#i get that it's legal but doesn't make it any less creepy

[corrodedbisexual]

Uh... Just got to the episode where Michael spies on his neighbors using a fucking telescope and nobody calls him out on it being creepy as fuck? Like... I get that it was a plot bunny for crime discovery but everyone just being cool with the creepy spying, I don't know what the writers were thinking

[akirathedramaqueen]

No, I am not done with Western Energy yet, and I am not sorry

I. Just. Can't. With those parallels.

Just look at that! I am sure bunch of people already pointed that, but Hell knows it makes me think a lot about this shift.

Murder Family

[Blitzø]: Stolas, this is really a bad time!

[Stolas]: Mm, when isn't it a bad time, Blitzy?

Stolas *knows* Blitzø is in danger. There could've been a room for speculation, if it wasn't for the next exchange:

[Blitzø]: What is it?!

[Stolas]: I've been meaning to follow-up on our last little conversation regarding my grimoire.

[Blitzø]: What did you just call me?!

[Stolas]: My book, Blitzy. The book I was given to do my job. That I've allowed you to use to do yours.

*gunshot*

[Blitzø]: Shit!

[Stolas]: Anyhoo, I have been thinking... You know I've been permitting you to access the mortal realm less than legally for some time now? But I do need it back to fulfill my duties. I was thinking; what if we worked out some kind of an exchange? Favors for favors... Doesn't that sound...

*gunshot*

[Stolas]: ...enticing?

[Blitzø]: You gotta stop using your fancy-ass rich people talk, okay? I am trying to concentrate to not getting FUCKED IN MY A *gunshot*

I will omit the rest, as it won't add much to the point (if you've seen the show, you know the conversation doesn't stop here), but you can draw some conclusions from the dynamic:

Stolas sees Blitzø in projection. Gunshots do not give any chance for the wrong interpretation. He knows imp is getting chased.

Stolas takes his time to get to the point, speaks slowly, as if playing with Blitzø, with his life even, and he enjoys that. He knows Blitzø can't turn him down as imp is on a hook.

Blitzø is clear that he would like to pass on the call for the better time, but Stolas keeps him on the line. Blitzø is clear that Stolas needs to get to the point because he is about to get killed, and Stolas, although does that, is still slow in speech, playful, and demeaning towards him.

Overall, Stolas does not care about Blitzø being safe at the beginning of the series. You can also get from that convo that he crosses boundaries without guilt, and if he was able to jeopardise life of his potential lover, it's not surprise at all that he is demeaning, creepy with overly sexual talks at inappropriate times, and does not take Blitzø's offence as something to care about (I don't think Blitzø was called by his name properly at least once in the 1st season, but I have to check), as shown in later episodes. Stolas is abusing power and knows he will get away with it, because Blitzø has nowhere to go and has to put with it.

Western Energy

[Blitzø]: It's really not a good time, buddy...

[Stolas]: I'm sorry it's a bad time yet again, Blitzy, but, um...

[Stolas]: I seem to have found myself in a bit of a sitch.

You see the parallel, right? Right?!

I'm sorry it's a bad time yet again, Blitzy.

The first time we heard that, he wasn't sorry. He was dismissive.

Mm, when isn't it a bad time, Blitzy?

And the situation... Stolas is literally getting kidnapped, and finds time to ask an apology for calling at wrong time. *Again*.

Let's look at another piece of conversation:

[Moxxie]: That's Striker, sir!

[Blitzø]: Oh, for fuck's sake! Can't you just get away? Aren't you powerful?

[Stolas]: I believe he has me bound with blessed rope, which limits my ability to free myself I'm afraid. So I think you should come save me.

[Blitzø]: Oh, shit, Stolas, I can't today, alright? I'm sorry. I-I'm literally on my way to take Loona in for her very important Hellbies S.H.O.T. It takes years to book an appointment at that place, it took me five to get this one... and she's doing a lot of field work, so you know, she needs it...

[Stolas]: Oh, ha-ha, well, I do agree that is very important... but I-

We know the rest. The phone is taken away by Striker, and the conversation is interruped. We also know that Stolas gets a sudden realisation that he is in danger, which gives a hint that before he didn't recognise the situation quite as serious.

You see the shift that happened?

Stolas apologises for taking Blitzø's time, despite being in imminent danger. He went from total dismissive to total apologetic and even evasive.

Stolas takes into account Blitzø's reasons, and admits their importance.

This time Blitzø is the one who talks more, but he is on point the whole time and generally sounds uneasy, understanding that this time this is, despite being the bad time, very important. As we know, after the conversation he rushes in, before agreeing with Moxxie and Millie for them to go instead.

And why is so?

I find it very interesting that the similar phrase was used in so different contexts. In the comparison, the power dynamic simply has flipped.

Stolas was the one who needed attention, and Blitzø was the one who was asked for help.

The first time around, Stolas needed attention as well, but his matter was so diminutive and Blitzø's problems at the moment were so serious, it was simply disrecpectful, to say the least.

The second time, his request is to literally save his life, and he apologises, puts Blitzø's interest higher than his. He now feels like he is a burden, a nuisance in Blitzø's life, not wanting to disturb him at all. The connection that holds them became so fragile, because Stolas realises he has nothing to offer besides power, and from that sole conversation it becomes clear that he now avoids using it against imp even on the verge of being hurt.

Stolas's attitude shifted from dominant to apologetic, he went from assertive to frightened, and, as Blitzø's importance in his life grew, so grew Stolas, giving us hope for his redemption, but also showing how insecure he really was all the time.

So much for the regal title and eldritch powers, if you can't hold onto a meaningful relationship with the one you care for.

[rubykgrant]

I had this one funny concept for a Magnus Archives AU that basically had Jon just constantly being pulled out of the main-character role, so stuff always STARTS to happen, but then it never actually WORKS, and I just thought of a very funny addition to it, so I'm sharing it again-

-At some point, Jon has a bit of a stress-induced breakdown at university and just drops out. Even though they aren't dating anymore, Georgie offers him a place to stay while he kind of tries to sort himself out, and he just. Stays. It's fine

-As a result, Jon is much less pretentious, but a LOT more blunt. He just doesn't keep any of his weird thoughts to himself, and has no inclination to keep up a "professional" appearance. Thus, Georgie gets gremlin-Jon as her roommate. It's fine

-Georgie eventually meets Melanie, and they collaborate on a few projects regarding various supernatural topics. Because Jon is just THERE, he always winds up heckling Melanie about her "spooky show". While it is annoying to hear them argue, Georgie notices that Jon and Melanie ironically motivate each other when it comes to research

-Melanie invites/dares Jon to come with her on a few investigation trips. Spooky stuff keeps trying to kill Jon, he's like a magnet for this stuff, but also nothing ever manages to kill him. He and Melanie work together more, having this weird antagonistic-rivalry thing going on as they explore creepy areas, and film monsters trying to bite off Jon's head. Then they both go back to Georgie's apartment, where Jon cooks everybody dinner. This is actually sort of nice???

-Georgie and Jon eventually visit the Magnus Institute, for spooky reasons, and learn about the recently missing Archivist, while meeting the "temporary research team"; Martin, Tim, and Sasha. They're all a little unorganized, but willing to help answer questions if they can. Jon has ZERO hesitation or humility, just flat-out telling Elias he's weird, and also telling Martin "You look like the human personification of a classical painting of a sky full of clouds in soft morning light. Where's the bathroom?"

