#this isn't about the current discourse but it's also not not about that you know?

[douwatahima]

as someone who's been doing fandom stuff for over twenty years, i think one of the most important lessons you can learn is not everything is for you. we're all nerds on the internet, banding together because we feel at least a little unhinged about our favourite shows/movies/ect. there's going to strong opinions any way you slice it, and other people's opinions won't always align with yours. maybe someone is obsessed with a character you don't like or a pairing that makes no sense to you, but that person still has as much of a right to be in the space as you do. that doesn't mean you have to interact with those ideas, i'm a big proponent of blocking whoever or whatever you need to, but you don't get to tell them to stop just because you personally don't like it.

obviously, there are cases where this doesn't apply. if a take is super racist/homophobic/transphobic or someone is using their personal headcanon to harrass others, then absolutely that's something that should be addressed. but if it's just something harmless that irks you personally, you need to understand that that is a you problem and not a them problem. and, quite frankly, if you can't come to terms with that, maybe fandom isn't for you.

[hangryyeena]

hiding out in my Ryoma corner and avoiding Danganronpa fans on Twitter 🧯🛡️

[oyasumire]

the current dungeon meshi yaoi/yuri discourse is good for highlighting fandom's constant misogyny problem but let us also talk about fandom's constant racism problem too because since the mlm kabru ships exploded in popularity, it's gotten harder and harder to come across kabru stuff that isn't him being reduced to a white man's plus one and like omg yall do this every time. any time we get a character of color in a series, yall have to make everything they do about the white person you ship them with because yall don't know how to let them be their own people. like kabru is my fave dunmeshi character, he is so fun and interesting and nuanced, and yall keep stripping that away because you want him to fuck your white boy of choice

[oldpotatoe]

as many of you know, gaza has now gone dark.

targeted israeli strikes have wiped out the telecommunications infrastructure. phone lines and internet services are gone. gazans cannot call their loved ones to check if they are still alive. they cannot call for ambulances for aid. if they survive the increased bombardment tonight and the following nights, they will bleed out alone with no aid.

now i will tell you what will happen in the next few days/weeks, and i pray it to be untrue. unfortunately the apartheid state, also known as israel, has been quite obvious and transparent with their plans.

the stated goal of many politicians over the years from israel, including netanyahu, has been to have the entire strip of land of gaza as israel, with no separate region for palestinians. i am not going to provide links, google is free and i am fucking tired.

what they had done before tonight, in the last two weeks, was destroy over 50% of buildings in gaza city as well as neighbouring areas, so gazans have nowhere to return to. gazans have been forced south, and israel will use this opportunity to have troops in north gaza (currently referred to as the ground invasion) advancing south while bombing "h*mas sites" in the south. israel will do this knowing there are plenty more civilians there that will die, causing terror and panic and having palestinians want to flee to anywhere, anywhere that is safe.

israel is doing this in the hopes that this panic and terror will convince egypt to open the border (well, the border israel isn't currently bombing) so that palestinians can escape to the sinai desert in egypt.

once survivors leave, the area that is currently the gaza strip will 1) be reduced in size if a lot of palestinians stay, should they not be bombed out of existence, or 2) be entirely absorbed into israel if very few palestinians stay, which is the ultimate aim of israel. those remaining palestinians will be moved to the west bank, or the remainder of gaza will be converted to west bank conditions where they'd go through the same problems palestinians in the west bank go through (reduced access to water, checkpoints to go from any place to any place within their own land, getting dispossessed, or randomly killed by racist extremist settlers).

now, egypt has been adamant not to displace the palestinians. in online discourse, people have been dehumanising palestinians by talking about past disruptions in other refugee areas and saying that is why egypt does not want to take them. while there may be slight truth to this from egypt's perspective, the major reason egypt is refusing is that no palestinian refugee abroad has even been given the right to return to their own land. and this will be the fate of gazans if they are made to leave in a mass exodus to egypt/other neighbouring countries such as jordan, which these leaflets from army-backed israeli are threatening palestinians with (photo from salfit in the occupied west bank):

therefore, what i likely see happening is the above bombardment (in increased numbers now that gaza has gone dark) -> mass panic in gaza, more so now that gazans are cornered in the south -> a reluctant egypt, but with the US will promise a large amount of "aid" money to egypt to facilitate the mass exodus of palestinians, the borders will open.

palestinians will be forced out. israelis are already planning on hoovering up the prime real estate there, for amusements park no less!

this is nabka 2.0. this is genocide.

btw, as we speak: israel's leading newspaper is already making claims that h*mas's main operation base is under shifa hospital. the hospital currently housing 50,000 displaced palestinians. the idf is claiming h*mas is using the hospital as a human shield, which is their new favourite phrase to justify killing civilians. so you already know what to expect in the news.

[ftmtftm]

Do you really think its more plausable that a TERF knows the specific details of the Baeddel discourse so well that they can craft the perfect copypasta that refrences all the nuances of internal trans discourse (which I'm sorry but they don't really understand anything about our community) in such a way as to be the maximum level of offensive to the other side than the alternative, that there exists on this site a trans man capable of sexually harassing trans women who disagree with him? I

Are all trans mascs sexual harassers? obviously not. Are you responsible for that guy's actions in any way? No not at all. But I find the inistance that any sexual misconduct or transmisogyny purported to be from a trans masc is an outsider troll to be very off putting from the perspective of a trans woman. I think there is a problem of trans women being treated like sex objects by the broader trans community, (enby's trans mascs etc). The problem will never be resolved if we can't even aknowledge it exists without getting shouted down.

Yes actually because that is what Radfems on Tumblr do and have done and will continue to do for literally the entire time I've been on Tumblr.

Just being completely clear - I mentioned this already but to be extra extra clear - It was not even my original idea that it was probably a Radfem and I've directly said that. I honestly thought it was probably one of the trans guys that white knights extremely hard against the idea of transandrophobia trying to cause shit because of the typing style.

It was in fact my trans fem ex-gf and current very close friend who I still live with, who suggested to me that she thought it was a Radfem. And you know?

Her reasoning combined with my experiences with TERFs actively trying to recruit my friends and I into Radical Feminism because we're actively Feminist trans mascs - it would make a ton of sense.

