#doesnt matter if its for or against my personal views

[satellites-halo]

the fact that r/fakedisordercringe hasn't been removed yet is weird to me since a lot of the content directly violates reddits TOS?? like idk I'm all for freedom of speech but reddit itself claims to be 'against harassment and bullying' yet subreddits dedicated to calling out fakers in which you're allowed to post their faces in callouts are somehow not considered bullying or harassment?? ? ?

I'm actually rlly confused about this does anyone know how it's allowed

[shakingparadigm]

In a modern au I think the wagyein would be like one of those gaint ass crocodiles that Ivan gets away with keeping because its technically a service animal. As long as its on a leash its all good and not a threat to the public!!

Ivan being rewarded with a more expensive and unique kind pet like a whole fucking crocodile honestly seems pretty in line for him 😭 especially since it adds a new "chic" flair to his photoshoots and his general aesthetic. Imagine Ivan's new photoshoot drops and he's in a suit posing with a fucking crocodile. Insane.

I really like the imagery of this large, scaly and dangerous looking reptile being tamed as Ivan's pet, something that could help boost his image and push that luxurious, enigmatic vibe. You know, like how stereotypical evil lairs have sharks or other rare and dangerous animals guarding the entrance or simply acting as accessory. That kind of vibe. I also like the imagery of this sharp creature being forced into submission and captivity. Forced to become a good, obedient pet, holding in its urges and keeping its teeth hidden. A being taken from the ruthless, grimy darkness, cleaned and maintained to perfection, forced to perform for the cameras. Ivan can empathize, he knows what it's like.

"Technically a service animal" is fucking hysterical. Ivan going Hello, sir! Please excuse my emotional support 12ft crocodile. Don't worry, he's very well-behaved.

I actually think Ivan would get along very well with his hypothetical crocodile. Just like the wagyein, he'd feel connected to it in a very personal way. Also just like the wagyein I think Ivan would be the only person it would never harm. In my head I have the mental image of Ivan petting and cuddling it as if it were a puppy.

[snekdood]

me and my boyfriend were having a conversation earlier about how creepy my dad is and how he 1 used to spy on my mom w binoculars in his car across the street after their divorce (she got a restraining order luckily) but also 2 i remember him threatening to kill my mom and her current husband and i said something about how "i used to be scared i'd see him outside of my window watching me, even though he would probably just go after my mom i was worried he might try to kidnap me-"

and then it all clicked for me. the reason zero is the way he is is bc of my dad. the reason my comic is the way it is is bc of my fucking dad!

[misstycloud]

Shapeshifter x fem.reader

“Please stop.” You whimpered, shaking like a leaf.

The creature crouched down to your level and whispered in a soothing voice- it didn’t have the desired effect, though. “Why? Don’t be scared, I would never hurt you. There’s no need to be so frightened.”

“….just leave me alone..”

“No I can’t do that. I love you (Y/n). You’re everything to me. You don’t understand the depth of how much I need you.” He- it- pleaded.

You scoffed despite the inner turmoil. “Well, feelings not mutual.”

He sighed and shook his head slowly. “Why can’t you understand? I just love you so much.” He caressed your hands while staring straight into your eyes. It felt like he was unveiling your soul, like you couldn’t hide from that look, no matter what. “I,” he started, “can be whoever you want me to be. I can be whatever you wish.”

Suddenly, he started changing. It was like something was alive underneath his skin, that wanted to move and reshape the shell it was inside. Slowly, but surely, its features morphed into someone else.

This new shape was clearly tall, even when he was still couching. He looked a little rugged, wi the jet black hair and also at as equally dark grey eyes. He was muscular, too.

“Would this be better?” He asked in a deep voice, tilting his head in wonder. “Would you like someone like this- someone who can protect and care for you? Someone who wouldn’t hesitate to get into a bar fight to defend your honour.”

You looked away and shut your eyes.

“I see.” He said. “So this is not your type, then?”

Once more, you heard the familiar sound of flesh and bones. And against you better judgement, you glance his way again.

This time, he was not as muscular. In fact he was quite thin, but still tall. Messy brown hair shot in all directions, coverering his forehead, it almost shielded his face entirely from view.

“Or is this better?” He gave you a dorky smile. “A nerd? Someone who can relate to your interests and become just as engrossed in them as you. Wouldn’t that be nice? We could talk for hours about the things we like.”

You shook your head hastily. Rejecting his suggestion.

“Or maybe not.” He sighed.

The sound of flesh moving followed and you looked away, not wishing to see the peak of the gruesome transformation, before facing him again.

This new body was considerably shorter than the previous two. It was one of a mousy young man, appearing to be in the beginnings of adulthood.

“If you like being the one in control, I wouldn’t mind. I think this form would fit for that, you see. I’d be nice to be dominated by you. You wouldn’t have to hold back from anything, you could be completely in charge if that’s what you desire?”

You remained silent.

“I take that as a ‘no’, then.” He stopped for a few seconds, thinking, then the smile retuned. “Wait, I can’t believe I didn’t think this.”

Suddenly the young man disappeared and a woman took his place. She was gorgeous by all means. Her long blonde hair flowed in waves down her back. Her curvaceous form would have any person staring.

“I apologise. I should have asked if you would prefer a woman instead, my mistake. Now, finally, is this desireble?”

“I told you to stop. I don’t want any of this- I don’t want you. I don’t want to be near you. Leave me alone, please.” You cried in desperation. Hoping it would be able to push away the creature for good. But you knew it was a foolish dream for it to become bored with you.

The woman hushed you and took you into her arms. “Shhh, shhh, it will all be fine. No need to worry about anything. You’ll be good, I promise. I will take care of you.” She tried comforting you by patting your back like a mother consoling her crying child. “And don’t worry. It doesnt matter how long it’ll take, but I will find the right form eventually. You will just love it~.”

