#I can view them from an outside perspective but I can't engage personally with people who are different from me

[neverendingford]

.

[celerydays]

Hi! I have been following you for some time and I notice you draw more and more Sebastian and Ominis doing stuff that makes me... uncomfortable.....

Sebastian and Ominis are best friends, why people are obsessed with drawing them into weird gay stuff? Seriously.... Why can't be friends.... without all Sebinis... Just stop it...

Normally I would delete messages or simply ignore the things that make me feel uncomfortable–

But, you're on anon and this is my ask inbox, so I can only assume you want an actual, public response. So alright. Fine.

Like I said: normally I would just remove odd, uncomfortable, or even outright rude messages without making a whole thing of it. I curate my own online experience and I try my best to live by that rule.

However, I've now gotten multiple unsolicited DMs over the course of a couple of months expressing the exact same sentiment (and nearly word-for-word as this ask, so I highly suspect I already know who you are). I have duly ignored or glossed over them hoping that the person/people would take the hint to simply stop engaging with the same message over and over again. But an anon ask is my last straw, I guess.

So if you are the same person as in my DMs, I'm finally giving you a response (and if you're not the same person – which I highly doubt – then I'm speaking to both of you).

Firstly, I want to say that I am sorry that your worldview is so limited that this is your stance and feelings on gay/queer ship content for Sebastian and Ominis.

Next, I ask that you please:

Don't make your homophobia anyone else's issue but your own. Don't come into DMs/ask inboxes/comments to make your discomfort with the content I create my problem. I don't know what you hoped to accomplish by sending this message but it's unlikely that you'll find the same feelings or sympathy from the person who is actively creating queer/sebinis content.

Curate your own online experience. Once again, do not make your content consumption anyone else's problem but your own. The "unfollow" button is there. Tumblr has a tag filtering system and I try to tag my art and content as accurately as possible. If you do not like something/it makes you uncomfortable, then do not continue to consume it. And if you still decide to stick around for whatever reason, then please keep your thoughts/opinions on this matter to yourself because I can promise that I don't actually care why you would continue to be here and looking at my art if it makes you unhappy.

Widen your worldview and try to reframe your perspective. Consider that Sebastian x Ominis is just as canon as Sebastian x f!MC or Ominis x f!MC. As much as we like to ship our various MCs with the canon characters, MC never actually amounts to canonically being confirmed as anything but being just friends with everyone. Using the "they are just best friends" / "why can't they just be portrayed only as friends" could literally be applied to just about any other non-canon/non-confirmed ship between friends regardless of gender. If even one of them, Ominis or Sebastian, was portrayed as cis female in canon, I would suspect that you would better "understand" why a ship between these two "friends" may exist. Then also consider a cis male MC; it's possible you may suddenly reframe all the interactions between Ominis x m!MC or Sebastian x m!MC in your head to be "totally platonic/friendly". Your issue is certainly not with their canon relationship vs. fandom portrayal (but I think we both know that).

Educate yourself. Go outside and meet and talk to people, I dunno. It is 2024 my dude. I don't even know how you're on Tumblr – the most queer-friendly social media site – with those kind of narrowed views and stigma.

I would like to finish by saying: I don't wish you the best. What I do wish is for you to learn, grow, and be better than this.

And also please stop sending me messages of this nature, because the next ask or DM I get like this, we're moving on to blocking at this point. And if your purpose was to get me to stop, I can tell you that these messages have only fueled the explicit sebinis smut maker in me. 😤

[yuriyuruandyuraart]

Are you aware that I'm-a-gay-fish and Zu ship dr//m/are ?/genq

okay so it took me a while to answer this but i finally found the words to so here goes; yeah i do know, and i totally understand if you don't ship it, neither do i, but there's nothing i can do about it?

they're allowed, so long as they don't harm people, to do whatever they want on their own platforms. and before you ask me if i support *ncest, would you actually ask someone if they support toxic relationships and murder whenever they ship two unhealthy killers with mental problems? because that's funnily enough what most people do around here! you can say it's not the same, and that they're romanticizing it, but i can personally detach myself from fiction enough to realize that while this concept depicted in their art shouldn't be recreated in real life, that doesn't mean they actually engage or support people that do that irl- they asked zu the same question so many times, and frog doesn't either and i've known gayfish for three years! you're well within your right to stop associating with them or distance yourself from their content but i myself won't.

