#theres a difference between flag discourse and like

[dog-bonezzzz]

some of y'all should have never been given "people in real life: hi how are you" and "im not chronically online what does this mean" as phrases because you'll really just be saying it about anything that has to do with marginalized groups that you dont understand/don't think matters.

[innocent-e-vil]

i actually think it works out really well that ghost eyes characters dont have canon diagnoses for things (especially emilio)

using him as an example, mcp has stated he doesnt really Have a real life/existing disorder, just “a whole smorgasbord of issues. his dad just royally fucked up” but his lack of an actual diagnosis doesnt take away from his experiences/struggles with the symptoms/side effects/etc he faces from whatever experiments he’s been a part of.

during a time like today when internet users, especially young people, are constantly arguing over labels/diagnoses and how to use them (this also applies to labels in spaces such as the queer community just in different context) this is especially important because of the constant back and forth of users fake claiming and harassing one another when they dont even know each other. while labels and diagnoses can bring closure to individuals and connect them with others who share similar experiences, and i cannot and will not deny that they are objectively important in the real world, i think it’s more important to focus on the symptoms an individual faces instead of how they label them.

misdiagnoses are even given with medical professionals — especially in a field such as psychology (which not to toot my own horn but i got a 5 on my ap psych exam last year. i am by no means an expert but i at least know my shit) there is so much variation in personal experience and overlap in symptoms between diagnoses, that it’s honestly a miracle it isn’t flagged more often. ”ok charlie wtf does this have to do with ghost eyes” im getting there hold your damn horses. sorry i like being a nerd

my point is that while this (probably) wasnt intended, i think the idea that someone’s symptoms are what defines their experience and not the confines of their label/official diagnosis is a REALLY important message to be aware of, especially in circles that stories like ghost eyes tend to attract readers from. emilio does not have a canon label, and he doesn’t need one for a reader to see how his circumstances cause him to struggle. i think that if people understood the importance of focusing on one another’s experiences instead of if they’re describing them wrong or not, we wouldn’t have to deal with a lot of discourse that happens in these circles. at the end of the day, labels are just that — labels. words we use to describe or categorize things that are sometimes too broad to categorize, but we feel we need in order to communicate. its not important WHAT these characters have, its important how they deal with the SPECIFIC issues they face

side note: all this being said headcannoning a character as xyz because of abc symptoms is not like a mortal sin or anything theres nothing wrong with that. i just think it works out well that nobody will diagnosis these stupid teenagers

sorry if im not at all being coherent its 11:30 and i dont have the energy to refine a better line of reasoning /lh

[debtdeath]

look man you’d have to be wilfully stupid to label yourself as a “proshipper” in 2022 lol. the way the “discourse” about this stuff has seemingly devolved since the inception of the term and the idea that “darker themes can be explored” became co-opted by absolute ghouls who just want to be the Edgiest Person On The Internet, you’d have to be either ignorant or an absolute idiot to want to stick with the term. the well is poisoned and theres nothing you can do about it.

putting this under read more bc i wrote a lot more than i thought i would:

i personally think the real danger about like, “proship” people isnt so much the content that they indulge into, which i think can be responsibly, carefully, tactfully and usually privately thought about, and if shared at least within an appropriate context and forewarning that would then technically qualify as “harmless”.

this is where moderation and tagging is important. there is a difference between talking about/writing about upsetting or “taboo” content as part of a piece that is meant to be serious, and including upsetting content for shits and giggles or purely for jerk off material lol. unfortunately it’s pretty much impossible to stop people from doing the latter, but you can create spaces where you dont have to be confronted to that stuff when you dont want to see it. hence moderation on bespoke online spaces (discord servers, forums), and tagging and the ability to block the tags on online spaces where Everyone Is On The Same Website (twitter, tumblr, ao3, whatever). it’s not perfect, but it’s something.

anyway, i reckon the real danger is the normalisation and fetishisation (not necessarily sexual fetishism, but closer to its use in the marxist term commodity fetishism) of upsetting content, and the subsequent alienation of people who are interested in exploring these themes but have no place to really do that other than “proship” spaces that are usually unsafe, unmoderated and usually always end up being all about the cult of Just How Disturbing You Can Be. there is a ramping up here, a slippery slope that actually fucks people up long term. that’s the real harm. thats the real danger.

i am not using the term “cult” liberally here, recruitment tactics are similar in other cults like TERF groups, fascist groups, cryptocurrency schemes and conspiracy theorists. i’ve been on the internet long enough to understand how these things work, and to tie this back to the idea of moderation and tagging, truth is you’re better off knowing how and where to keep an eye on these weirdos, so when they inevitably try to infiltrate your space you recognise them and tell them to fuck off, and so when they show up on your tumblr dashboard you recognise that some Bullshit is going on and you just ignore and block them, and flag them to your peers if you want. yes, it’s a lot of effort, yes i wish it was easier, but it is what it is.

basically, an individual person shipping a problematic pairing isnt dangerous, but when there are enough people that exacerbate each other’s persecution complex and go more and more into extremes, that’s when it crosses the boundaries of “just exploring dark themes” into irresponsibly putting yourself and others in harm’s way.

i dont really talk about this stuff publicly because it’s discourse that is too far gone to bring any semblance of nuance back into it, so im like just throw it all into the trash lol. but the point is, if you label yourself as a proshipper in the year of the lord 2022 then you should really think about what it means, what it signals to others, what kind of people it attracts.

