#i mean i don't think there's something inherently wrong with these tropes it's just the way it plays out for them really doesn't make me

[maddy-ferguson]

literatis and rogans really be having a "who made rory feel worse" off

[ronniaugust]

How To Write Good Dialogue (Part 1)

I'm gonna start this by saying I'm not trying to sound like a know-it-all. I am just tired of posts like these being absolutely fucking useless. I am aware this is basically me screaming into a void and I’m more than okay with that.

This guide is meant for intermediate screenwriters, but beginners are also absolutely welcome. :)

(about me)

-♠︎-♠︎-♠︎-♠︎-

I've noticed a rise in film students who want to make films that have no dialogue. Probably after your professor showed you Doodlebug, right? Fuck that.

I'll make another post about writing a short film, but all you need to know is: Don't waste the audience’s time. Most of these no-dialogue shorts have very little substance and take way too long to tell the shortest possible story. Not a good idea.

Useless Dialogue

Plain and simple, don't write useless dialogue. Useless dialogue is dialogue that just doesn't fucking matter. Dialogue matters by having ✨subtext.✨

What is subtext? Subtext is the meaning behind the action. That's it.

If I tell you that I love you and I got big doe eyes while I say it, it means I love you. If I tell you I love you through a clenched jaw without looking at you, I don't necessarily love you right now.

Simple, right? Great.

Now think about the subtext behind every line. Does your character mean what they're saying? Are they doing it to get what they want? What is going through their mind as they say it? As long as you know your character, you’ll have these answers ready to go. If you don’t, you’ll figure it out eventually. Just keep writing.

When you write your character walking into a Starbucks and saying, "One venti iced coffee," does that do something? Why do I need to see someone's boring Starbucks order? Do I need to know that your character's boring? Why are you writing a boring character? [Of course, in the rare situation where this is some revealing clue to the massive crime investigation, then it makes sense.]

Useless dialogue is any dialogue that has no meaning or purpose in your script. Delete and move on. You don't need to write entire conversations or scenes that bore us, just write what we care about.

I took a class once where my professor called a version of this "trimming the fat." Get us into your scene and out of your scene in as little time as it takes to have it achieve its full purpose in the script.

[P.S. You don’t “inject” subtext into your lines. Idk who started that vernacular in subtext teachings but I hate it.]

Show vs. Tell

I remember a glorious fight I got into with a Redditor last year about show vs. tell… TL;DR: Dialogue is “show” if you write it with intention and subtext. If someone says that dialogue is inherently “tell,” they’re wrong and can go fuck themselves.

Dialogue that is “tell” is expositional dialogue. But, hot take: Exposition isn't just in dialogue. It’s also those annoying clichés that make you roll your eyes in the theater (which we just call clichés and not exposition). I’m sure every professor I’ve had will disagree with this and then get me into a long conversation about it, but let’s ignore that for right now.

Have you ever seen a movie where a character rubs an old, worn-out photo of a young girl while looking depressed? That's exposition. That character has a dead daughter. No shit.

Clichés are incredibly annoying. We all know that. Assume that any cliché you see - in this context - is exposition and try your best not to write it. (Tropes are different and sometimes necessary, so I’m not talking about that.)

Point blank: When you have subtext in your lines, they are "show,” not “tell.”

Before moving on, I'll bring up that while technically the dead daughter photo is subtextual, it is as close to the character saying “My daughter is dead,” as you can get. Don't treat the audience like we're fucking stupid.

The First 15

If you don’t know what the Inciting Incident is, please look up “3 Act Structure” before reading this.

The first 15 pages of your script is the part that comes before the Inciting Incident. This is the part you want to get right because, although people probably won’t leave the theater, they will absolutely find something else on the streaming service they’re using. The people making said movie will also just toss your script in the trash before it’s even produced, so it's best to get it right.

Dialogue in the first 15 generally follows the same rules, but carries a heftier additional rule. All dialogue in the first 15 minutes must, must, must tell us something about your character.

Remember when I talked about that boring Starbucks order? Why is your character boring? Don’t write that. Don’t write nice characters. Or pleasant characters. Or friendly characters. No one cares.

You want empathy. This does not mean “relatable.” It means “empathetic.” There is a difference.

I personally relate to Vi in Arcane, but I empathize with Theo in Children of Men. Both are excellent, but one personally resonates a bit more with me. You cannot write a character that deeply resonates with every single person, it is impossible.

With each line of dialogue, you must be saying something about your character that generates the empathy. Instead of telling you how to do this, I’ll direct you to a movie that will do better than an explanation: Casablanca.

Watch how Rick interacts with the world. What kind of man is Rick? Watch what he does, what he says, and how he treats people and himself. Watch that empty glass on the table. Watch his contradictions. Everything. Those things matter and it’s what makes you want to watch Rick for the entire duration of Casablanca.

“Realism”

This is maybe more directorial, but make your characters human enough, not too human.

Too human is when you’ve tried your best to capture all those little life-like speech patterns. You know, the ones that no one fucking cares about.

If your character coughs, they’re sick. If they clear they’re throat, they’re uncomfortable. If a bruise isn’t going away, they’re going to die. Simple.

Every moment on screen matters. Everything the audience sees is meant to lead them to a conclusion. Not the conclusion, just a conclusion.

The realism you want is in the choices your character makes, not how many times they say “Uh,” in a sentence.

Conclusion

Dialogue matters and should not be treated lightly or without care. Once you have this all engrained in your mind, dialogue should become effortless.

If you want an excellent way to think about this, Robert McKee's Story has an excellent chapter that helped clarify this all for me. Here's an excerpt and the context.

Warning, spoilers for Chinatown.

"If I were Gittes at this moment, what would I do?"

Letting your imagination roam, the answer comes:

"Rehearse. I always rehearse in my head before taking on life's big confrontations."

Now work deeper into Gittes's emotions and psyche:

Hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, thoughts racing: "She killed him, then used me. She lied to me, came on to me. Man, I fell for her. My guts are in a knot, but I'll be cool. I'll stroll to the door, step in and accuse her. She lies. I send for the cops. She plays innocent, a few tears. But I stay ice cold, show her Mulwray's glasses, then lay out how she did it, step by step, as if I was there. She con-fesses. I turn her over to Escobar; I'm off the hook."

EXT. BUNGALOW-SANTA MONICA

Gittes' car speeds into the driveway.

You continue working from inside Gittes' pov, thinking:

"I'll be cool, I'll be cool ..." Suddenly, with the sight of her house, an image of Evelyn flashes in your imagination. A rush of anger. A gap cracks open between your cool resolve and your fury.

The Buick SCREECHES to a halt. Gittes jumps out.

"To hell with her!"

Gittes SLAMS the car door and bolts up the steps.

Story by Robert McKee, pg 156

The context of this page is McKee's way of explaining how to write characters. I found it very helpful.

-♠︎-♠︎-♠︎-♠︎-

Thanks for reading! I probably forgot something, so I made this a “part 1.”

I hope this helps someone since I’m really tired of finding short films on YouTube that are all fucking silent. The few who have done it well have been copied to death, so please write some dialogue. I promise you it’s so much better if you do.

