as well. he’s the captain of two different teams, playing a professional match every day, sometimes multiple in one. and he fucking hated that shit. there’s only so much rainmaker a person can take, and since he’s the best and literally never loses, it got boring really, really quick. plus, everyone on his teams kinda hated him, thinking he only got to be a captain since his family is filthy stinking rich. idk how kanon plays into this, but. unfortunately she has to. sorry guys

once on a late night fucking off in inkopolis square, he ran into a short octoling with her face buried in a computer. obviously scared shitless of an octarian, he immediately ran away, but said octarian ended up chasing after him to explain herself. that octarian was chihiro!! she was like “augh i’m sorry for scaring you, please don’t tell anyone :((((((“ and. well, he caved and listened. chihiro’s really cute yanno?

they ended up kinda trauma dumping on the curb together, chihiro about her time in the army and leon about how much he despises being a professional player. this lead to chihiro mentioning she was making music, leon being intrigued, and boom that very same night their band was born. (i’ll call it off the hook for now, but again, subject to change)

leon ended up running away from his previous life, cutting off contact with his family and teams. he and chihiro bought a shitty little studio apartment and started making music together; they were basically an overnight success, almost immediately being asked to sign onto different contracts and managers and stuff.

they started subbing in for news reports in the square, but after the previous hosts quit, they got promoted to full time hosts. chihiro was nervous about being recognized as an octoling, but nope everything worked out a-ok.

then octo expansion happens - leon and chihiro on their commute to the office hear a familiar song playing from a blocked off underground station, call in sick (leon’s idea) and go to explore (also leon’s idea)

they see mondo, half passed out on the floor. chihiro is all “you look really familiar, but i don’t know from where…” and leon is like “??? you’re just trusting this guy??????”

yada yada octo expansion stuff i haven’t figured out yet i don’t even know who captain cuttlefish would be but anywayyy world is saved octolings and inklings live in harmony yada yada

idk how splatfests will work but. leon and chihiro go on tour after. something. chihiro continues to develop a program she was working on to help with restoring the memories of sanitized octolings (cough alter ego cough project memverse cough) and boom splatshit 3 side order happens. haven’t figured out the plot but sayaka (acht/dedf1sh’s role) returns and fucking hates it here. side order is just “leon and chihiro making out in an elevator for an undefined amount of time feat. two lobotomized octolings”

trigger splatty havoc ammirite fellas (gets booed off stage)

[livin-like-larry413]

hey there!! just regarding the state of the cod fandom: things really seem to be spiralling out of control based on some recent posts i've seen, and it just reinforces my decision to never get involved with the fandom at all.

and in a way there's a bitter irony to this all because people who adore and fawn over fictional men who are military can't even show a shred of decency or kindness to an actual veteran suffering from PTSD. and if they're incapable of doing so, then what is the point of engaging with a fandom that'll devolve into vitriol so caustic that they'll gloat over someone's passing?

obviously it's not that we should take everything as truth - things should be taken with a grain of salt as this is the internet. you never know that people will peddle. but if a post like that can already lead to someone actually dying over a horny shitpost, then there's no way to salvage this fandom.

sorry if this is a bothersome rant, i just feel like i really wanted to get involved with fandom and fanfiction at last after so long, especially because there's so many ways you can explore these characters. but this incident has really deterred me from it. and i suppose i just wanted to let it out somewhere.

i hope you're looking after yourself regardless and taking care, stranger! this is a heavy, taxing topic, and in times like this, kindness is worth more than its weight in gold.

Honestly, bestie, it’s understandable wanting to remain detached from the cod fandom even before all of this discourse—it’s what’s kept me from getting into cod at all from the get go because all I’ve ever seen from the fandom was just banana boat bonkers 100% of the time. It’s never bothersome to rant and express how everything’s impacting you as a bystander, and as someone who wanted to participate and have fun with something.

There’s plenty of other fandoms that are much less toxic than cod (not completely un-toxic, that’s unfortunate not possible) but don’t let this one instance deter you from having fun for your own sake. Even if it takes you time to share it publicly, it’s still possible to create and have fun with fandoms and fanfiction while anonymous or just keeping it between a friend group: it’s what I’ve ended up doing at this point, because open online fandom has just devolved so much over the years. Cod is still an available game and story to have fun with, even if you just want to do it on your own for now.

I’m just tired and disappointed at this point. What’s even worse is this isn’t the first instance of someone committing because of how vitriolic this fandom is to people—two cosplayers that ended their lives not too long ago are constantly on my mind and it’s—I’m really shocked at how easily and quickly it seems the rest of the fandom seems to have moved on, besides a few chance people, that is.

No matter what, there’s just no excuse for how spectacularly this has all spiraled out of control and into something that is completely irrelevant to what caused the issue to begin with—which was the toxic fanbase being vengeful and vitriolic to people who don’t deserve it: codslut and Soapskneebrace both. Everyone has lost the plot, it seems, and are focusing on everything other than “This person very likely killed herself because unknown individuals ran with a stupid comment made by someone else on a horny shitpost”.

I’m doing fine, thank you for taking the time to check in and give kindness, it absolutely is a fleeting online curtesy at the moment. It’s appreciated, and I’m sorry you’ve been deterred from joining much of any fandom for now. I hope you find people that you can vibe with about your interests and who you enjoy spending time with.

[viscerast]

hey non oomf. please don’t shoot the messenger. your ex would like you to know that their dni is set up like that (and it includes kins of their comforts as well) because they are delusional and are uncomfortable with doubles. also no one is friends with your abusers anymore, because harpy is dead. she died last august. not much to say on that one but thank god tbh.

hey noomf thank you for reaching out and telling me this. id like to preface this post that no ill will goes towards you, anon, but towards PF. you're welcome to screenshot and send this post to damien if you want. very curious on how you know damien/PF but. wtv youre anon for a reason

for context, this is the post anon is talking about. also for simplicity, i'm going to be using the names i remember everyone using, but strictly they/them pronouns instead of the ones i remember them using just to avoid misgendering, i know a lot of people had gender discoveries over lockdown and coming out of lockdown and PF is not free from the transgender beam /silly

i will not comment on damiens DNI any further because, frankly, im staying as far as i can from any delusion related discourse as possible. as a potentially schizophrenic person, i know how sensitive the topic of delusions can be, especially D/A's, erotomania and platonic erotomanic delusions. i still think its a bit off that damien, a singlet, as a core part of being a system in their dni but. thog doesnt caare /ref i don't know their story at all

quite frankly, i'm glad to hear that no ones associating with my abusers anymore. part of me was always a little worried for the remaining members of the group (especially the younger ones), i didn't want anyone to have to deal with the blatant toxic bullshit that i had. even if you lot had a falling out with harpy in some respect, i want to say that i'm sorry for your loss. i remember how close PF was in general, especially with harpy.