i know fiction affects reality to a degree, don't twist my words please, but if you're too young to consume that kind of content with a nuanced perspective or is triggered/affected by it then as long as they tag their content properly then you can unfollow, block and move on. i have a habit of following and reblogging people's works before looking at their bios and before i know it find myself having to choose between two sides i don't belong to and i frankly don't want to! anti this or proship that- in this online era you have to adapt by keeping your cool and curating your own online experience and viewing people in black and whites is stressful, painful and dangerous for everyone involved. i don't even reblog the content you probably have a problem with, and i'm honestly still scared of the response i'll get-

i will not blame or hate whoever unfollows or blocks me for this, it's to be expected, but please don't think about it like some bad vs good guys dilemma? sometimes thought provoking morally grey ambiguous stories with messed up characters spark more positive discussion and healing than people looking into it because they suffer from the same delusions and want a justification-

like realistically, in my blog, most ppl here are basically shipping two literal skeletons with magic in their bones who are sometimes almost the exact copy of one another, and who theoretically have a very similar dna, and sometimes they make shipkids, which, if you know anything about *ncest, is one of the main reasons why you shouldn't bang your siblings - mostly from a moral standpoint because that's so gross i can't even think of it, but also because any offspring would suffer greatly from physical and mental diseases hidden in their genetic code- like. you could argue it's not the same but it's sancest for a reason. and even when they're widely different sanses, you wouldn't think fell x sans is wrong (at least in this specific community) but really we've all just gotten numb to how weird that sounds. trust me, there's a reason we don't talk about our ships to outsiders HHH

TL,DR: so while i greatly encourage you to block people and content you don't want to see/associate with, including me! i hope i made it clear why i, personally, don't care about dreammare and whoever ships it.

[ckret2]

*pulls up a chair, turns it backwards, and straddles it with my arms casually resting on the back*

Hi guys. We're gonna talk about vore. In a serious and non-judgmental manner. For five minutes we'll treat it like it's not a joke kink. Thanks.

So something not all of you know about me is I'm asexual; and something probably even less of you know about me is that I'm the kind of asexual who's fascinated by sexuality and kink, like an anthropologist studying a culture with norms and beliefs that are foreign to me. I'm intrigued by what makes people's sexualities tick and what it is that appeals to them about kinks that outsiders see as bizarre or completely incomprehensible.

I maintain a strict "we don't kinkshame here" policy; I'm personally disinterested in but comfortable discussing niche kinks ranging from inflatable pool toys to the earlier-mentioned oculolinctus; and I know that when I have a writing question like "what does poop taste like" oftentimes the most detailed and helpful information will come from people with fetishes that make most of the Internet gasp in horror, and I deeply appreciate their invaluable contributions.

So when I express surprise that I got someone into vore, it's because I have a specific idea about what vore entails that comes from—you guessed it—seeing lots of vore art.

From what I've witnessed, in most cases, it takes more than just "eroticized cannibalism" to make a work "vore." Like if two cannibals are having a sexually-charged dinner over a delicious homecooked meal that we know was once human, there is something kinky going on here, and the cannibalism—the knowledge of a life ended, the taboo, the horror—is part of that kinkiness; but if you ask how many people are engaged in this sexual encounter, the automatic answer is "two," the couple eating. Not "three." The meal isn't humanized. It's an edible sex toy, a prop. It's meat.

To my mind, "erotic cannibalism" isn't "vore" until the meal is a person. That doesn't just mean giving them dialogue; but treating them as a participant in the sexual encounter. Either the subject from whose perspective we are to view the encounter, or the object of desire on whom our erotic gaze is meant to linger.

Think of it this way: if you replace the human meat with beef, is it now just a story about eating steak? Then it's not vore. On the other hand, does it now inherently become a story about eating an anthro cow, because the "beef" had enough personhood that you can't consider it "just" a cow? That's vore.

Consuming a human(oid) body doesn't constitute vore, but rather consuming a human(oid) life. A consciousness—an identity—must be swallowed. If that's missing from the encounter (say, if someone is devoured but their personhood is ignored by the creator as irrelevant; or if parts of a person are consumed, but their seat of identity—their mind, their soul—remains undevoured), then to me it's not yet vore. It's "just" cannibalism.

And so—by my own understanding of vore—I've never written vore.

But like on the other hand I have written about a cannibal who gets off to biting off chunks of his lover's flesh because he fantasizes about consuming his still-beating heart to make his beloved a part of himself; so like, okay, sure, let's be real here, I've gotten close enough to count.

