#i feel disproportionately shitty about this

[sflow-er]

In the last couple of days, I've seen people on various sites say stuff like "there was supposed to be a Walty kiss in the finale but the actors were uncomfortable with it." The only source for this info seems to be "someone said", and given that Uno seemed surprisingly chill about the shipping in his PRP interview, I suspect it might just be one of those rumours that folks on Xitter start for fun.

However.

Whether there's any truth to this rumour or not, Uno, Fabian and the makers of the show owed the viewers nothing. Not a damn thing.

These two background characters were very clearly written as platonic friends to begin with; the rest was just interpretation by those of us who were fascinated by them. The fact that there actually was a very obviously shippy little Walty scene in the finale is an absolutely massive nod to our side of the fandom, and we should be fucking ecstatic that they put that in. Especially if the actors were uncomfortable. Even if they weren't, they did not sign up to play lovers, let alone cater to fic readers and writers, and we need to respect the hell out of that.

So please. Be happy with what we got, and read/write the rest on Ao3. And in case it needs to be said, do not harass the actors with Walty comments or content. Henry and Walter belong to us now, but Fabian and Uno never did.

[jennycalendar]

giles is also a MAJOR dick to cordelia in this episode and maybe i am reaching just a little with this read but i’ve always sorta placed xander/cordelia and giles/jenny (& in some ways by extension cordelia and jenny!) in the same general category -- that mixture of antipathy and genuine affection. the key difference though is that xander and cordelia are fighty emotionally immature teenagers, whereas giles and jenny have both been very lonely for a very long time and are old enough to recognize a mutual desire for tenderness and care (something that xander and cordy ALSO WANT from each other but don’t quite have the emotional intelligence to ask for or even know that they want!). cordelia and jenny are also both assertive, blunt, playful, lighthearted, and often a little bit barbed with their words. i don’t think that giles can handle that kind of energy right now. it might be a little painful for him.

[butchdataset]

the reason that a lot of queer folks lean towards distrusting cisallohet people, even without an individual reason, is that the reality is that cisallohet people do not inherently benefit from us gaining rights. as a result, the baseline for cisallohet people is to not care- whether that be about our struggles, our identities, or our experiences.

we, as queer people, always have to meet cisallohet people where they're at. a good chunk of our lives are spent trying (desperately) to meet the expectations that society has- to look, behave, and act a certain way- and when we fit outside of that, we are meant to feel like outsiders. we are forced into a cisallohet-centric society, and as a direct extension, we're forced to be able to meet cisallohet people where they're at. cisallohet people do not have that experience. we have to be the ones to explain our identities, our experiences, our oppression to them. when cisallohet people are confused or scared or made angry by us that still falls back on us. no matter what.

it is so much easier to look at another person and know that you're not going to have to explain to them your reality- they'll already know because it's their reality too and they do have reason to care about the suffering and joy of fellow queers. to know you won't have to explain your identity and instead can bond over a shared sense of self. I just know right away that with another queer we're going to be able to meet each other where we're at instead of the dynamic skewing heavily towards them.

this is why I skew towards distrusting cisallohet people and trusting queer people; I want my queer experience to be much more about celebrating myself than informing others. I'd rather not be at constant risk that my identity is going to be challenged or questioned.

[copperbadge]

Thoughts on Tumblr right now?

Officially I have none; after staff behavior during the dashboard devolution last year, I decided on apathy. My stance on Tumblr as a whole is to block and blacklist the usernames of all staff accounts and refrain from attempting to offer feedback of any kind, simply accepting every new shitty change as the inevitable result of a website in decline. I lowered the amount of content I create on this platform and began exploring alternatives. My feelings have calcified as, essentially, the last paragraph of this post from that time.

Unofficially, if Tumblr goes under because the CEO was wildly and disproportionately upset that a trans woman was funnier than him, I won't even be mad. That's the most on-brand death I could imagine. Implosion from the sheer power of queer shade? Pass the popcorn.

My sympathies are with the trans folk out there getting harassed and then banned for complaining about the harassment, and particularly with Predstrogen, because it's terrifying to have someone with Matt Mullenwe's resources stalking you. I hope everyone stays safe and we find a new and better platform we can all move to. But my hopes and my expectations are very different.

I also hope the next iteration of the Tesla electric truck will come with an optional "covered in hammers" add-on. For a recurring monthly fee, naturally.

[abhorsenkatiel]

Some John Gaius character analysis that I've been wanting to toss out into the void:

I see a lot of people who seem to characterize him as a kind of "diabolical evil mastermind" villian, who had a grand scheme to become the leader of a fascist space empire and carefully planned out all of his actions accordingly, and while it's a valid interpretation, it feels a little too straightforward to me.

What makes John Giaus an interesting character to me is that he is very much just a normal kind-of-shitty guy having very normal human problems. He's mourning the death of his loved ones, he's in way over his head and struggling to maintain the appearance of being in control, he made a huge mistake and doesn't want his friends to find out because he's afraid they'll be mad at him. He desperately wants everyone to think well of him at all times. The way he goes about handling these problems isn't good, but it is understandable. We've all wished for a magic solution to these kinds of problems at some point. The only thing different about John Gaius is that he has the power to give himself that magic solution.

The problem with John Giaus is not that he's especially bad or evil, but that he's a person with a disproportionate amount of power and influence. Any short-sighted selfish decision he makes has catastrophic consequences for all of humanity.

He has become the monster he was trying to fight. He is the reason why man should never become god. His tragedy is that he fucked around and found out, and now he has to deal with the consequences of every single one of his bad decisions for the rest of eternity.

