#i dont think its inherently problematic or anything

[rosencrantzsguildenstern]

the thing is ao3 could have infinite things wrong with it and it would still be stupid to move to another site

[atticustimestwo]

do you mind sharing a bit more about your analysis of heart,,,

i'd love to!! (i assume this is about the heart critique piece i did a few months ago, but please correct me if im wrong!)

in terms of the "a critique on the treatment of hearts characterization" piece, i wanted to visually explore some frustrations i have had with how the fanbase seems to fall into some unfortunate patterns when it comes to hearts character.

frequently, i see heart infantilized - this either comes across as him being a kicked dog unable to help himself because he is too weak, a baby angel who did nothing wrong, or a feral gremlin child. i think flattening his character down to any/all of these is, for lack of a better word, a bit problematic?

; one reason being it just defeats the idea of emotions being a visceral, intense thing. heart is meant to represent emotion in its purest form; i feel woobifying him takes away from that concept because it shows having emotions as being inherently weaker or less mature. i think a lot of people kinda forget HMS aren't just tv show characters. they represent greater concepts that near everyone feels and feels uniquely - theyre more sensitive than your typical character. thats not saying treating them as characters is bad! everyone relates to them differently because they are so personal, they make them their own and i think thats really awesome!! ; but boiling them down to these really generic tropes and making heart a baby kinda defeats the idea that emotions are a real, visceral, multifaceted concept. ; another reason i think it can be problematic is that it sometimes unintentionally comes across really ableist? a lot of these 'fandom-y' tropes are already rooted in ableism in some way, which is bad on its own, but theres also the important addition that heart is frequently portrayed as blind.

ive seen people time and time again fall into stereotypes with heart that his blindness makes him weak/helpless/childish. truthfully I dont think people do this intentionally, but its still internalized ableism showing up. i recognize that a lot of the people who woobify heart tend to be on the younger side, so they dont really recognize that theyre flattening him down like that- not out of malicious ignorance, but because theyre kids who havent really had the life experience yet to grasp the full concepts of the album or realize they might be implying harmful stereotypes; that doesn't necessarily mean its okay, but i think its just them being uneducated cause theyre kids and they have yet to learn that stuff. ; all that being said, im not trying to police people on how they portray characters. im not any authority on this fandom/album by any means imaginable - im just a fan like everyone else here! like i said before, characterizing HMS is not inherently a bad thing at all ! its fun, and its what this fanbase is built on in the first place! its so great that everyone can interpret and relate to HMS so personally, i think chonny really hit it off with the concept for the album and the execution is stellar! seeing all the fanart and different interpretations of it and the characters is such a beautiful thing, no matter if its joking, lighthearted, or deep! ; at the end of the day, theres no wrong way to interpret this album, and theres no wrong way to characterize heart. more than anything that critique piece was built up frustration turned to a call to action for people to stop and think deeply for a moment about how they portray heart - to open eyes if someone might be unknowingly flattening or adding problematic ideas to their characterizations. and to just be mindful of that going forward! 💜 

[tedious-waffle]

Btw its very Telling the way people who are offended by the allusion to daddy kink in that BuckTommy (Kinkley?) scene are specifically taking issue with it “sexualizing” the moment/buck’s trauma.

Like,,, tell me you dont know anything about kink without telling me you dont know anything about kink lmao

Some people really dont know how fucking Soft and Romantic and Non-sexual daddy kink, and kink in general, can be, and honestly i feel sorry for them

Like daddy kink can literally be a completely Non-Sexual thing, and a lot of kink is more about the dynamics and vibes of kink, and doesnt actually require or include a sexual aspect. Its why its kink and not just sex. People hear kink and think “weird icky taboo sex” and like a) rude, b) wrong

Like bro. Do you know how many kinky people are asexual

Just, the fact people are turning this scene into “ew tommy sexualizing bucks trauma” is ughh

a) buck started it, b) its actually Fine to sexualize your trauma, its very common and normal and you shouldn’t fucking shame people for doing it, and c) youre the one jumping from implied daddy dynamic to whatever specific sexual scenario You are imagining. The show hasn’t specified anything about it but you jump to the worst version of whatever you assume it is and hate on it. Like you can personally dislike a kink, thats fine!!! But fuck off implying that a kink or the mere discussion of a kink between two consenting adults is inherently problematic and sexual

[orionsangel86]

Are there anythings that you would have changed about The Sandman?

The show or the comic?

Plenty of things I'd change about the comic. As great as the story is, it is a product of its time and there are some underlying messages whether intentional or not that are inappropriate and fucked up and don't really belong such as:

The racism towards black women implied to be cursed to die violently when linked to Morpheus in some way following the Nada situation.

In fact the whole Nada story is pretty gross. When she thinks that by cutting her hymen she'll remove her virginity to put Dream off her, but then its stated that healing her hyman doesnt restore her lost virginity... like first of all. No. Second of all - shoving a rock up your vag does NOT remove your virginity lets not spread the message that it does.

The way Dream comes across a bit rapey in the Nada story overall and its not made clear how much influence Desire has in that.

The inherent misogyny which is typical of 80s/90s comics but in particular the violence towards women and overt sexualisation of women. Whether for shock value or not, its just not necessary.

The implied message that depressed and suicidal people should just kill themselves and everything will be better once they are gone.

