#discourse without context

[superbeans89]

[onlyfangz]

ive definitely talked abt this before, but i literally cannot relate to the posts that are like "ohhh you guys ship them romantically when theyre soo much more interesting as friends". i contain multitudes. i think they are best friends. i think they are lovers. i think they are soulmates in a way that cant be categorised. these statements dont conflict.

[communistkenobi]

a prof in the department retired last year and was like just raid my office for whatever you want idc im not cleaning it out so it was like book whalefall. and because nobody in my department cares about theory i got to take all of his books on states and revolutions. I’m finally getting around to looking through them and he had some gooooood fucking books dude, I got Lineages of the Absolutist State by Perry Anderson, States and Social Revolutions by Theda Skocpol, Social Origins of Dictatorships and Democracies by Barrington Moore Jr, an edited collection on apartheid, and a book about settler colonial policy in Canada

[sukirichi]

PLEASE STOP COPYING FICS ‼️

I am by no means gatekeeping concepts or tropes. We all know that it’s normal to see the same tropes or AUs be used differently, and that is not plagiarism. However, I recently found a fic that was oddly similar to my old (and discontinued) Gojo x Reader series, Reckless. The CEO! Gojo is nothing new, and neither is an accidental pregnancy trope. The only reason I am concerned is because this Gojo series I found has the exact same themes as Reckless that consists of: a playboy CEO Gojo with a very notorious reputation, a poor reader who is an employee and asset to the company (someone who works closely with Gojo), reader getting knocked up from a one night stand with Gojo, reader with a seemingly dead/absent mother yet still in contact with her father, Gojo with a very traditional family who does not like reader, and Gojo with an ex he struggles to let go of - which are all elements of Reckless.

The first chapter of that Gojo fic is also eerily similar to my first chapter with the same flow of: YN finding out she’s pregnant and her friend being there for her, Gojo saying he’ll take responsibility because ‘they both made the baby’, YN having to move in with Gojo to take care of the baby, and both of them coming to a mutual agreement that their ‘relationship’ will be purely for the baby’s benefit. The flow of events and specific details about the characters’ backgrounds are too similar to mine.

Again, I am not gatekeeping concepts, just as how I’ve had other writers ask me if they could write their own stories or takes based off of the NAOYA’S TROPHY WIFE COLLECTION or the BONTEN HUSBANDS EXCLUSIVE, and I’m fine with that. I’m even happy people are inspired by what I write. But being inspired is completely different from taking someone’s story and posting it as yours. Please trust your own creativity and skills in writing. You can write amazing stories and have people love them without having to steal from others.

It’s sad to say this is not the first time I, and other writers, have been plagiarized. It’s even more upsetting to know that a friend of mine who has also written a Gojo series (that I’m sure you all know and dearly love) experiences the same issues with the same person. The fact that this is happening to many writers out there is disheartening. We work hard and pour a lot of love in the stories we create. None of us are getting paid for this, and we simply want to share our passions with others. So please, let us be kinder with one another and show love and support the right way. If you love a fic, you give feedback and rb/comment + show support to the writer. You don’t steal their ideas and play it off as your own because you liked it.

[ceratedfish24]

I am currently in a bad mood due to this one Tumblr creator kinda dragging Scott repeatedly. Their takes just rub me the wrong way.

They made this one post, which is so hilarious (it made me want to put the phone) where they were talking about Martyn's betrayal in Limited Life and Scott's reaction to said betrayal.

They claimed that Scott felt the need to gain some sort of moral high ground just because he wasn't particularly upset (or showed he was upset) that Martyn killed him, and just — what????

And their general talks about Pearl and Scott also feel odd.

Man, that sucks. I bet they didn’t say anything about how Pearl wanted to give her life for Scar in Secret Life. If Scott not being mad that Martyn killed him cause Scott had already won is “gaining moral high ground”, then Pearl trying to sacrifice herself is exactly the same. Except, neither of them are clawing for moral high ground because that’s insane. They’ve just won before and wouldn’t want to win again. Scott is literally known for sacrificing himself for his allies, because why wouldn’t he? What would he gain from sincerely trying to win? They would’ve been so much angrier if Scott had won. What would they have rather Scott do? Throw a tantrum? In the last 5 seconds of his finale? Scott is the calmest person in the Life Series.

Scott was going to sacrifice his life to Martyn, and he knew that Martyn would take it without hesitation. It’s Martyn, and Scott was already a winner. In Limited Life, Bdubs sacrificed himself for Jimmy, even though they’re on opposing teams. Is that gaining moral high ground? In Secret Life, was giving hearts to players who needed it even though it didn’t really benefit you gaining moral high ground? The idea that every nice thing Scott does comes from a place of malice or selfishness is so terribly hypocritical.

I’m sorry, but they sound sexist.