It's more comforting to think that a fascist space empire could come about only after careful planning and masterful manipulation by an evil genius. It's terrifying to think that it could be the natural result of one kind-of-shitty guy having too much power. And it's even worse to wonder if your own human flaws, when magnified to such a degree, might also create horrors beyond our comprehension.

[static-symphony-fm]

you are in love (true love)

now playing: you are in love (taylor's version)

pairing: magnus chase x fem! reader

word count: 1.9k

summary: 5 people who knew magnus was in love with you before you did + 1 sword

an: FIRST FANFIC LETS FUCKING GOOOOO this took so long to write! I love how I accidentally made it blue themed even though that's magnus's least favorite colour 😭 its ok we all know he's canonically a 1989 girly

fun fact i actually took the first picture! i shit you not I was on a road trip with my family READING MAGNUS CHASE and I look up and see THAT SIGN and i SCRAMBLED to take a picture

content/ warnings: 5+1 things, background blitzstone bcs c'mon they're basically canon, shitty writing, kissing ooo spooky, magnus being a simp, there actually isn't a whole lot of reader in this x reader fic, minor allusions to sex stuff, a lot of swearing, weird use of perspective, i was trying to go for third person limited but magnus is the one it's limited to not reader? but reader is referred to using second person? sorry if it's confusing.

1. samirah al-abbas

  if someone had told magnus a year ago that in a couple month’s time, meeting for coffee weekly with one of his best friends and not getting kicked out of the overpriced coffee shop was going to be the most normal thing in his life, he wouldn’t have believed them. probably would have flipped them off, too, and stole their wallet as he walked away. but he’d like to think that he was a changed man, seeing as he was, in fact, in a hipster café in boston, trying not to make fun of all the fancy menu options. like, seriously? who orders a dragon fruit, pomegranate, and kale smoothie?

he realized he’d been thinking for too long and returned his attention to samirah, sitting across from him and discussing wedding plans for her upcoming marriage to amir as she sipped her latte. he noticed the way her eyes seemed to get brighter, and her entire body language conveyed how excited she was as she talked about him. magnus had a fleeting thought about how good it must feel to love someone so unconditionally like that, and have them love you back just as much. 

as if reading his mind, samirah finished her sentence and studied him, tilting her head as she seemed lost in thought, peering at him like he was a calculus problem she couldn’t quite figure out. 

after a few seconds, magnus broke the silence. 

“alright, it’s getting weird. why’re you looking at me like that?”

samirah snapped out of it, focusing on what he was saying.

“nothing, just… do you think you’ll ever get married?”

jeez, that was a loaded question. magnus narrowly avoided choking on his black coffee, swallowing and burning his throat before answering.

 “sam, i’m dead.”

“so? people get married in valhalla all the time. i have been to a very disproportionate amount of weddings in the two years i worked there.”

“yeah? how many of those end in divorce?”

samirah took a long drink of her coffee, swallowing it slowly as she responded.

“forever is a very long time, and no relationship is perfect, but wouldn’t it be better to have someone to spend that time with?”

“…i guess.” magnus accepted, lost in thought. truthfully, samirah was right, like always. if circumstances were different, if he hadn’t died at sixteen, he could imagine himself getting married. settling down. living in a cabin in the forest with two kids. 

a thought came into his mind, entirely of its own accord, of doing all of that with you. your laugh, your soft hair, the way your lips curled up and your eyes widened when you smile. you’d probably be a great mom.

whoa, what the hell? he should definitely not be thinking about getting married to his friend, what the fuck? that is not normal. 

he pushed the weird thought out of his mind as best he could, gulping his coffee and focusing on the burning in his throat and not what he was just thinking. samirah had gone back to talking about amir, and magnus was not going to think about marrying you any longer.

2. alex fierro

after nearly getting his head cut off by alex’s garrote for the third time that day, magnus needed a break. alex had decided that magnus needed to learn to fight without the help of jack, and it wasn't going too well for him. he collapsed on the bench next to alex, chugging half a bottle of water before even taking a breath. alex rolled her eyes. 

“it’s not that hard, you just aren’t fast enough.”

magnus managed to control himself and not say a snarky comment back, but it was a close call. instead, he ignored her, staring straight ahead and not engaging. unfortunately, you were in his direct line of sight, sparring with mallory only a few metres away. alex picked up on this quickly, nudging his side. 

“you like watching y/n fight, huh?” she teased, smirking. damn, why did she have to be so perceptive?

“what? no. shut up.” magnus replied quickly, trying to hide his blush. “i mean… she’s a good fighter. not like i like her or anything like that.” 

“mhm. suuuure you don’t.” alex replied, definitely not believing him. fuck.

“i’m telling the truth!” magnus protested. god, how was arguing with alex harder than physically fighting her? 

“yeah. did you see her necklace today? pretty, right?”

“she’s not even wearing a neck- fuck.” magnus said instantly, before catching himself. 

“go to hell.”  he swore, glaring at alex, who was grinning at him in a way that reminded him a little too much of her mother. 

“you first.”

      3 + 4. blitzen & hearthstone

“magnus? magnus?”

a pale hand reached in front of magnus face, waving and then snapping its fingers, bringing him back to reality. he blinked and looked around at hearth and blitz, sitting across from him in the dining room of the chase space. hearth took his hand back to sign finally, raising his eyebrows sarcastically.

“your head’s way up in the clouds, kid.” blitz remarked, drumming his short, well manicured fingernails on the table, his silver engagement ring glinting.  he was right. magnus definitely was pretty out of it lately. 

probably thinking about y/n, hearth signed. jeez, why did every conversation he had have to be about you? and no, he most certainly was not thinking about you and your pretty eyes and your delicate hands and the way your ass looked in those jeans you were wearing yesterday… jesus fucking christ, he needed to stop.

 he buried his face in his hands and groaned loudly, then raised his head back up so hearth could read his lips, hoping that his blush wasn’t as visible as it felt. 

