#youre doing community wrong

[cascadianights]

I also sometimes create the strawman, the rich straight white cis abled man who has everything going on & nothing wrong.

But it's a trap. That person exists, but he sure as hell isn't the majority. You're probably not going to run into him on the street, or in a Tumblr argument. The experience and power that person holds is immense, and anything said to knock them down is valid - even if it means redirecting the exact vitriole and hate, the same death threats and "you don't even deserve to be alive" shit that's been thrown at us, and calling it "progress."

If you aren't careful all it does is mutate the very valid, long-standing frustrations you hold into a way to disregard other's real struggles & any information you don't want to hear.

It's how TERFs fueled women's anger and frustration at the men who've hurt them, into anger towards all men and anyone approaching or coming from masculinity. It flattens this huge swath of experiences into one line, a man who learned his whole life the negatives of masculinity and nothing else. It doesn't provide healing for the women who were hurt, it pushes them to be more afraid and see every man as a danger regardless of the situation. It doesn't teach men how not to be dangerous, or how to recognize people teaching them to be. It alienates, everyone.

It's the way white people will internally roll their eyes at a light skinned indigenous person talking about their culture, or interrogate them to be sure they have a right to it. It's the way "white privilege" has become shorthand for "immense class power," both erasing the original targeted points the term is trying to make AND alienating the massive poor rural white population who KNOWS your full of shit saying they've had everything handed to them. It's the way states with white liberal city centers are seen as massively progressive (even if it's only 2% more of the pop that are democrats, gathered in 1% of the state) - and states that vote red every time deserve to be "cut off and sunk into the ocean."

It's the disabled people who need to feel Most Oppressed to validate the reality of their suffering, so spend hours trying to prove that mental disability and physical are separate & put their fellow disabled peers through the EXACT shaming/interrogation/judgement/"its not that bad have you just considered trying" treatment our doctors put us through. It's the way the new acceptable thing in disability spaces is to mock autistics (always portrayed as white and very low needs) for being too annoying/loud/present.

It's the way they can differentiate between a Real queer (who they agree with/can pity) versus a Fake queer (who said some shit they didn't want to hear/hasn't had the exact same lived experiences and could Never Understand). It's the way they can argue for hours about which minute aspect of identity that is only visible sometimes grants unimaginable (and Literally Unreal) safety and power, rather than focusing on the fact that none of us should need to be passing at all times to feel some level of safety.

It's a strawman! That only serves as an outlet for anger that tends to splashback on everyone around you! It has its place, and that place is not in almost every single conversation we have about difficult topics! Your morality cannot be based on finding ways to validate redistributing the violence that has been shown to you! Your political stance cannot be "only the people like me who agree with me should live!" Your MOVEMENT OF PROGRESS AND EMPATHY cannot be based on the cop you never learned to quiet in your mind!!!

We will never succeed if we ourselves are cutting our own communities to pieces.

[madohomurat]

trans women are everywhere and are so eager to be seen and heard but only if they feel safe around you. if you hardly ever have trans women interacting with you, especially online, then consider there might be a reason for that and you should address it

[wilchur]

I've seen a lot of people talk about how the game doesn't give you any leeway when you play The Dark Urge, how it makes it very clear that Durge was A Bad Person, but I haven't seen it pointed out that Sceleritas seems VERY well versed in gaslighting the hell out of them and steering Durge away from any doubt or guilt in regards to their actions. Makes me think that they've probably had those types of conversations before because Durge actually always had a soft spot, only it got smaller and smaller in time. I have not had the opportunity to see the Heal cutscene yet, but I've got the butler in my camp now and he had some interesting things to say, like

[Durge: Can you tell me the worst thing I ever did?

Sceleritas Fel: There was one time you gave a beggar some coin while we were en route to the Devil's Fee.

Sceleritas Fel: You didn't kick him or spot on him or anything! I was so shocked I almost fainted!

Sceleritas Fel: I still have nightmares about it to this day. But I'm sure you only did so to lower the suspicions of the Flaming Fist. Surely?]

and it struck me because tossing a coin to a beggar is a bit of a thoughtless act isn't it? You don't put much thought into it, you just see someone in need and you do it. Out of empathy, generosity, something The Murder Incarnate should not be capable of. Sceleritas' uncertainty of Durge's reasoning for it totally convinces me it was NOT intentional. A simple act of kindness that slipped out.

