#i've seen some really bad outrage out there and i just don't get it

[thefirstknife]

The destiny reddit is an absolute warzone right now. Do yourself a favor and avoid it like the plague

Oh no. I saw a lot of negative comments overall and while I understand where they're coming from, I think at some point, some people should calm down.

I mentioned some of the issues I had with the campaign and I stand by them, I think some of this stuff definitely felt rushed and that we're sorely lacking basic information to understand the plot. But I can get over that if it's fairly reasonable to believe we'll find out eventually (and it is) and if the rest is solid. And to me, the rest is solid.

I know people have issues with strand taking too much time from the campaign, and I get it. But also to me, strand being such a huge part of the story made the campaign feel more personal and invested for US, the Guardian. To me, that was the point. I do wish the campaign was a bit more expansive, perhaps another mission or two would've been perfect imo. An extra mission could've delved into the history of the Veil and what it means. It's a legitimate complaint that I share, but also some people online have been expressing it... rather explosively.

I'd also add a counter to my own complaint; when it comes to the plot about the Veil and the Witness and the Traveler, it's clear that this isn't the end; it's a setup. Everything that happened here we can learn about retroactively in a month or six months or a year. It may suck because it's content for THIS expansion so we want to know now, but it CAN be explained later.

But strand? Strand can't. We have to learn it NOW. We can't get strand and then have a really cool personal discovery quest about mastering it in a month or six or a year. So if they didn't have time to fit another two missions into the campaign, it's fairly obvious what is being cut.

Is it clumsy? Yeah, definitely. I definitely feel like some crucial information has been deliberately cut away and removed, possibly waiting to be delivered during the year to prepare us for The Final Shape. I'm not a fan of that method, I would prefer a solid chunk of lore about the current story to be delivered in the current story. If anything, then for clarity. Especially because the majority of the players will not be waiting around to read 15 lore tabs during the year to figure out what's the Veil. A major expansion should be self-contained.

But for the love of god, some of what I've seen online is basically some players acting like we have E.T. (1982) on our hands. Like, I agree that there's issues and I've spoken about them and I can do it again at any point, but at the end of the day, I had fun and the good stuff was good. Literally my only true complaint is that it feels like a mission or two are missing. Pretty much every problem I have would've been solved with that. But that's an unknown amount of extra time of work so I cannot make a comment whether they could've done that or not. I will assume they couldn't so they didn't. Generally don't like assuming that they did it maliciously because then we go into dev harrassment territory.

[thefangirlfever]

I needed to make a post about this because...well, the title says everything.

First of all I would like to say that I'm feeling a bit anxious sharing my thoughts about this. I don't know if I'm the most qualified to talk about this but it has been bugging me.

I know a lot of people have already discussed the way Miguel, a POC and a latino man out of all people, has been oversexualized to a point that it feels fetishy and a bit concerning sometimes. I think we can all acknowledge this and that already gives us a lot to think about.

But what I think is really interesting is that not only is Miguel an intentional thirst-trap, he is a thirst-trap created mainly by a team of male producers/ writers. From what I read, the people in charge of his character design were men (I want to say that I am by no mean attacking anyone who worked on this movie. They did an amazing job and I am just sharing my thoughts, not saying they are bad people for this choise or anything. Thank you).

And I find this very telling. Because when I first saw this headline, I thought "Oh finally, women have been given the chance to freely thirst over a male character the same way men do." And I think it was a big mistake from me to think this way. (First of all, there are also men and non-binary simping over him). Because, let's be real for one second there, do we really want to thirst over characters the way men do? I have been an anime fan for years and let me tell you, the way a lot of men/ fanboys view female characters is simply gross (I know, I know, not all men). It's also something I noticed in comics and video games. Like, have you seen the outrage when a video game studio wants to propose female characters who do not look like what some p*rn addicts imagines women are?

My point is that Miguel has been created not with the female gaze in mind, but with the male gaze (and it hurts to say this). That's what I got from reading the part of the interview. The emphasis on his butt, the overly masculine, muscular body... Miguel was created not by following what women like in men but by what men imagine that women like in men.

This is also something we can see a lot in various medias over the last years, especially in the romance genre. The way some "desirable" men are depicted do not fit what women seek in a partner but what men imagine women want (ofc every woman has different criteria when it comes to this). I think it's very blatant when you compare medias written by and for women like Shonda Rhimes's shows, Bridgerton, Outlander... and medias written by men. So, in the end, I think that Miguel has been created with that in mind "Let's make a big, tall, dark and broody, muscular matcho man. That's what the female public wants." (ofc it's never as simple as that but you get the idea).

So... does this mean that it's bad to simp/ thirst over this character? Surprisingly I'm going to say no and I even think that it's important that the women in this fandom keep making content around Miguel! Because when we write fanfictions, draw fanarts of him... we are now picturing him with a real female gaze and that's what brings even more complexity and depth to this character.

I have seen so many interpretations of this character since I joined this fandom and a lot of them were really cool/ beautiful, showing just how much people love this character. When you think about it, it's crazy that a character who only got 15 minutes of screen time can have such a strong effect on a fandom, meaning that he is more than just a thirst trap. I genuinely think that the content created by the fans gives this character his humanity back (because, yes, being sexualized to no end deshumanizes a person. Go argue with a wall, thank you very much). I've seen so many tender, soft but also funny depictions of him making him more than just some ass shots on the big screen. And even on the NSFW corner of the fandom, some people out there are really making him more than just this "feral beast" that we have been sold by giving him back his tenderness, his sensuality...

So, yeah, take this headline with care and think what you want of it. Those were just my thoughts. Feel free to disagree, tell me if I got something wrong or just leave your thoughts under this post because I'm genuinely curious of seeing other fan's opinions. I apologize for the mess of this take.

And now I'm going back to sleep.

[fushiglow]

Who the hell is Gojō Satoru?

Some thoughts on his character in 236

Seeing everyone arguing about Gojō’s characterisation in 236 over the last week makes me realise just how good the chapter is, no matter how dissatisfied I am with Gojō's death.

When you're upset about something, it's hard to judge accurately whether something is 'bad' or whether you simply don't like it — and they are different things. Interestingly, 236 presented me with a conflict I've never experienced when following a story before. I'm really disappointed with the way Gege Akutami chose to end Gojō's story, but I think 236 will go down as one of the most beautiful chapters of Jujutsu Kaisen. In that sense, my feelings about the chapter after a week of sitting with it aren't too unrecognisable from my initial feelings — just with all of the big emotions that were colouring my judgment stripped away.

I think there *is* value in immediate reactions, and I think much of the initial outrage about the chapter was simply people grieving what was an intentionally shocking end to a beloved character. I hate that people tried to police social media reactions to the chapter, because I think everyone should be allowed to process their feelings in their own online space (as long as they don't bring harm to others, of course).

Aside from the outpouring of emotion, there have been countless arguments about 'who' Gojō was as a person in the end, and that doesn't sit right with me either. I think many artists would be disappointed to hear fans of their work insist that there is one 'proper' interpretation — because the value of sharing your art with the world is in how different people receive it based on their own experiences.

To me, that's Gojō Satoru as a character.

I know lots of people have already shared some variation of the post below (and everyone has moved on to 237 now anyway) but this was sitting in my drafts so I thought I may as well hit post before 237 is officially released!

In my analysis of Gojō's character after 235, I talked about how Gege Akutami keeps Gojō at a distance from both the readers and the characters around him, making it deliberately difficult to know who he is as a person. Despite that, everyone in-universe and out has something to say about Gojō's character, but we've never really known how Gojō views himself until this chapter.

For maybe the first time in Jujutsu Kaisen, we get to deep dive into Gojō's interior world and hear his innermost thoughts when he's at his lowest and most vulnerable. As a result, something fascinating happened across the fandom.

Even when Gojō literally tells Getō that the 'wretchedness of isolation' is something he shares with Sukuna, that he gave everything he had so that Sukuna might understand him and be understood in turn, and that he knows not everyone will get it, some people called Gojō 'out of character' in 236.

And isn't that just so damn meta?!

Akutami loves challenging readers' assumptions through his characters, so while the chapter is shocking, it isn't really surprising. I'd even go as far as suggesting that the journey of emotions the reader experiences while reading 236 is the exact same journey Gojō is going on in-story.

The thing is, I've seen tons of people arguing about whether Gojō was selfless or selfish, whether he fought for the love of his students or for the love of the fight, whether he took strong young sorcerers under his wing from a place of care or simply as a means to an ends — but I think the point is that it's always been all of those things at once.

Because he's human, and humans contain multitudes.

I think we were meant to have our view of Gojō shaken by 236 — the same way Gojō's view of himself is challenged in this chapter. However, just because we can find some truth in Nanami's criticism of Gojō, doesn't mean that his interpretation of Gojō's character is the correct one — especially when it's entirely possible that what happens in the airport isn't even real.

Getō listens with empathy as Gojō confesses his self-doubt and regrets, the solitude of his strength, and the dehumanisation he experienced as the 'Strongest'. He even expresses jealousy when Gojō admits he had fun fighting someone strong enough to understand him. Then, only two pages after Gojō says, 'You can cherish a flower and help it bloom, but you don't ask it to understand you', Nanami appears and calls him a pervert for his approach to sorcery.

It's actually really funny.

Importantly, Nanami isn't exactly wrong for saying the enjoyment Gojō gets from fighting is a little disturbing (and, to be clear, I *adore* this about him) — it's just not the whole picture of Gojō Satoru.

Akutami actually gives us some lovely imagery to visually represent the gulf between those who understand the solitude of strength and those who don't — Gojō and Getō sit on one side of the bench while Nanami and Haibara sit on the other, with each duo facing in opposite directions.

I don't think Akutami is implying that either side is wrong or right — it's just two different perspectives. Nevertheless, Gojō is pictured side by side with someone who understands him, and back to back with someone who doesn't understand him but who cares for him all the same.

Recognising this, he pivots to asking Nanami about something they can both relate to and receives an important lesson in return. What Nanami means and what Gojō takes from it is deliberately ambiguous, like everything that's discussed inside the airport:

Could Sukuna have won without the Ten Shadows?

Who does the 'flower' represent: Gojō, the people around him, or both?

Did Gojō reach Sukuna like he hoped?

Why exactly is Getō jealous?

Does Gojō feel satisfied?

Is Nanami's assessment of Gojō's character correct?

What is the relevance of north and south?