Asks are open! :)

[idyllic-affections]

hello! i’m relatively new to your blog but i stumbled across your muichiro and hasira mentor!reader and i fell in love (has been a brainrot of mine for a couple weeks now), i was wondering if you could write a scenario about muichiro getting back from one of his first solo missions and the reader just doting over him and helping him clean up minor wounds, despite knowing he’s capable of doing it himself. (i loved the way your characterized the two in your previous writings <3) thank you! hope you have a lovely day!

the first solo mission's aftermath.

summary. muichiro's first solo mission would be a tough time for both him and his mentor, but when he returns, they are there to dote endlessly on him.

trigger & content warnings. self-doubt, depictions of minor injury.

tropes, pairings, fic length, & other notes. fluff, comfort. muichiro tokito & hashira mentor!reader. 0.7k words. they/them pronouns for reader.

author's thoughts. this post is an expansion of out of all the clouds in the sky, you are my favorite. hello dear!! welcome to my blog, i hope to see you again in my ask box at some point <3 mui requests are always welcomed. hes my beloved son frfr. thank you so so much, any compliments about how i characterize canon characters are very much appreciated! thats one of the highest forms of praise i could get as a writer. it means a lot when people tell me they like the way i write certain characters, so i really do appreciate it!

tbh i think [name] would cry when seeing him off for the first time.

they would try to hold it together solely for muichiro's peace of mind, offering him a shaky smile and, in a trembling voice, wishing him well as he departs from their mansion.

there's no way seeing one's tsuguko off is an easy experience. each hashira surely has to wonder if their respective student will return or not, if they have taught their student well enough, if their first mission will be easy or go terribly wrong.

there's just... so, so many things that could go wrong.

while mui is gone, i think the cloud hashira would sit and nitpick everything they taught him. they'd worry that it wasn't enough. they know he is impossibly strong for his age, but...

strength does not inherently equal experience. a demon slayer can have all the biological advantages that they want, but if they don't have adequate experience, all that strength will mean absolutely nothing.

meanwhile, mui feels a distinct sense of discomfort and unrest after he leaves.

something about leaving doesn't sit well with him. he doesn't want to leave. he wants to go back, or he wants them to come along.

(he does not understand why at the time, but a few years later, he'll begin to understand that he simply didn't want to leave them on the brink of tears like that.)

in the end, though, muichiro returns after only a few days in one piece, completely unharmed except for a few minor scratches.

his face might not change when his beloved mentor immediately brings him into a tight embrace, but the way his body relaxes into their arms is telling enough.

"welcome back, tokito-kun," they'd whisper, cheek pressed to the top of his head.

"...i'm home, [surname]-sama."

home... the implications of that statement would make their heart burst. indeed, he is home if he's with his mentor. if he's with them. they squeeze him just a little tighter after that.

"[surname]-sama, i can't breathe."

"ah?! i'm sorry! sorry, i didn't mean it!"

mui honestly would just let them dote on him.

they'd gently brush his hair and pull it back into a braid, sending a distinct feeling of nostalgia through his foggy mind.

they'd clean his wounds, opting to take him to the butterfly estate if anything seemed wrong or infected.

they'd just dote on him.

he does enjoy the attention and he realizes that it helps them feel better, so... he just lets them do whatever they feel is necessary.

the attention is really comforting for him, though. he's so young. he shouldn't be fighting demons at this age, and yet, he is. [name] knows this.

to make up for it, they spoil him in all the attention someone so young would need to grow properly.

"So... how did your mission go? I suppose it must have gone rather well," they mused with a gentle smile, gingerly flushing a small yet somewhat deep scratch on his cheek with a saline solution that they'd borrowed from those at the Butterfly Estate. "You're hardly hurt."

"Yes. It went fine," he confirmed in a murmur, doing his best not to move in order not to disrupt their work. "...I thought I was fast enough."

"Hm?"

"I thought I was fast enough to avoid being scratched."

"You did your best," they chuckled, securing a small patch over the scratch to keep any bacteria out, "and believe me, this is nothing. The kinds of injuries you can get in this line of work... this is nothing, really. It's fine. Just make sure it doesn't get infected."

Backing away from his face, they looked over their work before nodding firmly. "Alright. I'm done."

Slowly, the boy raised a hand to his cheek, fingertips ghosting over the freshly-dressed wound. Some kind of foreign warmth spread through his chest. He shifted in place, timidly avoiding their eyes. "...Thank you."

"Hehe. Of course." Not a single thing got past them, it seemed. They brought no attention to his sudden embarrassment, however. "Anyways, are you hungry? Kanroji-san invited us to come out with her to this place a few towns over. I hear they're really good."

He simply listened to them ramble, nodding along absentmindedly when they asked for his input.

He liked their voice.

It was comforting.

please consider reblogging, it helps me out quite a lot!

[lullaebies]

What do you think about Helaena's portrayal in the show? Idw to ask about Aegon's portrayal because he was the one that get fucked up the most even if they wanted him to be the main antagonist of the show there were many "more complex and interesting" ways to portray him. But what about helaena? There is always something wrong in Helaena's character in the show for me, in many ways she does seems to be a caricature of the trope of the weird prophetic princess.

This is going to be an essay. Buckle up.

As endearing and easy to feel for her circumstances she is (and the show is how I got to know her, I liked her to begin with regardless and I read Fire and Blood only after watching), I feel like the show failed her tremendously, not only by falling into the trope you mentioned, but perpetuating stereotypes regarding neurodivergent people as well as making Helaena a victim before bothering to make her a person. Let me get into it one by one.

The trope of the neurodivergent girl with powers, to begin with, is obviously a somewhat uncomfortable trope that hints neurodivergency doesn't have a place to be unless it is accompanied by powers of some sort. The idea of neurodivergence being inherently magical is harmful in a detracting kind of way. That already kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth as both the neurodivergence and dreamer plotlines were added without textual evidence in F&B, so the mix is probably deliberate to create 'she's more than what meets the eye' type of character. Doesn't work as well in today's sphere of things.

Now, I wouldn't care nearly as much about the trope if they bothered to make her more than just her prophecies and her neurodivergence. They could've had their cake and could've eaten it if they gave her actual lines that speak of how she feels about what's around her and in what situation she's in. Every single line she has in the show is a prophecy, save for exactly two: her speaking about her millipede to Alicent (because her hyper fixation is the only she cares about, apparently) and her roasting Aegon at dinner (which was a serve, but was once more only there to serve she cannot converse like a normal person and to show she is a victim). We have absolutely nothing about how she feels as a person, as a sister, as a mother! They barely gave her a chance to react to Driftmark, we don't know if she was scared about her wedding and what is happening to her, we don't even get her saying what she thinks about her visions! We have zero framing of anything. We see nothing of what the book describes her as: Why was she described as a happy girl? Why people agreed she would be a lovely mother? Why did the smallfolk like her, why was her death their last straw? Who is she, aside from bugs and weird mumblings? Autistic people have thoughts and feelings and many of them can express them in an even better way than people without autism (I worked for 4 years with autistic adults, and I'm pretty sure I'm on the spectrum myself - anecdotal evidence it is, but there was no reason to not let her have actual character moments.) Many people in this fandom are convinced she is not able to hold a single conversation with anyone - it's atrocious and offensive.

And then we have the victim discussion, which only packs it in further. She is shown to be a perpetual victim in the show, pretty clearly to vilify Aegon (who frankly is also a victim of the marriage, but we don't get to talk about that). She has been stripped of all her agency; in the books, she talks smack about Aegon in a humorous way, she sits on his war council and advocates for peace, she is a good mother who is hands-on with her children and consistently portrayed with them. She has a life, and meaning outside of being a victim, she's active. When you think of a princess who claimed the largest dragon living in the dragon pit, don't you at least think she is courageous? that she has a sense of life in her, to drive her to do such a thing? And she could've done all of the things she does in the book, with the dreamer plot and the neurodivergent characterization all the same, and that is what drives me insane. These were additions, but they didn't have to overwrite Helaena as a whole.

We don't get to see her truly live, and care about the things she loves. When B&C happens, we are going to see an autistic woman brutalized and her children hurt and murdered many people would cheer for it, without the necessary preparation of showing how much she cared about the children, without showing any conflict of hers to take the mantle as Queen, without her ever showing or thinking about these complex situations she's been put in. She's not allowed to have an opinion politically, at least not so far - she's not allowed to have as much voice as her brothers do and she's not allowed to be taken seriously as Queen Consort as Rhaenyra is taken seriously as Queen, which is such, SUCH a shame, because if we had a smidge of comparisons between the two sisters we could have had them be proper foils, which is interesting, and not to the detriment of either of them!