The idea that a person who is depressed can be replaced by a better good version of themselves and even their family and friends will just treat that person as the new them. The implication that the depressed person isnt valued and must instead conform to the responsibilities and burdens of the system they are trapped in - rather than changing the system.

The concept that the moon is inherently transphobic and that witchcraft is transphobic just irks me as a pagan person- like yeah there are huuuuge problems in the community and the whole divine feminine and fucking womb magic bullshit is all over it but I really really hate how Sandman perpetuates that myth and indicates its the goddess that encourages that view and not asshole closed minded people. The moon isnt fucking transphobic FFS.

Everything about Gwen and Hobs relationship in Sunday Mourning. Its problematic AF and I hope I don't need to explain why.

Not a fan of the portrayal of Loki and Sigyn. Its too black and white for such a complex myth.

That fucking awful reaping joke in Collectors which I loathe with every fibre of my being.

Even with all these points I want to caveat this by saying that I love these comics. I KNOW that a lot of this is subjective and open to interpretation. These things have many shades of grey to them. I adore the comics in so many ways but that doesn't mean they dont have their issues. I know people are emotionally connected to these comics and this criticism isnt meant as an attack on them.

For the show, well tbh I think its practically perfect, but a couple of niggles:

That fucking awful reaping joke in Collectors - can't BELIEVE they kept that in. I mute my TV at that moment so I don't have to hear it every time.

Hob's slave trade ties - They needed clarity here and should have kept the regret in 1889 more obvious. I understand why they changed it but I think that topic should have been thought through better.

There were complaints I read about how black characters and black men in particular seem to disproportionately suffer violent deaths. I know this was unintentional and a simple matter of open casting for extras and minor characters which is a GOOD thing, but sometimes casting should be less blind, and more considered where minorities are concerned.

Some of the dialogue in Johanna Constantine's episode is clunky - but that only bothers me because I've watched it 284929294787 times and have it memorised.

Despair was handled poorly. It wasnt great rep for fat bodies (like me) and she comes across so weak and submissive to Desire. Which she just isn't at all in the comic. Thankfully it looks like they really did take that criticism to heart and made positive changes in Dead Boy Detectives. She was fabulous in her cameo in that.

Not enough gay sex. The 1 star homophobic reviews really overexaggerated on that and left me disappointed. There should have been at least 1 gay or lesbian sex scene in every episode. Do better season 2. Do better. (For legal reasons this one is a joke - Sandman is a goldmine of queer rep and should be on every queer fans watch list 100 times over)

There you go. No piece of media is perfect. There can always be changes and improvements, but the Sandman is a story that really does fit the description of masterpiece. I think my ideas of things that need to change are generally matters of framing. I dont think the comic story should be drastically changed in the show, I don't think it should be given a different ending. Its a tragedy after all, but tragedy can come in many forms and perhaps the story can be adjusted so the tragedy isnt so harsh. But anyway. This is all just my opinion and as with all things i'm sure there will be plenty of people who disagree with me.

[yonpote]

I need to know why and how you were anti-phannie from 2014-2016

alright here we go i get to talk about THIS shit now.

i was generally anti-rpf at that point, and honestly? i think it was for fair enough reasons as some people were a bit too eager about showing (general) youtubers stories they wrote about them sucking and fucking their friends. i think i was also pretty high and mighty about being a somewhat oldhead phannie tbh, like ugh do these gaming-channel-only people even know about dan being super edgy and offensive 🙄 and lowkey it was a lot of subtly misogynistic "i'm not like other girls" type shit like i was sooo much better than yall cuz i hadn't watched that video (yet.)

i was generally not into these sorts of fandoms to begin with. i wasnt on the superwhopotterlock side, i was on the homestuck/dangan ronpa/anime of the month side of tumblr, if that gives you an idea of what i was like lol. around 2014-15 i was very much in a community that is kinda similar to what you might see on twitter now, where if you had any interests in media that portrayed anything problematic, that means you are in full support of that problematic thing. if dan howell said something racist in 2010, it doesn't matter that he wasn't being racist in 2015 he's still racist and liking him makes you a racist etc. and of course, rpf is included in problematic topics. if you ship real people, even if said people say they don't mind it, you are a sick pervert and you should be in the loony bin for being so depraved. and if you write or read any fiction that has immoral acts, it means you support those acts in real life too and you are trying to normalize abuse and SA (yknow as if whitecishetpatriarchy hasnt normalized that enough) and you're a danger to children and you deserve to rot in prison (yknow as if a queer person writing stories about queer people hasnt heard that one before)

now here's the real kicker. in 2015-2017 i ran a game grumps fan blog where i did talk about shipping the grumps. "wait how were you anti-rpf if-" well have you ever heard of this thing called Lying? or perhaps even, Cognitive Dissonance? i HAD to run a separate blog for this interest, because if my friends knew i consumed slashfic about arin and danny they would stop being friends with me and think im this evil horrible monster etc. genuinely that was where my brain was at, and is a little bit the reason i decided to this day, to make my phannie accounts completely separate from my main accounts.

nowadays, none of my non-phannie friends actually give a fuck and i do occasionally talk about dnp being silly gay white boys w them! at this point i dont post about em on main just out of respect like "hey im sure you dont actually want to hear about british yaoi constantly regardless of our level of friendship so i'll keep it over here okay?"

also, yeah i grew out of thinking consuming media with deplorable acts makes me deplorable. my favorite tv show is hannibal. i know its shocking, but i dont actually support serial killer cannibals. i will say, i dont fuck with "pro/anti" language with regards to what is considered "problematic" or having that be an identity marker. i think that people are free to write fiction as they please so long as its all properly tagged for people who dont enjoy that kind of content to avoid. but i also think there can be and often are problems in the way these stories are written, and yeah if all the romance stories you read growing up involve some sort of force or danger, that CAN normalize this sort of action as inherent to romance stories/real life romance. but i think thats an issue with like, society at large, and it's not on an individual fic writer to be educating teens who read their dead dove fic despite the explicit rating and tags.