-Elias is silently losing his mind, because this rude little man is practically RADIOACTIVE with fear-marks, but Jon has no interest working here, and even if he did, Jon doesn't have the "qualifications" for being an Archivist (not that it really matters, but for the farce of legality, it would help). Martin is perpetually flustered, because he truly can't tell is Jon is flirting with him or not (to be fair, Jon isn't sure either. he's not gonna stop, though)

-Georgie comes along at some point to see the library, and Elias is BAFFLED by her; she has almost as many marks as Jon, but somehow feels "blank" when he tries to SEE what caused any of these fears (he doesn't understand she is incapable of feeling fear like that). Well, Georgie sure has the qualifications for the Archivist position! Elias offers her enough money for her to take the job, and as a bonus (for Elias... or so he thinks), Jon helps her record/catalogue various statements

-Georgie keeps being a wrench in the works. Nothing bad happens to Sasha. The very first day Martin doesn't come in for work, Georgie asks Jon to go check on him, he sees the worms, tells Georgie, who makes up a more believable lie to get some rescue people over there, and Jane Prentiss is dealt with right away. Martin doesn't get trapped in his apartment for days and days. Georgie saves everybody from the Circus shenanigans. It goes on like that. Occasionally, Elias will call somebody like Peter to try and scare people, but Georgie keeps fixing it, and Jon keeps being a fear-magnet who also won't die (Elias is most sincerely pissed-off)

-Also, because Martin's apartment still got all gross, Georgie and Jon invite him over to stay until he finds a new space. Martin still isn't sure if Jon is flirting with him, but he kinda likes being doted on... (at this point, yes, Jon approaching him with romantic intent. He doesn't change anything about his behavior, so to Martin, there is no difference. It might not be clear until Jon asks what Martin wants to do for their 6 month anniversary)

[lotusarchon]

I've been thinking a lot about this but what about MK and a s/o who is a spider demon? Perhaps directly related to the Spider Queen? How would that work out and how would they even get together? IMSORRYITMIGHTBEDIFFICULTORIMPOSSIBLEBUTTHETHOUGHTHASNTLEFTMYHEADAAAAA

Okay, this didn't end up being more fic-ly like my other fics, forgive me Nonnie, but the moment I saw it I just went, "Hey, wait a minute, how would this work?" And now I'm here hahaha. This got a bit into the analysis side, so uhhhh, yeah sorry 😭😭 I just reallyyyy like doing these kinds of things gah

🤔 I'm not sure if a relationship with him would work immediately if he's aware you're a spider demon on first meeting. Not to say that isn't impossible―MK the Monkie Kid will love anything if it feeds him. I know, I fed him and he loves me (this is a joke for legal reasons). It's just that his paranoia/fear of spiders overshadows any logic or reason, so a first meeting is him fleeing for his life. If you have an appearance like the Spider Queen he's just running around shrieking while you stand there watching him. If it's not as spidery he might give you a chance. Might, who knows if he doesn't freak out and faint again.

Of course though, as always I think it really just depends on the situation. If in the instance you're not a villain and you genuinely wish to help, then as scared as MK will be, he is NOT going to hate you, not MK. Have you seen how he pleaded with Spider Queen coming to the finale of S2, warning her about LBD?? He's not some heartless prick much less judgemental―he knows if you really want to change and do good, you're someone to change. Yeah, he'll be a bit scared still especially if you have more spider traits, but I genuinely think he'll warm up to you bit by bit till, and if you spend enough time with him, he forgets you're a spider demon. You're a friend now.

Like I said, it really does genuinely depend on the scenarios. Don't anticipate love at first sight―not unless you find MK fainting and his pathetic wet cat energy attractive 😭.

I think it could work out though, with a relationship. MK's not some judgemental prick. I know a lot of people might think, "Oh, but he's afraid of spiders!" but that doesn't overshadow his kindness. He would genuinely fall in love with you regardless of what you looked like, so long as you have a good heart. Hell, I don't think you even need to be a good guy. If MK runs into you enough times and you show the single ounce of kindness, if not to him then to someone else, he really thinks you'll be capable of change. If you're lucky, he would even tell you that he doesn't find Spider Queen so bad if she'd just stop trying to make everyone spider zombies.

Bringing us to the other scenario: being directly related to the Spider Queen. Honestly I think that matters little to him at this point with the points I mentioned above. I think the one difference if he finds out you're directly, directly related to Spider Queen is to faint on the spot and consider how the fuck he's gonna get her to not kill him :<

These are just if he's aware from the beginning you're a spider demon. If per chance you wear a glamor and befriend him and he finds out you're really a spider demon, much less some relative to Spider Queen, I can imagine different scenarios going down:

1) Were you pretending to be his friend to hurt him for your family? If so, expect him to be heartbroken as fuck. It'll take a while for you to regain his trust but if you do mean it, he'll forgive you. Just don't do it again.

2) Accidental? Oh, okay. That's cool. Do you plan on eating him? No? Okay....so what are you doing standing all the way there?? Get back here, he needs to snuggle and he can't snuggle when your ass is all the way there. Huh? Yeah yeah, it's creepy but you're not so bad. It's cute. Just don't eat him. Please.

A relationship with him though isn't impossible. Regardless of the scenario, everything falls under 2 things;

1) Are you capable of showing empathy and kindness?

2) Do you truly feel the same way about him?

If the answer to both of these are yes, then yes, regardless if you're a spider demon, a relationship is possible. Looks really don't matter to someone like MK. Hell, not even your shitty personality.

The only problems you'd have with MK when a relationship works out with him is Spider Queen because I know damn well she's gonna terrorize MK so bad.

"I'm gonna make you swallow spiders in your sleep try any shit with me boy, see if I'm playing 👁️👁️."

"Y-yes Ma'am, I'm sorry Ma'am. Please don't kill me Ma'am."

Overprotective mother Spider Queen my beloved 🫶

Edit: A lot of people will argue; "MK's scared of spiders, why would he date one?"

1) Spiders. Not spider DEMONS who have sentience and can act, speak and think like a human being, and looks human-ish too. He can give them a chance.

2) MK's not some heartless bastard. To the finale of S2, he genuinely tries to plead with Spider Queen about LBD. If he didn't care, he wouldn't have bothered reasoning with her. Spider Queen might've had a change of heart a tad bit too late but you can see that MK's words really did have some affect on her for to willingly risk herself FOR the kid she's trying to kill. She could've damn well fled for her life and left MK there, and MK could've simply fled and not said shit. I really can't see MK being a judgemental ass, I really can't. It just wouldn't be in his character, especially if it's before the events of s4/5.

Notes: I love doing analysis of shit like this, it's super fun, but to certain koala-brains, please understand this isn't me thinking I know everything. This seriously is just my opinion + how I IMAGINE LMK MK would react and be towards an s/o who's a spider demon. My word isn't law, and I understand there are others who will think differently. This is just how I interpreted MK based on the countless times I've watched the show. If you believe MK would act differently, good for you.

[sol-consort]

Do aliens mature at the same rate as humans? Like humans basically reach mental and physical maturity at like 18, but salarians only live for like 40 yrs. Does that mean they would mature at like 10? Could you have a salarian and a human grow up together; and by the time both are ten, the salarian is babysitting them for a summer job?

Are Asari only considered legal adults once they’re 100? Does that mean shepherd (who is like early 30s ish) sleeping with Liara, who as far as i remember is just barely over 100, considered creepy? Or morally dubious? Like those 50 year old men who date 18 year old high school students cuz it’s technically legal?

Or are asari as emotionally and mentally mature as adults once they reach 18 and those extra years are just like fun years??

Yeah, it's different than humans.

The game doesn't state the ages of maturity outright, but we can make assumptions based on correlations and in reference to our own society.

Asari are considered grown enough to move out of their parents' home at age 60, anything younger, and it'd be like kicking a teenager out. Liara, who's a 100-year-old in ME1, mentions technically being an adult but relatively young, meaning she's not used to being taken seriously by the other asari. So we can assume their 60s are akin to our 18s, and their their second century is like being in your early 20s

Salarians - 7~8

Salarians only live up to 40 years. They mature much faster because of it. Mordin mentions that his nephew earned a university tenure at age 16—which is considered completely normal rather than impressive.

A tenure is something a university professor usually earns.

"Achieving tenure is not easy or quick. First, aspiring professors must secure a “tenure track” position after excelling in a Ph.D. program, followed in many cases by one or more postdoctoral fellowships. Then, in a probationary period that can last from 5 to 10 years, but which typically takes 7 years, faculty must demonstrate academic excellence in teaching, research and service to the community.

The probationary period is then followed by a year-long process during which a professor’s work is evaluated by peer faculty – both inside and outside of the university where they teach – as well as administrators at their institution.

If they succeed in getting tenure, they can be promoted to the rank of “associate professor with tenure.” But if they are denied tenure, usually it means they have one more year to build up their credentials and find employment at another college or university – or leave academia altogether to find work in a different industry."

