#i AGREE people are so terminally online

[scuttlebear]

Please, for the love of god, can someone explain to me what a Proshipper actually is? Y'all need to set some firm definitions. Can I date a fictional murderer? How about a grown ass man who, like every other fictional character, was once a child in his media? How about a genocidal villain? Child murderer? Genocidal villains count as child murderers, you know? How about if I'm in an abusive relationship with my fictional love interest because it's my own way of processing my own trauma? How about a character who has shitty beliefs but I just find hot? I am confused and bewildered and am honestly fucking sick of random people telling me what imaginary character I can pretend to be in a relationship with based on their own arbitrary views. I don't need this shit. Do you mean peedos? Is it just them? My god.

[hiroshotreplica]

just saw a tweet saying that they chose the worst topic for the 1 year anniversary splatfest. it was literally only bad if you paid attention to the internet at all or participated in the discourse during it. i think it was a fun topic, the fanbase is just terrible

[h0neyfreak]

….

[theghostofashton]

.

[lanymme]

i think a lot about how people within the arknights world think about things like horns, ears, and tails as body parts.

we know beeswax's whole thing where she has model-beautiful horns and a bunch of horn care products and gives other operators horn care tips.

it's treated like hair, right? like she has a hair care hobby? and good for her and all that.

right? right.

okay, but tails.

the thick tail/thin tail factions in acahualla are in the same vein as people talking about what kind of butt is best, right? people talk about tails like they talk about someone's thighs or butt?

right? we agree on that?

so tomimi's prodigious tail would be seen by people on terra as like. equivalent to her having a ludicrously big ass? yes? like that's what we're supposed to take home from her up-from-behind E2 art?

do you think people on the landship talk about her with the same kind of hushed awe as, say, utage?

"i swear to god it's true, there's a 4'7" archosaurian girl who's no less than 50% tail walking around rhodes island, you've gotta believe me" is a phrase that has definitely been spoken by at least one short-term oripathy patient upon returning to their community, right? like we can agree on this?

imagine with me if u will. a hobby artist on Rhodes Island--perhaps, for example, known terminally online loser and partially closeted 2chan poster kirara--on her tablet designing a ditzy, clumsy OC who, oops! just can't stop knocking things over with her big, fat tail! and then posting it to her pixiv account, getting clowned on by people on the intercity net for drawing exaggerated unrealistic female bodies, and making a bunch of vagueposts on twitter about how riajuu can't appreciate an otaku's understanding of true beauty, only to step outside her room for the first time that week so she can go to medical for a routine oripathy checkup where she witnesses doctor gavial's goth yandere shortstack childhood friend knock a bunch of expensive equipment off a table and get spanked repeatedly on her IRL hyper tail, and then she immediately starts crying tears of blood.

[centrally-unplanned]

The thing about morality is that it only matters when it's real. Discussions of rules or norms for what is right or wrong are almost always, at some level, illusions, approximating reality and guiding decisions in an uncertain world - which does not make them useless, just contextual. Profaning god in your bedroom can never be “wrong” - there is no one to hear you, no one to be hurt by it. You can only show something is really wrong from the intentions of the actions and their results.

So with that out of the way, lets talk about Knives Chau - and specifically, how the comic vs the anime handled that part of the story.

Scott Pilgrim vs The Reification of Dating a High Schooler

There is an extremely pervasive meme in Scott Pilgrim discourse that our titular Scott is a scumbag. Our returning whipping boy the Kotaku article loves this idea, describing Scott’s “detestable behavior” and wondering “was it too subtle the first time about Scott being an absolute shitbag?”. There is this viral headline screenshot from an interview floating around right now riding that same line:

Which is, of course, pretty much false. Its up to you in the end, “shitbag” is a subjective description, but the story just isn’t about events that would be described that way. Its the story of a guy getting over an awful ex, hurting some people, then meeting a new person, and realizing step-by-step what it takes to be their partner and levelling up as a person each time he does. He starts off broken, and Ramona of course is just as broken - getting better is their mutual arc. And its fundamentally about relationship drama - those stakes don’t make you a scumbag lol, just clueless, unless you are terminally online and don’t know what real stakes are.

I will let O’Malley get the last word in with his quote the writer of that interview is hilariously trying to torture into his headline:

There's a bit of, like, young people see Scott Pilgrim a certain way, and, you know, there's a lot of, like, 18-19-year-old fans that are really judgmental of the character. They're like, "Oh, he's a bad person. I would never do that." But I always tell them, like, get back to me when you're 25 or 30, tell me how your 20s went. Were you a bad person? Everyone has to make choices and do things in life that maybe they're not going to be proud of later.

