#it just feels wild now with all the discourse online

[pxelbunny]

I just remembered that my best friend and first huge, life-altering crush in high school had a 25 year old boyfriend. We were 16~17. They lived together. It was cool because we could have parties at their place, he got us into age restricted bars and had a car.

What the fuck? No wonder our generation is stunted.

[artigas]

I’m really happy that Black Sails is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, but (predictably) some of the takes I’m seeing online are so busted. It’s wild to me that anyone would complain about the fact that Anne Bonny kisses Jack after she’s developed this life-changing relationship with Max. It’s absolutely wild to see anyone roll their eyes or feel uncomfortable about the fact that Flint has sex with Miranda when he returns to her in season one or that Max is most likely a lesbian but actively has sex with men for pay and knows how to make that pleasurable. It’s crazy to me that some of the very audiences who claim to want queer representation feel so discomforted when they actually see the mess and seeming inconsistencies of queerness that they asked for.

The reality is that there are lesbians who have had (and will have!) meaningful, mutually-gratifying, and deeply sexual relationships with men. There are gay men who’ve enjoyed having sex with women, who are gay as the day is long and nevertheless feel sexually attracted to a woman or two and are nevertheless gay men, full stop. There are gay cis men who are happily married to trans women. There are femme dom tops and butch bottoms and there are mascs afab people who like femme boys. There are non-binary people and trans men who actively identify as lesbians. There are ace and aro people who enjoy thinking about and engaging with sex — sometimes in fiction and sometimes in real life. Queerness, in fiction and in reality, defies neat categorization. That is the beauty, power, and (perceived) unorthodoxy of queerness.

Now, I’ll say this — do I think the straight men behind Black Sails were actively thinking deeply and insightfully about the paradoxes and fuckery of queer identity when they wrote Black Sails? No! By their own admission, Steinberg and Levine have owned up to the fact that some of the writing of the show was really hinged on their own blind spots as people who are not (to my knowledge) members of the queer community. If I want to be generous, I think that the beautiful mess of Black Sails is that, in not feeling like experts enough to designate specific identity labels to any of their characters, the writers stumbled their way into more authentic representation of lived queer experience, which is to say that the notion that James Flint was actively thinking of himself as a gay man was anachronistic. As many lesbian archivists and theories have noted, the notion of a queer identity — as in, queerness is who you are, not what you do — was patently unthinkable for most cultures in the past. In other words, the idea that Anne Bonny operates in the eighteenth century as a lesbian and thus would not willingly engage in relationships with men is not only untrue of the series, but untrue of most recorded lesbian experiences in the real world. The notion that a lesbian would operate her entire life without engaging sexually or romantically with men, for instance, is a very new privilege that some of us are very lucky to enjoy, but it is not true for the vast majority of human history — hell, it’s not even true of our present world.

This is all to say that think that there’s something really funny about how we want queer characters to fit into neatly organized boxes. This isn’t a new problem, either. When the show was still airing, the BS fandom would get itself into tizzies about wether or not Flint is gay or bisexual, wether or not Anne Bonny is a lesbian, wether or not Silver is queer when his only canonical relationship is with Madi, etc etc. We’ve been having these discourses for years and I don’t know. I get that much of it is fueled by how badly some people want to see themselves represented in media, but . . . well. The siloing of queer characters and queer narratives into neat little boxes has never felt very authentic to me and nine times out of ten, it’s also just so damn boring.

[fitsofdespair]

i have hesitated to say anything before now. in part because i removed myself from fandom discourse and really from actively discussing iwtv a year ago. i consider it all a lose-lose situation.

but also because i’m generally of the opinion that black fans don’t need people to be their white saviors, least of all me. black people have never been saved by white people. they were never just given anything when it comes to strides in equality, they fought for it and still fight for it, against constant violent pushback every step of the way. only instead of the good ole’ days when racists just called those fighting for equality uppity, they’re now “bullies” for daring to call you out on your shit after the repeated condescension and the resulting harassment you’ve exhibited towards them.

in this day and age the word bully has zero meaning anymore. i mean come on, melania trump calls people mean about her husband bullies. elon musk thinks he’s being bullied by twitter users, though he clearly holds all the power and is absolutely the problem. its become a meaningless word that goliaths use to call davids because they won’t use the real word they actually want to say. some of these popular blogs are not being bullied, they’re being held accountable for their own actions.

it’s pretty disgusting the number of you who decided to identify strongly with these users that not only fail to question their own racial biases but have gone so far as to suggest black people don’t face racism anymore. this is so fucked. tbh it can be argued in many ways white people, especially in the deep south where i’m from, are inherently raised steeped in racism, even if its not direct. just because your family aren’t ostensibly racist doesn’t mean they didn’t bake their own little prejudices into your upbringing and being raised in your environment didn’t encourage them. even if you don’t see yourself as racist, you have to unlearn all this shit, even if it never once occurred to you that you are part of it. just cause you believe in equality and don’t hate people for their color or cultural background does not make you free of perpetuating microaggressions against them. this applies to fans across the world of course. (like for you white euro iwtv fans, you may say you have no problem with black people but i’ve heard some wild things some of yall have to say about the turks.)

i understand that probably half or more of you are not usamericans. but no matter what environment you live in, no matter where you were raised, there is no excuse for your behavior. just because YOU don’t see racism in your day to day life or are in the more likely situation, too blindly comfortable in your place in society to notice it right in front of your face, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist as a constant presence in other parts of the world or isn’t deeply ensconced in online rhetoric.