::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::

[pastadoughie]

can non intersex trans people please stop putting intersexism and bio essentialism shit on my dash like??? all the time???

whenever i try to talk about nuance in transphobia and point out blatant intersexism i am simultaneously made out to be a stupid naive little bitch woman who doesnt know what shes talking about and an evil misogynistic man when i am neither. its textbook erasure and dehumanization no matter how polite and understanding i try to be. and i am talking SPECIFICALLY about trans people. often because perisex trans people are WORSE at recognizing and correcting their intersexism because they view themselves as "above" bioessentialism for their transness,,, its honestly tiring

the way sexism presents is the fundamental idea that :

women by default have LESS agency

and men by default have MORE agency

i feel like i shouldnt have to tell you that this is dehumanization of BOTH, but ill do it anyway. someones agency in a given situation depends on a VARIETY of different factors, like class / race / disability / location / & the political views of the community they are in

moreover "man" and "woman" are not actually defined terms. for example, being a victim of misogyny has ZERO correlation to whether or not you are a woman, in BOTH ways that people categorize womanhood. either as a biological trait (or a collection of traits) or as an identity label

if you get catcalled on the street that is not because you ARE a woman but because you are PERCEIVED AS ONE by the catcaller. someones profiling of you as a woman being accurate DOESNT MEAN IT ISNT PROFILING. literally NOBODY has a chromosome detector 3000.

so many forms of gender based discrimination perpetrated in the queer community COMPLETELY skip over these nuances in discrimination and often get EXTREMELY ANGRY when you try to point them out! this is often because people have this inherent belief that they are somehow transcendent and that they DO magically have a chromosome detector 3000, that their profiling is magically always correct, and this belief is tied to their ego.

moreover people mischaracterize sexism as just "hating women" and NOT actually as "sorting people arbitrarily into boxes for their perceived genders", if you are a TERF you are EXACTLY THE SAME AMOUNT OF SEXIST as someone who believes women shouldnt be allowed to vote. they still hold the fundamental idea of men by default having more agency.

i think TERFism is a wonderful example of how people can be sexist against men and the harm that it causes, because that is the ideological core of radfem politics.

people perceived as "male" when placed in a community full of people seen as "female" are automatically seen as predatory for their perceived privilege (regardless of if those privileges actually apply in that setting at all! look at transfemmes! they get literally zero benefits from their perceived manhood, and yet are still seen as predatory because of it ). when i speak about "misandry" however loaded the word is- this is what i am referring to, the assumptions and discrimination that comes from being arbitrarily placed in a gender category seen as having universally more agency.

because agency isnt innate or biological this sorting into categories is ALWAYS sexism even if they benefit the person!!

this is why i think phrases like "TME" are inherently harmful, because weather or not someone is seen as a "man" or a "woman" is completely arbitrary and can differ wildly depending on not only the person doing the profiling, but also the context of the situation. trans-misogyny, being seen as a "man" trying to "invade" a "womans space" is not exclusive to transfemmes nor even universally applies TO transfemmes.

moreover its why i hate the word "trans-androphobia" because its not even descriptive of the perception of being a "girl" trying to be a "man"

i think in general the shorthand the trans community uses lacks so much fucking nuance and is baked in with intersexism and bio essentialism  pretty much as a rule.. i think it's infinitely more clear to use words corresponding to what exactly the profiling of whoever is being bigoted is far more helpful and clear, but in order for something like that to be clear it needs to actually be used with nuance and keeping in mind the fact that discrimination is based on PROFILING and not off of any kind of objective reality. In which words that just mean "the type of discrimination transmen go through" is ambiguous and unhelpful on every level.

if you wanna be less intersexist YOU NEED TO LET GO of the idea that certain people universally have more/less agency AS WELL AS THE IDEA that you are universally exempt from or included in any kind of gender based discrimination

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Finished the megan phelps roper autobio a few days ago. Left me with some thoughts.

The first thing to say is that it was very well written and interesting, especially earlier on pre-exodus, in its portrayal of the wbc. There was smth especially captivating about how she described what was essentially a soft coup within the church transforming it from a consensus-run collective to a formalised patriarchal gerontocracy—its worth reading if for no other reason than to get an insiders visceral feeling of what its like to live in that kind of an activist/religious community from birth

There is this tone the book adopts, tho, especially towards the end, which is obviously absolutely integral to its appeal but nevertheless offputting to me. Its a sort of contrite attitude, portraying her decision to leave and denounce the church as an act of penance for the vile crime against humanity of living a life of Hate. Again, clearly the book wouldnt sell without that line, its the essence of her entire personal brand as an author and speaker (the high market value of which—tho she ofc does not say this in print—must have featured at least somewhat in her decision to leave, if by no other means than relieving certain anxieties about her ability to sustain herself afterward). So its not surprising she would put it so front and centre.

But approaching this penitence objectively it just seems... kind of misplaced? Not that i have anything against public acts of apology and grovelling! But, frankly, its hard to read the account and not conclude she is much more of a victim than anyone she protested or besmirched into hurt feelings. Partly by her family in the form of the inevitable abuse attendant upon being raised in that kind of insular fortress community—tho she does a good job not lazily smearing them as some kind of sadistic cult, part of why i thought her description was so interesting and insightful. But also by counterprotesters and others riled up by her churchs activism: she describes their having faced sexual harassment, physical intimidation and violence, even arson in the face of what were clearly and pointedly constitutionally protected exercises of free speech. All of the former manifestly worse than the latter. Often with cops looking the other way! In a just world these targets of her "hate" would have a lot more apologising to do to her than the other way around

The book even caused me to reconsider the degree of my disgust with their most notorious practice: funeral picketing. Not having followed the pickets at the time super closely, i had interpreted them reflexively as incursions (perhaps constitutionally protected, but still unwarranted) on private family grief, turning what would be a personal act of mourning into a spectacle of vitriol and political grandstanding both ways. So i was surprised to hear the familys official statement on the matter:

So long as the families, military, media, veterans groups, and community-at-large, use funerals or memorial services of dead soldiers as platforms for political patriotic pep rallies, we will continue to picket those pep rallies. If they put the flags down and go home, we’ll go home. Not before then.