TL;DR: BASICALLY. I WAS A DUMBASS KNOW-IT-ALL BUT DW I GOT BETTER.

[antiradqueer]

Trigger warning for mentions of fetishization, pro-c for non-con stuff,paras, and like very little of cult tactics, nothing with much detail I believe. Sorry if i tagged these wrongly, I'm not really good at putting trigger warnings.

Lol, im in the rq community but its like really confusing, i dont agree with some terms that fetishize people and invalidate others but some parts are i agree with too so its weird.

Im not sure if i should leave and even if i do where do i exactly go i dont really know, also some of these terms really help me to explain and express my non-human identity better, and stuff like that. (i only have id with transbody terms that go like 'wanting to have more eyes' or 'wanting to be taller' due to non-humanity, im not sure if that is wrong. Because these terms really would be okay and very nice in my eyes if they werent soo,, interwined with pro-c for non-con paras and actual fucked up shit.)

Also the community is meant to be anti-harasment, which is what i am, knowing that harassment on the internet wont really work in anyway. Though the community is extreme (this goes for antis too, both sides are very extreme which sometimes wants me to just stay in the middle of it.) And people in the rq tend to ignore the pro-harassment rq's by saying stuff like 'oh theyre not actually rq' and that on itself sounds like very problematical to me. Maybe not just me, i have no idea.

I also thought of id as transabled due to my heavy signs of BIID, (though i am not diagnosed so it might be something else, so i wont self diagnose for now since it might be a placebo effect due to my legs not functioning well in the first place) but the things it implied was just,, not something i would like to be associated with. So idk if that makes me unvalid or anything of that.

Im so fucking confused and i dont really like the fact i am so confused and kind of not fitting for both sides and being neutral seems,, y'know,, ignorant to me because both sides have their extremes and problems, so god i have no idea.

Also i did notice rq community using ways that are like,, weird, and i have experienced cult tactics and when i noticed it literally didnt go away so yeah. And that certainly something I don't want to be associated with and harms me too.

Its weird, i have no idea, wa.

Also i quite literally dont care whos origin is what, i used to be heavily endogenic but after a while i was like,, 'dude i cant change these people nor should i can encourage possible harmful things to them and the plural community' and decided to be neutral especially because i have a traumagenic system of 750+ with some alters still heavily anti-endo and some pro-endo. Which again makes me feel like i will not be welcomed elsewhere.

I have talked to a few anti-rqs about my experience but idk

Also i have multiple paraphilic disorders and Paraphilias without disorders, so im not sure if i will be affected in the other communities since of my paraphilic disorders.

So sorry this is like very long, i apologize if i made y'all uncomfortable,, it was not what i intended.

first of all, I will just repeat what I tell every radqueer that comes into our inbox: think about if you really want to be part of and support a movement that inherently supports pro-c paraphiles of all kinds, is racist, ableist and whatnot. you simply can't on one hand call yourself radqueer and on the other hand pick and choose the parts of the community you like. if you use that label, you are supporting the WHOLE community, end of the story. of course there are disgusting people in every community, but it's different with radqueers - for example, there are quite a lot if pro-c zoophiles who are also therians and claim to be part of the therian community. BUT the therian label in itself is strictly against that and will never ever accept those people. the radqueer label however is inherently supportive of and welcoming to pro-c zoos, pedos and necros. and that's the difference. that's why you are still supporting those people even if you only use the term radqueer. please realize there are alternative terms you can use for the same experiences, which are not associated with radqueers and/or are coined by folk who are openly anti radqueer and anti transid.

aside from that, being neutral or unaligned is 100% a path you can choose! always put your own comfort and safety first and if the discourse stresses you out too much, you can always just back off.

I don't have too much to add honestly, to me it seems like you are THIS close to truly realizing how horrible the radqueer community actually is - I mean, you even noticed the cult tactics. but it is on you to take the final step and get out and I promise you, if you do, you will be welcomed by us antis and other communities!

