#with a dash of homophobia

[intothestacks]

Adventures in Librarian-ing

This week I read And Tango Makes Three (a picture book about Central Park Zoo's gay penguins that raised an egg) to the Grade 1s and a class of Grade 3s.

In one class, when I got to the part where the zookeeper decides that Roy and Silo must be in love

one of the kids gave a delighted surprised laugh and went "Wait, are they gay? Are these gay penguins?"

"Yup!" I replied, "And they're real penguins too. This is a real story."

Cue the hubbub of kids chattering at the discovery that gay penguins are a thing.

"Gay penguins!" they marveled over and over.

One of the kids started getting visibly upset, "Guys, stop it! That's a bad word! Stop saying the G-word!"

"It's not a bad word," their classmates assured them, perplexed.

"Anyone can be gay," a classmate explained, clearly trying to be helpful.

[rosanishelios]

canon-typical homophobia

[bunnyboy-juice]

NO MORE ASSOCIATING THINGS WITH FEMMES ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE PINK!HYPERFEM FEMMES ARE GREAT AND I LOVE YOU CAMPY FEMMES WHO EMBODY PINK BUT ALSO JESUS CHRIST CAN YOU GUYS NOT GO MORE THAN ONE DAY W/O TRYING TO SHOEHORN FEMMES INTO BEING ONLY PINK UWU BABIES. I AM FEMME AS IN GRASS AS IN DIRT AS IN TREE BARK AS IN WEEDS SPROUTING THROUGH THE SIDEWALK CEMENT. FEMME AS IN GENDER NONCONFORMITY AS IN FUCK YOU MY FEMININITY IS WHAT *I* SAY IT IS. FEMME AS IN DEPTH AND DARKNESS AND WARMTH AND TERROR. FEMME AS IN CAVES. FEMME AS IN LIGHTNING. FEMME AS IN AN AMALGAMATION OF TRAITS THAT I HAVE DECIDED ARE FEMININE REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOCIETY SAYS. FUCK IS IT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!???

[italianpersonwithashippersheart]

So I have been trying to keep up with the FoureverYou Project because I miss Cooheart and I am dying to see him paired up with Pond (180 Degrees) and I want to see Bas in something else too.

MDL doesn't list the directs or crew of this series. But I have been assuming it's New Siwaj because it's Wabi Sabi.

Recently I was reminded that Perfect10 liners is confirmed to be a New project as well. And this show is also shooting.

Now I have seen bts and vlog stuff from the Fourever You Project on New's instagram so I know he is on set for that. And the Q dates never match up between the two projects.

So I am forced to assume that New Siwaj is directing two projects with huge casts and multiple ships of 16 Episodes (Fourever You) and basically 30 Episodes - 10 x Ships (Perfect10 Liners) at the same time. And I don't think that's a great idea.

Multitasking on that level sounds awful for his health for one. And for two I am not convinced you can do justice to two big projects like this while splitting your time.

I am not sure where I am going with this. I am just re-adjusting my expectations early I guess.

Of course this could be more normal then I think and therefor not a big deal. If anybody as any info on another director who shot two bls at the same time or if that's common or whatever. Let me know. I would love to be wrong to be worried.

@lurkingshan Not sure if you want the update but since I mentioned the show to you fairly recently and you said you wanted to check it for cooheart I thought to tag you here. I guess we should go into it with low expectations.

[odinsblog]

I was stunned to find the number of people in the tech industry who are all-in on the theory of scientific racism and eugenics. They've been out about that for years, though.

There's a sort of complex where this was the birth of, whether you want to call it the intellectual dark web, I think that was the moment there. They've sort of been radicalized gradually, as happens with these things, where they started with, like, Slate Star Codex was a really big key central point for them to gather and sort of say, well, we have to interrogate and question a lot of these (egalitarian) assumptions. They were very actively courted by the neo-reactionary movement.

So you have things like Peter Teal holding dinner parties with the founders of the movement, and sort of people who have explicitly endorsed slavery, explicitly endorsed disenfranchising women, and people of any non-male gender from being able to vote.

And I always resent it because I sound like a crazy person by just merely accurately describing what they have publicly said. I sound like a conspiracy theorist who's pinning up red strings on a cork board by literally being like, “This is a thing they said out loud, in public, multiple times.” And people are like, “There's no way.” And I'm like, I don't know what to tell you, but it's all out there. We have receipts for ten years.

They are way out there, and they have an explicit agenda of normalizing, really radical, really hateful agendas.

And for me, it's like, it's just a very simple thing.

It's like I have to care about my kid’s safety. I have to care about my friend's safety, I have to care about, you know, basic moral values that we used to agree on.

And that's the other thing too, is because I knew these people 10 and 20 years ago. Like the first blog that Marc Andreessen ever had, I set up. It was on a platform I helped build. So I know that there was a point in which, at least from the public visible face, this was once a reasonable person. And for them to embrace the sheer intellectual dishonesty, along with the hatred… the fact that they're just like, they don't care that they're lying because it's an effective tool to get what they want.

That stuff is… I don't know.

It really soured me on the traditional tech industry.

This is what their tech is for. The things they fund are meant to carry out their agenda.

Let me give you a clear example: To the people who believe in this extremist racist ideology, Elon Musk being willing to lose tens of billions of dollars in value of his own money, presumably, in Twitter, turning into “X,” is a principled person who puts his values ahead of the dollar. He is so committed to advancing this reactionary movement that he's willing to forego tens of billions of dollars of personal wealth in order to advance it.

And what rational people see as the destruction of Twitter is rather, the destruction of the ability for anybody to ever again make a Black Lives Matter hashtag, or to make a Me Too hashtag. And that is because he's not a dumb person. Like the thing that a lot of progressives and reasonable people want to just say, well, he's racist and evil, so he must be dumb.

He's not a dumb person.

Peter Thiel's not a dumb person.

So if we assume they're smart people who understand how systems work and have virtually unlimited resources, then why would they choose to do this?

Well, there must be a reason.

And there is a reason.

It's just one we don't like to confront.