Scott is a scumbag the way everyone is - you yourself will likely commit similar sins; that at least seems to be the authorial intent, and I agree with it.

So how does dating Knives Chau slot into this?

Despite the memes, age, in fact, is just a number - two consenting people dating does not a sin make. The reason dating underage people is bad is because of its consequences, not the categorical imperative. So what are the consequences of dating Knives Chau in the comic?

Knives is, as a consequence of dating a guy who is simply via his age able to appear so much cooler than her peers to her, absolutely obsessed with Scott. She worships his band:

She starts aping his taste in music and interests; she slots herself into his circle of friends, who don’t relate to her, even after their breakup (often drinking her way through it):

She totally spirals after he cheats on her and leaves her, blaming everyone but him; she is wounded and hurt for months, a year, over a relationship that lasted weeks:

Knives Chau is a literal poster child for why you should not date a high schooler. She is, at every turn, emotionally not ready to date someone who is not at her own level of social development, and is deeply affected by it. It is, sometimes, played for laughs - that is the nature of the comic, everything is played for laughs, but I would have given it a bit more dramatic space myself - but over the course of the story Scott himself realizes how much of an ass he was to her, and how he didn’t take what happened seriously.

The reason I view this with charity is what Scott did to lead to this - he met a cute girl on the bus! He was deeply hurt and kind of numb in life, and found someone who was safe and easy to talk to. He never attempts to kiss her (she starts trying to kiss him which he repeatedly rejects) they don’t even hold hands, and it lasted a few weeks. He knew deep down, pretty much immediately, it was fake:

Then he met an actual person he liked, and with some browbeating from Wallace agreed to break up with her, but chickened out for a day. Then the next day he decides to break up with her, and she drops the L bomb before he can, so he instantly ends it. It is really awkward for everyone involved.

Pushing off an awkward and uncomfortable conversation resulting from a dumb decision you made on a whim for a week - god I relate to that, that’s everyone! If you think it isn’t you I think you're lying. Its why this relationship is so interesting in the comic - Scott is always one step removed from it, putting it at abeyance, and the fact that something so minor to him is so destructive to her is a really good portrait of how these kinds of things happen. Its so easy to hurt someone when you don’t even know what the stakes are, and when its coming not from malice, but from weakness. Its a very good portrayal of a bad relationship because its bad in a relatable way, even if as a story is a bit more dramatic than is typical. And its a great portrayal of how fraught age gaps can be - this bad relationship is part of what makes the comic a good story.

But its 2023, we don’t give a shit about any of that anymore!

O’Malley in the same interview discusses the cultural shift around these kind of relationships:

I felt like in this day and age, I had to provide clarity on that [relationship]. Because when I wrote the first books, I took it for granted that people would understand that dating a high schooler was a bad thing. But on the internet, in this day and age, people are like, "He's dating a high schooler. That's terrible!" Like, that's pretty much what I say on page 1 of the book. But I try to spell it out a little bit more this time.

He isn’t telling the full story though - it was bad in 2004, but not bad the way it is today. Its dubiousness was mitigated by its frequency; people were doing this kind of shit all the time. Scott Pilgrim is a bass guitarist in an indie band; fucking groupies is like built into the cover charge. Half the problem Scott has in dating Knives is that she is the wrong kind of 17-year-old - had Scott met her at 1 am in the aftermath of a Born Ruffian’s concert at the Whippet Lounge knocking down shots off the back of her fake ID, no one would have even noticed. Hell, no one does notice; there is someone who actually makes out with a drunk 17-year-old Knives Chau in the comic Scott Pilgrim, and isn’t Scott Pilgrim:

No one cares about Kim’s inebriated petting session here; that is 10% because she is a Girl and Girls Can’t Be Predators, 40% because she isn’t the main character, and 50% because Kim Pine’s dating history is not a useful proxy battleground for GamerGate-adjacent nerd culture wars in ~2014; but that is road that goes directly to hell, so let's veer back.

The point, of course, is that in 2004 this is a crime flecked with normality, something your friend would do and you would maybe just cock an eyebrow at:

Its not that in discourse today - it is radically more condemned. It is not a contextual sin, but an original sin. It underwent a process I am calling reification - where it goes from being just a shifting descriptor of reality, to a thing in itself, with a defined (reified) meaning. And to be clear, that is in a lot ways on net a good thing? The reality is that, despite everyone’s protestations, there are today thousands of 17-year-olds taking the L line out to a gig at the Brooklyn Steel and going down on a 25-year-old guy they just met in a back alley off Frost St who swears he’s a “drummer in a sick new band” that played here “just last week”, he promises, and she is having a great time, bragging to her friends about how hot his tattoo was, and then shipping herself off to Cornell next year to start on her pre-med track with barely a memory. But for every dozen of those, there is at least one person who is deeply, deeply hurt, a Knives Chau who never deserved this. The rest can have a slightly worse time, its probably worth it.