You have probably not experienced this because you are not a trans masc, but there is absolutely a subgroup of Radfems on this website that try very hard to learn about trans infighting as a way to target trans mascs for recruitment.

Trans masculine people have HUGE targets on our back for Radfem recruitment on this website. It's something I've literally personally seen people fall into and detransition for. Radblr actively loves to target vulnerable, politically vocal trans mascs as recruitment targets, especially doing so by trying to pit us against each other, especially by trying to pit us and trans women against each other.

It's scary as hell. It's also not a new thing by any means. Like, "This has been happening consistently at least since 2015" level of not a new thing. So, I've learned to become very aware of it because I'm a trans masc who is a Feminist advocate who actively studies the history and tactics of Radical Feminism in order to protect myself and other trans people from it.

I'm also sorry, but there was literally an anon like that that went around trans masculine blogs a few months ago. Exactly the same premise but flipped in a "transandrodorks need to be fixed by being impregnated with girlcock" kind of deal. There was an almost immediate "we need to assume this isn't actually a trans fem and assume that it is a troll" response both internally and externally. If any of us had assumed it was actually a trans fem in the same way and projected our pain at trans fems in the same way this is getting projected onto trans mascs...? Could you imagine? The double standard would be insane.

I know this is something coming from a place of our own hurt, but where the hell was any of our support during that? What were we supposed to do besides assume that it was probably a troll? Like those are hypotheticals without real answers, but come on? You know?

Of course anything is possible. No one knows who that anon actually was. And it is an issue the way trans women are sexualized by the community, especially right now on Tumblr. It deserves to be addressed. But not in the weeds like this.

I believe what I believe based on what I know and the thoughts and feelings of people I trust. You can dislike that, you can even disagree with that, but a stranger coming into my askbox with a condescending tone isn't really going to contest my lived experiences or the shared opinion of someone I've known for the better part of a decade that easily.

[lemotmo]

Time for some Buddie fandom positivity!

Okay Buddie fam, the last couple of weeks have really been tough for the fandom, but we're still here thriving. After all the toxicity and discourse, I think it's time to focus on the good things, all things Buddie.

I am, at this point, 100% certain that Buddie is in the works. There are a million different reasons why I am so convinced.

Here's the beginning of a list:

The pre-season Ryan and Oliver interviews where they were completely unhinged and talked so freely about Buddie.

Buck was made canonically bisexual in one single episode.

Buck's current love interest has almost no screen time, which really doubles down on the whole 'they needed a way to out Buck as bi, so they quickly brought in Tommy to fullfill that goal.'

There were talks to make Eddie queer (with Tommy).

Eddie keeps being intertwined in Buck's new romance. He is there all the time and very consistently. Even when he isn't there in body, he is there in the dialogue. To the point where the audience has picked up on it.

Maddie knows! Her 'If there is something you need to tell Eddie' convo was so interesting.

The way Buck is consistently shown as a second father to Christophere, in body and in dialogue. First he talks with Chris about Shannon and then he is also involved in his new romance with Tommy.

Both Oliver and Ryan keep getting questions about Buddie in interviews. They love answering these questions and their grins are alway so wide. It's obvious they talked about it with Tim as well at some point, because their answers are clearly rehearsed. They have been told how to navigate these questions, in order to gently introduce the idea of Buddie to the general audience. I mean, the whole 'We're open to it! Whatever happens happens!' basically screams that they are going there.

The many articles about Buddie. The interest is crazy at this point. I love it!

Buck's new romance is almost never talked about, except in the whole narrative when they talk about bisexual Buck. For the rest it's all Buddie.

The questions to these interviews are pre-approved by ABC and show runners. So the fact that they get asked all the time and they are allowed these very open answers? Very interesting!

There has been no PR around Buck's romance with Tommy. No joined interview with Oliver and Lou, no photoshoots... nothing, nada, crickets. Just Oliver repeating he would like Buck to stay friends with Tommy after they break up. I mean...

...

I'm sure there are soooo many more things that indicate that the show is finally going the Buddie-route. I just can't remember all of them. :)

So I invite all of you Buddie peeps to reblog this post to fill in any other things you want to add to the list. Feel free to add it in the main body of the reblog or even leave things in the tags. If you don't want to reblog, just leave it in the comments of this post.

Let's create and spread some Buddie positivity here. I think we can all use some of that right now.

[klerothesnowman]

The Sith are Nazis and it's never been subtle

This one ended up being really long. I spliced in some images when I could to break it up easier.

One of the things that causes the most friction in the world is the idea of morality. I know, that's the most water is wet statement ever said but I think people really miss just how much the nuance of morality goes over people's heads. Subjective, objective, relative, from a baseline we understand that there are different types of morality but I don't think people really grasp how much a persons personal morality can be wildly different to any another given person's, especially among people who share spaces like fandoms. Morality is shaped by personal experiences, there are personal experiences that are 99% ubiquitous among humanity like "Pain" that form the basis of everyone's moral compass, then there are the major cultural touchstones that no matter what your morality will be affected by, religion, nation, race, all that what have you. Everyone has an opinion on the Christian Church and that opinion is informed by your morals. People who have been abused by members of a church will have a very different view of the morality of a religion compared to people who have been raised Catholic compared to someone who was raised agnostic compared to someone raised agnostic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer compared to someone who has been raised Catholic and is queer and is also rich and so on and so forth you get it.

Morality is not a binary thing, and it's not a nine point grid either D&D, it's more like one of those circle charts that Jojo Stands get ranked on. You know the ones that always seem to show up in anime? I don't know what they're called. Except instead of a circle it's more like a ball, and everyone has this horrible looking 3D balls covered in bumps and spikes and dips and holes.

Why am I opening this ramble with a ramble about morality and religion? Because I'm on tumblr. When I decide I want to ramble about something I read the tags and see what the vibe is, see what people are saying about things. I'm not part of the "Fandom", I don't know the discourses, I see that there's Anti-Jedi and Pro-Jedi and "Stanikins" and all of these different labels and battlelines, and then I read about how people on either side are feeling attacked and harassed by people on other sides. I have no idea how real this is, I have no idea what kind of minefield I'm about to walk into. I'm just rambling about my thoughts and feelings about Star Wars because I like it and I'm a little extra aware that this one is going to ruffle feathers.

