#then idk what to tell you aside from stop worrying about words discourse

[undervaluedagent]

Man I hate tumblr sometimes

[olderthannetfic]

i can tell who your tog anon is by the content of your last post. so could anyone in tog fandom who’s had the misfortune to live through the top/bottom disk horse that’s been running off and on since this time last year. those of us who arent part of the debate are tired of it. we just want them all, on either side, to stop

it’s not about racism. it’s about a bunch of people seeing kinky stuff that isn’t tailored to their kinks, taking offense as loudly as they can, and then trying to control the fandom narrative by being assholes to anyone who doesn’t agree with them. lgbtmazight was one of your anon’s backers and abettors. they and theirs have made a lot of people unhappy and scared, poc and MENA people included, so i’m not surprised that now the tables are turning they’re feeling a bit worried. they started this shitshow. without them and their friends, the tog fandom would not now be the trashfire it is

i’m aroace. most fic is written by allo and amatonormative people for allo and amatonormative people, and i deal with that every time i go looking for fic on ao3. a lot of fic, explicit and not, is repulsive to me in ways that would never occur to anyone not aspec. i accept that, and i don’t expect any writer to accommodate me for things that would never occur to them and would also be completely contradictory to their own needs. if i click on something that offends me or makes me feel sick i take responsibility for my own experiences and click back out

problematic content exists. so do tags. it’s pretty easy to avoid the content you don’t want see, these days, if you pay attention. and sure, there are racist fics written for tog. there are racist fics on the top!Joe side of things. there are a number of them on the bottom!Joe side as well, and some others that are neither. on the whole, though, there isn’t a huge amount. certainly not as much as one sector of the fandom would like everyone to believe

the person you’re talking to is one of the main bottom!Joe stans. they don’t seem to comprehend that there are people who write a specific character topping because they’re their fave and they identify with them, and they are themselves tops. the discoursers make it all about supposed straight cis women wanting to write a gay couple the same way they would a straight couple. of them wanting to write the partner they identify with on bottom, because of course they are straight cis women and of course the “receiving” partner must be who they identify with. which is a very binary, very ignorant way of viewing the matter

in addition to being aroace i’m afab enby. i’m trans, i’m queer in all senses of the word, i’m kinky as hell in some very weird ways, and i’m an exclusive top. it’s safe to say that i have very different wants and needs from my fic reading and writing than pretty much the entirety of tog fandom, especially given that there are only three tog fics aside from my own that i haven’t backbuttoned out of. i also identify with Joe, so even though it’s not guaranteed that i’ll write him topping since i hc both him and Nicky as vers, there’s a good chance he will top, no matter whose pov i’m writing from. i’m not going to change my tastes; i’m old enough to understand them and be comfortable with that side of myself. i’m not going to apologize for it, either. i don’t know because i don’t interact much within the fandom, but there are probably a lot of people who feel this way. people who are fed up with /both/ the bottom!Joe and the top!Joe stans

i will say, though, that the bottom!Joe side of the fandom has been colonized by Len and her clique, and they’re where most of the toxicity originated. i’m sure your anon saw many people reblogging the call-out post from you and rushed over to your asks to try to do damage control as best they could, as they have with many other blogs in the past. from what i’ve observed, they harass via anon, they don’t act in good faith, and i sincerely hope you don’t become one of their next targets. i’ve been unpleasantly surprised to see the discourse trickling over into blogs i follow that i’d thought were exempt; i admit i’ll be sad if yours becomes the next platform to be absorbed into it

--

Oh, nonnie, when is my tumblr not consumed by discourse?

Don't worry, once I watch the Sarah Z video and post what I think, she'll probably start vaguing about me and then my inbox will be full of Sarah stans screaming at me again instead of TOG anons. Haha.

You could be right about exactly who this anon is. (I wouldn't know. I just read the fic in this fandom. I don't socialize over it usually.) You could be right about their motivations. That's certainly the read I got from their first messages to me. But IDK... I profoundly disagree with their analysis, but I don't think you should discount the possibility that they're some rando lurker you've never heard of and that they're operating in good faith. They don't need to be intentionally misrepresenting things for me to disagree with them.

[thegeminisage]

Jace, Magnus, Raph :D

THATS SO MANY THANK U

JACE:

favorite thing about them: everyone likes to sort of categorize jace as this mostly douchey guy but he’s actually kind of Softe if you dig a little and like not to be basic but i like that about him

least favorite thing about them: WHY YOU ALWAYS LYIIIN

favorite line: “dazzle me” @cathy not one word

brOTP: JACE AND ALEC…give me more of that good parabatai shit…….my other favorite thing about jace is it’s implied he knew alec was in love with him for a long timeor at the very LEAST since alec’s bad reaction in 1.04 and he played dumb (partially because he hates talking about feelings yes but also) for alec’s benefit. just not to make things weird. it would have been easy to make him be weird about it. straight guys are assholes. but he wasnt and thats real nice.