Sourced article

The average age for tenure profs is 40-50 which means being 16 in Salarian years is the equivalent to that. Which raises the question just how old Mordin was-

Either way, Salarians don't have sexual Intercourse. That's why their entire species can't experience sexual attraction. It's unnecessary, and they don't need it. Evolution saw no point for it. Marriage is more of a contractual collaboration with them, unless they marry outside their species–like asari –then they'll marry for love rather than reproduction.

Two salarians rarely, if ever, need to meet to create children. Females lay eggs, and males fertilise them. 90% of the eggs end up unfertilized, which results in a male. Only fertilised eggs can birth female salarians, which makes up 10% of the population. Making female salarians held in extremely high regards, they're usually the heads of their family and only hold the most important of roles in society. You never see them on a battlefield or any of the less than aristocratic jobs...well until Andromeda anyway.

All of these societal differences show that Salarians will determine their age of maturity based on different values and factors.

Being an adult to them might not equate to when you're able to have sex—since they don't have it—or reproduce in general. Adulthood might just mean when they see you fit enough to start making your own life choices, pursue higher educations and hold down jobs. The brain reaching maturity and developing is their determining factor for qualifying as an adult rather than the body.

Let's take the average and say 16 = 45, so 45/16 = 2.8125. Round it up to 3 and we can assume a salarian develops at almost the triple the rate of a human.

A 7 years old salarian equates to 18y in human years. A childhood friendship between a salarian and a human could only work for 4 years, for the Salarian would've started puberty by that time while...the human child still haven't mastered speech.

There is also the possibility that salarians are born knowing how to walk and talk? Like sharks. Nothing implies that ingame, just a theory. Otherwise, their brains congestive abilities are super impressive to reach the development expected of an almost 3y old human child in their first year of life.

Also, considering how Salarians are taller than humans, it sounds painful af to grow up to that height in only 7 years. A 7-year-old human is barely taller than a table, and yet they still get massive growth pains. Imagine how more extreme it would be for a salarian to grow 35cm per year.

That's not considering the body maturity pains. Are their puberties also a hormonal mess like ours? Their brains process emotions at a much fast rate. A salarian can get over a sudden existential crisis about their fast approaching demise in a couple hours, while it might take weeks or months for a human.

For the rest of the Mass Effect species:

Turians / Quarians / Humans - 18

They have the same max lifespan of a human—150 years. Tali mentions quarians being very similar to humans as well. We can safely assume both races reach maturity at a similar age, give or take a couple of years bc of cultural differences.

-

Krogans / Asari - 50~60

share the long lifespans of asari, it's why so many asari are hesitant to seriously date them. It'd be as serious as getting an asari partner. With the other species–like humans, you just "stick it out" and wait for them to die. But with krogan? That's a partner for life.

We can assume they mature at a similar level, although I feel like their current society would push them to an even earlier maturaity while the asari have been living in a cushy world for so long. Maybe at 40 or 50 instead of 60?

Actually, if anything, krogans might outlive the asari.

There is no documented death of a krogan caused by true old age. Every single cause of death has been from unnatural outside influence. Wrex is easily 1000~1300 and the oldest known krogan to live was 1800.

-

Drell - 16~18

Their average lifespan is stated to be 85, with an emphasis on "average" here. It's not clear whether their terminal illness is taken into account or if it's scewing the statistics. Also, humans have an average lifespan of 80, yet many live up to 100 irl, 150 in Mass Effect.

If it's truly 85, then they might mature only slightly faster than humans, if not the exact same. I mean, that is literally just our lifespan rn. You could argue that their lifespans got reduced down by moving to the hanar homeworld, rather than extended like the rest of the galaxy.

Or that it was always 85 and they just mature slightly faster, who knows.

-

Hanar - ?

Not available information, but based on earth's jellyfish, they could be just as Immortal.

-

Protheons - ?

No available information, my assumption is that they should be on the longer average, much like asari. Either engineered or naturally since they held themselves at the top of all the other species, creme de la creme and all.

[dreamofmetoday]

i hope you also know that just because the target market for newjeans isn't men doesn't make their ceo any less creepy. i'm aware you don't do readings for newjeans either but i hope you remember newjeans' ceo had/has posters of films that depicted underage people in yk... those types of situations. although the actors might be of age, they are depicting characters who aren't. when mhj was the art director for shinee, taemin was barely legal at the time he did the sherlock photoshoots. mhj also told krystal to get inspired by brooke shields, pls look her up if you don't know why that's extremely disturbing. she invited hyein (the youngest of the group) to her house, her house that has walls of posters of those films and spent the day out with her. hyein was maybe 13 at that time. imagine if that was a male ceo inviting their decades younger trainee to their house and going out for a day with them. there is a pattern with mhj and it's disturbing. yes, their fans are primarily women, especially women in their 20s who feel nostalgic due to the concept but there are still plenty of weirdos who like them.

people like mhj aren't idiots. they know what they're doing as wrong. they package it to make it seem the opposite of what they (the people at the top) actually want.

btw, i hope this doesn't sound like a long angry post, i just wanted to give my opinion and also bring up the fact that just because newjeans' target demographic appears to be teenage girls, that doesn't mean they also aren't victims of the messed up adults in the industry

-m

you don’t seem angry and yes i agree and know about all of this too. i think it’s case of remembering things aren’t black and white, i.e. le sserafim’s direction being worse than newjeans’ ≠ newjeans is perfect (which i tried to answer in the ask previously so i’m sorry if it wasn’t clear).

regarding mhj, it is suspicious how she operates but i think it’s important to remember that her prime was working in a time where all of what she was doing, everyone was doing. not that she’s innocent! just that it’s a lot deeper than than just her which is crazy and sad to think about. it’s definitely not an industry minors should be working in.

just to clarify again, i got an ask asking why i specified le sserafim as a group i wouldn’t be focusing on and it’s because i’m not even comfortable consuming their content (which is because of their target market). while i don’t stan newjeans or support a lot of the decision making around them, seeing a ditto or omg stage is just not unsettling the same way (because of their target market) 💖

[pencilxpaper]

Mostly FREE Vampire Books

I am not as well-read with vampires, but I'm making up for lost time. Here are the vampire books I have read and my take on them.

In this, Carmilla, Dracula, For the Blood is the LIfe, Already Dead, I am Legned, and the first three novels of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. For all books, I will try to include a link to either a free version or to a borrowable version from the internet archive. You can make an account and check out the books legally.

Carmilla by LeFanu, Joseph Sheridan

The classic. The one, the only. It's a short read, which is disappointing. However, the ending is very gory with a scene that would have looked amazing in a modern movie. If you want a steamy reading of the novel on audio book, Audible has THIS beauty with a full cast and some heavy breathing. However, this audiobook version is provided free by the internet archive.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

I love this book. I did Dracula Daily this year, and I'll probably do it again next year. I'm going to listen to the audiobook of it for funsies. The beginning is, i think, the best part. The ending was disappointing, but the novel is still very exciting and scary.

For the Blood is the Life By F. Marion Crawford

I feel like this short story is actually a better example of a "modern" vampire story. I've read a lot of older vampire stories, and they all are a little too steeped in old lore to be really satisfying as a modern reader. However, this one has everything. A really creepy beginning. An exciting story. A romantic vampire seduction leads to potential death. The vampire is a woman and justified, so in a modern retelling, I think she would be the hero.

I am Legend by Richard Matheson

I read this on audiobook at 2x speed, because the POV character is kind of a jerk. An interesting look at trying to explain vampirism from a scientific perspective. It does not have the same ending as the movie by the same name. Misogyny abounds. But a woman ends up winning in the end so... maybe? I will admit, I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. On the one hand, it was engaging. I enjoyed the author trying to explain away the lore from a logical perspective.