Because people are fuckin' worked up about Jedi. There are people who are making it part of their identity that they are anti-Jedi. And it's been happening for years, decades even. Because the experiences and trends of nerd culture has been pushing against systems and religion since I was a baby. Nerds being obnoxious atheists and smugly telling people "God isn't real" was basically the norm when I was a teenager, and before I was born nerds were dealing with being called evil and satanic. Nothing I'm rambling about here is new, in fact using D&D as a touchstone I think the current trend for nerddom's interaction with religion is ambivalence, despite faith and divine power being such an important part of D&D, there's basically zero interaction with divinities in 5e, and when there is it's hostile and has an asterisk against it. I'll do a ramble about this one day too

But the Jedi stuff is interesting to me, because there's a lot of directions people come at for it.

There's people who argue against just Jedi because they're a religion. There's people who argue the Jedi are slavers or kidnap children. People think Jedi are super beings who lord over everyone with their power. People think the Jedi force people to suppress their emotions and personhood. There are people who think Jedi are moral supremacists who silence and kill anyone who thinks about the Force differently from them.

I have some "Pro-Jedi" arguments to make but I'll save them for a different ramble, because this one's supposed to be about another group of people.

The people who think, from their point of view, the Jedi are evil.

The reason I rambled on so much about people being Anti-Jedi is because very often, these people end up being Pro-Sith. It's an obvious leap, if the Jedi are the problem then the people opposed to the Jedi might have the right idea. If your issue with the Jedi is that they disallow "Attachment", then here's the Sith who are all about Attachment. If your issue with the Jedi is that they suppress their emotions then here's the Sith who are always tapping into their emotions. There is an immediate appeal there.

Then there's the Sith Code, let's give it a read.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

Pretty sweet, Passion is pretty positive, breaking chains and freedom. I can get behind that. The rest of Sith Philosophy is pretty swell too. It's about improvement through conflict. Your struggles make you stronger, makes you better, removes your shackles and lets you be free, but also recognizes that you will have to do whatever it takes to do so. The Jedi seek to wipe out the dark knowledge you attain, so you must sequester yourself and hide when you must hide, and strike when you must strike. It's stance could be summed up as something like... "The sacred mission of a Sith is to preserve the Sith Order's most valuable elements as you raise yourself to a dominant position, and all who do not are chaff."

There are people who are really into this. Like, really, really into this. They talk about how they apply this mentality to their real life. They describe themselves as Sith. There are also people who are only kind of into this, they think about positive Sith characters and make headcanons about the good things Sith do.

I need to stress, for those people, that what I am about to say is not hyperbole. I will provide sources.

The Sith Code and Philosophy is Nazi Propaganda. It is literally lifted from Mein Kampf. That quote I used to sum it up is a paraphrased quote from Britannica.com. That's Hitler.

The Sith Code was invented to be in opposition to the Jedi Code, its purpose is to twist a preexisting code to make you think the alternative isn't so bad and it uses codephrases to do so.

Passion, Strength, Victory, Chains, being Free, these are words that we have presubscribed meanings for, but what do they mean in the Sith Code? What IS Passion? What IS Strength? What IS Victory?

Most people I interact with see Passion as Love, passionate, exciting love, the exact thing the Jedi reject. But that can't be it, where's Palpatine's love? Where's Maul's? Where's Vader's?

Passion is obsession. The kind of obsession that will lead you to burning everything down if you don't get what you want. It's not letting anything stand between you and your goal, even if that thing is your goal itself.

Let's break the code down here.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. We start with the obvious twist on the Jedi code, an immediate refutation of the Jedi's first line. It stands in opposition.

Through passion, I gain strength. We've already done Passion, it's a nice little dressing up of "Being a raging psycho"

Through strength, I gain power. Strength is often intermingled with power, but it's often spoken of interchangably with being able to set aside morals. The Sith isn't an amoral monster who just killed a bunch of kids, he's just STRONG enough to do what needed to be done

Through power, I gain victory. Power isn't a code word. Power is Power, Power is what it's all about and there's no hiding it. In the Sith way the only thing that matters is that you are powerful enough to kill your rivals and stand on top.

Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. I think the notions of breaking chains and being Free is the cleverest part of the Sith Code's propaganda kit. It's still seeing use in The Acolyte and it's still convincing people that the Sith are right, even when the guy who's calling for freedom mercs a child then and there.

The Sith are not misunderstood heroes. They're Nazis. They're facist might makes right would be autocrats trying to convince you they're right so you'll validate them and prove them right.

Sith Philosophy is self defeating. Following the Sith Code means you need to define yourself on your conflict, meaning your conflict can never end. For all its claims of being free and breaking chains you can never be free of what drives you or you will lose the strength it gives you. To break your chains you need to hold onto them tight, and you can never let them go.

[theminecraftbee]

so a thing this fandom does that remains FASCINATING to me, as a function of the fact a lot of this fandom is people's first fandom or only current fandom, is just... assume a lot of things it does is a scourge that this fandom has invented or doesn't exist outside of it? or like, is uniquely bad here? and i won't deny that sometimes mcyt fandom is a bit more intense by virtue of numbers, but like...

duo names: confusing fandom-injokes to describe duos and groups tend to be an anime fandom thing specifically for many historical reasons, but they're not uncommon. hey quick--if you haven't been in KHR fandom, can you guess what 1827 is? no? i'll give you a hint: that's actually a ship name. or, ygo fans, tell me the difference between puppyshipping, prideshipping, violetshipping, and rivalshipping. my hint is that they're all kaiba ships and two of them are actually the same ship. good luck!

reducing characters to a specific trait: have you read fic in another fandom before? i would recommend you go do so and come back to me. my example here is "sasuke likes tomatoes", for the record.

