#[instead of the shitshow tumblr is nowadays]

[blurover]

Just gonna casually slide back onto this website and pretend I didn't leave when they got rid of all the tiddies...

[natrashafierce]

The author of that terrible Your Fave is Problematic Tumblr has grown up and written a great piece for The New York Times expressing regret about picking people apart and talking about how (surprise, surprise) it was really just that she was young and poorly adjusted and had gone through some stuff.

I hope more people can be honest with themselves that most of us are susceptible to weird, spurious extremist stuff online if we’re in a bad enough mood, and you can always just, like, stop and change course and be someone who tries to spread forgiveness and humility instead of accruing points for tiresome, punitive, identity-obsessed nitpicking. I completely forgive the author of the blog and applaud her for this extra step that will surely expose her to the same sort of poorly adjusted person she used to be.

I also hope more people come to understand that they shouldn’t signal boost people articulating extremist things, because all it does it create a contagion of poor mental health and social behaviors that are counterproductive to achieving anything positive. It’s normal for people to get angry, and everyone has every right to rant in their own online space, and you don’t have to invalidate anyone’s moment of anger. But you can comfort them without reblogging or retweeting them. You don’t have to enable their descent into binary thinking by rewarding them with a ton of attention and influence.

It may be “tone policing” to try to tell any one individual how to express themselves, but it is not “tone policing” to suggest that society should not take our cues and policy ideas from people who are hysterical. Almost no one is good at formulating solutions to social problems, and angry people least of all. Every marginalized group has at least SOME people who are capable of remaining fair, nuanced, and rational despite what they’ve gone through, and those are the people to signal boost if you take societal problems seriously. They tend to have a much more complete perspective on an issue than someone who has barely read or experienced anything outside themselves except for the dozens of aggro internet posts that end up in their bubble.

Chronically angry people see everything through the lens of their anger and their ego, do not seek perspectives or explanations that would defuse them, and their ideas for solutions will tend to be unfair and dehumanzing. Now the internet pays people for that, and people psychologically stagnate because their newfound career depends on it and their reputation seems locked in by the long memory of the internet. Grounded people have learned to control their egos, seek genuine understanding of those who disagree with them, and are capable of finding uplifting solutions, but those people are getting drowned out and harassed offline nowadays.

It used to be that people would have their big moments of anger and, lacking any audience except for a few people they knew, had to learn to introspect, calm themselves down, and approach problems effectively. They would often get gently challenged by the people around them and pulled back into a healthy mindset. They would confront interpersonal problems privately instead of trying to tear people down publicly, and extremism only arose in bad social circles or with especially recalcitrant people. But now that everyone gets their basest impulses rewarded by strangers as poorly adjusted as they are, there is little incentive for introspection or growth. This got worse for a lot of us during the Trump years, I think, because the shock of his incivility made it seem like civility had been a losing tactic. I know I felt like that for a few years until I realized how easily I could be manipulated into believing the worst about someone if it played to my biases. Unfettered mass venting just contributed to a bad cycle.

One of the worst things is how the crazed brigades accrue well-intentioned allies who enforce their insane, unpopular ideas and, together, tank public support for what were once important political objectives. SO MANY people were into the Your Fave is Problematic blog and would troll tags for the celebrities mentioned just to harass and intimidate people who were fans, and they were all indoctrinated into a disordered, shallow worldview were they derived their worth from tearing people down instead of cultivating their own talents. Your Fave is Problematic was by no means the first or only vector for leftist identitarian brain worms, but it was an influential one. There’s a whole lot of obnoxious Tumblr stuff that leaks out into the larger world now.

Back then I thought people would grow out of it, but either a ton of them didn’t, or else those who did just got replaced by new people. I thought right-wingers were catastrophizing and exaggerating when they fixated on it because a lot of the time they were, and too many of them couldn’t criticize it without being dehumanizing themselves. But sure enough, it got worse. I realize now that regardless of ideology, extremism always gets worse if there are incentives for it to grow, and the internet supplies those incentives in spades. This stuff didn’t stay on Tumblr; it didn’t stay on some stray college campuses. They said it wouldn’t, and they were right.