This seems basically entirely levelheaded, aside from my disagreement with the object level views they were voicing at these events. Privacy is a two-way street: if you are going to turn yr sons funeral into a patriotic circus, you cant fairly complain about ppl returning fire with a concurrent anti-patriotic circus. No heat, no kitchen. I suspect the actual operative principle in many ppls minds is that it doesnt alter the sacrosanct private character of the funeral to engage in socially normative politicising, but socially abnormal politicising crosses the line. Which is just clearly a grotesque and inherently conservative (derogatory) unprincipled distinction to draw

Speaking of which: its sort of tricky to place the church as conservative/rightwing or liberal/leftwing at all. Even setting aside fred phelps earlier and very laudable struggle against institutional racism. In some sense they were part of the rightwing backlash to gains in gay rights, but not in a way that dovetailed with any serious rightwing political projects on that front. They were the paradigmatic doomers: there was no point engaging in legal efforts to stem the marriage tide, say, bc the american experiment as a whole had incurred gods wrath and was living on borrowed time. To the extent they did have any significant legal impact, it was overwhelmingly positive: they were the ones that brought us snyder v phelps, a heroic win for freedom of speech. They remind me as much as anything of a certain kind of maoist sect, like revcom, not just in style but in content (fervent anti-americanism, racial equality, confidence that The End Is Nigh and the only serious question is how to respond to this imminent demise of the existing order, free speech fundsmentalism clearly for instrumental reasons joined with strict internal censorship, even a version of "no investigation, no right to speak!" inculcated from early childhood)

I think one of my first ever posts on my old blog was on this topic with a nascent, less informed version of the views im expressing here. Some forms of freezepeach contrarianism are just part of my unchanging core ig

[michaelmilkers]

if you listen to a transphobe and/or intersexist’s arguments for even two seconds it becomes immediately clear that their view of the world is simply that people who deviate from what is decided to be normal do not matter and should not exist.

this is made obvious by the fact that one of the most common refutations against the idea of sex and/or gender not being a binary is “would it be incorrect to say that humans have two legs just because some people get amputations or are born with defects?” and they view this hypothetical scenario of changing the way we talk in order to be inclusive of disabled people as so ridiculous and outlandish that it will shut down an opposing argument.

the assumption that every person has two working legs has, in fact, caused immense tangible harm. disability rights activists campaigned so hard for the ADA for decades because, prior to it, schools, government buildings, and other public places very rarely built ramps, elevators, and other features that would allow people with mobility limitations to access them, because disabled people were “too small” of a population to be worth accommodating for. and even with these requirements in place, its STILL an ongoing issue, because rarely are disabled people actually consulted on the addition of these features so some of the time they’re poorly implemented or entirely useless anyway. my psychiatrist’s office building has a ramp, but it’s almost a full 45 degree angle which almost no one could conceivably wheel themselves up without assistance.

these people present themselves as protectors and gatekeepers of science and common sense, but they are just cruel. the idea of making even minor accommodations for minority populations is OUTRAGEOUS to them. are you SERIOUSLY going to change the way you talk about bodies because of 5% of the population or 1% or 0.5% or whatever number they view as too small to “count”?

it truly doesnt matter how much you prove them wrong, because all of the examples you provide of human experience being more varied than how they view it are simply abnormalities that do not matter and should not exist and if you acknowledge them you are unquestionably wrong and should be mocked.

[stevie-petey]

hiiiiiiiii honey <3 could we get a blurb about bug telling steve about jonathan’s outburst towards her after he took the pictures of nancy and steve’s reaction to learning about it???? it would be so so appreciated by me <3 you’re the best ever <3 MWAH

(i am being held against my will to write this jonathan sweetie im so sorry) (i love u val) (u are evil)

i know this isnt necessarily what u MEANT but ,,, ive been dying to expand upon bugs kindness and how it may seem annoying and pathetic, but its hers ! its her kindness !!!

enjoy <3

"no way you guys havent wanted to strangle each other at least once." steve remarks one day as he watches you and jonathan work side by side at the cash register.

jonathan had been bored today and decided to join you and steve at work, something that you're very happy about, honestly.

"oh, ive definitely wanted to strangle jonathan," you say, writing down a new shipment receipt while the boy next to you doodles.

steve rolls his eyes. "old married couple squabbling doesnt count. im talking, like, full on betrayal and hurt here. you guys are always so... you, and it has to be an act."

jonathan snorts. "shouldve seen the fights we had last year. surprised y/n didnt kill me with her bare hands."

"i dont believe you."

"no, hes right." you look up at steve. "he threw a jacket at my face last year and then told me we werent family the night he took those pictures of nancy. then cried in my arms like a day later."

steve stares at you, shocked.

"i also then slept in nancys bed and lied about it. and tried leaving you behind a few times."

"that you did," you flick jonathans ear, causing him to wince in pain. "you deserved that."

"i did."

during this entire exchange, steve hasnt said a single word. hes still stunned, baffled by the fact that jonathan could be so cruel to someone so wonderful.

"wait a second," he looks between you and jonathan. "and youre still friends?"

"yeah." you both say at the same time.

steve cant fucking believe it. you do anything and everything for jonathan, that much is obvious, and sure. steve has seen jonathan do small acts of kindness towards you, devote the same back, but to throw a jacket at you and belittle you? and now here he is, joking about it alongside you. as if it was all okay in the end.

"youre too nice sometimes, y/n." the words leave steves lips before he can stop them. once he realizes what hes said, he looks up at jonathan and panics. "sorry, man. im sure you guys talked it out and... yeah."

jonathan shrugs. "no, youre right. she is and i was dick."

"im right here, you know."

steve winces. "sorry."