common au fanon that's confusing to outsiders: my deep cut here is "when i got into certain tv fandoms i was baffled by the existence of sentinel/guide fics", which is a slightly older tv fandom thing so many of you probably don't know what i'm on about. but trust me: in certain fandoms it's ubiquitous and unless you've watched a completely different tv show you're gonna have to entirely pick it up from reading fic. oh hey, hybrid aus and watcher!grian, nice to see your relative here,

fanon being treated as canon: did you know there's this whole bnha character, naomasa, who is treated as canonically having a lie detector quirk? did you know that, best i can tell, that's not in canon anywhere, it just got echoed through fanon enough that everyone treated it as canon? 'fanon trait becomes so ubiquitous everyone assumes it has to be there' is not a new thing. also, batfamily fans, i have been lead to understand the tim and coffee thing is also this.

characters being treated badly to make a different dynamic look better: the fact we have the term 'character bashing' tells you all you need to know, here. if anything my one complaint on this front isn't even that it's happening--it's that i wish bashing and/or "not [character] friendly" was tagged a little more frequently, haha.

characters being reduced to their family dynamics: tale as old as time. "even the family dynamic thing" yes even that. just because this fandom tended to be particularly ship-adverse in the past didn't mean it didn't do basically the same behaviors as any fandom with shipping did with those dynamics, just gen. and other gen fandoms also do that. yes, down to the "and shipping reduces them to a ship, unlike my gen dynamic, which is very in-character; why can't people just be friends?" thing. some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

characters being reduced to their ships: some of you have to have been marvel fans right.

The Discourse: yeah this is an "actively running show" fandom thing, but also a hiatus fandom thing. ask a homestuck about vriskourse sometime. as much as i hate to say it, it probably made doomsday discourse look cute.

and those are just like... some things i've seen people complain about on my dash recently. idk it just hit me there are probably fans in mcyt fandoms who are assuming that some things (like hybrid aus or duo names) are the kind of things that only happen here, so i thought i'd offer some examples of other places they happen! i also have even more examples if you'd like.

to be clear: this isn't shaming anyone for complaining about any of these things. lord knows i go complain to my friends about it all the time, just the other day i was complaining in the category of 'they keep bashing my guy'. it's more of just... a gentle reminder that maybe we're big, maybe we're loud, maybe we have problems... but these problems aren't always unique.

so uh. we're all suffering together i guess...?

[leidensygdom]

I gotta say, one of the wildest radical transphobes' talking "points" is probably bathroom discourse. I can't even put to words how utterly detached from reality it is. It's terminally online stuff.

So, bathrooms. I don't know if somehow other people's realities are somehow vastly different from mine, but I feel like the extreme clear divide between "men's" and "women's" bathrooms is just not real. Where I live, stalls are often gendered, but how much they get used in that way is far less consistent.

For example: If the place had only the space to make one bathroom accessible, it's gonna be the women's bathroom. Always. It doesn't mean only disabled women have access to bathrooms- It means that the women's bathroom is also going to be used by disabled people. And this is common. Really common. Maybe it's because the women's bathroom tends to need more space- For pad dispensers and trash cans, for baby-changing stations (yes, I hate that these are only on the women's bathroom usually), and so on. Now- You see a guy enter the women's bathroom. Are you gonna micro-analize if the guy looks disabled enough to use it, or are you going to wash your hands and go on with your life?

Again, baby-changing stations are almost always located on the women's bathroom. It sucks- It should be in all bathrooms. But it's how it is. You see a cis guy enter with a kid. Or maybe not even with a kid- Just enters, wanders around, finds the baby-changing station, gets a diaper from the dispenser and leaves. Are you gonna throw a fit or just let this guy handle his kid?

Bathrooms get cleaned on the regular. A lot of times, you may wanna go there, and get told it's being cleaned, and just get asked to use the other gender's bathroom. Cleaning can take hours. If the men's bathroom is being cleaned and everyone is now using the women's, are you going to deem the bathroom to be the world's unsafest place or are you just go take a pee and leave?

Fucking hell, sometimes the stall you want to go to is incredibly dirty. It happens. No need to get on details. Just the kind of stuff that makes you want to not use it. Or maybe it's clogged, or maybe it's not working. Maybe there's a note saying "Broken, do not enter". Do you cry about it or just go find another stall- Which may be on the other fucking gender's bathroom?

Most times I'll use whatever bathroom is available. One is busy? Ok, let me get to the other one. I'm AFAB and while I don't present femininely, I still look like a woman to most people. Have I ever been in danger because I cleaned my hands besides someone with a dick? No. Grow the fuck up. This isn't even rare. People will switch bathrooms for speed. People will switch bathrooms because one of them is out of paper. Because one of them is out of soap.

The mall in my current city recently installed "Family" bathrooms. They're not being marketed as unisex, or inclusive, or anything. Just "family" bathrooms. For everyone. They're great. It's the bathroom everyone will use- Men, women, anything in between and outside of that, kids, disabled people, etc. There's a bunch of stalls adapted to different needs. There's accessible stalls. There's pad and diaper dispensers. There's stalls that have a big toilet and a little toilet so parents can go with their kids. There's tall sinks and short sinks- So disabled people and kids can reach.

And, to nobody's surprise, there's no reports whatsoever of any sort of assault in them.

I'm just. I don't know. I'm sorry you can't detach the existence of a dick near you from immediate assault. I don't know why that changes in the context of a bathroom- I've never (in my long life of using whatever bathroom) been in danger for that. And I'm talking as someone who has had some unsavory experiences in other situations. Grow the fuck up and maybe stop basing your views on imaginary scenarios y'all need to come up with to justify your hatred of a minority. Maybe if y'all got off your keyboards and went outside for once, you'd realize bathrooms work much differently from whatever weird ideal you have formed about them.

[moeitsu]

Since it's pride month I wanna talk about something I've noticed in the Red Dead Redemption fandom:

The Bisexual erasure of Sadie Adler and Arthur Morgan.

I apologize if this comes across as harsh, but it's something that's been on my mind since I started interacting w/ this media. And as a bisexual, I wanted to discuss it further.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with shipping these characters with the same sex. Personally, I am a Charthur shipper till the day I die. I don't ship Sadie with anyone but her husband, but I still enjoy seeing the fanart and headcanons of the women she's shipped with.

That being said, these characters are not lesbian or gay. That's literally a fact, and if you think otherwise it is bisexual erasure.