The fact that it doesn't "feel" like vore to me until a life (as opposed to mere flesh) has been swallowed doesn't mean that to other people what I've written won't hit the same buttons that vore hits for them—because the edges of any one person's sexuality are nothing if not nuanced and blobby and blurry and no two people's ideas of what gets them off (and thus no two people's ideas of what makes for a specific kink) will ever be exactly the same.

All of which is to say:

Yeah I was genuinely surprised when somebody said I got them into vore lmao, legitimately my first reaction was "how tf did I get somebody into a kink I myself don't have?" BUT the fact that I can "feel" a hard dividing line between "vore" and "horny cannibalism that isn't vore" doesn't mean that other people feel it's there. It's interesting and enlightening to hear that for somebody, there is no difference in what I wrote, and I did actually, genuinely introduce them to a kink I don't see myself as sharing. I think it's kinda neat.

(So, anon who wrote in, if you're still around: I hope my surprise didn't come across as derision! I was genuinely fascinated to hear that. And I do appreciate getting this random opportunity to talk about unusual kinks on main.)

Okay, lecture over, class dismissed. Y'all can go about your day.

[vegantinatalist]

One thing that I've noticed, that is hilariously tumblr-coded, are the mass of posts with paragraphs of self-victimisation and the notes begging for enablers. It's ALWAYS "well I'm not rich enough to learn basic cooking (life) skills with vegetables, beans, grains, tofu, legumes, fruit, nuts, you name it (all cheaper than the standard vegan diet...), but as I'm (enter any demographic whatsoever) you couldn't possibly suggest that I engage with ideas, literature and options outside of my close circle, unless you're a facist."

I used to think it's bizarre, but I've come to understand as I'm older, that Tumblr really is rife with the Oppression Card and Anti-Intellectualism stereotypes. I only engage with cat memes and fandom stuff now, while I have words like "opinion" and "PSA" just straight blacklisted, because these people will forever be locked into self-victimising, enabler, self-absorbed loop. And I'm saying this a POOR vegan woman of five years!!!! Who's also healthy!!! Lmao

If there's any sensical blogs about nice vegan food and activism that you know of, tag 'em, because the non-stop circlejerk of "I'm the REAL victim for xyz, give me notes, no I won't include any alternative perspective" is getting boring as hell.

SERIOUSLY.

I am physically disabled and neurodivergent in a way that gives me constant severe daily struggle, I am highkey suicidal with a plan and timeline for when I will take myself out, I have shitloads of secondhand trauma from witnessing all kinds of things happen to the people around me growing up, including kidnapping/trafficking and death, I've been actual dirt poor for years lengths of time multiple times. BELIEVE me when I say I hate toxic positivity and unreasonable expectations and calloused attitudes towards the suffering, but being a "pushy vegan" is not the same as telling an adhd person to get over their study anxiety. Its not the same as telling a homeless person to get a job. Because BEING A PERPETRATOR IS UNACCEPTABLE! OPPOSING PERPETRATORS IS IMPERATIVE! It's closer to telling a pedo they cant fuck kids and face no judgement just because they were preyed on as a kid, they have a developmental disability, they have poor impulse control, etc. I don't fucking care. You can't fuck kids and if you cant stop yourself you should be killed. i just hate everybody who would farm/torture/kill to sustain themselves and then think this is a good world and their life is good and a net positive some fucking how. and then on top of that create more fucking babies who will do the same thing. and some people think they can get out of having to think about veganism because "well im super smart, i know that life is bad, therefore i dont have to be the change or kill myself cause none of this is my fault or my responsibility" (pedos and killers love having this attitude too) i swear never trust an efilist/antinatalist who isnt also vegan especially if its a man. they dont actually truly care or understand that the world is bad. 9 times out of 10 theyre just an asshole coping with being an asshole. and the vegans who arent antinatalists are always at least 20 percent delusional (far less than the general population but still annoying to deal with if youre a sane person) anyway if you really wanna do activism go on fb groups for animal rights activism in your area. pick someone in there and talk to them and use them as your guide. someone in there will be willing to send you updates, show you how they do things when they get together etc. shut your ego off, dont be looking to make a close friend, dont pitch a fit when/if they or the people in the group might have some views you disagree with. focus on getting together for the sake of the cause you agree on. theyll usually show you ways of doing online activism that are relevant to your area like political stuff going on in your state or county that you can support.

[the-indigo-symphony]

I keep getting asks about discourse even though I have said many times before that this not a place where I like to hold discourse. I don't plan to change that, but since people can't leave it alone, I'll give a rundown on some of our general Discourse Perspectives and Rules™ so I can just tap the sign if anyone else comes into our inbox or something screaming at us over any other/more discourse in the future.

