#discourse kinda

[rainbowchaox]

I see people being like Fuck the studios how dare they end it after everything and I’m like shouldn’t we go to the end (still don’t know if it’s strictly the end or end of a season) happy?

Like shit happened I won’t say it was all Peaches and Rainbows but like think back on what Qsmp truly is,

We got friendships that crossed languages and cultures! We got Phil canonically kissed a guy numerous times! We had solid gay rep! We as a fandom laughed and cried and yelled together! Qsmp at its core is beautiful so we should go to the event smiling and happy. And Qsmp is special and I hope others honestly copy what they did with the translation mod, and you bet your ass no matter what happens I still be here. Brainrotting about Pissa kissing. So be happy all of us got to well be part of this fandom and community. Qsmp stays with us as long as we create.

[sapitties]

nobody is allowed to have an opinion about sapnap besides sapolos I fear

[queencaramilflinda]

Can I ask why you're a shriek week hater? Genuinely curious! I never watched it

Ok so I am putting this below a cut in case anyone doesn't want to look at discourse which is completely understandable. Also this got kinda long oops

Shriek week... where do I begin? Since you haven't seen the season, let me step back and explain the premise. Shriek Week was a season set at a university for monsters, DM'd by Gabe Hicks. It used a system made by Gabe called the Mythic System. Each PC (Ally Beardsley, Lily Du, Ify Nwadiwe and Dani Fernandez) plays a student at the school for monsters.

I should also preface by saying I havent seen the season since it came out years ago so this is all based on my best memory and posts about the situation

The plot. It is said in the adventuring party that the original premise for this season was for it to be a straight up and down dating sim style game, but that Gabe decided to go another direction between episodes 1&2, which means that the plot was clearly scraped together extremely last minute and is generally nonsensical. It involves clones and an evil plant and a bunch of other stuff, it's just kind of bad. The fact that the plot was shoe-horned in last minute also really effects the pacing of the season, because it was only 4 episodes long and only ever originally supposed to be a fun and quirky dating sim game.

The rail-roading. This problem is deeply connected to the previous point. I havent seen Gabe in literally anything else so in no way am I making any statement about his abilities as a DM, and I am not the type to throw the phrase rail-roading around willy-nilly. The thing is, that because the clones and evil plant monster plot got thrown in so last minute with so little time to be resolved, it a little bit took away player agency, with players consistently attempting/asking to do things only to be told no, and instead led down a very particular path. Usually I am very forgiving of this sort of behavior as DMing is very hard and it can be easy for players to get distracted from the plot at hand... however the players were brought into this game under the pretense that it would be rom-com in genre, not plot heavy. So it kind of makes sense for them to be confused and not on board with the plot that they didn't know to expect.

Terry Talbo. Ok this maybe a me thing, because I do not particularly like Ify Nwadiwe in general, but the way he plays his character Terry Talbo has always made me uncomfortable. To quote a post I made several months ago " Ify plays his character as being kind of pushy towards women, not taking no as an answer when asking them out, and generally being toxically masculine in a way that was not criticized by the narrative or even really the players at all." A scene that distinctly sticks out in my head as both bad manners and bad gameplay is when Terry attempts to ask out a woman at the gym, and rolls low on his check. As a result, the woman says no. Instead of backing off like a normal person Terry doubles down and insists on rolling at least one or two more times to try again, and eventually the lady relents and agrees to go on a date with him. It all just felt icky, and it was not just a one time occurrence.

The cast. (This may also just be a me thing). Each member of that cast individually are deeply funny and talented individuals. However the majority of them did not know each other and the chemistry of the group was way off and did not pass the vibe check to me. One of my favorite things about actual play shows is the secondhand feeling you get of being in a friend group and playing dnd. Shriek Week did not have this, which reduced my enjoyment.

The University Setting. I am putting this last because it's such a small complaint comparatively speaking, but the seasons that came immediately before Shriek Week were The Seven and Misfits and Magic. It was the third season in a row to take place in a school as one of its primary locations, and I think im not the only one who was feeling burned out of this premise by this point.

This is what I have off the top of my head without fact checking anything, so I apologize if I am missing something major or am incorrect about any of the details! I love d20, and while Shriek Week was not for me, it has in not in anyway impacted my devotion for the show.