[I won't comment on the endo system part, since we don't do syscourse topics here]

[chaoxfix]

Not sure if I have any inflammatory opinions of my own but I have seen a consistent fandom trend of making the girls the "responsible ones" in whatever team/duo they're in. Like making Blaze responsible when she's with Silver or making Rouge the responsible one in Team Dark. Give me your opinion on that

(ok i know this is about blaze and rouge and i will get to them but i also talk about sally here. sorry. im a one track mind)

i think some of it is an extension of canon and some is fandom making canon worse. in terms of making characters responsible, gender aside, it will always make some sense for some characters to be more responsible than the others, especially in a show about team dynamics or conflict or combat. leader characters are very normal. and if you really need a braincell character, thats fine, and it probably SHOULD be the leader. and it should make sense for their overall role and function in the story; if they suddenly become the braincell holder when it doesn't fit them, its just going to come across as forced -- and sexist, if theyre a girl, and especially if theyre the only girl on the team.

that being said, in action series like sonic, this is often caused by canon writers and character creators being afraid to put girls in combat situations.

if youre afraid of giving girls a combat role, of course you'll make her the delegator and the one who simply does things from afar. maybe you'll give her some tech prowess. anything that doesn't involve that difficult question of "can i conceivably write her winning a fight against a guy? will that anger people who think its wrong to hit girls? will i anger people who think girls cant win fights? will i anger people who think its unladylike and setting a bad example for girls? will it anger people who feel emasculated by girls in combat?" -- this is also why a lot of women are given marksman roles because it lets them be useful in combat without actually using physical strength.

this is actually why i think bunnie is a brilliant character btw because she got to be a powerhouse and no one really had to question why -- she has a robot suit, you dont have to wonder if the writers cared about any of those questions i mentioned earlier. duh she can win fights, shes part robot, next question.

this is also probably why amy is given a hammer; she's the only of the core 4 with a weapon. writers tend to give girls in combat a weapon or something to give them a leg up. and i think its often fine, but it is a pattern to take note of, and kind of gets at the heart of many writers' worries.

anyways when writers in action series are worried about writing girls and having them in combat, they tend to 1) give them weapons (or other plausible excuses for their strength and abilities, like bunnie's robot parts), or 2) remove them from the action altogether and have them lead from afar. sometimes they try to make 2 less obvious by making them occasionally capable at fighting off people in a 1-1 fight, but overall they are not the powerhouses, they're the brains.

also, for number 2, i think this is part of why so many girls became the leader in many recent series -- because it helps them meet their 'girl character' quota without automatically just making them a damsel in distress girl character. (though admittedly that still often happens, on both fronts.) -- and it also doesnt have to involve them in combat.

so its not always a case of, girls wrangling boys is inherently boring and problematic, and often complaints of this dont fully understand the greater issue. the leader always wrangles their irresponsible teammates -- but its just recently that girls have been pigeonholed into the noncombatant-leader trope. i would argue it becomes girls wrangling boys if you have a girl character who IS written as extremely physically capable and canonly has fun, but they constantly have to curtail the boys' shenanigans. to be honest, this applies pretty strongly to boom!amy imo, but in other fandoms, i see it extremely often with characters like cassie sandsmark from the original young justice comic series (no, not the TV show). stuff like that. a girl who originally has fun and enjoys shenanigans just as much as the guys, but suddenly has to wrangle them instead in a reboot because she has to be ladylike- er, sorry, a 'leader'.

if someone is forever labeled as the leader -- it makes sense for them to be strict. regardless of gender, that's their personality, and we've seen plenty of take-no-shit male leads like this that dont get called boring, or at least dont have their gender called into question. the actual 'girl wrangling boys' criticism im referring to is when they take a girl where that is NOT her personality, and suddenly it becomes her personality for no reason other than that shes a girl. to me, thats the issue.

girls are written like we're automatically the pinnacle of compassion and level headedness and we don't have fun, and instead focus on everyone's feelings. and in small doses, whatever, fine. but when that's constant and amplified by fandom spaces, when they take a girl who DOES have fun on adventures but suddenly she's just sucking the air out of the room? boring. no thank you. thats actually why i dont like boom!amy much. because amy in general was often written to be immature and to get into shenanigans while chasing after sonic. (her set of sexist writing issues could be their own separate post, but she at least was allowed to be imperfect and irresponsible, even if that was often very poorly done)

but overall i think if you solve the root of the problem it helps. just make more female combat characters. let them fight, with weapons or not, and then your series no longer falls into the 'there's only one girl and she has to wrangle all her boy friends because shes the girl and thats her job' category. suddenly it can be 'girl leader is exasperated that every single one of her teammates is dumb as shit, including the other girls on her team who are allowed to have more fun than the leader is allowed to have' -- ya feel? this is why i liked parts of archie, because both bunnie AND amy were regularly part of combat. sally being a comms delegator wasnt a big deal because, well, there were already girls in the thick of it, why would i mind that a different girl was leading things from an observation point where she could organize their strategy on the fly? thats just what a leader does in a series like this.

for blaze specifically, she can be in combat so that's helpful, and shes a princess so it makes sense for her to be responsible. her arc was also being able to have more fun with friends, so as long as she's allowed to actually do fun stuff in the future, i think that's great -- so fandom writers should be more focused on her character arc. if they write her as boring and fun-sucking, then theyre actually regressing her character.

for rouge, being a secret agent and thief is her whole ass job, she knows when to be serious and responsible bc she's an independent contractor. but she should also be able to get into her own shenanigans because shes a kleptomaniac and deserves way more heists and funny mishaps along the way (the murder of sonic the hedgehog rly delivered on this one, tbh). if they write rouge with the only braincell, they should be pretty careful, since rouge is usually causing knuckles's shenanigans in canon. or if youre a team dark fan, be careful since shadow's not really one for fun shenanigans anyways, and omega is -- well. if anyone DOESNT have the braincell its omega but i dont think rouge does more than point his ammo in the right direction if that makes sense. rouge likes the chaos but she organizes it in a way that'll favor her.

this was long lol but i think i organized my thoughts fairly well?