so for you white iwtv fans who can’t be fucked to mention let alone defend people you, in many cases once called friend, against the absolute horseshit your current comrades are spewing wrapped up in their nice safe cocoons of victimhood, i hope you do some serious soul searching to figure out if this is who you are, a person too cowardly to call out a friend because it might cost you their friendship. a person quick to condemn others on hearsay because you couldn’t be fucked to wonder am i on the right side of this? and if you do manage to get wise and change your mind, remember its not unforgivable to say, you know what? i was wrong. i wrote in an old post that the hallmark of being a functional adult is changing your views accordingly when you learn new information or even just ruminate on what you know (i myself was a little bitch about ep 5 when it first dropped until i had to sit down and ask myself why i was actually feeling some kind of way about it). dying on a hill is not all its cracked up to be. being told you’re wrong is not always a personal attack and its often an opportunity for improvement if you can be bothered to genuinely hear other people out. an alarming number from all walks of life never figure that out. for my part, i am still learning and hope i never stop learning.

while that sentiments all nice and gooey (i mean them, but i understand its still sacharine to put out there), i am still guilty for not having directly written anything about this until now. and thats on me and i earned any flack i get for that. again, i am more of the mindset that black people don’t need white spokespeople, but that doesn’t mean they'll mind allies. and as a sidebar, going out of your way to say you are rising “above the noise” or “ignoring the drama” is absolutely your right, but it does not make you superior. it just makes you complacent with the status quo. i mean as long as you get to squee!! about anything and everything who cares about other people, right?

[godzillabreath]

Clone High S2 thoughts

Discussion/spoilers (if you can spoil a situational comedy lol) under the cut

I first watched the original Clone High when I was in high school, so it’s a little wild to be watching and getting really invested in season 2 15 years later. It’s something I probably never even considered at the time.

I rewatched the first season recently as well, so I would have some context for going into the second season after so long. And the first season is still reliably so funny, so sharp and biting in its commentary. I feel like there is not a single joke that doesn’t still land today. The characters are so hyperbolic and chaotic that every scene is fresh and you never know what to expect from the plot. The geometry of the character design and the backdrops are simple but so effective and stylish, too. Season 1 really is just a good comedy you can watch again and again, and every character contributes to the laughs and momentum of the episodes. Gandhi is especially missed, and I think you can really feel his absence in Season 2 ),:

Okay, so Season 2. I’m gonna be upfront, I don’t think it is written very well. It feels very much like a fan facsimile of the original biting humor. I think I only laughed at a handful of jokes over the course of the entire season, which was definitely disappointing. It falls into the trap that so many reboot adult cartoons fall into in that it devotes so much of its time to rehashing cancel culture and social media as buzzwords, but not actually saying anything interesting or meaningful about them. The show no longer pulls from teen media tropes and contemporary television drams to inform its over-the-top “melancholy adolescent” humor. It feels like the extent of what they brought to the table was “Tiktok exists, isn’t that funny” and “you can’t be problematic!!!!” humor, but without really exploring the ludicrousness and the discourse cycle of the modern internet. It very much feels like the writers didn’t know the topics firsthand, but still wanted to comment on them in a shallow and cursory way. 

Let’s look at the new characters they added. Frida has an incredible design and conceptually I adore her. A mellow artist that skateboards and is hugely gay? All right, I love that. I wish there was a little more to her, though. I wanted to see more of the hyperbolic personality traits that each original character had in season 1. Make her outlandish, make her weirder with regards to her art, I don’t know, you could have gone in so many directions. I just wanted to see MORE.

 And this is an issue I have with all of the new characters and even to some extent the returning characters. I feel like Joan especially lost her weirdness and her edge in the reboot, with only the end scene of her freaking out and sabotaging her friends being something fun and true to her vindictive streak that she had in the original season. Confucius feels like he adds nothing to the plot other than to inform JFK and the audience that the internet exists. He should have been a bombastically internet-addicted clout goblin, constantly cutting content, and as he is now, he’s just falling extremely flat. I wanted the writers to crank the dial to 11 with Harriet and really explore her fear of being incredibly basic, like maybe she has Live Laugh Love text art in her room or her favorite tv show is the Office, idk, but as is she just seems like a Normal, Nice Person. Which is Fine, but it doesn’t make for great comedy. 

Topher is the only character I feel really channels the chaotic core of the original Clone High season, and he’s not even there for many scenes. I love the idea of a manipulative little mentally ill Redditor whelp. It’s relatable, it works well in commenting on modern internet culture, it’s freaky, I like it. I’m surprised they didn’t have Confucius and Topher interacting more because they both are chronically online and I feel like there is so much potential there.

I guess my takeaway opinion is that I’d like to see them amp up the personality of each of the characters by like 200%. And it’s a little late for this now, but I wish they’d have done more of a slow burn on Cleo and Frida’s relationship. It would’ve been cool to see Cleo contending with the fact that she wasn’t the most popular girl in school anymore and what kind of schism that would have created between her and Frida initially. More of an enemies to lovers dynamic would have been fun. 

So those are my thoughts. I could have gone on longer, but... I think this is already getting too long haha. I think I feel so opinionated on it because I can really see the latent stellar potential in the characters, and with a few exceptions, they all feel so underutilized in this season. 

Looking forward to season 3+ to see what they do next, though! 

[spicybylerpolls]

I was there in the trenches of the sanitize byler phases of this tag. Literally a year ago the same discourse happened so the cycle repeats itself once a season. We just made it to kissing practice/makeout fics being acceptable when bylers were in-fighting about the morality of that. In every other fandom, there's an understanding that if you don't like keep scrolling. Don't engage, just block and find what you want to look at online without bothering others. But this overpolicing of how others run their blog is insane. The entitlement is rampant especially when the internet has always been the Wild Wild West aka never knowing what you'll stumble across so tread carefully and leave folks who aint send for you alone.

Not to mention that this misplaced outrage is over fictional characters when irl predators exist harming real people. If one consumes horror fic are they condoning murder? No, they're just a horror fan. So why is it not treated the same with erotica/smut fics. I have actual irls who are survivors of real predators who hate people misusing/overusing the predator terms over fictional characters on this site. They sometimes use fanfiction to process what happened to them as a kid/teen so their fic recs are pretty mature and dark due to the themes that help them feel seen/heard because it's easier to use fiction to understand their trauma at a safe distance than to talk to real people if they want to remain anonymous since that's very personal.