Which direction did Gojō choose?

Is it all in Gojō's imagination or is it real?

Whether we'll receive answers to those questions remains to be seen, but I highly suspect that most of them don't even have a definitive answer.

Once again, it's just a matter of perspective, and I think that's Gojō's character in a nutshell. Whichever side of the bench you're sitting on, whatever you see in Gojō says more about you than it does about him — and that's exactly why it's so fascinating to see the fandom erupt into arguments about who's interpreting the character correctly.

I can honestly say I think the chapter is really beautiful even though I hate what happened to Gojō, and that's an entirely new experience for me. For that alone, Akutami has my praise. Whatever happens in the rest of the story will determine whether 236 becomes my favourite chapter in the whole of Jujutsu Kaisen — isn't that bizarre?

By the way, I found a really thoughtful post about some of the word choices in 236. The poster shared some really interesting insights across a series of posts and they convey the tone of the chapter really well. Well worth checking out!

[chaos-and-sparkles]

All the outrage about "chai" as Pav's ship abbreviation was fucking stupid

Ok so. I may be late to this discourse but by gods am I going to put this out there anyway bc this shit has been FRUSTRATING me for a while okay.

USING 'CHAI' AS AN ABBREVIATION FOR PAVITR IN SHIP NAMES IS NOT FUCKING PROBLEMATIC OR STEROTYPING OR WHATEVER DUMB SHIT I'VE SEEN (mostly non-Indian)PEOPLE SCREAMING ABOUT OUT HERE ON MY DASH. GO TOUCH SOME GRASS, Y'ALL, FIND BETTER PROBLEMS IF YOU'RE SO PRESSED TO BE MAD ABT SOMETHING!!

I'm Indian and I am so so sick and tired of, from what I can tell, mostly white people getting mad about Pav's ship abbreviation being chai??

No no. Go on. Find me my fellow Indians spearheading the conversation about 'chai' being a problematic name. Show me where the droves of offended desis are. And I don't mean just a few Indians agreeing with the "chai is stereotypical" thing while non-Indians lead the conversation, I mean the Indians being the majority of the conversation. Since, you know, that's how it would and should be if it's actually such an offensive deal to Indians, right? We all have social media. It's not like we're waiting to be spoken for. Surely there should be at least as many, if not more, offended Indians about the chai thing as I've seen white people on here. I'll wait.

Obviously I don't speak for all Indian people, I'm just one person, but from what I've seen and what I can tell, there don't seem to be any actual Indian people getting offended or claiming his name being 'chai' is Bad and Evil and Offensive and Stereotyping?? All I see are non-Indian people getting so damn offended on our behalf???

I loved his ship name being chai. I loved the representation. I loved the desi tadka, I remember when I exited the theater after ATSV and scoured through my social media and saw "chaipunk" and "chaiflower" and everything with chai going around. I was so fucking elated to see an ethnic word being used in the tagosphere!! It made my Indian heart so happy to see an Indian character who is so so close to my heart be represented with an Indian cultural word.

But nooooooo apparently we can't have nice things, because people just had to white knight about it. Apparently it is harmful and stereotypical to be using chai as his ship name.

Clearly, we gotta change it to golden. Or something similarly English and white-sounding and you know, inoffensive.

So, because I want to nitpick all the arguments I've heard as to why using "chai" is bad, let's go point-by-point:

It's reductive, you're describing a character by just one thing - yes well noted, that's literally what ship names are for. They are shorthand for characters to remember them by, they're supposed to be memorable one-liners to go by for them. It doesn't "reduce their whole personality to one bit" or "define them" or whatever - by that logic, is Miles' entire personality "flower", or Hobie's entire personality "punk"?? Gwen's just a "ghost" then, huh?? The whole POINT of a ship abbreviation is to be short and memorable. And chai is a whole fucking lot more memorable than "golden" or "shine" or whatever - those alternatives aren't even based in canon?? They are just purely fanon interpretations. Meanwhile chai is actually based in canon and a really memorable line from it too. I've had friends who were so confused as to who the golden abbreviation is for and then asking me how it's related to Pav when they browsed through the tags, but whenever they heard "chaipunk" and stuff they got it without me having to explain shit. Also, y'all are reading the Indian reaction to the chai-tea thing very wrong if you think we are offended by chai being a memorable bit about him - we are literally the ones most hyped about the chai-tea thing? You have no idea how loud the Indian theaters cheered at that line and how many Indian-made edits have been circulating. Again, with the caveat that I speak for my experienced social circle and not every Indian to ever exist, WE LOVE THE CHAI THING. It is a really lovable and memorable bit to us - one that has endeared his character to so many of us so quickly! So I have no idea where the idea that we're offended by the chai-tea line being memorable came from, but y'all really need to go out and talk to some desis before speaking and getting mad for us.

It's stereotypical - Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't realize an Indian character named with an Indian ethnic word about an Indian cultural drink is stereotyping, now. Just say you felt called out by the chai tea bit or got tired of how much people were talking about it or didn't like having to learn and use an ethnic word and be done with it. Now, to be completely fair, this is the point in the argument that holds the most water. I have seen a lot of fanart and fanfic in the very early days of ATSV fan content, quite far down the tag at this point, that reduced Pav's entire personality to chai, just made him the tea guy, made him so chai obsessed it was quite OOC and annoying and yes it did feel pretty stereotypical. That kind of thing is extra obvious in some NSFW arts I've seen around, that really give me the ick because that is not necessary, that is actually just weird and smells a little like fetishizing. But long story short, yes, Pav's character did tend to be reduced to chai in the early fan content. But guess what. That kind of thing happens to every side character in beloved media until more creators get their hands on them, adopt them as their blorbos, and make more developed characters and content out of them!!! Every side character that has a memorable bit gets overused in that bit until more creators get on board to flesh them out! Or have we forgotten "AND PEGGY!", "Honor", "ONIONS!!" and other miscreants? Surely those are ALSO stereotyping then, right? Also. Even if Pav's early fan content with chai was veering towards overuse and maybe stereotyping. Let's assume that's right. HOW EXACTLY WOULD THE SHIP NAME CHANGE THAT, THEN? The ship name changing wouldn't have done diddly squat about that - he was already getting more developed character in fics and in art before people pushed for his ship name to be changed to something less ethnic sounding. I should know, I was one of the people writing him even then. The tag changing wasn't going to magically change the content. The fan creators did that.

It's unrelated to him, it's stereotypical specifically in that flavour - bitch what. Did we watch the same movie. This point in particular frustrates me so much, because I remember someone on here - I don't remember who - talking about how it makes sense to use "flower" for Miles because his favourite song is Sunflower but in that same sentence saying it's ridiculous to use "chai" for Pav. What logical hoops are you jumping to get to this conclusion, my sibling of the sea? If we can use "flower" for Miles - which was literally a song he sang once, maybe twice, in the first movie, never even saying it was his favourite but just showing us he liked it - then it makes just as much sense to use "chai" for Pavitr? Pav literally says he drinks chai every day with Maya Aunty, it's linked to his life and family, and he clearly liked and thought of it as important enough to put it in his intro speech. Also, as an Indian, in my experience at least chai is a very important and yet casual cultural thing for us, that a lot of us have a connection to in our everyday lives and it makes sense for him to have it too. It's not like people are just seeing the Indian character and automatically labelling him with chai - he talks about it, he likes chai, it's not out of nowhere. Also, if we're talking about how related the abbreviation is, HOW is "golden" related??? That is even more out of nowhere??? Everyone I've asked seems to have a different justification of why golden is used. From bc he's a golden boy to golden bc of his bangles or vibes - they're all speculative and based almost entirely in fanon. Like. Chai is so much more related.

Also. Using chai? IT'S NOT A BIG FUCKING DEAL. It's just a word. It is normal to me, to us Indians, as normal as using any other word in English, or Hindi, or our regional languages. I don't see why it's such a big deal that it needs to be changed to something English. It's literally just like if you made his abbreviation "tea" - except now you've taken the desiness out of it. Congratulations.

This isn't a cause I'm going to die mad about or anything. It's just been slowly annoying and eating away at me to see so many, again from what I can tell mostly non-Indian people, being mad about chai being his ship abbreviation. It feels like a bit of a gut punch to the part of me that was so happy to see this tiny part of myself and my language and culture represented in a character I love. As my friend once said, "chaipunk sounds like a cool punk movement I'd join. goldenpunk just sounds white."

The straw that finally broke the camel's back and got me posting about it is this realization that I had:

All the hue and cry to change Pavitr's ship name from "chai" to the more 'acceptable' "golden"? It reeks an awful lot of whitewashing.

People literally got so offended about an Indian character having an Indian ship abbrev that they clamoured till it got changed to something English. It leaves a very off taste in my mouth when I think about it like this.

So yeah.

[marzipanandminutiae]

re: your recent post about the Houthis and how you thought the free Palestine movement was all in agreement and specifically this paragraph -

"kind of makes me concerned that some people who say they're censuring Israel for the right reasons- ... -have something more sinister going on"

sadly, a whole fucking lot of them do not, in fact, care for Palestinians - or at the very least, not at much as they hate jews.

we have been talking and yelling and shouting about the amounts of rancid antisemitism overtaking the entire political spectrum, and it seems very few people listen to us. I'd like to add just a few posts that might make my point clear - took me about 3 minutes to find them

https://www.tumblr.com/spacelazarwolf/738972445267165184/people-call-you-a-zionist-because-you-dont-post

(people using (((Zionist))) to mean jew, and/or as a slur, and/or without knowing even the most basic definition, never mind the very different streams of thought regarding it)

https://www.tumblr.com/pauvrecamille/739139228538208256

("Hitler was a humanitarian" + Palestine flag -- which do you think the user actually believes? could they be trying to mask antisemitism as anti zionism?)

https://www.tumblr.com/rock-reblogs/739264338509053952/no-bc-you-are-so-right-for-this

(people taking a frat-boy-esqe stupid/dangerous act of digging a tunnel under a building and turning it into... that)

https://www.tumblr.com/mariacallous/738956988704292864

(a Palestinian man trying to pave the way for peace getting called a 'slimy collaborator' and a 'zionist' (derogatory), + not in this post, but there's also John Aziz, another Gazan advocating for a peaceful resolution, who got a shitton of death threats for saying hamas' mass rape is bad)

https://www.tumblr.com/noparlpf/738692836513431555/anti-zionism-is-not-antisemitism-and-im-gonna-say

(anti zionism and antisemitism are currently incredibly intertwined)

thank you for seeing that there's something wrong and pointing it out - a lot of people don't care enough to do that.