Even more insidious is the fact that these tech moguls own huge companies with enormous influence, and wielding that kind of power over their employees creates a herd mentality within their workforces.

So if, for example, Facebook's board includes both Peter Thiel and Mark Andreessen. They don't have to give somebody an order to say what kind of content they want to promote on the newsfeed, on Facebook.

Everybody who works there knows this is who our bosses are. This is what we got to do, because they're smart. Everybody's smart, everybody's very reasonable.

And so you don't have to imagine, like I said, I don't have to be a conspiracy theorist that's putting up some red strings on a cork board to connect the dots and whatever. You're like, “Oh, I'm a midlevel product manager at a company. I'd like to make a name for myself and make the share price go up. And I know the boss's boss has been on every podcast in the world saying we need to promote more voices that are calling for ethnic cleansing,” okay?

Message received.

That's what a person who has no moral context would do. And there are a cohort of people in the technology industry that have come up entirely consuming media owned and created by these people, because they know the programming site Hacker News, which is owned by a venture capital firm and run by Paul Graham, is one of these guys.

They read blogs written explicitly by these guys. They consume it. They were on clubhouse. They're in a Discord chat with others that are sort of buying the stuff. They have a full wraparound media bubble. If they just read substacks and listen to the blog posts or read the blog posts from these folks, you can have what feels like an entire media diet shaped solely by this dialogue.

And this is why they're trying to own the media outlets and the distribution, like Twitter, alongside owning the platforms. And the fact that they can control more parts of society, right? The leverage of owning the distribution networks, the leverage of owning media outlets, the leverage of owning the platforms is very, very different, because we do have a lot of historical precedent.

If we go back 100 years ago and we say you're reeling from coming out of a pandemic, you are reeling from economic precarity and inequality at unprecedented levels, and you see the rise of, again, a direct parallel, virulent antisemitism. And you have things like the oil barons giving way to the Henry Fords of the world, the labor crackdown of the Pinkertons, Ford's embrace of, you know, to the point where he's pen pals with Hitler, and IBM building the technology.

The first person that ever asked me to do technology work for him was a neighbor of ours, and he had a tattoo on his wrist. And I was a little kid and didn't know what it meant. And I asked him what it was. It was his concentration camp tatoo. And what people don't realize is those are database entries in an IBM database.

And IBM's stance at the time was that they were neutral.

This is what technology does to enable the rise of fascism and victimization around the world. And we have a direct precedent less than 100 years ago, of how these technologies are used.

And I don't say that lightly.

I'm not saying we're there yet, but that is how you get there. And I would be surprised if the pattern doesn't play out in some ways, in terms of if you have tycoons of industry at a moment when the world is reckoning with massive social change, cultural change, along with recovering from things like economic destruction, inequality and pandemics… And you have rising military threats around the world.

That is exactly where we were a century ago.

—ANIL DASH shares his thoughts and experiences on Richard Hanania and rampant neo-fascism in Silicon Valley

[divorcedfiddleford]

happy 8 years to this guy implying that exposure to toxic waste turned stanford gay

[kiybee]

everyday i wake up and defend bunny corcoran more than i reasonably should

[tswwwit]

i’m sooo curious on bill meeting dipper’s parents. i think i remember you mentioning at one point they kinda sucked and treated dip especially bad. i’m sure that’s caused a lot of his long term mental health/self esteem issues and i can’t help but think his husband wouldn’t be too thrilled about that. also they don’t even know he’s married so that’s a whole other thing lol

In the Familiar AU, Dipper's parents shipped him and Mabel off to Grunkle Stan back when they were twelve, actually!

This was initially excused as the twins 'needing to get used to having magic'. Which makes sense! Magical puberty is a heck of a thing, and getting some training's useful to cut down on random magic surges.

But by the end of the summer, they hadn't made any plans for picking the kids up. This when Stan twigged to the real situation.

And by the end of that year, Dipper knew his 'paranoid' assumption was absolutely correct.

So the twins grew up in Gravity Falls, with only very occasional visits back 'home'. Contact's been sporadic, and Mabel's been the one who's clung more to their parent's attention. Dipper hasn't spoken to them unless forced to in years.

So yeah! Bill's not exactly thrilled with the parents - but lucky for them, they haven't met him yet! And they definitely don't know about the marriage. Much less anything else.

[caruliaa]

mariah rose faith the most gorgeous women alive. sorry .sorry.

[spiderinthecupboard]

On October 12th there was a homophobic terrorist attack in Bratislava, Slovakia. A piece of shit with a gun waited in front of a gay bar in the old town and murdered two innocent young people, another person is in hospital. The murderer, who is getting way too much attention in local media instead of the victims, had posted an antisemitist, racist, homophobic, and transphobic manifesto on twitter before the massacre. After using an entire round of bullets, he took pictures of the victims, posted them online, and kept running from the police until he finally killed himself in the morning. I hope he burns in hell.

[the-pobble-terrarium]

AND NOW ONTO RD !!!

(CW for ableism, slight homophobia)

Rainbow Dash was the absolute pride and joy of her family. Ever since a young age she had been a strong flier, her proportions made her incredibly aerodynamic, and she had perfect wing ratio. For all accounts and purposes, she was the golden example of the ideal Pegasus. In her younger years, it didn’t take her long to climb the social ladder in school. She was one of the popular kids, and she knew it well. Rainbow Dash never really cared for the hierarchy Cloudsdale pushed, though. Her parents always said “any pegasus is a perfect pegasus” and she lived by that rule. Which is why, out of all her peers who mocked and shamed the short little yellow filly with small wings, she was the one to befriend her.

Rainbow Dash came to learn this little filly, Fluttershy, was one of the kindest ponies she had ever met. Flutters, as Rainbow Dash nicknamed her, made a habit of noticing the small things- the little bugs that fluttered through the sky, the shape of clouds, birds that perched on lamp posts. She had an incredible ability to pick up on Dash’s mood too, even when she thought it wasn’t obvious. She always put others before herself, even to her own detriment, and it baffled Rainbow- it baffled her how anyone could berate and belittle someone so caring over such small things.