[sweatertheman]

even though i can tell you had 100% good intentions with it, i'll still politely request you delete the katana zero psychopathy post for two reasons:

1. psychopathy is generally a problematic diagnosis: its symptoms are based almost entirely on the subjective view of the people studying a person (not treating them. studying them). it primarily includes such things as:

criminal activity (only 'diagnosable' after the fact)

lacking empathy (not uncommon)

not showing regret or remorse (as far as the person making the diagnosis can tell)

not being able to form real interpersonal connection (every interpersonal connection that seems real gets re-interpreted as cunning manipulation)

defiance against authority (i don't have to spell out why that's not a good symptom for diagnosis)

"deviant sexual interests" (again, i don't have to spell that one out)

coldness (measured by the person making the diagnosis)

and, especially in children, an already existing diagnosis of adhd.

it's questionable whether psychopathy can be 'misdiagnosed' since the symptoms are mostly things that are attributed after the person making the diagnosis has already decided that they think someone is a psychopath. it's extremely subjective, and very little of it actually takes the person's own experience into consideration. in fact, there are a lot of studies actively disproving that the symptoms above have anything to do with heightened criminal activity (the thing psychopathy is said to cause). if nearly every diagnosis turns out to be a 'misdiagnosis' upon closer inspection, does that mean something was misdiagnosed, or maybe that the diagnosis is inherently wrong in of itself?

2. your post puts a lot of emphasis on there being or not being an "official" diagnosis. this makes me a little uneasy. what's official? in history, a lot of institutions have given very much official diagnoses to their patients- to imprison, torture or kill them. the idea that an official psychopathy diagnosis would make a difference one way or another implies that a greater authority can decide on someone's diagnosis and how to treat/use said someone based on it. i am sure that in zero's files, there probably is an official diagnosis for psychopathy, or if there isn't, one could be made at a moment's notice by his psychiatrist, an official mental health professional.

again, i recognise that you didn't mean anyone harm with your post, but the argument you make in it is flawed in its premise. you're absolutely right that the gamma null project just grabbed any kid that would kill people without a lot of fuss, but starting the argument by disproving zero's, fifteen's and headhunter's case of psychopathy is not the right way to go, since it implies that if there were nulls who were "real, officially diagnosed" psychopaths, the case would be different.

i hope this ask isn't upsetting, but i've seen you respond in the post itself and i thought you handled that really well, so hopefully it'll be the same with this.

yeah no, dont worry about it, it's all good!i m still not entirely sure where people are getting the idea that i was saying the NULL would not be deserving of decent treatment of they were "real psychopaths" from, but i guess i can delete the post, considering i was mistaken in my definition of psychopathy.

i would like to say that i feel like everything you've pointed out here is both useful and interesting! the fact that psychopathy is not a legitimate diagnosis and that it could be handed out on a whim based on whatever feelings the examiner has lends further credence to the idea that New Mecca doesn't care about these people at all and justifies its atrocities however it can! "official diagnosises" here just means getting a doctor to tell them whatever they already wanted to hear, that being that the NULL are actually evil soulless bastards and any mistreatment is justified if it means keeping them in line. anything to dehumanize the NULL. i dont really know how else to put it considering you laid it out so well in the ask!

i will reiterate again that i didnt mean to imply that Zero, Fifteen, and Headhunter being "real psychopaths" would have in any way made the NULL project somehow less terrible and inhumane. only that new mecca doesn't actually care if the NULL they create are "real psychopaths." it doesn't matter to them how social these people are, what connections they can and cannot form. they will claim that they're anti-social freaks regardless. psych is actively uncomfortable with the idea that Zero would be forming actual social connections.

i do agree though that my phrasing wasn't very well thought out and i guess it's easily misunderstood. when i made the post, i didnt know that psychopathy is not a real diagnosis, and was conflating the term psychopathy with the idea of someone who is antisocial, incapable of forming bonds, feels no guilt or remorse, and etc. when i set out to disprove the psychopathy of the NULL, i was trying to draw attention to the fact that the government and psych were trying to dehumanize the NULL by labelling them as psychopaths, even if they don't actually meet the criteria they had set out.

thanks for sending this message to me, you laid things out very well. ill delete the other post.

[bullet-ant]

im going to try to describe in as few words as i possibly can why i think i developed avoidant personality disorder and offer some insight into how it has affected me personally. (i apologize if its constructed messily Lol)

first, i am going to quickly describe a memory and discuss my dad because i think it gives some good backstory to the points im about to describe:

when i was five years old, i had just received some incredibly good news while i was at home with my father who had just got the news too

i was absolutely brimming with so much joy and love and adoration for my dad in that moment that i wanted to tell him i loved him. i knew better than to do so, because he would always withdraw and wretch at me when i did, but i was just so happy and full of love. i thought maybe, since the news was good, he wouldnt wretch at me for saying it this time, so i took the risk and said it. "i love you", saturated with pools and pools of my deepest love and affection for him—it came bursting out of my heart.

