#context and intention

[leandra-kinard]

you could just not respond and keep the slurs to yourself. have you ever considered that? maybe a post by someone affected by the slur isn't the place to harp on why it's so hard for you to not be able to type it. you can have your opinions, you're grown and obviously not open to change. but consider respect and decorum when you decide to invalidate the feelings of marginalized people on their own fandom experiences. blocking is free, scrolling is free, be fucking decent.

Sigh. I am going to respond calmly to this one because it comes from a place of wanting to be supportive and understanding to other people's struggles.

However, I still disagree. Firstly, I've seen posts like these many times, and the logical fallacy in it has always rubbed me the wrong way. So I felt like I wanted to say something this time in the hopes of opening people's eyes to the logical fallacy. The assumption that I could do this on here was, admittedly, too optimistic.

Secondly, I understand not wanting to be faced with things that are uncomfortable to us, but that's not how the world works. And in many ways, that is good or at least neutral.

There are many things that make us - in our own personal contexts - uncomfortable, and the feelings as such are valid. But what is not - in my understanding of fairness and common sense - valid, is making your own problem (that is valid in your limited personal context) everyone else's problem.

I find that kind of behavior not only annoying and irrational but actually dangerous.

To elaborate on what dangers I am seeing in it in detail would go beyond the scope of this response, but to pick out one factor, it's dangerous because it creates the attitude and assumption that things are universally something because they are that thing to you.

That automatically creates injustices for people in wider and different contexts, and an atmosphere of anxiety and over-caution that is detrimental to human interaction.

We are all different, we all come from different social and cultural contexts. We have different personal and societal needs, different expressions of ourselves. To measure everything by one standard you automatically apply bigotry towards other standards.

This 'trend' to find offense in things and limit the ways in which we can communicate and express ourselves is so fucking detrimental to us as human beings. People preach for tolerance and acceptance but then are incapable of applying it to others when others' needs clash with one's own.

Example: the whole "queer is a slur" discourse. There are people who have VALID lived experiences with the word "queer" being used against them as a slur, often combined with physical violence; there are gay men who have been beaten up or even killed while being called that.

On the other hand, you have a mostly younger generation (but not solely) who have reclaimed the word and feel empowered by describing themselves as such; there are many neutral usages for the word as well, such as "queer theory" in academia.

So what do you do with that? Who gets to decide which side is right and which side is wrong?

If we were to apply the principle of who feels the strongest about it, who has known the most violence/discrimination in connection with the phrase, then we would HAVE to concede to the "queer is a slur" faction (and to the "ABO without dashes is a slur" faction). If there are just a dozen non-straight people out there who get literally (not over-used figuratively) triggered back to violent and abusive experiences when hearing/reading the word "queer", then we all have to stop using it, right?

Well. For some reason we (society/the LGBT+ community at large) have decided that no. We care more about the utility of the word queer in the contexts we have created than we care about the valid and lived experiences of those people. Because it HAS utility and means something positive to many people.

(Personally, I am very much in two minds about this issue and understand both positions.)

And this example is even different than the ABO one, because we are talking about "queer" with the same main meaning in the same language. It's not like "queer" means "wood shoe" in Swahili or is a company that makes knitting needles in Korea. "Queer" means the same thing, whether it's used as a slur or used as an empowering/neutral term to describe non-straight people.

Whereas ABO means a myriad of entirely different things in different languages, most of all as an acronym for completely innocuous things like the "American Board of Orthodontics" or my cited wind energy corporation. So there you even have a much more washed out and very much broadened variety of meaning and context.

So, then why is it we say "Fuck them older queers who have been hate-crimed and killed while being called this slur that we like to use to describe our identity" but don't apply it to ABO fanfiction where the meaning is completely removed from the meaning of the slur?

It's not only inconsistent, it's even going much further into the restrictive!

So no, I do not play along, I do not keep quiet, I do not simply accept it. Because it is IMPORTANT to remind people to THINK. To see context, see meaning, see intention. And to also understand that the world cannot be fair to everyone because every fairness to you is an unfairness to someone else.

We HAVE to be able to tolerate and understand that. Or else we have to succumb to tribalism and all stay in our small little niches where everyone thinks and speaks exactly like we do, and if you only fall one millimeter out of line, you have to find your own community, because you can't be part of ours anymore.

THAT is the danger in this way of thinking.

If we ban saying "abo fanfic", we have to ban saying "queer community", we have to ban Brits smoking "a fag", we have to ban Spanish speakers saying "libro (or other masculine noun) negro", and so on.

And we CANNOT do that because it creates more injustice than it initially strives to fight.

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[gascreates]

when aang doesn't explain everything

[quantumshade]

there's an interesting thing rtd said from the commentary about the "real mom" line:

i get not liking the line but like. it's an intentional mistake and an intentional character choice, and something we'll return to in the future, and that seems like important context to have when talking about the episode.