i'll tentatively accept the offer to talk with damien, but maybe later. maybe when we're more stable. i'll unblock them for now, because honestly i had no quarrel with damien, just that they were still associating with PF.

this, however, is not an open invite to anyone who associated with/was apart of PF to contact me. in fact, fuck the rest of you completely. stay off my page.

i hate how you guys keep finding our accounts. you almost put us into the hospital with the stunt ezra and karen pulled a few years back joining our personal server. to this day we don't feel safe anywhere we go, irl and online, because of how you guys acted. i know we weren't the best person, i know we were rude and lashed out and were generally hard to deal with, but we were fucking 15 or 16. we had known you guys since we were 13, we trusted your voices and opinions more than anything. if PF said the sky was red, then the sky was fucking red. we trusted you guys enough to give you our address. we were dealing with the horrors of being the only openly trans and queer kid in a small town catholic middle/high school ON TOP of having a slough of undiagnosed disabilities and disorders. and then going home to cope with how stressed we were and talking to our "friends". we should have turned tail and ran the second chai was kicked out. we should have realized earlier how chai had hurt us and cut ties with the rest of you, because no one seemed to care how weirdly romantic chai and i were getting. no one seemed to care about how weird ezra treated us, that the almost adult was jokingly calling the 14 year old their husband. PF actively encouraged our identity delusions and spirals. i was expected to have the emotional and mental capacity of a fully grown adult when i barely even knew who i was. i remember semi-frequently having our possibility of undiagnosed BPD (and potentially NPD? i cant remember if thats something they ever mentioned) recognized by ezra and harpy(?), but the fact that we were untreated, experiencing symptoms of the disorder they were sure we had, struggling to understand our emotions let alone regulate them was all thrown out the window the second we made even the smallest of mistakes. our bpd and delusions were used against us as a way to keep us in line, or when we were noticeably in a spiral we would have our identity delusions towards danganronpa villains invoked to encourage us to be cruel to other people- either members of PF or strangers on twitter.

tldr fuck peach fuzz. yall messed us up. sorry for the long vent/rant we just. really really needed to get that off our chest. we have for years and it feels like we were only able to heal enough this year to actually confront it and say something about what happened. there was a lot more than just this but this is what was fucking us up the most. sorry . i gotta go take a walk goodbye

[ofsavior]

Hey Madi. I love you and I’m sorry you’re going through a bad time right now. I hope it gets better soon. Have you ever thought about just taking a month of social media detox? I think it would help as sometimes tumblr can cause people stress. I know it’s helped me a lot. I think it maybe can help?

Hi Anon!

Thank you for the suggestion, and I appreciate the concern. I’ve considered it, sort of. I think fundamentally that’s not really the issue though. Usually for me, I have a bad tendency to project my offline life stress onto my hobbies (i.e., tumblr). In this case, I think this is very true. Traveling for work gives me a fair amount of anxiety, and I’m taking WEEKS of my life dedicated to work stuff. It feels like time not well spent, and I’m very adamant about time.

But more importantly, I had some realizations under the cut (tw suicide mention).

On September 17th, 2021, my best friend from college committed suicide.

September 17th is my birthday.

I think this has caused me a lot of internal discourse (just writing this out has me tearing up) because it feels wrong to celebrate on a day when I lost someone so important to me.

I also ran into a few issues with friends recently. A lot of friends expressing that I haven’t given them enough time or that I don’t do things to their standards, and this has been really hard on me because I feel like I wasn’t a good enough friend to the person stated above or I would have been able to help him.

So having people both in my personal life and my online circles express that I’m not meeting their needs sent me into a spiral that I’m still climbing out of. I don’t think cutting myself off to my biggest support circle would be a great idea right now since my friends offline are often not as accepting or supportive.

If you’re reading this post an wondering what you can do, it’s probably just branch out or even just stay consistent and know that if I seem off or off-put… it’s really not you. I’m probably just in my sad meme hours. Knowing that I have people whose needs I DO meet would be probably very validating and helpful to me. Otherwise, I think I’m just going to end up questioning what I mean to people if I just cut off socials. Like, if I wasn’t there would it really matter?

I hope that offers some insight and apologies for this weird vent post. I figured I owe an explanation to some people.

[ramadoodles]

I feel like you'd have an informed and dynamic perspective of this so I'd like to know your take on "gaze" in media and film. For example, there's a lot of discourse circulating about "white" gaze and "colonial" gaze and questions about "lesbian" and "gay" gazes in terms of how art and people are seen/treated from their perspective.

But what do these gazes really look like in terms of how characters are portrayed or how certain topics are narrated through image and film?

Oh, man. Well, first of all I'm quite honored that I seem to come across as cultured enough to have a coherent take on this. I hadn't heard of the lesbian and gay gazes before, but I'll certainly take a stab at understanding it. (For everyone else- this is a long rambling post with no images, sorry about the scrolltime)

So to start with, let's take this to first principles- how can we define gaze?

I'd say that when a piece of media assumes a gaze, it decides that a person carrying that gaze is holding the camera. So the camera is imbued with the biases of that person. e.g. If an artist took a video of a sunflower, he might focus on the interplay of light among the petals. A biologist, on the other hand, would zoom into the center and identify the spiral of tiny florets.

If we expand this concept to male gaze- that can be explained as the camera being held by a man, and it being imbued with male biases. It’s not strictly related to female objectification- it's a way to explain a limited male view, where the rest of the characters exist mainly to serve him, his interests, and his storyline.

So when the male gaze focuses on women, it shows women as passive, vapid, or oversexualized. They function secondarily to the primary male characters and/or focus their attention on pleasing these men or competing with other women to get male affection.

Male gaze also overvalues male tasks and devalues traditionally female tasks.

And hence, female gaze would assume that a woman is holding the camera, and thus show what she is focusing on- often it does that by focusing on a male body (aka George of the Jungle) or it focuses on the feelings of the female protagonist around a complex event, rather than the actual event itself. Someone else has written an amazing article about this concept here.