Interview with a Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, and Queen of the Damed

Interview with a Vampire was a fine book. I read it at the same time I was reading Dracula for the first time, and there were definitely moments where Dracula outshined it, but then others where Interview was obviously more interesting because it was more modern. The movie is more engaging and a shorter investment of time. However, Armond is different in this one, so you kind of have to read it to get the next book (OR, watch the movie and read the Wikipedia summary of the book to get the differences). Vampire Lestat is a really good book for the most part. It lags after the middle but picks back up for the ending. I could have read more about Lestat's early days, and I could care less about all the exposition. Queen of the Damned was not a fun read. I can not stress this enough. It was mostly boring. I only read it because I've been told you have to read it to enjoy the rest of the series, which gets better. Lots of exposition. Any chapter in Letsat's POV is great. Everything else is not very exciting. Overall, I don't like Anne Rice. I HATE that her vampires communicate telepathically. It's cool and all, but it makes for very boring reading. Entire chapters where the characters are standing still in a room, not saying anything, not doing anything, while one of them "talks" to the other about the past with their mind. There was real potential here to "show" us what was happening, but oh no. It's all done through exposition. It was really innovative for its time, but because so much of her lore has been incorporated into modern vampire stuff, it doesn't feel fresh anymore. Especially when we get to Queen of the Damned, Anne feels very pretentious in her writing. She includes poems from her husband that I don't feel like add anything to the text, and in fact take you right out of it because you're reminded that she's literally including her husband's poetry. ALL THAT SAID, the books provide that FEELING of wanting to read vampire fiction. They're very atmospheric, so I will continue to read them and enjoy them for that aspect.

Already Dead by Charlie Hudson

The only non-free one on the list. I included it, because I read it. Main character is a vampire detective, but he doesn't have fangs. I think vampirism is a stand-in for AIDS, but that's a guess. An interesting concept and I did sort of enjoy the read, but it lacks (for me) the classic vampire lore to make it really fun.

That's all for now. More later as I can pull them to gether.

@rinniiart, I hope this wasn't too much. I wanted to take some time and find free versions of things as I went so you and others wouldn't have to shell over a lot of money.

[chelsea12345678901234]

14 Questions You Might Be Afraid to Ask About Horror Books

Here is an author named Deborah A Stansil. She has been an author since 2016 but a year or so later she started writing full time. Deborah is a mostly horror but I also have a thriller and a legal romance author.

This is what she said about why she became an author and why he loves to read and write "I always wanted to be an author as a child but then life got in the way and it sort of got pushed aside although I never really let go of the idea that one day I would like to write. I started a blog in 2015 and caught the writing bug and it just spiralled from there.

I've always loved reading, it's like a tiny glimpse into someone else's mind and of course its a great way to relax by losing yourself in a good book.

Writing I love because I like the idea of my words painting a picture in someone else's mind and I love that the same words create slightly different pictures for everyone that reads them.”

This is a book that she recommends The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley.

14 Questions You Might Be Afraid to Ask About Horror Books:

#1 What made u want to write horror books: I started reading horror when I was a young teenager and I loved the creepy feeling you get and I liked the idea of making others experience that sort of shiver down your spine feeling.

#2 How do u come up with your characters and settings: I usually start with a general idea of the plot just something as simple as "ooh wouldn't this be creepy" and from there the characters and settings are born. Sometimes though it works the other way and a character comes to me and just know I have to tell their story.

#3 What would u tell someone who want to become a horror genre author: Read everything you can get your hands on and see what sort of horror works best for you. After that just write and worry about fixing it once the first draft is done.

#4 What r you inspirations for your characters or books: As I said above, often it starts with just a wisp of an idea of something that might be creepy and goes from there.

#5 Why do u think horror is hard to write?: I don't think it's harder or easier than other genre. I think the key to horror is building suspense and making people care enough about the characters to not want bad things to happen to them.

#6 Are horror books always scary?: No. Tbh I don't think I've read a book that actually scared me and I read a ton of horror.

#7 What makes a horror book different from other genres?: One of the key elements in horror that isn't a thing in other genres is building up not just suspense, but that feeling of dread within the reader.

#8 Who are some popular authors known for writing horror books?: Some of my favourites are Stephen King, Iain Rob Wright, Adam Nevill and J H Moncrieff.

#9 Are all horror books filled with violence and gore?: No definitely not. Some are, especially splatter punk / extreme horror, but there is so much more to good horror books than a bit of gore.

#10 Can horror books have deeper meanings or messages?: Yes, of course.

#11 Can horror books be considered literature?: Literature is just a broad term for written works of fiction, so yes, any fiction book is technically literature. You will always get the snobby critics who believe genre fiction is somehow less valid than other writings but that doesn't make it so.

#12 Are there different subgenres within horror books?: Yes, there are lots of different types of horror. There's extreme horror/splatter punk which I mentioned before, there's creature type horror, supernatural horror, body horror, ghost story type horror. Those are what I can think of off the top of my head there are probably way more.

#13 Can horror books be enjoyed by people who don’t typically like scary stories?: I think so yes. There is a lot more to horror than jump scares and I think if people gave it a chance and found a sub genre to match their tastes they would find some good reads.

#14 How do horror authors come up with their ideas?: For me it usually starts with a simple "what if" and then goes from there. Or sometimes a character just comes to me and I know I have to tell their story.

#15 Do horror authors intentionally try to scare readers?: I think so to some extent. Like any genre I think writers want their readers to feel something when they read. That could be fear, shock, repulsion, or just that sense of being creeped out.

#16 Do horror authors experience fear while writing their books?: Oh my own mind scares me daily not just when I'm writing. 😂

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[shamelessrabbithole]

Not the previous anon but what I feel about this label-less relationship (considering that yeah I like him and I consider him attractive, but I also have mixed opinions about how he behaves in romantic relationships) goes a bit like this. It's a dumb analogy but bear with me please. In my life (I have a legal adyacent job), I have seen many glamorous jobs with high salaries, a certain lifestyle that comes with it, many perks that come with a job, etc. But at the end of the day, it's public knowledge that people working these jobs are sitting at their desks over 60 or 70, hours a week, without being able to disconnect themselves. That's the less glamorous part of the job. Sure, you can get a fancy house and car, nice clothes and whatever with your high salary but you're also constantly exhausted. Many people straight up quit the profession after some years.

So for me, a romantic relationship with him (not that it's on my cards being able to even be acquaintances with him lol) feels a bit like seeing a fancy job offer advertised on Linkedin. I see the fancy trips, the Ludlow stays, his pool, the constant photoshoots, etc. And that's it. God knows what goes behind the scenes that isn't posted prettily on social media. He seems to have a very unique personality, maybe a bit too intense even (just from what we know about his relationship with Peyton or Sadie, maybe he doesn't know how to let go). Would I be jealous of any girl who gets the nice, fun parts of a relationship with him? Sure. But if I were in the place of the girl (Madison in this case), I'd really ask myself if the nice things are worth the possibly not so nice stuff? She has already gotten maybe one or two mean comments when she commented on the nursery post. Who knows if she got any DMs in a similar sense. Feels like even being showed off on his stories won't get her necessarily good rep. Maybe Lauren or the other girls were more used to it because they have insta profiles where tbh you see a bunch of random people either praising them over their pictures from photoshoots or just being straight up weird and creepy under a swim suit picture. Feels like Madison is used to another type of social media experience -friends and colleagues from the dancing world who are generally very kind to e/o. SO YEAH there's that. It feels like, for the sake of her mental sanity, it's best if she doesn't confirm anything. Sorry for the long ass message.

No worries about your message being long. I agree with the first half of your ask. That social media distills down the look of someone's lifestyle to only show the highlights. And the highlights of being with someone like Cam include fun travels and interesting photo shoots. But that the reality is probably more humdrum that what appears.

As for the negativity received on social media by his partners, I really don't think any of that would make a huge impact. I can imagine myself dating someone exceptional and wonderful, but a downside to that being jealous, anonymous trolls trying to make me feel bad about myself. Would I really give up an amazing relationship and life for some internet chatter? Would anyone? It's not gotten overwhelming to the point they couldn't even turn on their devices without being harrassed. And if it did ever get that bad, deactivating would've been a perfectly reasonable option.

The main issue with Cam, I think, is that he's been a performer from a very young age. He didn't have a male role model growing up, and he is very much an artist to his core. Being a boyfriend in all of the traditional ways we expect might not be in his DNA, and someone like Madison, who is also forever creating and making art and seeing the beauty in the mundane, might be perfect for him right now. It seems like an undemanding, highly encouraging relationship between two people who aren't forging a romance, so much as pushing each other to fully explore their passions.