"its fine, honestly." you go back to scribbling shipment orders. "i am indeed too nice, but i dont ever really see the point in holding a grudge? i mean, jonathan apologized and i understood the stress he was under. sure, it didnt erase all the hurt he caused, but after almost dying immediately after being mad at him for not including me in something... i dont know. it felt silly to hold onto that anger after. childish, even."

jonathan and steve share a look, for once both seeming to think the same thing.

shes too good.

you hate that they do this. you hate that people view your kindness as a weakness. after the hell youve been through, long before monsters even came to hawkins, youve learned the hard way just how rare kindness is.

now you try to be kind to everything and everyone, no matter what it may cost you.

the kindness is yours, no one elses.

and if that makes you weak, then at least it made you better.

you tear two pieces paper from your notebook, scrunch them up into balls, and then throw them at steve and jonathan. "stop pitying me. im kind and i love that aspect of myself. i dont care if it makes me vulnerable or pathetic. its a piece of me, and i wouldnt change it. if you dont like it, then that belittles me even more than emotional outbursts ever could."

jonathan sighs. "youre right, bug. youre a very kind and lovely person and its what makes you a joy to be around, paper balls and all."

steve plays along. "definitely a better super power than spider-man, dare i say."

"okay, lets not get ahead of ourselves now," you giggle, appreciative of both the boys. they may not understand or like the way you view the world, but theyre at least trying.

its all you could ask for.

even if steve later on that day pulls you aside to whisper, "i think i can kick jonathans ass this time, if you ever need it."

and its enough.

[natsmagi]

thoughts on eimugi (in general not as a ship)

LOOOOOOOOOVE EIMUGI!!!!!!! easily one of the most interesting and gut-wrenching dynamics in enstars (to me)

and i enjoy it both as a ship and just in general 👍 though my personal favorite read is like........ well a situationship i suppose would be the best term LMAODHAUJSF LIKE UGHHH theres just something so heartbreaking abt thinking of them being so close yet miles apart. thinking mainly of tsumugis pov rn but like imagine you have this person you view as your whole world right infront of you, yet you cant seem to reach them no matter what. and for eichi hes so used to people using him for his money that he never even stopped to think that maybe tsumugis feelings are genuine and he actually cares, only when its too late did eichi realize what he'd now lost

u have these two self-hating people navigating love in one another in drastically different ways; one wants the other to make them whole, and the other cant even fathom someone liking them. a recipe for disaster and brother i eat it up every time

its also been so interesting to see how differently the two have healed from the events of the war. considering their dynamic ud expect tsumugi to still be hung up on it and eichi to not really care when the reality is the opposite. tsumugi has moved on and doesnt hold anything against eichi at all, while eichi still feels guilty and uncomfortable when it comes to tsumugi. plus eichi making it a big point to pass that bluebird over to natsume so they can get their happy ending........ it was a very cute end to this long event of discomfort, and really shows that eichi does want whats best for tsumugi...........

[lepoppeta]

For the song asks: Charlestor

charlastor/radiobelle has the benefit of relating to a lot of tropes and aesthetics in media that i already really enjoy and have a lot of content for. that being said, the songs ive chosen for them relate more to the pilot versions of these two characters, where it was speculated that alastor was going to be more of a mysterious, unflappable background mentor figure. ive heard their relationship being compared to that of clarice starling and hannibal lecter from silence of the lambs and hannibal, and i think some of that can vibe definitely be used here.

the first song that ever came to mind for these two (in recent memory) was a dangerous game from the jekyll and hyde musical (sung by anthony warlow and linda eder).

at the touch of your hand, and the sound of your voice, at the moment your eyes meet mine - i am out of my mind, i am out of control, full of feelings i cant define.

its a sin with no name, like a tiger to tame, (and though no-ones to blame) its a crime and a shame, and the angels proclaim its a dangerous game.

im a bit of a sucker for melodramatic gothic musicals, and the vision this song brings to mind is charlie wandering the empty halls of her dilapidated hotel and cautiously dancing with alastor and his army of half-sentient shadows. it relates to charlies pov more than alastors (as in this case he would be singing about her) and how they would have to tread carefully no matter what kind of close relationship they choose to partake in.

next up is me and mr wolf (the real tuesday weld).

you have the thing i love but the fear in me is way too much. if i open wide one of us may get lost inside. me or you, one of us is going to need to die.

my favourite version of this relationship is them being mutually fucked - alastor has never really given much thought to romantic love and hes shocked that hes willing to break so many of his own rules for this silly little slice of heaven in hell; charlie responds well to alastor setting clear boundaries against her sometimes-invasive behavior, and, like any good theatre kid, he "yes-and"s her (instead of vaggies pretty consistent "no"s). however, this song also touches on the fact that charlie is (or should be) at least alastors equal in power, if not far beyond him, and its a warning that neither of them should overstep in either love or anger.

the last one ill leave you with is actually one that was made canon by helluva - its look my way (paranoid DJ, but the alternate version sung by bryce pinkham) and its a bit of an ooc situation from alastors point of view.

unless its me, and no matter what in this world i could give - its not enough to get through the walls youve conjured up to live. is this what you feel? scorned by a world that cannot comprehend what you are, so ill grant you this mercy - this bind on our souls needs to end.

this is taking into account the deal that charlie makes with alastor in the penultimate episode of the first season of hazbin. the idea is that alastor (or at least, the speculative pilot version of alastor) strongly admires charlies perseverance against her own people - the very beings shes trying so hard to save. while charlie is a relatively open book he knows that she probably doesnt let anyone, not even her own girlfriend/best friend, see the emotional toll this project has taken on her (again, this tying in more to the pilot personalities of these characters), and hes upset that her deal with him has only made things worse in that regard. he makes the choice, to his own detriment, to sever the deal without her knowledge, so that if she doesnt keep her end of the bargain it will be of no consequence to her.

[asexual-means-no-attraction]

i’ve seen ur posts against the SAM but i’m a bit confused about something. some people’s romantic attraction is definitively separate from their sexual attraction, what are your opinions in that scenario? as an example, an aromantic person may not feel any romantic attraction ever, but they may be sexually attracted to many people. how would they fit into your view?

That's called a preference.