That is. All deeply horrifying. Pointing out misinformation is what I do, though, albeit usually about history.

And while I shouldn't have to say this in a post that's explicitly about antisemitism and the co-opting of concern for Palestine to promote it:

I do not support the Israeli government's current actions in Palestine. I think they are appalling. I think they're akin to responding to a murderer using a child as a shield by shooting the child point-blank, and that's unacceptable. This must stop. Palestinian people are being killed indiscriminately and the international community must stand up and say "no." The only thing with the word "Zion" in it that I understand well enough to have an opinion on it is Cotton Mather's "Ornaments of the Daughters of Zion" (1692, unrelated to the Levant or Judaism), but I know that killing innocents on this scale is wrong. I also think my own country, the US, should not be supplying Israel with weapons.

Clear? Hopefully so.

I'm not sure I'd agree with every view expressed by every person linked in this post, buyt that's no excuse for some of the treatment they're getting. Most of what I've seen in my orbit has been people expressing support for the Houthis- perhaps without realizing (gods, I hope so) that the Houthis are a violently antisemitic terrorist group with the slogan "a curse upon the Jews," and are currently attacking ships unrelated to Israel. I feel like some bigoted people are taking advantage of the compassion and outrage of others to lead them down really horrible ideological paths. There are some online activist types who are led more by Vibes than research, and that's a problem when a lot of misinformation seems to confirm what they're already feeling.

The Palestinian activist whose words you linked used a phrase that stands out to me: "resistance porn." That seems an apt term for people who want to assign Good Guys and Bad Guys in this conflict wholesale, rather than recognizing it as two pretty horrible leading groups- the Israeli government and Hamas -catching innocent civilians on both sides in the crossfire. This is not a YA dystopia novel. You cannot just hate every single person on or associated with one side here, or laud every single person on the other side as a bold freedom fighter.

It's just. Like. How the hell does this go so awry from the very noble, correct, and necessary goal of Stopping The Slaughter Of Innocent People? How do the monsters using people's compassion to advance hateful agendas sleep at night?

I don't know. I'm just reminded of the folks who care more about The RevolutionTM than making actual positive change right now, but with bonus antisemitism.

[fortyfive-forty]

i've been ruminating a lot on it because i think i'm bad at putting my thoughts into words but i need y'all to understand that while there are absolutely a lot of Not Good Things about the finals being held in saudi arabia for three years...the way people seem to treat is as morally black and white is shortsighted and unhelpful.

realistically the players traveling there will be protected. it may be uncomfortable, it's certainly not ideal, but they will travel there for a few weeks, play their tennis, then leave. there are a lot of women, a lot of queer people who actually live in saudi arabia who cannot just leave, who are actually subjected to laws and social climates...and to me it just seems very disrespectful to that actual lived experience, for everybody to sort of turn their noses up and get on their high horses. of course, if the players wish to opt out, that is their choice, but that is their choice to make. that's their judgement. not ours.

and then, what about a tournament like miami? florida is literally experiencing one of the worst active regressions that i've seen in the us (granted i'm young). things like critical race theory and lgbtq+ ed are being removed from curriculums, rights for trans youth, trans healthcare, etc. are going backwards. abortion rights? gun violence? and yes i know that the laws and climate in saudi arabia are different gravy, i understand that, but my point is, no one would ever DREAM of arguing against hosting a tournament in miami despite all of these issues. and we can extend this to a lot of other tournaments! i mean, all the outrage about fifa hosting a world cup in qatar, but we don't have any of these sentiments about doha? i've seen other people bring up that the finals were hosted in singapore when gay marriage was still illegal there. we've already talked about italy's fascist prime minister. and i could go on and on and on about the war crimes of countries like the us or the uk - is the us not participating actively in genocide right now? where is the standard? if you argue against hosting the finals in saudi arabia for the reason of human rights, to me it seems you have to uphold that standard for the location you do land on. and i can guarantee, you will not find a single country in the world with clean hands.

i want to be clear i am not arguing that hosting the finals in saudi arabia is a good thing, especially for three years, especially because it's definitely going there because of money, and not for any of the "good" reasons i think some people want us to believe about "improving the region" (which is very weirdly white savior-esque anyway). i don't really have an official "conclusion" to this discussion.

what i am arguing is that i think a lot of the protests against saudi arabiahosting the finals are more an example of implicit anti-arab bias and islamophobia, rather than genuine discussion. key word implicit: i don't think most people are purposefully trying to be anti-arab/islamophobic. or at least, i'd like to believe nobody is. but i also think, particularly in the west, there is already so much of this xenophobic sentiment ingrained. and this is why i think it's really really REALLY important to check ourselves when we talk about it instead of just jumping straight to the human rights conversation without a second thought.

i'll say it plainly: i don't think the finals should be held in saudi arabia. but for me, it has more to do with sportswashing, with the dangers of the way money is thrown around in sports, and because i think it's more evidence that the wta doesn't care about player welfare but rather about making a profit (what else is new). human rights are absolutely a concern of mine, but how is it fair to hold saudi arabia to a standard that we don't seem to care about for literally anybody else?

literally look at the us's ugly ugly history, past and present, and tell me why we deserve to host a tennis tournament.

[rescue-ram]

Why The Joker Is Wild Hits Different

I was thinking about this last month when I wrote 'The Time Has Come For Us To Say Sayonara', and I'm feeling motivated to write up my thoughts tonight. I'm going to list my reasons why this episode in particular rubs people the wrong way roughly in order of importance.

1) Timing This is the most obvious reason but it bears mentioning. Because yeah, the episode where Hawkeye's friends team up to drive him crazy in the same season that ends with Hawkeye having a serious Mental Health Crisis definitely changes the impression this episode leaves, especially in rewatches. I've seen theories that it was intentional foreshadowing, as well as that it was meant to be a lighthearted throwback episode that's just squiffy in execution; both seem plausible. But regardless, I think the timing increases negative feelings towards this episode among people for whom it doesn't land.

2) The Pranks Are Lame This might seem petty or subjective, but the more I thought about it the more important it seemed. Because MASH has a lot of pranks, and the ones people remember and like the most are the most outrageous ones- there are a lot of creative set ups, and some opportunities for great prop or physical comedy. But the pranks in TJIW all happen off screen, for punchline reasons, and with the possible exception of Klinger blowing himself up are all very tame and unremarkable. The "victims" reactions are not particularly hilarious either. This means there's little entertainment value in the pranks themselves, so all of the focus stays on Hawkeye's reactions, and his reactions are "increasingly irrational intense distress" which obviously some people will find very difficult or upsetting to watch.

3) No Back And Forth Other "prank war" episodes are just that- a war. There's retaliation and escalation and often a final twist to the conflict that keeps the action moving. Hawkeye never gets to retaliate or take the upper hand until the very very end of the episode- he's not even really fighting for it. He's consistently put in a reactive and vulnerable position throughout the episode, so it feels targeted in a way that's usually reserved for characters we're meant to dislike and not empathize with- but Hawkeye is our charismatic protagonist, we're constantly invited to empathize with him! So seeing him get picked on and not fight back kind of sucks for a lot of people, especially if, in putting yourself in his shoes, you would find this an insanely upsetting scenario to find yourself in.

4) No A-Plot Other "prank war" episodes are usually paired with a much more serious dramatic story line. Even "April Fools", one of the silliest, has the characters seriously thinking they're all about to be court-martialed. "An Eye for a Tooth" has Mulcahy fighting for a promotion, "Bottoms Up" has Margaret reckoning with her friend's alcoholism- even "The Smell of Music", which has one of the meanest things they do to Charles, has an A-Plot where Potter tries to help a suicidal soldier. The pranks are a welcome break in tension, and the more serious subject matter means they don't get as closely analyzed by the audience- they are straight up comedic relief. But in TJIW, there is no other plot- our focus stays, relentlessly, on Hawkeye losing it. There's no break from the tension, and as already established the weak pranks mean they don't provide that release in themselves. It is very easy to get stuck stewing in Hawkeye's distress.

5) Bad Casus Belli I really think, if Hawkeye had been the one to issue the bet- "Yeah, I said your prank was stupid and I'll say it again, Trap and I coulda pranked all of you in 24 hours or less and you'd've never seen it coming"- that A LOT of this episode's problems would decrease. His come-uppance would at least feel earned- Hawkeye has hubris, gets punished, punchline. But that isn't what happens!! BJ is exhausted and in a bad mood. He takes it out on Hawkeye in a petty destructive prank. Hawkeye is annoyed, and BJ gets mad at him for being annoyed, and then cold bloodedly manipulates him into a bet he fully intends to cheat, in order to punish him for... not finding having his boot ruined funny? For talking about Trapper? There's no explanation given for why the other characters go along with it, especially a character like Mulcahy who not only participates, but is gleeful about it to an extent that's kinda OOC. Hawkeye's punishment feels more like the sort of thing dealt out to Frank, who we expected to deserve it because he was so consistently awful. Why does Hawkeye, our loveable hardworking part-time prankster full-time doctor, deserve to get humiliated? It's charitable to say it's a lack of inciting incident causing problems- to be uncharitable, we'd have to say the inciting incident is BJ taking out his temper on Hawkeye in an honestly pretty cruel way. I say cruel especially given his reaction to seeing Hawkeye lose it in the ward was to make it worse by deliberately feeding Hawkeye's paranoia after Klinger's prank. If you are not a fan which finds BJ's fits of "evil genius" funny in themselves then yeah, the unearned targeting feels infuriating.

[singularattitudeofasafetypin]

Miracle Worker

Masterlist

Summary: Reader lives at the trailer park and Eddie blasts metal at one in the morning for the third night in a row. Reader marches over and bangs on the door to tell him to shut up. She ends up pulling an all-nighter w/him because he’s trying to study for a test.

Word Count: 1.8k ish

AN: Hey, so I've not written fanfic for years but here yah go! FYI I'm British so anything I get wrong about America that's why! Idk if anyone will even see this but if you do, I hope you enjoy.

Please don't copy my work

‘For goodness’ sake!’

You clutched your pillow around your ears. This was getting ridiculous! The music, if you could even call it that, started around seven and had only gotten louder. Moving into the trailer park had sucked enough but three days of this was unbearable. Your mother lay passed out in the living room, snoring peacefully like nothing was amiss. How she could sleep through the racket you’d never know.