She quickly learnt, however, she wasn’t safe from her peers scrutiny either. Rumors began to spread that Rainbow Dash was hanging with schools resident punching bag, and Rainbow quickly understood just how cruel kids can be. Three of her best friends, Hoops, Dumb-bell, and Score approached her after school one day, and promptly told her to stay away from ‘that flightless meatbag.’ That she was a ‘loser’ and ‘lazy’ and that those bad habits would rub off on Rainbow. Dash was, understandably, shocked that these friends she’d known for years, these friends so kind and caring to her, could be so harsh and cruel. Not wanting to lose such close friends, Rainbow promised she’d stay away from Fluttershy, but in reality she merely kept their friendship hidden from the public.

As Fluttershy knows all too well however, secrets can’t be kept forever- and the rumors just got worse when people discovered Rainbow Dash was hanging out with Fluttershy in secret. They claimed Fluttershy was her “filly-friend,” that Rainbow was just as much of a loser as she was, a coward and an idiot for hanging with such a low-life. This level of venom towards her punched Dash in the gut hard. She spent most of her days during those times hiding from her peers when she could, and it gave Dash a crushing glimpse into the life Fluttershy lived almost daily.

When Rainbow Dash discovered the starter of these rumors, however, she was furious.

Her closest friend, the foal she had known since flight-school, the foal she had spent her ENTIRE LIFE with- entrusted the best. Dumb-bell. HE had started the rumors.

That day she found out, she got into a massive fight with him, and had found out who he really was. She broke her friendship with him, with all his posse, and declared then and there that YES. She was Fluttershy’s friend. She would STAY her friend even if it cost her her status and she would NEVER stoop down to his level. After that she stormed away with Fluttershy, and didn’t look back when Dumb-bell called to her.

And unfortunately, her Loyalty to her friend DID cost her her status. She became the schools second punching bag, sited as the pegasus who “had it all and gave it up for literal garbage.” Rainbow was tough however, and though it hurt hearing how much everyone suddenly hated her, it fueled her to try harder, be better, PROVE that she was still the best, whether they liked it or not. And this rage and ego fueled desire to push herself beyond every limit she had would lead to her biggest regret. (Im gonna reblog this with the rest, post is getting laggy from so much text)

[sercphs]

"That guy is so far beyond help."

[thegayhimbo]

Stranger Things Rebel Robin (Book and Podcast) Review (Part 2 of 2)

WARNING: The following review contains MAJOR SPOILERS from the book and podcast!

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my other Stranger Things Reviews. Like, Reblog, and let me know what your thoughts are regarding the show or the upcoming season! :)

Stranger Things Comics/Graphic Novels:

Stranger Things Six

Stranger Things Halloween Special

Stranger Things The Other Side

Stranger Things Zombie Boys

Stranger Things The Bully

Stranger Things Winter Special

Stranger Things Tomb of Ybwen

Stranger Things Into The Fire

Stranger Things Science Camp

Stranger Things “The Game Master” and “Erica’s Quest”

Stranger Things and Dungeons and Dragons

Stranger Things Kamchatka

Stranger Things Erica The Great

Stranger Things “Creature Feature” and “Summer Special”

Stranger Things Tie-In Books:

Stranger Things Suspicious Minds

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Runaway Max (Part 3 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 1 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 2 of 3)

Stranger Things Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Part 3 of 3)

NOTE: If you would like to listen to "Surviving Hawkins," the companion podcast to Rebel Robin, you can find all 6 episodes here.

Part 3: Dash Montague (and people like him)

I wanted to do a separate post talking specifically about Dash's character. It's not just about how Dash relates to Robin's story, but how he's representative of certain types of people I've seen for a while now: Those who claim to fight against social injustices and for people who face discrimination, only for these so-called advocates to reveal themselves to be just as hateful, cruel, condescending, self-serving, contemptuous, and hypocritical as those they criticize. It's a trend that's been around for a while, but started spiking again in recent months due to a number of different factors and world events, and it's caused me (and other mutuals I know) to become deeply distrustful of others currently.

As I noted earlier, Dash is the kind of person who frames himself as a geek/nerd who's unfairly an outcast and deserves better because of how "intelligent" he is. In reality, he is a small-minded prick, and a contender alongside Billy and Angela for one of the most unpleasant and loathsome characters in the series. On the surface, Dash presents himself as a friend to Robin and other members of the Odd Squad (the nickname for Robin's friends). He eventually shows his true colors when cheats on Kate (his girlfriend at the time) and tries to force a kiss on Robin without her consent. When Robin expresses her disgust, this is how Dash responds:

And we later find out that this wasn't a one time thing or a lapse of judgment on his part: He is a serial cheater who had multiple flings with other girls when he was supposed to be dating Kate.

Now, sleazy womanizing creeps are nothing new. Nor is the concept of entitled "Nice Guys" who pretend to be decent people on the surface before showing a nastier side to themselves when they don't get what they want. Dash isn't unique in those departments, and most of us probably know at least one person out there who behaves like this. It's gross, but that isn't what got under my skin.

What made Dash truly revolting to me, aside from how callously he throws away friendships like used condoms, are these observations Robin makes about Dash after he reveals himself to be a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing:

People minimizing evil in their own minds.

Inverting the Social Pyramid.

Pretending to want to change things when it's really about coming out on top and looking like the underdog while doing it.

Using intelligence as a means to justify putting others down.

Becoming obsessed with fighting monsters without realizing (or caring) that you've also become one.

Like I said, I have constantly seen these aspects from people who champion themselves on social media as an ally to the oppressed, who love to virtue-signal for everyone to see as if to say "Look at what a great person I am!", who claim to be against cruelty and unfairness, who position themselves as being empathetic and understanding.........and yet constantly reveal their hypocrisy and demonstrate they are the kind of people I want nothing to do with.