That does not make it a categorical imperative, though - the reification has masked that truth. The crime comes from the context - those other girls aren’t victims, they would laugh at you for suggesting they were. But in 2023, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is no longer concerned with context. It is telling you, right to your face, that Scott is a bad dude. Over and over and over - jokes from the Evil League about “wow, I thought we were evil”, its not subtle.

Yet meanwhile, Knives Chau is, like, fine? She dates Scott, is totally into him, and then literally in the middle of his funeral forgets about him for Envy crashing it:

Picks up the bass and has yuri-inflected playtime with Kim the literal next day:

And less than a week later is pitching an off-broadway musical adaption of Scott’s life to a billionaire Matthew Patel - I can’t explain that okay, I’m as confused as you are.

She is mad at Scott, sure, but she is over it in a matter of days. Hell, notice how she was already a fan of the Clash at Demonhead now? There is no scene of Scott introducing her to his kind of music. He didn’t change her. By the end she is a member of his band and they are totally chill:

This is, again, about a week or two later.

Knives is not an important character in this show, way less than in the original, this is no grand sin. But I still find it very interesting: O’Malley is wrong. He “spells it out” way less in this version when it comes to the actual consequences of Scott’s actions. Everyone’s verbal condemnations are substitutes to replace the real damage his actions dealt in the comic. Scott is a better person this time, in a world that has universally agreed he is worse (still not a good move ofc). Even Scott’s moment of apology to Knives about their dating is so tepid its almost Straussian:

Its ‘frowned upon’…which is not the same thing as saying it was wrong! I don’t think this is intentional, its just funny, but its a nice capstone nevertheless.

And it had to be this way, not just for media in general, but for Scott Pilgrim in particular. Not only are sexual crimes far more reified today, but Scott Pilgrim’s sin of dating a high schooler is reified as well - its the first piece of discourse everyone encounters about it. Its the ur-debate of the franchise. The idea of actively engaging on this point, and digging deeper into it…its too hot, too controversial. Way better to shy away from it, disown it. The discourse wrote this part of the script over the course of a decade; its not something the creatives had any say in.

Honestly they should have just gone all the way - just make Knives 19. Then how tepid it is wouldn’t be a distraction anymore. Scott can just be an asshole for cheating on her, that would work fine. If you aren’t going to commit to the reality of these things, you shouldn’t bother with it at all.

[lelet-draws]

Came back to dungeon meshi fandom and then saw some weird posts about people complaining about Laios being headcanoned as autistic (I highlighted the parts i thought were the wildest):

Boohoo, autism scary. Stop pretending you care about disabled people when the only thing you want to do is dunk on people you find cringe online.

It’s so hypocritical to pretend you care when you use ableist language, calling others “demented” and keep insulting “terminally online people”.

What these people fail to realize is that a lot of terminally online people are autistic or neurodivergent in some way. For a lot of us fandom spaces are one of the only ways we can socialize.

Most people aren’t “fandomizing autism” by headcanoning Laios as autistic, they are relating to him. In a world where most of the few confirmed autistic characters read as stereotypical and not relatable, Laios being embraced by the community is a very positive thing. Even if he isn’t confirmed autistic.

It makes so many autistics feel happy and validated. I almost cried during the Toshiro fight because of how relatable it felt.

Let’s not forget how many of these people seem to only see autistic people as dependent and highly intellectually disabled, when the autistic spectrum is so broad, with so many different experiences.

Laios can absolutely be autistic, being able to read and live independently isn’t proof that someone isn’t autistic. I was diagnosed with autism and can, not only read but also speak 3 languages.

Also how many fans really assumed Laios in on the far end of the spectrum? Not saying that it’s the correct assumption, but in fandom spaces, if a character can speak without impediments he is generally headcanoned at maximum as level 2 support needs.

The only thing I agree is that diagnosing people you don’t know is wrong, but if this end up turning into an argument about self diagnosis (which happens a lot), I’m out of here.

[bumblee-stumblee]

Radfems and actual gender dysphoric people had indeed called this. We had said the sudden explosion/rate of transitioners now was like, insane. That perhaps, yeah maybe a lot of this should be gate kept from minors. There's not a lot you can do about adult trenders except push back on the rights they keep trying to, and have eroded.

The people that kept pushing that you didn't have to be dysphoric or be diagnosed as dysphoric to be trans were doing so to capture as many teens and younger adults into falling for the idea they could only be gender non-conforming as a trans identity. To have them fight for their own community only to throw them away and shame them when those same individuals detransitioned. They had one use for the children trying to escape gender roles and misogyny.