Are they freaks/weirdos/etc for wanting to read or engage in that stuff that harms literally no one? I promise real predators aren't on tumblr gushing about a fictional ship's sex lives. They're online somewhere trying to talk to actual kids who are unmonitored on the internet which a majority of adults know how to navigate better and have more access to since the internet was born in 1996.

To conclude, fight for irl survivors and prevent irl predatory behavior over fictional byler who would be in their mid50s by now. Also, newsflash, teens have sex, straight or gay, especially in the midwest when in a small ass town, especially the bigoted ones like Hawkins.

So sorry your blog is getting talked about when you gave a disclaimer, block button is free, and you let people know what tags to block as well. You're being nice cuz you didn't have to do all that, but you did, but nothing is ever gonna be good enough for byler tag. They must hate Young Royals with all the gay teen sex over there lol

All great points! And thank you for the support. And you're right. Antis must really not know what to do with Young Royals lol. The fact that some Bylers have been cancelled from writing makeout fics that are too steamy is still baffling to me.

[mollymarymarie]

hello love!!

i just finished a re-read (one of several) of DYH and i came here to tell you (remind you really, it’s yours ofc you know this) how lovely and brilliant it is!! i went back to my original comment on ao3 and realized my first read was just over a year ago which is so wild.

i have so many thoughts but the one that i can’t help but smile about—the thing that has really stuck with me as i started publishing my first fics and writing more regularly and being more invested in this fandom over the past year—is your response. you replied back! and that was the first time i had really interacted with an author on ao3. you were so kind and thoughtful and overall i could tell that you really cared and wanted to create space for conversations about your work that made it feel like we were all on the same level, loving these characters together.

there’s so much discourse rn on fandom and popular fics and interactions within this space that are harmful and negative, and it’s all so valid. like, you did not owe me a response. you don’t owe anyone anything as a writer. but the community aspect to fandom is still very much present and wanted and for folks not on tumblr, most of that discourse happens in fic comments. so even a small interaction over a year ago in the comment section of one of my favorite stories is still HUGE to me, because it made me feel like i could interact; like the space was also mine to claim. and i am so very grateful to you for making that happen, even unconsciously.

you’re a superstar and a fabulous writer and i’m sending you all of the flowers and sweet treats and affection in my arsenal <3 thank you!! hope you’re having a good day :)

FRIEND 🥺🥺🥹🥹

I am so happy you took the time to send me this because it means SO MUCH to me. Because I really do try to be as kind as possible, especially to those who are already so kind to me to read (and reread!) my work and comment on it and enjoy it! This genuinely made me tear up 🥹

This is what fandom should be! A space for community and conversation and connections, enjoying things that we love together! I'm so thankful you think I'm a good author but I'm also just a regular ass nobody lol. it might take me some time to reply to comments or asks (especially now that I'm not as active as I used to be) but i met some of my closest online friends through comments and messages on Tumblr and ao3 so I love those connections

I wish I could say, yes, interact!! Don't be afraid!! But that would be hypocritical of me, because I don't interact much anymore specifically because of negative interactions. But your incredibly thoughtful ask has reminded me that the good outweigh the bad by far ❤️

[genderkoolaid]

I think a major problem in misinfo with transandrophobia is how people think that "transmascs face unique oppression" is directly tied to "transfems are the oppressors". Like when it comes to average people with little involvement with The Discourse, the general idea for why transandrophobia Is Bad is because people believe it implicitly carries the connotation that transfems have privilege. And because these people never engage with writings on transandrophobia (and when they do, many just take everything in the worst possible faith) this idea is just accepted as a fact of what "TMRAs" believe.

its just. exhausting. Like I saw a person saying that transandrophobia was bad because TERFs also believe trans men face unique oppression which transfems enforce. And it just shows the WILD difference in experiences.

Because they say that from where they stand, believing that transandrophobia = transfems bad. and then I have all of my experiences, from which I know that TERFs act VILE towards people who talk about transandrophobia. Because we actively hate them and their ideology and refuse to be misgendered or detransition. TERFs are FURIOUS that "transandrophobia truthers" can't be manipulated as easily as they thought because- shocker to everyone, apparently- we actually feel very strongly about being trans! And transunity!

It's just grown to such an extent where so many people think that transandrophobia = transmisogyny. "the term was made in bad faith out of jealousy" repeated blindly by people who have never read anything about transandrophobia. somebody online said that it was made to silence transfems so now that's the truth of reality, i guess.

[maximotts]

Can you do a Taylor Sloane fic and " there’s something between us- a sort of pull. something you always do to me and i to you. "

-👽

this took forever for me to post I'm so sorryyyy, I did end up writing more to it today though when I opened it so maybe that's a good way to make up for it? 💖

combined with another request: “i’m more beautiful than anybody else, why can’t i be happy?”

words: 1.6K

summary: fitzgerald prompts— Taylor Sloane x f!reader; some things have to be dealt with before hooking up if you care about someone. It'd be nice if you could at least do it confidently.

“Taylor, this isn’t right…” You should feel icky, terrible, ashamed of yourself, for finding yourself in this situation. Taylor had lured you out to her Joshua Tree getaway, insisting that LA was too loud and the break would do her some good. In truth, she had a lot going on with her divorce and the backlash it was causing her both online and in the real world. Turns out separating from your husband was still looked down on in its own modern way. 

She’d asked you so nicely that saying no would’ve felt mean; all you had to do was drive her and she’d take care of everything else. You didn’t think she’d wanted you to take care of her in turn. “Oh come on, don’t I look pretty?” 

The night out was a wild one, the two of you dancing away for hours at a dive bar Taylor loved to hide out in, free from anyone who cared about social media at all. For as obsessed as she seemed with her Instagram, she got fed up with the performance most days and longed more and more to just be herself. It was that desire that drove her away from her husband; he didn’t appreciate Taylor’s late nights out or long wandering walks and the night he called her silly and childish, she was out the door and over to your house. Every day since then, the blonde sought you out in one way or another; whether over facetime or sliding into your bed for a late night cuddle, she always made her presence known. 