I am no stranger to being on the receiving end of belittlement and condescension from these kinds of people. Last year, I had an extremely unpleasant encounter with a Hughie Campbell Stan from The Boys fandom because I said something about the character they didn't like, and they got condescending about it. I proceeded to block them, only for them to use another account to send me a nasty reply accusing me of being "triggered" along with a snide suggestion to leave social media. All of this was followed by a separate post from them where they tried to make it sound like I was unreasonable for blocking them for their behavior and called me "weak." In other words, someone didn't like what I had to say, belittled me about it, got mad when I blocked them over their attitude, used another account to continue harassing me, and then called me weak for not putting up with their bullying. This was over a fictional character from a TV show no less. 🙄 And it was also from a user who not only claims to be against people who use that kind of Trump-like language (i.e. calling people "triggered" and "weak"), but also posts disingenuous messages about caring for other people's self-esteem. She sure as hell didn't care about being unkind to me as long as she could get away with it.

Sadly, she isn't the only person on the Left who acts like this.

There is this idea from people that if you have certain attributes, like serving in the military, or being a part of the Democratic party, or supporting left leaning causes, or NOT voting for people like Trump, or even if you are a part of a minority that faces discrimination for who you are (i.e. being a POC, or LGBT+, or a woman, or a nerd, or whatever is supposed to make you an "outcast" by today's standards), it somehow means you're automatically a good person and your actions are above criticism. I've seen this mentality REPEATEDLY used by people like this to justify being cruel and unkind to others, or saying the type of heinous rhetoric I expect from the Alt-Right as opposed to someone who claims to denounce that kind of behavior (like the Hughie Campbell stan who called me triggered and weak because I wouldn't put up with her patronizing behavior).

At the beginning of this year, there was a Tumblr post that came out which got a lot of traction and controversy.

Now for me, this post was a pretty straight-foward message from the OP about not treating 12 year old boys like they're inherently monstrous before they've actually done anything, and then later acting surprised when people from the Alt-Right swoop in and begin to groom them with their hateful ideologies because the Left demonized them first. Unfortunately, while some people took that message to heart, others..........did not. A post that could be summed up as "Be kind and empathetic" got twisted by other users with their own personal agendas into "YOU'RE PROMOTING MISOGYNY, RACISM, FACISM........" These people not only became the very strawmen the OP was calling out, but also validated the OP's point about the Left's obsession with identity politics, being intelligent over being kind, and demonizing boys:

I find the last two comments ironic considering this is the EXACT mentality Dash has in Rebel Robin: He believes he's smarter than "the popular kids," and uses intelligence (and his insistence that he's an underdog in the social pyramid) to justify his nasty, contemptuous behavior, and then pass it off as him being "morally correct."

Also, speaking as a gay man and someone who's been on the receiving end of bullying and abuse, I'm not impressed with the attempts by these people to justify their thinly-veiled hatred, most of which can be summed up as "I was abused, so it's okay for me to be abusive to others." Disgusted isn't even a good word to express my feelings about this. I don't give a damn who you are, what experiences you've had, what your political affiliations is, or what minority you belong to: If you're going out of your way to be vicious to others and then try to justify it like it's okay, you're a terrible person, and no amount of "intelligence" on your part changes that.

I knew someone like this named Daze_Confuse, a Redditor who was on the site for 10 years before his account got permanently suspended this year. He is someone who identified himself as gay (like me), was against Donald Trump and the Republicans, claimed to speak on behalf of the LGBT+ community and other minorities, and served in a branch of the military.

He is also one of the most vile people I had the unfortunate displeasure of encountering.

This is the kind of person who put other people down out of a sense of moral superiority. This is a person who was repeatedly condescending, contemptuous of people he disagreed with, smug, coasting on self-righteousness, petty, deeply insecure, and cruel to others when he could get away with it. This is the kind of person who made comments designed to shrink others, and then would later try to pass off his comments as "jokes" when he was called out on them by the moderators (which happened frequently). This is the kind of person who, in order to "win" an argument, would go through a person's entire Reddit history and cherry-pick certain comments or posts and take them out-of-context so he could metaphorically beat them into the ground and feel justified in doing so.

This is the kind of person who railed against "toxic masculinity," but never once looked at his own behavior even though it had elements of that.

This is the kind of person who pretended to be against "Nice Guyism" and yet defended people who behaved like that (both fictional characters and real people).

This is the kind of person who acted like he was against bullying (similar to the homophobic troll I dealt with years ago) and yet was one of the most vicious bullies you could run across.

This is the type of person who intentionally went out of his way to provoke fights with people and make others feel bad for having opinions he didn't like or agree with. He did this over fictional characters and TV shows, and he did this with his real life political and social opinions.

I remember coming across him. I wish I hadn't. He made things personal with me in a way I will never forget, or forgive.

He is the embodiment of Dash from the books (with a little bit of Billy Hargrove and Angela sprinkled in there). He was the kind of person who would use intelligence to justify his awful behavior because he constantly believed he was in the right. He is the kind of person who positioned himself as an underdog in society (much like Dash), but was more interested in "inverting the social pyramid" (as Robin would put it). If you saw how many times this guy projected his issues onto others, or went out of his way to paint himself as the smartest person on the site, or expressed jealousy at men who (as he put it) "got pussy" or were conventionally attractive, you'd be able to peg pretty quickly that, for all of his posturing and virtue-signaling and claims about how he was against injustices, he was a worm who only cared about social issues when it was convenient for him.

I won't claim to know the circumstances behind what happened to him, but given that Reddit is a site where incels like this still have their accounts up despite the bile they spew, whatever u/Daze_Confuse did to get permanently suspended must have been egregious enough that the Sitewide Administration wasn't willing to ignore it. Considering how he acted, I'm not surprised. It's gotta sting to lose access to 10 years of posts and comments though.

And if it sounds like I'm being judgmental of him, just know he behaved much worse with multiple people besides me. You reap what you sow: He chose to be a smug asshole, and paid the price for it. The world is better off without him.