And now it has infected more mainstream, influential spheres of life with infantilizing and dehumanizing ideas that train people to perceive everyone as an aggressor or a pinata they can beat up for clout. It’s increasingly ruined more innocent lives, all while people who are ideologically captured keep insisting it’s no big deal because that’s the line in their social circle. The goalposts move every week to provide more targets, and even left-leaning media has quit thoroughly investigating a lot of things in its rush to cash in on whatever social media controvery has been ginned up by unwell people. The corrections, when they come out, are almost never widely circulated.

It’s been surreal and disheartening to watch. People I used to consider reasonable and compassionate just gradually morphed into aggrieved, insecure pod people who can’t handle the slightest challenges of evidence against their worldview. They can’t accept that their insecurities and peeves are frivolous distractions that actually do materially harm efforts to fix serious problems, whether by beclowning entire political parties or candidates, or diverting resources to organizations that aren’t changing anything significant or are making things worse. They all even say the same tired phrases. It’s such a shitshow, but public opinion polling on this stuff has remained mostly sane. A lot of people are snapping out of it like the author of YFIP, so I can only hope that more people feel comfortable to finally push back against it.

[duhragonball]

Obligatory Destiel 2020 Post

Look, I barely know what goes on anymore, but I have one pressing question: Why did the guy get sent to super mega hell?   Like what even is that?    Do they actually call it that on the show?   

Destro: Careful, buddy.   Until we seal that portal, anyone who confesses their true love will get sent to hell, but not just the regular kind!   This would be like a super mega hell, that makes the normal hell look fairly okay by comparison.

Ariel: I don’t care, Destro.   The only one I’ve ever loved is yooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu...

I mean, I know that’s how these urban fantasy things work, they all gotta be flip with the magical lore, but this sounds like having a character in a drama write a check for “one zillion dollars” and they actually show the letter ‘z’ on the check.

This reminds me of the same gripe I have with the overuse of “gods” in fantasy stories.    Dragon Ball Super really leaned into that nonsense, but you see it everywhere nowadays.    People will talk about how the Avengers and the Justice League are gods who have fought literal gods.   Meanwhile both teams heavily feature regular-ass dudes who shoot arrows and climb ropes.   They have gods on their rosters, but usually the writers spend most of their time trying to make them look as vulnerable as possible so the guy with the arrows doesn’t look completely useless.    Then they’ll run out and defeat an evil god, who’s usually just a large mean man whose divinity is only shown in that he’s strong enough to beat up the Incredible Hulk.

To a point, I get it.   It makes the characters sound impressive and important.    And not every god has to be an omnipotent, omniscient being.   Sometimes it can just be an immortal dude who runs fast, or a guy who can beat up the Incredible Hulk and not much else.    But they always try to have it both ways.   They use the word “god” specifically to evoke the idea of an all-powerful being, but then they just end up being not all-powerful, which diminishes the term.   

This is one major reason I hated the Zamasu arc, because this is a guy who got beat up by Goku in his first appearance, and then he spent the rest of the story crowing about how important gods are. Even the other gods in the story are like “Wow, this guy’s really got it wrong, everyone knows we suck.”   So how the hell did Zamasu get this idea of a fire-and-brimstone All-Father in the first place?   In his world, there’s no such thing, and he knows it.    But in our world, the concept does exist, so he’s playing into that imagery to make himself look more compelling as a villain.   Then Trunks cuts him in half like it’s no big deal, so what does that make him?   It’s dumb is what it is.   One of these years they’ll make Dragon Ball Super II, and introduce the Grand Mega Ultra Supreme Zeno, and everyone will tell Goku that he’s the real top god, and all the other gods are just dumb jerks.  

Same problem I have with “hell”.   If you’re going to have a hell that’s even worse than hell, wouldn’t you just call that place hell and call the lesser hell something else?    Hell Junior.    I Can’t Believe It’s Not Hell.    Practice Hell.  

Regarding the queerbaiting aspect of it, I’m reminded of this clip I found on YouTube where Quagmire from Family Guy beats up Brian from Family Guy.    On the show Family Guy.   I enjoyed it, mostly because I had watched another clip of Quagmire being pissed off at Brian and this seemed like a good payoff.    Mostly I just enjoy watching cartoon characters beat each other up.   But then I found out the larger context of the episode, and it’s this transphobic shitshow, but the truly galling part was when I looked up the episode on Wikipedia, and there were quotes from Seth McFarlane about the negative reaction, and he seemed genuinely surprised that the LBGT+ community found it offensive.   Like, he seriously thought they would love it or something.   So it doesn’t shock me much that the people who write Supernatural were aware enough of the shippers to cater to them, but tone deaf enough to completely botch the execution and expect a pat on the back for it.  Same shit, different decade, basically.