“i am not thinking about her.” he lied through his teeth. 

“there’s nothing wrong with having a crush, you know.”

ugh, why did they have to act so much like his dads? 

“i don’t have a crush!”

“kid, you’re a terrible liar. everyone can see the way you stare at that girl. now remember, if you’re doing anything intimate, you gotta use protection…”

that’s it. magnus couldn’t stand up from the table fast enough

 “nope! this conversation is ending right now. good talk!”

5. annabeth chase

magnus and annabeth had been walking around new york for the past three hours, trying to make up for the ten years spent apart.  annabeth had shown him her favorite library, and pointed out a bunch of cool architecture in nearby buildings, with a promise to show him and his friends camp half-blood in the summer.

 they were currently taking a break, stopping for lunch at a falafel place that wasn’t quite as good as fadlan’s, but it was still falafel. magnus was enjoying listening to annabeth talk about her architecture projects– she was taking online classes to prepare for the higher level of new rome university’s program. 

magnus loved listening to her talk about things he didn’t understand. as a child he’d always thought she was a genius, the way she always solved puzzles and math problems easily. ten years later, that theory still held up, hearing her go on about a bunch of terms he didn’t understand.

“sorry, i’m probably boring you to tears. you wanna talk about something else?”

annabeth offered.

“no, it’s fine… i really don’t have a lot going on.” magnus replied, smiling politely.

“come on. there’s gotta be something interesting.” an idea seemed to come to annabeth.

“you have a crush on anybody?”

magnus swallowed. 

“no.”

but he was too slow. those steel gray eyes that matched his own were locked on him like a hawk, or maybe an owl. 

“yes, you do. come on. spill!”

magnus stayed silent. he was not telling his cousin about his crushes, but those metallic eyes stayed locked on him. he eventually gave up. annabeth could be scary when she wanted to be.

“fine. fine. her name’s y/n…”

+1. jack

 it was movie night at the chase space. was magnus ever gonna stop calling it that? no. it was cool. shut up. the credits were rolling on some disney movie that alex had insisted on, and everyone else was slowly but surely making their way to their rooms, yawning as they said their good nights. you had been sitting next to magnus on the couch the whole time, and suffice it to say that he had had some trouble concentrating on the film.  

it was just you and him, you in your nirvana t-shirt and gray sweat shorts, and in that moment, he decided to tell you.

 you got up to leave, waving at him, and in a feat of bravery so incredible it would be studied by historians for centuries to come, magnus managed to work up the nerve to speak up. 

“hey, uh, can i talk to you for a sec?”

“sure? what’s up?” you asked as you sat back down.

jesus, what had he gotten himself into? it’s ok, magnus, you got this. you beat loki in a flyting. you can talk to a pretty girl. 

“uh, i was just thinking… i just…” off to a great start, aren’t we? fuck off, voice in his head. he can do this. he took a deep breath.

“i really like you. you're gorgeous and funny and so insanely smart. i’m an atheist but i’m praying to god you feel the same way. will you be my girlfriend?”

you bit your lip, breaking eye contact as you looked off into the distance. fuck. you were gonna say no and then he was never gonna be able to talk to you again and he was gonna have to change his name and move to canada…

“can i kiss you?” 

what.

there were a million things magnus expected you to say, but that was none of them. he managed to stutter out a simple “please…” and then you leaned forward and your lips were on his and magnus chase died.

this felt more like the end of his life than being knocked off a burning bridge and drowning did. his heart was beating a million times a second, and he seemed to have forgotten how breathing worked. your lips were softer than anything he’d ever felt before.

 he managed to reciprocate a little, mostly acting on instinct, and all he could think about was how astronomically better this was than jackie molotov in the seventh grade.

what was he supposed to do with his hands? he was pretty sure that keeping them at his side was the wrong answer, so he moved one to your waist and the other one to the back of your neck, tangling it gently in your soft hair as his lips moved against yours.

gods, he could have stayed like that until ragnarök, but his stupid sword had to ruin the moment. jack started buzzing on his neck sleepily, seeming to have been woken up ungraciously. he hoped that you couldn’t feel it, but that was pretty unlikely, considering how close you were to him. jeez, he was blushing more and more every time he thought about that. 

eventually, you pulled away, smiling a little. 

“good night, magnus.”

he nodded, unable to form words, and managed to stand up and walk back to his room, wide eyed, operating on autopilot. he walked into his room and immediately collapsed backwards onto the bed, staring at the ceiling without blinking, completely still. not a thought passed through his mind for at least ten minutes, till he finally was able to reach up and pull jack’s pendant off of his necklace.

“dude, what happened to blades before babes!?!”

[hiso03]

Why does Hal have such a bad reputation?

Ok, I know that this is out of my usual uploads which are mostly headcanons and interpretations, but there is something that has been going around in my head the last few days and that I had tried to solve on my own, but I have not been able to and today surfing the internet I came across a comment that brought me back to a question.

Why does Hal have such a bad reputation?

Why is he seen as such a shitty character?

Well I'll give a little context so you understand my little crisis. A few days ago I was browsing tik tok and was looking for some Halbarry on the platform because I really love finding anything from the two of them. I was a couple of videos and cute and stuff like that, out of curiosity I started to get into the comments of these videos to see what was there, and as expected there was a little bit of everything; but there was a long constant one that caught my attention quite a bit.