So, that's my take on what we're seeing and why it's working for them at the moment. (I came upon this conclusion earlier today while brushing my teeth. 🦷)

[olive-branch-witch-library]

Lightbringer Book 2: The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks

Series Warnings: SA, non-explicit smut, violence, slavery, sex slavery, classism (the main villain wants to put magic-users above non magic users), assassination attempts, body mutilation (someone loses fingers, the antagonists modify their bodies with magic), drug abuse, large age gaps (19 year old with ~60 ish year old, used as a political scheme), PTSD, identity theft, fratricide, ceremonial killings to prevent insanity, Politics, lots of creepy men, betrayal, cheating, torture, insanity

Book Warnings: SA, non-explicit smut, violence, slavery, sex slavery, classism (the main villain wants to put magic-users above non magic users), assassination attempts, body mutilation (the antagonists modify their bodies with magic), drug abuse, PTSD, identity theft, fratricide, Politics, lots of creepy men, betrayal, cheating, insanity

Notable POV Characters: Kip Guile, Gavin Guile, Dazen Guile, Aliviana 'Liv' Danavis, Adrasteia, Karris White Oak

Ahhh I'm so excited! The plot twists and cliffhangers keep getting better! And there's more characters that I hate with my whole being!

First of all, Andross Guile? Can suck my dick. I hate him and everything he stands for. He made his grandchild play him in a card game to keep his friend from becoming his slave. Same with Teia's old mistress. The bitch gave her olive oil as a reminder she could become a sex slave in a brothel?? They both need to die and they need to do it now.

Speaking of Teia though, there's a new color on the spectrum! Paryl is completely invisible to everyone except paryl drafters and maybe superchromats (people who have perfect color vision), idk I don't think it was ever really explained who can see it. It's below sub-red on the color spectrum, meaning in our normal world it would have really long wavelengths.

Most of this book surrounds Kip's Blackguard training, and oh my god I adore these kids so much. I just want them all to be happy forever but I know that's not possible.

While Kip does that, Young Gavin takes a bunch of refugees and places them on an island that already has people living there. I'm sure that won't cause any problems. Anyway, after he does that he kills Old Gavin! And gets raped because he thought it was his room slave 'attending' to him after being around Karris constantly for 4 months. And then he thought it was Karris. He like immediately feels disgusted when he learns not only was it neither of them, but it was one of his students and I'm pretty sure a minor (by our standards). He did kill her almost the moment he got back to his room after trying to explain what happened (and failing), but then it's like... never talked about again? And I really feel like it should have been. Male characters are almost never assaulted like this in fiction, much less one who has as much power as Young Gavin does. Maybe it gets talked about in a later book, since there is currently a war going on and he's desperately trying to get the Spectrum (government) to help. He could just be pushing it down at the moment to focus on stopping the thing that will literally destroy the world because there's also giant monsters and the villains are trying to resurrect old pagan gods to tear down the Chromeria.

But then he marries Karris (he does explain what happened there and that he's really Dazen)!! I'm gonna be horny on.. not main really but you get it and say that I really want to be in a sandwich between them. Like both of them are my ideal concept of a partner. Young Gavin is smart, incredibly charming, and doesn't shy away from pleasure, and Karris is such a fucking badass and I know she could 100% kill me in like 10 different ways just with her legs.

I know how I said in my last post the author does the male fantasy author thing where he sexualizes women a lot, and it genuinely didn't bother me. But in this book a lot of the women being targeted are either underage or just barely legal. And that makes me really uncomfortable. For the most part Kip is the one doing the sexualizing, which is again acceptable because he's 15. But in the case of other characters doing it it feels gross. And I know this is a fantasy world, and their definition of an adult isn't necessarily someone who's over the age of 18 especially because it's wartime, but I still don't like it.

But back to the positives, the cliffhanger!! Kip and Young Gavin are both kidnapped on ships by separate people! Young Gavin is now completely colorblind! Kip killed a god! Liv is still a bitch and I hate her!

[sl33py-g4m3r]

idk where the other post is; but I suppose I'll make a new one for whatever this personal post is.

Been batting around the idea of "maybe I'm trans" quite a while; so much so that it's driving me nuts.....

Apparently I may not actually be trans; but instead just disillusioned and upset with the way women are still treated in society so to speak.

I thought that maybe it would be safer if i were male; that I'd be safer if I were male, that people would take me more seriously (especially if i got into fields of tech and the like) if I were male, that people would judge me less for what I wore, that men have more freedom than women do in society.l

My therapist helped me to come to the conclusion that I was just a girl who has been through a lot of stuff and doesn't see the world as safe.

especially since it still seems that it's a mans world anyway for the most part. male seems to still be default.

please take women more seriously, please make walking at night safer for women, please don't judge women for what they wear or think "they're asking for it wearing stuff like that" referring to revealing clothing..... Please don't be creepy...... Please don't assume that someone automatically wants you in "that" way just for being nice to you, or demand it of them when their answer was no....

I'm just a girl who's been through quite a bit; and I hoped that if i were thought of as a man that maybe I'd be safer and taken more seriously. but alas, no. It's obvious I'm female anyway...

I don't like being vulnerable but I am... I'm emotional, I'm small at a whopping 150 cm.... I'm blind legally speaking, and I hate it...... I feel it makes me more vulnerable than I need to be..... or want to be....

Hopefully I'll get to a point where I'm content and happy being female... Some day.....

I'm not a misandrist or someone who hate men.... I just don't like what men can do to women and get away with scot free for the most part. cause in some cases if there isn't any evidence for something like SA, it's the mans word over hers and the man is more than likely going to be the one that's believed. Or in cases of the hard R word; if those kits take a year or more to go over, and he knows there's a case open about the hard R word, he can harass and stalk the victim until she drops the case out of fear, leaving no repercussions to his actions.

So, no I don't hate men, I'm just upset that they can do more to women, and do actually do more to women that's negative than the other way around. Not saying that it doesn't happen in reverse; because it probably does. But more often than not, it's the man doing the things to the woman and (usually) getting away with it...

I wanted to be seen as male to hopefully get a piece of that power that I thought men had/have in society, that women don't. To be taken more seriously, to feel safer and less vulnerable.....

Maybe there isn't disparity between men and women still, but then maybe there is... I believe it's still there however.... despite how far society has come...

although I might be totally wrong; that's how i feel about things and about my "trans" journey so far. Maybe I'm not actually transgender, but just don't want to be female because I feel it's not safe and people won't take me seriously if I were...

Lest the small disabled woman know more than a man..... >_<

[sparkymediaseminar]

Sailing the High Seas

Order vs. Chaos, Control vs. Freedom. It's a constant battle that's been waged throughout the entirety of human history, and it bleeds directly into the digital world.

Though seriously, isn't it so creepy that all the corporations can now just straight up sell your own personal information? They'll try and justify it by saying its to make advertisements more tailored to you, but does having more specific ads interrupt your YouTube videos really worth it at all? Does that make it worth getting your info sold to well, anyone? Woo, thank God I use an Ad Block.

Data collection has had it's fair share of unintentional side effects, though. One notable case would have to be perils of kid's content on YouTube, with children being exposed to inappropriate [and potentially traumatizing] videos thanks to YouTube's algorithm. Yeah, remember Elsagate? Oh geez, those horrors give me the shakes. YouTube has tried to counter this issue in various ways, such as with the creation of the YouTube Kids app and the changes that occurred in late 2019, but with limited success. If anything, the attempt to segregate certain videos as "kids" content is extremely misguided and unreliable, due to the unpredictable nature of user-generated content. It's not uncommon for a video to get tagged as "for kid's" solely because it features cartoon characters, even if the video itself isn't meant for kids [such as say, a funny YouTube Poop that features characters from Disney's Robin Hood performing a satanic ritual].

The way that data has been handled over the past decade is already worrying on it's own, and it's not like people aren't aware of it. Why else would Ad Blocks, VPNs, and "safe" browsers like Firefox become so popular in the first place? Even if most people are okay with using a browser like Google Chrome that saps data like no tomorrow, it doesn't change the fact that we don't like having our privacy being invalidated. Or at least, we claim we don't like that. We might be partially aware of the fact that corporations control us, but we also find ourselves using their services regardless because of how deeply integrated they've been into our society. Regardless of how many alternatives to Chrome are out there, Chrome is still the number one browser/search engine, and will remain as most people's go-to method for looking up funny cat videos.

But even if most people will just roll with things as normal, there's also a few who won't mind living the underground lifestyle. The people who couldn't care less about what the corpos tell them, and will gladly download as many low-resolution bootleg anime episodes as they please. Yeah, we're gonna talk about pirating.