She’d flirted with you before, even giving you kisses and sitting on your lap when she wanted a cute picture for her feed. The comments were always littered with her fans speculating what the two of you got up to when Ezra was away and even though the discourse so clearly bothered her husband, she never shut any of them down. You suspected she selfishly loved to see him squirm; their relationship wasn’t built on too many happy feelings. 

It wasn’t a secret that Taylor was into women, she just never said anything about it explicitly— some things she wanted to keep for herself. Only enough to keep people guessing amongst her followers. And to keep her entertained… that part didn’t make you feel great. “Taylor, you’re beautiful, you know that. It’s just…” 

“Just what? What could be so bad about something we both want?” You hesitated to call out her selfish nature; she often acted on a whim, doing what felt good for her and ignoring her companions’ feelings. She was your closest friend, Taylor never meant to hurt you, but this push and pull, it always did. A few times, you’d gotten close to coming out with those feelings —after a kiss that lingered too long or a touch too intimate to be platonic— but one of you would always jump away or change the subject. But this line was too much to cross without at least trying to say something. 

You settled your hands on her waist, trying to pull her back from her stride to the bedroom. All of this was too much; the alcohol, the way she’d danced against you until you seriously debated dragging her into the messy bathroom, the filthy things she’d whispered in your ear as she practically climbed you in the back of your Uber. And now in this house with just the two of you, her hands running up the hem of your shirt as soon as you stopped holding her hands. 

Taylor Sloane was a terribly convincing individual. “I’m more beautiful than anyone else, you said that earlier,” It was true, you did. When you had her backed into a dark corner, sucking hickeys into her neck as the loud music drowned out her whines. You’d been more inebriated back there, acting on the lustful thoughts you typically kept bottled up with the help of the atmosphere, but you’d sobered up on the drive back even as Taylor clung to you. It was partially your fault she thought you were completely in. You were— just more in than she knew. “Why can’t I be happy?”

It was one hundred percent your fault that you wanted to be all in how you were. 

“Of course, you can be happy. I want you to be happy.” You wanted to be the only to make her happy. “You’ll just regret this later, I’m looking out for you.” Taylor was finicky and impulsive, but if you told her that she’d go off on you. She was capable of great sincerity when she wanted to be, but with how she’d treated you in the past, you were scared she really only saw you as a toy to get off with. As much as you were looking out for her, you were looking out for yourself too, and your heart. For all of your flirting, you doubted she knew you had a genuine interest in her, listening to all of her ideas and concepts earnestly, even when she’d already written them off as stupid. Years of her marriage to Ezra and validation from only the most surface level things had left Taylor more than a little inept when it came to real emotions.

“I’m a big girl, I can handle myself.” Taylor huffed at your hesitation, tugging insistently until you‘d gone the last few steps into her room. You’d seen the place so many times, but now it held more stakes than you’d like, even Taylor’s guiding hand made you shiver. 

“Close your eyes, I want to show you something special.” She wasn’t in the mood for anything besides the sex you’d promised her just over an hour ago. Whatever made you hesitate worried her; Taylor thought you really liked her, there shouldn’t be anything else to talk about. “Please just, don’t run off.” 

You did as you were told, silently grateful for the moment to gather your thoughts. If you could shut off your brain, you would, all you wanted was to enjoy yourself and fuck, you wish you’d drunk more back at the bar. “Open.”

Slowly, you did, scared of what you’d find behind the safety of your fingers, but as soon as you did, your arms fell slack. Taylor wore the exact bra and panties set she’d teased you about buying a few months ago, the same one you warned not to wear around you unless she wanted to be eaten alive. As soon as you could rip your eyes away from her lace clad breasts, you caught the wicked smirk on her face and knew you were in trouble. “You did promise me, babe.”

Turning your brain off was easier said than done. Taylor looked stunning, you wanted to crash straight into her and never let go. With the way she was biting her lip, she was more than ready to let you do whatever you pleased. But you had her attention and your heart forced your mouth open even as your feet brought you to stand between her legs.

"There’s something between us- a sort of pull…” Taylor fought the urge to roll her eyes; she liked you a lot, that was a given. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to talk about how she felt, but right now all she wanted was for you to render her speechless and… not in this way. This was some deeper way Taylor was rarely used to hearing. She did have to admire your clear restraint though, how you just barely let your hands rove over the smooth expanse of her bare stomach before settling them back on her arms. You were determined to get whatever you had to say out, the least the blonde could do was hear you out. “I don’t want this to be some one-night drunken thing.” 

She was just so captivating and perfect and so close. And you’d never felt more embarrassed. You’d taken what had to be the least sexy turn, stammering out your feelings to a girl who’d eagerly brought you to her bed. All of this and she might not even feel the same, but with one scared look into those impatiently waiting green eyes, you knew she deserved to know she wasn’t some quick fuck for you. “Please Taylor, you’re special to me.”

Taylor sighed, but she wasn’t unaffected. She couldn’t be. Part of her couldn’t believe she was hearing you right, that you even had to have this conversation. “You’re special to me too, okay? I never said you weren’t.” 

“I know, but.. wait- really?” It wasn’t what you’d expected to hear, especially not with how annoyed she looked as she pushed your jacket from your shoulders. “Does that mean we could do this again?”

“We’d have to do this the first time to have a second.” Taylor was clearly fed up, sitting up on her knees to wind her arms around your neck. She kissed you before you could speak again, having exhausted her patience with your rambling. This time Taylor stayed against your lips until you got the hint: she liked you, stop worrying, stop questioning her intentions. 

When she let up, your lips were red and swollen, head fuzzy with how drunk on her you were now. You didn’t pull away this time as she tugged your shirt over your head nor when she shoved your shorts down to your ankles; now you let your mind safely fall into auto-pilot. “I’d better make the first time amazing then.”

[momentsofamber]

Hey uuuuh did you know... Ur big swaggy and hella stronger than ur demons? 😉👍 You've overcome them in the past to make it to today, you'll overcome today's with the lessons from the past, and the future doesn't know what it has coming to it 📣👏😁

Anon, this was so nice to wake up to. 😭 Thank you so much!!