Several users commented things like: "Barry deserves something or someone better". And other people were trying to argue about Hal being a good guy and being good enough to be next to Barry and the like, which led to a sort of debate as to why Hal wasn't someone good or worthy of Barry or even some of his other canon partners.

It really struck me that in several videos I watched of these two, many people commented that Hal wasn't good enough for Barry or was kind of a bad person. I thought about it a little bit, but I didn't take it so personally either, because well, it's tiktok, a lot of times I feel like the information there feels simpler or favors some side more, which I can understand. But curiosity led me to review some internet forums, pages, blogs, etc; and I realized that there really is a bad opinion of the character, and now my doubt arose.

Why?

I think I have some conclusions, but I would like to know other points of view about this answer, so if anyone has an idea or wants to give an opinion it is more than welcome and it would really help me too much to understand why so much hate or dislike towards the character.

(I don't mean to say that Hal hasn't been a jerk sometimes and that he doesn't have his flaws like other characters, but sometimes I don't understand the disproportionate hatred he has).

[scarrletmoon]

it's izzy hands it's kylo ren it's billy from stranger things it's snape it's draco it's loki circa 2012-2014 it's a REPEATED PATTERN throughout all of fandom of an antagonistic white guy getting a devoted fanbase that is both disproportionate to his importance in the story and also misunderstands the white guy's role as an antagonist. they think their mean little guy is a misunderstood victim and they base their entire fandom experience around him. and then in season 2 ofmd went and redeemed izzy before killing him off to further ed's arc, something that is a solid choice from a technical writing standpoint but from a fandom perspective it built the izzy fans up into thinking they were right about how izzy has never been homophobic, izzy is a poor downtrodden abuse victim, and from day one izzy has been a protector and the only competent guy around and a loyal and dutiful first mate. and possibly the most significant part is that so many izzy fans have accidentally and unknowingly tricked themselves into thinking that izzy is a main character bc their fandom engagement revolves so heavily around izzy that they forgot the actual show itself doesn't, so they were completely blindsided by a death that has been foreshadowed since season one ("im not dying, not for that twat and not for you" and "only retirement we get is death" and the whole "plumb the depths, man" sequence where izzy was talking to stede through a death shroud ffs). and i want so bad to just ignore it but we literally got a queer romcom centered around an interracial couple and an incredibly diverse cast and an indigenous main character and a diverse writer's room and the season ended on a happy note and it's all about queer joy AND YET. soooooooo much of the post-season discussion has to center around the white side character!!! even in death izzy hands takes up a disproportionate amount of the fandom conversation and im exhausted. it's every fandom! every fucking time!! this isnt anything new this is the same time-honored fandom tradition of white man favoritism YET A-FUCKING-GAIN and im SO FUCKING TIRED OF IT!!!!!!!!!

(i get so scared when i turn on anon bc i’ve consistently gotten such shitty, cowardly messages through it but i’m glad this isn’t one of them lmao)

i know i’ve said this 374748 times but the last time i made the kylo ren/snape/white villain connection on twitter (i mean that’s on me, it’s twitter) i had people legit furious with me for calling them nazis which………..i literally never said

and i get the frustration. trust me, I GET IT. the white villain problem smashes right into white fragility and makes it almost impossible to talk about any of it. it means, like you said, that we’re talking about a fucking white side character in cast of amazing, nonwhite talent, because some people can’t handle confronting the fact that whiteness insulates them from the realities of racism, and that their ignorance and hostility makes them active participants in white supremacy

(and it’s really hard to explain this to people who’ve been taught that racism is when slurs and white klan hoods, because then they’ll say and do the most vile shit and CRY or fight you when you gently try to explain the racist shit they just did)

and because fandom is very queer as well as very white, we also have to contend with the kinds of white people who think that queerness somehow negates their whiteness. that they can’t express their privilege in contexts involving POC. that we’re making shit up to be victims and to minimize their pain on purpose. and time and time again, i have had my queerness erased by white people, so they feel comfortable ignoring criticism i only ever shared bc i was hoping for something better

i’ve said it again and again and again and AGAIN that it’s ESPECIALLY depressing seeing white people close ranks in ofmd fandom especially BECAUSE it has such a diverse cast and doesn’t shy away from discussing racism in all the ways it manifests. like, most of the racism in the show isn’t even subtle and y’all STILL elected to ignore it? do y’all not feel ANY shame about that?

and some of them don’t! bc they think we’re infiltrators. bc they’re only a few steps removed from “they will not replace us” as they see more POC try to join fannish spaces. and they’ll pretend they’re not trying to push us out bc they’re marginalized in other ways — deliberately ignoring the fact that they’re also crushing their fellow queer, disabled and marginalized community

so you’re tired? yeah. me the fuck too. we deserve so much better

[fipindustries]

not a question but basically any time i remember your art exists im looking it up and down and trying to take inspiration from it. your expression work is always top notch, and the way you depict faces is the perfect balance between cartoony and well defined

oh my god this is such an amazing compliment! thank you so much!

you know, i think this has been a long time coming. im going to take this as a chance to go in depth about how my style works, why i do what i do and how i do it. do keep in mind that none of this is me saying "this is the objectively correct way of doing art" but rather just how my own process works, what I like to see in my own art.

that balance that you speak of comes from a commitment to underlying structures. what im going to call the stylization sandwich

i start with a clear, well defined solid structure, i add whatever wacky cartoony features i want on top of it (none the less strongly tied and guided by the underlying structure) and then i refine by adding as many more realistic, grounding details i want, although you can go too far with it so i gotta be careful or ill end up with those shitty "cartoon character IRL would look scary!" clickbait drawings.