You rolled over and groaned. The alarm clock beside you glowed, 2:30am, mocking your pain as day slipped closer. Your eyes ached as the volume seemed to get higher and higher, vibrating through your pillow, through your skull, through your brain. ‘That’s it!’ you exploded, hurling your pillow across the room and pulling on your jacket.

‘Anytime of the day it would be inconsiderate!’ you seethed, slipping on your shoes, ‘But for three nights in a row- ‘, you slammed the front door behind you, ‘On a school night!’

The night air bit through your pyjamas but fury kept warm you as you stormed across the trailer park. You banged on the door but no response. Outraged, you hammered on the door until your hands bruised, ‘Will you shut the hell up!’

The door swung open, nearly sending you tumbling backward as a pair of deep brown eyes cut you off. Eddie Munson stood in front of you, his shirt crumpled, his hair messy as though he’d been running his fingers through it, all but tearing it out in frustration, and his eyes a wild mixture of exhaustion, anxiety and mild annoyance.

‘Can I help you?’

He said it so nonchalantly, like he couldn’t fathom why you could possibly be there at half past two in the morning knocking on his door.

You struggled for words. A hot flush rose in your cheeks, not only from anger. You knew Eddie, of course you did. You’d seen his dramatic outbursts and furious tirades against society or the basketball team almost every lunchtime in the school cafeteria. He was infamous at Hawkins high and you’d heard rumours about that weird club he ran, Hellfire. 

To tell the truth, you’d always been a more than little intimidated by him. He was loud and brash and you weren’t normally the confrontational type. You’d lain there in bed for the past three nights hoping someone else would shut him up. But here you were, standing slack jawed in his doorway, quailing beneath his gaze. 

He raised an eyebrow, ‘Well?’

The bite in his tone brought back some of your fire. Crossing your arms, ‘Your music’s too loud!’ you said, ‘You need to turn it down!’

He scoffed then gave you a condescending smile, ‘No can-do sweetheart!’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You heard me!’

You didn’t believe it! He really just expected you to walk away? ‘There’s kids trying to sleep! It’s a school night!’

‘Yeah, for me too!’

‘It isn’t fair!’

‘Life’s not honey!’

‘Would you just turn it off so I can sleep!’ you snapped, ‘It’s been three nights straight and I’ve got a test tomorrow that I’m not failing because some idiot won’t be considerate for once!’

You could tell your words stung, especially ‘idiot’ but you didn’t care. He crossed his arms, ‘Well too bad princess because I’m not about to fail that test either!’ he sneered, ‘Now leave me alone so I can concentrate!’

‘You’re studying?’ He’d surprised you with that one. By all accounts Eddie Munson didn’t care about school. He certainly didn’t study!

‘What?’ he shot defensively, his hard shell cracking briefly, ‘That hard to believe?’

‘No.’ the bitter taste of guilt filled your mouth. For a moment you just stood there, not knowing what to say.

‘If you’ll excuse me!’ he moved to close the door, struggling to regain his bravado.

You bit the inside of your cheek in frustration, not willing to let this go yet, ‘If I help you study for the test will you turn the music down?’ You blurted.

He stopped. ‘What?’

You repeated your words, only hearing them properly for the first time yourself. He just looked at you. ‘You want… to help me… study?’

You’d wanted him to turn his music off, but something about the way his eyes seemed confused, almost afraid to hope made you nod, ‘Yes.’ A beat, then he wordlessly stepped aside, inviting you inside.

The inside of Eddie’s trailer was almost identical to your own, save for the plethora of mismatched mugs hanging on the walls and the array of hats above them. You decided not to question it.

True to his word, he quelled the raging stereo to a light background hum and dropped, cross-legged to the floor. Your eyes fell to the books scattered haphazardly around him.

‘Right let’s see your notes,’ You sat down across from him.

‘Huh?’ he looked askance, then laughed a little, rubbing his neck, ‘Oh yeah… those.’ He fixed his eyes on the ground.

You sighed, rolling yours. ‘Wait here, I’ll get mine!’

They weren’t hard to find, scattered over your own floor from where you’d been studying yourself that afternoon. A few moments later, you were back, trying to sort through all the most important information and cram it into Eddie’s brain.

‘I have no idea how you write so much in class!’ he exclaimed, ‘Seriously, how do you get anything from O’Donnell? She just drones on and on and on!’ You laughed as he rolled his eyes and drew out the vowels in a scarily good imitation.

‘Well, what do you get?’ you reached for one of the notebooks littering the floor and flicked through. He moved slightly, as if to stop you, but it was too late. On closer inspection, Eddie’s ‘notes’ seemed to be filled more with doodles and half-finished sketched than real notes. Even his textbooks had little drawings and sarcastic comments scrawled in the margins.

‘I get distracted easily’ he admitted, hanging his head a little. ‘I know I should try harder.’

‘It’s okay!’ you shrugged, ‘Biology’s not for everyone! Besides! These are really good!’ You gestured to the various dragons spitting fire and knights conquesting across the page.

‘You think so?’ he looked up at you with that strange expression in his eye again.

‘Yeah!’ you said, ‘This one reminds me of Lord of the Rings!’ you pointed to a wizard fending off an enormous monster with a glowing staff.

‘Wait, you’ve read Lord of the Rings?’ He really perked up now.

‘Of course, I have!’ You exclaimed, mocking offence at the insinuation that you hadn’t. 

‘No way! What’s your favourite part?’ He asked, practically bouncing up and down in excitement. 

You tried not to lose yourself in conversation, remembering the test only hours away but his eyes lit up when he talked about the story that you couldn’t help obliging him. The hours slipped by, you’d study for five minutes, converse for ten. It was like he’d transformed. No longer the arrogant, loud-mouthed teen, now an excited nerdy kid sat in front of you, eyes shining, grinning and gesturing wildly. ‘He isn’t nearly as scary as everyone said’ you thought. Your own indignation toward him began to soften as you watched him. Maybe it was tiredness, or something about the dim light in the living room, but you also thought he looked quite pretty. 

Eventually the inevitable sun began to claw its way through the wonky blinds. He helped you collect up your notes and you got up to leave.

‘Hey wait!’ he leaned over to tear a page out of a notebook. ‘Here.’

You shuffled your notes to one arm and took the page from his outstretched hand. He withdrew it quickly, watching your face break into a smile as you recognised the drawing you’d complimented. ‘You like that one, right?’

‘Yeah.’ You nodded warmly.

‘Hey look…’ he shifted his feet and stuffed his hands in his back pockets, ‘Thanks, okay!’ He wouldn’t meet your eye, ‘No one’s ever offered to help me before and… and I was rude about the music… you were just really nice, okay?’

You hardly knew what to say, neither did he. ‘Let’s hope it pays off, huh?’ you managed with a small smile. This one he returned, getting the door for you and thanking you again and again.

Morning dew was falling, soaking the cuffs of your pyjama pants but despite the long shadows, you didn’t feel cold. You didn’t see Eddie’s eyes follow you from the doorway, all the way ‘til you rounded the corner of the row of trailers. Turning, he closed the door and flopped down on the sofa, still smiling.

Collapsing in your own room, your eyes ached with sudden tiredness. You pulled the covers around you, anxious to snatch an hour or so before your alarm went… beep beep beep!

***

Bright sunlight stung your eyes. You bombed the test. You stumbled toward your locker, pressing your foggy head against the cool, soothing metal. Despite the fuss you’d made last night, it didn’t really matter. Your grades were good enough that one bad test wouldn’t make them slip, still it would have been nice to do well.

‘Hey!’ A voice echoed through the hubbub of students. You scrunched up your face against the sound, wishing you were tucked up in bed in the dark. ‘Hey!’ The voice called your name. With a groan you turned, forcing your eyes open and saw him, Eddie, pushing his way through the crowd with the biggest grin you’d ever seen plastered across his face. ‘Look!’ He said triumphantly shoving a piece of paper into your hand. He watched you eagerly, hands behind his back and bouncing on his heels like a child. 

Your bleary eyes struggled to focus, ‘B… minus?’

‘Tadah!’ he threw his arms in the air. ‘It worked!’

You winced at his loud voice. ‘Sorry!’ he whisper-shouted, trying to contain his excitement, ‘But don’t you see? Your notes worked! I’ve never scored that high on anything! Ever!’ he was dancing with excitement and your face split into a smile. That test had meant so little to you but for him it was the world.

‘You’re a miracle worker!’ he dropped to his knees making you giggle, ‘How can I ever repay you?’

You pretended to think for a moment, shooting him a sleepy smile, ‘Turn your music down at night?’

‘Deal!’ he held out his hand.

You shook on it, then before you had time to think, he brought your hand to his lips and kissed it gently. ‘I really owe you one yah know?’ he murmured, looking up at you, his big brown eyes full of earnest gratitude.

For a moment you were breathless. He smiled nervously. Eddie Munson, worried he’d crossed a line! Your cheeks grew warm. He was still holding your hand and you didn’t want him to let go.

‘I um… I guess I could help you with some other subjects… if you wanted.’ Why did you say that? You berated yourself. Now he’d think you thought he was stupid and he wouldn’t want anything to do with you-

‘Would you really?’ he stood up, a smile spreading across his face, still holding your hand even now.

Your heart skipped a beat just looking at that smile.

‘Of course, I would!’

***

Thanks so much for reading, feedback and reblogs are appreciated. I don't have a taglist yet but message me if you wanna be tagged in anything else I write.

Masterlist

[maiyasuniverse]

Shopping

Loki x Plus Size! Reader

Summary: Loki takes you shopping against your will, or not.

Shopping. An olympic sport you had never been quite the fan of. Too many disappointments and unflattering clothes.

Guess what Loki wanted to do today. Take you shopping because you constantly complain about having nothing to wear.

"I really don't need to Lo. Look at all the clothes I have, more would just be too much. Plus, I don't have the money."

"You don't need the money because I have it and your wardrobe is like one tenth of my own. My closet should never out weight yours, what kind of man would I be to not spoil my beloved?"

"You'd still be my Loki."

"I would be an imbecile now, come you don't need your purse or wallet I have my card. It's really surprising to me that gold is not used here as it is on Asgard. But, I've obtained the American currency."

He held the card up proudly between his index and middle finger.