I'm so sorry it took me all day to respond to this and I'm about to ramble so feel free to skim this, I'm gonna dump it under a read more. ( Do people even still use these in 2024? askdjhf )

I never directly attacked anyone in my time while pretending to be an anti. I was just completely silent on the matter, letting my morality complex and p.edophobia ocd wage war on my well-being.

It's ironic, I've been on this site since about 2010; and in 2012 when I started to be at my first most active point on tumblr and had a friend group on here, I would blog about Wincest (SPN) on main and no one said anything or thought anything of it, they just kept scrolling. That was the norm. People just SHIPPED whatever they wanted.

Flash ahead to like 2018 and suddenly everywhere I go there are now neon eyesore banners on posts, including fucking stimboards and whatnot with 'p.roship d.ni' and 'a.nti-a,ntis d.ni' ( I'm censoring that just so this post isn't blacklisted from proshippers because that is NOT my stance ) and I was like 'I don't even know what these terms MEAN?? where did these come from??' but I was too afraid to ask anyone so I just. Stayed silent and promised myself I'd only reblog "safe" content and that I was "happy" I'd "become a better person since then". ( spoiler: I was lying to myself. )

And over the years any time I made new friends who had never seen that content on my blog back then, I'd just say I didn't support Problematic Content(tm) and I'd only talk about and rp and reblog ships that were "normal", because I was now so afraid people would reject me at any time because it seemed like the anti crowd was so large and violent and nasty -- my mental health at that time would not have been able to handle that hatred.

-- in fact I had this SAME experience in the plural community with the a.nti-e.ndos for identifying as a median system. ( we know now that we are a bpdgenic osdd-1b system, but we still prefer most median terminology to describe ourselves. ) But the traumagenic DID systems who were pro-endo were so much more welcome to interacting with us than the exclusionists. And it's the same bullshit different flavor happening here with the proshippers.

How much overlap is there between a.nti-e.ndo and a.nti-p.roship rhetoric, I wonder? It's wild. I wish I had learned how to undo my black and white thinking so much sooner and listen to new points of view instead of just shying away from the unknown in fear.

But this is a new year, and this is a new me. This blog is going to be a source of love and positivity and learning about other people's experiences. Any discourse or negativity ( even the validating kind ) will remain on my sideblog. I don't have to like or even agree with everything I see online, but I am going to support people's right to say it, do it, make content of it, as long as all parties involved are consenting. ( Fictional characters, animated or live action, do not have the autonomy to consent or not consent so people can do anything they want with fiction that makes them feel happy and fulfilled, full stop. Yes, this includes RPF and selfshipping. As long as you keep your content in your safe space and no actors/musicians/etc involved in the creation of that character you're using are able to see it - I will support your right to make or consume any content as you see fit. )

[cutest-toddler]

This is just a rant but idk if anyone will even see it so fuck it

It’s wild, aging out of the age regression community. Wasn’t something I thought would happen, but as soon as you’re an adult and do adult things, you’re suddenly barred from most of the community you grew up in. There’s a reason the age regression community is mostly minors and I do agree that the kink and agere communities should be kept separate for everyone’s safety. But it really sucks being caught in the crossfire, especially when the only people making fun little content are people that explicitly hate you. This is supposed to be a safe space but everywhere I turn there’s a reminder that I’m not wanted here, I’m too nasty and gross and adult but when I go try to find other adults there’s just,,, nothing. I aged out of the community at a time where there’s very little noncom content or activity and all the sfw kink stuff I can find is ddlg specific or otherwise too fem for my transmasc ass to feel comfortable or represented. I think most people moved to Instagram but I’d rather delete that fucking app than get more entrenched in it so that doesn’t help.

It’s not like the agere community is perfect, the obsession with pro- and anti-ship discourse and the way the community has always been violently anti-kink both shows the immaturity of (again, mostly minors) but also, more converningly, shows how a lot of chronically online and/or traumatized people are becoming more conservative and reactionary because the points are dressed up in social justice language. It’s honestly been harmful for my mental health for ages but the activity level of the agere community is what kept me here and overlooking the frankly disgusting parts.

This blog has been where I keep my regression resources for years now and I’m not giving it up or deleting anything but in unfollowing anti-kink or minor blogs or anything else that one or both of us would feel uncomfortable with that interaction I’m left with… nothing. No online community, no edits, no fucking stimboards cause apparently liking weird sex means you’re dirtying the whole place up by existing (you see what I mean about conservative mindsets?) and even random banners that state that your favorite character, specifically, would hate you for your “unwholesomeness”

The worst part is? I did everything Right. I found the kink community as a minor and respected their rules (because minors Shouldn’t be in kink), so I found the agere community and, for a few years there, would’ve agreed with a lot of the shitty anti-kink stuff being spread around (cause if you don’t you’re an Evil Accessory to Pedophilia!) and now I have to stand up and look around a rebuild from fucking nothing, once again. I haven’t even heard mention of dual-community littles in YEARS and it hurts knowing we used to have stuff but I just,,, missed it. There’s no more room for grey areas in this time of increasing polarization and the kids aren’t ok, they’re learning that sex is bad and immoral and people with kinks and fetishes are evil predators who can’t control their urges and desires or indulge in anything without their filth ruining any wholesomeness that was there before and it’s a losing battle to get in internet fights cause that’s never a good option, I’m more likely to be dogpiled than cause anyone to rethink their reactionary politics.

The only good thing to come of this is the fact that there’s a littles meetup I’m going to tonight and the beginnings of a little community where I live. My boyfriend actually sent me the fetlife link cause he’s heard all of this and more as he supports me and learns how to be a caregiver. So hopefully I’ll have less of a need for online community. But that doesn’t mean I’m not mourning what I’ve lost and feeling all the hurts that have added up over the years

[jones-friend]

I have finished playing yet another game and I have some thoughts I wanted to share!