(quick aside, this trend fucking sucks, its obvious the artist went out of their way to make the drawing creepy, this pretension that "actually the character would look scary irl" deliberatly misundertands the principles of stylization, its as creatively bankrupt as jokes about mario eating mushrooms)

getting back on topic, the point is that, as long as the underlying structures are solid you can build whatever you want on top of them and it will make sense

a key tool here is internalizing the way the proportions on the face work. and i say internalize because obviously i dont actually have the golden ratio memorized inside my head nor do i stop and measure and calculate all the proportions in the features. i just read a lot about drawing, i drew a lot, i tried to always keep a critical eye to what im drawing and see if it "feels" disproportionate. once you get an eye for it then you know how far you can push things before they complitely break

let me give you another example of what i feel is a botched execution of this.

if you look closely at the face on the left there are a lot of things that dont make sense. the corners of the eyebrows dip down into the eyes when usually the eyes are enveloped by the eyebrows, the way the beard grows around the nose is just not how facial hair is distributed, the mouth is too big, etc. on the left i used photoshop to reorganize the factions into something that makes a bit more sense to me

(another quick aside, the real big problem at the heart of the original drawing were not so much the proportions but the tangents, when different lines touch each other like this that is usually a big no no but that is a topic for another day)

also a lot of it is just me cheating. yeah i cheat. you ever heard how people say there is no innate talent and its all practisce and hard work. well, yeah, that is mostly true, but is also true that some people are born with inherent advantages. either taller or more predisposed to being thin or with better facial structures or better innate hand-eye coordination. i was born with an uncanny capacity to visualize stuff. i have whatever the opposite of aphantasia is. i can borderline hallucinate things if i want to. and that goes coupled with the visual intuitions i developed through practisce and training.

so first come the learned wisdom, and then comes the innate talent that helps me exploit that learned wisdom to its full potential

on top of that is corporeality, i try to draw in such a way that it conveys depth and weight to the things im drawing, certain kinds of stylizations dont care about that and choose instead to have their drawing look flat, a classic one is the UPA style

is a very fun style! very cute, very dynamic, very expressive in its simplicity. it became very popular in the 60's and 70's. personally i choose to go in a different direction. i draw in such a way that if one were to turn my drawings into 3d models not a lot would get lost in the process.

whereas other artists....

...not so much

but yeah, ultimatly it all goes back to underlying structure. any drawing can work

as long as you have a strong foundation underneath.

PS: if you like my style i cannot reccomend enough the art of @rezuaq i feel they follow a lot of the same principles i talked about here but i could be wrong.

they have been my biggest inspiration as of the last 4 years, i shamelssly stole the design of one of their characters for jennyffer. go to their blog and give them a like

[drdemonprince]

Struggling with black and white thinking. During the pandemic we’ve been told wearing a mask protected others & people who didn’t wear a mask didn’t care about other people’s lives. Mask mandates have lifted & I’m still wearing a mask in public. Most of my friends have stopped. It’s hard to deal with the cognitive dissonance as a result. I feel like they don’t care about my life and means we can’t hangout indoors. This has been very isolating as I pull away from friends as a result. Help!

ohhhh buddy, i love that you are asking this and so self aware of what's going on under the hood as you're dealing with these tough emotions. my whole next book is exactly for you!!

Speaking for myself, the thing that is always important for me to remember is that people's decisions are shaped by their social context, by needs that they're trying desperately to get met, and by their risk tolerance -- but risk tolerance often actually means risk *resignation*. When people feel hopeless and alone, it looks a lot like moral nihilism.

I really do not think that people who have been sloppy with covid protocols or isolation are evil people who want disabled folks to die, or that they dont want to be able to socialize with you safely, or anything like that -- i think we have all been pervasively failed by the systems around us, and that the full weight of that failure falls disproportionately onto you and people like you. and so of course it makes sense for you to be really upset at the injustice of it.

I would read this piece by Awards for Good Boys

and here's some pieces I wrote about how systems are responsible for where are with COVID today, not individuals behaving badly:

none of these facts make the situation you're in any less tough, i've got to acknowledge, and so you've gotta give yourself some license to be mad and to mourn how unfairly so much has been taken away from you and continues to be. i just think it is also really perilous for any of us to go down the path of developing a politics rooted in the belief that most other people are lazy, irresponsible, shameful, or evil. i see that kind of political pov germinating pretty widely on disability twitter, for instance, and it goes to really reactionary places really quickly -- and it often willfully refuses to engage in a class analysis

(for instance, people bragging about getting their grocery deliver drivers fired for making a small error on an order, and claiming thats disability justice because they need that service bc they cant go to the store. nevermind that many delivery drivers and gig economy workers themselves have disabilities from covid exposure due to doing those shitty jobs! etc).

[heraldofcrow]

Remember that one Tumblr thread where one person writes a huge rant about how much they hate Olaf the Snowman that gets progressively more insane and as if wasn't cursed enough someone responded with "I'd have less problem with this post if Olaf wasn't queer-coded"? Imagine this exchange but it's Ciaran writing ungodly long hateful rant about Smough an Gwyndolin's only reaction is "I'd have less problem with this post if Smough wasn't queer etc" idk