Now if we were to define gay gaze, as a separate from general male gaze- I suppose there would be much more objectification of men. The only really good reference I have for this is a reddit comment (by a gay man!) about the "gay pandering" of a famous actor, and how his scenes were shot with a gay lens compared to his costar, whose scenes were shot with a straight female perspective. Essentially Gay Gaze Actor was shot from left to right, and shots of him were cut from the thigh up to emphasize his curves and musculature, in comparison to the costar who got more vertical shots highlighting his height. (If you've seen SOTY, go check it out and see if you notice any of this!) It's super interesting but the whole thing sadly got deleted, so I can't link it here.

I still have to search about lesbian gaze, sorry! I ran out of time but I'll update here tomorrow.

There is nothing negative about the male gaze, if taken on its own. If you're a person, you're imbued with biases; ergo there's a gaze for every classification of person. The reason why the male gaze stands out so much is because it's all-pervasive, to a level where the male gaze has influenced the gazes that we have. As a result, and perhaps I'm going out on a limb here, but even when a piece of media is female-produced, it sometimes has a lot of male-gazey nudity which is shown to be empowering for these women, as they can reclaim their own bodies. The fact that their bodies need reclaiming is, I would argue, the impact that the male gaze still has on feminist media.

In case you want to learn more film theory, I'd advise turning to youtubers like Filmento, Closer Look and Cinema Therapy, since they're where I had gotten most of my previous knowledge from.

[moonlarked]

hey. ok. so. i have a feeling you're a bit new to this site, and i can see that taking in everything all at once is freaking you out. so i'm gonna introduce you to something people do here on tumblr all the time to make their lives better and everyone else's lives better. ok? ok. so. it's these two things:

blocking tags and people that make them uncomfortable

creating tags for when they go on mental health vents + tagging content warnings on said mental health posts, so that people who don't want to see that can block those tags

from what i can see, you don't look like you're doing either of those things right now. these are essential things to do on tumblr in order to curate your experience into something that's enjoyable, not stressful.

so, basically, here's how tagging fandom stuff works on tumblr.

don't tag a piece of media or anything from that media unless you are specifically talking about stuff in it. (ex: incorrect sophie foster quotes you've posted, that i've seen, are correctly tagged. good job!)

if you're talking about the fandom surrounding a source material, tag the fandom, not the source material. and if you're talking about negative stuff, such as fandom discourse (people being toxic, engaging in something that fans fight about in not the most... peaceful way, if you catch my drift, etc) or stuff that warrants trigger warnings (violence, child abuse, etc) tag the post with the appropriate warning tags.

i'll use kotlc as an example. if i were to make a post going in depth about how i think alden vacker is a bad parent, and made claims such as him being neglectful to his kids, here's the gist of how i would probably tag it: '#kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #alden vacker #kotlc discourse #tw mentions of child abuse #tw mentions of child neglect #ask to tag'.

clarifying notes - tw stands for trigger warning. you'll also see people use cw which stands for content warning. most people put tw or cw in front of the thing they're warning people about, but sometimes you'll see people put it after. ex: 'kidnapping tw'. ask to tag is just my way of saying 'hey guys if there's any triggers i missed please hit me up and i'll add them'. if it wasn't obvious already, tw/cw tags are essential because they save people who have those tags blocked from running into stuff that'll cause them mental breakdowns or worse.

the discourse tags are essential for people to curate their experience too. a lot of people don't want to see people being negative about kotlc, because it's their comfort series and seeing people fight stresses them out when tumblr is supposed to be their space to relax. which doesn't mean no one should ever be critical of kotlc (i personally have many critiques on kotlc), it just means that those people need to block discourse tags. blocking tags helps people make their experience here on tumblr more comfortable.

so. please. tag stuff appropriately. i doubt you intentionally left out important tags on a lot of kotlc posts, but it's still important. and when you're on the receiving end of being uncomfortable because you ran into stuff that makes you upset (ie. a kotlc fan or two posting about being anti mcu) just block the 'anti mcu' tag or any other tags that are used often to say 'hey this is mcu hate'. and/or block the person that's reblogging or posting about all of those things frequently. those are both excellent courses of action. what you don't do is make a clearly angry post talking about how you might leave the kotlc fandom just because a few people were hating on another source material you like, and not tag any of the necessary discourse tags on said angry post. it makes people uncomfortable in a way that we can't curate away without blocking you entirely.

(also, side note, feel free to make custom tags for personal stuff, such as mental health vents! ex: if you make a post talking about how you're having a thought spiral about wanting to interact with people in the kotlc fandom because we have mutual interests, and being terrified of kotlc fans because you like mcu, use a custom tag for that and all of your other mental health vents. a custom tag one of my friends uses is 'mental health shit', for example. but do whatever you'd like! and then establish through a post or your bio that that's your mental health tag and to block it if we don't want to see that.)

thank you very much for reading through all of this. i appreciate it. i hope this helps you curate your experience so you and i are both less stressed out :)

I really wish you’d go off anon before asking this, because I do have some question, like what sort of tags I should use on my post that you’re talking about. I used the mcu tag and the mental health tag. Is there a trigger warning tag I should use in this situation? Should I tag it as “kotlc discourse”?

I’m sorry if you interpreted my post as me being angry at someone. I was mostly being angry at myself, but I’ll edit it :P

Thanks for the advice. I do use the “personal” tag about stuff that’s just about me, so I guess there’s that. But I’ll try to do better.

If you’d be willing to talk to me off of anon, I’d really appreciate that.