“Lo.” You had to fight the smile creeping up on your face. “How did you get an Amex card, you’ve been on this planet for 4 years. I’ve been here all my life and I can’t even get one.”

“Never mind all that, what I have is yours so now you do have one of these little things. They say it’s the best. You take this one, it’s had more on it.”

“I don’t want to take your money, do you understand how credit works? This can’t be good.”

“I am a prince, and I’ve read plenty I understand. Plus, I have Stark, I know how you humans are with money, you work hard for it but I have enough, more than enough. We have enough Y/N.”

“Just a few stores okay?” You couldn’t believe him, you weren’t upset but more so impressed. You thought he would want to go back to Asgard but he’s doing things to stay, with you.

“We’re going to more than a few Dove, Stark told me about all the popular stores, and designers.”

The drive to the mall wasn’t short, at all, he drove to all a mall full of high end designer stores, some you haven’t even heard of.

“I think we should start with your jewelry, I know you don’t like to splurge but don’t look at a price tag. I want to get what you like.”

The first store he pulled you into was Tiffany’s, every so often you would peek at the price of the jewels and sit the back down. While Loki on the other hand seemed to be picking up some of the most outrageous things. Tennis Bracelets, and necklaces, and especially loved ankle bracelets. You knew that from the ones you had at home, he loved putting them on you, and he enjoyed taking them off even more.

“I don’t think I need a anklet in every size love, one’s enough.” He just nodded his head and agreed, this happened throughout the rest of the stores. Some casually telling you they didn’t hold your dress size, while you were slightly disappointed you enjoyed shopping with him. You didn’t feel bad, not about your size or money it was peaceful.

Loki had to take a few trips to the car because it was too much to hold, but most of them things were his. The drive back was beautiful bribing past the beaches and homes.

“You didn’t grab the things you wanted. Why is that?” He sounded genuinely curious, while you guys were shopping he looked but his kept his distance for the most part, looking around, trying to give you space to move around.

“I just didn’t see much.” His eyes rolled, before looking back at you.

“You picked up plenty of beautiful items, I even seen you pick up that necklace you’ve been looking at online. You put it back.”

Maybe he was paying more attention to you than you thought.

“I just didn’t like it as much when I saw it.” That wasn’t the truth at all, the necklace as beautiful but totally out of the budget you set for yourself.

“Maybe we’ll find something better.” The ride back home seemed shorter. A lot shorter.

“We’re back already?” Loki just smiled at you.

“I think you were tired from the ride you slept the whole way back.” He looked tired, you kind of felt bad because you knew he only drove to show you he could be normal.

“Will you show me the things you bought for yourself when we get inside?” Now he was beaming.

“Oh pet, none of this is mine. These are things I picked up for you, as well as things you put down and the things they didn’t have in your size are now. In your size!” You couldn’t help but beam at him,

“Really, I normally hate shopping but I really did enjoy spending time you. I always so Lo.”

“Yes, really, I told you before I want to give you everything you want. There isn’t anything you have to long for because you’ve given me what I’ve been wanting since I was a child. I’ll put the universe in your hands if I could.” He pulled a long box Tiffany Blue box out of his suit jacket and unraveled the bow. “A necklace barley suitable for the neck of my lady.” He kissed it. “You’re even more beautiful when you’re smiling like that Y/N. That’s why I do these things to make you happy. I love you pet.”

You felt your whole body heat up at his words, you two had never exchanged those words.

“You love me?” You repeated somewhat stunned.

“I do, painfully so.”

“I love you, painfully so.” You had been wanting to say it for so long it was like a weight coming off your shoulders.

[https-cyber-slxt]

Holy shit! Your blog is an oasis in a desert istg. Finally some proper unadulterated femdom content on this hellsite. Thank you so much!

If your requests are still open, can I please get some sub!Dante content? General headcanons or just a little pegging for my bbg :) Up to you. And thanks again <3

P. S.: A word of advice: try to avoid more explicit tags, like sub!character or dom!reader, and use something more general like character x reader. I've noticed that Tumblr algorithm doesn't take into account actual contents of the post and shadow bans based on tags. I've seen some really outrageous stuff fly under the radar, because it only had fandom tags and nothing specific. Hope this'll help at least a little bit. You don't deserve to deal with this bs. Wish you the best!

hiiiii anon, I really appreciate these kind words, here just for you.

Oh and I'll absolutely give you your “daily” dose of pegging Dante :P

Devils Do Cry!

Sub!Dante x FemDom!Reader

A/N: I am so unmotivated (also it's 10 pm and I'm tired as shit, so if this is bad, I'm sorry)

“So... Who's Elizabeth?” you question out of nowhere as you pull your sword out of the Hell Caina's chest, causing it to wither away. Dante becomes stunned at the question, raising a brow at you. “Just another Devil Hunter, why?”

He swallows thickly at your serious expression. You prop your glasses up and wipe the blood off of your weapon. “A little birdie told me that you went on a *date* with her last night” Dante whimpers and furrows his brows before propping himself up properly. “Oh yeah? Well maybe that little birdie was trying to make you jealous” your face becomes even more serious. “Why would Nero wish to make me jealous?”

Dante stops in his tracks and nearly bursts into a sprint, damn you little nephew! “I uh- uhm-” his sentence cuts off as you grab his collar and shove him against a wall. “Don't lie to me Dante! What were you doing last night!?” He sobs as he licks his dry lips. “I'm sorry (Name), but I promise I didn't do anything, I just- walked her back home, that's all, and Nero must've thought something else“

You drop Dante and turn away, walking back to his office space with him not far behind you.

☆~ 5:30 PM ~☆

You lie on your stomach as you flip through the pages of the magazine, munching on the cheese pizza while doing so. Your fingers rest at the bottom of the page while your eyes fixate on the pictures, making you unaware of your surroundings. Your reading becomes interrupted as the doors slam shut, making you look up at Dante. “Jeez those two are a pain in the ass” he sighs while stretching.

“If they're so annoying, why are you friends with them?” you ask while flipping to the next page, placing your hand under your chin. “Well you know, it's nice to have some company in this shithole” He answers while walking up the stairs. You scoff and lift yourself off the couch. “Hey! Which drawer do the magazines go into?” you shout while fiddling with the book in your hands. “My desk drawer!” oh wow real helpful.

You roll your eyes and walk behind the desk, opening up the top drawer, nope, the middle one, nu-uh, the bottom one perhaps? Your hand grabs the handle and just as you're done opening it halfway, you slam it closed and grip the magazine in your hands even tighter.

A few moments later Dante rushes down the stairs, oblivious to your shocked expression. “Hey babe so, Morrison will be here in a few and- are you okay-” his sentence cut off as he stares at your grip on the bottom drawer handle.

You both stand there in complete silence, until you stand up and purse your lips, dropping the magazine on to his desk. “So how long have you had those?” you ask while side eyeing him. Dante stands there in complete shock. He lifts his hands up and defence, trying to think of an excuse. “How. Long. Have. You. Had. Those?” Now your entire body was facing him. “A-awhile it's that, I've been hesitant on asking you..”

NSFW Below The Cut X3

A bright blush covers his face as he answers your question. “Bend over the desk” you command while opening the drawer with your heels. “But Morrison-!” his sentence interrupted as he's pushed against the desk. “I don't care about Morrison, if walks in here that'll be his own problem. Now, bend over the desk, and take off your pants while you're at it”

A sob leaves Dante as he follows your command, taking off his pants and boxers while bending himself over his work desk, spreading his legs open and resting his chin on his forearms.

Meanwhile with you, you pull the strap-on out of the drawer, and you're not gonna lie when you say it's packing a decent size, 8-9 inches at least and relatively girthy as well. You notice the ring gag in the drawer and pull it out, it'll be of good use. You set the strap aside and lift the gag right in front of Dante's face. He gasps and looks back at you, you smile and giggle. “You know what to do” were the only words you said before he sighed. Shoving the gag into his mouth, you grab the straps and adjust it to your liking.

You reach back down and grab the lube out of the drawer. You grab Dante's hand and squeeze the lube on to his fingers. He looks back at you with confusion and you just smile at him. “I can't just shove this entire thing into you without any preparation, go on, open yourself for me” you continue smiling as he lets out a soft whimper.

Using his free hand, Dante spreads his ass open, allowing his fingers to slip in easier. He slowly inserts his middle finger in, soft gasps escaping him as he inserts another finger. He goes knuckles deep, making him arch his back, his free hand quivering and struggling to hold himself open.

His upper body basically falls limp as he starts to finger himself, getting lost in pleasure and completely forgetting about your presence. You grin and grab his wrist, giving him a fright in the process. You pull his fingers out and grab the strap-on from his side.

You tie the harness around your hips and grab the lube, carelessly squeezing some on to the strap, causing a little bit to fall on the floor beneath you. You stroke up and down, smearing the lube all over.

You slowly insert your strap into him, heavy moans escaping him as he grips the front of the desk. “Ah! nghhhh~!” drool slips down his chin as his eyes begin rolling back. You insert the entirety of the strap in him, the harness touching the skin of his ass.

You readjust yourself and lie on top of Dante's back, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. You short thrusts cause sobs to escape Dante as tears begin to fall from his eyes, leaking onto the desk below him. Your nimble fingers remove themselves from his neck and creep down towards his dick. Your free hand wraps around his leaking cock, pumping up and down gently.

Your other arm wraps around Dante into a chokehold, making his hands move from the desk to the arm around his neck. Letting go of his dick, you untie the gag move your hand back to its original position, pumping faster than before. “Shit! You're killing me! Just fuck me already! I need it, please!” Dante's tears roll down on to your arm along with his drool.

You unwrap your arm around his throat, causing him to drop on to the desk. You grab his arms and lock them behind his back, speeding up your pace in the progress. Dante cries and moans, not caring of someone or something hears him. “God fuuuck~! Yesyes! Oh you make me feel so- so good! Ah! Ah~! Nggggh!”

Your hand lets go of his arms, but like the loyal slut he his, he keeps them there as you grab his hair, lifting his head up and biting his neck. “Yes!! Oh fuck yes! Faster, faster! Fuckmefuckme!” Dante moves his hands to his dick as both your hands grip his hair and jacket collar. “I'm g-gonna cum! Pleaseplease! Let me cum! AH!” his begs and pleas turn into a nonsense of sobs as you rake your fingers through his messy and sweaty hair. “Cum for me” you whisper in his ear.