My overall point is I'm tired of these types of people. I'm tired of people like Dash who frame themselves as outcasts who are better than the popular crowd, and then reveal themselves to be just as heinous as the people they criticize. I'm tired of seeing people on the Left, who claim to be against injustices and bigotry, engage in the same level of hatred they condemn the Alt-Right for. I'm tired of people who claim to fight for my rights, but would gleefully turn on me in a heartbeat and throw me to the wolves the moment I said or did something that constituted "stepping out of line" in their eyes. I'm tired of people who talk a big game about caring for other people's self-esteem, but will bully others when it's convenient for them (looking at the Hughie Campbell Stan who is still active on this hellsite). I'm tired of seeing people who put on a big show of advocating for social causes, and then use their political ideologies and philosophies to justify being cruel and contemptuous to others. I'm tired of seeing people act like bigots and then trying to pretend they aren't doing that.

I'm not going to claim I'm a paragon of virtue when it comes to doing things right. I've had my moments of being unkind. I've said things before that I look back on with regret and wish I hadn't said. I've acted in ways I'm not proud of. I am not even going to say I'm the most intelligent person on this site. For all of my flaws though, I am consciously making an effort to be better than I was before.

The roughest thing I've seen so far as I've gotten older, aside from people looking for any excuse to be nasty to others because reasons, is how we as a culture have started defining others in extremes, or love digging up other people's history and then flinging it at them as if to say "This is who you are," like there's no way to change it and you will forever be defined by it.

This post put it best: We are so obsessed these days with "gold-star activism" and "purity culture" and looking like the smartest person in the room that a lot of us have abandoned empathy and compassion and refuse to acknowledge when other people grow and attempt to become a better person. There's a difference between someone who continues to behave badly (which is why I am calling out people like u/Daze_Confuse, the Hughie Campbell stan, the homophobic Reddit troll who is unfortunately still active and engaging in the same behavior from years ago, and the users who responded to the post I linked to earlier who justify being vicious to 12 year old boys) vs someone who recognizes that their behavior was bad and makes an effort to grow from it.

In one of the many conversations I've had with my friend @stillhidden, she told me something I haven't ever forgotten: Truly stupid people are the ones who think they're right about everything. They are people who are so calcified in their beliefs that they refuse to change them or consider the idea that they could be in the wrong, even if there's overwhelming evidence to show their thinking is flawed. They lack the self-awareness to realize how awful their behavior is, which leads them to falling down the pipeline of smug superiority, self-righteousness, and hypocrisy.

I see this as the biggest difference between Dash Montague and Steve Harrington: For all of his flaws, or even how he started out at the beginning of the show, Steve isn't stupid like he gets treated by some fans. He's someone who's willing to grow, own up to his actions, and learn from his mistakes. He's someone who's willing to change his thinking and perspective on things, and be the kind of ally and friend that other characters need. It's why I find it annoying whenever Steve-Antis come out of their caves to continue bringing up the same tiresome arguments about Steve's behavior in season 1 to say "THIS IS WHO HE REALLY IS" while ignoring any character development he had later on.

Dash, for all of his talk about being intelligent, is one of the dumbest characters in the series. It takes a special kind of stupidity to throw a friendship with one person (Robin) and a relationship with your girlfriend (Kate) into the trash because you think you know better, and act like your so-called intelligence gives you carte blanche to act however you want to.

If Dash continues behaving like this into adulthood, it's gonna be a rough ride for him, and there's a very real chance he will end up friendless, alone, and bitter. I know plenty of people out there on social media (Reddit, Twitter/X, Tumblr, TikTok, etc) who are still trudging through life with Dash's self-serving mentality, and I can 100% say from what I've seen that it's going poorly for them. They brought it on themselves.

[raaorqtpbpdy]

Dangerous People

Written for the Phic Phight Prompt: Identity reveal. Dash finds out Danny is Phantom. What happens? Could be swagger bishie or not, either or is okay. (from @q-gorgeous)

AO3 Link

[Warnings for internalized homophobia, implied homophobia, implied child abuse, and mentions of bullying]

Danny had been a lot of dangerous places, many of them in the Ghost Zone. But of all the dangerous places Danny had been, high school was at the top of the list. At least in the Ghost Zone, he could fight back. In some places, there were even rules that Danny could exploit to keep from getting the shit kicked out of him, or at least give as good as he got.

At school, the rules didn't protect him. At school, he couldn't fight back, because he had to keep his powers secret. Danny had a literal portal to hell in his basement, and he could confidently say that high school was dramatically more hellish. 

"Hey! Fentoe-nail!" Danny sighed as Dash came storming up to him. This was a prime example. Dash slammed him against the lockers and put his face real close to Danny's, menacing him. "I saw you at the beginning of sixth period yesterday," he said, voice very quiet and surprisingly less threatening than Danny was expecting, but still, Danny paled with fear. "Meet me under the bleachers after school."

Dropping him roughly, Dash stalked off.

Danny was almost shaking, his palms sweating. He'd been busy fighting Technus all through sixth period and after school. If Dash had seen him at the beginning of sixth period, then that meant... He swallowed hard and rushed to his next class, which he shared with Sam and Tucker. Dash had seen him transform into Phantom. That was very bad news.

"It's not that bad," Sam tried to tell him while they whispered to each other in the back of English class. It might've been more convincing if she'd looked like she believed it herself.

"Not that bad?" Danny echoed, his tone low but panicked. "Dash knows my secret. Dash Baxter. The guy who's been bullying me since the fifth grade. Oh, I am so screwed."

"Calm down," Tucker said, though he hardly sounded calm himself. "Dash loves Phantom, remember? Like probably loves loves Phantom, if you ask me. Maybe he's just gonna ask you for an autograph?"

"Yeah, but he hates hates me," Danny pointed out. He ran a hand through his hair. "Oh man, what if he thinks I like, ruined his hero for him or something and kicks the shit out of me? I'm already half dead, i don't wanna die the rest of the way from being wailed on by my bully."

"If he knows you're Phantom, then you can use your powers to protect yourself," Sam said. "And besides, we don't know for sure that that's even what he wants to talk to you about."

"He said he saw me at the beginning of sixth period yesterday. There's literally nothing else he could want to talk to me about."

"Your parents have tons of weird ghost tech. Maybe they have something that can alter memories," suggested Tucker. "You can fly by during lunch and check."

"No, if they were working on something that erased memories, they definitely would've told me about it in one of their rants," Danny denied despondently.