This is one I’ve been wanting to post on bc I’m not the biggest fan of the game’s discourse. I’ve been playing pokemon since Ruby/Sapphire. I have completed gen 2 remake, gen 3, gen 4, gen 5, gen 6, gen 8, and now gen 9. I have attempted gen 1, gen 2, and gen 7 without completing them.

I want to start with that I believe this is the best pokemon game. I’ll explain in full, but upfront this is the best time I’ve had playing a pokemon game.

Another thing I want to get out of the way is the game’s performance issues. When I see the game discussed this is the only thing I see being discussed. Yes I agree the game shipped unfinished, there are many performance issues. Its easy to go online and google silly glitches. I played both this and Cyberpunk day 1: this is nowhere near as bad as Cyberpunk. In the time I’ve played this I have not experienced any bugs that forced a restart. You’ll see NPC’s taking a walk at a brisk two frames per second, windmills tick like clocks, and sometimes Fuecoco slides into the abyss but nothing I encountered broke my forward progress. That’s why this recommendation comes with a “yes if you can set aside performance issues” because they are present and they are serious.

I’m going to move forward from talking about the game’s performance issues now.

The game takes the three plotlines of the 8 gyms, legendary pokemon, and an antagonist team and fractures them into bite sized pieces. You set out and find new wild pokemon to add to your team and shape your team through the course of the game.

Theres a LOT to love here. We’ll start gameplay. I have never cared about filling out the dex until this game. Hunting wild pokemon is easier since you can see them all before you encounter them and this gen serves a wide and intriguing variety of types from across nine generations of pokemon games. I never felt walled into a single or small set of typings and I was consistently finding stuff I wanted to try. TM crafting is very helpful, most necessary items can be bought, and terastalizing is the best version of mega evolution the series has made since gen 6.

Each pokemon has a tera type, typically the typing they are. When you terastalize you shift into that tera type and moves of that type become more powerful. The kicker is your tera type doesnt need to match your type. Through raid battles and a special process to change it you can receive different tera types. I cleared the elite four with a banette that shifts to fairy. You can only terastalize once between pokecenters making it much clearer than gigantomax. Its huge for pvp play and I’m excited to tinker with it.

Pokemon has also struggled with difficulty often opting to go too easy. To me this game hits it just right. Some fights were easy but some really wrung me out. The team star fire and fighting leaders in particular gave me a run for my money. I has two pokemon left after the dragon elite four trainer. Granted I did remake my team at lvl 60 for all the path finales, it was exactly the level of difficulty I want out of pokemon that made me engage with its typing mechanics.

New pokemon are also delightful, lots of exciting type combos, cute new designs, there’s a ton of hits this generation and fantastic new evolutions.

The story is much improved as well. Essentially you have a rival per story line and they all function differently. At the conclusion of all three paths the next story is unlocked where you and your three buds you’ve become friends with over the course of a typical pokemon game go on an adventure. I wont spoil this section, but genuinely this is the strongest part of any pokemon game I’ve played. It made me feel the themes the game wants to reinforce. A+.

Also shoutout to all the team star fight themes all three are bangers.

So is this a good game?

If we’re judging by pokemon standards its incredible. To me its the closest the series has been to what the premise promises. If this gets remade I think fans will be stoked. Its absolutely one of the strongest entries.

Is it a good game divorced from the pokemon legacy? Yes*. Its got a great finale, great art direction, engaging battles that never felt too easy, the GAME here is very strong. The performance can be a real problem and if the performance of a game can make or break it for you I cannot recommend this one. You need to be able to let a lot of aesthetic performance issues slip by, sometimes daschbun just goes into the stratosphere. Sometimes Jeff from Biology walks through your pokemon battle. But if you’re able to set these issues aside I think you’ll have a wonderful time.

I think gamefreak is headed in the right direction with this entry and I hope to see more from them like this! A patch released the morning of posting this, and I’m hoping the performance issues settle to let what is a strong entry in the pokemon series get attention it deserves.

[armedjoy]

a long and (later on) personal post about my engagement and future on this site beneath the cut

to start, some observations about my time here:

disco elysium holds the record for the first fandom im truly engaging with. i check the tags, read the 'spinoff' fiction, its fun. one could say our ideological milieus here are themselves a fandom, but in terms of something thats strictly media, this is it. going on 11 years here and thats what broke the streak, its that fucking good.

i regret deleting my sideblog 'information-nexus' back in '15. it was an organized and well-tagged news, theory, "how-to", and resource blog, but it was taking way too much of my time. i was attempting to make a whole ass virtual library on tumblr, which is far too ambitious for one person, especially considering that it would never pay bills. i shouldve opened it up to some friends to co-mod it and dialed back my involvement. oh well

i regret less the deletion of 'film-space' in '14. posts were just the movie poster with a brief summary of the plot and then a quick review. i came up with my own system that reworked the 4 star ratings into how id recommend based on genre preferences. film reviews in print seem to belabor the point and online reviews seem to lean too heavily on arbitrarily defined scoring. the point should be to either encourage or dissuade readers from seeing it, not remind them you're the wittiest person in the room or that you've atomized the medium into an exploded diagram, and i held to that. it forced me to watch movies more critically wrt to both the art form and the politics it portrayed. but i took an extended break from the site and lost momentum. it just seemed... pointless

ive been pretty bad with managing every inbox/ chat ive ever had - except this one, the personal blog. i tell myself "i'll get around to answering that" and thats been a lie most of the time. the vast majority of my time here is spent reading things that cross my dash, so getting a question on a completely different subject seems to exceed my bandwidth. i genuinely enjoy most of my interactions here but im simply not in the correct mindset most days. that said, most of the mail 'left-reminders' has gotten just feels like im being asked to do an undergrads homework.

i havent posted my face in, what, 8 years? which i might change. i mean im already fucked - ive posted some wild shit before [REDACTED] was a meme, and my face is already linked to this blog & backed up somewhere at fort meade. whats another hole in an already sunk ship, yeah?