To say that online piracy is rampant would be an understatement. According to this article, there are 3.1 BitTorrent downloads for every piece of media that's purchased legally. Why would people choose to pirate, anyway? Don't they respect the law? The might or might not, but not everyone has convenient access to quality entertainment. Some people are just really poor [especially those living in countries that aren't so well off, like in Eastern Europe], and many kids and teens don't have their own credit card. So of course, they'll seek any means necessary to get the goods.

But there's another side to piracy that's worth acknowledging. Some people just want to preserve media the best way they can, and not everything is guaranteed to be in safe hands. You know all those original shows that get pumped out on streaming services all the time? The ones that don't have much in the way of physical media releases to back them up? If one of those streaming services were to shut down at any time for whatever reason, then all the content on there would be lost for good. Unless it were pirated, however! If it's been pirated, that means the media still exists on the internet and is not gone for good. As long as media isn't relegated exclusively to a single service, it's long-term survival is much more strongly guaranteed. This goes for obscure pieces of older media that aren't featured on any mainstream services, which would be referred to as abandonware. If it's circulated around in various unofficial online databases [such as the Internet Archive], it's essentially immortalized and will be much less likely to fade into complete obscurity than if restricted to physical copies that decay over time. Remember the countless silent films that were lost in warehouse fires during the 1920s and 30s? Yeah, just keep that in mind.

Sources: "An update on kids and data protection on YouTube" (Sept. 4, 2019). YouTube Official Blog. URL: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/09/an-update-on-kids.html

Alexandre Mateus, John Peha, “Quantifying Global Transfers of Copyrighted Content Using BitTorrent,” Telecommunications Policy Research Conference, 2011. URL: http://journalistsresource.org/studies/economics/business/copyright-content-bittorrent#

[shinidamachu]

Did you hear the latest drama on how Rumiko finally drew Sessrin and “adult” Rin, but made a massive swerve by putting her in Kagura’s kimono? Now it’s becoming a meme that Sesshomaru isn’t just a Pedomaru, but is extra creepy by making his now-wife dress up as his dead ex because he’s apparently STILL not over her and pretends Rin is her. Funny, this is the same thing shippers used to mock InuKag about, funny how the tables have turned. 🥴

you antis 🤢 have 0️⃣ nothing 🚫🚫 to 💬 say, you have not understood 💭❔ that Rumikois ✝️⛪️God📝🛐 in Inuyasha 🐶👹 and everything ☀️🌞 he says or does is amen🌟🙏 and you insignificant 🐜🦟🦗🦟 are silent 😶 before 🕟 his will 🥀🤪

Rumiko 👩🏻👩🏻 despises 😠😠 you 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 She is literally teasing 🤪 you 👇🏻👇🏻 and slapping 🤦🏻🤦🏻🤦🏻 you, and you are celebrating🎉🎉🎉.Is it possible that you don't understand 🤔🤔🤔 the message ✉️✉️✉️ Rumiko 👩🏻👩🏻 is sending 📨📨📨 you ??! She is making fun 😂😂of you !! Wake up!! 😴😴 Idiots! 😵

It's the way the fucking Kaede edit looks less creepy for me! But all jokes aside, I think this is a turning point for us, yes? Nobody can tell for sure what happened behind the scenes, but from the informations given to us through the years, I think it's more than fair to assume that:

Takahashi always intended for Rin and Sesshomaru's relationship to remain platonic and for Inuyasha to have a definitive end. She adopted a "you do you" instance when it came to the problematic pairing because she didn't want to alienate part of her fans.

But then Sunrise came up with the sequel and I honestly don't think she had the power to stop them from going ahead and using her name to promote it, legally speaking. What I find extremely hard to believe is that she would be under any obligation to draw the character designs.

No. She did it because she wanted money, even though it meant participating in something that effectively ruined the original vision she had for her own story. It's glaring obvious that, other than that, she didn't take any part in the creative decisions or supervised shit, but the thing is: she didn't have to get involved at all.

Then, when the controversy blew up on her face, she played the "hogosha" card to cover her own ass. So I'm sorry, but I don't buy the "massive swerve." She is just swalling her own principles in exchange for money. Again. Because just like it happened with the character designs, it's hard to imagine she is being forced to do it. They offered her more money to draw it because the show is sinking and they needed something to bring attention back to it. And Takahashi took it.

I know it sucks, but we just have to accept that she just doesn't care about Inuyasha as much as we do. The similarity of the kimonos might have been intentional or not. It makes no real difference in the end of the day.

And maybe she trusted Sunrise more than she should, to the point of not even bothering in taking the time to check what they were gonna do to her characters. Or maybe she was always aware of it, but it didn't upset her enough to step back. Whatever the case, the conclusion is the same: she didn't give a flying fuck.

So why would we give a flying fuck about her, what she says or does? Takahashi gave us Inuyasha and for that I'll always be grateful, but if she won't respect her own art and fans, I'm under no obligation to respect her in return. In this aspect, it's just another JK Rowling situation: as long as I have any saying on it, they will never, ever, get a single penny from me. All of my admiration and support is reserved to the people who truly deserve it: the content creators of this fandom.

I'd say "death of the author now" but the sad truth is that this author has been dead to me for a long time. I just hope this incident was the final push for some of you guys to realize that it's perfectly possible to enjoy Inuyasha without trying to give Takahashi a free pass. Yes, she is part of the problem. No, you don't have to crucify or defend her in order to enjoy what you enjoy.

The original series speaks for itself, so if the author comes up with detached content that painfully contradicts it, I don't have to accept it or pay it any attention. It's completely irrelevant.

Also — and this is less important — I really wish I could gatekeep the hell out of Inukag, so their names wouldn't be in the mouth of #those people. They've been throught enough already.

[spurgie-cousin]

The fact that Kelton first took interest in Josie when she was a minor and essentially laid in wait for her to become a legal adult before making his move—AND that her parents seemingly saw no issue with this—will never sit right with me.

I totally get what you mean but in her parents' defense, they actually did see an issue with it and essentially made her stop talking to Kelton when they first started getting close (when she was 14 and he was I think 19).

The whole situation gives me hella red flags.....Kelton was 19/20 when he became obsessed with basically an eighth-grader and it was an intense enough obsession that it made her parents uncomfortable about the relationship (fundie parents at that....the kind who are usually ok with marrying off daughters young). 

I feel like the normal person thing to do in that situation would be to respect that decision and maybe leave your 14 year old crush alone, try to move on, etc. But he didn't and, like you mentioned, just sat around waiting for her to turn 18 so her parents wouldn't have a legal say in anything she did (her bday is August 4th and he asked her on the 10th the year she turned 18).

Now I don't think Kelton did all of this knowingly tbh, I think he really believes it was all genuine and that he was being romantic, but that doesn't make it any less unhealthy or inappropriate.

!!!*NOTE*!!! because this *always* happens to me when I talk about age-gaps: I don't need to hear about your parents who have a 20-yr age gap and are the happiest people alive or whatever. At best it isn't relevant (it matters how old they were when they got together), at worst it's also creepy and I don't want to have to tell you that lol.

Just because it used to be common or because it happened in your family and worked out doesn't mean it's ok or should be happening in this or other situations. I am very happy for the couple in your life that had a huge age gap and had a happily ever after, but they are the exception to the rule please realize this.

[olderthannetfic]

I'm a Chinese, nationally and racially. Racial projection seems to be a common practice in western fandom, doesn't it? I find it a bit... weird to witness the drama ignited upon shipping individuals with different races, or the tendency to separate characters into different "colors" even though the world setting doesn't divide races like that. Such practice isn't a thing here. Mind explaining a bit on this phenomenon?

--

Sure, I can try. But of course, fish aren’t very good at explaining the water they swim in.

Americans aren’t good at detecting our own Americanness, and a lot of what you’re seeing is very much culturally American rather than Western in general. (In much of Europe, “race” is a concept used by racists, or so I’m told, unlike in the US where it’s seen more neutrally.) Majority group members (i.e. me, a white girl) aren’t usually the savviest about minority issues, but I’ll give it a shot.

The big picture is that most US race stuff boils down to our attempts to justify and maintain slavery and that dynamic being applied, awkwardly, to everyone else too, even years after we abolished slavery.