ALSO

[Sceleritas Fel: The only way for a Butler to die is if we are not of use to our Master. But you have always needed abundant assistance.]

They always needed abundant assistance. Why? Because they kept slipping out of Bhaal's grasp? We know they did at least once, with Gortash. Maybe it was not the first time, maybe there are more "Letters of Forgiveness" tucked away somewhere.

To me pre-tadpole Durge is just terribly mindbroken and indoctrinated person hooked onto the sense of safety, purpose and acceptance of their dark side that the cultists and their father give them. Yeah they enjoy murder, gore and all that. That's the curse of their blood, but I don't think they were ever entirely consumed by it. Morality, guilt and empathy have always been there on the edge of their mind. Losing their memories (depending on player choices I know, but bear with me) was what they needed for them to be finally brought forward.

[mettywiththenotes]

I see some people asking "when are we going to get a Bakugou moment where he encourages Izuku??" But didn't he already have it?

I believe he was the one who started the whole "do your best" thing off before 422

[gayvampyr]

“queer spaces should be inclusive of people who don’t enjoy sex and who have “strange”, negative or repulsed relationships with sex” and “sex is an important aspect of lgbt community, history, and activism and queer people should be allowed and able to talk freely about sex without stigma or shame” are ideas that can and should coexist.

[writer-room]

Honestly the funniest thing about TDP to me is that Rayla for some reason always thinks Callum isn't 100% ride-or-die with her on any given situation. Seriously, she could decide she's jumping off a cliff and he'd do it too--oh wait.

I get that half of it is 'protecting' him but like. Girl he has been ready to die and kill for you since the first snake chain incident. It has not lightened up since. In fact its gotten worse. She's his special little guy and if anything happens to her he will kill everyone in the room and then himself. She physically cannot ever sacrifice herself for anyone because Callum WILL be following her straight into the afterlife in no less than a minute. I'm fully convinced he can and would go even further than Claudia and he'd barely have to think on it for five seconds before shrugging like "damn this sucks, can't believe I have to turn evil" "you literally don't have to--" "no I'm gonna"

And honestly I think that's peak teenagers first girlfriend behavior.

[doppel-dean-er]

JUST SAW THIS LETS FUCKING GO YESSSSS YES YES YES WOOOOOOOOO YEAH BABY THATS WHAT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THATS WHAT ITS ALL ABOUT!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

source

[july-19th-club]

one of the good changes from episode one is the way the lead-up to their flight to camp is used also as a way to explore what grover's been through, how terrified he is of 'screwing up' a mission again, how much he kind of hates his job. because he befriends these kids, he's really just a kid himself, still, and then he has to lie to them and push them away for the mission as a whole, and aryan sells how much he just hates it. how convinced he is that getting only one of and not both of the people whose safety he's entrusted with to camp IS 'failure' and not 'as much success as could be expected, under the circumstances'. he's got this anxiety that stems from feeling older than and having more responsibility expected of him than the children he meets, befriends, and guides to camp, but he's not really older, not emotionally, not in terms of anything except raw years, which doesn't really mean as much as he thinks it does when, for instance, he was also seven for twice as long as a human boy. but he's surrounded by not just humans, but human hybrids who die super young, so that is the time scale he thinks on, and he DOES feel older and he does feel a responsibility! in the book he's basically out of the picture for this sequence, so i really enjoyed getting to see some stuff geared towards his past and his goals and his issues . hi sweetheart i always loved you and you're going to find a god who's spent thousands of years hiding from everyone but you, because you care about him more than anyone else ever, ever has, and when he dies you're gonna put what's left of his soul in your heart and i love you so much

[bulbabutt]

87 donnie would never build something as boring and non-turtle themed as the modern smart phone

[lastoneout]

People who are newer to FromSoft games tend to think that the best way to be rude to someone you just fought is to teabag them, but this is incorrect. If you teabag me I will simply think "ah what an immature dick" and move on.

However, if you do the gesture where you point down at the ground after fighting me, I will consider it a horrendous slight against my entire being and all I hold dear, and will simmer with rage while praying for your swift demise for the rest of the day. It's truly the most powerful and grievous of insults, and will make any player who's in the know fucking hate you.