And maybe these two issues tie together somehow.    The disconnect seems to be that a lot of these showrunners only see “gay” or “trans” as gimmicks, like “super mega hell” or “god-but-we-don’t-have-the-budget-for-that”.   So they’ll use it when it suits their purposes, or just to get some attention, but they’ll never stop and think about these as identities instead of labels. 

I dunno, I’m just thinking out loud here.  Mostly, I kind of want someone to tell me that “super mega hell” is a gross exaggeration and the real concept is a lot less sensational, but I’m pretty sure that’s not how SPN rolls.    I’m still trying to figure out why BBC Sherlock had Moriarty kill himself in the first season, and if tumblr has taught me one thing, it’s that all these moonspeak shows all eat the same stupid pills.

[sometimesrosy]

This is so stupid but I have to tell someone. I just found out my friend that I've known my entire life is an anti. I've never talked to her about t100, since I moved away to college a few years ago we don't talk as much. I was being creepy and stumbled on her Tumblr account and was looking through her posts and got sooo excited to find a Bellamy gifset!! Only it ended up being a shitshow applauding his beating. Other posts were even worse. We hardly talk anymore but I still feel weird

Yeah. That’s weird. Or actually not that weird. It’s uncomfortable. 

Because the truth of it is, all of us are capable of becoming antis. Your friend is on the opposite side of your shipping and you can recognize it and it bothers you. For good reasons. 

Not liking a character? That’s not that big a deal. Having a different ship? No problem. 

Becoming an anti though? That’s a problem.

Antis are focused on hating a thing. And hating those who like the thing. They create a division between people where their side is just and good and the other side is all that is evil with the world. They take minor interpretations and turn them into damning evidence that other people should be destroyed, silenced and harassed. They try to ruin other people’s happiness in a thing. They try to force other people to that the thing also, by using inflammatory language and scare tactics and ad hominem attacks. It’s pretty ugly.

And it’s pretty common nowadays. 

So here’s the thing I’m focused on now. Because becoming like the antis– refusing logic or evidence, twisting facts and canon to fit your agenda, attacking other people’s characters to discredit them– is not what I want to do and all it does is create more antagonism. So here’s what I do.

Instead of calling a person a name to shame them or discredit them– like misogynist or biphobic or racist or homophobic or whatever– I’m going to focus on THE IDEA. *This* idea shows internalized racism. *This* idea is invalidating bisexuals’ identities. *This* idea perpetuates white supremacist ideas of racial purity to keep the races from mixing. People are not ideas. People HOLD ideas. And they can make mistakes and be wrong and be disappointing, but they also have the potential to be better, too. 

If we can talk about IDEAS, and how they may be problematic, and EXPLORE how they are problematic and where they come from, we can still talk about concerning issues of injustice, without whipping up the fandom into frenzies and wars and antis everywhere because we’d rather say a character or fan is evil and they deserve to be attacked.

Does this make sense? I know you’re upset about your friend being an anti. It’s upsetting. But when we recognize that we all have this capacity, we can understand that there’s something in our culture and society that ENCOURAGES people to be tribalistic, set people against each other, create dramas where there aren’t any, ignore facts or redefine them. 

So the thing to do, I think, is not to set up more wars or think that those people are something separate from us, but to work on creating a dialogue that is OUTSIDE of that us vs them mentality. 

It’s hard. And I’m not really willing to do that with people who have proven that they are out to harm me (personally) and it’s better to block or ignore them, but to open up a conversation in YOUR community about where these ideas come from and how we all own this tribalistic culture, I feel like that’s a way to work on making it better. 

[scorpioslut-blog1]

Flying

This is just for me. Not to be a ~tumblr blogger~ or anything, but as the use of pens, pages, and paper slowly dwindles, a girl’s gotta keep up. But this is NOT a blog. I don’t know. It just seems more accessible and honestly convenient now that I have my own laptop and I’m going to college and whatnot.

Which brings me to my next topic - college. I’m going. Literally. Right now. I’m sitting in the Houston Airport, named after THE Daddy Bush, quietly contemplating my mortality. Waiting for my layover to end so I can leave this wretched self-proclaimed “capital of the South”, I felt it was finally time to talk about all this shit. 