he did immediately proceed to wretch at me, right in my face, and the joy and love i felt was instantaneously extinguished. suddenly i no longer cared about the good news. i never said those words to anyone ever again (even to this day as an adult i have not uttered that phrase to anyone since LOL). from this, i internalized my fathers disgust for me—for my identity—as something inherently wrong and gross with me at my core.

this was just one memory of thousands. my dad humiliated and degraded me in millions of other ways my entire childhood—it was chronic—and he let me know everyday that i was unloved.

every time i made the mistake of expressing myself in front of him he would reject me, so i put myself on lockdown and learned not to give anyone anything to humiliate or degrade or reject me with. if i give my dad nothing—if i express no feeling—hell, if i just turn all my feelings off—then i'll never experience the urge to express myself, and therefore will never experience the rejection that i know is imminent.

i perceive everything as though its an attack on my identity because that is all i ever knew. being myself never once yielded me love—it only ever yielded certain rejection and subsequently utter humiliation. in everyone i see daily reminders of who i was to my dad—cringeworthy, disgusting, shameful, humiliating, and most importantly, unlovable.

there was a certain point where i decided that, if that was how everyone was going to see me, it wasnt worth being seen at all. i decided that the only person worthy of knowing me was me. i shut down and split myself into two selves. my "false self"—whose job it is to handle all people-related dealings and guard the "true self"—the version of me that is really me.

when i am acting as the "false self", i am anhedonic. i struggle with the flat effect and to put the correct facial expressions on my face at the right times. the false self is mild, phony, and unfeeling. her job is to nod her head and always say all the right things without ever having to say too much; she says just enough to get people off my back. i am always acting as the false self so long as i am around another person—be it my family, friends, coworkers, etc. It is impossible for me to trust or even love anybody no matter how "close" they are to me because I am burdened with the knowledge that none of these people could ever truly love me back. they can (and will) reject me at any moment i let my guard down.

i often have a tendency to aggressively lash out at everyone because by default i assume their primary objective in trying to know me is just to reject (and further humiliate) me. obviously this is a problematic behavior, and it only serves to make me even less easy to love while also driving more and more people out of my life

when i expressed to my father that i loved him and he rejected me, humiliation and rejection became a trigger for me. nobody likes rejection—this is true—but i dont like rejection because i experienced it chronically, every waking day of my childhood. that is much different from someone who only experienced the normal amount of rejection on occasion or every so often. when rejection is chronic, it becomes impossible to separate it from who you are. it will make you feel as though you are on fire—i believe it's why avoidants fear it so viscerally

these are just a few of my thoughts; if you read this far thank you!!! please feel welcome to add your own insights or ideas (if any). this disorder is a massive iceberg, this post cant even begin to cover every way it has degraded the quality of my life. if you have any your own thoughts dont be afraid to share them👋

[butterscotch-brigade]

i haaaattee the word "selfcest" so fucking much like.....ok if u want to ship characters w alt versions of themselves then like alright i guess, u do u, i think its kinda weird but its not physically possible irl so i dont consider it inherently Problematic or anything. but PLEASE for the love of GOD dont call it fucking "selfcest" that just makes it look soooo much worse!!!!! i do NOT trust ppl who call it that!!!!!

[compassionatereminders]

is it ok that i feel kind of numb most of the time? like unless im upset i dont really feel anything or i dont notice that i do at least. im not on any meds that might be causing this, though i did previously take ssris for like a decade. im not sure if its a bad thing i should be upset about or not. it makes my girlfriend sad cause she worries it means i dont love her, but i really really do. its just not a tangible physical sensation? thats how most people experience happiness right?

If it's not causing you distress or making you justify hurting people around you, then I don't think it's inherently a problem let alone one you need to solve. Some people don't feel a lot and that's okay. What's not okay is hurting others - and it doesn't sound like you're doing that, so I don't see the issue. It is something you should communicate about with your girlfriend if it makes her insecure, but that's different from it being inherently problematic and bad

[koheletgirl]

Wait, you said that vampires are anti semitic, but are a fan of wwdits. Genuinely curious, is the way wwdits handles vampires as a theme well-done, in a way that does not feed into anti semitic stereotypes? I've been wondering whether we should forget about vampires altogether bc all aspects of them will always be anti semitic, or whether we can create vampire related content in a way that isn't antisemitic. What is your opinion on this, if you don't mind me asking?

oh i've been waiting for this question. unfortunately, i don't really feel like writing anything anymore so you will have to forgive me for referring you to another post (a very good post by a very smart friend!)

i do want to answer your other question though. i don't think we should forget about vampires altogether, bc what would that even entail? you cant ""cancel"" vampires. and tbh even if that were possible i dont think it would be the right thing to do. myths are myths, they've been around forever, there's no point in trying to act like they dont exist. furthermore, who would that help? we can't fight antisemitism without acknowledging its existence.

also, i personally don't think it's inherently wrong to engage with "problematic" (i think that word is seconds away from losing all its meaning) content. my sister and plenty of my friends are subscribed to dracula daily, and i don't see anything wrong with that. as long as you engage with it critically, and you're aware of the antisemitic subtext, read the book. watch the movie. have fun.

it's all very nuanced (nuance is good!). but if i had to, idk, come up with a general rule, i think the main difference is whether or not the creator of whatever harmful media is still using their platform in harmful ways.

ANYWAY that's not what you asked. so to answer your question, yes i do think we can create vampire related content in a way that isn't antisemitic. i think wwdits is a great example of that. but to do that you need to know and understand what makes vampires antisemitic in the first place.