A lot of the hate towards Scott comes from the stereotype of male villains with distinct non-masculine traits, like trickster gods. There’s this idea that non-masculine men must be insecure, otherwise they have some kind of secret or ulterior motive. Scott is a confident man who generally doesn’t fit most people’s definition of “masculine”, and that makes people think that he must be fake or up to something. People don’t fit into your ugly little stereotypes. People are not constructed to fit into boxes. It doesn’t matter how sweet Scott is or much good he does or how much his (overwhelmingly large number of) friends support him and refer to him as one of the most wonderful people they know (No for real I’ve never seen a bigger extrovert how does he maintain close relationships with so many people). Scott being a confident non-masculine man makes people think that he is a manipulator.

As for the Scott and Pearl stuff, if they’re saying what most other people who say weird things about Scott and Pearl are saying, then that is so incredibly hypocritical. I have seen a lot of people saying that Scott and Cleo shouldn’t have teamed with Pearl this season because they’re going to betray her (they did not)(why would they). This is strange for Cleo because Cleo has no history of betraying anyone without being provoked and Cleo has never been on Pearl’s team for an extended period of time, so there isn’t even history to refer to. This is hypocritical for Scott because Scott defended and avenged Pearl when he was her ally in Last Life and left her in Double Life because what was he supposed to do? Team up with Pearl for two seasons in a row? After he won the first season with Pearl? The same people complaining about him now would’ve been outraged. Scott leaving Pearl was provoked; it just wasn’t Pearl doing the provoking. It’s the fandom’s fault that Scott didn’t feel safe teaming with Pearl again, and what with what happened to Grian and Scar? It’s not surprising. Scott made the safest call for everyone. Don’t whine about Scott leaving Pearl when he did it because you’ve proven that you can’t handle when the same people pair up. The only exception is TIES and BEST, and that’s not entirely the same group of people.

Scott is a delightful person, and there’s no evidence of Scott having done anything that would suggest that he’s manipulative. Sometimes people are just normal.

That’s really rough, Anon. I’m glad that you felt comfortable seeking support here.🩵 Sending you a virtual hug and a slightly derpy photo of my dog, “Royal Caramel Sundae”.

[loki-zen]

Can somebody explain to me what actual concrete implications arise from the question of "are trans women More Oppressed than other trans people?" (/gen)

Because we're sure spending a lot of energy on it and I'm not sure what the purpose of this is when it's obvious that a) all kinds of trans people are pretty damn oppressed and b) transphobia definitely manifests in different ways towards different groups (as well as, at the same time, manifesting in similar ways towards different groups), and it's clearly useful to be able to talk about that, and therefore unhelpful for the vocabulary people might use for it to be rendered unusable by becoming a shibboleth for talking about Who Has It Worse

[anghraine]

Okay, breaking my principles hiatus again for another fanfic rant despite my profound frustration w/ Tumblr currently:

I have another post and conversation on DW about this, but while pretty much my entire dash has zero patience with the overtly contemptuous Hot Fanfic Takes, I do pretty often see takes on Fanfiction's Limitations As A Form that are phrased more gently and/or academically but which rely on the same assumptions and make the same mistakes.

IMO even the gentlest, and/or most earnest, and/or most eruditely theorized takes on fanfiction as a form still suffer from one basic problem: the formal argument does not work.

I have never once seen a take on fanfiction as a form that could provide a coherent formal definition of what fanfiction is and what it is not (formal as in "related to its form" not as in "proper" or "stuffy"). Every argument I have ever seen on the strengths/weaknesses of fanfiction as a form vs original fiction relies to some extent on this lack of clarity.

Hence the inevitable "what about Shakespeare/Ovid/Wide Sargasso Sea/modern takes on ancient religious narratives/retold fairy tales/adaptation/expanded universes/etc" responses. The assumptions and assertions about fanfiction as a form in these arguments pretty much always should apply to other things based on the defining formal qualities of fanfic in these arguments ("fanfiction is fundamentally X because it re-purposes pre-existing characters and stories rather than inventing new ones" "fanfiction is fundamentally Y because it's often serialized" etc).

Yet the framing of the argument virtually always makes it clear that the generalizations about fanfic are not being applied to Real Literature. Nor can this argument account for original fics produced within a fandom context such as AO3 that are basically indistinguishable from fanfic in every way apart from lacking a canon source.

At the end of the day, I do not think fanfic is "the way it is" because of any fundamental formal qualities—after all, it shares these qualities with vast swaths of other human literature and art over thousands of years that most people would never consider fanfic. My view is that an argument about fanfic based purely on form must also apply to "non-fanfic" works that share the formal qualities brought up in the argument (these arguments never actually apply their theories to anything other than fanfic, though).