Dante sobs and cries as he releases all over the floor, some even getting on his desk. Quite sobs escape him as his left over tears form a small puddle beneath him.

Just as you lift yourself up, Morrison busts through the door, an unpleasant look on his face. “Considering that you two have stopped fucking like two rabbits in heat, just take this before my day is even more ruined” Morrison hands you a letter, not saying another word and slamming the building doors closed, his car revving up and leaving the area just as quickly.

You set the letter aside and stare at the fucked out Dante beneath you. “What to do with you...”

[gamblegun]

i also believe most "anti-transandrophobia people" aren't shitty people. i remember when the "bi lesbian" thing came up, people were really quick to jump to conclusions based on a viral post mocking the concept. when people advocate against an idea, there's the unsaid "if you support this, then you're a bad person!" so most people don't think critically about it, especially if it doesn't directly concern them. they'll assume they're doing the right thing and they might even add it to their DNI list.

also due to the nature of the internet, stirring up outrage is effective. people think they're immune, but they're not. especially on tumblr, if you say something in mockery similar to the way the "funnymen" do, you're likely to get people behind you. not to mention the cult of personalities that are able to proliferate exclusionist ideas easily. most people on here might just touch an exclusionist idea and absorb it partially, even if they're not actively partaking in any shenanigans.

unfortunately, this is niche internet discourse. most people won't think about it much. they don't have time to check out all the discourse points and will take others at their word because they want to be a decent person. (i am of course, only describing some of the people i've seen, not all)

Yeah, while I feel there are definitely shit stirrers around who just are using this opportunity to be awful towards us, for me it's a matter of genuinely understanding how some people that are against transandrophobia have come to this conclusion, and still feeling pretty hurt anyways. Like, I need people to take a moment and think before attacking and fear mongering about a group of trans people for Christ's sake. When I first heard about all this, it was seeing some posts about how privileged trans man are, and feeling that was pretty silly and unbelievable. I saw some people critiquing that sentiment and learned about the word "transandrophobia" from there, which seemed like a no brainer and good step forward for the community. I have indeed been on the other side of a lot of transandrophobia from the community since figuring myself out, and it was nice to see this discussion happening. However, when a lot of people seemed to become extremely against this seemingly overnight, it frightened me, it honestly made me feel unsafe in my social circle. I questioned myself extensively, reading up on feminist theory, trying to determine if I really was being as misogynistic as they claimed. It tanked my mental health for months, but I wholly believe our concepts are sound, and that trans men should be able to have a word of our own and the freedom to talk about our pain full stop.

It's like, even the people who think they are in the right are being transphobic about us all the time. A lot of tenants of their arguments are transandrophobic in nature, and then will refuse to accept criticism because they've already determined we're irrational hysterical thought seductors, and that saying transphobic things towards us would be okay anyway since we deserve to be hurt. When a lot of us say that a lot of people in the online community have drunk the 'ra/d/fem KoolAid', I tend agree with them. There are a lot of imbedded lines of thought I honestly don't know how to combat. And it makes me feel pretty unsafe in the community, and I don't think I deserve that, or anyone deserves that really. A lot of trans allies are much much more transandrophobic than they believe and it's disturbing to see so out in the open. I'm just... So disappointed in people constantly. You're right, if someone says something with the usual 'tumblr funnyman' contempt, people just tend to believe it. But it makes me angry! How dare people be manipulated so easily, have such shaky morals that they're willing to act so uselessly and cruelly without much a thought, or even taking time to have enough information. And it's like, I don't hate you, but it's embarrassing. Exclusionary behavior is always so insidious and embarrassing. I know that's not being completely fair, we are all just... So traumatized. A lot of people within the community tend to be extremely lonely, have had hard lives, and that's just asking for crab bucket behavior. And I can even see why trans women would feel concerned about it too, but I don't think we deserve automatic suspicion either.

I don't think they're fundamentally bad people or anything. I just can't be treated badly, I'm just not going to allow it, and I am certainly not going to like or respect anyone who acts so poorly.

I just hope this discourse is over eventually. I want to love and be loved by this community in turn. I want to actually feel apart of it. I want us all to stand together, it's going to be hard road ahead.

[stxr-du5t]

My little Rosebud

Summary: Foolish and Rose have an special kind of friendship

Pairing: Foolish Gamers x Rose (Reader)

Contents/Warnings: None, just some teasing and fluff, Foosh being a sweetheart

Rosalie comes into her best friend's gaming room while he's so focused on the Minecraft Championship, she sees him and sits next to him in silence

"I swear to god do not mess this up for me. I'm like actually doing so well right now." Foolish was extra focused on MCC. It had been a pretty close game so far, with Foolish's team was slightly in the lead. It was a few hours into the stream, but Foolish was still as upbeat and entertaining as ever.

"Noah is doing so well, I'm impressed" Rose says sarcastically, feeling a little drained already from his energy

"Oh come on! I'm actually putting forth an honest effort here!" Noah threw his arms up in the air in mock frustration. He glanced over to Rose with a playful grin, trying to hide his own internal exhaustion. "You know what? I think you're just salty that I'm winning and your team didn't had me last year"

"Nuh uh, I can win easily, GG for me" She smiled, matching his energy even if she was soooo tired "I'm still being gentle with you"

"Oh please" Mocked Foolish. "I've seen you play... you're good, but not that good. I think you're just intimidated by my natural talent." He gave Rose a cheeky wink and a sly grin. "But I guess I can understand why. I'm pretty darn amazing."

"Come down form your cloud, Mr amazing" She jokes "Everyone know you might be good on this game but suck on Valorant"

"Hey!" Foolish let out a dramatic gasp, "I do not suck at Valorant! I'm not great, but I'll have you know that I'm actually pretty good!" He pouted and stuck his bottom lip out in a playful display of exaggerated outrage. "I may not be a pro-level player, but I can still hold my own."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetheart" Rose is clearly joking but suddenly the chat start to attack her for putting down their streamer

Foolish's playful expression quickly drops as he glances at his chat. "Hey, guys, seriously...? She's just joking." He turned back to Rose, genuinely apologetic. "Sorry about them. I don't know why they're taking that so seriously... but trust me, I really am not that bad at Valorant"

"I believe you, Noah, and I do, before you start barking at me" Rose chuckles seeing how the mods are doing their best to delete any hate and time out people

Foolish lets out a heavy sigh, relieved. "Thanks, Rose." He gave her a reassuring smile. "Thanks for sticking up for me... I don't know why people get so angry about jokes. Like, we're just playing around with each other, it's just harmless fun." He glanced back at chat, hoping that the negative comments had died down.

"Those are not your Doozers, they are goofy like you, there's maybe other people who don't know how to behave in a twitch chat" She says, sounding like Philza "And you know damn well all your jokes will be matched and upped with me" Rose chuckles lighthearted

"You're right about that." Foolish agreed, looking a little mischievous. "You and I are always going to take the jokes up a level, that's just how we are." He smirked, his blue eyes sparkling with laughter. "But that's the best part about our banter, it's like a continuous arms race of wit and sass. I love it."

"Now say it without blushing" She joked again "That's part of what we are, true"

Foolish started to feel the heat rise in his cheeks. "Oh shut up, Rose." He groaned, but his voice was more playful than angry. "You're the one who's always blushing first."

"Do you see me blushing?" She asks, and there's no blush, and she's not even wearing make up "I win this one"

"Oh come on, I've seen you blush plenty of times." He teased, smirking at her failed attempt to hide her embarrassment. "You're not fooling anyone." He rolled his eyes playfully, then laughed. "You're just as easy to read as I am sometimes, Rose. You can't hide that pretty pink tint in your cheeks no matter how hard you try."

"God damnit, Noah!" She hides behind her hands, very obviously blushing, his chat goes crazy again, this time they are shipping them "GiggleDuo my parents" She mocks the comment and giggles

"Aha! I knew it!" Foolish couldn't contain his laughter as he pointed at Rose, his voice full of glee. "I knew I could get you to blush! Always so predictable, Rose. You blush so easily, it's adorable." He teased, his eyes sparkling with laughter. "GiggleDuo, huh? I guess we should consider making that our official ship name."

Rose laughs at his comment "Oh please, no, My chat is probably here too and they never let anything go" She says seriously "Like the ship between Wilbur and I that ruined our friendship"

"Oh, come on, Rose... we've already gone this far, there's no backing down now." Foolish insisted, his smile growing wider. "You know how the internet is, they'll ship us no matter what we do. So we may as well embrace it and have some fun with it, right?" He gestured playfully to Rose, indicating the two of them. "Besides, you and I are like a dynamic duo, we're practically already a ship. It's just a matter of time until the rest of the world catches up."

"You're so fucking right" Rose smiles "Fuck it, GiggleDuo we are"

Foolish's smile widened as he heard Rose's agreement. "We're GiggleDuo now, baby! And there's nothing our chat or anyone else can do about it." He gave Rose a triumphant look, feeling more playful and mischievous than ever. "So let's give them something to talk about!"

"What?" Rose slightly panics, she knows how unpredictable he could be in that mood

Foolish's eyes twinkled with mischief. "Come on, Rose... you want to have some fun, right? Let's give them something more than just a playful rivalry." He gave her a playful wink. "Let's do something to make the chat go wild... something completely unexpected..."

Rose blinked a couple times and then smiles "Roll the clips, I guess" She leans in, looks in his eyes for second to then catch her lips with his in a short sweet kiss

Foolish's heart skipped a beat when Rose leaned in and kissed him. His whole body felt like it was on fire as he returned the kiss, his arms wrapping around Rose to pull her closer. As their lips parted, Foolish could feel the heat rising in his cheeks. "You just had to go and make it interesting, didn't you?" He teased, his voice a mix of amusement and affection. "Looks like the chat has more than enough to talk about now..."

"I was holding that kiss for a while, wow" She says, not really wanting to look at chat "Yeah, looks like it" She paused "Tina was right"

"Oh really?" Foolish's eyebrow rose in curiosity. "What did she say?" He looked at Rose expectantly, eagerly awaiting her answer.

"You do have a crush" She teases him, playfully poking his firm biscep

Foolish blushed deeply at Rose's teasing poke. "Oh shut it, you knew I had a crush all along," He huffed, trying to hide just how flustered he was. "But you're the one who made the first move... you're just as smitten with me as I am with you. Admit it, Rose."