I don't take call-outs or other accusations seriously unless they have reasonable proof for everything. This means that: the proof must not be easily disputable; it must not be offensive or harmful due to a misunderstanding, finding its way out of the audience it was intended for, or simple mistake due to perspective at the time it was made/said; it must not be something taken out of context. I also don't consider minor mistakes or a simple difference in opinion on minor issues something that justifies a giant call-out or cancelation, especially in cases where they can just be taken up with the op privately (or even just on a reblog chain); the call-out itself must be an appropriate reaction to any offense. Calling for a full "cancelation" of someone over a single post the op didn't mean to hurt anyone with (just as an example) is not what we'd consider appropriate.

On a related note, no, "this person has done XYZ which is bad but I'm not gonna elaborate on the how or why" is not enough for us to give a shit about whatever discourse you're yapping about. Either elaborate with sources, direct quotes, and an explanation, or leave us alone.

If we ever do speak about a call-out, us asking questions and questioning what we may see as weak points doesn't mean we're "defending" whoever the call-out is about. It just means I want clarification and/or think the call-out is being a little unfair, not that I think criticism of the person in question is necessarily unwarranted. My opinions on call-outs and my opinions on who those call-outs are about are two separate things. I can say I think something is taken out of context while agreeing that it wasn't very good in context (as just one example).

This is because call-outs and discourse – however normal they've become in modern internet times – can still be very serious things. I will engage with serious things like this with a critical eye, because I don't want to come to a rash decision that could hurt people. I consider myself decent at textual analysis, and I'm going to implement my skills at that to whatever call-outs or "why are you supporting X" messages I happen across. If I end up dismissing something based on the conclusion I draw, that does not necessarily mean I think the accused did nothing wrong, but rather that what was brought before me to accuse them does not hold up.

Just because we reblog from or talk to someone doesn't mean we agree with them on every discourse opinion they may have. In fact, we may disagree with and criticize their views, perhaps even openly – we've done it before.

Trying to explain our thoughts on every little discourse point is not worth the time or effort to us. If you can't find our public opinion on something, assume we either have a private opinion and have thought it over amongst ourselves, or don't feel we know enough to say something on it or form an Official Opinion™ (assuming we know anything at all). Discourse is not one of our hobbies, and we don't intend to make it one.

On a related note, stop assuming that everyone on the internet is fully and wholly informed on every single discourse argument going on at all times. I have a life outside of Tumblr and try not to make myself miserably overwhelmed by all the horrible things in the world; you cannot possibly expect me to understand what the hell you're talking about if you come onto my blog and start randomly accusing people of just generally being horrible with no context or explanation. I am not omniscient, I am just someone blogging on the internet.

Might add onto this in the future if we feel the need to, but I think this establishes most of our bases. Part of me can't believe this is necessary, but it's Tumblr, so better safe than sorry when it comes to discourse. Especially considering people have already tried to start shit with us many times in the past. Good to have a sign to tap for when it inevitably happens again.

[hickeygender]

Hello! Sorry if this isn't a topic you want to speak on (so feel free to ignore this) but I have two questions regarding different arguments I've seen about the Hogwarts Legacy bullshit, as there were mixed views from both trans and Jewish people when I went on a blocking spree earlier:

1. I saw a couple of the fans that paid actual money for the game defend their choice with "but Im trans" or "but Im Jewish" or both. Thoughts on that?

2. There have been claims that pirating the game is alright as long as you don't talk about it online, whereas others posed that engaging with the game through piracy is in itself harmful - maybe not to the wider society as a whole, but to Jewish, trans, and other marginalized individuals in that persons life. What is your stance on the matter?

I have some ideas about these myself but seeing as I am neither trans nor Jewish I think it'd be best to ask first and only follow up with a dialogue if that is wanted of me. I know that outsiders can sometimes have more nuanced/better positions than insiders (like with the whole truscum and transmedicalism rot going on about in some trans circles) but. Yeah. Asking predominantly out of curiosity but also because you tend to be aggressively clear and honest about the shit going on with HP and I like that.

I'm fine with answering this, though I will add that I'm not Jewish and so I'm not qualified to speak in depth on the antisemitism present within the game other than to acknowledge that it is very blatant and wrong.

From the perspective of a trans person, I think that even trans people can hold harmful and transphobic stances when it comes to this game bc they're letting their nostalgia blind them. Being a minority does not inherently free you from being wrong and bigoted, even against a group you yourself are part of. Sidenote - considering how this game actually has a trans person in it and to my admittedly limited knowledge it doesn't engage in transphobic rhetoric or tropes like it does with the antisemitism, I'd find it VERY sketch if a trans gentile claimed they could play the game bc they were trans. Like, hello! The antisemitism isn't negated by your transness!!