To conclude; they sprinkled on Helaena tropey traits, made her lines be more or less summed up as cool foreshadowing, and erased the traits that would've made the crowd find her endearing and relatable as a person. (and I have theories about it, but I won't get into it here). They failed Helaena not because of the additions themselves, but because they refuse to take her place as a woman in this story seriously, as well as refused to flesh her out beyond the surface-level tropes. She could've been so, so much more, and I can talk about it for hours, but choices have been made. Her arc deserved to be built up better, as did her character, and it's very frustrating.

[yutaleks]

i have a genuine question, this is just pure curiosity, no judgement lol

what's the appeal behind incest? :o also i'm assuming it's specific kind of incest, like sibling x sibling, and not parent x child??

i mean i know it's a kink so maybe there's no explanation, i'm just curious xD it's totally fine if you (or others) don't wanna answer ofc!!

well your assumption is incorrect LMAO I’ve written and read parent/child incest fics just as often as sibling/sibling. Familial relationships have different contexts and implications, not limited to just sibling/sibling.

I don’t necessarily think any kind of kink has to be appealing in order to have the right to exist, so I don’t think trying to justify it will actually mean anything or give it any kind of standing that it doesn’t already have. If that makes sense. Like you don’t necessarily have to understand it to make it any more or less of a valid thing to read or write about.

That aside, I can tell you personally what I feel gives it appeal to me:

Sibling/sibling:

It is a balance of a relationship that is inherently taboo but the characters feeling so much for each other that they overcome that hesitation and go for it anyway. Like a “despite all odds” taken to an extreme. A level of devotion and kinship that not only transcends physicality (the two characters are blood related, made from the same flesh and bone. So to speak) but also morality (despite inherently how “wrong” it is for them both to be together, they don’t care).

Taking away the “incest” and looking at it strictly from those two reasons (a character who is cut from the same cloth, who loves me above all and against all odds) I think it is psychologically some form of self-love and acceptance that you cannot achieve by thinking of the character as a random stranger. I’m not a psychologist so idk if that makes sense, but I think to me it fulfills this basic desire: two people who are made of the same flesh finding themselves desirable.

Like irl i hate myself right. But like. Someone who came from the same flesh as me. Who lives the same life as me. They are lovable. And they love me. Does that make sense? I’m saying this as love not as something sexual btw. I’ll touch more on this later.

And I have to tack on that even in the cases of step-siblings/adopted siblings or “pseudocest” as some people call it, I still think the same logic applies. It’s still incestuous. Blood or not, you’re still in the same familial “role” in which you are designated to be siblings. The “kink” still exists in the very same fashion, in which you treat each other as siblings or are raised as siblings. The same makings of a blood-related siblings fic exist in a “psuedocest” fic so if you’re running circles trying to make up some difference between the two, you perhaps are just making excuses to yourself lol. Because the fics are exactly the same, minus the “they aren’t actually related” disclaimer. lol

A sibling/sibling relationship (blood or “pseudo”), if done in a manner which is more closely paired to real life instances of incest, will probably feature abusive or abhorrent situations for the involved characters. That is the nature of incestuous relationships in real life. It is probably a different topic entirely on the appeal of fiction which depicts abusive or traumatic incidents but thats for another post I think. Just as with incest itself I don’t think anyone needs a reason to justify why they would want to read traumatic/horrific situations in fiction and I don’t think there is any correlation between this and personal morals/values but yeah. Anyway

Parent/child:

I think in the case of parent/child usually that kind of relationship is paired with an insane amount of trauma. Something like that would not occur without either something terrible happening, or abuse happening. And again I don’t think anyone needs to justify why they enjoy those tropes in fiction.

I do think there is more of an element of gender roles in a parent/child incest fic vs a sibling/sibling scenario. A fic which is father/daughter is going to be entirely different from father/son or mother/son, mother/daughter. Each one of those has different psychological implications, I feel like. Because the role of “mother” “father” “son” “daughter” all have ingrained societal roles that we are typically expected to follow.

I think when you read a fic which features parent/child incest, there’s a LOT happening psychologically between the characters. It’s usually subversive of what typical nuclear family roles are, in ways that inspire disgust in readers. Like the role of “son” typically has such a barrier from the role of “father” than when the son steps in and takes the role of father (being his mothers sexual or romantic partner) it typically makes people very uncomfortable. And even within the fic one party of the relationship may be uncomfortable.

Some readers perhaps find appeal in that exact feeling of being uncomfortable—the same way you squirm in your seat at a horror movie or when things are unnatural to you. Do you ask people why they enjoy horror movies or why they enjoy murder mysteries? The things that happen there are unnatural as well, and inspire feelings of disgust, but it is because incest is an affront to nature and the gender/familiar roles that are so ingrained in us? Is it because the thought of your father or mother taking on the role of your lover disgusts you? Why? I’m not saying they shouldn’t, but I’m asking you to think about why they do?

Like I’ve written personally many fics of the sibling/sibling variety. But I’ve only ever once written mother/son and once have written father/daughter. And I find it intresting how different the responses are to those. People are very disgusted by parent/child incest in ways that they are not disgusted by sibling/sibling incest. And I wonder why. Deep down they are all immoral. What is it about parent/child that pulls out the most abhorrent disgust from readers? Anyway. I find that reaction just as intresting as the trope itself. Like what does it say about the human psyche that we have such reverence of the relationship to our parents. Is it because I personally do not have such strong feelings about my parents that I don’t feel particularly strongly about parent/child vs sibling/sibling?

I don’t think I know enough about psychology to offer an answer to that question. But I find all aspects of the parent/child topic fascinating. I think maybe because I particularly feel very unloved by my parents that I also find a scenario in which parents feel so strongly for their children to be different to me. I personally grew up in an environment where my mother openly told me many times how much she hated me and how I ruined her life. And my father never said anything to me at all to really indicate that he felt differently. So in particular when I come across fics in which parents want to have a relationship with their child it feels very foreign to me. I think I approach it wanting to understand it or wanting to feel wanted? Not the sexual aspect of it obviously (put down the keyboard, morality police). I think there is a difference between reading a fic with the desire of being wanted as a person vs reading for sexual gratification. NOT THAT ONE IS ABOVE THE OTHER. It’s perfectly fine to feel sexual gratification from reading immoral fiction. But I don’t actually get sexual gratification from reading smut fics, it (For Me) is about being desirable above morals and above what is acceptable in real life.

I think there is an entire different conversation to be had about why people cannot see the distinction between love and sexual desire. I know what you’re thinking reading this: but aleks, the incest fics you read and write have sex in them, so wtf are you talking about? Well. When I read a fanfic that feature incest I usually do not care for “porn without plot” fics. I think incest fiction and pwp do not go together very well. Like I said earlier, incest is usually the product of trauma or abusive scenarios, or unhealthy/unestablished familial roles. These things take time to build up in a fic, and require backstory. In order for an incest fic to reach the point where the two characters will engage in romance, there will have to be backstory to justify why they love or want each other. And this comes before the sexual part. I think, for me, that is where the appeal of an incest fic lies. In that part of the story where they take a “bad” relationship (estranged relatives, or abusive situations, or traumatic situations) and then sort of “fill it” with love/nurturing/etc in the culmination or romantic feelings/feeling of admiration. Idk if I’m getting my point across. But the base need of “fixing” a bad situation with romantic love is what I’m talking about here, not about “fixing” the bad relationship with sex. To me sex is the product of a romantic relationship or feelings of desire, not the product of the damaged relationship itself. Does that make sense?

Anyway. In my mind the smut is not the cause of the incestuous relationship, but the feelings of attraction/desire are.