"I was under pressure, you know what happens" She smiles at how blushy he was "Little Foosh has a crush!" She keeps teasing

Foolish's cheeks flushed even more at the nickname. "Goddammit, Rose!" He laughed, trying to play it off. "I swear, you're only teasing me 'cause you know damn well how to get to me, you adorable little tease."

She giggles and smiles proudly "I do know you very well" If chat could be on fire, they would be in that moment

"You know me too well," Foolish agreed. "You always seem to know exactly what buttons to push to make my heart race. It's like you have a direct connection to my nervous system." He gave Rose a sly look, feeling the fire between them. "You're my beautiful little tease, Rose. And I can't resist you."

Rose couldn't stop the squeal that came out of her as she blushes "And you're my favorite ken himbo that barks under stress" She laughs again

Foolish's blush only deepened at Rose's words. "Oh my god, did you really just call me a ken himbo that barks under stress?" He asked, sounding both amused and incredulous. "Why does that sound so hilariously accurate?" He laughed, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. "You do love messing with me, don't you?"

"Sounds accurate because it is" The girl gave glimpse side eye to the chat "And yes, messing with you is my favorite sport"

Foolish sighed dramatically, putting on a pouty expression. "I'm being seriously outmatched here... but I'm not complaining, not when you're the one messing with me." He smirked, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Do your best, Rose... I dare you to make me blush even more."

"You look so cute when you pout" She said simply

Foolish's blush deepened to an even deeper shade. "Oh god, you're killing me, Rose." He laughed, feeling flustered and playful. "You're too good at this... I'm at a total loss for words right now." He was clearly enjoying every second of Rose's teasing. "But I'm not gonna lie... I think I kind of like it."

"This is going into a YouTube compilation titled 'Rose and Foolish being cute for 15 minutes'" She laughed softly "Sorry, GiggleDuo now"

Foolish let out a dramatic groan, his embarrassment only growing deeper. "Oh god, I'm not sure if I should be flattered or embarrassed right now... who am I kidding? It's definitely both. You're such a sly little tease, Rose." He shook his head, but he couldn't wipe the silly grin from his face. "I think I'm okay with being featured in a cute compilation. Anything with you in it is worth it."

"You're such a simp" She contains the inhumane screams she was about to drop "it's cute"

Foolish blushed deeply at Rose's words. "Hey, being a simp for you isn't so bad. It's like it's my official title now. 'Foolish, the Rose simp.' Has a nice ring to it, don't you think?" He gave her a playful wink. "You know you love me... admit it, Rose."

"That's sounds kinda badass, not gonna lie" She covers her mouth as she laughed "And I'm not going to admit anything until I get my lawyer"

Foolish rolled his eyes playfully. "Oh come on, Rose, you're such a tease. You love me and you know it. You're just too stubborn to admit it." He gave her a teasing, lopsided grin. "And a lawyer? Really? You know I can make you blush with just a look. No fancy lawyer is going to save you then."

Rose can't stop smiling now, her cheeks hurt "I give up, I admit it"

Foolish's smiled widened with triumph. "And there it is! The beautiful sound of Rose's admission of love. I knew I could make you say it." He chuckled, taking the opportunity to gently poke Rose's cheek. "You look so cute when you blush, you know that?"

"Stop it, Noah, I will explode, I swear to God" She's out of frame and so red, it's embarrassing

Foolish's smile grew even wider at Rose's reaction. "Aww, am I making my Rose blush too much? Does someone need a timeout for a few minutes?" He teased playfully. "Or are you enjoying this teasing... just a little bit?" He smirked, knowing full well that Rose was enjoying every second of it. "How can you say no to this cute little rosebud when she gets all pink and flustered, huh? I'm just too adorable to resist.

Off camera, Rose let out an inhumane squeal overwhelmed by all the teasing, she bright red, she looks at Foolish and fakes being an angry Chihuahua as she barks at him

Foolish laughed uproariously at Rose's cute impression of a barking Chihuahua. "Oh my god, Rose, you're too much. I can't handle how adorable you are when you get mad. It's like you're a little pink ball of rage and it's so damn cute." He grabbed Rose to pull her close, unable to resist her preciousness even in her angry puppy mode. "You may be a little angry flower, but you're my favorite flower and I wouldn't have it any other way."

She pouts embarrassed but gets close to Foolish and sits on his lap to hug him suddenly turning into little kid that's too tired to keep playing "I'm eepy"

Foolish let out an amused chuckle at Rose's sudden change in demeanor. "Oh my gosh, look at you... you just went from ferocious barking puppy to sleepy little kid in a snap. It's like you have multiple personalities or something." He teased, wrapping his arms around Rose to pull her close. "But don't you worry, my adorable little Sleepy Rose... I don't mind being your pillow. I'll protect you while you rest."

"What can I say, I hang out way too much with Roier and his 47 personalities" She laughed softly, so tired as she clings to his body getting comfortable

Foolish laughed at Rose's observation. "Oh yeah, Roier and his endless collection of personalities. It's like they just keep adding more to the mix, it's hilarious." He hugged Rose a little tighter. "But you know what's even more hilarious? The fact that you trust me enough to fall asleep on me. I must be one lucky guy to have charmed your rosebud self to the point of knocking out."

Rose laughs at that "I'm enchanted like the rose from beauty and the beast" She teased almost falling asleep

Foolish's smile widened as Rose's comment. "That's the cutest analogy I've heard in a while. You're my own personal Beauty sleeping on me... and just like the movie, I'll protect you from any wolves that try to harm you." He gave her a reassuring squeeze. "You can sleep peacefully, my little Rosebud ... I'll be here to make sure nothing bad happens while you dream."

"Shut up or I'll cry, first warning" She's starts to close her eyes but can't fall asleep completely, she hears Foolish talking with his chat and continues to play

Foolish chuckled at Rose's warning. "Oh come on, Rose, you know me... I like to rile you up. What fun is life without a little teasing?" He gave Rose a mischievous grin. "But I'll make a deal with you... I won't make you cry if you promise to keep sleeping on my lap and stay as cute and precious as you are right now." He wrapped his arms around her gently, his voice growing soft and sincere. "Fair trade, right?"

"Yeah" She sighs more than comfortable, trying to fall asleep

Foolish's playful teasing voice turned to a gentle and caring tone. "Good girl, you deserve a rest. Just relax and sleep... Let me take care of you." He held Rose close, feeling the warmth of her body against his. "I've got you, Rose... you're safe." The sounds of the stream faded into the background, and Foolish's sweet and soothing voice was the only thing left, lulling her into a peaceful slumber on his lap.

[pray4saint]

big big psa guys

tw // almost a call-out. talking about people romanticising mental health issues. swearing bc i'm pissed off. my own trauma is sectioned off to be easily skipped through; although it includes topics of self-harm, suicide, bad mental health, & loss.

holy shit i cannot believe i actually have to make this post. if you disagree with anything in this post, please get off my blog because you're not welcome here.

tldr; don't send in requests for weird shit.

some of my mutuals have received asks surrounding a ”mentally ill reader” & dating a cc inside of a mental hospital/psych ward and uhm. excuse me??? what the actual fuck??? why do you think this is okay and normal? 🤠 why did you think that would be a good idea?? (you know who you are & trust that your block button is looking quite wonderful to the entire publishing house)

i consider myself fortunate enough not to have received those bc i know how triggering they can be and for anyone viewing my blog, so to anyone and everyone who has seen those asks and been triggered by them, i'm sorry. that's not something that anyone should have to see from a stranger on the fucking internet, or at all really.

i feel like i shouldn't even have to say this, but uhm, don't romanticise issues you clearly have no business dealing with? is it really that hard?? if it really is that fucking hard to just not be creepy about real issues, then get offline. this kinda shit is the reason some of mine and my cousin's favourite writers have left tumblr, and it's unfortunate but i understand their frustration.

joking about your trauma with your close friends is one thing, but asking a stranger on the internet to talk about it? that's a big fat no.

– > trauma below

this shit makes me so fucking outraged, especially as someone who's had friends go in and out of wards, who's lost people to suicide, and dealt with horrible self-esteem, body image and self worth issues because of it since the ripe age of 12. it's so invalidating to see it used as a story arc. these are real issues, that real people go through every goddamned day.

i've done things i'm not proud of, things i'm reminded of every time i look at my body. gone through things i wish i didn't have to, and as judah said in her post, i have the right to deal with and cope with my trauma as i wish, i've earned it. but i'm not hurting others. that's the difference.

– > trauma ends here

before sending in asks on any blog, take a moment to think; 'how will this be received?', 'based on their rules, is this okay?', 'is this something i would want my younger sibling reading on the internet in a year?' think before you speak. please.

as i said at the start, if you disagree with anything in this post then get off my page because you're not welcome here. clearly, you're not mature enough to stick around here. i don't care if i sound like an asshole, it must be said.

[olderthannetfic]

I'm the original anon complaining about squick-inducing tags and the father/son thing. I stepped away from the discussion because frankly people's willful miscomprehension was getting exhausting. The number of people who read my take that the phrasing of tags MATTERS and responded to it with something like "So we can't tag for nsfw content??!" is baffling. I've seen multiple such discussions play out now over the months I've followed this blog and the way people consistently reach for bad faith interpretations, causing the newest round of "Wait are people really saying X?" (no they're not, but good job finding something fake to get outraged about) is exhausting. You guys really need to learn how to not take things in the worst faith possible. Or not assume everyone who complains about seeing something that upset them is an anti. Or just make fewer assumptions in general.

I will say one last thing about this, now that I've cooled off a bit, to explain my position and the logical issues I see in a lot of the counterarguments against it.

The body of a fic can contain the most filthy, explicit, most brain-bleach inducing writing you can think of, and I like that. I like that AO3 is like this. It's key to the way AO3 works. I like that if I write something like that, I can put that on AO3. I think all of us (who aren't antis) like that. Yes?

Fic tags and summaries and the stuff you click on before you get to the fic body give you an idea of what to expect. I think we can agree that this is how it works, yes? And that this is a good idea, etiquette-wise? We're on the same page here? (I dare not assume anymore TBH.)