Essentially, the teabagging is a "haha gottem" which is easy to brush off, while the point down is a firm "you suck at this game" and needless to say, it hits different.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

another thing I'm kind of sad about re: totk is that I feel like the release completely de-energized the community? I don't know if that's just me, like for sure any game has a shelf life and things get quieter over time, that's normal, but I don't know. We're slightly over 9 months since release and honestly? even the blogs that were hellbent on defending totk as a genuinely great game that would leave a wonderful impact on the gaming community are radio silent right now.

It's not that there isn't any new conversations or cool/creative content or anything, but I actually do believe the Zelda Youtube community when they say that TotK kinda killed the groove a little bit. :/

[northern-passage]

i've been thinking a lot about the word "representation" and what it means and how it's changed over the last few years, particularly when it comes to the writing/publishing landscape but also in movies and tv shows… and i really don't like it anymore. to be clear, of course i think it's important to have diversity in your work, i'm not saying i hate the concept of representation. but i do really dislike the way it's used now, and i really just hate the word itself

in a broader sense it's just become a marketing tool. i'm not impressed by any publisher or author who just describes their book by listing all of the minorities/identities the characters represent as if that should be enough. it feels very gross, very exploitative and disingenuous. it also really bothers me because it's always marginalized identities- which i understand Why, but it feels very othering to me (and again. Very exploitative as an advertisement). you would never list out "cishet able-bodied white man" as a character description to pat yourself on the back over. so why do it to everyone else? why insinuate that one is the "default" and the other one is "special"? (and when i say this i'm mainly talking about advertisements/marketing. i understand why people would specify about characters in descriptions with the plot, but i don't like to see an ad that's just "this book has gay people!" with nothing else)

which then leads me to my other point, which is that a lot of people treat "representation" as if it's "too hard." like "oh i don't know enough to write about that, i don't have that experience, etc" which is a fair way to feel! however… it's weird that people only say this about writing trans characters or characters of color. i'm writing a story right now with a character who is really into motorcycles. i personally do not know that much about motorcycles, so i researched what parts are what & what different kinds of models there are & what basic bike care looks like. i guarantee Most people will have to google something at some point in their writing process. so what's the problem? it also, again, feels very othering when authors treat certain groups of people as "impossible" to write, "too hard" to understand. they are just.. people. you write them as a person. and then you figure out the rest later.

and i think part of the refusal or fear to write something outside of your experience is because of the way representation is treated as So Special. these characters are So Special that they aren't allowed to be anything other than "representation." they're Not allowed to be characters with complex emotions and interesting motivations, they have to just be Trans or Gay or Disabled or whatever. they're not allowed to be people. which means, at the end of the day, we loop right back around to where we were at the start….

there is bad representation. there are depictions of certain marginalized people that are harmful and that are damaging, i'm not trying to minimize that or argue against it at all, in fact we should all be mindful of that while writing and reading. but i also think it's possible to swing too far in the opposite direction as well and put certain groups of people on a pedestal and not allow them to do anything at all but be Perfect Representation, if that makes sense.

[mishapen-dear]

something about qbad mentioning how much horror he put red team thru every time purgatory gets brought up... something about how proud dapper was of him.

like this is just my late-night read but- it feels like guilt qbad is trying to twist into pride. he keeps needling away at it. “i killed them all, over and over and over again.” “they were hunted by a monster.”

it’s like- reassurance. like a nail he’s trying o beat into his head. he’s had SO much trouble with legitimately hurting his friends, despite making that vow all the way back when the eggs first went missing, despite all the tree talk and the promises to save the kids no matter what. He never faltered with elq, and that protected them. He keeps faltering now. Sometimes he doesnt remember the code, or cucurucho, or skeppy. But that doesnt matter, right? Because he’ll protect the eggs. He’ll be the monster. he is the monster. he can and he will protect them even as his seams start ripping and he keeps breaking further and further apart. even at his worst, he’ll do whatever he needs to protect the eggs.

he’ll be the monster. wont he?

[incomingalbatross]

I have a groundbreaking concept.

A wedding episode/story where nothing unusual goes wrong (or even NEARLY goes wrong) and the audience and characters both just get to enjoy this big event without it going off the rails at any point.

[puppyeared]

i wanna post my skip to loafer art but i cant do it knowing ppl are gonna put it on tiktok and pinterest bc itd be like. bringing an invasive species ykwim

[dont-offend-the-bees]

Fuck I hate being an adult. I need a more adult adult to help with the volatile emotional situation.