funnily enough, i originally joined to post my photography & short stories. look how that turned out lmao

why am i posting this? ive been seriously evaluating my continued presence here. for some time ive had a desire to leave, which up to this point has been greatly outweighed by the reasons to stay. there are other platforms that are bigger, faster, algorithmically supercharged to provide every niche interest you allow it to know... but im still not as invested as i am here. tumblr's appeal is equal parts utilitarian and sentimental - no other platform has been this educational, informing, and entertaining. this place really is the internets bleeding edge for both humor and anarchist/ communist discourse. and for more personal reasons, i have greatly valued sharing this little corner of the internet with you all. i have enjoyed sharing each of your interests and discussions, witnessing your personal developments. know that this random guy on the internet is & always has been rooting for you.

ive had some serious rough patches over the last decade, and ive used this site as a grounding rod as much as a resource and social outlet. but my friend group is vast now, im living healthier, and im making positive changes. for the first in a very long time, i am truly feeling better, finally moving beyond 'managing' into 'growing.' and more than anything, i need to grow creatively.

simply put, writing fiction is the calling of my heart. and if im to commit to it, i cannot divide my attention. beyond being my sole committed creative outlet, it helps me manage daily life. writing feels like gardening: in the structure it builds to do it right, the determination it requires to continue when i fail, and the joy it inspires when i create. when an idea settles in and i can piece it together while going about my day, only sitting down to write when i know most of it. the emotion i experience after unwinding something that has rooted itself around my mind is tremendous and complicated - it feels like an exorcism, of sorts. the feverishness that seizes me to get it all down before it slips away, the relief when i know i can finally move on, the pride of creation, and the dreadful anticipation of being read - all of it is a bittersweet cup that i will gladly return to.

i need to make space for that, with whatever little amount of bandwidth i have to work with. i refuse to wake up one day knowing that i have postponed the only thing thats ever meant a damn to me, only to realize ive run out of time. i will not squander whats left.

at some point, i know i need to put this behind me. this, and several other self-imposed obligations, must greatly diminish or disappear entirely. it might be in a few weeks or a year, but it has to happen. i might keep this one up, sporadically popping in for occasional exchanges, and pass off the sideblogs to someone else. i've already scrubbed the archive. or maybe i'll just delete entirely; perhaps virtual presences are best if they resembled a sand mandala, something designed to be swept away to make space for something - or someone - new.

i had to write this down, get this all out, if only for myself. i cannot begin to estimate the amount of time ive spent here, so it had to be said for my own reconciliation of that time... and to keep myself to it.

when im ready to leave, i'll let you all know.

[cordycepsfem]

I opened my heart to you. I let you read me. My hands were up, guns were down. I said I was happy to talk if anyone had hurt you. But instead you just turned around on me and yelled. I know you've been hurt, but that is no excuse for what you have permitted to be on your blog and what you have said. I am entirely willing to help you heal. But if you keep lashing out, no one will benefit. You call me a coward for being scared of you but you reblogged that horrid post. So I am perfectly in my right to be mother fucking terrified, and I am. Because I don't want any of my friends to be raped or murdered. So please, please, just talk to me, or somebody you trust, or someone with open DMs or anyone. I'm not going to judge you as long as you're open.

I did not yell or “lash out,” I responded to you frankly and openly as an adult, which I will continue to do now. Again, if this is too much to handle - getting an honest response from someone speaking openly and honestly - some time away from the computer may serve you well. You told me you’re a minor but if you approach me with wild claims that are intended to hurt or motivate me into doing something, I’m going to assume you’re ready to have a grown-up conversation. If not, the procedure to log off is very easy.

Your word vomit about your own identity was not “letting me read you,” it was an attempt to guilt me into feeling a certain way. You didn’t ask about my own thoughts or feelings, didn’t ask about why I may write or reblog the things I do, didn’t give a shit about anything related to me except your hope that I would be guilted into change through your presentation of self as a poor little meow meow.

You have no idea what my background is, nor what the “hurt” is that you’re so earnestly petitioning me to hash out with you. I do not find it appealing to engage in a discourse with someone who claimed to be “terrified” of me - if you can’t connect to my feelings or what I might say because you are too scared of them, what chance do we have of having an actual conversation that means anything? What else might my words and experiences trigger in you, since apparently all I am is terrifying? A heart attack? The vapors?

I didn’t say you were a coward, I said that you being scared of sharing a massive online platform with me was very silly. You could have continued to scroll on by and never approached me at all. It probably would have been better for you, considering all these histrionics.

I don’t give a shit about you judging me. I’m not going to rape or murder anyone, which is the dumbest thing I’ve had to state so far.

You are “entirely willing” to help me heal? Bullshit. You reference how scared you are of my ideas; I hardly think that as a minor who can’t debate issues without crying about being raped or murdered that you are in any way qualified to “heal” or even have further discussion with about my life. I have a professional who I pay who works with me, because that’s what healthy people do instead of Tumblr asks.

[toxicnorn]

i didn't really do this for the sake of nostalgia but i was looking through some past blogs and internet IDs of mine

i'm a very different person from who i was when i originally joined tumblr. i approach writing in a very different way. my opinions on a lot of things have changed a lot. i really cannot give two shits about most discourse nowadays that i used to have opinions on.

when it comes to creative work, i had a lot more energy and confidence, but this was a double-edged sword because for a long period of time, i was single-handedly focused on rp as a distraction from some real heavy shit irl and my fandom stuff wasn't necessarily healthy for me. this is something i've struggled with on and off over the years because i tend to latch really hard to fiction and characters when things are bad. i wrote some really good sentences though and some good characters. i keep trying to recreate the same feelings by recycling characters, but they're different each time because nostalgia's a false thing and you can't just make the same thing twice but different and expect it to be the same.

my latest attempts at fic and rp are trying to come from a different source, which i think is healthier in the long run.

i was like super depressed from 2014-2018 and then the election pummeled me into a different funk for two years, which was better in some ways but worse in others. around 2019, i was finally able to move out of my parents' house for some time. it wasn't very far but it did help me clear my head a bit.

then 2020 happened. i moved back in with my parents for a few months and it was kind of awful, but then i moved back and things were actually better on my end for a bit, but i was still very weird and squirrelish.