Are you a man who's attracted to men, want to date them, but not have sex? Congrats. Your gay, you just don't like sex. Sex is an action. It doesn't determine your attraction (tho having sex with people you aren't attracted to or just to "please your partner" is linked to a LOT of mental health issues. Please be safe).

Are you a man who's attracted to men, don't want to date them, just have sex? Congrats. You're gay, you just aren't interested in dating. Dating is an action. It doesn't determine your attracted (tho again. Please be safe. Dating someone you don't actually want to date makes both parties resent each other).

Attraction is just that. Attraction. And when it comes to sexuality, all that is important is WHO. What you are interested in doing with them is a preference.

Trying to define a preference as a sexuality leads to a slippery slope. Since as a crush progresses what you want in the relationship may change. As you change as a person, what you want to do with someone may change. Making a preference a sexuality implies sexuality can change. And that is just kindling for homophobic remarks.

I understand the struggle of trying to find a partner when you know sex will never be on the table. You want to be upfront about it, but not have to describe things over and over. Having a label is helpful. I get it. But you can describe being sex adverse without it being a whole separate sexuality.

If we came up with a new sexuality for anything and everything that makes finding a partner there would be so many words none of them would matter. You'd have to explain the word every time you used it cuz no one can remember that much. Not to mention, again, preferences end up in a gray area. Is kissing sexual or romantic? I'd argue it's both, while also being able to be neither. Cuz it's based on context. It's a gray area. So if I tried to define my sexuality as wanting to have sex but not date by using aromatic-- to me it might mean we can kiss. But to someone else, kissing might not be included. Maybe to them its only the specific act of sex, which doesnt technically include kissing. So then you end up having to explain what the word means anyways even tho the whole point was so you wouldn't have to.

Cuz at the end of the day, you do have to describe your preferences outright. There isn't going to be a word that always perfectly describes your preferences. Unfortunately, cuz I get it's annoying. But once a "sexuality" has to be described in depth for what it "means for you" it no longer functions as a sexuality. Cuz these are words to help form communities. And communities form by being specific enough to not include everyone but broad enough to actually include enough people to form a meaningful group that can pull resources and help each other.

Please also remember this is just my opinion on this topic as someone who's had experience using the split attraction model and heard story after story of it causing harm to people. I'm not the head speaker of any group. Nor do I speak for any community. If you disagree that's fine. It's important everyone be able to form their own opinions even if we disagree.

[notmyprey]

Ok uhh I think I may just delete my "dragon and drakes arnt the same" post cause I am honestly have horrible anxiety when it comes to reponces like im getting. Its nothing against anyone who responded, just a past trauma thing of "your always in the wrong", even on matters where it doesnt matter. As such my anxiety is going through the roof, saying that ppl are definitely mad at me or hate me or something.

Again, everyone is 100% entitled to their views, I just am an anxiety ridden person, so so sorry.

Edit: ya i just deleted the post. Too many ppl saying that im wrong (and thats fine, I can be wrong), Im just very anxious rn and am struggling with my self worth recently. So so sorry again.

[zelenbug]

me and my friends came up with an incredible interpretation of raymesis and glombrox which makes them really good to put into situations LET ME RAMBLE ABOUT THEM AT LENGTH THEYRE LIKE THE FUNNIEST GUYS EVER

-

raymesis is a Giant Petty Loser. for reasons unknown to everyone (even to himself) he HATES rayman SO BAD, he believes hes raymans greatest rival, and and he is obsessed with trying to soil his reputation or at least mess with him by pulling things on him

he never succeeds bc hes also the unluckiest person in the glade. he would try to sneak in and try and explode rayman with cartoon dynamite while hes not looking but ends up tripping over the wire and exploding himself. that type of stuff

one particular method he tries to mess with rayman is by pulling various bad things (kicking over a trash can! oh no!) and then trying to convince everyone he IS rayman. it Never Works. everyone can tell hes some other guy

oh yeah also what makes him even more mad is the fact that nobody really even knows who he is. every time he announces to rayman's face hes his greatest rival rayman just goes "wait really? i dont rememeber you" and continues to be nice to him and that makes him Livid

raymesis would actually do this pose and think that makes him super cool. he wears embarassing gamer shirts unironically. hes such a loser that literally god himself calls him ugly

-

glombrox was never "a hero" or "possessed by darktoons" he is Just Like That. like a lot characters in my interpretations kept being bullied as a kid but glombrox is the one who Bullied others as a kid. he gets a kick out of messing with everyone, he views everyone basically the same (acceptable targets for kicking) which includes raymesis

he just nonchalantly decides to play basketball with a teensy instead of a ball, he would do the exact same things to lums that lividngstones do. he goes to the docks at sea of serendipity and does this to all red wizards

he doesnt do any elaborate pranks he just shoves people or kicks them around or whatever. that said, you wouldnt be able to tell by looking at him or how he acts, but hes actually surprisingly clever/smart at times

glombrox also has the complete opposite issue from raymesis. being that he literally wont stop being mistaken for globox, having a basically identical shape and voice, and its not helped by the fact that globox and his kids also find it acceptable to slap people for fun (actually for fun with no mean intent)

nobody catches onto the fact that hes so mean and still keep mistaking him for someone whos the complete opposite of mean! they just thank who they THINK is globox but isnt!!! he has a personal vendetta against globox because of it, but not remotely to the same extent as raymesis' whole thing. hes just extra mean to globox when he comes across him but globox is like "hi me : )" and just takes it all as a fun thing which doesnt help matters

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their dynamic is basically wario and waluigi in warios warehouse (raymesis is waluigi) except if they didnt live together and wario had no idea who mario and luigi were beyond getting mistaken for mario one billion times which makes him mad

raymesis mostly just drags glombrox along for his Evil Plans, taking advantage of what everyone keeps thinking he is, and glombrox just goes along mostly because he thinks itd be funny. theyre technically friends but in some messed up way and would gladly insult each other

glombrox himself takes advantage of the fact that raymesis fully believes that glombrox is his great trusty sidekick (which he isnt). also he just comes to raymesises dingy apartment and raids his fridge and occupies literally the entire couch to watch tv