I spent my last few days mostly alone. I saw a few friends off this past week or two, but most recently I’ve been saying goodbye to my favorite local food/coffee businesses, my beloved car, and the feeling of smoking a cigarette while driving in Betsy my Honda Fit while Colored Emotions or Malibu 1992 or maybe Swim Good plays (especially at night with the windows down when it’s just slightly cold enough). Yesterday, my Last Day, was half spent working at the coffee shop I’m “employed” at from 8 am till 3 pm, and half spent at a Mongolian party consisting of mostly children ages 4-11. All the kids my age stopped showing up to these family events when puberty hit, but I always enjoyed them. I enjoyed being surrounded by culture and language and food and music and alcohol and people I’ve known my whole life. And I really do love kids. So despite the fact that I mostly attended the party in the hopes that an older PhD candidate I kissed once at a wedding would be there, I ended up spending the night pushing little girls around as they played “princess”, which is some sort of game involving me looking up Disney Princess songs on Spotify for them to listen to as I push them in various strollers, wagons, and wheel-based contraptions that they had christened “carriages”.

Anyway, while I usually try to look like an older, mature, slightly lonelier hot adult woman at these events, I decided to just say fuck it and enjoy some time, possibly my last time, enjoying being a kid with children much younger than I. Because we all grow up too fast anyway. And I wanted to enjoy being a kid before I was forced into permanent adulthood. Which is where I am now. Drinking a shitty caramel latte from Starbucks instead of one from Marketstreet. Sitting on my laptop like a lame, shitty, boring, work-oriented adult. 

I remember last night a BANK RECEIPT fell out of my back pocket while I was playing with the little kids. A BANK RECEIPT. That was when I realized how god damn old I was. For better or for worse, I was forced into adulthood this summer. With my stupid PNC bank account with its receipts and emails and letters. With my severe and stressful money problems involving UC Berkeley attendance. With my shitty overpriced coffee I bought out of habit rather than craving or impulse. With my slowly developed smoking problem that I had used as an attempt to cope with the stress and depression of a summer filled with growing up all too fast. With visits to the gym. With traffic tickets. Parking tickets. Plan B. Among other things.

It’s been a summer of reckonings, of distancing and loneliness and pressure and boredom. A really shitty summer, to be honest. I gained fifteen god damn pounds this year. And I can't exactly figure out why. I’ve always eaten like shit, and I don’t even think my portions are any bigger nowadays. I’ve never exercised, and when I exercised for almost a month straight, I only found that I’d GAINED five more. What the FUCK. I’m thinking of quitting coffee. Or cigarettes. One or the other, not sure yet. I thought cigarettes made you eat less, but what do I know. Oh also I don’t take my Prozac (at all) (which I’m supposed to be taking every day). Who knows. I guess I sat on my ass a lot this summer. Just watching Netflix and hating everything. Alienating everyone in my life. Waiting for college to finally come. And now that it’s here, I don’t really know what the fuck I’m doing. I think I had a small meltdown last night when I got home because I really felt like puking for a while but it could’ve just been the dumplings. Maybe nerves. It had just finally hit me that I was moving out of my home forever. Of course, I left my room looking like a shitshow, but it still felt like I was leaving. It felt sad. Very very sad. And I didn’t feel ready, all of a sudden. After years of waiting for this day to come, I felt overwhelmed. Robbed. 

I guess change is hard. No matter how good it is. A part of me wanted to stay forever, and couldn’t imagine not sleeping in my own bed or living in my own room, but I guess the more eternal part of me was ready. I had nothing left for me there. Nothing. But it was still a little sad. Because I really do love my parents, and I was gonna miss them. And things were changing so fast and sudden and while we all knew it was going to come, I don’t think you even realize the magnitude of what is happening before it’s too late. So I just ripped the band-aid off and went on my way and now I’m here in the capital of the South thinking about what the fuck is about to happen. And what the fuck I do next. I want to go to the gym, eat healthy, make friends, meet boys, go to parties, keep good grades, maybe get a job, get some tattoos. But these are just things you say until they're not and you’re in the middle of it and that’s your life. So I guess the first step was deleting my “private twitter” and making this thing. And with this new Berkeley Discount laptop, I might just keep using it.