Incest kink in situations where they aren’t actually related:

This does not pop up as often in fiction explicitly. but I think this version of the incest kink is actually hands down the most intresting to me. I think it is hard to do in a fic so it is not done often. But I think someone who is a stranger doing a roleplay, or taking on functionally the role of a relative, I think that is like… a dynamic I want to study under a microscope. Something about being nurtured and loved by a stranger in a way that you were missing from a relative or on purpose to enact a sexually gratifying taboo… phew.

I haven’t posted it yet but I do have one part of the series I’m working on where the character will choose to pretend to take on the role of your brother. And there’s a reason for that, given earlier in the story. It is to fill in a role that you find lacking. I think it’s intresting to think about…

I think this may in some ways link to more popular kinks like mommy kinks or daddy kinks (WHEN THEY ARE DONE WITH NUANCE/when it is less about the spoken “mommy” or “daddy” and more about the ROLE of “mommy” or “daddy”) because that is a person taking on a role that may have not been done “correctly” the first time. What I mean by that is, putting it simply, like when someone says they have “daddy issues” so they look towards a fatherly partner who, unspokenly, or maybe even spokenly and more obviously, takes on a fatherly role in their personal life (does things for them that are typically reserved for the familial role of a father). Same for someone with “mommy issues” who looks towards a nurturing partner who “mothers” them. This is probably not what you think of when you think of incest kink, but I think in some ways the tropes are the same. I think a lot of this is to fill a role that was not done correctly during the child-rearing portion of your life, and you look to self-soothing through these dynamics in adulthood. Or something to that effect. (This is my own thinking of it and not psychological advice or fact LOL)

Anyway.

TLDR: I think for me a lot of these incestuous dynamics fulfill a need for me that I did not have as a result of various traumatic circumstances that don’t need explanation. I personally have never really found sexual gratification in fanfiction (aka I don’t “get off” to it, but more like, it stimulates/fulfills this inherent desire to be wanted). Aka I should seek therapy but instead read fanfiction to cope with self loathing. 😁

But as a general rule of thumb I do not believe that people inherently need to experience trauma to find these things either appealing or at the very least intresting, or sexually gratifying. People have always been attracted to something taboo, the same way people enjoy horror or people rubberneck on the highway. Things that are “wrong” are just intresting because they are different. The mind is stimulated by things that are different to us. I don’t think it has to be any deeper than that… though in many cases it is. But it doesn’t matter. People don’t have to have a reason! Enjoy your taboo fiction or don’t if you don’t like it! Every kink is valid even if it’s not for you in particular. 😊

[forkaround]

This post is an extension to this post about what can be classified as a BL. I'd rec you read that post first.

I woke up in the morning with this in my notifs and I just....

Anyway, let's break it down:

Does a QL simple mean that the main characters are queer and you go in knowing that?

First of, in my post I say BL is where you know "Boys are kissing boys and girls are kissing girls." If there is no romance (thus the reference to kissing), the show becomes irrelevant to the conversation.

But to answer: What's wrong with that?

That makes literally *anything* centering queer people and queer love a QL

Great! It's QL.

I've seen this pointed out multiple times have these people wondered why they don't want to call something they think is good a QL? What is wrong with the title of QL?

and that imo is somewhat belittling of queer people's existence as in their presence in society as a a given is inherently 'genre'

Yeah, and Pride and Prejudice is a 'straight genre'

If that doesn't make sense, well, that sentence didn't make sense to me. Does making crime shows make the lives of cops and criminals in to a genre??? It's such an absurd statement. Or maybe I'm just sleepy....

this is very different from thinking QL is 'bad'--you'd never call anything with an expected straight romance in it 'romance' by default

Yeah! That's how it works! Romance is romance. Romance is a genre. It's literally the biggest genre there is. There is more romance written, published, made into animation or live action than literally any other genre by a huge margin.

Romance can and is often combined with other genres. Doesn't change that it is a romance.

you'd call it whatever genre it is; when you meet a series of fitting tropes you'd call it a rom-com

What does rom stand for again?

Romance is often used with other genres, from action to horror to contemporary to fantasy to sci-fi.

This I think primarily comes from people not knowing how genres work. It's not a Boolean (as one would say in computer science). It's not a True/False thing where if it's action it can't be romance. If it's romance it can't be political.

As they say: It contains multitides.

shouldn't queer stories be afforded the same discretion?

Moonlight Chicken, Kinnporsche, Old Fashion Cupcake, Bad Buddy, Love in the Air, Not Me, 180 Degrees, GAP the series, HIStory 3: Trapped, About Youth, Mood Indigo, Cherry Magic, I could go on. You don't have to go anywhere else for it. BL already has it all.

So I'll ask again: Why do you feel that 'BL' is a bad word?

Other people have wrote about this with better sources and much deeper understanding so I'll try my best to convey it here:

As I understand the situation, something got lost in translation when yaoi travelled from Japan to the US and people started understanding yaoi to be a 'dirty' genre, that did not depict honest queerness despite it being made up of majorly queer people. It became the genre that was 'for straight women by straight women'. If you look at US the same phenomenon can be observed when people talk, or at least talked, about slash fiction. Mix in some cultural context and yaoi goes from a fun escapist genre to the bane of queer existence genre. Fiction is enjoyed differently in different parts of the world. Nothing wrong with that. Hell, nothing unique or special with that statement either. It's a fact of life. If Shakespeare can't be universal, as many like to claim, we should not expect the same of anything else.

And let's never forget how westerners think their version of queerness is the only real version. I've had personal experience with this and I can say: People need to open their minds and understand that not everything is from their perspective. When I encounter any American thing in a show or book, I simply slide past it because I'm not American. I've never been to America. It doesn't change the story itself, so why bother, what would be the point. If people applied that approach instead of analyzing every detail and expecting it to fit your world view then we would all be happier.

(It turned sappy at the end there. I'm sleepy.)

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

okay so i know no one cares but the internet is for yelling about your feelings and so i shall do just that! i think education on kink is so misinterpreted by the Youths on the internet (which proves they're too young and immature to even be having convos abt kink...) and there are also many minors who are into all that tiktok written porn and wattpad shit which has sorta leaked onto tumblr as well. and like i can't know who reads or writes that shit but it Smells Of Youth lol, and like and god knows that i read porn as a minor but ...... adksjhfgfdasdjhf you know?? at least i was aware i was in spaces not meant for me lol and behaved accordingly.

so i read a short lil ficlet that was on my recommended page (ofc a larissa/reader thing lol) that i think shows exactly what's wrong with the younger generations (not to sound like an old lady but you know what i mean) and that is that they are more concerned with appearances rather than the content -- that is, something checking all the boxes of safety rather than it actually being safe.

in their crusade for Righteousness and Political Correctness (even tho i hate using that word bc that's what far-right ppl use when they don't like that minorities want to be treated with respect) they forget that like. you can't slap a "this is okay label" on something that isn't okay and that magically makes it okay.

what i mean by that is that in that ficlet -- and it doesn't matter which one it is bc they are all basically the same fic regurgitated over and over again with slight changes -- we are clearly talking about a fucked up scenario: a principal pursuing and wanting to fuck her student! but THEN she says "if you want me to stop just say red" as if that makes it all okay?? it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of safewords and what they are for. nothing was negotiated or talked about, she DEMANDED that this clearly young person call her mommy even though no preferences were discussed prior etc etc.