Ciaran: God I fucking hate Smough the Executioner so fucking much holy shit. Holy shit, every room he's in, every painting, every hallway, every execution ceremony, he's got this painfully vacant, stupid as shit, fuckass look on his stupid tiny face. Absolutely no part of his ugly as sin piece of shit armor design is endearing. His stupid fucking hammer? Who the hell uses a hammer for executions. His dumb flaily fucking disproportionate arms? His shitty, tiny bastard head? The three thousand percent unnecessary dumbass shitass fucking FAKE ARMOR BREASTS that no knight has EVER FUCKING HAD IN tHE HISTORY OF GWYN'S GREEN FUCKING EARTH? God, I hate him. I hate him so much. So FUCKING much. Every time I see a marble-carved statue Smough or a Smough painting or a shitty goddamn stained-glass portrait, it ignites my primal rage response and I'm overcome by the need to punt this shitty little homunculus into the fucking sun. "Bhurr blur, I'm Smough the fuckshit executioner fucker, I like eating people’s bones". Fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. You look like the Covetous Demon summoned a patronus. Your dumb fucking double-faced armor makes your whole shitty head look like a bulging skin tag. I hate your dumb fucking muffled perv laugh and your stupid, empty googly eyes and your over-the-top goofy ass jealous brown-nosing cannibal personality. Any time he's sad it invokes all the wrath and fury of a spoiled child having a meltdown over an Estus bar in a H*llowmart checkout line. And I know its irrational. That's the worst part. I know he's just a shitty fucking executioner in a stupid fucking different part of the castle, I know it doesn't matter, I know I shouldn't care. But that's part of the problem. The part where no matter the might and fury of my hatred, the locus of my homicidal intent is alltogether inconsequential. I find myself laying awake in the dark in the early hours of the morning consumed by the spirit of Chaos itself, all the force and might of a flaming hurricane directed at a bottle of piss in a ditch by the roadway. The absurdity of it all burns me to my core. What better things could this energy be directed towards? And yet my disdain for this stupid, useless, insubstantial failure of endearing armor design utterly eclipses the intrigue of all other pursuits. I hate him. I hate him on a level of my mind reserved for the worst of the world's array of sinners, and I can't even begin to justify it. Shitstick the Smough dick is, for all intents and purposes, the animated corpse of all of humanity's saccharine pretenses- every condescending, passive-aggressive statement of meaningless upper middle class Lordranian drama distilled into a single, hateable form. The fucking. Fuck. I have no words. There is no curse or epithet in any language that can encapsulate the height of the emotions I am experiencing. God, I hate him so much. I hate him so, so fucking much. I want to light his ugly little dumpster body on fire. I want to graphically beat him to death with his own stupid fucking hammer. I want to punch him to death. You know that weird feeling you get, when you see a picture of something so cute you find yourself overcome with the bizarre, inexplicable urge to squeeze it? It's EXACTLY like that, except instead of cuteness it's disgust. The wordless knowledge that his existence as a king’s executioner is evidence of all the failures of godkind. I find myself possessed by the will of a Holy Lord’s Blade gone rogue with the belief that Gwyn has made a mistake, and I alone must correct it. This is the trial by which Seath himself fell from grace. This wild, meaningless rage. A thousand blades of shining steel cast with inhuman force in the direction of a burlap travel sack floating on a breeze. What horrors must I have committed in a past life to be plagued by this torment now? I must Unmake this fake ass executioner.

Ornstein: holy shit you’re not wrong

Gwyndolin: I'd feel better about this whole rant if Smough weren't possibly queer. It might be largely the voice – the laugh, the inflection especially – but he's got massive "Ornstein’s gay sidekick" vibes. And if you're actively critiquing that? Sure, great, go all out. Hate whom you will. Say whatever you want about how "gay" is equated with "Ornstein’s silly sidekick used for hammer comedy, with no serious bearing on anything, literally human and treated by Serious God Co-workers as... well,a sidekick, peripheral to your life and safe to ignore.

But if you're not engaging critically with that aspect of Smough and are just overwhelmed with hatred whenever you see or hear or think about the possibly queer executioner and his mannerisms make you feel violent, that is a little bit. Uncomfortable. At best.

Ciaran: what on Gwyn’s green earth are you talking about

Artorias: See sometimes I wonder why I still haven’t left to battle the Abyss yet, and then conversations like this come along. Amazing. 

Gough:

—

Original Post

[roachleakage]

So, I need to talk about something I've seen from the "trans men aren't REALLY oppressed/are exaggerating their oppression" crowd. And that's the claim that you must believe these things about trans men and transmascs, because you heard them from trans women, and it's important to listen to trans women!

Because yes, it is absolutely important to listen to minorities when we talk about our own oppression. And that includes listening to trans women when they talk about theirs. But the thing is? When you internalize claims that trans men are actually super privileged, and are just trying to claim that we suffer gender-based oppression for brownie points, you aren't listening to trans women about their own oppression. You're listening to people who aren't transmasc - some of whom might, in fact, be trans women - talk over transmascs about our oppression.

Now you might be wondering, what's the difference? After all, a lot of minority groups have rightfully pointed out when certain demographics enjoy particular privileges they don't, so it might sound pretty sketchy to say that trans women who seem to be doing just that are really just talking over us about our oppression. And there's a definite validity to that... up to the point that the claims being made rely on actively ignoring the oppression we do face, or on anecdotal evidence to prove a supposed sweeping problem.

So, here's an example of a claim that I would consider reasonable:

"Trans men, in many situations, may benefit from male privilege. This is especially true if they are stealth, read as heterosexual to those around them, and are of a privileged race for the area they live in. A trans woman in a similar position would enjoy certain privileges from those other factors, but would still have to deal with misogyny."

This is a straightforward statement regarding a material difference between trans men and trans women. Here's another reasonable statement:

"Trans men are capable of perpetuating misogyny, including transmisogyny."

Again: completely true. We are neither cis nor trans women, and are fully capable of both holding shitty ideas about women, and acting on those ideas to the detriment of said women.

Now let's take a look at some unreasonable examples.

"Ter/ves don't actually hate trans men. All their hatred is directed toward trans women, and trans men are just collateral damage due to being trans. Anyone who says otherwise is transmisogynist."