[lostboiking30]

I know that a lot of people don’t like Korra as a character or as an Avatar. I have seen countless discourse videos and posts about how Korra is inferior to Aang and how she’s weak and gets her ass kicked so frequently. They don’t like that Korra is a deeply flawed character. And I’m not gonna lie. As much as I loved Book 1 Korra when the show was airing, I HATED Book 2 Korra. I hated how headstrong and stubborn she was because I hated seeing her fall into such an obvious trap. My dislike for Book 2 definitely affected how I viewed the rest of the series. It wasn’t bad, but I just didn’t really notice all the wonderful things about the show that I realize now as a more adultier adult (Also for the record-I love book 2 now. It’s so well done and I just didn’t realize it because I was a headstrong young adult going through my own changes. I was in the middle of transitioning and had a hard relationship with my family as a result). And that’s the thing right? Legend of Korra is a show about Transformation. It’s slated more towards adults and the first thing Aang says to Korra when they finally meet, “When we hit our lowest point we are open to the greatest change.” Every season gets harder for Korra. Her identity as the Avatar is constantly(and I mean constantly) threatened. The events of Book 2 happened 6 months after the Equalist Revolution and the Red Lotus hunting Korra down, 2 WEEKS after defeating Unalaaq and ending the civil war. Everyone was blaming her for the troubles of Republic City before the President threw her out. Imagine constantly questioning your identity with the literal weight of the world on your shoulders. She also had to deal with the fact that she was the first Avatar in a brand new cycle, so she couldn’t ask her past lives for help. DESPITE all of this, her growth as a character between Book 2 and Book 3 is wild especially considering the length of time between the events. It’s takes people decades to achieve that sort of growth. One thing about this show that always strikes me is that Korra contemplated suicide at the end of Book 1 and in Book 3 she ended up talking Daw out of jumping off of Kyoshi Bridge. Korra was destroyed mentally, physically and spiritually by the end of book 3, to the point that she left for 3 years and wouldn’t talk to the people who loved her the most. She hid, ran away, got lost in her anxiety and PTSD spirals and almost gave up trying to regain her physical strength. And she recovered from that. Speaking personally, those are not easy things to recover from, nor are they things you can empathize with if you’ve never experienced that intense kind of loss of self. Rebuilding yourself from the bottom up is personally one of the hardest things I have had to do and seeing it so honestly represented in the show means a lot to me as someone who is on their own recovery journey. But this is why I love Korra so much as a character and as the Avatar. She had to redefine that role for herself so she could succeed. This is also personally why I do not like when people compare her to Aang who also had to redefine his role as Avatar so he could defeat Ozai without killing him. They were both powerful and strong Avatars in their own right. There’s no need to compare them. I also don’t like when people try to kill Korra at such a young age. She is 21 at the end of Book 4. I remember being 21 and thinking how grown I was, but she still has so much life to live and so much love to offer. For a series that’s entirely about change, transformation and growth, nothing would break my heart more if Korra dying young was canonized. After everything she’s been through, she deserves a nice long life with Asami, just like Aang got with Katara.

[the-redeemed-anon]

Welp, I watched *The Stream*, time to talk about that.

Disclaimer: This post will be a bit negative, it’s nothing towards any character because honestly I don’t feel like the stream gives anything as material to use to be critical of a character, but it did wonders with the fandom. I will sound like a disappointed parent, most probably. I’m also not main-tagging the tags for the characters, because I don’t think it’s necessary, and last but not least, as always, if I mention the CCs, I’ll label their names accordingly.

Welp, so here is my experience with Niki’s stream: it was 2 AM, I was scrolling through my dash, as you do, and suddenly everything is on fire. I see the Wilbur enthusiasts I follow, or just persons that are L’Manberg positive or Season 1 vets panicking in a corner about a possible retcon of Wilbur’s entire Season 1 character arc, and the other part of my dash had people cheering on violence towards Wilbur from Niki. This filled me with dread and until about 3 AM I was reading post after post to see what the hell happened. And then I watched the stream last night, and...

I gotta say, it wasn’t that bad, I liked it, I don’t know much about Niki, as I do not have time sadly to watch her POV as well, but I like her character, and the stream was a great window into her mentality. I feel like the stream shows just how difficult it can be to heal, because she has started the process, in my opinion, by taking up baking again, but recovery and healing isn’t a straight path, so she may go in periods of relapse. Her not sleeping or eating and jumping off buildings is concerning, and it’s a shame that this is overtaken by the discourse. Another thing I noticed is that she feels as if Wilbur intentionally moved in with Phil because that’s the place she feels safe at, and it makes me wonder if this can be used as an argument that she is paranoid. I’m not kidding, if I knew more about Niki, I would so jump into psychoanalyzing her, but sadly I miss a lot of context for her character, especially the mental decline, so I hope a Niki enthusiast can pick these up and analyze her (if any Niki enthusiasts do read this and want to do it, I would love to see it).

Now, the big point of the stream was how Niki views the world and her relationship with Wilbur, after finding out he’s back. I can’t add more to the discussion on here beside “Niki has this view because she doesn’t know about Wilbur spiraling or that he cared about her, but still, her feelings are valid and she should express that she was hurt if she feels she was hurt“, and this has been said so far enough times. I can’t comment more because I feel like when talking about any kind of relationship, we need to see the characters interact, or at least the other side. Until Wilbur starts talking about Niki or the two meet again, I can’t add anything here.

Now, onto the discourse...

1. Why Wilbur enthusiasts got worried, scared and jumped into panic mode

It’s no secret that Wilbur is one of the most misunderstood characters on the server. I remember even in early Season 2 people misunderstood his character, so this isn’t new. Wilbur enthusiasts that have been here since Season 1 have gone through a lot to try to defend the character from mischaracterization from fanfics and fanarts and animatics that portrayed him as this creepy touchy-feely character, that was prone on being violent.

Wilbur is a mentally ill character that went ahead and had a successful suicide. People took even that and twisted it into making it seem like he did it to escape the consequences of his actions. The Exile happened, the fandom picked up a couple of new words in its vocabulary, such as abuse, manipulation and gaslighting and started crafting this narrative that Wilbur knowingly abused, manipulated and gaslit Tommy.

Wilbur was branded as insane, he was branded as this person that wanted to hurt people, and people in the fandom ran with it. The narrative that L’Manberg was bad from the start and that Wilbur was evil from the start spread like wildfire.

And then he got revived and the moment he got revived I saw a lot of posts saying that they hope he will get beaten up by Fundy or Niki or other people. People villainized him for admiring the first time he saw the Sun, felt its warmth or saw natural light in over a decade. Literally, what the fuck.

And then this stream drops. And the takes about people wanting Wilbur to be beaten up start again.

The problem is that not only is this fandom from the start prone to misunderstand Wilbur, it has a general problem with taking everything characters say or do seriously or as the objective truth.

Niki says she was manipulated by Wilbur? Some people won’t sit on it and think and try to find evidence to support her case, they’ll believe her without questioning if she is misremembering facts because of her trauma. They’ll believe 100% that Wilbur manipulated her.

Dream says he wants a big happy family? Some people will take that as 100% proof that all Dream did so far was in good faith and he has a righteous cause.

People got worried and rightfully so that this would spawn a new wave of misinformation and mischaracterization in the fandom. And then there was a new thing that happened...

Tommy recently saying he betrayed Techno.