[echobsilly]

GET LOOSE!!! (pre-ascension click clack scribble)

[raconteur-wanpi]

Are you tired of me pointing out the Sanji & Usopp parallels yet? Well too bad! Here's more.

Gee, I wonder why Sanji, the guy who was told by his family he should "just leave" for being weak when he was a kid, got so upset when Luffy was about to tell Usopp, who was clearly feeling insecure for being the "weak" one of the group, to "just leave".

[trekkerac]

YREAAHH going through old super smash doodles

[canisalbus]

Sobbing over Machete, who can only be seen smiling in one part of the growing up compilation, as a wee little lad.

Sobbing over the face that he was a toddler in that part, a child who had yet to be separated from his family or know the abuse of his "teacher," who only knew the joys of cute snails and holding his favorite pet chicken.

It seems like all of his issues were compounded after his family left him :(

It is what it is. Considering the cards he was dealt, he managed to play his hand pretty well, I think. I've been mulling over this a bit lately, and I'd go as far as to say that in the eyes of his contemporaries, his childhood probably wouldn't even have been unusually unhappy or unfortunate. By most metrics he was a wildly successful individual.

Historically speaking, child abandonment has been more widespread than a modern day person might initially think.

(source)

I'd also like to believe that his parents meant well and the decision to give him up wasn't an easy one. They were going through an impossibly tight squeeze of financial and emotional hardship, and Machete, the youngest child, was constantly sick with mystery illnesses they didn't know how to deal with (anemia + weakened immunity system being the main cause for most of them). Rather than having the entire family suffer and starve, they arranged to have him be left at a monastery, hoping to give him a fighting chance to survive.

If there's a silver lining to it, it was a immense stroke of luck he ended up somewhere where he was looked after (monks were known to have better understanding and access to medicine than commoners). Moreover, he was also taught to read, a rare and priced skill at the time, which ultimately enabled him to claw his way into the upper echelons of the society. Not only did he survive, he prevailed against all odds.

Machete himself probably has mixed feelings about his childhood. He doesn't like to think about it, and (like most people) doesn't realize or admit the extent it affected him. His parents only exist on some conceptual, untouchable level to him, and I don't think he has any desire to try to find out who they were and if they're still alive. He might harbor some repressed, aimless and faceless resentment for them for deciding to wash their hands of him for a reason for another. Maybe it's the root of his inferiority complex and persistent sense of inadequacy, knowing there must've been something wrong with him for that to happen. But then again, it's hard to truly miss something or someone you don't have a personal connection to, or any memories about. In the end, he wasn't worth their time then and they're not worth his time now.

He can recall some of his time in the monastery and it was mostly a pleasantly uneventful existence, filled with strict but soothing routines and a sense of community. His mentor (father-figure, whether he likes it or not) was a cold and brutish man who disciplined him harshly. His relationship with him is tense and inflamed, but he realizes he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did without his tutelage, connections and patronage. If he hadn't sponsored his studies in Venice, he would've never crossed paths with Vasco either.

[sophaeros]

the last shadow puppets - everything you've come to expect: 2016 tour outfits — almost all clothes custom made by ray brown sources

[diino8081]

guys i think i know how the curse transferred

[beastlyidiocy]

yeppers

[teyrnacousland]

We do not give Illario enough credit for being able to look Zara Renata in the eyes as she climbs out of her gross blood pool, covered in blood, and act like the thought of touching her doesn't make him physically ill.

[weirdmamagnet]

Did some doodles for the Mind Electric AU I have with a friend. :) (aka bill doubled down)

[bunnieswithknives]

Can we possibly get your version of osma? I'd be interested to see what you did with her

Here you go!! I was putting this off a bit cause, I'll be honest, the way the reveal/transition scene was handled was actually kinda upsetting for me.

I did read on her Wiki though that she's apparently a fairy which is awesome as hell. I haven't gotten to that part in the books yet but I'm glad to have something to chew on in my time of need.

[rocketbirdie]

i see it's that time of the year again where people start hating on the english localization of remake/rebirth despite having next to no understanding of how large scale translation projects work 🙃

[dumplingsjinson]

Character A separates from Character B to take a breather from the kiss, only to laugh in surprise when Character B starts pulling them on top of them.

"What are you doing?" they question, straddling Character B; feels Character B pressing against them. They blink, swallowing heavily; it doesn't take much for them to understand what that means, as they cautiously grind their hips down against Character B's, testing the waters.

Character B's hands sneak up their torso, hands cupping their clothed breasts, massaging them gently as Character A lets out soft little sighs and breathy moans, hips quickening with speed; ducking down to bury their face on Character B's neck every now and again out of embarrassment and to muffle the noises they were making.

"Wait, wait, wait," Character B breathes out, holding onto Character A's hips to stop them from moving. Character A sits up, looking down at them, heart skipping a beat at the way Character B stares up at them with hooded eyes. "We shouldn't be too loud, yeah? How about we go somewhere else?"