Well, OK. Ter/ves definitely do display a disproportionate amount of hatred toward trans women, but we've also seen them say some incredibly hateful things about trans men, so this claim is blatantly false. Furthermore, it seems to be based on a very simplistic understanding of how a te/rf feels about gender. Let's break it down:

Men are bad.

Women are good.

Trans women are "really" men (bad people) who are trying to escape accountability by becoming women (good and therefore supposedly immune to accountability).

Trans men are "really" women (good people) who want to become men (bad people) and this is... fine, somehow?

Yeah, in actuality we're seen as traitors to the female gender at best. And that's ignoring all the times we've been accused of being sexual predators who are trying to groom innocent lesbians and children into joining our ranks.

Here's another one:

"Transmascs have both AFAB and male privilege. Transfems cannot benefit from either male privilege (because they are not men) or AFAB privilege (because they were not assigned female at birth)."

So here's where I developed one of my favorite bullshit tests for this kind of rhetoric: if a claim being made about transmascs' supposed privilege could also be applied to a cis women and called "female privilege", it's bullshit.

For example, it's been claimed that all AFAB trans people are privileged because if we don't want to be seen as predators, we can simply detransition and be seen as cis women, allowing us to be perceived as innocent and incapable of harming others as above.

I think - or at least, I certainly hope - that if you said this about a cis woman, most reasonable people would call it out for the bullshit it is. First of all, this is an incredibly hetero- and white-centric statement - I can assure you that queer and nonwhite women are not traditionally assumed to be pure and innocent (modern bullshit about "pure Asian women" notwithstanding). Secondly, while a straight white woman being perceived as innocent can be a privilege in certain situations - she is certainly capable of weaponizing this perception in order to harm other marginalized people - at the end of the day, it is still a product of misogyny and misogynist beliefs, and will also hurt her in many aspects of her life.

So yeah. So-called "AFAB privilege" is just "female privilege" that's been shoehorned into a pseudo-progressive narrative. Don't fall for it. Also, don't fall for narratives that say any trans person can "simply detransition" and be awarded gendered privilege. Being misgendered is not a privilege, end of discussion.

So by now, I hope I've given a good demonstration of the kinds of arguments I'm talking about. And now, I'd like to circle back to the main reason people give for perpetuating these claims, and what makes this justification so damn disingenuous.

"It's important to listen to trans women!"

Yes. Yes it is. But "listen to trans women" doesn't mean "assume that everything every trans woman ever says is gospel". There are trans women who believe in TE/RF ideology. Trans women who supported Donald Trump. Trans women who outright believe that transmascs and nonbinary people aren't even really trans.

These are, of course, rather few and far between - but that's just another reason to stop describing this bigotry as "listening to trans women". You are painting trans women as inherently bigoted toward transmascs, and none of us are benefiting from that.

At the end of the day, doing right by a minority group doesn't mean throwing away your ability to think critically about what its members are saying. If you do that, you're going to end up hurting the very people you claim you're trying to help, while being taken advantage of by those who are acting in bad faith.

[kittenintheden]

okay listen I'm so tired lol

I am a fandom old. I've been around the freaking block like eight dozen times. I'm at the point in my life where I enjoy media because it's FUN and ENRICHING for me personally, rather than something I base my identity on. I adore the community that happens in fan spaces (mostly).

here is why I never trust an anon that's clearly just being a dick: I've been in way to many scenarios where people who aren't even invested in the thing just think it's so fucking funny to watch segments of a community fight with each other. it tickles some part of their lizard brain. their mom never taught them not to be an asshole to strangers. idk.

there's a political term that you may or may not be familiar with called astroturfing. it's frequently used in marketing and politics to falsely create the image of vast public support for something that doesn't actually have all that much natural support. for example, people who don't especially have strong feelings about trans issues being encouraged/paid/instructed to respond to any and all trans support a certain way. responding to blogs, sending letters to the editor, posting on message boards, etc. their goal is to create a broad public perception that most people are anti-trans (untrue).

and it works. entire fucking laws and legislation and protests and fearmongering come out of that shit. people make up FAKE PROBLEMS (cis men dressing up like women to go be pervy in public bathrooms???) and spread the word via bad actors and controlling the public discourse. the media conglomerate that gamed Facebook to disproportionately support asshole authoritarian alt-right clowns and got them elected was EXCELLENT at it.

a similar thing can happen in fandom, ESPECIALLY when that fandom is a haven for women, POC, queer folk, and other minorities. you guys might remember GamerGate and SadPuppies? yeah all those fuckers are still active and still purposely being shitty at every given opportunity because they think it's funny to make the "libs" fight amongst themselves.

look up #yourslipisshowing if you're not familiar. it was a movement by Black Twitter (specifically Black WOMAN Twitter) to expose bad actors who would create accounts posing as Black woman activists, learn the surface-level terminology, and just purposely cause discord in leftist spaces under the ever-familiar activist method of "being morally pure is a thing that can exist."

anyway: any time I get an ask or comment without a name attached that is very obviously intended to poke me in a sore spot, I delete that shit and assume it's some fucker trying to start fan drama for kicks. even if I'm wrong, I still don't need to feed into that shit. this is my fun, happy space. I'm an activist and do activist shit and get angry at the world in real life, I don't need it in my little fandom corner of the internet too.

which is not to say that shitty fans and shitty fandom takes don't really exist. they very much do. but I don't give them much air unless there's an actual name attached. and even THEN it can be hit or miss because people can and do create fake accounts if they're especially dedicated to being a shithead.

so: if you're minding your business and some goober comes into your ask box with shit that's clearly intended to push a button, give it like 24 hours to cool down and decide if it's actually worth it to respond. for me, most of the time I determine that it's not.

don't get me wrong. calling out bad behavior in fandom IS IMPORTANT and SHOULD BE DONE. I just also think it's important to try and find the joy and camaraderie in these spaces as much as possible and that people who try to disrupt that for jollies suck real bad and give a disproportionate perception of "what X fans are like."

in summary, my philosophy is be the best person you can be, be as kind as is warranted, focus on the parts of your fandom that make you happiest, and carry a big stick for when the jerks won't take a hint.

also like. shitting on other characters to prop up your fave is such a freaking middle school move. are you in middle school? if so, I'm sorry. if not, I'm still sorry, but for a different reason.