[wodnes--coyotl]

anyways on that note it further cements some of my most beautiful experiences with christian folks is almost always with lgbt christians and also sometimes delivers a message i dont even think is from YHWH alone. i firmly believe the gods aint beefing like people act like they are and they all drink at the same bar. many many many a time I firmly believe YHWH and Odin had a hand in looking out for me. I don't always admit it, but I do believe in the transcendence and goodness of divinity beyond man's written problematic dogma. and a lot of pagans feel this way lol. like I don't want to worship YHWH or anything, but I'm kinda like, hey, I acknowledge you aren't what people say, I acknowledge the beauty of your followers who aren't dbags, just like I have many incredible Jewish and Muslim friends and I love their faith, it isn't His fault that there are dbag evangelical freakies in the world, just like it ain't Odin's fault there's a bunch of nazi scumbags. every faith has its good and bad, and I love to be a big embracer of people of faith who are just normal hinged people. i will always fight for that. i straight up do not fuck with people who make fun of religion or bag on religious people as sheep or idiots or hateful b/c that isn't the truth inherently. that's about them, class, politics, propaganda, it has nothing to ACTUALLY do with their faith. and like, yeah, i grew up hardcore evangelical in texas. my moms side of the family is transphobic and says god doesnt make mistakes and im a woman blabla. well? god doesn't make mistakes and it's an assumption that that god even made me, first of all, but secondly, like, ok? that's your opinion and it aint "gods". like, fuck you lol. but it has taken a LONG time for me to heal from this, understandably, but now, im like, fine. I prayed to lord and jesus and every norse god i venerated on my father's dying bed. like. sue me. faith is rad and lack of faith is fine but dictating who everyone is or isnt under your false premise of faith OR atheism, is shitty.

[galaxygrv]

oh jeez,, a sys blog we really liked is proship.. i know we are neutral/neither on the shipcourse topic but like. calling yourself either title is very uh. hmm.

big ass long rant about our shipcourse stance under the cut. in short: its complicated and varies a lot. we do not like the black/white views on proship/antiship stances, it is a giant grey area with a shit ton of shades in it. reminder that we are on neither side for a reason.

we have all proship dni because they are typically not following their own stance correctly and we dont want to interact w most comshippers (which.. technically we would fall under that title but . yknow. we are not into that label. and it implies we are on a specific side of the argument. plus a lot of them make us uncomfortable) and then our "violent antishippers" dni is when someone is actively supporting harassment over fictional topics.

we also fall under a lot of different parts of either side. our opinions throughout the system are different. spyte and pebbles r a lot more relaxed with "problematic" stuff (we hate that term), while some of us are more strict w it.

we absolutely go by "dont like, dont read. also tag your shit correctly". we do not harass people, we might not like the things theyre writing, we might think its disgusting and a red flag, but we are not going to click on it and make a comment about it or interact in any way. we will simply block and move on.

while we technically fall under the "comship" label: no, our fictional interests are not triggering nor does it impact our outside experiences. we are not "loli/shotacon". we enjoy genuine and realistic depictions of abuse, while keeping it interesting in a fictional standpoint (which makes it a little unrealistic like the limits of the human body. but the impact of abuse is realistic). it is mainly for the enjoyment of reading the story and/or enjoying the plot, or to vent if we're the ones writing it. we have never read anything fictional (that wasnt intended to be taken as a real, intentional opinion) that has severely impacted our world view. and i doubt it ever will.

fiction is able to be seperated from reality in specific topics. ex: abuse, even when "romanticized", can either be posted with a disclaimer of "i dont find this hot irl". or not, and you should assume they dont find it hot anyway. you should expect that person to not support genuine non consensual abuse unless there is evidence of the contrary (btw! having smth as a kink does not mean theyre into GENUINE non consensual things!! the fact that its labeled a kink strongly suggests that it is a consensual thing)

HOWEVER, when things are treated as they would in reality, ex: bigoted political comics, they are supposed to be taken as a reality equivalent!! they are trying to turn that comic into a real scenario! that is what they want! THAT is when fiction absolutely impacts reality!

now it gets a lot more complicated when it comes to stuff like COD or whatever other war/combat games like that, which can be taken as anti-military or pro-military. which.. it really depends on who youre taking to. which is the point. it gets complicated, it sometimes changes peoples opinions about reality, and sometimes it doesnt. should the intentions of the game be expressed explicitly, whether outside the game or not? yeah, probably. but it doesnt (to the majority of the public, at least). thats why its complicated. do violent video games inherently make people violent by exposure? no, of course they dont. CAN they impact someones world view, thus their morals and such? yes. they have before, and they always will. it gets complicated, like i said. its from person to person depending if other people were the reason, their environment, or simply the video game alone (which i dont believe is very common)

its all about intention and the way it is expressed. COD does not explicitly (to my knowledge) express its intentions, so people can take it any way they want. political comics are aiming for a specific opinion change, and is explicit about that (its a political comic). now: ao3 fics about sexualized domestic abuse? thats.. REALLY unlikely to be expressed in a way that means "yeah i like this irl when non consensual." if it is? they should probably be investigated for that behavior, that is obviously not fucking good. if it isnt? its just a sexualized abuse fic. who knows why theyre writing it. could be to cope, could be for fun, could be to get off on it, etc. people have always had "weird" kinks n shit like that. im not here to dictate censorship for others comfort or whatever.

cw on various things for this list but if ur curious about what "comship" stuff we like if its important to you: its mostly various types of abuse, yandere topics, "noncon", and teenage underage (which we generally do not read, though we have a few exceptions). the underage we do not find attractive or "hot" and it is ALWAYS for vent writing purposes and the underage character are typically self inserts. any character younger than 15 is repulsive to us to imagine writing about in a way that we would with the older teenagers. we have been writing about/making art of most of these topics since we were a little over 4 years old /serious

anyways uhhh yeah. shipcourse! fucking hate it! everything is black and white over here! where are the shades of grey!!! fuck !!!!!