Heres some incorrect quotes (from here) to describe all of these fools further (though rayman would Not swear in the first one he would just be like "huh what??")

also this one but i actually put names in there

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bonus:

murfy counterpart to raymesis and glombrox is the guy who wrote the manual. hes nicer than murfy is he just doesnt appreciate murfys comments about the manual. raymesis thought it was a Great Idea to drag him along with him and glombrox on occacion. but he doesnt actually want to get involved he wants to write for gods sake

teesny counterpart would just be ales honestly but ales doesnt like to associate with these other losers (despite being one himself and also being comically petty about being bullied as a kid) so he usually doesnt

[gordon-freeman-phd]

honestly, how do any (or all!!!) of your OCs feel about Gordon? You have a lot of interesting, multifaceted takes on how Gordon is perceived in the HL2 world, and I’d love to hear how your peeps fit into that

wishing for all is like a monkeys paw on your part, cuz i have quite a few, god speed with reading all this o7 ill be going in order as they appear on my master post of ocs, ill pu tthis under a read more since its soooooooo long

Brock Fuentes: previously knew of Gordon before the rescas, got piss scared of him during the res cas when he refused to help gordon open some doors becuz he was to scared to leave his hidey hole so gordon man handled him and slapped him around a bit. so by the time of half life2, hes had people around him who believed in the messianic nature of gordon which is quite the departure from his memory of both the up-tight asocial man he heard about and the violent forceful deranged man he met. if he were to see gordon acting much the same now or hear about people having that pure image they had be shattered hed feel a bit vindicated

Richard Montague: He roomed with gordon before the rescas and thought he was a pleasant roomate if not somewhat intimidating due to his serious and minimal socialization, but by the time the rescas happened, they were amicable sorta friends. At most during the rescas he might have heard that gordon was killing swathes of soliders which would be terrifying knowing how much he was struggling to survive in comparison. BY half life 2, gordon is mostly a memory and he had been mostly innundated from resistance culture, having spent most of his time working for the combine using his background in biology to help with xen infestations, so he heard more propoganda against gordon freeman if anything. he doesnt really believe it but it sticks around mentally and mixes with his knowledge of fondness for gordon. eventually when he teams up with the resistance after fleeing the city, he hears more about gordon from their point of view occasionally, which sits better with him, but ultimately, what the perspective of gordon is doesnt matter much to him since hes more focussed on not dying. then when gordon comes back and people start talking about how he acts its concerning and sounds unreal so he doesnt really believe its actually gordon unless he sees him for himself since it sounds so unlike the man he knew.

Jill Pobst: she sadly doesnt make it out of the rescas, but she knew gordon during it, at that point he was still mostly mentally present, and was still learning the curve of combat so she helped him out before her death. he was just a lab coat who was less of a coward than most and didnt talk much

Isiah Poole: he worked at black mesa before the rescas, his sector of work was far removed from sector C, but he wouldve heard of gordon thru the newspaper. post rescas, gordon wouldnt have likely come up where isiah is existing in anyway that would have a permanant impact on his psyche

Knipex: as a borrower in black mesa, they arent super clued in to the personnel and any drama that arent posing a direct threat to the colony and post since theyre with isiah most of the time, they also arent going to hear much about gordon post rescas

Timmy Ridgewell: grew up under the combine so for most of his life, he wouldve heard only the propoganda about gordon and the resistance in general but as he gets older hell start running into the resistance and slowly hearing more about gordon as a messianic figure, but he is rather ressiitant to the concept since it just doesnt make sense, so hes more of a distant saint figure than some greater power who can actually help anyone, and hes almost sore about gordon coming back in hl2 and being real, but also disappointing his friends by being less than stellar personality wise

Bagels: Behind the guise of just a cat, Bagels is actually a controller, and harbors a great deal of resentment towards gordon for destroying everything the nihilanth had built to escape the oppression of the combine, and is smug over everything gordon did failed to protect his people in the long run, but still is willing to work alongside the resistance so that the combine is toppled, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all

Angus and Ed: also only knew minimal second hand knowledge of gordon through the newspapers, and have been living in xen since the rescas (and one of them is just dead) so their knowledge of gordon never updates with time

Galvanizer: just a lil rollermine, isnt sapient, nor has audio receptors and never meets gordon to form an "opinion" of him

Fred Otten: didnt read the newspaper or socialize much with people who wouldve known gordon while he worked at black mesa so he didnt know gordon really existed, and post rescas, he is willing to whore himself out for the combine for a variety of reasons, so even if he doubts one man could do anything that big, hes willing to accept the propoganda idly however and when gordon does return hes very motivated to kill him for the reward and any rewards unofficially that he can et his hands on even if he is terrified of what gordon is capable of based on the years of propoganda hes internalized

Robert Briggs: he knew gordon through Richie, met him a couple times, he thinks hes somewhat rude sometimes but ultimately kinda harmless and nice in his own way. he doesnt survive the rescas so his opinions of gordon never changes

V-8751: during the rescas it knew that gordon exitisted and that he was a high priority target, but never ran into gordon and was isolated from people who would know of gordon for most of its life post rescas even during hl2 before it made friends with cicada who both has their own experiences with gordon and access to the rest of the knowledge and opinions of the rest of the vorts thrut he vortessence, so learning about what happened to the nihilanth whats happened to him the variety fo opinions about gordon, kinda confuses it and its just a lot fo conflicting information so since he isnt important to the life its living, V-8751 so it sorta lets all that information settle without much concern, at best is glad he killed the nihilanth, and regards the way fletcher treats him as kinda strange

Fletcher Lamb: spent time in a variety of places before leaving the purview of the combine, so heard a variety of rumors about gordon before he left the sphere of influence that gordon has reputationaly, so she holds him in regard as a sort of icon but only loosely treats him religiously, she treats his name the way that people treat a piece of candy that supposedly keeps a computer system running, it comes up when things get rough and is kept quietly in place to be effective but isnt a main focus of his life until something goes wrong