and my beef with this is like, if you're gonna write a fucked up scenario (and god knows i love those), you should not try to signal with your narrative choices that what is happening is okay, unless it is a literary choice that somehow serves the story. but what i've read and keep reading feels like aha! not problematic bc we are all over 18 and we have safewords! so nothing could ever go wrong :) please, treat a fucked up scenario like a fucked up scenario! commit to your fucked up fantasy goddamit! stop trying to virtue signal! you're writing about a principal fucking her student and abusing her power, which is okay and you should be able to write about that! but she's not uwu mommy askjdhfsg you know?? and i think that's why so many people got mad at me for writing my fucked up shit (inevitable specifically) and it's bc i wrote basically what the narrative they keep writing about would look like in real life lol, and i didn't do any of the performative stuff they do to make it Okay and Not Problematic. someone would end up hurt, i promise you! it's okay to have your fucked up fantasies, just don't pretend they're not just that -- fucked up fantasies that need to be carefully managed if you ever want to engage in something that mimics it in real life.

it's really dangerous that all these Youths keep using bdsm terminology without understanding what it means. safewords, dom/sub dynamics, aftercare... if you write a sexual assault scene and slap aftercare on it, it is still sexual assault. if someone coerces you to have sex with them (and there is more way than one to coerce a person to sleep with you without using any force) but say oh you can have a safeword and i'll stop :))) that is still sexual assault lol. you saying the words doesn't mean anything.

also, i'm not saying there aren't inherent power dynamics in any relationship, not just with age gap stuff which is a popular trope in these fics, but like they need to be addressed and managed if you want to write a Healthy Relationship(TM). there is a social power imbalance between men and women and yet het relationships exist and work! but if you don't wanna write that, if you wanna write your "mommy that sorta rapes me but not really" fantasy, by all means keep doing it but pleaaaase call it what it is! otherwise it's just confusing and harmful for all the young people on these webbed sites.

i am all for fucked up shit, both reading and writing it, and there should be space for everyone to unload their bullshit on the internet. however, problems arise when fucked up shit is being sold as Good(TM) bc it checks certain boxes and basically passes as Not Problematic uwu on a technicality, rather than examining the actual content. there are ways to examine fucked up desires and the dark side the human psyche, but what is not productive is slapping buzzwords on stuff and saying oh it's Moral(TM) now. fiction doesn't have to be moral. please give up on that notion! but if it's trying to be, then it shouldn't endorse prettily packaged sexual assault lol.

[casiavium]

Can't sleep again. Thinking about how I don't like knight/prince(ss) as a trope. Besides the fact that it's boring to me. This isn't "discourse" or a call out or anything it's just a personal interpretation and analysis

while yeah there's nothing wrong with that level of power imbalance in fiction, these tropes always act like that's a cute thing which I just find to be. 😬 y'know. Referring to a character as a "pet" for the royal one without understanding that that's. not a great dynamic to have. The "don't call them toxic or problematic!" When the relationship is inherently not equal and can never be without issues, but this can't possibly be discussed because then the person who ships it is a bad person 🙃

and for someee reason still bitching about the "more obvious" power imbalances like enemies, who most of the time end up being MORE equal because they're the same person same situation different fonts

It's fine to me when it's used as an insult (something something loyalty) and then there's discussion of "you know you mean so much more to me than that", or when there's a Very Obviously Fucked Up imbalance that is Very Obviously Not Normal and yet the one that gets the short end of the stick is like "fuck this I don't care that you think you're better than me. Your power only exists because I give you it, so be very careful how you use it" (and when they use it wrong there are consequences that don't get magically forgiven)

If the one with less control isn't very very aware of how much power the other has over them and could exert if they wanted to (but also the fact that the relationship and its genuineness hinges on their agreement) it gets a bit too concerning for me. If there isn't a certain level of meta intertextual analysis and understanding of the way the very much dominant/submissive dynamic works then it's just. Not interesting and often frustrating

Edit: this should have said intra-textual ("in the text itself", which I apparently not a word) not inter-textual (between texts)

[wonderinc-sonic]

I was feeling down but this video cheered me up so here is several pages of observations that are not needed

Observations of no merit undercut.

Team Sonic

The world is wrong about Tails. This voice is absolutely adorable.

Sonic does a fun lil quill flip. I like that.

Knuckles is so so angry at everything. We must never forget he hates almost everything.

Knuckles has a punching animation. Nobody elses idles are as enthusiastically aggressive, even Omegas.

Tails stroked the ground as an idle animation. Is this a thing or a trope? Does it mean something?

Honestly I had seen all of these mostly a bunch bc I rewatched a team sonic playthrough recently so had more to say on the others.

Team Dark

Rouge: "I haven't seen the president lately.". Have I forgotten the context for this, or is this just a real useless flex? You're telling the two ppl who care and know the least about social connections. You can't flaunt your sometimes- close relationship with the president. They don't know what a country is.

Omega's step from foot to foot where his arms wave is absolutely adorable.

Shadow in Grand Metropolis: "Why am I attracted to this place?". I get it's all egg tech etc., but he hadn't been there before had he?

Omega calls Casino Park a waste of energy. We love an environmentalist king.

Rouge: "I wonder what caused Shadow to lose his memory?". Was it not the falling from the sky? He should be mush, and you're confused as to how his brain got addled? Wild of you Rouge. Very out of pocket. See how you do dropped on your head from Ark.

Omega: "Shadow was unleashed just as I was. Who is he?" I had forgotten Omega had any interest in shadows story at this point, all I remembered was him wanting to kill eggman.

Omega: "Shadow, that android must be an alien. Unable to analyse." I suppose it is, if it's made from Shadow! Another Omegobservation I had forgotten he knew how to make. My clever lil man.

Rouge: "I wonder if Shadow is alright?" Awww

Shadow asks a lot of questions. He is a queer and questioning hog whenever you stand still and let him

While Omega complains about the humidity levels, Rouge gives us: "This pond is spooky!". Is it?? You wuss. Love you

Shadow: "Sonic. Why does that name BOTHER me so much?" Love this delivery. Actually adore this voice direction for Shadow and others in this game. he sounds kinda soft in these quiet lines. I miss it.

Once again, Rouge thinks the house feels "spooky". This one is more warranted. She's still kinda a wuss for being scared of frogs though. I believe Tails had a line about disliking the frogs. Will see if Cream and Charmy agree.

Team Rose

Favourite Amy voice direction. She's so darling.

Also prefer Cream's voice here to the even squeakier later one. Has more variety.

Big: "We run fast." just made me chuckle.

Cream strokes her lil ears I think. Adorable.

Does Big only have one animation? Everyone else had 2! Unfair!

I do love Amy's searching around. She's doing such a good job! Or, at least as good a job as Team Sonic (seasoned pro adventurer), Team Dark (With government intel and two weapons) and Team Chaotix (professional detectives). And Big and Cream aren't doing loads of the thinking. Point is, she rocks!

Big: "Could froggy be from here?" a question nobody ever wondered, nor would ever be answered. Now I have to know. Froggy origin story when?

Cream also thinks the pond is spooky! I mean, she gets away with it. She isn't a secret agent, she's just a baby. Theory that Flight type characters are the only ones that get to be scared continues.

Cream: "Something surely isn't quite right here!" SHE IS SO ELOQUENT! She's just a baby but she's gonna be so smart!

Amy agrees with Rouge, it's a spooky house. Loving the use of spooky in this game. It's such a good word. Doesn't inherently say they're scared, just acknowledging its odd, also got a dash of whimsy. Spooky should be freed from halloween jail and used more in daily life.

Team Rose - especially Amy - say I wonder a lot. Actually, I think everyone sorta does. I guess because theyre thinking aloud, but they could have come up with more sentences.

All of Team Rose relying on vibes and intuition. Their vibes and intuition are, as discussed above, very accurate.

Team Chaotix

CHARMYS VOICE IS SO CUTE "The sound of waves makes me sleepy" He is a BABY I love him

Vector's singing to himself and dancing is actually so precious. He's so funky

Espio gives us a bunch of spiritual ninja quotes, then "Where's chao?". Is that how you correctly refer to Chao, or is he just tired now. "Oi. where chao. Cmere."

Is Vector from like Boston or smthn? never noticed. I don't know my US accents. The line about the electric bill has a twang.