Let's start with Sadie Adler. Her entire character arc is getting revenge on the O'Driscolls for killing her husband. Whom she mourns for years, and talks about frequently with Arthur/other camp members. Now, if you want to ship her w/ Abigail or Molly or whomever, go for it!! But she has loved and still loves her husband. She is not a lesbian, and she didn't just magically turn into a lesbian after Jake's death. If she had any love interests other than Jake, this would make her bisexual. (even Sapphic is still a more appropriate term than lesbian)

The same goes for women in real life who have dated men first, then dated a woman. Just because their current partner is the same sex doesn't mean we can assume they are suddenly lesbian. Calling characters lesbians even if they have been in a relationship with men before is bisexual erasure.

This same concept is applied to Arthur Morgan. He had previous relationships with women. (one of whom he still has strong feelings for) and he is attracted to women. We see this with his greeting dialogue and when he compliments people. I believe Arthur's character is more likely to be bisexual than Sadie's, given his interactions w/ some of the men in the game. But that doesn't erase the fact that he's still attracted to the opposite sex. Arthur is not a gay man. Disregarding his past relationships w/ women is a form of bisexual erasure.

There is a huge double standard here because if these character's were actually lesbian/gay and the fandom decided to ship them with people of the opposite sex (i.e headcanon they are bi), there would be a major discourse.

Whenever bisexual women and men are presented in the media I always notice a few things:

Bi women are "secretly straight"

Bi women "don't know their lesbian yet"

Bi men are "secretly gay"

As well as this funny little graphic below ↓

Like I said before, I am bisexual. And if I'm being honest this years pride month has been exhausting and mildly infuriating with how the community seems to disregard bisexuals in a hetero relationship.

I stopped talking about my bisexuality with people because once they know I have been in a committed relationship with a man for seven years, I am suddenly excluded from the conversation.

I've had ex-friends tell me that I only identify as bisexual to "fit in" with the queer community. I've had people in college assume I was lesbian bc of the way I dressed, and then try to tell me that I must be secretly lesbian when I tell them I'm Bi. (Ppl also assumed I was non-binary bc of the way I presented but that's another story)

This stuff doesn't just happen to fictional characters, it happens to real people every single day. I'm honestly tired of ppl saying "well my headcanon doesn't hurt anybody, they're not real." Yes it does!! You are supporting Bi erasure!!

That's all I'm gonna say on this topic for now. I'd love to leave it open for discussion, but please be nice. This isn't a call-out or me trying to antagonize the queer rdr community. I just wanted to get it off my mind.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

Awright I'm gonna get my take in on the current round of CJ discourse, because I do think I have a couple things to add! I'll be super clear upfront that I don't really care very strongly about Jack in any direction, he's a convenient character from Ed's past but that's about as far as I think about him.

So, Jack is the only character who we explicitly know has known Ed since he was very young, and the only one confirmed to be with him back in the Hornigold days. It's for this reason alone that I tend to take the information he tells us about Ed at face value - not because I think he's an honest character, but because he's the only window we're provided into that time of Ed's life. We can assume Jack also got into piracy young and he's been through the exact same grinder as Ed; this is one of the reasons that Ed takes it so hard when Stede kicks Jack off the ship. He feels like Jack and himself are the same genre of person - if Stede doesn't like Jack, then he'll realize soon he doesn't like Ed, either.

If he and Ed have had a sexual relationship in the past, I think that's so much more interesting than assuming Jack is lying. Ed and Jack very explicitly are not friends. Jack talks about his "dalliances" with Ed so dismissively. I think it's much more interesting to look at this with the takeaway that Ed's past sexual relationships have been emotionally unfulfilling and do not allow him to be vulnerable because that informs our understanding of Ed later (for example, that can be a fun wrinkle into how Ed brings up the satisfying, intimate sex he had with Stede during his panic in s2e7).

Another function Jack serves is he pushes the atmosphere on the Revenge closer to what it would be on a typical pirate ship. He's constantly making cracks at the crew failing to act like "real pirates," making Stede feel left out for not enjoying such rowdy, dangerous games. This is very useful because it cultivates an atmosphere designed to drive a wedge between Ed and Stede. For Ed, these games are nostalgic. When Jack makes him uncomfortable, it's quickly followed by Jack suggesting another game. When Ed tries to apologize for one of their activities hurting Stede's feelings, or when he tries to encourage Stede to join in, Jack is there to distract Ed and make him feel, in turn, that Stede isn't just rejecting the games, he's rejecting Ed.

It highlights one thing we know about Ed: he's very, very good at conforming to what's expected of him in any given situation. He can be a people pleaser, and he very obviously just wants Stede and Jack to get along and feels stuck in the middle. I'm not saying he doesn't hurt Stede in this episode, but I am saying that when Jack is creating an atmosphere that feels like a more "typical" pirate ship, and Ed leans into the behavior that he feels is expected of him, it leaves him easily confused and upset when Stede obviously isn't enjoying it. We see unusual lack of regard for others from Ed in this episode (like him shouting "that's what you fuckin' get!" at the Swede after the Swede gets hurt), and it stands out because it's not how Ed normally acts, only adding to the guilt Ed's going to feel that makes him leave with Jack.

Neither Ed nor Stede are trying to hurt each other in this episode. Ed is falling back on old behaviors, and when Stede says he doesn't like it, the fact that he still sees Jack as being so similar to him makes him take it as a personal rejection. I don't think Ed's intentionally trying to make Stede feel singled out or bullied, and it's not Stede's fault he's not enjoying what's going on, but Jack is a very, VERY good manipulator and he's set up the perfect situation to make both of them feel wrongfooted with each other. He's not just manipulating the two of them, he's orchestrating the entire vibe of the ship to make Stede feel left out and make Ed blame himself when things go too far.