Tommy enthusiasts mainly, and other people not necessarily maining Tommy as a POV have since the Green Festival said that him leaving Techno was a good thing. Because Tommy was going down a path that he didn’t want to go down on, and him realizing this was crucial in starting the process of healing from Dream’s abuse, because it gave him his autonomy back.

Tommy, both the character and the CC, got huge amounts of hate for this reason. CC!Tommy got called bad at acting and hate comments were left on his VODs, while c!Tommy got a nasty treatment from some people in the fandom, for leaving Techno. He got called badly written and some people wished harm on him. Tommy enthusiasts had one hell of an uphill battle to explain why it wasn’t a betrayal, and then this happened, the character himself said he thinks he betrayed Techno, and the enthusiasts got worried, legitimately so, that a new onslaught of hate will come towards Tommy, the character.

So when the stream happened, people got worried that people will take Niki’s words as gospel, and send more hate and misunderstanding to Wilbur. Then people got worried that at how much the narrative that Wilbur is this awful person is pushed, maybe his Season 1 character arc is getting retconned, especially since the CCs do look at fan content, and a lot of it, towards Wilbur, is that he is this evil guy. And you could argue that it wouldn’t be the first time something polarizing is written or executed in the story, afterall, Doomsday happened, and that event cracked the fanbase in two.

To that last thing, the fear of a retcon, I have to say something to my fellow Wilbur enthusiasts: calm down and trust the writers. Healing doesn’t happen instantly, I know we’re tired of fighting and explaining that my guy isn’t evil, but I don’t think CC!Wilbur will give us a repeat of the first Season’s arc, or, worse, make his character the ultimate bad guy. I trust him to give us a satisfying ending to this character, we just have to wait.

2. Why do some people always encourage violence? Especially towards canonically mentally unwell people?

No, seriously, why?

We have seen it a lot with Niki, so I will concentrate on her.

Niki is not mentally well right now, the CC said it herself, yet when the character plans to murder, emphasis on MURDER, a canonical abuse victim that did nothing to her, and the CC herself says that this desire is irrational, people cheered c!Niki on. It’s her girlboss moment, she will be heard now.

Guys, she was planning to murder a kid, a kid that did nothing to her. That is how mentally unstable she was. That’s not something to celebrate, it’s something to look at with concern.

Then the stream happened and now people were expressing the desire to have her beat up Wilbur, openly and proudly.

I will not even go into why beating up Wilbur is a no-no because being violent towards mentally ill people is a bad idea, but guys, think about what the fuck that would do to Niki mentally.

Niki, as far as I can read her, is a good person. When she thought of Wilbur being manipulative, she pondered who would be the next target, meaning she’s thinking of the safety of others.

Guys, think of that nuke murder attempt again. Niki was the one supposed to lure Tommy there, and she almost succeeded. She later came to the conclusion that she doesn’t want Tommy dead.

If Niki is feeling guilt over the TNT, a thing that killed no one, but destroyed her town, what do you guys think she would have felt if that murder attempt was successful? Tommy was on his last life, he would have been dead, and that would have been it, probably. What would she have felt if she killed this kid because she projected her problems upon him? I think that she would have been crushed by guilt, especially since she was likely to see him die, but maybe I am wrong.

Wilbur and Niki were pretty good friends. No matter what their relationship is right now, Niki doesn’t strike me as the kind of person to wish harm upon someone who used to be a friend. They had good and bad interactions. If she does hurt Wilbur, like many are cheering her on to do right now, what do you think she would feel if she changes her opinion on him, or finds new information, or remembers the good things he did with her? I think it would make her state worse.

Now, I do think that they need to meet and talk, but talking won’t solve her issues with him, not even all of her issues, but it’s a good start and it’s better than her beating him up. Niki’s problems are vast and while some start because of Wilbur, since he got her in L’Manberg in the first place, they’re not something that can be fixed just by them talking. Niki has to take care of her problems, and her relationship with Wilbur is just one piece of the puzzle. They don’t even have to be friends again, she doesn’t have to forgive him or forget what he’s done, but right now the relationship and its uncertainty is distressing her, so the two must talk at one point.

3. It’s about the new fans yo

So, the number 1 thing that worries me with that stream is the new fans and the impression they will get of Wilbur because of the phenomenon of taking what characters say as gospel.

Many people that are now in the fandom were not around when Season 1 was live, some never saw Wilbur in his prime, in action, not to mention his POV. Many are accustomed only to Ghostbur, and may only know Wilbur from what is said about him in the streams in Season 2 and now, and him being alive.

And Niki saying she was manipulated may be taken as gospel because people won’t go to check the VODs.

Many new watchers may not know of the good things Wilbur did. Yes, he was a dick, but being a dick doesn’t erase the good he did, just like how being good doesn’t erase being a dick in Pogtopia. This is important to acknowledge because it shows that Wilbur is a complex character. He didn’t start evil, and even when he embraced being the bad guy, he did nice things.

Wilbur had a habit of saying he doesn’t care about anyone, that he wants no survivors, yet when the time to prove it came, he could not do it. He could not press the button with Quackity and Tommy in the room, because it would have killed them too (that time the button room had TNT in the room too), he hesitated at the Festival, not wanting to hurt his friends. He walked into the Festival armorless to offer his life up in exchange of letting Niki go. He gave her Mushroom the Fox before the battle. Ghostbur wrote her name in his book. Wilbur considered her such a positive thing in his life that Ghostbur remembered Niki and put her name in the book.

What I am trying to say is, Niki is entitled to feel negatively towards Wilbur, as her actions hurt her, gave her trauma, but I do not want the new viewers to walk away from that stream thinking that Wilbur was abusive towards her or that he purposefully wanted to hurt her. Wilbur did care. Niki can feel negatively about Wilbur even if he didn’t mean to hurt her. He doesn’t have to be an irredeemable dude. And even if he’s not irredeemable, Niki is allowed to never forgive him, or to never be friends with him again.

Just... New Viewers, don’t forget all of the characters are complex, and, first of all, very human. They have bouts of anger, they can lash out, they can forget things, be petty, regret their choices, lie. It’s not black and white, and we can’t rely fully on just their words. We have to look for more context.

[wanderingnork]

I keep trying to get back to reading physical books and it seems nonfiction is the way to go. The last two books I finished (In Vino Duplicitas and A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear) are nonfiction narratives—a biography of a wine fraudster/exploration of fine wine culture, and a narrative of a libertarian social experiment that ran afoul of bears/discourse on American history and libertarianism in general, respectively.