[nineherbscharm]

Runemarks characters as dril tweets

Maddy Smith: "This Whole Thing Smacks Of Gender," i holler as i overturn my uncle's barbeque grill and turn the 4th of July into the 4th of Shit

Adam Scattergood: "im not owned! im not owned!!", i continue to insist as i slowly shrink and transform into a corn cob

Sugar-and-Sack: the doctor reveals my blood pressure is 420 over 69. i hoot & holler outta the building while a bunch of losers try to tell me that im dying

Nat Parson: blocked. blocked. blocked. youre all blocked. none of you are free of sin

Ethelberta Parson: it is with a heavy heart that i must announce that the celebs are at it again

Dorian Scattergood: THE COP GROWLS "TAKE OFF TH OSE JEANS, CITIZEN." I COMPLY, REVEALING THE FULL LENGTH DENIM TATTOOS ON BOTH LEGS. THE COP SCREAMS; DEFEATED

Nan Fey: "if theres a spicy brown mustard, why not a spicy brown ketchup?"

The wise man smiled.

"my friend, the condiment you seek is Barbecue Sauce"

Examiner 4421974: another day volunteering at the betsy ross museum. everyone keeps asking me if they can fuck the flag. buddy, they wont even let me fuck it

Odin: joke's on you; i actually love being body slammed by one dozen perfect wrestlers. and my mouth isn't filled with bloodm, it's victory wine

Loki: the jduge orders me to take off my anonymous v mask & im wearing the joker makeup underneath it. everyone in the courtroom groans at my shit

Frigg: going to start asking "What do you Think?" at the end of each post, to help stimulate discourse and reap the substantial benefits of Social.

Thor: im stupider then dog shit, i dont give a shit, and i dont give a fuck, and i will never shut the fuck up, and i'll always Respect my enemys.

Tyr: its fucked up how there are like 1000 christmas songs but only 1 song aboutr the boys being back in town

Sif: the way i see it, people who come on here and submit content that is not up to par, could possibly be considered the "Villains" of this site

Balder: THERAPIST - your problem is, that youre perfect, and everyone is jealous of your good posts, and that makes you rightfully upset.

ME - I agree

Skadi: fuck "jokes". everything i tweet is real. raw insight without the horse shit. no, i will NOT follow trolls. twitter dot com. i live for this

Heimdall: i regret being tasked the emotional burden of maintaining the final bastion of morality and NIce manners in this endless ocean of human SHIT

Idun: installing a full scale maypole in my backyard... just thinking the boys are going to love this shit

Bragi: MAKE NO MISTAKE》i Appreciate the flawless, invaluable wisdom posted to us by the celebs, and they, in turn, appreciate my valuable feed back

Njord: the only reason my ex wife wants half of my shit is because i smothered my beautiful bald ass in ink and stamped the divorce papers with it

Frey: look at all these pitiful toads shamelessly seeking validation, unlike me, seeking validation in a cool, disaffected sort of way

Freyja: strongest blade in the world, howeve,r it is so fragile as to shatter when handled by any force other than the delicate touch of a lesbian .

Mimir: the wise man bowed his head solemnly and spoke: "theres actually zero difference between good & bad things. you imbecile. you fucking moron"

Hel: if your grave doesnt say "rest in peace" on it you are automatically drafted into the skeleton war

[shigure]

my feelings on tha bullshit

its obvious when you treat "lesbian" as a target demographic youre going to have to make a lot of generalizations about people who cant be summed up cohesively, for example lots of people dont like the lipstick lesbian flag, other people dont like the butch flag that was made, so on so forth. some lesbians are rich white ladies, some are working class women. its a given that when you try to appeal to all of us you will only appeal to some of us. but theres a difference between failing to please everybody (normal) and actively slapping people in the face for a laugh..

the lesbians gaud is appealing to with "affectionate" useless lesbian jokes are mainly teenagers/early 20s lesbians who ARE in fact fairly clueless. but that has nothing to do with being a lesbian, thats literally just what it means to be a teenager. youll be able to find "useless" young trans men or "useless" young cishets because being a teenager means being oblivious to social cues romantic or otherwise. but taking that and applying words that mean STUPID to lesbians as a whole, that's rude, that's inappropriate, that's lesbophobic, that's unacceptable.

but gauds not gonna stop doing what hes doing, because his audience of children who dont know better and are desperate for something to identify with eat it up and keep literally funding this content. thats why your gaud callout posts dont work, thats why gauds "still around," thats why the discourse being created is just going in circles. you can find this pattern in a lot of things these days. it's better to conserve your energy rather than getting infuriated about people who cant and wont change.

[bonejunky6669]

I think im going to start interacting wayyyy less with young lgbt spaces on the internet. Im not bullying these teens, i am one of them, but theres an insane difference between 15 year olds on tumblr and gay twt and gay people in real life. Real people dont have this horribly stupid discourse. The real lgbt community doesn't constantly fight each other like they do on here. Finding lgbt friends in real life, talking to older gay people, educating myself on lgbt movements in the 80s and 90s, its really made me feel so much more connected to our history and our struggles and what it means to be apart of this community. I think these chronically online anime pfp gays just don't interact with the outside world enough to truly know what its like.

You won't walk into a lesbian bar and find them fighting about which flag to use! You won't go to a pride parade and see people arguing over a fictional characters sexuality. You won't see punk bulldyke lesbians or old gay men who lived through the aids crisis or transgender teens forced to couch-surf constantly worrying over what terms they use and who might possibly be offended.

Being on these online lgbt spaces has stopped feeling excepting and connecting. Its tiring. It makes you angry when you don't need to be. Its full of policing and rigidness and boxes and those are the exact things we've always fought against!! It genuinely bums me out so much. I dont want to be apart of this, i dont even want to here about it. the lesbian flag/dyke discourse was really my last straw. I hope one day this part of the community is able to heal.