[librarycards]

I’ve seen a lot of discourse about Aaron Bushnell and madness, with reactionary genocidaires saying it is madness, and leftists saying it is not madness but principled protest. In my mind I am thinking about madness and sanity under empire, thinking I am surely mad and wondering why anyone is trying to be sane. If you have the capacity, can you share your thoughts on the madness of this moment, or point to others who have shared those thoughts?

you have very much captured the spirit of what i think! there's that common aphorism that goes something like, 'if this world is sane, then of course i'm mad' etc. etc., while i think this doesn't fully capture the specific genealogy and politic of Madness as contemporary scholar-activists understand it, it does provide a quick & effective explanation of Aaron's (z"l) decision to make the ultimate sacrifice in support of Palestinian liberation.

it isn't useful to understand his choices as solely Mad (in terms of an embrace of opacity and nonsensicality/illegibility - in fact, quite the opposite, he took pains to be explicit and serious as to his reasoning and methodology so that u.s. media discourse would struggle to obfuscate it [even though they still are]).

however, it *is* useful to use a Mad conceptual framework for some elements of Aaron's choice, and as a means of understanding pathologized forms of protest –– not only suicide, but med strike, hunger strike, etc. these forms of protest, as many have said, are designed to distress onlookers. they are designed to push against the bounds of the common[/]sensical, to gift us with possible alternatives to, you know, getting a police permit and marching in circles, AND, to the complacent, grease the stopped-up gears of their own imaginations. because Aaron did what is, in many ways (even to those of us who have attempted suicide before) unimaginable: he died. we have not yet died. he died yelling "Free Palestine." he died, and lived his last moments with a degree of moral turpitude, courage, and singleminded commitment to a cause that few will ever achieve, and yet one that –– as Aaron himself acknowledged Palestinians must muster every day.

here is where Madness comes in: Aaron acted as a linker of worlds: between that which many usamericans, and many others who have never undergone military siege/genocide, find exists outside the realm of the imaginable. a world that many would prefer to pretend does not, can not, could not exist. a world from which hegemonic media would have "us" (white americans/others in the ~western world~) believe could never exist, not least because our own military hegemons (with Aaron, until the other day, as one of their sentient weapons) protect "democracy" –– that is, the supposed exceptionality/exemption of the "(white) u.s. citizen" from terror, from sociopolitical Madness, from the absolute violence of settler colonialism. Aaron, in short, brought that unimaginable violence home. he forced us to reckon with the brutal truth of martyrdom, here. as someone on here mentioned, he used his status as an airman in what is perhaps the most effective weaponization of privilege i have ever seen. he killed a soldier, and that soldier was himself.

of course media is leaping and will continue to leap on this as evidence of extremism, of dangerous insanity, etc. etc. in radical movements. always has been. read The Protest Psychosis. the idea of insanity has been used by basically every state power to justify disposal, because it's convenient: by claiming one is insane, you also claim all of their appeals to reason are the result of their insanity. this is called anasognosia. it's a cute little trick. it isn't new. the best way to approach this is to maintain two things: one, that Aaron's choice was rational given a clearsighted understanding of the scale of genocide that's currently taking place. AND, to question those –– leftists included! pro-pal folks included! –– who uncritically cite 'mental illness' as the reason for Aaron's suicide.

this is not because Aaron wasn't what some would call "mentally ill" –– i don't know him, i do not live in his head. the point is, it does not matter if he was diagnosed with anything or not. it does not matter if he was already suicidal or not. it does not matter if he had tried to kill himself before. none of it fucking matters, and attempts to reduce this act to the result of a mad(dened) mind is to distract from the political project he pursued. he performed a politically Mad act, to which his imagined internal pathology was irrelevant. he broke consensus reality, even if only for a moment. he linked worlds. Palestinians felt it. that is what matters.

so, how did he connect worlds? he did something Mad. it is useful to understand suicide as a Mad act, so long as we are careful not to fall into the pathologizing traps that exclude suicidal people as interlocutors outright. he showed many of us, activists included, what we could be doing - the lengths to which it is possible to go in support of liberation. he did not, and i am not, encourage/ing everyone else to kill themselves. self-immolation is effective, in many ways, because so few people do it. we need to stay alive to continue the fight. however, Aaron tore the fabric of the reasonable, the possible, and the legal (consider the pigs who approached his burning body with guns) to disrupt a collective consciousness that would rather move on, equivocate, forget, tune-out. that is Mad. Madness is necessary in our movements, all of them.

[qqueenofhades]

Maybe this is a controversial opinion, but its one that I've been reminded of in the few weeks since things have escalated so severely in Israel and Palestine-- I feel like the pressure for random, average individuals online to be vocally political is not only entitled and uncomfortable, but also just an example of misplaced priority.

Like, I have people on twitter right now that are flat out saying if you don't talk extensively about I/P you're truly, irredeemably evil. I've had mutuals say that silence means you're complacent in genocide, that you have blood on your hands (exact words). But it just doesn't make sense? Most of the people who I've seen being flat out harassed for being silent are teenagers who don't have money to donate, working class folks who don't have time to spare, and normal people who just don't have enough of a following online to even spread any word effectively. Of course, the ones doing the harassing are also poor/busy/not-popular, but they don't see the irony. (I've also seen them say that talking about war constantly is taking a toll on their mental health, saying they've cried, had nightmares, panic attacks, etc...but they also say that taking a mental health break from social media is "selfish" and genocidal, so.)

The whole interaction leaves me with so many questions. If stepping away from social media because politics are stressing you out (which they are known to do), are you obligated to use social media? Do you have to use twitter to be a good person? What does that say about people who can't afford a phone, or live in a country where it isn't quite possible? (Are homeless folks inherently genocidal, or is that an "obvious" exception that was never clarified because no one uses nuance anymore?) If you have to talk about world events, lest you side with the oppressor, at what point is something so catastrophic you *must* talk about it? Is there a number of lives lost that is low enough you can get away with being quiet, and a certain amount too high that you're obligated to talk about it? Is it your duty to have the news on 24/7 to make sure you don't miss anything and catch all the global disasters as they happen? How much do you have to talk about something for it to be considered "enough"? Is there a quota??

It just feels like a lot of people are acting as if people who aren't chronically online aren't 1. doing any activism, because the only important activism is social media networking (sarcasm), or 2. are inherently bad people for *not* spending 6 hours a day on their phones. Like, I had someone I thought was a friend say I was a bad person because I was trying to cut down my social media usage, because the timing was "too convenient"... as if that's a normal thing to say to someone, ever. Sorry if I went on a little bit of a rant, it wasn't my intention. I dunno, maybe it's just me; I've seen a lot of people saying this sort of stuff so maybe they are the majority. It just feels really weird to let people that are addicted to social media take charge of who online is "good" or "bad" based off their internet usage. As if we were all catholics or something. If I were to say that current takes on morality were very catholic-seeming, would you know what I mean?