Alternately, the formal argument could provide a definition of fanfic (a formal one, not one based on judgment of merit or morality) that excludes these other kinds of works and genres. In that case, the argument would actually apply only to fanfic (as defined). But I have never seen this happen, either.

So ultimately, I think the whole formal argument about fanfic is unsalvageably flawed in practice.

Realistically, fanfiction is not the way it is because of something fundamentally derived from writing characters/settings etc you didn't originate (or serialization as some new-fangled form, lmao). Fanfiction as a category is an intrinsically modern concept resulting largely from similarly modern concepts of intellectual property and auteurship (legally and culturally) that have been so extremely normalized in many English-language media spaces (at the least) that many people do not realize these concepts are context-dependent and not universal truths.

Fanfic does not look like it does (or exist as a discrete category at all) without specifically modern legal practices (and assumptions about law that may or may not be true, like with many authorial & corporate attempts to use the possibility of legal threats to dictate terms of engagement w/ media to fandom, the Marion Zimmer Bradley myth, etc).

Fanfic does not look like it does without the broader fandom cultures and trends around it. It does not look like it does without the massive popularity of various romance genres and some very popular SF/F. It does not look like it does without any number of other social and cultural forces that are also extremely modern in the grand scheme of things.

The formal argument is just so completely ahistorical and obliviously presentist in its assumptions about art and generally incoherent that, sure, it's nicer when people present it politely, but it's still wrong.

[elcucurucho]

obviously you can do whatever you want but there’s nothing that immediately turns me off a piece of fan content faster than a complete refusal to engage with the source material

[z-eusie]

forever exhausted by the common conception that the worst thing a god could do is cheat on their spouse, and that this is somehow the moral standard we're expected to hold powerful beings too. never mind the rest - if they do not have fidelity, then they are objectively evil.

[purlty23]

[spacedustmantis]

egg jokes are the pillar of the trans community, sincerely a trans femme

ok so this is with high likelihood in reference to the post about finnster that i made a while ago, that has recently been going around again without the additions i made in various rbs, so there's quite a lot of context missing.

my intention was never to say "all egg jokes are bad" my intention was to say "telling a stranger on the internet that they must be trans simply because they wear a dress sometimes is bad".

i think there's something incredibly valuable about a friend being able to see how much more comfortable someone is while dressing opposite to what is expected of them and making lighthearted comments about it in the hopes that eventually they'll pick up on it. in that way egg jokes are a very important part of many trans people's journey.

but there is a fundamental difference between an egg joke between trusted friends, and a hoard of people jumping on a single person that they do not know in the slightest outside of highly performative twitch streams, and telling them "oh you have to be trans for sure". all because they crossdress.

in finn's case this all worked out great because as finn herself has said the egg jokes helped him get in touch with the trans community, helped her find herself. and i'm not saying that it can't ever work out, but i still don't think egg jokes at that level are appropriate. mostly bc as stated multiple times by now, you do not know them. it's at least a little presumptuous, and at worst incredibly invasive and potentially dangerous.

but also because as a bystander who lives outside of the gender binary, it is extremely uncomfortable to have to watch again and again as the people who claim to be by my side in dismantling gender stereotypes see a gnc or crossdressing person and immediately jump to them being secretly or unknowingly trans. because that is apparently the only way some people can rationalize seeing a guy in a dress or a woman with a beard.

i'm not saying that you are one of those people, but it's important for me to get across what i meant with my original post, and how frustrating it is to have gender norms and stereotypes enforced by trans people - my own fucking community - over and over again, and have it be called progressive.

so i guess my point is yes, egg jokes are incredibly important, they hold a very special role in many people's lives, but they have their place. namely between friends in a safe environment, not in a twitch chat or twitter quote retweets

[eurobeatremix]

i really wish i could talk to/meet other aroace or even just ace-spectrum people irl because most of the stuff on here i see (which to be fair isnt a lot) i really don't relate to and a lot of it is sort of in a fandom context which like sure this is the fandom website but i feel like we've been stuck in asexuality 101 since 2012.

[lostwanderer42]

Been doing a lot of thinking lately with peoples obsessions with punishing fictional characters who did bad things and i dont have any coherent thoughts yet but i am like. Are yall ok

[tillythemenace]

Lollll it's so WEIRD to see Hiccstrid discourse on Twitter like hello??? I was there Gandalf, I WAS THERE 3000 YEARS AGO!! I HAVE BEEN IN THESE GAMES BEFORE!!!!

(also weird to see the same old pseudo progressive arguments with THEM in particular since... ya know.............)

[yannfredericks]

being online rn is such a fucking nightmare oh my god!!!

[kneworder]

idk if this is bc of fuckass n52 shit but every fic i read where tim complains about his relationship with dick. to JASON. where tim reconciles with dick. because of JASON. where tim doesn't feel comfortable around dick. but he does around JASON. guys please....... guys........... are you so serious rn.............