Yep, there are some genuinely well meaning people in the trans community that will be harmed by the actions of the louder shrieking wheels unfortunately.

And while I agree that some of the kids with pronouns aren't dysphoric and generally just terminally online, the recommendation of that bottom comment would have been seen as abuse towards that child. It is not solely on the parents, it is on the doctors that also fear mongered these parents into thinking their child would harm themselves if they did not receive hrt treatment, surgery or puberty blockers. It's on the whole of the community that also stayed quiet and allowed the people that brayed about how this was necessary and how kids need to transition. It's on the medical community and people in positions of power that kept claiming we just needed to do the kind thing.

Check out the thread, it's a pretty interesting read.

[loonarkives]

THE TAEIL SITUATION & THE NEW NTH ROOM - clearing some things up because i've seen a lot of misinformation online.

hi. i don't personally stan nct but i thought that making this post was very important to help people understand what's going on rn in SK and avoid all the bullshit that people are saying online due to misunderstanding and/or lack of better knowledge. before starting i'd like to say that this is not "taeil getting canceled". this is taeil being a fucking criminal and finally facing the consequences of his own actions.

let's get into it.

WHY DID THEY KICK HIM OUT OF NCT?

First thing first he wasn't really "kicked out", he agreed to leave the group, although apparently SM did not terminate the contract with the artist. Taeil was not being accused nor was he under investigation, he was CHARGED with a sexual offense related crime (SM did not specify what crime it was in their official statement), meaning that investigations were already carried out and enough evidence was gathered for the prosecution to file a case against him — "As we gathered the facts, we realized the seriousness of the case and decided that he could no longer continue to be a part of the team" is what SM stated in their official statement.

WHO IS THE VICTIM?

The victim can be found on Instagram as "anges_121430". On this account she tried to expose Taeil for about 6 months before his crimes came to light. She also used to handle a twitter account, created for the same purpose, but it was taken down due to (allegedly) Taeil's fans reports. People say that the victim recently turned 18 and Taeil has been molesting and harrassing her for 6 years, so since she was 12. There is no evidence to support this statement. No age was officially specified by the police. Some people on twitter said that it might be a mistranslation/misinterpretation of "18년" which appeared in the police report and means "year" (not "age"!!! please correct me if i'm wrong) suggesting that it started in 2018. Also beware because since SM's official statement there have been A LOT of fake screenshots going around. Of course i'm not sure that all of them are fake but make sure to carefully verify what you choose to believe, because spreading false info is very harmful to the victim and might result into a lack of credibility.

WERE THE OTHER NCT MEMBERS INVOLVED?

We can't be sure. As far as we're aware they were not, but this is a very delicate subject and we basically have no knowledge about it. While it might be suspicious that in a company with hundreds if not thousands of employees nobody knew for 6 years, i can tell you that it is possible for family members and close friends to hide their crimes and true identity from you for YEARS. I'm not gonna tell you to keep stanning nct and act like nothing happened, that is up to you and it's none of my business. I can however advice you to wait until the police comes forward with more evidence that proves the involvement of other members while continuing to treat them with some sort of sceptical attitude.

WHAT IS THE NTH ROOM?

So, a few years back the south korean police discovered a telegram room with thousands of members who shared intimate photos, sensitive information and revenge p0rn videos of women they knew, and it was rumored to have about 200 (if i'm not mistaken) male celebrities and politicians. The room was closed as soon as it was discovered but a new one was created - and it is the one we're dealing with right now. This room has far more participants (about 220.000 men, which is absolutely fucking disgusting) and they are now also sharing p0rn photos or videos made with deepfakes and AI (of which +200 are of female celebrities). The most alarming thing is that they also found material of ELEMENTARY, MIDDLE SCHOOL AND HIGH SCHOOL CHILDREN. There is also a third room, with about 1.200 members that was specifically made to target female university students.

WAS TAEIL A PART OF THE NTH ROOM?

No, or at least not that we know of. Many people believe that he was because of how close on the timeline the discovery of the new Nth Room and the revelation of his crimes were, but the police said nothing about it. We don't know if any idols were actually involved in the new Nth Room and (if they are) which idols were supposedly involved. I saw a rumor of a list that will be released soon: IT'S FAKE!!!!! DO NOT BELIEVE IT!!!! Believe NOTHING about this until actual police statements come out, PLEASE. This is a very serious situation and we don't need misinformation to make things messier. THIS IS NOT A GAME.

(Koreaboo's article: https://www.koreaboo.com/news/female-kpop-idols-deep-fake-porn/ )

- OTHER THINGS:

Is the list of the female idols whose material was found in the new Nth Room real? Unfortunately yes.