Onto your second question: I've thought about this myself and I think I've finally decided on my stance, though it's quite rambly. Imho if someone is absolutely 100% going to play the game, I'd prefer that they pirate it, do so behind closed doors, and not speak of it bc there's no such thing as bad publicity. But like... they're knowingly engaging with a game that is steeped in antisemitism and monetarily benefits a transphobe. The simple decision to play that game, even if it doesn't impact their worldview in any way, even if they aren't lining joann's pockets, even if they give it no publicity... they're still making a decision to put their own pleasure and enjoyment over the pleas of Jewish and trans people. That's selfish in my book. Like, if someone hasn't dropped HP I doubt anything I can say will change that, but I just find it sad and exhausting that people will call themselves allies and then refuse to do anything that could possibly challenge or inconvenience them. They post infographs about the rise of antisemitic hatecrimes and reblog "fuck terfs!", but will they actually show up to rallies? Call their legislators to complain about bigoted legislature? Educate themselves? Make room for Jewish and trans voices and be silent when necessary? Consistantly reflect on their own biases and bigoted behaviors and grow as a person? Something tells me that if they can't even refrain from playing a blatantly antisemitic wizard game just bc it reminds them of a book written by a terf they read when they were 12, that that's not very likely.

[aotopmha]

Saw the first part of the AoT finale.

And this once again just hit at the right time for me personally.

It's not just about 'oh protect the kids' 'oh Eren is the poor victim bby'.

Eren is a victim AND perpetrator. He literally tells you this.

I'm currently feeling that sentiment of 'take responsibility you stupid fucks' very deeply.

But to start somewhere, I think the strongest part of this portion of the story to me is absolutely the character writing.

Eren is horrified at his own thoughts and what he felt in the future. (In fact the reason why he is stuck in his head are at least partially his own destructive feelings from the future. He's interesting because he has feelings. His future self wanted this while his current self is sitting there horrified and crying.)

Him not being free is absolutely the right read. It's simply about not being able to see past his feelings – his state of mind. Which is absolutely influenced by several factors as well like OG Ymir's feelings, his knowledge of the future outside of his feelings and his father's memories.

But he's also genociding people. And getting out of that prison is only possible if he is willing to engage with other perspectives. It's all this sort of a greek tragedy loop where his own dark thoughts amplify everything else and the other elements amplify his dark thoughts.

And because he values freedom so much, he could never actually restrain anyone from fighting back.

It's these character elements that determine the narrative direction. The story at this point is deeply character-centric.

Yet despite all seeming lost, his opponents feel it's worth to keep fighting for those who yet live. They can't take back what happened, but they can try to move forward in the circumstances they are in. I think this sentiment is so deeply important going into the finale.

Hange's decision is all about this position of responsibility she was pushed into following Erwin's death, too.

She values the pursuit of knowledge, so she picks Armin as the commander.

I really like her response to Yelena because she's basically talking past her. She admits she failed with Eren, but she never says Zeke is right.

In line of with this moment with Hange, I think a lot of this has very specific emotional nuances and I find that really important.

Yes, Eren's friends are begging with him in Paths, but I also think it's not just because they just love him so very much.

They are also desparate to throw everything at him because he's kind of destroying the world and killing humanity.

So any reason is okay as long as it gets through to him.

Just like that speech by the old guy is equal parts military speech, emotional desparation and thematic statement.

I could logically and clinically tell you that someone else could've technically replaced Hange or maybe Hange held on too long to the point of it being too much.

Or how Annie just could've pieced herself together and gone with them.

But to me it at least all makes sense from the character perspective.

I think it makes sense Hange went instead of Armin or Reiner or even Jean not just because she felt responsible and all Titans are needed, but also because she is also a better, more experienced fighter. What the anime improved is the sense of suspense of just how close the escape was. Her feat was successful as much because of her skill as it was luck and while I think this was the intention to begin with, I think the pacing and depiction of her battle was so much better in the anime. It was a desperate charge picking out Titans in a smart way to protect that one building.

On the other hand, Annie was drafted against her will. It's dumb another strong weapon chooses not to fight in the middle of an apocalypse, but we're also in the middle of an apocalypse and it's better to not have a liability making things worse in there.

That's the kind of story I view this series to be. And technically the story never brings of the experience thing or Annie being a potential liability, I think the framing makes at least the tone clear.