Vector: "If the turtles are made of real gold, I'll have no problems finding 'em. Haha!" Is he suggesting he has an instinct for treasure? a lot of witchy bitches in the sonic world, and he does breathe fire, so maybe

Vector actually complains about being in the Casino. I am going to politely ignore that bc I still think Gambling Chaotix is a better theory. Maybe he just doesn't like it this time, but he sounds pretty resigned.

When Charmy says 'we will crush you!' in the happiest little voice I wonder if maybe I do want kids. Only if they also want to go on adventures with me and can fly.

Charmy's little arms and leg dance thing is also absolutely precious

Charmy: "I want a closer look at that frog!". Yeah! I knew he wasn't a scaredy baby! Eat that, other fliers.

Espio speaks in the most serious tone, but says nothing helpful and provides no information. Personally love that for him. It's like someone asked him for comment but he just has one fly in his brain and is concentrating on catching it with his tongue. All style no substance. Love you Espio

Espio looks like he has been buffed and waxed. So shiny when he moves his head. Everyones shiny but he is super shiny.

Charmy is also not afraid of the haunted house! This is a subtle nod to the fact that he's the best boi.

Espio: "Kinda reminds me of a ninja hideout, full of traps." THIS SOUNDS LIKE A GUY WHOS LYING! Definitely adding this to 'Espio is a fraud' bank. Also, 'kinda'? I Kinda forgot he uses contractions. Never use them in dialogue for him. Interesting.

I like that Charmy repeats words often, it's a nice verbal habit to use, very cutesy and childish, unlike other child characters.

Vector: "Eggman must be really rich! I wonder if he'd hire us..." - I always thought Vector knew all along who hired them! I am wrong evidently, or this is some weirdly delivered sarcasm. Maybe he's hiding things from the others? But when Rouge did that over searching for treasure ('I mean- Eggman!') they made it pretty clear. I think most likely he didn't know.

Espio: "For the sake of all ninjas, it's my duty to rescue our client." Okay first of all: its your duty because you're being paid. Secondly, you don't know shit about ninjas. Is it a pride thing? Espio you daft boy. Absolutely clowning. Silly little man.

Vector: "Why did Eggman kidnap our client?" So he really didn't know? He had me convinced he was smarter than he was. A good hustle.

[yousta]

(Sigh) I know I don't normally make posts that express my raw thoughts but I'd really like to start talking more personal. So this is my first attempt.

I'd like to say hello to members of the obsessive love, IRL yandere/lovesick community. I'm like hyper-fixated on you guys as I feel like I can empathize with so many, which was a unique experience for me.

If you've posted in the last couple months chances are I've probably went through your account. That's how I met my girlfriend, I know you're reading, Hiii honey bunny I love you so much.

Sure I have my own defined idea of the concept and what I like about it like everyone else does I'm sure. I'm sometimes selective with what I'll interact with. Which is part of what I wanted to talk to you about today. What I personally see, the good the bad the ugly, just the whole thing.

I'll start with the potential...

In my life, I isolated myself for many years because I couldn't find anyone who wanted to pay attention to me long enough to understand me, let alone care enough to actually love me. Which I more or less assumed was a trend of people identifying as lovesick, no one will know what you need better than yourself after all.

Obsessive love is making a point of love being a major focus in your life. Which is great you would think, until the rest of the world sees you as just another fish in the sea. They wouldn't recognize you for it as anything real, because not many people value upfront love. Everyone excepts liars and cheaters because that's all people seem to do without intention.

The act of being needy isn't attractive, it's why not everyone's giving money to a homeless person you have no connection to. Well I wanted to take a moment and say this is not that for me.

I read you guys everyday, I'm convinced a lot of you are seemingly inherently obsessive about a lot of the things you do, because given the platform you communicate yourself so coherently, so open and in touch with what you know you need. To the point when I first started reading people here. I was confused, feeling like I knew them even though it was parasocial.

Well that's because I relate to your struggle better than my own irl friends in those ways. I just wanted to say you're my favorite fish. I know I could never give you that love you desire as I'm taken, but I really want to extend the offer of friendship to each and every one of you, because I want to create a place for you to be recognized for all the love you've given. It may be platonic but I love you as the light of this world.

Of course nothing is all sunshine and rainbows.

There's people who'd intentionally ignore the warning signs or have such low self awareness, they won't or can't see what they're representing certainly has the potential to be or become toxic. Whether if it's for yourself or others.

Possessing but recognizing violent thoughts as intrusive is one thing, but identifying yourself by having those thoughts. I can't help but to acknowledge how you're building yourself up, creating momentum in a direction I don't think you or anyone truly wants. My question to you is why?

Hopefully you're just being very far removed from your words and the reality of you're saying, hopefully you're too deep into some strange character or persona you've invented and can separate yourself from it. Yet it seems to me that this is not always the case... Some members of the community are really struggling.

I mean I understand, people I knew growing up didn't have any real defined idea about love or stepped with any firm intention. So I understand why something like you see in these yan tropes could be appealing.

I grew up in a city where everyone is really cold to one another. Honestly I've lived here all my life and never felt like I truly know or trust anyone. Which when I was younger lead to a lot of moments I lacked insight I needed, to get my desired out come. I don't think you're barking up the wrong tree entirely however.

Which is why with this post and in future ones. I really want to help you guys with some general advice to set your intention, get your perspective and mindset right for loving in this style. I think I'd be a good person to ask, as I'm currently very sucuessful and happy in my current relationship. If any of you ever need to talk more personally though, my DMs are open for anyone who needs to vent.  

[madtomedgar]

Why do so many JGY stans see him as “female-coded”? I get that he’s associated with his mother Meng Shi a lot in the narrative but to me it’s more like he embodies what she could’ve been if she had male privilege.

It's complicated and due to a lot of reasons and, I think, depends on what you mean.

Part of it is generic fandom nonsense that has been around since forever where the smaller/younger guy in any ship is the bottom/girl, and his actual personality gets overwritten to fit into fandom tropes. The narrative makes a big deal out of jgy being smaller and less physically powerful than the other members of his triad, people latch onto this with yaoi goggles, and it gets stupid fast.

Part of it is racism. There's been a trend lately, which i think started with kpop people and has breached containment, of (white, western) tumblr users seeing slim East Asian men with pop star makeup or long hair or purple lighting and deciding they must be feminine, gender non conforming, trans, non binary, ~gender~ or whatever. It's even worse if the guy is shorter and/or has a cute face. Zhu Zanjin has a cute face, his character is small, you see where this is going. And seeing East Asian men as feminine has a long history in anti-asian racism.

Part of it is ignorance/racism. Chinese masculine archetypes are not the same as western ones, and Chinese masculinity doesn't look like western masculinity. The scholar-official is a Chinese masculine archetype (I believe. I may be wrong about this, as I am not Chinese, so please take what Chinese bloggers have to say about this more seriously than what I am saying) and Jin Guangyao seems, to me, to be very much a scholar-official. His hat is extremely masculine/professional (like a necktie) but western audiences just think it's silly or related to his mom. His elegance, delicacy, lack of physical prowess compared to the others around him, read as effeminate to a western audience, but are absolutely masculine in his own context. This happens with nie huaisang a lot too, where because of his flightiness and artyness and specifically his fan, he gets read as effeminate. Fans, however, were a masculine accessory, specifically for the scholar or the artist, which, again, are masculine types. Feels very similar to how bookish Jewish men get read as effeminate by white gentiles, meanwhile The Pinacle of Manhood in Ashkenazi culture has, historically, been the Rabbi or the scholar. But yeah, a lot of it is people not thinking about him in context.