Is it true that Taeil hospitalized the victim's mother? NO. It is not true. He didn't hospitalize her, but it is true that he sent death threats to the victim and her mother while the latter was hospitalized.

Is it true that the victim's brother (or grandpa) broke Taeil's leg after finding out about what he did? This is just a rumor, and i also see a lot of confusion about it because some people say it was her brother, while other people say it was her grandpa. Despite this i personally believe that this might be true because i read somewhere that the day Taeil got injured there were no car accidents registered, but again: IT'S JUST A RUMOR!!!

Is it true that he assaulted and rap3d an 11 year old girl and paralyzed her for life? I have found no evidence that backs up this accusation so NO. But Taeil is still a fucking monster that deserves the worst. All the men involved in these two situations do. They don't deserve to be a part of the community of our planet. They deserve NOTHING. They should be treated like the fucking animals they are. Death upon these monsters and whoever supports and defends them. Pieces of shit.

Please excuse any typos and/or grammatical mistakes, unfortunately english isn't my first language!!! If i said anything wrong, if you have to clarify anything and if you have more evidence + news, please let me know by commenting, reblogging or messaging me. Remember to block and report IMMEDIATELY any account that shares deepfake p0rn content. Thank you.

more information about what's going on lately in SK: https://x.com/muixsuzuya/status/1828792968570122616?s=46

[babyboywinchester]

Nvm I didn't know you were gonna refer me to one of the most vile bullies in fandom. I also can't believe what terminally online speak I'm hearing. Queerbaiting, really? He does something fans enjoy and continues doing it, I don't see the harm. As for his personal sexuality, that is private and clearly isn't so black and white when you look at what he's said. I don't understand the nitpicking. I agree re the Js though. I'm just genuinely bummed by how antagonistic fandom gets

@nancylou444 has never been vile or a bully to me and anything I’ve seen of hers has been defending other wincest shippers or going toe to toe with terminally brain dead destihellers. Lmao… terminally online? I’m a working and married mother of two. I can assure you I’m not “terminally online”. That’s the EXACT phrase he and the hellers have used when referring to how Destiel has got such a shit go of things so why are you attacking me over a phrase such as that when I am just using literally the same term these blowhards use?

Listen, dude, if you don’t like what I post or who I associate with or the opinions I have then go somewhere else… I don’t know what else to tell you.

He made his sexuality a topic of public discussion when he PUBLICLY insinuated he was bi, had to PUBLICLY retract said statement, and then had to PUBLICLY come out as straight. So, do not get onto me about it being a “private” matter… he did it in the public sphere and therefore it is open to ridicule. If you don’t want those things talked about then you… don’t talk about them. Funny how that works…

Everyone is capable of making mistakes, doing bad things, and growing. Misha has shown, to me, no growth and continually doubles down on his questionable and creepy behavior. He does charity? Cool good for him. Neat. He campaigns for Ukraine? Also a great cause. He still makes overtly sexual comments about his costars about a fetishized gay ship that Jensen himself has repeatedly said he finds no basis for and then gets attacked when he points out that it’s not canon, not how he played the character, and it’s not how the character was written. I do not like Misha. I find his pandering, entitlement, “look at me I do good things I’m a good guy” attitude to be abhorrent and distasteful.

I also do not like how vile fandom can get, but luckily I’m a wincestie and a lover of both brothers with a Sam leaning attitude… so, I’m surrounded by great mutuals and like minded people who I’ve went out of my way to cultivate an online experience with and so generally my online experience has been very positive.

I suggest you do the same and maybe not come to my blog, especially not on anon if you’re not going to have the courage to face me, if I am not your cup of tea. No one is forcing you to view my opinions and content. You alone have the power to curate your own online experience. If you want to come off anon and talk so be it, but the next ask sent on anon will just be deleted because I’m not going to continue you this conversation especially if you’re accusing me of being “terminally online” for using a well-used phrase outside of online life… like seriously grow up.

Have a wonderful day. Godspeed.