Currently I’m working on Meander, Spiral, Explode, which is both a discussion/analysis of narratives that don’t follow the “traditional” Western linear “rise/climax/conclusion” framing and something of a how-to guide for people who want to get away from that in their writing. Little bit pretentious, but I’m loving the deep exploration. Also coming away with an improved idea of how to do things I’m already doing more deliberately.

I think the key here is to step away from fiction. For whatever reason—and frankly I don’t care to analyze it—fiction, any genre, just isn’t working for me right now. But I want to read books, I want to get back to that, and judging by this mark nonfiction is the way to go.

[bisluthq]

First, I’m so sorry to you, L, and all others impacted by That Person. It’s so twisted that someone would rise to that level to go at someone they dont know over an internet ship that may or may not even be real. In fact, they are doing it entirely based on a fictious version of events which makes the whole thing even worse.

I wish all people who follow her still or are her companions would snap out of it. You have to believe in too many incredibly unrealistic things at once in order for their version of kaylor to be true. I used to follow her before the joshlie engagement and then the Wedding when I snapped out of it. I’m so embarrassed to say that I was absolutely shook with disbelief when I read the people magazine engagement announcement and how sick to my stomach I felt when I realized I fell for something that was absolutely not true and even tried to hold onto it until shortly after the wedding with the whole PR argument. That’s not to say it never happened but I jumped on the kaylor train after the j law video, so I arrived likely long after it ended if it happened and was only exposed to the land of unrealistic by that time. I honestly felt like a moron for a while about the whole thing. Since then, I still lurk on some stuff just to see what the latest discourse is because I enjoy mess and entertainment. That is, I enjoyed seeing the kaylor justifications in lover, folklore, and evermore even if don’t believe them until the baby discussion and deplatforming episode and everything that’s spiraled from those.

I realized that That Person has only gotten two things right and one seems to be by accident. Their claim to fame was seeing karlie before that 1989 concert (so she alleged) and that “spade” told them karlie would be at the rep tour concert she ended up going to. Well, anyone who was on kaylor stan twitter around that time also saw that someone else who claimed to be an insider posted that karlie would be there beforehand (could they be spade? Sure or just a rando who sent in an ask or maybe they didn’t even do that and they just saw it on twitter and ran with it to build credibility at a weak moment in the fandom). So to the best of my knowledge, no other information she has ever posted has been true about the ship or infamous contracts. I’m fuzzy on if she got some business stuff right but you know what I mean.

It just stuns me that this person has been perpetuating this lie for years, makes up personas to refer to herself in the third person on this site, send emails pretending to be yet another persona. Also stunning that people send in asks to that blog asking when their lost leader will return like they aren’t the same person (I can’t tell if everyone is in on the joke or what). It’s honestly scary that someone is willing to go to these lengths over *checks notes* disagreement on Taylor Swift’s sexuality and possible love life. I have always wondered what the end goal is for this person, especially when the things they predict continue to not come true. Aside from the brief deplatforming, there have been no consequences for causing real life emotional and mental harm to vulnerable people. Whether it’s the weird ass emails impacting people’s daily lives or stringing along impressionable young people hoping for representation. I don’t even like that I’m continuing discussion on her and giving her more online oxygen but L’s story has been sitting with me since I read it and I just wish it would stop before it happens to others.

This is long and I’m sorry but do you ever just step back like I do and think what in the actual hell is going on? Like how is any of this actually happening?

*okay before I go, thanks for the realistic timeline

**also, my only problem with Toe is that it’s like the real life version of Notting Hill and I can’t believe Taylor pulled something like that off for real but I still support

Thanks for sharing these thoughts and... ya I agree with just about every part of your ask.

[wrongmiraculous]

#kidnap adrien agreste party 2k19

Word count: 1156

This is a self indulgent crack!fic.

It started out as a joke. A conversation between new friends, but things spiralled out of control. People from all over the world caught wind of the news. Gabriel Agreste was an awful parent. Adrien, deemed sunshine child by all of his friends, needed to be saved. They made a plan, one unbeknownst to Adrien, Gabriel and his assistant Nathalie; but one that would change everything. That had everything set up, it was more planned out than the area 51 raid and more convoluted than Ladybug’s plans involving lucky charms. 

Tumblr users banned together, meeting at the Basel airport in eastern France. It was a six hour drive to Paris with a stop in Gare de Nancy. They were tired when they got to Paris, a day full of flying and driving to a toll on people. A lovely woman offered her house as a home base. Her daughter had almost forced her into it when she heard what was going down. 

The amazing Sabine Cheng let her bakery be their home base. Her daughter Marinette had already made suits that would leave each of them completely unrecognizable. They were completely black, except for the five striped pocket, resembling the pattern on Adrien’s shirt. 

“How did you make these so quickly?” @xthreeravensx asked, holding the exquisitely stitched fabric in their hands. 

“I’ve always had a knack for designing, so it was my pleasure to help you guys. I completely support your cause,” Marinette replied. “Gabriel Agreste is an awful man. Adrien shouldn’t have to endure his torture.” 

Chorusses of agreements ran out amongst the room. Annoyed scoffs rang along with them. Gabriel Agreste was once a great man, but he was nothing more than a grade-a snob now. A scumbag that deserved to rot in jail.

“I saw all the discourse online but I was too scared to join the group chat. What exactly is your plan?” Marinette asked. Rightfully so, something as illegal as a kidnapping had to have some planning involved.

“At first we were going to hire a hitman to kill Gabriel Agreste but @themiraculousladyblog said that was ‘too illegal’,” @justsomegarbageperson said, and something along the lines of party pooper was muttered under her breath.

“We decided to just get Adrien out of that house, and to a place that would cherish him,” @wrongmiraculous added. “We didn’t think anything would come of it, but low and behold here we are.” 

“But for the actual plan, why don’t you come along for the ride, find out for yourself?” @angelwolf-156 bargained. “It’ll be fine, come on.”

“I can’t, I have a curfew now that school has started. Although I did hear that Ladybug was gonna show up,” Marinette grinned.

“Ladybug? Score!” @purplewhiteandgold exclaimed. “With her luck on our side this will go off without a hitch.”

If you drowned out the chatting, and listened close you could almost hear a high pitched giggle followed by a quiet shush.