OTP: he’d be miserable without clary to the point where he still wanted to smash even when he thought they were related, so

nOTP: jace and alec. STRICTLY platonic on jace’s end! it’s not necessarily that i think it’s ~problematic~ god knows you couldnt pay me to touch that discourse i just think the dynamic is much richer and deeper when it’s a one-sided romance and jace was still cool about it. idk i find that totally refreshing and fascinating and like a pretty new take, at least to me personally. why ruin it by turning it into run-of-the-mill slash? (i say this as someone who writes a lot of run-of-the-mill slash, don’t send me mean messages) 

random headcanon: he likes [REDACTED], which technically was cathy’s headcanon first

unpopular opinion: he’s never done anything wrong in his life ever…look i know he has but like leave him alone?? idek why i feel so strongly about this he isn’t my favorite character i don’t stan him i’m not super invested in him…i just don’t think he’s done anything wrong, aside from the fact that he lies a lot. i was totally siding with him over alec during their season 1 tiffs.

song i associate with them: natalia kills - kill my boyfriend :)

favorite picture of them: sorry but i dont really have one

MAGNUS:

favorite thing about them: his body language! he’s like always on the go, all his lil flourishes, how expressive he is–expression-wise and with his body language. he uses his hands to talk and since warlocks use their hands for magic that’s like an awesome character detail. my second favorite thing is how fucking cool he is. i love when he does magic. he’s so cool oh my god he’s like the HEIGHT of cool

least favorite thing about them: not to be problematic but he’s a little TOO perfect. let him fuck up once in awhile! so far all we’ve gotten was the seelie queen thing and that was half alec’s fault

favorite line: “i’m the high warlock of brooklyn” YOU TELL EM MAGNUS

brOTP: MAGNUS AND RAPHAEL IS CANONICAL ACE/BI SOLIDARITY AND I’M SO HERE FOR IT

OTP: well obviously magnus and alec

nOTP: i dont really?? see him shipped with anyone else??? i guess my notp is imm*rtal h*bands…alec would absolutely hate being immortal, whether by magic or being turned. he would HATE it. i have a series of fanfictions outlines to explain my feelings on this matter more thoroughly someday

random headcanon: i made a gifset about it on my other blog (you can see it at /post/172404479554/ if you know the url) but i think maybe he doesn’t always like being a warlock. like, the magic is great! he loves his people! he loves being able to do cool stuff! but his parents basically died because of it (trying not to be too spoilery, sorry coralie), and being immortal when you have to watch people die is hard. he’s pretty sensitive about his cat eyes, maybe in a way that’s more worried about what other people will think than someone who dislikes himself? i feel like maybe he used to dislike himself a lot more intensely and sort of had a long time to unlearn it and now most of the time it’s fine but he just still has his bad days and tender spots. i feel strongly anough this, clearly

unpopular opinion: again im gonna have to go with being anti imm*rtal h*bands…i mean obviously people can write what they want & no skin off my nose but i wish it wasnt QUITE so popular bc its hard to find fic i like w/o it

song i associate with them: man i have a really great one for alec like that could kinda be malec but not a magnus-only one sorry

favorite picture of them: literally any picture with cat eyes i love his cat eyes so much

RAPHAEL:

favorite thing about them: CANONICAL ASEXUAL!!!!!! i can’t tell you how much that means to me. it’s a first for me! i watched this whole show for raphael. second favorite thing: he’s still religious. that’s real brave imo

least favorite thing about them: WHY DID HE DO THAT…i cant say what he did on coralie’s post i already said a magnus spoiler but i cant believe he DID THAT im heartbroken for him and so angry at him what an idiot why didn’t he ask for help

favorite line: number one winner is the entire scene about the stars with rosa but close runner up is whenever he speaks spanish. not because it’s sexy or whatever but because he almost exclusively does it when he’s trying to be intimidating. literally i have a gif of him going “adios >:)” when he’s about to commit murder

brOTP: if i had an entire show about magnus and raphael i would be happy. alec who? but raphael and rosa kills me too

OTP: raphael and izzy, come on, come on, show, i’m begging you! simon who? this is where it’s at! i can’t believe she talked about his asexuality like it was a perk rather than a hurdle. i get weepy when i think about it for too long

nOTP: please for the love of god stop shipping with him with simon

random headcanon: dislikes kissing. i may be projecting a bit here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ at least i finally have a character i can project on!

unpopular opinion: rizzy isn’t predatory on either side they both did that and they both owned up to it and got better stop trying to paint one of them like a creeper and the other like some precious innocent victim

song i associate with them: every single song i put on the ace playlist i made the other night

favorite picture of them: i made a gifset of him with the ace colors and that’s my favorite one. it’s at /post/172511018559/ on my other blog if you know the url

(send me characters!!)