And the very final chapters are the peak of this, I think.

Which is also why it sucks that Historia is treated the way she is. Everyone else is great and gets to be complex and she is sort of just written out in the most sloppy way possible. I think her scenes will all probably be consolidated in the finale into a single timeline, if that. (Though the truth is, I think even completely skipping them would treat her better, so I'm sort of holding out for that.)

I think the final chapter is exactly like this. I think it has a much more nuanced, but more importantly consistent thematic perspective than people give it credit for undermined by not letting it sit has much as it should and follows through from this material.

We can't change what happened, but we can try to make the best of the circumstances we are left with and move forward the best we can.

I think this series is flawed in more complex (and to me interesting) ways than I see claimed, too.

I think there is nuance to the potential read that the story is about Isayama painting a facsmile of imperialistic Japan as victims because he clearly wrote the the representitive of the fictional Japan in her story regretting her actions of exploiting a minority and admitting they only care about themselves.

Hizuru was basically destroyed because of its own greed and that's a very clear (and true) statement about Japan.

She goes on to say you only truly understand you've done wrong once you've actually done the wrong thing.

This feels like an apology to me. And that's good, but she's also a tertiary character, so much does it matter?

And how much of painting Hizuru as an ally is patting yourself on the back?

This story is full of these nuances to me, be it in a straight-forward reading of the text or on the meta level and that's why I will always have a soft spot for it.

I think there is so much more to it all on all levels.

But right now I felt like addressing these elements.

[dragynkeep]

I get it can be viewing a situation with another character as something to heal, a coping mechanism.

Writing nightmares and episodes and shit, fine by me, as long as you recognize it or depict it as something that shouldn’t be happening, yet happen. That goes for abuse, abuse should never happen, etc.. It’s always in movies and shit. Though I do not agree with writing children with old people in sexual situations on any account. That is written CP... Anything sexual with children in a manner that you yourself are writing to be attractive or “hot” is gross, in reality it really is.

It does happen to people, writing it so that people know it’s a bad thing and the weight of it and how much it can have an effect on someone, probably better? Instead of you know, “normalizing it”

I would not want some 20+ year old writing about me like that against my will. These characters aren’t real, yet you have to think about it. Thinking things through is always important.

I just don’t agree with it, you’re not gonna stop because of this I know. Though, I implore you to think about it harder and why is it that you find this Fun to write, or depict.

It’s not being “uptight” it’s going along with gut, experience and thought. I have been groomed before and all that shit, stuff I haven’t even told anyone. It’s just that personally I wouldn’t want anyone to go through the shit I went through, or what has anyone went through.

And the proshipping community IS a safe space for pedophiles. Everywhere. It’s like a ground where they have literally every damn say. You can’t just say “no its not” because that’s like closing your eyes and pretending someone isn’t there. I have seen plenty of people in the proshipping community be outed as pedophiles. Its fucked. Not necessarily saying all of them are, but it’s still fucked because WHY are you giving into that behavior.

Not to mention minors get into this community and that has them vulnerable. They just get into it and learn “oh its fine to be under 18 and with an adult” when its fucking not fine but they believe it because they learn that from adults or other children who have been groomed by adults who happened to be their “friend”.

It’s a fucking system man, one moment you’re fine with some bullshit, the next you have now convinced a teenager it’s fine that an adult is talking to them sexually because they see it in fanfiction and as something desirable.

You can't normalise something that society sees as wrong. Someone writing fanfiction about age gaps and noncon is not gonna suddenly change everyone's perspective any more than Game of Thrones did.

All this says is you want adults to baby teenagers on the internet. Outside of tagging triggering content and warning those who are affected by it to not read it, we are not required to do anymore. If you are old enough to be on these sites unsupervised by your parents, you are old enough to make decisions not to engage in fiction that is not written for you.

Because a proshipper is just someone who believes that fiction does not equal 1:1 with reality. Fiction can conjure up feelings like happiness or sorrow, but it cannot on its own tell someone that something socially unacceptable is actually okay. What is needed for it to be able to do that is ignorance, and that's where you have propaganda. Teenagers should not be getting their socially acceptable behaviour lessons from a buncha strangers on the internet writing and drawing shit. That's on their parents.

Also the fact that you literally wrote "written CP" is fucking gross. There is no such thing as written CP, because it has to be pictures of an idenfiable child who is real. Not pixels, real. Because at the end of the day, that is a real human being that is being hurt and exploited for other people's gain. To equate that with a fictional character going through a story is dishonest and you should be ashamed.