"Unless they did tell you about it, and you just don't remember..." Danny's eyes widened and he looked at Tucker with a grin while Sam face-palmed beside them.

"Fenton! Manson! Foley!" their teacher called them out. "Something you want to share with the class?"

"Uh..." Danny glanced to Sam and Tucker, who offered no help. "I forgot?" Tucker snickered at his answer, and Sam flicked him on the arm.

"Well maybe you'd do better to remember the lesson if you actually payed attention? Don't you think?"

"Right, sorry, Mr. Lancer," Danny said, and Sam and Tucker mumbled their apologies too. It wasn't worth detention to continue their conversation, but Danny mentally resolved to cut lunch to search his parents lab for memory-altering devices.

That plan went out the window almost as soon as lunch started when Skulker crashed through the wall, shouting for Danny. "WHELP!"

Danny ducked under a table to transform while the students evacuated the cafeteria, running and screaming. He flew up through the table top, ready for a fight.

"That's my name! Don't wear it out!" The fight with Skulker took all of lunch and part way into fifth period, but luckily his math teacher was willing to accept, "Sorry I'm late. There was a ghost attack in the cafeteria and I got trapped under a table," as a suitable excuse, and didn't mark him tardy.

"I guess you didn't get the chance to get over to your parents lab, right?" Tucker said to him in a hushed voice.

"No," Danny sighed. "It was a long shot anyway. I'll talk to my parents about the ghost hunting applications of a memory eraser later. For now... I guess I've just gotta bite the bullet and talk to Dash. Try to convince him not to tell anyone."

Tucker scoffed. "Yeah, good luck." Then he looked at the despair on Danny's face and quickly backtracked, switching to a much more positive, if less genuine, tone, and shooting Danny a thumbs-up. "I mean, good luck!" 

"Gee, thanks."

—

The bell rang to mark the end of the school day and Dash jumped out of his seat, carefully giving Kwan the slip. He made a beeline for the bleachers by the football field and waited underneath for Fenton to show up, fidgeting nervously with the sleeves of his Letterman jacket. He hoped the kid wouldn't just ghost him. Dash snickered at the pun. It was the kind of joke Danny would make.

Danny. Dash wrung his hands and swallowed the lump in his throat. There was no way in hell he could've said anything to anyone about it, but he'd been crushing on Danny Fenton since the fifth grade. Not once during that whole time had he known what to do about it. If he'd had a crush on Paulina or Star, he would've given them a flower or something, but flowers were for girls, not boys, so instead, Dash shoved him in the hallway.

Dash's dad was very strict in ensuring that Dash grew up to be as strong and manly as he could be. Men didn't hug, or hold hands, so if Dash wanted to touch Danny, which he longed to do, it had to be in a fight, or during a sport. Danny didn't play sports. That left only one option. Dash felt bad about it the more time passed, but he also felt angry—at himself, and at Fenton for making him feel the way he did. He regretted it when he saw the hatred in Danny's eyes, but he couldn't hold himself back, either.

Phantom had been a relief. He was the first person besides Fenton that Dash had ever liked that way. He reminded Dash of Fenton, a little bit. Their sense of humor was the same, and Dash liked that. Of course, Dash had had a minor breakdown when his second crush had also been a guy, but Phantom was a ghost, so he'd decided that it didn't count. The biggest difference was that practically everyone in the whole school was crushing on Phantom, girls and guys alike, so it wasn't weird that Dash liked him so much. His dad would beg to differ, but his dad didn't have to know.

Then, yesterday, Dash had been cowering—strategically concealing himself under a desk in the computer lab after all the monitors came to life and flew out the window. Everyone else had already run out of the room, but Dash had bravely stayed behind to get the drop on the ghost, and not because he'd accidentally gotten his foot tangled up in wires under the desk. It was then that he'd heard it.

"I'm goin' ghost!" Fenton's voice cried.

And then he saw it, glowing white rings, so bright they almost forced Dash to look away, but he couldn't stop staring. They split up and down Fenton's body, and when they faded, Phantom was standing there instead. He took off, phasing through the wall to fight the ghost. Dash had been left dumbstruck. A sinking feeling spread into his stomach. So much for thinking he'd moved on from Fenton, not that he ever had, really.

Dash looked through the gaps in the bleachers and felt his heart flutter in his chest when he saw Fenton crossing the football field and he pushed it down immediately. Man, he had it bad. What a moron. Danny looked around for any spectators before slipping under the bleachers to meet Dash.

"Look, I don't know what you think you saw, but you probably didn't see it!" Danny burst out immediately.

"I'm sorry," Dash said, and Danny stilled, blinking in confusion.

"What?"

"I'm sorry for bullying you all this time," Dash elaborated, "even before you were Phantom. I shouldn't have done that, and I'm sorry." Danny stared some more.

"What?" he asked again, his voice raising in pitch.

"I said I'm sorry for bullying you, even before you were Phantom."

"No, I heard you I just... what?!" Danny's mouth hung open, and his brows furrowed, clearly not able to process the situation at all.

"Look, I've been a major asshole to you, and you still save my life and everyone else's from ghosts all the time," Dash said. "That one time we got shrunk real tiny, and you had to fight that ghost while all your powers were wearing off, you remember? You kicked that robot-ghost's ass and saved my life, like a dozen times, and got us both unshrunk, even though I shoved you in a locker, like, just a few hours before that. You're a better person than I am, and it makes me want to be better."

"So you're apologizing because I'm not the kind of dick who would just let you die because you're an asshole to me and you're worried I'll stop saving you if you don't?"

"No, I'm apologizing because you deserve an apology," Dash said. "I should've apologized a long time ago. Actually, I shouldn't have bullied you in the first place, but I got a lot of repressed rage and shit I gotta work through, if I'm bein' honest."

"Repressed rage you need to work through?" Danny echoed, his mouth gaping in astonishment. "Did you start seeing a therapist?"

"After Ms. Spectra? Hell no!" Dash denied, even the thought made him anxious. That particular ghost had done a number on the entire Casper High student body, and they were all completely ruined for therapy now. "Your sister tutors me in math and science every Tuesday, and she's starting to rub off." 