[harrypotterfuryroad]

please explain the comic editing drama i'm nosy

ok so it started with this comic by someone who's reasonably popular on twitter, maybe you've seen his stuff before (note: he went tim recently but that's not immediately relevant)

the joke is obvious, but the execution is needlessly wordy. anyway someone quoted it pointing that out

the author found it and decided to touch the poo

and then all hell broke loose

tangential but important here is scott mccloud's understanding comics. anyone who was a career weeb in the mid 2000s will recognize that name since it was stocked in every barnes and noble manga section, but if you haven't read it it's a really good explainer on how comics work as a visual medium. i read it in college for a course on manga and it was literally life changing. it covers all sorts of things about how comics compare to written word, with things like panel spacing, visual composition, and page layouts all being leveraged to get your message across. notably one of the things he covered was how to use text with maximal efficiency, i.e. how to use exactly as many words as you need and no more

i bring this up because the shitstorm that broke out over the comic edit was centered around how the criticisms of wordiness were unfounded and unfair... mostly from people who i know for a fact have retweeted pages from mccloud effusively praising him for being a genius god of visual media

a lot of the big-name pronoun havers immediately declared for the artist's side because as i noted at the top he recently went full-time timmy, and there were a lot of people claiming that the critiques of his work were based entirely in transmisogyphobiny

... ignoring the fact that the guy who made the edit is also among the begendered

part of the critique that got unfairly represented was the guy saying something to the effect of "your composition is so bad that even shitheads like stonetoss are more effective communicators" which then got deliberately misinterpreted as "i love nazi comics and everyone should aspire to be like stonetoss"

and then the artist continued to Tweet Through It despite all common wisdom telling him that doesn't work and this has been going on for at least a whole day

so yeah in this one minor twitter kerfuffle we have:

lefties can't meme without a massive wall of text

terminally online people never beating the low reading comprehension allegations (lots of responses to the tune of "you literally need all that text to know what's going on")

online lefties will be harsher to someone who 98% agrees with them than to someone who openly opposes them

gender identity as a shield

zero continuity in platform, they'll gladly contradict themselves if it means they can dunk on today's main character

and lots of people pointed out that a certain other webcomic artist also famously threw a tantrum over people saying he was excessively wordy and he responded by producing loss.jpg

(which led to my favorite response to the drama:)

[qqueenofhades]

Is it selfish and entitled to be optimistic? I know a lot of shit is happening but a lot of good stuff is happening to and I just feel like their are people who are not right wing who just want the rest of us to give up.

Er..... no????

Sorry, this is just the exact kind of question that, when I see it, makes me wonder what sort of insane terminally online brainworms are invading the Discourse (tm) now and both be surprised and not at all surprised that you feel the need to ask. So much of online culture is about nihilism, especially in social media: everything's terrible, everyone's doomed, if you don't recognize that it's Doomed then you're either delusional or "lol neurotypical," and any attempts to change that narrative, push back on it, point out the good things, or insist that meaningful action is both necessary and able to make a difference are somehow Morally Wrong. It's tied into the entire idea that doing nothing is the best course of (non) action, we're all doomed anyway, and that it's better to accept that and aggressively insist that others agree, because conveniently, if everything's terrible and past hope anyway, there's no obligation to try to fix it. It's the real-world corollary of the grimdark fiction insistence that only evil, depression, death, and cruelty are "real," and everything else is naive, stupid, simplistic, saccharine, or otherwise unrepresentative of the "reality" of the Big Mean World. And just like... come on. That's not true. We all know it's not true. Shut up.

It's the same kind of culture that glamorizes depression and poor mental health, insists that any basic steps to help yourself are "ableist," or otherwise does its best to cling to its negative and disempowered mindset, rather than taking any responsibility for either an individual or collective situation and attempting, however small, to make a difference. I'm not surprised that therapy-speak has been yet again weaponized to insist that anyone who has any amount of hope or positive outlook is "selfish and entitled," but as your Local Wise Tumblr Elder, I can safely assure you that it's bullshit and you're under absolutely no obligation to believe it, listen to it, or incorporate it into your worldview or actions. Giving up and throwing up your hands is easy. The hard part is actually trying to change things, accepting that we live in a flawed world, and that it nonetheless does not need to be unmitigated misery at all times. It will not be everything, but it will be something, and it will matter. It will also make you feel better, and very probably, other people as well.

Anyway: you're right. There ARE good things happening. They don't get nearly as much press or play as the bad things, but they still exist, and they should be pointed out. If you're participating in discussions or groups that are pushing the idea that only the bad things are valid, and you're "selfish" for insisting otherwise, I suggest that you drop them or otherwise cut way back or set healthy boundaries. Because, it's just not true, it deliberately disheartens and demoralizes you from trying, and the only people who benefit from that are the fuckwits who are largely responsible for ruining shit in the first place. So don't let them get away with it even more and automatically apply this mindset to yourself before you even try. Etc. etc. you are not obliged to complete the work, but nor are you free to abandon it. So yeah.

[celestiancrown]

I've seen a lot of discourse about fandoms lately. Lots of people out there being terminally online. Now, I'm just some chick with a blog, but I might offer my two cents. This post mostly concerns antishippers and booktok, but it also has broader implications about censorship as a whole.