As recently noted, I am myself on an embargo from answering asks related to this topic. I will make one exception because this is important. Please note that any wank in replies or reblogs will be instantly blocked (and I won't hesitate to disable reblogs if necessary). I will not be answering follow-up asks or getting drawn into Discourse. I do not want to do it and it will not be happening.

I have said it before, but it bears saying again: thinking that the only way to Do Activism is to be constantly on social media and immersing yourself in terrible things nonstop and then posting the Most Correct Opinions (and then viciously attacking anyone who is even slightly Not As Correct as you) is absolutely bullshit. If you're engaging with this content so much that it's giving you a mental breakdown or otherwise plunging you into a spiral of anxiety that you take out on other people who are just as far removed from actually doing anything about it as you: why? Do you really think that you and you alone, one random person on the Internet, are the only way anyone else is going to find out about these things? Or do you think you have to perform the Most Correct Opinions nonstop, viciously harass anyone who isn't responding in exactly the same way, and this is the sum total of what your response should be? Especially in a situation as bloody and complicated as this, dealing with reams of religious, social, cultural, and political history where the average commentator on this conflict knows only what's been fed to them by propaganda on TikTok? How the fuck is that useful or constructive for anyone, aside from perpetuating the idea that you have to be angry all the time on social media about things you essentially know nothing about? I can't see that it does.

What's happening to the Gazans right now is no qualification or equivocation, a genocide. It should rightfully be opposed and called what it is. But unfortunately, I have spent too much time around Western Online Leftists to believe they actually care a whit about stopping genocide as a fundamental principle, and only want to be seen to loudly care about what their Ideology has told them to care about. If it means hand-waving aside genocide and atrocities when committed by their preferred polities, so be it. Why haven't these same people been wall-to-wall up in arms about what Russia has been doing in Ukraine, or for God's sake Syria for the past ten years, if they're really concerned about the rights of innocent Muslim civilians attacked by a far-right imperialist power? Why not the Uighurs in China? Why not [insert the blank] of all the terrible things happening in the world as a result of far-right fascist genocidal imperialism? Why only this conflict? Why now? Why does it involve so much excusing of terrorism as long as it's committed for the Right Ideology? Why are some of the most loudly pro-Palestinian accounts on here also the most rabidly pro-Russian? How does that make sense? To put it bluntly, those genocides are being committed by nation-states that Online Leftists like for being "anti-Western," and therefore their activities are actually fine and should even need to be defended.

My point is not to say that what's happening to the Palestinians is not bad. It is. It is awful and inexcusable. However, I seriously doubt the motives and morality of those who are being the loudest about screaming on social media and attacking everyone else for not instantly repeating their views. I seriously doubt that the Online Left actually opposes genocide and accelerationism as fundamental principles, because they proudly demonstrate every day that they don't. Until those vast factors can be dismantled and shown for what they are, and this can be placed into its larger context, I don't buy it and I don't believe this wall-to-wall social media outrage factory is actually aimed at helping the Gazans or anyone else suffering the most as a result of this. It is just to show that they can be counted on to Perform Outrage and harass anyone else who doesn't do the same, and that does nothing for anyone whatsoever.

[apathycares]

Why I think the ending of MHA makes sense (manga spoilers)

So I came out of hiding specifically because MHA ended and this blog started off as a place for me to ignore my other works/fandoms and write stuff for MHA so it's a given that I talk about it. Just a little disclaimer – MHA is not my first fandom, and I've been watching anime for forever, so I'm not biased when it comes to shipping or how mangakas end their work. I'm purely speaking from a place of my own sense of objectivity.

Also, since I don't think I've shared my opinion on stuff too much here so it might be weird to my current followers (hi!!), I'm gonna do it headcanon style.

Midoriya being a teacher is not farfetched – some people have said it would've been better if Hori made him a strategist or something along those lines, but you all have to remember that his only goal has been to be a hero. If he wanted to become a strategist he would've (a) thought about/been suggested that when he was quirkless and (b) there's nothing TO strategize since the big bads are all gone. Hawks is running the Commission. Police exist in this verse. He wanted to be a hero fully, so if he wasn't able to do that, then the next logical step would be to TRAIN the next heroes.

Bakugou wouldn't have become number one straight out of high school. Bffr. I know it's anime and we don't have to use real life logic but it's been said over and over again that rankings are both based on feats achieved and popularity, and even though that man has accompanied A LOT, he's always going to be rough around the edges, and as a hero, people are just not going to rock with that. But, given Endeavour's example, I think he could become number one with his feats alone as the years go on in spite of his attitude.

Midoriya not keeping in touch with the rest of his classmates except Bakugou (or maybe not being able to, whichever way it was translated) is NORMAL. How many of you keep in touch with your high school classmates after the fact, regardless of how close you were? How many of you outgrow your very real and very deep friendships? Eight years is a long time. Bakugou being left makes sense because they've known each other forever.

No ships were confirmed. Please let us leave the ending of that as it is. BUT! Let's all ship who we want, create for the ships that we want regardless. That's the beauty of fandoms. We can toy around and find joy in it, but PLEASE don't push that a ship is canon when it's not. As an old head anime fan, there's a distinction between those two. We can all have fun and accept that the series ended with no ships.

Continuing off of the previous point, I LOVE that the manga ended with no ships. That just gives us full liberties to do whatever the hell we want in this fandom and have fun without people rearing their annoying heads and writing shit comments about their pairing being canon. No one gets any ammo.

Aizawa cutting his hair is a crime.

Did they give Touya an ending??? Why can't I remember??? Well, the fact that he didn't is another crime

Everyone else's endings were solid (and I don't see much discourse about this so let's leave it at that)

See now that I'm thinking about it again, Aizawa cutting his hair isn't a crime....but why did they do him like that???