[zhoudadudugongjin]

actually the only thing in cql that i want explained is how jiggy got his hands on king théoden of rohan's sword

[idiotsonlyevent]

it is completely understandable to be uncomfortable with the sexual assault in dandadan. it's important to discuss how it's framed, whether it's handled poorly, or if it could be been portrayed better. but the number of people - even fans - stating that it is only fanservice, irrelevant, or could be removed is frankly bizarre to for SO many reasons, starting with the fact that this parallel exists.

the anime made it even more obvious by interpolating cuts from the first scene into the second one.

i thought this scene showed that momo gaining her powers by believing in her relationship with her grandmother gives her the strength to fight back against what is basically a horrific, much more aggressive and abstract (maybe even absurd?) representation of her shitty gross ex - who was demanding she 'put out' and pay for the love hotel in very first scene.

while the escalation from one scene to the next is surprising, it's not something that comes out of nowhere. this first scene is meant to be a set-up to what will happen later. it sets the tone, though significantly more lighthearted at this point. it tells you that sex, sexuality, etc. is something dandadan will touch on - though you don't know what the scope and depth will be until later in the chapter.

i cannot recommend this video enough, as it discusses some interesting interpretations of what the serpoians and turbo granny represent in their respective assault scenes, as well as how right now the treatment of both scenes is unfortunately uneven.

more notes about plot and thematic relevance below the cut. spoilers for anime-onlies (up to chapter 8, will probably be covered in episodes 4/5).

momo was assaulted, and almost cut up by the serpoians, much like the other victims turbo granny appeared around. this is an intentional parallel. turbo granny goes to momo because that is what she does. again, SUPER unclear how that factors into turbo granny's assault of ken, but if we keep the video's interpretation of cynicism in mind, it could be related to that; maybe turbo granny has a cynicism toward men - similar to momo in chapter/episode 1 - and this is why she chose to attack ken. unfortunately, it's still too early to really understand and explain a lot of her motivations.

again, completely understandable to not like how the sexual assault was handled or portrayed, and it's important to keep discussing it. but this is what dandadan does for many different types of trauma and difficult life experiences. this is a huge part of dandadan's identity. if you don't like it, that is fine, but calling the sexual assault 'just fan service' is blatantly untrue.

[block-toad]

[kinardsevan]

i've kinda kept my mouth shut (outside of the group chat, that is) on Buck's attitude and behavior in 809 on purpose. as a neurodivergent who has certain opinions in the face of Buck and Eddie's relationship that others have already pointed out (Buck's unending loyalty and willing to give while Eddie continues to take without thanks), there's something to be said about having abandonment issues and complex trauma that is being compounded all at once without any reprieve. so i'm gonna spell some shit out.

let's start right at 801, when we literally started the season with Buck running to the roof of the firehouse and his coworkers friends telling him not to jump, but also compounding that statement not with "because we care about you" but instead "because we'd have to clean you off the sidewalk". there's been discussion in the fandom before about Evan's passive suicidality and all that plays into that, but it's an important launching point for where we're at now, as far as I'm concerned.

then you get into the meat of the season. it's never exactly easy for him: first there's Gerrard and the complications of that relationship, then there's the issues of the boils/his health, then the breakup. then we waltz right into Eddie announcing he's leaving town to go be with his son, and suddenly we're arriving at a point in time that, in terms of "time" on the show, is probably only about a yearish out from him surviving being struck by lightning. that's also a major trauma to deal with, that we didn't really ever see fully resolved, and now we're about to add the kidnapping of his sister (and the possibility, however remote, that she miscarries due to her kidnapping? this has just been suggested in the group chat, but anything is possible).

i've seen the commentary that he needs to get over himself, that he was selfish for what he did to Eddie, that he needs therapy, etc. but here's the thing:

you can do decades of therapy and still be emotionally dysregulated in times of heightened stress. let's also add that in the midst of everything that was changing in Evan's life over the past year(ish), his one constant that he could rely on, was the relationship he was in. it was a relationship that--as many have pointed out--was the first time he was put first, was treated as though his feelings mattered, and he (as I assume we'll see come to pass canonically) likely felt seen. Tommy didn't pander to him, but he also didn't shut Evan's feelings down. I imagine in the face of dealing with Gerrard, his disloated shoulder (and the boils), Bobby's NDE and subsequent shift from being in charge the 118, Tommy was a stabilizing force for him. he got to go home and have someone who cared to hear about his ails.