“As long as Adrien gets given a hug I’m happy. That boy deserves it with all the trauma going on around him,” @bug-nette shook their head. It was downcast and had a sad expression written on it. Faces around the room mimicked it before @themiraculousladyblog spoke up.

“We leave after dark. The window to Adrien’s room shouldn’t be hard to deal with. With Ladybug joining us, she can get us up there with her yo-yo. Adrien loves Ladybug, as everyone should of course,” everyone nodded in agreement, causing Marinette to blush faintly. “So she’ll wake him up and carry him out of there.”

“ @thequestionablyhuman has already agreed to be the getaway driver. @sometypeofbirthstone and @catchacha are going to be the fake getaway drivers that will lead anyone astray. @poshplumcot is bringing the fluffy blankets to make the hugs better. @pricklypoisonousplant and @hiccstridgirl are standing watch for the police and such, while @kagamiinette , @its-destiel-ass-butt , and @yerabearmum are gonna fight of Gabriel, Nathalie and anybody else that becomes a problem,” @wrongmiraculous finished explaining the plan. “Alright clowns! We’ve got this!” 

Tom, Sabine and Marinette were all taken aback by the loud cheers that rang out after it. Everyone was filled in, everything was set up, now all that was left was time. To pass the time, Sabine brought everyone fresh pastries and hot chocolate, Marinette put on the Ladybug and Chat Noir movie. 

As the hours passed, more and more people showed up. Marinette was so glad she had made so many suits, she’d have to thank Tikki for helping her. A kilogram of fresh bakery cookies should do the trick. 

The sun had set, the sky was pitch black. The only source of light was the pale dim moon and scarce street lamps strung across the roads. Marinette had gone to bed a while ago, Ladybug had joined the party soon after she left. 

“Let’s go, clowns,” she said, the moonlight reflecting off the shiny material of her suit, Alya desperately wanted to touch. She whispered that she had wanted to feel it to @scientistkink, who had agreed. 

With Ladybug’s help they had easily gotten through security. Adrien’s window was in sight and was surprisingly unlocked. 

“Adrien,” Ladybug gently caressed his shoulder waking him up slightly. Adrien gasped at the sight of his lady. This must be a dream, if it was he never wanted to wake up. 

“My Lady?” Adrien whispered, his eyes boring into hers, while her mouth hung open. 

My Lady? She thought. Only Chat calls me My Lady. Oh my god! Is Adrien Chat?

“Chaton?” Ladybug whispered, her bluebell eyes glistening with hope. He relaxed into her touch, humming sweetly. Marinette didn’t need any more convincing, this was her kitty, and she was his lady. “Come on Chaton, we have some travelling ahead of us.”

He stood up, calling upon Plagg to transform him. In his place sat a leather clad superhero with ears and a tail. 

Alya’s jaw dropped to the floor, as did Nino’s. However, all those coming from outside of France just shrugged, saying it was obvious. They quickly left the mansion, into the getaway vehicles. Marinette leaned her head onto Chat’s shoulder lifting his hand, entertaining his fingers with her own. 

“I have something to tell you, Chat,” he nodded his facial expressions were that of worry, and acceptance. Marinette released her transformation. Alya and Nino’s eyes went wide. Their two best friends were the heroes of Paris. As they thought about it, it made more sense. Why they got a miraculous, of course they’d be superheroes. 

“Hi, I’m Marinette,” Chats eyes widened, his transformation falling. He embraced her with the biggest hug, filled with all the emotions he could muster. Silent promises made. Words left unspoken, but addressed and known about all the same. The night bore on, and they feel asleep hand in hand, hearts beating in sync. 

They would deal with the tabloids tomorrow, tonight was for them to cherish. Tonight was for him to feel loved.

[thefoolsprocession]

What did quiet-times and official-cisphobe do?

Quiet accused me and a transfem friend of mine (who I wish to keep anonymous, but she might step forward herself) of stalking and harassing them after we told tem it was inconsiderate to trans women for a person who wasn’t a woman to feel entitled to women’s spaces. Teir reasoning for wanting those spaces were entirely valid but we were simply trying to explain how that mentality hurts trans women and tey started panicking, attacked us, and blocked us. Tey were 18 years old. It’s not very forgiveable.

Official-cisphobe is a whole other kettle of fish. Now I don’t have all the details on this but my friends (that I trust wholeheartedly) tell me it ran a discord server where several mods where abusers and it did nothing about it. The same friend I mentioned above I believe tried to call official-cisphobe out on it, and it proceeded to start harassing and accusing her. It started a particular brand of discourse that quickly turned into a harassment campaign against my friend which procedurally spiralled out of control. These people, as young as 14, were intentionally triggering my friend. I’m not saying official-cisphobe is responsible for that, but one does refer to the butterfly effect in this instance.

Both of these instances are rooted in transmisogynisy and I’d rather people stopped interacting with them. I have no idea whether either of these people gave proper apologies for these incidents yet, and even if they did I probably wouldn’t accept them unless my friend (who was more affected) accepts them

[thetruscumsiren]

Just a little thing I have to say

[TW: q*eer slur. May not be a big deal to some but some people are seriously not okay with that so putting it anyway]

Okay so I know no one really cares but here’s my thing about MOGAI and microidentities. I used to identify as genderqueer when I was roughly 12/13. I didn’t run into the truscum/tucute discourse until 2018. I didn’t even know there was a word for what I was feeling until 2018. Back in like 2014/2015, I just figured that if you knew, you knew. That something would feel off and going by a different label would be a better fit. I’d never seen anyone say gender was a choice. Actually, i defended my identity as genderqueer/genderfluid purely because I knew/figured that you can’t choose your gender. It’s just something you are. I technically knew you need dysphoria, but I didn’t even know dysphoria was a damn word.

I was lucky. I never ran into the deeper MOGAI community. I knew a few things, but I’ve seen more MOGAI identities in the past 6 months than I ever did when I was younger. I had the ability to figure myself out and eventually realize that I’m just a trans guy. I didn’t fall into the downward spiral of MOGAI.

Here’s the thing though:

If I had known about all those microidentities and the tucute movement, it would have left me vulnerable, confused, and would have prolonged my questioning phase unnecessarily.

But man, if I’d seen the truscum stuff earlier? Things would have been so much easier. I would know exactly what I was really experiencing. I wouldn’t constantly question whether I have dysphoria because I’m feminine; my past in MOGAI still haunts me because I used to identify with an identity that solely relied on strict gender roles, so even though I have a binary identity now, it still causes me problems. Transmeds don’t make me question my validity. TUCUTES DO.