"Oh, yeah, that tracks." For the first time since Dash first opened his mouth under those bleachers, Danny actually seemed to comprehend what he was saying. He nodded thoughtfully. "I hope you don't think this makes us even," he said. "I accept your apology, but I still don't like you. If you really want to prove your sorry, you'll stop picking on me and my friends—actually, you'll stop picking on people altogether, got it?"

"Yeah," Dash agreed. "I was going to, anyway."

"Good." Danny put on a very serious expression then. "Now, we need to talk about me being Phantom. You can't tell anyone, ever, do you understand. No one can know."

"Believe me, I wasn't planning to," Dash assured him. "I was at that ghost-safety assembly with your parents. I heard what they said. I wouldn't risk putting you in danger like that. The town needs you—er, needs Phantom."

"You can't tell your friends, either," Danny said. "You'd better keep it completely secret, or I'll put you in permafrost."

"I swear on my life, I won't tell anyone." Dash didn't want to tell anyone. This was something only he knew, a secret between him and the guy he'd been pining after since he was ten years old. Obviously he wanted to keep it between just them. Wait, was it between just them? "Does anyone else already know?"

"Sam and Tucker do," Danny said, and Dash fought the urge to scowl. "They were there when I first changed. And Jazz knows, but she found out later."

"I see." He tried to keep the disappointment out of his voice. "By the way, if you ever need any help with anything, I'm happy to lend a hand," he offered, perking up a bit. "We made a pretty good team fighting ghosts on that pirate ship, and, well, I noticed you haven't been doing so well in school since freshman year started. I'm no straight-A student, and I won't be much help in math, but if you need a hand with, like, vocab or history, I'm your man."

Danny looked him up and down suspiciously. "You'd really do that?"

"Don't sound so surprised," Dash chuckled awkwardly. "Phantom's—you're my hero. Anything I can do to help, I'll do. Besides, I'm trying to be a better person, remember? Helping you study for a history test is like the fifty yard line toward that goal, right?"

"I don't understand football metaphors," Danny said.

"That was actually a simile."

"I have a D plus in English."

"Wow, you really do need my help," Dash ribbed, but it was lighter and far less mean-spirited than the insults he tossed around before.

"Well..." Danny rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, but he was smiling. "Maybe a little help wouldn't hurt."

"Cool." Dash checked his watch and cringed when he saw the time. "Sorry, I am way late for basketball practice, but I knew I had to catch you before you left. Anyway, your sister has my number. Call me any time after five and we can set up a time for me to help with your schoolwork."

"Sure thing," Danny said, stepping to the side so Dash could squeeze past him and out from under the bleachers.

"I'll see you around, Fenton!"

"Yeah, bye... Dash...." He waved awkwardly, still looking taken aback by the conversation he'd just had with Dash, who looked over his shoulder for only a brief moment to look at his face before sprinting full tilt to the locker room to change for practice.

Coach yelled at him for being late and made him run suicides for half-an-hour, but even so, Dash was giddy all the way through practice. Afterwards, he showered, went home, and continued to be giddy while he did his homework. Halfway through his math worksheet, which he was pretty sure he was only getting every third problem right on, and only thanks to Jazz's excellent tutoring, his phone phone rang.

Dash picked it up without looking at the number. "Hello?"

"Hey, Dash?" Fenton's voice came through the line and he grinned. "I was just working on my history homework, and I don't recognize a thing. I was wondering if it wasn't too soon to take you up on your offer?"

"Nope, I got time now," Dash said cheerfully. "I'm just working on my own homework."

"So should I head to your place or—"

"No!" Dash said quickly. His dad was bound to get suspicious about a guy who wasn't on any of Dash's sports teams coming over to his house, even if it was for tutoring—especially if it was for tutoring. "I'll grab my stuff and head over to yours. I'll be there in ten."

"Okay, cool," Danny said. "I'll see you in ten." Dash hung up and gathered all his homework and textbooks into his backpack.

"You look happy," his mother observed when he walked past the living room on his way to the door. She was doing some embroidery while his dad watched golf on the TV. She was really good at embroidery, actually. The colorful flower near the hem of the black dress she was working on was probably a commission. "You off to a study date or something?"

"Uh... something like that," he said cautiously. "It's not really a date, but..."

"But you like this girl, I see," his mother smiled knowingly, and he tried to keep the hurt out of his own smile at her assumption. "Well, good luck, son! Maybe next time it will be!"

"Thanks," he said, but he doubted it. Then he walked out the door and jogged over to the Fentons' place. It wasn't too far from his own house, and he'd been there plenty of times before to study with Jazz. He made it in exactly the estimated time and rang the doorbell.

Danny answered the door, and Dash grinned at him. "Your knight in a Letterman jacket has arrived." Danny snorted and let him inside.

When they got into the kitchen, Dash started to take his backpack off, since that's where he and Jazz always worked when she was tutoring him, but Danny kept walking, so Dash followed. Once they got to the stairs, he realized where they were going and his heart raced. Danny expected them to study up in his room.

Dash tried to calm himself down. They were just studying. Nothing was going to happen. His heart refused to listen. Then the door opened to reveal Danny's room, and Sam and Tucker were already inside, and suddenly his heart caught up to his head, and he had to fight not to whine in complaint.

"Dash!" Tucker cheered. "Danny told us what happened earlier. Are you actually good at history? Because I completely suck at it, Danny ends up missing class all the time, and Sam only knows about, like, witch trials and junk like that."

"Much as I'm loath to admit it," Sam sighed. "We are in desperate need of help."

Dash let his disappointment roll right off his back, reminding himself that even with the other two there, he was still getting to spend time with Danny that didn't involve hurting him, or an attacking ghost, and that was a win. "Lucky for you guys, history is my best subject. You've got Ms. Horace, right?" 

"Yeah," Danny confirmed. "We've got Ms. Horrid." Dash chuckled.