[kingmystrie]

someone compared writing problematic fiction to retraumatization and while i don't think its the healthiest coping mechanism I think comparing it to emotional self harm is just not true.

Cuz I dont "relive" trauma when i write problematic stuff I cry but that's a normal reaction to reading a tragedy. I don't feel like I'm back in that spot again if anything i feel a cathartic release and feel more safe in my current life. Which is weird and not normal, but it is what it is. I can see however how other survivors of abuse would come to the conclusion that it is self harm because to them it is just painful and there are no positives.

I think a better description of using it as a coping mechanism would be rumination or having a fixation, the act of thinking about it isn't inherently causing me harm, but if i do it too frequently it will impede my ability to go through daily life.

The creation process isn't inherently hurting me in any way, tho say sharing it could hurt people and if i don't move on after doing it (read: deleting stuff) i could hurt myself (by opening a doc i dont remember making).

[feral-cockroach]

okay i saw sth on pinterest ab Lolita (the book) and it rly annoyd me so i msgd my husband about it and he had the same lack of understanding of the book and it drove me nutty so imnputtng it here aswell. copied from my messages to my husband bc i convey my thoughts better in a conversational text manner. asterisks for emphasis as opposed to italics. open to good-faith conversations if i have gotten anything wrong or if someone disagrees, i am very open to having my perspectives challenged *in good faith, and by people who have read the book or engaged with the media in some direct way*. i know the book itself can be a LOT to engage with so if you have read it, listened to it, or watched videos on it i am open to good faith discussions. if your only engagement has been one of the movies please do not engage, as the movies have taken and deeply bastardized the message of the book, as have the redesigned covers.

biases i feel necessary to mention: i am a CSA survivor. i have been abused by a paedophile. i have survived CSA. i am autistic which may affect my understanding and my own ability to engage with literacy.

it is the book written by *someone condemning paedophilia* from the *perspective of an unreliable narrator* and the *narrator* NOT the *author* is a paedophile and it was *written* to show how *easy it is* for people to be *manipulated* by paedophiles and the like and how *easy is is* to fall into the ideas of victim-blaming and how *the patriarchy* will *intentionally portray women and ESPEICALLY young girls* as *evil, seductive, creatures* and *men* as *helpless victims to young girls and women* and its *never* the *mans fault* its the *fault of the young girl*

*the author wrote it to actively condemn paedophilia and to CALL OUT paedophilia and the patriarchy and how EASY it is for people to fall into the victim-blaming mindset*

because when you take out the context of "this is why it was written, it was intentionally written so that you DO NOT trust the narrator, this is a satirization of paedophile and rape culture" , you're left with "satire is inherently an endorsement of whatever awful thing it is satirizing and sociopolitical commentary means nothing"

and then you end up in a culture of black and white thinking

which is not to say that people (namely men) havent taken the book and removed all of that context and then turned the main character into a *hero* or someone to *look up to*, but that is why keeping that context is so important . removing that context in either direction, either to condemn the author or to idolise the paedophile, leads to the general public having a completely warped understanding of a story they have not read, which leads to uninformed opinons and leads then to an even bigger lack of media literacy, which leads to an uneducated public and an uneducated public that cannot critically engage with media deemed "problematic" and cannot engage in "problematic" media within the context it was produced is a public that is easy to manipulate, easy to control, and easier still to weaponise against each other/public enemies

i dont even fucking like the book. i ve read it and its not my favourite. i dont like it it makes me deeply, deeply uncomfortable. but the whole point of it *is* to make the audience deeply uncomfortable. its supposed to make you uncomfortable because its fucking weird and its creepy and youre supposed to examine that discomfort and figure out what about it is making you uncomfortable, and then take that into your real life to engage critically with things that you previously were comfortable with , so that you can determine if these things are actually things that belong in modern society, or *are you being manipulated again, like you were by the main character of the book*

media literacy and the ability to critically engage with media is so so so so so important and people today (and i do literally mean people today - people in our generations and younger) simply refuse to, which is a different symptom of the same problem. anti intellectialism is a massive , growing and genuine problem. and the inability to engage critically and the lack of media literacy is the same thing we see when your grandma gets messages from scammers and then falls for it and wires her entire retirement fund to some guy in korea because he definitely wants to come over to the usa and marry her. she doesnt engage critically with what is presented, and she doesnt have the necessary technological literacy to understand taht people will just fucking lie and scam you online. its that, but now it is in younger generations, and it is a result of political propaganda, and again , symptom of a much bigger problem, but one that pisses me off and concerns me alot