[crippleprophet]

how do you manage the isolation that comes with being housebound? I keep finding myself slipping into unhealthy behaviors to manage because most people's advice is like. "get outside even a little bit!" and I am stuck in bed most days...

this is a good question by which i mean i don’t. um but an assortment of things that help:

i’m very fortunate to have a roomie who is home most of the time as well so i’d be remiss not to acknowledge how big of a difference that makes & ik not everyone is in that position

talking to people online - tumblr, discord, i keep in touch with a couple folks via monthly emails

zoom calls 1-2 times a week when i’m feeling up for it

listening to people talk with each other even when i don’t have the spoons to participate in conversations myself - for me this is usually podcasts (listening to unsolicited: fatties talk back lately) but ik other homebound folks swear by video game livestreams

setting your boundaries & sticking by them!!! for me this means filtering every possible iteration of “leave the house” “log off” “touch grass” etc etc, & i’m trying to get better about being like yeah please don’t tell me about your covid-unsafe events when i’m messaging people. it’s okay to unfollow people for making you feel like shit about being housebound and/or bedbound.

looking out the window with the cats

nature documentaries

i’m a big fan of maxims so i’ve been telling myself on repeat “life is in your house too,” “your bed is also part of the world” etc. made some posters saying that when i was having a better hand day

just generally hearing stories about Other People That Exist. my gf tells me about her shitty coworkers & the latest Quaker meeting drama, my butch tells me about academics being horribly unethical, my roommate tells me about faer family’s latest bullshit

OH i forgot to mention, it is in your best interest to become disproportionately invested in a silly little mobile game. i have a lot of hand problems but castle story is accessible for me so i’m very obsessed with that, the new events ~weekly give me something to measure the passage of time by + look forward to

i hope some of that is helpful! feel free to dm me - i’d love to have more homebound friends & i’m also happy to add you to my bitter cripple discord if you’re 18 or older. much love to you & i hope it gets a bit easier 💓💓

[asherisawkward]

I wish people wouldn't play down Caleb doing something bad when he ran away with Evelyn, just because Philip's reaction was so overblown. Yes, Caleb was acting selfish, and no that doesn't make him evil and deserving of a gruesome death. Yes, Philip had a right to be upset, but what he did was disproportionate retribution.

I feel if Philip acted more like Edward Elric did towards his dad after he "abandoned" their family, people would joke about the whole situation

"Haha, Philip hates his shitty brother"

Yeah.

Caleb will always be one of the characters that I have mixed feelings about. His struggles were relatable and sympathetic, but I got really upset with what he did. I’m so glad that he was able to change and get out of the cult that he grew up in, but Caleb abandoned his orphaned, child brother in a town and time period that were not easy to survive. He was probably still in school and had no idea how to manage house finances or work a job or take care of himself completely on his own.

Caleb didn’t even leave a note or anything saying that he was safe or that he was going to a new town for better job opportunities and that Philip could come once they were set up. That would have been (more) reasonable, and it wouldn’t have left Philip with the massive fear for his brother’s safety that he ended up with. Because most people would rather not assume that their only family left alive abandoned them.

Caleb did not deserve to get murdered by his brother, and his wife did not deserve to get widowed and forced to raise their child on their own. But Philip deserved an “I have a right to be upset” scene where Philip bitch slaps his brother and Evelyn lectures him for abandoning a child.

[lnkedmyheart]

Hot take but I am tired of the whole skk thing where Dazai pulls a shitty callous stunt cause 'he secretly had a plan' and Chuuya suffers because of it and then they are just cool with it after some disproportionate comical retribution cause 'Chuuya knew about the plan/trusted Dazai's schemes'.

Dazai- actively tries to drown Chuuya to get rid of Fyodor, he may or may not have had a plan. We dont know his motivation and we will never know his motivation cause Asagiri is quirky like that.

Meanwhile Chuuya escapes, Fyodor makes a bunch of targetted shallow bond taunts, we see some potential of Dazai finally showing he cares in the main manga and bam, we get tons of unrelated Dazai angst and then Chuuya shoots Dazai after he gives some pussy ass vague little corny speech about fate.

Now your attention has once again been pulled away from the fact that Dazai willingly/unwillingly tried to drown his ex partner with whom he supposedly has an unbreakable bond while he was not in his senses, and now it has been pushed towards poor broken and damaged Dazai who got potentially killed by someone he "trusted".

Even if it turns out that Chuuya and Dazai are in cahoots right now because there was secretly a plan all along, there has been little to no closure or clarification about anything regarding the whole skk thing. Like, it actually irks me that all of the manga and the anime are all "dont show only tell" about their so called bond half the time. Dazai hasn't actively shown he cares in the manga either. Not really. And after some point it gets exhausting to try and defend my favorite character by trying to point out scenes from the light novels and maoi games for crumbs of him ever being even remotely nice to Chuuya.

I dont blame Fyodor, they do feel shallow as SHIT because it feels so half baked and just leaves me with a bad taste.