There’s a concept called the “one drop rule” where a person is “black” if they have even one drop of black blood.

We used to outlaw “interracial” marriage until quite recently. (That meant marriage between black people and white people with Asians and Hispanic people and others wedged in awkwardly.) Here’s the Wikipedia article on this, which contains the following map showing when we legalized interracial marriage. The red states are 1967.

That’s within living memory for a ton of people! Yellow is 1948 to 1967. This is just not very long ago at all. (Hell, we only fully banned slavery in 1865, which is also just not that long ago when it comes to human culture.)

Why did we have this bananas-crazy set of laws and this idiotic notion that one remote ancestor defines who you are? It boils down to slavery requiring a constant reaffirming that black people are all the same (and subhuman) while white people are all this completely separate category. The minute you start intermarrying, all of that breaks down. This was particularly important in our history because our system of slavery involved the kids of slaves being slaves and nobody really buying their way out. Globally, historically, there are other systems of slavery where there was more mobility or where enslaved people were debtors with a similar background to owners, and thus the people in power were less threatened by ambiguity in identity.

Post-slavery, this shit hung around because it was in the interests of the people in power to maintain a similar status quo where black people are fundamentally Other.

A lot of our obsession with who counts as what is simply a legacy of our racist past that produced our racist present.

--

The other big factor in American concepts of identity is that we see ourselves as a nation of immigrants (ignoring our indigenous peoples, as usual). A lot of people’s families arrived here relatively recently, and we often don’t have good records of exactly where they were from, even aside from enslaved people who obviously wouldn’t have those records. Plenty of people still identify with a general nationality (”Italian-American” and such), but the nuance the family might once have had (specific region of Italy, specific hometown) is often lost. Yeah, I know every place has immigrants, and lots of people don’t have good records, but the US is one of those countries where families have on average moved around a lot more and a lot more recently than some, and it affects our concepts of identity. I think some of the willingness to buy into the idea of “races” rather than “ethnicities” has to do with this flattening of identity.

New immigrant groups were often seen as Other and lesser, but over time, the ones who could manage it got added to our concept of “whiteness”, which gave them access to those same social and economic privileges.

Skin color is a big part of this. In a system that is founded on there being two categories, white owners and black slaves, skin color is obviously going to be about that rather than being more of a class marker like it is in a lot of the world.

But it’s not all about skin color since we have plenty of Europeans with somewhat darker skin who are seen as generically white here, while very pale Asians are not. I’m not super familiar with all of the history of anti-Asian racism in the US, but I think this persistent Otherness probably boils down to Western powers trying to justify colonial activities in Asia plus a bunch of religious bullshit about predominantly Christian nations vs. ones that are predominantly Buddhist or some other religion.

In fact, a lot of racist archetypes in English can be traced back to England’s earliest colonial efforts in Ireland. Justifying colonizing Those People because they’re subhuman and/or ignorant and in need of paternalistic rulers or religious conversion is at the bottom of a lot of racist notions. Ironic that we now see Irish people as clearly “white”.

--

There are a lot of racist porn tropes and racist cultural baggage here around the idea of black people being animalistic. Racist white people think black men want to rape/steal white women from white men. Black women get seen as hypersexual and aggressive. If this sounds like white people projecting in order to justify murder and rape... well, it is.

Similar tropes get applied to a lot of groups, often including Hispanic and Middle Eastern people, though East Asians come in more for creepy fantasies about endlessly submissive and promiscuous women. This nonsense already existed, but it was certainly not helped by WWII servicemen from here and their experiences in Asia. Again, it’s a projection to justify shitty behavior as what the party with less power was “asking for”.

In porn and even romance novels, this tends to turn up as a white character the audience is supposed to identify with paired with an exotic, mysterious Other or an animalistic sexy rapist Other.

A lot of fandoms are based on US media, so all of our racist bullshit does apply to the casting and writing of those, whether or not the fic is by Americans or replicating our racist porn tropes.

(Obviously, things get pretty hilarious and infuriating once Americans get into c-dramas and try to apply the exact same ideas unchanged to mainstream media about the majority group made by a huge and powerful country.)

--

Politically, within the US, white people have had most of the power most of the time. We also make up a big chunk of the population. (This is starting to change in some areas, which has assholes scared shitless.) This means that other groups tend to band together to accomplish shared political goals. They’re minorities here, so they get lumped together.

A lot of Americans become used to seeing the world in terms of “white people” who are powerful oppressors and “people of color” who are oppressed minorities. They’re trying to be progressive and help people with less power, and that’s good, but it obviously becomes awkward when it’s over-applied to looking at, say, China.

--

Now... fandom...

I find that fandom, in general, has a bad habit of holding things to double standards: queer things must be Good Representation™ even when they’re not being produced for that purpose. Same for ethnic minorities or any other minority. US-influenced parts of fandom (which includes a lot of English-speaking fandom) tend to not be very good at accepting that things are just fantasy. This has gotten worse in recent years.

As fandom has gotten more mainstream here, general media criticism about better representation (both in terms of number of characters and in terms of how they’re portrayed) has turned into fanfic criticism (not enough fics about ship X, too many about ship Y, problematic tropes that should not be applied to ship X, etc.). I find this extremely misguided considering the smaller reach of fandom but, more importantly, the lack of barriers to entry. If you think my AO3 fic sucks, you can make an account and post other fic that will be just as findable. You don’t need money or industry connections or to pass any particular hurdle to get your work out there too.

People also (understandably) tend to be hypersensitive to anything that looks like a racist porn trope. My feeling is that many of these are general porn tropes and people are reaching. There are specific tropes where black guys are given a huge dick as part of showing that they’re animalistic and hypersexual, but big dicks are really common in porn in general. The latter doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing the former unless there are other elements present. A/B/O or dubcon doesn’t mean it’s this racist trope either, not unless certain cliched elements are present. OTOH, it’s not hard for a/b/o tropes to feel close to “animalistic guy is rapey”, so I can see why it often bothers people.

A huge, huge, huge proportion of wank is “all rape fantasies are bad” crap too, which muddies the waters. I think a lot of people use “it’s racist” as an easy way to force others to agree with their incorrect claims that dubcon, noncon, a/b/o, etc. are fundamentally bad. Many fans, especially white fans, feel like they don’t know enough to refute claims of racism, so they cave to such arguments even when they’re transparently disingenuous.

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Not everyone here thinks this way. I know plenty of people offline, particularly a lot of nonwhite people, who think fandom discourse is idiotic and that the people “protecting” people or characters of color are far more racist than the people writing “bad” fic or shipping the wrong thing.

But in general, I’d say that the stuff above is why a lot of us see the world as white people in power vs. everyone else as oppressed victims, interracial relationships as fraught, and porn about them as suspect. Basically, it’s people trying to be more progressive and aware but sometimes causing more harm than good when those attempts go awry.

[eolewyn1010]

TO München - issues I take with "Wir kriegen euch alle"

I just came to realize that the first half of "Videobeweis" is too cringey for me to go into it again (I swear it has some good moments, they just show up very late...), so instead I'll go into the Tatort München episode "Wir kriegen euch alle" again. Which isn't cringey per se, it's just kinda bad and makes me feel queasy. I'll try to talk about it soberly, but this is still all personal opinion. Mind spoilers as you go.

They open up a heavy, dark subject and then never manage to see it through to its conclusion.

The focus on victims and perpetrators is incredibly skewed.

Might be the hands-off approach Tatort has to continuity, but they fail to reflect on the inspector's stance on the case and how it's not fully congruent with what we have known of his character before - that would have been an awesome opportunity to make this actual character development.

But first things first, let me be incredibly petty: Why on earth would anyone cast Jannik Schümann, only to stuff him into the ugliest, most tasteless clothes on earth, the least flattering glasses they could find and whatever the fuck they did to his hair? He's already playing an unlikable, whiny, immature, self-absorbed psychopath - couldn't he at least have been a pretty psychopath?

And a brief rant at presentation: Why do they need such a long-winded way to get to the plot? And why does this Tatort, once it gets to the plot, start out almost 1:1 like a Supernatural episode from 2006? And the freaking dolls? What kid would keep a glowy-eyed, talking Uncanny Valley doll around as their personal confidante? These dolls are creepy. Same goes for the plastic Santa Claus mask; in what child would that induce trust? Are they trying to sell me on horror? Is that why the protagonists are so unlikable? Take that out of my mediocre German grandma copaganda. You're supposed to comfortably intrigue me, not make me feel viscerally icky with a visual. Also, if your corpses can't hold still, try freeze images, geez.