Giving Midoriya a hero suit at the end of it and Bakugou holding his hand out was GOLDEN (I'm indifferent about the suit because Teacher!doriya would've been a solid ending, but the holding the hand out squeezed my heart that was a BEAUTIFUL ending to the entire Deku/Kacchan storyline)

Some people are mentioning that Bakugou calling him Deku destroyed it but y'all forgetting that THAT'S HIS HERO NAME. Stop being lame.

I wanna know the full rankings of everyone just to gauge where Bakugou and everyone else are. Maybe Hori might do a lil something, who knows, but I don't think we need a MHA Shippuden.

High key, if we do get a spin off or something, we need a Misadventures of InsertSomeoneHere to see what a DITL of them at 24(?) looks like

Now that I'm looking at this...the fact that I watched this at their age and it ended with them being 24 and I'm currently 24 is.......

Anyways! Those are my very rushed thoughts. As much as people like to play around MHA, it was a great manga, it had a solid ending for the lore that the story was going for, and it was a great ride. I'm excited to see when all of this gets animated and we can ride this ride again, but this fandom will always be special to me.

[karenandhenwillson]

I think it's sad how on one side the whole fandom bemoans that the concept of found family is so often pressed into the nuclear family idea instead of exploring different structures that still mean family. And then on the other side, somehow both sides of the current discourse (if one can even use that word) go on and press the Buckley-Diaz family into this nuclear family idea to support their arguments.

There is the anti-Tommy and anti-Bucktommy side. And they go on and on about how neither Eddie nor Buck will ever be able to date someone other than each other because no one will ever fit in their family. Buck and Eddie also won't ever be able to balance a relationship with anyone else and the family they have built. So, it's a foregone conclusion that every other relationship we see will of course eventually be destroyed by Buck and Eddie's friendship. Then there is the pro-Tommy and pro-Bucktommy side. And they go on and on about how, no, Buck and Eddie and Chris aren't really a family. Because for them, too, somehow the pre-existing family unit is threatening the relationship between Buck and Tommy. Because they, too, believe Tommy (or anyone else) wouldn't fit in that relationship construct, wouldn't be able to find his own place in that relationship. And therefore what we see on screen about the depth of that relationship really isn't as deep as it's shown and find one reason after another to support their claim.

We have seen in this show that a family can be so much more than the nuclear family model and still be a very tight nit unit. And I'll go with the assumption for a moment that tumblr is the queer website, so most of the people here should really have experience with found family because it so often works differently for us queer people. (Though, in my personal case, my family structure never resembled much of the nuclear family model even before my parents divorced or I ventured out into the world on my own. Has been fun explaining my family since before I started school: "Yeah, you know. I have nine people I consider grandparents. And that works like this…")

You are falling into the same trap Western* society has installed in our heads for the past 70 or so years. (Because the concept of nuclear family of "father, mother, and 2.5 children" isn't that old! Look at your history and figure out the difference between how families worked before and after the two world wars and why the nuclear family concept was propagated especially starting in the 50s.)

*specifying Western here because I'm really not sure how the historical development was or is outside of Europe and North America. And I'm not risking a research spiral for a short tumblr post. But if anyone wants to share their knowledge or sources, I'm all ears.

[carriesthewind]

Since I have wadded into the discourse, a few clarifications (below the cut b/c I've taken up enough of people's dashes):

I am not on the side of the publishers in this case. They suck too; in general, the IA is a good organization and the big publishers are the bad guys! In fact, the publishers are also (a) bad guy in this case - they are and will ABSOLUTELY try to use this case to increase the limits on libraries and digital lending. They are profit driven monsters who would destroy every library on earth if they could.

That's actually part of why I'm so mad about how this case is being talked about! Because by their own actions, the IA has put this case in a position where the IA literally cannot win unless their "National Emergency Library" (aka just stealing books) is held to be legal. That doesn't mean it's worse case scenario if they lose their appeal - for example, an appeals court could issue a narrow ruling on the facts of the case. It just means there is no good scenario where they outright win. But, if they appeal their very bad case with its very bad facts, that increases the risk of creating precedent that limits libraries and digital lending. If you think it's worth the risk, that's fine - but ignoring the actual risks and likelihood of success isn't "supporting libraries;" it's acting based on ignorance (at best).

Digital publishing and lending, as it currently legally exists, really really sucks. There is a reason why, although many authors and author organizations dislike the IA's "Open Library," other authors like it and have written in support of it!* There is a reason why, although I have linked to author criticism of IA and of its "Controlled Digital Lending" and stated that I think it clearly violates existing copyright law, I have not stated (and will not state) a personal opinion on whether I think CDL (as it exists in the one-to-one, owned to loaned theory, rather than how it was implemented in practice) is less undesirable as a copyright schema than existing digital copyright law. The IA and its supporters are right that current copyright law doesn't allow for the real ownership or preservation of e-books! They are right that publishers greedily limit libraries' and patrons' access to e-books, and they are right about how bad the current system is! (I do not endorse any praise for library e-reader apps and lenders in the notes of my posts. While I enjoy and support using them, from a library perspective, they also suck - specifically, the predatory charges for e-books lending suck libraries dry.) The IA is broadly on the right(er) side of this issue: but they still did a shitty, dumb thing, and they are deliberately misrepresenting the situation in an extremely offensive and potentially harmful way!

I already emphasized this in the original post, but just in case: I do not hate the IA. I do not want them to go away. I very much like a lot of the things they do and want them to keep existing! (Although I would add: if they actually believe their principles they should absolutely have set things up to preserve - at minimum - their archival functions as much as possible if they - as an organization - cease to exist.) But! I would also like, at a minimum, for them to stop deliberately misrepresenting the situation. Their stated mission is "universal access to all knowledge." If they cared about that mission - or if they really see themselves as librarians, and not just a database of products - they should maybe start making sure the public is getting accurate, useful, and meaningful knowledge about this case, instead of propaganda to inflate their own egos.

*Although I would be VERY curious to know what kind of briefing of the actual factual and legal situation some of the authors who signed onto that open letter received. Based on the snippets I read, some were clearly well-informed; many were just talking broadly about how great libraries are; and some indicated a serious factual misunderstanding of how both libraries, the IA, and digital lending in general work.