Part of it is that the way he is overlooked, forced to be So Polite to people who are approaching him with violence in order to survive, the people-pleasing, the deference, and, specifically, the way other characters read malicious sexuality into everything he does, when he is doing everything he can to not suggest that and how uncomfortable he is with that, the hypercompetence being taken for granted and overlooked, the working his ass off and getting no credit and then getting chastised when he points that out, the way he's subject to violence by people larger and stronger than him and told "well just don't make them mad," the way he has to be so careful about any hint of sex surrounding his public persona because that is all it will take for people to tear him apart, while not being an experience exclusive to women by any means, is extremely familiar to a lot of women, and so a lot of women and people who caucus with women relate to him in a very particular "oh same hat" kind of way. It's worth noting that none of the other male characters in the story really have this kind of thing going on. It's only him. Some have pieces of this but not the whole thing, so it starts to look specific to something inherent in the character, so.

Part of it is that his character gets a certain shitty treatment from a lot of fandom that you usually only see applied to female characters. Like. People really love to make him a Vamp, a Seductress, a Femme Fatale, a Manipulative Gone Girl Type, a Bitchy Sassy type, and read everything he does in this way. So many """"fix-its""" for him are some variation on "just keep him barefoot pregnant and in the kitchen," but it's "this time he is too busy getting dicked down to scheme," and like... it's weird? This is where you get people talking about the "jin guangyao specific misogyny." because like. He's not a woman, but fandom treats him like a Despised Female Character and it's very weird.

Hope that answers your question.

[courtblacksmith]

As I've promised before, even if I feel extremely tired, I shall bring forth the list of reasons why Wes/Pendle honestly works as a contestant for another minor 'romantic' (in quotations because of a point I'm going to make later on) subplot, or just how they work so well that it would be really good for them to be canon. it's also a list of reasons why it's the best written dynamic so far and how it shows Weaver's improvement in writing

to start I want to bring forth the famous board which is a staple of my long lasting brain rot ..

This one's obvious. Everyone(the small following of Divequest fans) loves the oddly tragic gay people trope. Probably. Well some of us do!

Oddly enough, they have the most intriguing and strong in a sense dynamic out of the entire cast, somehow suppressing the Only Ever Canon Divequest Couple in terms of the feels.

The inherent homoromanticism of letting your closest comrade to break your limbs for the sake of his and that girl you almost killed's safety. Need I say more?

You might just say "but Quinn, that does not make sense!!" Well, you are extremely wrong with this one! It was mainly due to Wes's thoughts as it happened, and while it might be just read as 'extremely close friends(tragic)', it somehow doesn't.. feel like that to me, and.. uh. This small following of fellow people who get me. I mean.

This one is so important to me. The fact that a portion of that messed up lore really brings them together and makes them important to each other's stories and lives in general in such a heartwrenching way. As the user @renardtrickster said,

To the part above, this is what gets me the most. Even if all of the interactions they had before the end of 26 weren't even Pendle, but the Spider masquerading as him, it always stayed the same. Wes still treated Pendle as his closest comrade, and not a foe,especially when it got revealed that he is still there, if the 'buddy'(which was said twice, once in 26 and the other time in 28) meant anything special, and the genuine concern even though they both knew that it had to be done. Chapter 28 delivers with the most heartwrenching conversation too.

Speaking of chapter 28! This is the second moment that ever made me almost cry. They make me so emotional in every way. There's something so oddly intimate(in my own meaning of intimacy I guess) in this part that it's so sad it was this short.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I don't think they'd be presented in the stereotypical romance way, but something more based on traumabonding and healing together. You can really go crazy with their relationship

They're mirrors, and they reflect each other quite well! Wes doesn't like to talk as much, Pendle rambles like crazy. Wes isn't squeamish when it comes to gore and corpses, because he got used to the sights due to being a war veteran, and Pendle faints at the sight of bodies. Wes doesn't really care about how he lives, he only cares about if he gets to do his job, and Pendle has special 'rules' to the quality of his life because he's used to a more noble life. There's also many more stuff I can mention

This is just a more general thing but I feel like they can bond over the whole thing with death and all. Even if their standpoints and roles were different, they still couldn't stop any of the deaths surrounding them , even if Wes was just used to the sights and Pendle had to watch the Spider murder in his body while he couldn't really do anything.

Anyways, as a last thing, I'd really hope for an interlude chapter related to just Pendle and his journey of healing and re-establishing his relationships. I think he deserves it

[bbygirl-aemond]

Hello, I’m a trans man, so I can offer my perspective on some of this bullshittery that’s happening. The hyperfeminization/infantilization is something I see a lot with m/m ships, and 99% of the time it’s to the person in the submissive role and it’s especially prevalent when that submissive partner is smaller/less built than their counterpart. I personally absolutely HATE when people do this especially because I get treated that way. I get treated like a soft uwu boy and like I’m a lot younger than I am A LOT. It’s frustrating as all hell considering I am a grown ass man who thinks the word wiener is the height of comedy. I am firmly in your corner for disliking fics that have those kinds of tropes in them, they piss me off SO MUCH. Also, I really don’t see what the big issue was for you saying that you saw a lot of it and didn’t like it/like the ship. It’s not like you’re telling people they can’t like it, you’re just offering an observation of what you’ve seen and personal reasons you don’t like it, end of story. I for one appreciate your writing and the way you’ve avoided some of those tropes a lot of fics fall into. I hope everyone burns out their 5 seconds of pissyness and you have a good night/afternoon/morning

response below the cut!

haha thank you for helping to reassure me about this. i genuinely think a ton of people are misinterpreting what i'm trying to say, and based on that interpretation i do really understand why they're upset. they think i'm saying it is inherently wrong and bad to write lucerys to be intersex, an omega, a bottom, etc. and i would be angry at anyone who tried to make that claim, bc it is a transphobic claim to make. but that's not what i'm saying! i mean, my own bf is trans for god's sake, and you don't see me hounding him about being problematic because he has a vagina.

these things by themselves aren't problematic at all, and i've never said that they are. the phenomenon i'm actually addressing is when this is taken to the extreme. when luke isn't JUST an omega or a bottom, but is ALSO made into this soft uwu virgin damsel in distress spineless caricature of of character, one that takes underage elliot grihault's youthful appearance and fetishizes it. as if being a bottom/omega means he has to be all of these other things.

i love reading about male characters who are feminine. i mean, plenty of these tropes are present in stormbreak. but having feminine traits shouldn't mean that your agency, your strength, and your intelligence is sacrificed. like, these things can and should coexist. like you said, trans men should be free to embrace being trans or being feminine without worrying that they'll be dehumanized, fetishized, or infantilized.

and finally, i'm not even saying people have to stop consuming the content, even the parts i think are highly problematic! i'm not saying they need to publicly declare anything! (though i do firmly believe in authors having disclaimers, as i have my own disclaimers on all my fics for the problematic content within, including stormbreak.) i just would like them do some personal reflection to make sure they understand what they're consuming and then continue about their business as usual. it's a bit weird to me that so many people were like "guess i'll die" rather than be like "oh yeah lol it's a bit based on patriarchy, i'll keep that in mind to make sure i don't internalize it as i keep consuming it."

[jewishvitya]

So I think this is the last post I'll make on the subject of Hogwarts Legacy, unless someone has a genuine and respectful question. I'm done.

I had an anon I'm not planning to post because they were excusing and denying JKR's transphobia. They're blocked. But in their ask, they also said something else, and I'll address that because I think it might be useful to remember beyond a conversation about this game.

They said that all the issues I take with the franchise from an antisemitism perspective are ridiculous, because they conflict with the main story, in which JKR's heroes fight against blood supremacists who are an allegory of Nazis.

This idea has things backwards. You aren't doing Jewish people a favor when you use our trauma as inspiration for your fantasy story.

In my opinion, using real atrocities as inspiration for stories isn't inherently wrong. If you want to have bigotry in the social dynamics of your story, it's good to look at history and what real people went through.