Cicada: was nearly killed by Gordon and had many friends killed by him as well so is rightfully afraid of and dislikes gordon, even if they knows in teh past present and future that gordon frees them, but because of thier hyper connection to the vortessence, much of their personal opions are muted and mixed with the wider consensus on gordon (and most things) in a way that can be confusing and more uncertain than most vorts are perceived as

Felix Kessler and Alexis: prior to hl2 as metrocops, they both didnt really care about gordon as a figure in propoganda since he wasnt anything that could further thier careers since eh wasnt real, at best Alexis was annoying enough about his job to learn as much as he could about gordon to better identify what he thought could be secret organizational code talk which did result in innocent people getting killed or punished, during hl2, they are both very annoyed that they werent put on the case to kill gordon, and felix in particular is vying to be deployed near gordons predicted path since of the two hes the less despised of the pair

Antoine-Valery Veilloux: travels around a lot so has seen a lot of different interpretations of gordon and has even met people who knew him, so he doesnt really buy into him as a god or saint like figure, but knows he did a lot of the things people claim he did, just not as bombastic, thinks he was a bad ass guy but uses his name as a expletive for fun (ie, freeman damnit, oh for freemans sake)

Damned Crows: didnt pay much attention to anything the human residents of white forest say outside something they find funny, but once gordon is on his way to white forest, they pick up on his arrival and mostly watches since things seem tense. from a distance they can tell that gordon is respected by most if not all the humans of white forest but also they think hes kinda scary and theyd rather not tangle with him

[eroticcannibal]

Hello, I was wondering about how to learn more about the subject matter of Zionism and the complexity of it as a term because your post about it interested me. For reference I'm not Jewish and I'm new to learning about it, though I'm staunchly against the genocide being committed against Palestinians by the Israeli government.

I've seen the way the term is used and I'm aware my information on the subject is limited, as is my personal stake in it as someone who is non-Jewish and non-Palestinian. When doing research on the subject of zionism as a historical movement, I find a lot of descriptions of it as a colonialist movement with the goal of developing an ethnostate. One sentence from the Wikipedia page on Zionism reads: "Zionist nationalism drew from a German ethnic-nationalist theory that people of common descent should seek separation and pursue the formation of their own state."

When thinking about forms of Zionism, and in relation to your post about it, what do you mean when talking about how it's a more complex issue than Zionism being bad inherently? Or is your belief more that people with Zionist beliefs should not be seen as inherently bad? I suppose I'm unsure how to conceptualize the idea of Zionism not having inherent issues if it is based on those ideas, though since I'm no historian, I'd like to learn more about the topic and complexities surrounding it.

Pre-emptively clarifying that you're under no obligation to reply, and that if I've said anything offensive, please let me know so I can learn, as that's not my intention. I'm also not trying to argue (people often think I am); I want to learn more about this topic, and I'd rather openly admit when I want to learn more rather than being performatively "educated". Thank you!

First of all thank you so much for being reasonable and curious about this

I will preface this with i am perpetually tired and a bit stupid and I dont always word things how I want to so everyone be patient and understanding especially on such a diversive topic. Ultimately everything I say is based on the view that genocide bad, peace good, people in power suck and normal people have more in common than they have differences.

Now I am not the person to go to for a proper explanation on the broadly accepted kinds of zionism and the history of it and how that feeds into the ideas around zionism that people believe *now*. Hopefully someone else can add something useful wrt that.

My experience is largely with individual zionists and their personal beliefs, motivations and actions, and what these people have made of zionism. I will also stress that I am not going to argue if zionism broadly, or any specific version of zionism, is right or wrong. I think it is a perfectly legitimate stance to argue that all forms of zionism may have inherent issues (show me an ideology that doesnt) and im certainly not informed enough to argue against that. (Maybe someone else can offer some input here). Not only is it fucking complicated, its something that does (in the case of "zionism that supports everything happening right now") and would (for any other form of zionism) affects so many different aspects of life for different groups with different priorities that I dont think anyone is going to come up with anything that everyone is happy with. (This is mostly just disclaimer for anyone pissing on the poor lol)

So when I say that zionism is too complex and broad a term to be viewed as inherently bad, I am talking about the specific nuances that individual zionists have with their beliefs. While not a zionist, I think what other tumblr users (typically those falsely accused of being zionists) said wrt being neither zionist nor antizionst helped it click in my mind how fuzzy the boundaries between these ideologies are, where you can explain your beliefs to a zionist and an anti zionist and both could think you are on "their side". Their is overlap in ideas, a state can exist in so many forms and ultimately the promise of israel to zionists is simply safety, that does not *have* to exist as a detriment to others.

I know zionists who just want to know they have somewhere to go if they need to. Others who value the Jewish claim to the area but not at the expense of palestinians who they believe also have a valid claim. I know others who *dont* believe palestinians have a valid claim but are not opposed to living alongside palestinians. Some support seperate states bordering each other due to fear of continued violence if everyone shared one state. Some simply do not see a way of dismantling Israel without the death of Israelis and non Israeli Jews who would otherwise flee there, so support the continued existance of Israel even if they are opposed to the idea of Israel. Some want to start over with something better. Some are ideologically zionist but think that everything that has happened so far has been done wrong and is doomed to failure. Some want a religious Jewish state and some only want to guarantee enough Jews in charge that it remains a haven for persecuted Jews. Some dont even want *that* and just seek a state in which some sort of constitution enshrines the right for Jews to seek safety regardless of who is actually in charge. And there are many, regardless of their particular flavour of zionism, who are educating, donating, protesting and doing direct action in support of palestinians. Very few genuinely believe that they will gain safety through genocide.

And of course with any broad ideology there will always be the extremists, those who do want palestinians dead. But this is far from representative of everyone.