Both of us have been groomed. We have been hurt in horrible ways, so no, you don't get to use the "I was groomed" card to shame other survivors because you personally don't like it.

Cause that's what this long ass ask is about. You're not being smart, you're not helping people, you're shaming them for doing stuff that you personally don't like. And rather than be an adult and click off or simply don't interact, you get on your high horse and you look down at the proshippers who are gross and have nasty likes in fiction. Grow tf up.

Any proshipper who is one knows that pedophiles are not welcome in this community. Are there gonna be some? Yeah, because pedophiles use anything they can to groom children and abuse them. It's not the object they use, it's the trust they build with their victim in order to get them to do what they want. You think they just sprung up when fanfiction became more widespread and easily accesible? No, you fucking doughnut.

And I've seen many antis being outed as pedophiles. Almost like every community is in danger of them, lmao.

You don't have to agree with proshipping. You don't have to like it. No one is making you.

But you are literally the one coming into proshippers' spaces, many of whom talk about their past with abuse and assault, and shame them into going back into privacy with things that don't have to be private. Why don't you block and create your own space away, so that you're comfortable with other people who like the same stuff that you do?

Oh wait, cause you'd rather sit in my inbox and cry over it. Piss off.

[doublel27]

I heasitate to do anything that will give this incredibly toxic, bullying tantrum of a post more views, but I also don't think this is okay and people should say so.

It is not an essay, it is a lambasting of someone who disagrees not with just you, but the general discourse that exists around some shows in the BL world because there were over 8 different people's ideas referenced in that post and you focused on you and @lurkingshan. Spending the time to type in 30 tags in the actual post, and another 5 in the comments lambasting someone, offering to pass to anyone screenshots of DMs, utilzing different sizes of script for emphasis that is considered yelling in the written word, and encouraging others to discuss how toxic they are and then demand your boundaries are that they don't respond after flooding someone else's inbox is very rude and inappropriate. I want to applaud @technicallyverycowboy and @lugarn who I have never spoken to before for also calling it out.

I would like to start by saying it's very clear you're incredibly upset and chose to yell at a person who never mentioned you that you perceived as attacking you. Your feelings are okay and should be felt, this response is not. Particularly because there is a whole lot of projection and defensiveness in this post, both in acting like MBDL doesn't understand fandom ettiquite, being disingenous about MBDL's actions and claim to be entirely misread and misunderstood, but let's take a look at what you and lurkingshan actually said in that post, what you misrepresented and misunderstood, and what words were used that might have suggested you were acting as an authority and dismissing other perspectives.

While you value being tagged, when Maybe-Boys-Do-Love says not "everyone enjoys being tagged" could be referring to previous interactions MBDL has had with people who asked him not to (I know i've had that or have been asked to DM) or his own personal feelings of not wanting to be tagged. I don't know, you'd have to ask him rather than assume. You feel a way about what you refer to as vague posting, but not everyone feels the way that you do. Some people prefer to not have an @ shoved at them and prefer to see stuff that could be about them and just say that if someone cared about them enough to say something to their face they would, and move about their day. You are deeply upset by other's possbily vaguely referring to your thoughts on tumblr.com and that's a valid feeling. Bullying a person due to your big feelings however, is not acceptable, and the limited number of reblogs from a specific circle of people, shows exactly how unacceptable the overall community finds this stuff.

You can ask people to @ you in posts that refer to yours and link to them. That's how you feel. On your blog. And you don't have to like how other people act on their blog, but that's also THEIR blog. They can behave how they want, just like you do. Perhaps this whole post is the opposite of what someone would want to have happen to them, in the same way MBDL's was the opposite of what you wanted to have happen.

I want to be very clear that I have seen the post that @maybe-boys-do-love made and your response. Your response is still visible to me on the post and I have reblogged the version of the post on my blog where you responded to MBLD and where MBDL responded to you because I value the fullness of the discourse. I can still see it. Anyone who goes to my blog can still see it. I'm very mystified by the fact that you can't see your response when everyone else can, but I think it should be acknowledged publicly that your point about them deleting your response is a lie you could have fact-checked by asking someone outside of your circle. You have not edited this post to reflect that was a mistake on your part and was the crucx of you deciding to stop engaging in conversation with MBDL in the first place.