"So you're up to the French revolution, then, yeah?" They got right into it, with Dash helping them figure out how to answer each of the document based questions and advising them on the kinds of answers that would appease Ms. Horace. "She's really big on women's lib and stuff like that, so if you can manage to bring up a woman who was important, or call out mistreatment of women in history, that'll boost your score every time."

"Maybe Ms. Horrid isn't so bad after all," Sam remarked.

"She's strict, but she's not, like, evil or anything," Dash said with a light chuckle. "I honestly don't know how she got that nickname." Unexpectedly, Danny put a hand on Dash's shoulder, causing him to startle, but it didn't deter Danny from fixing him with a thousand yard stare.

"That's because you're actually good at history," he said solemnly, oblivious to the rapid beating of Dash's heart. This was the first time in a very long time that there'd been physical contact between the two of them that wasn't caused by Dash's fists, and he almost couldn't take it. It took every ounce of self-control not to lean into the touch. "To us morons, she's the devil."

Dash laughed awkwardly as Danny withdrew his hand and tried to get his heart back under control, hoping to high heaven that his face wasn't as red as it felt.

"Right... anyway, where were we? Marie Antoinette, right?"

"Actually, I think we need snacks," Sam said, standing up from the floor where all their books were spread out. "Dash, come help me carry them."

"Uh, okay," Dash agreed, getting up as well.

"Get some chips and salsa!" Danny requested, and Sam nodded as they stepped out the door.

He followed her down to the kitchen in silence, and waited while she pulled down a bowl and a bag of tortilla chips from the cupboards. She handed him a knife and instructed him to cut up some of the pears that were in a bowl on the countertop. Somehow, he doubted that she'd asked him to come with her just so he could slice pears. She put a plate next to him for the pears and ripped open the bag of chips.

"You have a crush on Danny," she said darkly.

"What? Of course I don't, what are you talking about?" he asked nervously. She hadn't actually found him out that quickly, had she? Was he really that obvious.

She rolled her eyes, as she poured the chips out into the bowl. "Please, you were red as a tomato when he put his hand on your shoulder. I thought your head was gonna pop from all the blood rushing to your face."

"I wasn't..." He started cutting pears more quickly. His fear making his hands move faster and faster. "Oh god, no I wasn't! Was I?"

"Okay, that's a mild exaggeration," she said, and he sighed with relief. "I've been keeping a close eye on you all night to make sure you actually intend to change, and it might not be noticeable to Danny and Tucker, because they have the emotional intelligence of a pair of wet socks, but I've been picking up signs since you first walked in."

"Please don't tell anyone," Dash asked softly. He'd spent one personable afternoon around Sam, and now she could ruin him if she wanted to. If his dad found out he was gay... well.... This must've been how Danny felt when Dash discovered he was Phantom. It didn't feel good.

"Of course I'm not gonna tell anyone," Sam scoffed. "Just so you know, though, Danny's bi." Dash's head shot up and he whipped around to look at her with wide eyes.

"He is?" he asked hopefully. Then he frowned. "Should you be telling me that?"

"Danny doesn't care who knows about that," she assured him. "I'm only telling you because it seems like you actually to intend to become a better person, though. I would advise against asking him out right away, but since you're trying to get in his good graces anyway—and provided that you actually follow through on becoming a better human being, and you're not just gonna give up when it gets annoying—maybe someday you'll actually have a shot with him."

"You think?"

"I said maybe," she reminded him. She closed up the bag of chips with a clip and stowed it. "You've gotta actually get in his good graces first. He still seriously resents you, and for good reason. In retrospect, I can see that you were just pulling his pigtails, but you were still a complete and total dick to him for years, and that's no way to treat someone you like."

"I know," Dash said, his shoulders slumping.

"Good." She opened the fridge and pulled out a bowl a salsa. "Oh, one more thing. If you ever hurt Danny again, in any way, I will take you in the Specter Speeder to the farthest reaches of the Ghost Zone and I will leave you there to slowly deteriorate into ectoplasm as you gradually lose your mind, forgetting yourself and everything you once knew and loved. Do I make myself crystal clear?" Dash nodded, eyes wide, and she smiled a deceptively sweet smile. "Great! Now finish cutting those pears, and let's get back up there."

"Right!" He did as she said, and they went back up to the room to finish studying.

Dash launched into telling them all about Marie Antoinette, and what kind of ruler she was, and how she never said 'let them eat cake', but her last words were apologizing for accidentally stepping on her executioner's toes. All the while, Dash thought about Danny, about how to get on his good side, about how to get to a place where Danny might actually say 'yes' if Dash asked him out.

When their study session was over, Dash went home. He laid down in his bed, and he knew that he was probably never going to ask Danny out anyway. He would be too afraid—of his parents, of Danny, of what people would think at school and in town. The truth was, he wasn't brave like Danny was. Still, it was nice to imagine what could happen if he was. Sam had said 'maybe', after all. Maybe, someday, he would be.

[altschmerzes]

LEARNING THAT THE HOMOPHOBIA ABUSE-FETISHIZATION MISOGYNY TERRIBLE 'SPORTS FICTION' BOOKS ARE STILL BEING WRITTEN/PUT OUT???? PLEASE FREE ME

[joestarkisser]

TW// fatphobia, homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and other forms or bigotry as well as mention of slurs (generalized, these aren't mentioned by name but just to be safe!)

Hey y'all... did you all know... that if you're a minority who finds catharsis in imagining your F/Os being bigoted toward you.. that is super cool and good...

Yeah... wild right... whether it's a scenario in which you're being degraded in a scene with an F/O, where it's all just play for arousal, or if you prefer to just have your F/O be bigoted toward you in sex for pleasure... or if you just like them being shitty toward you.. that's super cool and awesome and good you all...

Finding catharsis and pleasure in this kind of fantasizing, especially if it's in a sexual context, is your right as a minority or person that faces discrimination for the group you belong to... and nobody besides your personal trained mental health professional should say jack shit..

Yes.. even if you like hardcore fantasies where your F/O uses serious slurs or the like...

Like.. it's so up to you guys how you wanna interact with fiction and if this stuff makes you feel good sexually or otherwise that's really awesomesauce epico..