so here we are months later, when all of his friends are back on even ground from the shit they all were going through previously (which he showed up for each and every one of them with, by the way), and he's sinking. he's struggling against the current of loss, after loss, after loss. and i'm sure somewhere in there (as someone who hsa gone to therapy), that for a while, he told himself to just go parallel to the current, and eventually he'd make it out. but I think we're also seeing at this point that he's caught up in a riptide. we know he's not doing okay losing Tommy ("I don't feel anywhere near recovered"/"I almost relapsed, I almost called Tommy"/"don't go leaving your people, you don't know how hard it is for them without you"), and now his best friend (who he's bent over backwards for many times in the last seven years, even in the face of being told he's exhausting and selfish) is leaving town. something that's baffling to me in the midst of Eddie's choice to leave too, is this: it's supposed to be a noble choice. he's supposed to be after this big pursuit to fix things with Chris and be a part of his life, and all that comes with that. I can understand not mentioning anything until he'd secured a place to live, however, once he had....why wasn't there a talk with Bobby, at the very least? why keep the secret of "i'm still figuring out how to leave here". wouldn't by the very nature of the fact that you're planning to leave and not return, you want to make that transition as smooth as possible??? wouldn't it make more sense to clue your friends in that you need a subletter, that your job will be vacant soon and your team is going to need someone to step in and fill that slot? it's not like these people are going to call down to El Paso and tell your family that you're on your way. and ALL of this is long before we get into the discussion of how he tells potential subletters that he has no ties to LA and that the real opportunities are in Texas. sure, we can continue to make the argument that Eddie didn't know Evan could hear what he was saying, and that he likely was only thinking of the future move at the time....

but also, as someone who can relate to the RSD, to the complex trauma and abandonment issues...it's NOT about that. Evan's reaction to Eddie's statement makes total sense to me because time and time again, I have voiced a need that sometimes, in the depths of feeling like I'm drowning in the deep waters, all I've ever wanted (and all I can assume Evan wants), is a little fucking recognition. he's not asking for Eddie to stay, and he states as much. he's not even asking for his people to put him first. all he's asking for is for his pain to be seen and recognized. to feel as though the people he loves, who bends over backwards to keep happy and from leaving, recognize when he's in pain. and yet.

it's why i have such a strong belief about where this story is going in terms of his mental health. you can only continue to lose, lose, lose so much, and sink under the weight of all of that before something breaks. and we can have arguments about how he needs more therapy, or how he needs to grow up, or this and that... but at the end of the day, you can do all of those things and still end up in the position he is. I made the argumentt to the group chat the other night that even under the contention that I'm likely more emotionally mature than Buck is, I'd still (and in fact have) reacted in similar ways to how he did. it's very easy to sit back and point fingers until you're faced with the same situation and all you're looking for is a little support, and everyone keeps shutting you down.

it's why my bucketlist hopes for the rest of the season see him going to the lengths of choosing selfishness if when he and Tommy get back together. it's that same vein that has me wanting to see a parallel to Maddie's s4 ending for him with his mental health, except I want Tommy telling him that they'll figure it out together. I want him finally getting to have someone in his corner when all the chips are down. obviously time will only tell if we get that, but we'll see.

[crvstybowlofcereal]

I describe myself as a bi lesbian for exactly that reason above! I'm sexually/physically attracted to all genders, and romantically attracted to non-men only, but there are other ways for this lable to be!

I know some people can consider their one orientation to be bi and lesbian at the same time, because it's 2 (or more) genders, but doesn't include men.

I'm sure there are other ways this lable is used also but im not confident enough to say what they are because it's not my experience

wait are bi lesbians valid or not??? I've seen so many people say that they're not, but I can see how they're possible. like being sexually attracted to multiple genders, but being romantically attracted to only women is totally possible and valid, but if bi lesbians aren't valid, what does that make them???

ftr this post isn't pro or anti bi lesbian, and also I would prefer if *only* (non terf) lesbians tell me whether they're valid or not

[rainbowchaox]

A letter for the Qsmp Hispanic Fandom:

¡Hola! Espero que no les importe que corte esto en español, pero siento que necesitaba traducir esta carta al español para mostrar realmente lo que quiero decir. Ya que esta carta es para el lado hispano y latino del fandom.

Esta carta vino desde un lugar de amor por el lado hispano del fandom de qsmp. He oído hablar de tantas cosas. Algunas historias que me cuentan mis mutuas hispanas.

Y lo odio tanto. Ustedes en general son una comunidad tan feliz y tonta. Y, sin embargo, te enfrentas a tanta intolerancia, odio y xenofobia.

Sin embargo, otros esperan que usted simplemente lo acepte. Y no digas nada.

Incluso cuando todos tenéis motivos para criticar tales acciones. Puedes sentirte molesto cuando la gente te trata mal. Para que nadie pueda decirte que te calles. Qsmp siempre tuvo como objetivo unir comunidades, idiomas y culturas.

Es por eso que estoy escribiendo todo esto en español para sus ojos.

Es una pena que esté muy claro que tanta gente no tomó este mensaje en serio. Así que quiero que cualquiera que vea esto sepa que eres jodidamente amado.

Mereces estar en este maravilloso fandom tanto como cualquier otra comunidad. Tu comunidad es la razón por la que ahora sé tanto español. Eres la razón por la que encontré tantas personas maravillosas que nunca habría conocido de otro modo y mucho menos entablado amistad.