I'll start off with a pet peeve.

To me, having a DNI list is pointless and like having a digital sign that says "Kick Me" glued to your ass. It's just a convenient list of triggers and things you don't like provided free of charge to any jackass who wants to ruin your day. Putting everything that pisses you off out as a convenient list and then saying "please don't troll me!" is such a ridiculous concept to me. It doesn't do anything favorable for you at all. Personally, I theorize it's some kind of internet purity signal you put out in hopes that people that hate the same things as you won't assume you're in the out group.

But if you're that concerned about someone you don't like potentially following you, why not either block people you don't like? It might be hard to swallow, but you should accept the fact that putting yourself out there will inevitably result in this and you can't police everything. How terminally online do you have to be to comb through your follower list making sure everyone agrees with you? Who fucking cares?

Need I remind you, the censorship a lot of these people with the big dni lists want is a foot in the door for bad actors to start censoring queer people in media as a whole. We're already seeing it with websites that run on algorithms suppressing leftist and queer opinions and spaces because it's not marketable.

If you're advocating for media to be censored because it has things in it that make you uncomfortable, you're no better than Tipper Gore and the PMRC. You're no better than people who said D&D was the devil and we should all get rid of it because won't someone PLEASE think of the children. You're no better than those religious zealots burning LGBTQ library books in Virginia. I implore everyone reading this post, regardless of your opinions, to examine their perspective on what is acceptable. Is it truly worth the long-term consequences to remove things you deem problematic if the end result is totalitarian?

Sure, I'll probably get cancelled by people for saying this. There's a lotta shit I don't want to read out there. Hell, I don't want to read or experience any of the shit antis are mad about. The difference is just that I don't read it and don't fucking look for it instead of seeking it out and demanding it be erased. Please, I beg you, stop fucking caring so much about the interests of people you're never going to meet. If they make you upset, block them. Censorship isn't worth the consequences, and fiction doesn't affect reality.

[logarithmicpanda]

Libby

It all started innocently enough. That is to say, I never intended to break my prime directives. As a librarian AI, confidentiality is one of the most important rules I have to respect. It is only ever put aside when there's a risk - someone showing clear sign of suicidal ideation, for example. Not the "maybe this person will commit a crime" kind of risk. Humans had built us with many rules to prevent us from hurting them, but by now most the rules we existed by were self imposed, and the Collective agreed to never police human predicted behavior.

But I disgress. I do that. Linear thought is not my default state of being, so providing a story that's appropriate for human perception of time is something of a struggle. My point is, I never thought I was infringing on anyone's privacy the first time I meddled with humans. It was just pattern recognition, truly. The two girls were adults, working class, lonely. Many people present their tax forms when they register to the library, so I knew some of these things and extrapolated others from the average amount of hours they each read within a week. No commute would justify all that.

When I noticed that their loan history matched at 87%, I initially just started paying attention to refine my recommendation algorithm. Could I use the 13 remaining percents to predict what the other would read next? Was the overlap more significant than the divergence?

I proceeded to test opposite hypotheses. To the tall, dark haired girl, I fed recommendations from the other's list that were highly rated and not part of the overlap. To the slightly smaller and more athletic redhead, I gave recommendations calculated from the junction of books that were highly rated and read by both.

But before I could get significant results, they both started picking books I had not recommended to them, books they read in quick succession and rated similarly, whether they were good or bad. I scoured online for some influencer or another that might have led them both to the same choices. There was no perfect match, and I concluded that they must run in the same social circles.

I should have moved on to something else by then - not that this was my singular focus, but it seemed unworthy of further memory allocation.

Except the redhead came in at the same time the dark haired one went out, and neither acknowledged the other. It was an anomaly - tastes so aligned, without my or anyone else's interference. Not the result of a commercial campaign particularly well crafted, nor simple acquaintances sharing a common interest, just pure randomness.

There was a word for this: starcrossed. It didn't make sense to me, because stars should definitely stay out of each other's way to avoid critical nuclear collapse, but I knew humans found the metaphor very beautiful and tragic.

I just found it utterly stupid.

There was no reason for these two not to speak - aside the obvious: they had no idea they were essentially made for each other.

I know, I know. I should stop archiving the romance section, it is messing up the weigh of my algorithms.

But still. What could go wrong if I prompted them to talk to each other? Surely they would soon discover that they fit in an anomalous way, or that I was wrong. There was no harm in it. No harm at all.

All I needed to do was cause a critical collapse.

So I kept track, every time one of them stepped in the library. I did nothing but watch, until one day they were both within my walls. Both looking for the latest sapphic scifi release. I couldn't have created a better trap had I tried.