But also while I wasn't explicitly trying to talk about it in that post, I do *also* think, even if someone is opposed to zionism in all its forms, it is important to not see zionists as inherently bad people. (To be clear, for this next bit i am strictly talking about the fears of Jewish zionists and their allies, not christian zionists or those weaponising zionism to support anti palestinian sentiment or antisemitism). Ultimately zionism comes from a place of cultural and current trauma. Much like I refuse to see someone with a general wariness or distrust of men due to trauma as a bad person unless they go full terf, I will not see a zionist as a bad person unless they are calling for genocide. Jews have every reason to fear for their safety and not trust any country other than Israel to protect them. History has shown that these fears are not unfounded. How can we expect Jews as a whole to reject zionism when so many feel it is their only hope for safety (especially when there is practically no talk of an alternative?) It is human to want yourself, your family and your community to be safe. I know that I would do far more than just hold a political belief, over far less than a proven history of my people being slaughtered, to protect far fewer than everyone I care about. As would most people.

(Slight tangent here but why this is so important to me is largely driven by my belief that understanding this is vital for peace so)

I also think it is simply not beneficial to palestinians to treat every zionist like their beliefs make them an inherently bad person. It further polarises things when you tell people that wanting safety means they support the very worst version of their ideology which makes them easier to radicalised because you strip them of any more moderate community support (again to make the terf analogy, they use the "if you are critical of men you are spouting terf ideology" shit as a way to recruit traumatised people), all this feeds into people pushing ideas like "all Jews must be zionists (for their own safety because no one else cares)" and therefore "all Jews are bad (because they are all zionists and zionists must support genocide)", creating that kind of fear will only lead to Israelis and palestinians being more fearful of and more radicalised against each other, which just fuels and supports violence. Us vs them has always been an effective method of radicalising people towards violence and supporting the violence a state commits. And like. Thats something that innocent normal people always lose on both sides and that only benefits people in power.

I genuinely believe that an effective way forward is to support peaceful zionism that addresses the trauma and legitimate fears that have led to zionism as an alternative for radicalised zionists (and more realistic than trying to push them towards anti zionism) but that cannot happen while all of zionism is seen as inherently genocidal.

(Also just to touch on christian zionism and the weaponising of zionism briefly, I think it does a disservice to the discussion when people do not distinguish between these and Jewish and Jewish supportive zionism. So much of the discourse around zionism, either explicitly or implicitly, targets Jewish zionism, when so much of what feeds the violence and especially financial and logistical support of violence is these other zionsims. There are more christian zionists specifically in the US alone than there are Jews in the world. And honestly it just kind of feels very wrong that these kinds of zionism get conflated to the detriment of Jews as a whole, when Christian zionism is motivated by the desire to harm Jews and weaponised zionism seeks to harm both sides.)

Anyway I hope I've addressed your questions properly (I struggle with long asks and long responses because memory issues and I have to keep scrolling up and down to reread anything). Feel free to re ask anything I missed or ask for clarification, hope I did not ramble too much on tangents. Its just one of those topics where you talk about one thing and you have to talk about everything else that connects to it.

And everyone else please be normal about this. Ultimately everyone involved in this conversation opposes genocide and supports peace, and I do not make my space welcoming to people who believe otherwise, so we can be civil and nuanced about this.

[libelelle]

Oughhh that reminds me. An old idea I had that I still like is Silver being taken in by Team Dark during Rivals, how do you think they would get along, and how do you think Silver would be changed by primarily being around them?

Oh thats tough... a question that requires me to think about team dark and their characterization as well as silvers... these arw my thoughts that i managed to gather up 🫡

The biggest and easiest change i can think of would be his views on morality. His black and white thinking would not do him a lot of favors hanging around team dark. Everyone one of them has something about them that would clash with Silvers views. There good and theres bad and then theres Team Dark, the people who welcomed him and took him in but dont act like a how good people should... theyre unnecessarily violent, they steal, they lie and they dont do it because they have to, they do it because its who they are, and they wont compromise that for others comfort. His first change would be readjusting his views on what makes a person good, and whether that matters as much as he thought. As for what that change looks like, Team Dark is big on loyalty, and Silver doesnt do things in halves. I think more likely than him shifting his definition of morality, he like. Shifts the focus of thats sense of justice, from the focus being morality to loyalty. If that makes sense. I think itd be easier for him than rewriting his rules for whats good and bad, or trying to wrap his head around moral grayness.

Either way, loyalty would become a focus for him, hes part of a team now. Not that he isnt loyal as he is normally, he just hasnt had anyone by his side, fight for him and with him all the time. Not since blaze anyways. Obviously because hes such an extreme person, slights against his team would probably get explosive reactions, something omega would encourage. Unhelpfully. Itd take some time for him to understand the dynamics between his new team and the rest of their friends, particularly with Sonic.

As for individual relationships, i might have to think about this in detail more, but im sure he'd find Omegas uncomplicated nature... not relaxing, but easy. Hes predicatable. Once hes gotten used to them theyd make a very destructive duo, i dont really believe Silver cared much about "property damage" and "reckless behaviour" before going to the past.

Silvers relationship with shadow... this one is so hard for me it always has been. I thinkkkkkkkk that Silver would be like. Overly eager to prove himself to shadow. From silvers point of view shadow is cool, powerful, self assured...basically someone to look up to. As a memeber of team dark i think he'd look to Shadow for approval, whereas Shadow might feel a bit. Crowded by him. Especially at first, throwing silver into the mix is strange. This all being said id reallly have to think hard about this, just because their relationship isnt something i fewl confident i understand.

The member of team dark hed have the most troubles with with be Rouge though. Shes a spy a thief, and she keeps secrets. Shes not an easy person to read and that stresses him out. He doesnt dislike her, he just cant figure her out. The whole morality thing would be especially tough with her because of it i think. He still holds those values, i think, so her whole deal would get his mind running laps. Other than that though i think theyd have a good relationship, i think shed like his fire

Generally i think Silvers personality would be similiar, less naive maybe, definitely not getting any less destructive. Hed probably take on a role of the bleeding heart more often than you'd think though, just because no one else would.