Given that, I simply don't understand why people feel like the same lack of limitations as for fic body should apply to the tags. If potentially upsetting content should be warned for, and tags are the place to warn for upsetting content in the fic body, then where is the space to warn about upsetting content in the tags? The answer I've seen to this is to "just" use filtering, which I've explained I don't see as good enough - filtering only really works for common stuff and when your squick is roughly as broad as the filter category. The other answer is to just get a thicker skin, which I see as really callous. And I don't even have any actual clinical triggers! If you're like me, and you're hypothetically quite happy to read (for instance) a fucked-up incest darkfic, but you're not happy to see the author to just give you a hefty dose of their potentially awful writing of that straight in the summary/tags, then you have to either overfilter (and miss out on fic you'd like reading), or just... deal with it.

And yes, of course some amount of "you just have to deal with it" is always inevitable in a setting like AO3, where everyone is different, and we do just "deal with" a lot of things in order to use AO3 at all. It's not inherently unreasonable to ask people to "just deal with it". But. Given that we do have things like ratings and Archive warnings and a general etiquette around tagging certain kinds of content, then obviously "just deal with it" has limits, and a line drawn in the sand. And some of you draw the line in this specific spot - AO3 warnings are good, AO3 etiquette around tagging is good, ratings are good, but the idea that a summary or tag can be "too explicit" is not good. And you... haven't really explained why you think that to be the case. All you've done is argue that a hard definition or making it a TOS violation wouldn't be enforceable (I agree), or somewhat hysterically called it "censorship". Which isn't an argument in and of itself.

Or, to put this another way: To everyone who thinks that authors can be as explicit as they like in tags and summary (for the sake of example let's say they're free to write an entire explicit sex scene in the freeform tags) - so, to everyone who thinks like that, why do you think tag warnings and Archive warnings should exist in the first place? It's logically inconsistent. The entire concept of tags as warnings only works if they do have content and style constraints that the thing they're warning for does not.

Sidenote: "Are tags warnings or content labels" is an old discussion on OTNF. But again, I think most of us agree they tend to serve both purposes a lot of the time, and that while overwarning is bad, we are generally glad that tags can act as warnings. We can agree on that, yes?

My actual position isn't that tags shouldn't contain NSFW content, it's just that people should be mindful and use their judgement as opposed to just "NO CENSORSHIP FOR ME WHEEEE". The fic body is the space to put whatever the hell you feel like. The fic summary/tags are not. The etiquette around them will be different by virtue of the fact that they have different visibility and a different purpose. Obviously this isn't something you can incorporate into TOS, it's deeply subjective and case-by-case and depends on context and varying definitions. I don't understand why people have been calling this position indefensible, unless they were mistakenly assuming I'm advocating for some kind of actual TOS ban. Which I'm not. I'm just pushing back against the idea that you can put whatever the fuck you want in the tags/summary and it's the reader's fault for not anticipating it if they find it upsetting.

Fic summaries and tags exist on a delicate knife's edge between giving you enough hints on the fic inside but not too much, it's inherently impossible to please everyone or even make everyone comfortable. I get that. But that still doesn't mean we should just do whatever in them - that's the perfect solution fallacy. For what it's worth, most people don't just do whatever, if only for the reason that summaries/tags are meant to intrigue, not be a substitute of actually reading the thing. I think fics that have the wrong balance in that regard are actually quite rare, so to some extent this entire wank is over a mostly-hypothetical "what if everyone did this", which they don't. Which I'm sure all of us who've discussed this feel just great about. What is more common is some people using tags to share headcanons the way they would on a blog post, which can skirt over that "Eep I'd have preferred not to read that without warning" line and I don't think it's actually wild or radical or pro-censorship to say "Maybe... don't do that in the tags? At least when it's rape/incest/underage/super graphic violence etc.? Just a thought." I mean, it's the same reason people on Tumblr can have entire NSFW blogs but still choose to put some things under a readmore and warn for it at the top. Sometimes the difference between getting squicked and not squicked can literally just be "I had a five second warning to mentally prepare myself for this, and now that I have, I'm cool to read it". You can't have that five-second warning if you're scrolling through fic, however well-filtered your search results may be, and can encounter whatever.

(@elendraug Sorry I told you to fuck yourself but you did kinda respond to an anon mildly venting about wanting brain bleach over a tag they saw with "Tough shit, the author doesn't owe you a comfy summary". I get the kneejerk response against anything even vaguely censorship-adjacent but you were insensitive and unnecessarily combative about it. Peace out, sorry I blew up at you.)

Tl;dr: Censorship is about what content is allowed in fic hosted on AO3. Discussions about the most user-friendly way to communicate that content to other users have nothing to do with censorship. Everything about that is etiquette-based and vibes-based, that doesn't mean we should give up on having any (soft) etiquette-driven guidelines, especially since we already have some, such as tags-doubling-as-warnings. Authors should exercise some judgement as to how much detail/vivid descriptions in tags/summaries are too much, especially since avoiding over-vividness is often a good idea for other reasons anyway (it can be tacky and give things away in a sorta unfun way) so it's not like it's a lot of skin off the author's nose to avoid that.

--

The reason people are reacting this way (aside from it being tumblr as usual) is that they read your specific example, and they find it a weaksauce instance of this.

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

If you read this:

https://www.tumblr.com/anotherkindofmindpod/738517419496194048

I find that you can't help but wonder if John was really that lovable. That's some mean shit right there. I, in Paul's place, would have not forgiven him easily for that.

He must have been lovable beyond believe to balance that out. And somehow I doubt that.

This, paired with his behaviour after the split shows him in a very bad light. It really made me lose some respect for him.

(It's interesting to me you linked me to a post that was primarily calling out Lewisohn's narrative tone in Tune In, not John's behaviour.)

Cards on the table: I doubt I could have been friends with John Lennon, because I'm not really into the ribbing/bullying he engaged in. But I don't know that I could be friends with any Beatle, in the end. I've met people somewhat like John, who use the "weaker" people around them as victims to be entertaining to an audience. It's very frustrating, and I don't fault anyone for disliking these people but a) these also are by far not the worst people in the world and b) they're often friendly in one-on-one situations, away from their "audience". Whether one puts up with that is down to the individual – obviously Paul and many others did. Perhaps you doubt John being lovable in part because outrageous (possibly slightly exaggerated!) anecdotes are more likely to find their way into printed books than mundane stories about John being an overall pleasant person. Have you ever seen a post amalgamating every time he was nice? I can't say I have! Does that mean he didn't do enough nice things to warrant one? That seems unlikely, for most people, not just John.

I don't feel those excerpts give me enough context to know how often Paul was in on these jokes. The truth is that the written word can be misleading about the tone of the actions it's describing; how much of John's behaviour in Hamburg was truly bullying and how much of it looked more like him goofing off in Get Back, something Paul clearly delighted in?

All that aside, Paul and John were BOTH ridiculously overworked in Hamburg + delirious on drugs. I think it's safe to assume neither of them were taking every minute of their 8 hour sets 100% seriously. Plus, the whole Mach Schau! element was a real thing their crowds demanded of them, not something John made up! Did he sometimes over-do it and very probably steamroll Paul? Yeah, I think so. But it would be a mistake to envision their pre-Brian gigs as abiding by the same rules of showmanship as the Ed Sullivan Show.

And yeah, John's breakup behaviour shows him in a bad light – this feels like a kind of "water is wet" observation. I do think though that understanding John's propensity to being paranoid (exacerbated by drugs and probably several mental breakdowns) makes a lot of his behaviour during that period at least somewhat understandable. Whether you personally find it forgivable is yours to decide, but I find it weird to place it side-by-side with his 19 yo stage antics. These don't really feel all that comparable.

[dream-critical]

something that makes me extremely uncomfortable about the dream team and their fans is how parasocial everything is, not to mention the constant babying of those grown ass men. their fans do absolutely nothing to hold them accountable and constantly try to change the context of what happened so their precious creators aren’t seen as the bad guys. they tried doing that recently with the gnf situation

on the tweet where dream was talking about the USMP and QSMP, there are so many replies that just read “AW DREAM YOURE SUCH AN ANGEL 🥺” “I’m so proud of dream for handling this situation so maturely 🥺” and so many others that are just like that…

and it’s so weird because they demand Quackity to talk about it when he literally doesn’t have to. I remember going past a tweet that said something along the lines of “I think I’ve been REALLY patient with him, but quackity’s losing me..” like who the fuck are you? 😭

not to mention hypocrisy, especially tommyinnit fans. when Tommy was critiqued for still being friends with dream, their response was “you can’t force him to stop being friends with him” but was outraged when Tommy uploaded a video featuring Bitzel who is known for heavily disliking dream. (not to mention Tommy has known bitzel and been friends with him longer than he’s been friends with dream)

the babying is seriously so gross… they’re talking about him like he’s some child

hopw this made sense lol

The inniters thing is slightly different from what I've seen, as most people who claim to be inniters and get annoying as fuck about his friendship with dream (aka the ones who defend it) are dream stans who previously would harass Tommy directly before all of this went down, but have now "accepted him" now that the majority of inniters are telling him to drop dream.

Obviously there's still a group within them that likes dream without having hated Tommy in the past but dream stans have tried to do the same kind of thing with other fan bases, like trying to "adopt" Aimsey and ranboo bc their fanbase was "anti dream" or whatever and don't "deserve either of them" when we all know what their opinions on both of them were a couple of months ago.

Either way, I do think Tommy's friendship with dream is bullshit and Bitzel is the most valid Minecraft cc out there atm imo. And people getting mad about it just self reported the fact that they didn't give a shit about Tommy before bc his friendship with Bitzel isn't a recent development.

Anyway setting all that aside, yes the woobification and babying these grown ass men encourage and cause is wild to me.

To be fair, it isn't a dream team only thing. It will happen in every fandom with almost every stan ever. Both with fictional characters and real people. Not only is it part of the dehumanization process where they stop seeing their favourite CCs as actual people but instead objects to project all of their emotions on to, It just shows the way fandom has become a competition. You have to buy merch, you have to watch every stream, you have to laugh at every joke a cc makes, you have to agree that they're hot etc, call them your poor little baby and constantly talk about how you love and adore them. Bc that is proof you are a "real fan" or whatever and even the slightest critisism or critical thought will go against everything you are supposed to be.

Other posts talk about this better but I'm 100% sure that this is caused by the competitiveness people feel to prove they're the most dedicated fan and also the way people want to be part of a group so badly they would just throw away their morals and common sense. They're making their interest their entire personality, and critisism would burst that bubble.

Babying a creator, acting like they could do nothing wrong, like you know them personally, constantly feeling for them and feeling like you have to know and get involved with everything they do etc, it's like a mix of dehumanization and parasocialness and it's very concerning imo