Now with that out of the way, let's talk about sexual abuse of children and the wish for revenge. You have been warned.

I think it's not exactly a hot take that many people wish death upon child rapists. If the newspapers headline would read, "parent who sexually abused their child for years got brutally murdered", I can imagine there'd be cheers before one gets around to thinking, wait a minute, we have a legal system - people can't just go around and kill people. "But those aren't people, those are animals" my ass; if any of us has the right to determine someone is not a person and law doesn't apply to them because of a criterion we deem appropriate, what will keep anyone to determine someone is not a person because of any criterion whatsoever? That is incredibly dangerous, and that's why even the most vile and disgusting of people are still people and in the hand of the law, not of other citizens.

The episode adds the complication of "but what if the state can't persecute; what if they lack the evidence to set any legal means in motion?" That's why our vigilantes here are working with a surveillance system to secure evidence before they act - and their actions are rightfully called premeditated murder by the police and investigated. Until that's not the focus anymore because our vigilante got misled and more or less accidentally killed a family who "didn't deserve this", namely, who had not abused either of their children even though the aforementioned psychopath claimed otherwise. That's where the entire episode breaks down. Protecting a child from ongoing abuse, punishing a really evil person, intervening where the police legally can't - that's an incredibly strong motivation to kill someone, and it was the police's task to stop him because despite this motivation, he's still in the wrong to kill. But then they put the focus on that last case that is based entirely on petty, selfish motivations and where the killer himself regrets what he has done - in this case, not because he acknowledges the law. That's the most important one, when his internal logic doesn't apply? Fucking cowards. Sure, Ivo talks a bit to one of the guys from the victim support group about the vigilantism, but even that dude's breaking point is that he doesn't believe our psychopath and builds the injustice of that case on the deception and betrayal. That's not only weak because it shirks giving the strong NO these actions would have deserved, it also re-victimizes our poor little murderer because woe is him, he got lied to and so killed the wrong people.

The message that killing anyone is wrong never gets through to him. This episode doesn't have the balls for that; we rather want to keep up sympathies for the vengeful killer because his purpose is a sympathetic one.

Then, focus. It isn't my primary complaint, but how are the two main cases at hand abuse in fucking rich families with huge houses and personal slaves au-pairs and stuff? What, do middle-class and poor families not abuse their children? They do - but the boy in the rented flat whose father rapes him is merely a footnote in this spectacle; I don't think we ever even learn his name. Who they present to us are the two poor little rich girls, Lena and Gretchen, respectively, in their huge houses with their huge rooms and their expat nannies who work 13 hours a day. I'm not saying these children shouldn't be protected from abuse; I'm just saying it feels skewy to put the focus on these two only. That resonates really poorly with the obvious class conceit of Gretchen's family, who after all their classist bullshit and racism get promptly victimized via their psychopath son and his equally psychopath girlfriend. Speaking of racism, the two Chinese au-pairs are a passive, soft-spoken doormat (so doormat-ty in fact that she didn't call the authorities when she suspected abuse in that house) and a cold-blooded psychopathic killer (who's so dumb that she doesn't seem to know the child she's taking care of at all, with how idiotic her approach to killing Gretchen is). That doesn't look like bad stereotypes or anything. Shove it, BR.

Overall, Gretchen's entire family is bullshit. I don't feel for anyone there. The son is a psychopath, but the father is an asshole and I can't say I was overflowing with sympathy when he and his practically non-present wife died (did she even get a speaking line?). The au-pair is also a psychopath, a bully and, as mentioned, not the brightest bulb, but that kid she's taking care of? Gretchen is a brat. She's what, eight years old? And thinks she can do however she pleases, and that she can boss her au-pair around and talk down to her, which is obviously something she picked up from her parents. And no, of course she shouldn't suffer or die because of that, but even when she kills the au-pair kind of accidentally and in self-defense, she still manages to be bratty about it. I would have walked out on her after a week. No, the victims of a crime don't need to be likable, but it would have been good for the episode to not center on a family that makes me space out or check my mail whenever a scene with them begins because they are so goddamn annoying. That's just a bunch of unpleasant people being unpleasant to each other.

Still talking focus, but now the one on the vigilante. They work with the victim perspective, but mostly, they work with the perspective of that one victim who has already become a brutal criminal himself, and for all his savior complex, we never see the consequences of his actions for the survivors. Lena and Gretchen never grasp within the episode that their parents are dead and they're alone in the world now. Let's look at Lena because she was actually abused - but does killing her parents make her life better? I'd say it victimizes her again. Now she's an orphan and God knows where she'll grow up and how she will handle emotionally that her parents got murdered, on top of the abuse that she also has to cope with. And yet, our vigilante is throughout presented in a sympathetic light. A man who's killed a bunch of people and did their children not nearly as much of a favor as he likes to tell himself - but we only get to see him as well-meaning, as a protector, as someone who's been through something horrible and wants to stop that from happening to others. As mentioned previously, the episode fails to condemn him.

In short, if it weren't for the Kommissare, I wouldn't have anyone to empathize with. They don't put in an effort to make me empathize with the victims, unjustified as their death may be (by internal logic because who even cares about the law), and I don't want to empathize with a vigilante killer, although the episode fucking tries to get me there. Nope.

Last part, Kommissare. I'll quickly talk about Franz; Ivo has a more in-depth part. Franz is kept simpler around here (and confuses me when he mistakes something for a biblical numeration and asks about psalms like, "is anyone a Catholic?" - dude, you were a freaking altar boy; don't act stupid or I'll have to bitchslap a screenwriter). He does get to punch the father raping his little son, which is a moment of cheer, no doubt. It still makes the focal point the perpretrator deserving of punishment and Franz' righteous anger - not the boy who's in pain and crying in his room. And I get that they can't involve child actors too deeply in this subject without damage; I just don't like that they hardly even talk about the children in question.

Ivo. Good Lord, Ivo and his new bit of background story. And yeah, I guess you could argue that he made that bit up to get the victim support group to accept him as one of theirs, but it doesn't feel that way - when he discloses what happened to him, that's one of the very few scenes that feel genuine and tear on me the way they're meant to. So we get a Tatort-Kommissar who has been sexually abused as a teenager; I think he's the first male inspector Tatort puts in correlation to a sex crime. Lena O and the Dresden girls were threatened with rape on separate occasions, but the assholes in question didn't get a chance to go through with it. Overall, Tatort usually doesn't go for male rape victims - because German TV has weird heteronormative hang-ups, men are perpretators in sex crimes, not victims. In this episode, they very deliberately shift that with the all-male support group. And then it's Ivo. This is a first, and it's really heavy. He gets put on the same level as the other guys in the group, on the same level as our vigilante. He's given understanding of what happened to them, a good reason to understand the hate, the anger, the wish to do something.

And he does what he should do as a member of the police and what the episode doesn't support to the degree it should - he condemns the vigilante killer. That is also a big one because it's actually not characteristic of Ivo if we look at older episodes. He is prone to vigilantism; hell, he has done a few really nasty things before. 2010, "Nie wieder frei sein" - he beats up a rapist and would-be killer of a young woman when he finds he cannot arrest him because he lacks the evidence. Or let's take it a thematical step closer, and chronologically a big one back - 1995, "Frau Bu lacht"; there's a woman who has killed her husband because he was sexually abusing her child. And it was a premeditated murder, too. Only she never gets put before a court of law because Franz and Ivo help her flee the country with her daughter. That is what Ivo has done in an extremely similar case. "Wir kriegen euch alle" is on in 2018, and Ivo does his freaking best to arrest a vigilante out for child rapists. That is a huge thing for him, especially with his very personal empathy, and the episode completely fails to adress this. Even though it gives me a shitton of respect for Ivo for managing what vigilante guy didn't, namely see beyond his anger and his "fuck law, I'll do it myself" views and acknowledge that skipping the legal way and killing the assholes is not the way to go.

Okay, that's all I got. Now excuse me as I curl up in a ball and cry for a bit in overall hatred. Thanks for coming to my brat talk.