2021 happened somewhere along those lines and i don't remember most of 2021 because it was a hell year of going to doctor's appointments until the very end of it. i moved across the country in 2022 to be with my gf (hey bb love you very much if you are reading this) and for the first time maybe ever, i feel like i'm in a pretty good place. i know that there is a still a lot of work ahead of me to figure out How to Be A Person 101 and get over my hangups but i'm really happy.

anyway, when your creative output has been based entirely on distracting yourself from blue moods up until now, it's a bit wild trying to readjust your brain to go "hey, actually, it's okay to like things just to like them, you can fuel yourself with other emotions, having characters that live in your head is not cringe or something." i'm having fun though, even if i can't manage the output that i'd like to.

this isn't me gloomyposting btw. i think if anything, it's the opposite because things are pretty okay. i might have issues that creatively frustrate me and i might have flaws i'm trying to work on and of course learning How To Social is always an ongoing effort and we aren't even getting into the ongoing saga of Getting My Bran To Work On Medication (on one hand, it's been great because i have the least amount of anxiety than i have ever had in my life; on the other hand, my brain feels like it's two feet out of reach more days than i'd like it to and i'm really frustrated by the fact that i cannot make the connections between thoughts and actions, like my brain just stutters before comprehending that ii should do very basic actions), but all in all, things are great and i'm excited for the future.

there are a lot of people i've lost track of that vanished off tumblr after 2018. i realized a small handful of people were assholes. some of the people i used to know seem to have fallen off the fact of the internet entirely and i doubt i'll ever learn what happened to them. at least one of my very early internet friends died, klim. i don't really know what happened to most of the people i knew in those days when i was on gaia online but i hope that they're doing well. i was a very different person when i was on that site but i was also 16, so of course i was.

anyway, i talk different now. i communicate differently. my internet voice has changed. i used to use random caps for everything. i don't capitalize shit anymore and you can't make me.

i don't really want to get back into the mindsets of me of years prior, but i do want to be able to tap into that well of creative potential because it seemed like i had so much energy for writing, for talking about writing, for sharing and brainstorming and thinking. i know that i am a person capable of writing a novella in the same of a few weeks so i want to regain that.

but i want to have more fun with it this time. i want it to belong to me and not belong to various plagues and maladies. i think deep down, there is a part of me that misses being nine and thinking i had invented fanfiction and talking about my zelda fic with all my friends without a hint of self-consciousness, but, like, with less 1999 going on because the 90s normalized a lot of shit that's not great.

anyway i don't really know where i'm going with this, so i am going to rotate characters in my mind before i go to bed

[haleigh-sloth]

So when did u joined the bnha fandom? Do you regret it?

Lol

My bio reads as

I joined in 2020.

Do I have regrets? Some.

I never thought I'd give a shit about seeing people talk about my fav characters in certain ways that just makes me red in the face lol. Never thought I'd care about character discourse, or shit like that. It feels wild to me that I do, and sometimes I think "Man, does this really matter?" lol.

Butttt

I don't regret it in its entirety. Overall, I'm more grateful than anything. The person who got me into bnha is @ghostofthewhitespire, my bff. She ditched me for One Piece 👎🏼 (still love you) but I'm so glad she forced me to watch two episodes at a sleep over.

Despite how talkative I am on here, I have a pretty busy life with a lot of chaos in it. So having manga leaks to look forward to every week is actually quite relieving from everyday life. Having mutuals to talk to about my blorbos makes real life easier. Having group chats to rant in about freaking comics is fun, and also an escape. No matter how shitty my work day, or work week is--at least I have my little comic to look forward to every week.

The biggest reason I don't regret it--I've made friends! Online friends whose real names I don't know, and even friends I've managed to meet in person. One of them flew from Texas to Colorado to see me, and she's here now. We met because of fandom. I wouldn't change that at all. I've met one other in person that I met through fandom, and hopefully one day I'll meet more.

But honestly no--I don't regret it. Too many things about it I enjoy, too many things about it make following the manga so much more fun. If not for fandom I probably would have dropped the manga. So yeah. I'm glad I'm here.

[apple-dandy]

Sometimes I see takes that make me

And I take a step back and go "I think I need to go do something not on the internet". But then I go outside and people are just as ...baffling ...out in "the real world" and I go "perhaps. There is no escape".

Like you're online and look to your left and they're saying "if you're an atheist you're actually just christian and edgy about it, and also a fascist because Gamergate happened and Jordan Peterson exists and Richard Dawkins is a piece of shit asshole and I'm going to project all of my insecurities and fears about both christianity and Those Atheists at you".

You look to your right and they're like "the queen of Canada, who is going to share her alien technologies with us once we depose the false government of Canada, declared that electricity and water is now free - but I got my water cut for not paying these fake bills they keep sending me 😥".

And you go "wow the internet sure is a wild place of conjecture and discourse! I ought to go interact with real people!"

Then you go off the internet and you go to your left to help out a local LGBTQ+ youth center and the meeting disintegrates because the center apparently has a long-running feud with the nearby center for Black Excellence and the old lesbian who welcomed you in says something super racist to the representative from the Black Excellence center. After the meeting falls apart you offer the representative a ride home. She says she's been trying unsuccessfully to get the LGBTQ+ center to work with the local POC groups for a while. You end up going home and sitting silently.

You look to your right and there's a police guarded, christofascist, pro-trump march through your city while you sit on a park bench and watch a homeless person giving up on retrieving their lunch that the cops threw in the trash, and come over to tell you all about how they just want to sleep in peace. You forgot to bring cash & feel awful. You get home and the news informs you a bunch of those Canadian queen supporters got arrested for attacking the police over covid restrictions.

And you go "oh there is no escape and that's just how it is huh!"