I thought everyone knew you need dysphoria to be trans, even if I didn’t know there was a specific word for it. Even for MOGAI identities, I knew you needed dysphoria, I just didn’t fully understand dysphoria as a concept.

Transmeds have educated me more on what I need to know than tucutes ever did. And that’s not just looking at opinion bias; I didn’t know the effects of HRT and wanted to start it anyway, not even fully knowing for sure whether or not I had dysphoria. I didn’t know the success rate of phalloplasty. I didn’t fully understand the permanence of starting testosterone. I didn’t know the difference between body dysphoria and dysmorphia entirely before that (if I had known, it would have made me realize I was trans so much sooner because I always confused it with dysmorphia). If my parents had let me, I could have potentially given myself induced dysphoria because I didn’t know enough to know if I was actually dysphoric. Even though I am trans, I didn’t know for sure at the time. And that could have had so many bad repercussions.

I understand wanting to be nice and accepting towards everyone. As someone who’s always been too nice for my own good and wanted desperately to fit in, I understand completely. But there are limits for a reason. If you try too hard not to hurt anyone, you end up hurting other people without even trying. I know making people feel bad feels horrible. But sometimes it’s necessary. Even if it feels awful. Trust me, I don’t take joy in this. Actually, I feel a specific type of awful because I used to be one of you. I know how a lot of you feel. I understand.

But this is better for all of us, for our own good. Temporary offense is better than long-term damage.

[janiedean]

(sorry I didn’t want that person to search for themselves and find this reply xD I can’t with discourse rn)

... that the OP hasn’t read a single king book nor actually watched a single tarantino movie because nah tarantino doesn’t singlehandedly control anything and he made NINE movies and if everyone copied him maybe we’d have better films around because technically he’s better than 90% of the ppl in american cinema regardless of what you think of him as a person, re king:

if you read lisey’s story or any king book with a female POV and you still think he hates women sorry but what the fuck, also while carrie white is no brienne when it comes to that rep I can 100% assure OP that carrie was the closest I came to Shitty Experiences Re How You Look In Literature until I read asoiaf and that’s saying all

half of the books he wrote where he had an obvious self-insert happened when he was using/drinking/obviously needing to cope with stuff and OP obv. hasn’t read the dark half but I’ve got news for them, his stand-in never comes out of it looking good or like the hero of the story

I went to elementary school with people who swore and used slurs all the time which makes that entire point about the slurs moot because it’s realistic dialogue not wanting to use slurs, and half of the stuff they classify as such was not when he wrote those books IN THE 70s/80s learn some context pls also if the villain uses them guess what IT’S THE VILLAIN HE MAKES THE VILLAIN AN ASSHOLE WHO USES SLURS pls it’s so weak I can’t even

everyone and their pals has written about tarantino’s fetishes and same re king but I mean it’s fucking horror books, what the fuck do you expect? stuff that’s not weird? I thought that was what I was signing up for

king is hardly the only horror writer around and if he’s successful it’s bc he’s better at it than most people obviously, so OP can wonder why (hint: maybe he actually can write, more on that later) instead of complaining that he somehow controls a genre when all he’s done is publish books that people buy

also: king has a lot of things I don’t particularly like about his approach ie that his endings suck on a rate of three on five depending on the book’s length (the longer it is the higher is the risk it sucks which is why he’s that good at short stories), he has a really serious problem with that trope where the protagonists forget the whole story which is2g it’s one of my major pet peeves and I’ve cursed him for years for that, sometimes he forgets coherency within the plot is a thing and sometimes he writes about stuff I don’t care for in theory but guess what, other than the fact that he made me care for that stuff (guys if you told me I’d ever gaf about a plot like cujo’s when I was thirteen I’d have laughed in your face and when I read it I couldn’t put it down, it means it’s good), the thing is: king is the best writer I ever read when it comes not just to character work but to make you feel like you’re 100% with that person even if you don’t like them particularly which guess what is exactly the main thing I want in a book. like guys I read the body when I was fourteen and that sent me into the king spiral but at that age I had never ran across a piece that described so well exactly how I felt when I was twelve (and I remembered even too much thanks) and guess what I was projecting like hell on the pov..... WHO IS THE PSEUDO-STAND IN THAT THE OP COMPLAINS ABOUT bc he’s a writer when he grows up (and I wanted to be one - still do for that matter) and it didn’t matter that it was king putting himself partially into the story, because he was good enough at it that it really spoke to me down to my damned molecules, and I’m 100% sure that most people who read king and find him so enjoyable/the reason why he sells all the books he sells is that he gets people and it makes you see yourself in most of his characters or if not he gets you to be with them and he drops on you some seriously amazingly written truth bombs every other moment, and guess what I think that what I have in common with king is music taste, politics and very partial literary taste. the end. we’d probably wildly disagree on a hell of a lot of things including how good was shining as an adaptation and/or how much hp is actually a good book, but I didn’t need to have shit in common with him except maybe wanting to do the same job to read that damned short story and feel like he had looked right inside my damned brain.

and I’m a woman, but nvm. also lisey’s story was one of the best female povs I’ve ever read in my entire life hands down and king has a long-ass list of amazingly well-written and conceived female characters that he certainly doesn’t hate, so my opinion about that post is that op sorely needs to read a king book from start to finish without prejudices. and they also need to realize that if you watch a tarantino movie you know it’s him in the first five minutes and no one else could shoot any of his movies the way he does, which is the trademark of actually having a personality as a director and a personal style.

also idk how the hell they think tarantino self-inserts in his movies without dying because the one time he actively acted in one of them he died before the first twenty minutes but I’m done trying to discuss anything on this hellhole of a website when people obviously talk without knowing the material they’re discussing and that’s my tea.

(ps: this is not about the personal issues one might have with tarantino after the whole weinstein scandal got down and fyi the way it went really lowered my opinion of the guy as a person, but that doesn’t mean he can’t make good movies, because guess what art =/= artist and I’d like to keep the discussion separate. anyway they don’t have near the same personality and king spends his time posting pictures of his corgi on twitter never mind that anything terrible you could say about him was valid for the time when he was an alcoholic/using and he’s been dragging himself about it in his own books since forever and now he’s been sober for years and I really don’t think it’s the case to blame addicts for being addicted especially when they come from his background so can we really fucking not go there, thanks.)