[dailywords4dailypeople]

ameliorate

Here’s a quick life update:

I’ve been singing far too much. How much is too much? Well, I don’t know. On top of all the singing I do for collegiate ensembles, I sing during nearly every faucet of my day to day activities. I sing while walking to class. People might be looking, but I honestly haven’t cared to check. I sing while in the shower. The great thing about shower singing is the acoustics, which allow great practice for going through scales and practicing hand signs. I sing with my friends. Most of my friends are also musically talented, so it is common practice to break out into song, whatever the occasion.

Unfortunately, limits are a thing. You can only do so much. I can sing, but I can’t sing forever. I attempt to alleviate my sore throat with water, but the fact is simply that I sing too much. I can’t belt Gs all day without a cost. I convince myself that I’m training for Broadway, but my issue is impatience. I act impulsively and worry about situations directly in front of me. Being a young man, I find it hard to imagine life after… uhh idk, the end of this week.

It’s a struggle of mine. A “weakness.” I’m impatience and impulsive. Clearly, I need to improve my behavior, and I found a solution! Rather than spending my free time listening to Frank Ocean or Solange, I’ve made the adjustment to focus on rap music. With this adjustment, I will not be tempted to outburst the stress relieving harmony to Frank Ocean’s Solo; however, I will develop a stronger focus on what an artist is saying. Lyrical analysis! Rap music heavily focuses on the writing of a song or developing a “bar.” And while listening to the album The Sun’s Triade, I heard a bar, my friend:

“How do you tell the truth to a crowd of white people?”—Isaiah Rashad

When I hear this quote, I do not make the assumption that he is talking to me. Yeah, being white technically gives me a proper role. An outsider. An unexplainable object. It would make sense if I did assume this role though. Everyone is self-centered, which makes empathy a revolutionary action. But I see myself relating to IR in this song. Yeah, I get pissed at white people. Why? All angry and hatred in the world is because of miscommunication.

Rashad knows this. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like he does. Asking the question means he doesn’t know the answer. He is seeking guidance. How do you tell the truth? Why is telling the truth hard?

Misunderstanding.

There is this crazy idea that people are evil. I don’t get it. It is difficult for me to get upset at someone for acting self-centered. Everyone acts that way. Everyone has “I” as one of the first word suggestions for their phone’s keyboard.

But Rashad is using a rhetoric device. He proclaims how telling the truth is a foreign idea. Telling the truth only seems to work in echo chambers, but when it is applied to another party or race, misunderstanding makes the message clear as mud. We lack trust between races.

Look at Donald Trump.

Obviously, there is not adequate communication between separate ethnicities. So, how do you let people know when can trust another? How do we prove to a stranger that we can love them? I don’t know you, but I appreciate you. I appreciate how you grow your hair. I appreciate the clothes you wear. I appreciate the language you speak. I love you for your differences.

Interacting with mostly white people, I find it difficult to feel like an individual. We all look the fucking same. When people tell me I look like some famous actor, my thought is agreeance. Yup, I am white! I have high cheek bones and jawline. I have eyes that change colors and eyelashes that are mistaken for massacre. That’s me and every other white guy I am around. (I’m only a little bit trapped in an echo chamber).

But my freshman year of college, I was friends with a group where I was the only white boy. I was the only person from Ohio. I said jokes that I personally didn’t think were that funny, but they made me standout because they were white boi jokes. Scrawny rich white boi. Shaggy from Scooby Doo.

Hanging around them allowed myself to do a mental background check. Yes, our skin was a different color, but that didn’t stop us from having love in our hearts.

I made friends with Muslims and Jews. I introduced An Arabic Christian to a Mexican Jew once and tried to mediate their conversation. The holy land conversation. Israel. Yeah, it was a shit show. They hated each other, but that baffled me because I loved both of them. Why couldn’t they set aside their misunderstanding? Why couldn’t they understand?

Miscommunication.

Friend, I need your help. Please, tell the truth. Telling the truth ameliorates racial discourse.  Always tell the truth. It’s the only way we can communicate with each other. When I say “I love you,” I’m talking to you. The real you. Please, know that I am telling you the truth. That’s rule number three of The Men’s Glee Club at Ohio State:

Tell the truth.