Y estoy enojado por ti porque tuviste una semana tan horrible.

Just know you always be loved by me. And I may only speak English who is using Google translate to tell you all of this. Just remember you guys are amazing. And you are so loved more than you know.

-Rainbow

[foreignswaggersession]

yes louis and armand had filthy kinky sex between this:

and this:

y'all felt this, don't lie. feel free to argue with the wall. and don't just take it from me:

[praise-the-lord-im-dead]

I wasn't expecting a genuinely thoughtful article about humanizing kids today, but it makes me happy to see it.

(If the paywall on this gets you, type '12ft.io/' right before the web address in the search bar. It should return a clean copy)

^ one of the parts I thought was cool

[luxurystark-jackson]

so wait. mark s saves gemma scout by locking her out into the stairwell. then takes one (1) moment of personal autonomy to run through the halls with helly r, with the knowledge that their fate still hangs in the balance. so mark s gives mark scout his wife back and still allows himself those few last minutes to die with the woman he loves. beautiful

[pawberri]

if this isnt overstepping, do you have any advice for staying hopeful for the future?

1. Get involved in your community (even through small stuff like shows or drag or clubs)

2. Get involved in activism (even small stuff like donating but hopefully also local organizations)

3. Therapy to help with anxiety and grief and coming to terms with what cannot be fixed as well as getting over the fear of community involvement

4. Learn to accept delayed gratification and not seeing immediate results to your actions to help you stay involved

5. If you are genuinely too poor or disabled etc to do these things, try connecting to the groups as someone in need of help and connection and give yourself grace.

It also helps me to not deny that we might have something incomprehensible ahead of us. Allow yourself to process and grieve that and find joy in the day to day. But never give up on making things better. Do what you can to support the people who are able to make things better on any level. Learning history also helps me. There have been so many seemingly insurmountable things that people have overcome.

Naomi Klein's book Doppelganger helped me confront a lot of things. Rebecca Watson also mixes bad news and good news on her YouTube channel in a way that helps me. Follow people that are in vulnerable parts of the world. Don't disconnect from the bad in the world. It helps you see your own position clearer and can give you true perspective and true motivation to change things. The initial wave of grief becomes manageable and makes you more helpful to the rest of the world.

[thatone-churro]

hang on. there’s no way we’re revitalizing “are [cishet] aro people queer” discourse. it is almost 20-fucking-24. no. say sike right now. you’re all fucking ridiculous. how are we not only not over this, but bringing it up for active discourse again. and acting like the things being said are common discussion and not. blatant aphobia. which is homophobia. it’s queerphobia. did we never fucking learn from the many “they want us to fight amongst ourselves because if we’re divided it’s easier to ruin us” type talks that everyone was making a while ago. or was that a phase too. what happened to “anything not heteronormative is what queer is. anything with romance/sex/gender that’s othered from what society deems the “norm” is what we are. we are a community of outcasts because the greater community doesn’t want us either way.” what the shit.

[thepisserrrrrr]

as an ND able-bodied person, i just wanna say that cpunks are NOT doing anything wrong by not allowing us in their community. its completely okay and im actually very very happy that physically disabled people finally have their own space where they dont have to deal with ableism toward them all the time

able-bodied NDs have it made in this sense. we have TWO communities! we have neuropunk and madpunk, and you can go on any social media platform and easily find hundreds of other NDs on there along with little communities and shit. but physically disabled people dont have it that easy. when they DO find one that isnt just about ND people, it's still full of ableism. i've seen it myself and it makes me sick

so physically disabled people decided to make their OWN community. just for them. no one else. then THATS when able-bodied NDs start getting pissy and call them ableist when they were basically doing the exact same shit before.

you can handle not being allowed in one community. theres two more you can be part of just fine

if youre an able-bodied ND who sees yourself in any of this, maybe you should stop and look at yourself. make some improvements

to the cpunk community, dont let people like this tear you down. stand your ground, push these people out. you deserve your OWN safe space and no one will take that from you

[ed3lsgard]

btw the ppl who diminish mark and helly’s relationship to an “office situationship” are literally doing the same thing as lumon. acting as if innies aren’t actual people and their feelings don’t matter. the office and work is their entire world and life, it’s all they know, so of course it’s an “office romance”. the show has shown us multiple times that innies are their own person, that their feelings and experiences matter, despite what some say. so it would be incredibly hypocritical if they set up markhelly just for them to not end up together in at least some form.

also, even if they were to get gemma out, it’s not as if mark and her can ever go back to the way things were. narratively it would make no sense for the show to have them reunited and have their relationship go back to normal. mark wont be rewarded for escaping from his grief. now i have no idea how things will go, but i genuinely doubt any of it will be an easy fix.