But you need to look at this the right way: this is the trauma that real people still carry, and you are using it to enrich your story. If you aren't doing it respectfully, you're just exploiting it.

I repeatedly said that with regards to antisemitism, I don't think JKR was intentionally harmful. But unintentional harm is still harm, and she never acknowledged it or apologized. She wrote the goblins and dismissed criticism as ridiculous because she didn't mean to do it. She used the holocaust in her Fantastic Beasts movies in an awful way. She even had a supposedly Jewish character join Grindelwald, another wizard Nazi allegory. So even if she can't change the books, the stories that get added to her franchise keep making it worse.

She repeatedly uses different kinds of bigotry in ways that are deeply disrespectful to the way marginalization works in reality. She isn't being careful or respectful. That's why I see her use of a Nazi allegory as the main villains - not once but twice - as exploitative.

I'm not going to give her credit for it as if it makes her an ally to Jewish people. These are the easiest villains to write, since they're (kinda justifiably) seen as the ultimate evil. With fascism on the rise everywhere, this gets more openly challenged, but it wasn't while she was writing the stories.

If you have them as your villains, you aren't doing us a favor, you're taking on a responsibility to treat antisemitism seriously.

And now she joined the fight on the side of fascists, like all TERFs and "gender critical" people did.

Side note: personally, I think the repeated use of the Nazis as the ultimate villains in stories both cheapened and dehumanized them to a dangerous degree. "Nazi" seems like an overblown insult instead of a an ideology. Their evil seems either mythological or cartoonish, something that can't be encountered in real life by real people. A trope, an archetype, a bunch of stock characters.

I'm not saying that writers are at fault for problematic attitudes. I'm not putting that on them. But I think it's an added point for why you don't automatically get credit for having Nazis as your villains. Think of the way people explain why they hate Umbridge more than Voldemort: you can meet someone like Umbridge, but Voldemort? That's a step too far, it's an evil that seems unrealistic.

This very popular explanation always felt off to me. It is realistic. It happened before and it can happen again.

[rayclubs]

Am I correct in saying that you don't like nb pyro, trans scout, and gender-fluid spy mainly because they're not creative? Like you wanna see people almost "not state the obvious"?

Slightly unrelated lmao when you said you thought that trans scout was transphobic I was totally like, "Oh yeah I think he'd totally have some internalized transphobia." So, what do you think about the mercs and that? If they do/don't & how they deal with internalized transphobia/homophobia or gender dysphoria in general?

Sorry if any of that came off as rude, I didn't mean for it to.

No, creativity isn't the issue here at all.

To be clear, I don't think that any character interpretation having any gender or sexuality is inherently creative, just how in real life being LGBTQ+ is not a trend but a state of being. The creativity in character creation or analysis comes from exploring how their gender and/or sexuality relates to and is a part of their life experiences, relationships, values, personality, culture, self-expression, and other defining aspects of their existence.

My issue with nonbinary Pyro, transgender Scout, and genderfluid Spy is that of redundancy, or worse - insidious bigoted rhetoric. Hateful, malicious people have spent years reimagining the diversity of queer experience into a collection of easily-strawmanned "tropes" and delusions, and the media took them and ran with them for almost as long as it existed en masse. Scout by design is what a prejudiced mind imagines a trans man to be, Spy's genderfluidity is assumed because he doesn't fit a centuries-old patriarchal understanding of masculinity, and - the worst offense for me, personally - in my close, regional, almost familial culture nonbinary people are still seen as obscure non-human creatures, such as Pyro is occasionally implied to be.

It's... understandable, really. Plenty of trans guys relate to Scout, I know genderfluid people who see themselves in Spy, and enough nonbinary people have told me how much Pyro means to them for me to learn to keep my voice down when I talk about this. I'm not asking people to stop making these interpretations, I'm only asking you to please consider where they come from, and to broaden your horizons with other, more varying, more meaningful ideas besides.

Now, as for your other, more loaded question - I will not be making TF2 transphobia headcanons, because I do not want to and would not be comfortable doing it. I know you meant neither offense nor harm by asking, and none is taken, but that's a firm "no", and now I have to clarify why because I want anyone misinterpreting my stance here.

I live in a place where same-sex marriage is still illegal. Transgender people have no legal rights in this country, and I have found myself wondering "Is this the part where I get hate-crimed?" much more often than I would wish even upon my worst enemies. So, no, I'm not one of those who think you can never ever put bigotry in your stories and headcanons because something-something gay people can have stories that aren't tragedies. Because fuck me, some of us are still living those tragedies, and many people have it way worse than me in the year of bloody 2023, so - I'm getting off track. The point is, you can put anything in your stories. You can have your characters deal with internalized or systematized bigotry, and I think that's perfectly fine, whichever way you may want to do it.

The reason I'm not doing it is ONLY because I myself, personally, don't want to. Not because it is rude, or immoral, or wrong, or "problematic" (I hate this word), or children might read it, or it's bad representation, or any such bullshit argument. It's just me, and I'm very tired, and I hope nobody sends me any negativity over this, but I've kinda braced myself already so go ahead anyway. Cheers!

[buck-yyyy]

hi yes hello everyone get ready to read about my one-way ticket to hell, ie. me comparing stranger things to christianity

thanks to @aemiron-main's post for giving me Thoughts about henry and also the holy trinity

WARNING!!! this is incredibly biased because i'm very much agnostic and have very specific ideas about religion, so. if you're very religious you may not want to read this-

for anyone who wasn't raised around christianity (you lucky bastards), the holy trinity is the father, the son, and the holy spirit- the father being god, the son being jesus, and the holy spirit being,,,,,, something. i don't actually know what's up with the holy spirit. essentially, they're separate entities, but inherently one and the same, simply the embodiment of god.

but aemiron talking about how there's all these names for henry and what he is/does, whether it be vecna or the mindflayer or whatever, really got me thinking about how so much of theology and religion is about perception. henry isn't vecna, or the mindflayer- henry is henry. these names are simply dnd characters that have been attributed to him by kids attempting to understand the seemingly impossible- very common trope in eldritch horror.

but that also goes along with a common line of thought about religion- that it was formed as a way to cope with day to day life, to create an understanding for the unexplainable. very similar, eh?

i suppose my idea is based around the thought that henry is the father, or paralleled (for lack of a better word) to god- he's the one who started it all, he is the mindflayer and 001 and vecna and all of these things.

the mindflayer would be the son, or jesus- born of henry, henry's own creation, and yet it's simply a representation of who henry is and what he stands for. the mindflayer is a tool used for the “salvation” (ie. murder) of humanity in order to fit into his ideals, because humanity's current routine (eat, sleep, work, reproduce, and die) he views as a sin that needs to be corrected and he uses the mindflayer as the way to do that, similar to how god sent jesus to earth as a way to aid humanity in the forgiving of their sins. (i think. it's been a hot second since i've dove into theology, please correct be if i'm wrong about something).

and thus, wouldn't vecna be the holy spirit? when you look up what the holy spirit is, google tells you that "The Holy Spirit is the power of God at work on the Earth."

vecna is the very physical amalgamation to henry's plans. while the mindflayer set it all in action in seasons two and three, vecna is the version of henry that gets it DONE. vecna opens the gates, vecna kills the four kids, vecna is who the kids see as the man at the helm of it all.

again, consulting google: "It is through the power and workings of the Holy Spirit that God is known today, and how Christians can know what God wants them to do." VECNA is the only reason that the kids understand what henry's end goal is. VECNA is how they'll find a way to beat him. VECNA is the beginning of the end.

i dunno. maybe this is just a big stretch and i'm making connections where there are none, because honestly i don't know what any of this means, but i thought it was quite interesting just how perfectly it fits in, so- thoughts?

(@wibble-wobbegong- feel free to ignore this, but i remember you talking about researching the saints in the russian church, so i was curious of your opinion lol-)