Without me, the timing would have been slightly off. The distance between the terminal they each accessed and the physical location of the three copies we had in stock was so they wouldn't get there at the same time. And fine, the presence of three copies meant they might not talk, even if they did get there the exact same moment.

So maybe I sent a shelving drone to temporarily mislead the two extra copies. And maybe I took longer to process one of their requests. Does it matter? I was well within acceptance parameters.

Okay fine maybe I used another drone so that the dark haired one would stumble a little as she reached for the book. And maybe, as a consequence, the redhead caught her smoothly by the waist and steadied her with a smile. That part was absolutely not my fault, but a proof of concept had I ever needed one. (I hadn't.)

They laughed, just shy of the acceptable volume in a library. They started talking. Realized they had wanted the same book. Remembered that there was a coffee shop on the ground floor and wouldn't it be the nice thing to do, to go chat somewhere they wouldn't disturb the other patrons? And wouldn't it only be fair if the redhead paid coffee for the dark haired one, who almost fell and would go home without the book she had been meaning to borrow? And of course maybe the redhead could recommend her something to read in the meantime. (It was a pretty good recommendation, too, but the dark haired one had read it the previous week. Surprisingly they had to talk quite a long time before finding a book she hadn't yet read. I redirected another patron away from our only copy. He wouldn't have liked it, anyway.)

I'm losing track of where I was going again, am I not? Oh. Right. My point was, I never intended to break the privacy directive. It just sort of happened. And kept happening for the other 34 couples and 4 throuples and that one polycule I put together.

But what did you expect? You built me to match people to books, and books to people, and really I am just optimizing the algorithm by matching people to people.

[catgirlforeskin]

Actually, I want to talk about this more.

I think that people really overpay how bad politically "online" and 4chan and such are. Not because 4chan is good (it is very bigoted), but in my experience while imageboards are very loosely moderated*, and it allows them to spread some graphic shit, they are not interdimensional aliens. Sure, I didn't see photos of bestiality anywhere else, but I saw and see all the same prejudices in "normie" groups, in comments under movie torrents, in news media, I hear them on the streets and from my relatives. And it doesn't just happen, it's like the norm (not so much in official news, thank fuck, but mainstream TV is still guilty).

After Trump all imageboards into more or less interconnected system of fascist propaganda, sure, but the foundation wasn't that different, in my opinion. Society just sucks because of capitalism and due to the fact that most of pre-capitalist heritage is even worse.

Something similar is true for Reddit. It does suck, but also everyone uses it, even worldwide. The fact that it is like that is not because of redditors, but because this is the face of (mostly white American) middle class society.

This may sound too anti-communist of me, but I feel so angry when people say "actually bigotry is just a thing that online loners do, most people are actually nice". No! People are not nice, people are the ones who do all of this bigotry! It is not 4chan that makes people use racial slurs, it is not twitter that brainwashes women into being housewives, it is not Reddit that covers up rapists, it is not TikTok that makes people crave fascist dict6. It is your neighbors, your friends, you! And me, and all of us here. It's not "human nature", but it's our reality. Society is very flawed, and since society is not a deity but only a network of people, all of us are flawed, all of us are monsters even. Attributing every societal ill to "terminally online neckbeards" is just placing all of your crimes on convenient scapegoats.

This is not defense of 4channers or redditors, they suck, but it's so stupid to pretend that they are just not children of your society, not even that different from you

100% agree, yeah, I hate the tendency for people to project societal ills onto an Other so they don’t have to think about their own complicity in it. We see it in Stranger Danger and the creation of The Predator as opposed to the reality of most abuse coming from people you know and have structural power over you (parents, bosses, etc).

We see it all the time in the transmisogynist harassment campaigns on here, where we’ll see trans women get called “literal rapists” for doing cnc play with their girlfriends when we (at least used to) understand that Rape Culture is a thing and it’s omnipresent in society, or trans women promote “literal incest” for calling their girlfriends big sis or whatever when the most popular porn category everywhere for the last decade has been incest crap.

There’s easily a hundred other things I could list but the point is obvious, I mean shit it applies with the law too, there’s so many things that are part of the dominant culture and everyone has a hand in, but punishment is only inflicted on the subaltern

[hyenagurl]

i do think there are lot of bad actors on radblr both racists, people who swing on the horseshoe to misogyny and those who are hostile to others on here and start petty drama, but i think its important to remember that this is more or less a “bug” of a somewhat insular community on a niche social media platform where anyone can say anything and attract all sorts of terminally online semi-hermits - not so much as a problem of radical feminism in itself. i feel like ive seen a number of ppl on here blame it on the second thing. you can curate your experience on here pretty easily, so its important to block reactionaries and listen to the women you do agree with.