However, your quick nature to dismiss criticisms of your posts both above, and in other posts, as "you attacking their faves" or "other fans who only watch shows for shipping" is as dismissive and gaslighting as the work you accuse MBDL of. This Nov. 5 post of yours includes the following quote:

ULTIMATELY, Nihilistic: what we are dealing with regarding your concern, as fans and/or critics of Series Y shows, is a conflict of values, among critical fans like ourselves, other fans who only watch shows for romance and shipping, and the economic bottom lines of the studios/agencies themselves. Some of us just want narratively good scripts, like Bad Buddy or He's Coming To Me. Others are content with having a show end with their fave pairs confirmed together in the end, no matter the process of how they got there.

This dismissal of people who disagree with your definition of good writing and good scripts is the kind of historical conversation and tone from your posts that suggests that you are a critical consumer of content and others who have different opinions are not. Much like you accused MBDL of using "we" to deflect from his own opinion, your use of "us" and "others" repeatedly in that piece gives an us/them perspective. Other is a very othering word, when others is used as a pronoun. Us lets you know you're in the in group, with the taste makers, others lets you know you're not allowed.

From the post that you're concerned was vague-blogged on, which is part of a lager conversation of Spare Me Your Mercy, and Thai writing in general, you said the following:

It seems to me that the fantasies of the fans are worth more, as an investment by GMMTV and other studios in Thailand, than actual artistic material that focuses on queerness at this point. Capitalism and mainstreaming go very well hand-in-hand when there's money to be made, and this, to me, speaks loudly to the excellent points that Shan has made above about really great queer art being anathema to center- and conservative-mainstreams. We're getting less of really great queer art in Thailand, because the dampening of queerness in Thai shows might very well mean more bucks for the studios. Finally, a last point about capitalism that I'd like to make. I've been seeing a rising number of posts and comments taking Tumblr bloggers to task for being critical (like, objectively critical) of bad shows. Many folks don't want to read criticism of their fave shows and stars. I want to note that if one takes this position -- the capitalists have won again. If you're someone who's trying to prevent critical takes from being published, well, you got got by the capitalists -- the studios, the managers who want you to be so in love with your faves that you will ponder asking a writer to censor themselves from making a critical take. You might feel ownership of your blorbo, protective of your favorite star. Those critical takes may feel, to you, like a takedown of your fave.

Again this is highly dismissive and rejects any critism of your takes as people who are just into shipping or faves. Similar to your criticism of the use of the term we in MBDL's post, here you use the term "one" here is short for anyone or everyone. You're claming anyone who disagrees with YOUR version of good writing and good scripts has been "got" by capitalism. (To be fair, I still don't know what your definition of good writing and good scripts are, and I've read all of your posts, as well as Ben's and Shan's and Twig-Tea's. So far I've got a list of common Thai tropes and themes that you don't approve of, and a tonality that is bothersome to you. Which is fair that you don't like it, but you catagorize those as bad and others as good.) Some people enjoyed the shows you didn't, and that's fine. Some of it they thought the scripts were good. Some of it they thought they weren't but enjoyed it anyway. As you stated in the above post this is your opinion and your blog, which is fair. But dismissing people who disagree with you as being got by capitalism and saying things like "ownership of your blorbo" which is to say that that's the only reason someone might like something, or that the only thing that people can like is high art and good scripts is frankly rude. And it's not even like you live up to your own standard. As you stated in the November 5th post:

Now, out of even MORE transparency, I am watching the MESS that is Kidnap right now, and listen, it's NOT GOOD. I'm fucking not even writing about it anymore, I'm just reblogging the sessy gifs. I am watching it to support Ohm Pawat, and am hoping that this partnership with Leng Thanaphon will hopefully lead to better scripts.... somewhere. (Or at least, better scripts for Ohm at a place like One31 or Channel 3. I also hope Ohm keeps up his anti-branded pair stance, but if GMMTV forces him to pair permanently with Leng, it won't be a fucking surprise, and more on that below.)

We're going to ignore that One31 is also owned by the same corporation as GMMTV here for a second, the money flows to the same overlord. We will also ignore that Jes Jespipat has stated that he wanted to leave Channel 3 for BOC, which his managment team, who is also owned by the same corporation as GMMTV and One31, because he felt BOC was full of like-minded people when it came to quality and production. Those are all easily serchable facts as is the fact that One31 and Channel 3 are mass market channels while GMMTV is a teen/ya market channel.

Those facts aside, I think it's really disingenous to suggest that you as a person are capable of distingishing between good writing and bad writing, because you a person with values, and then sometimes watch bad writing for your love of Ohm Pawat, (and who are we kidding, we all tuned in to Kidnap originally because Ohm Pawat had been returned to us). But the idea that you are capable of this thought, and actively choosing, and the way you stated above that anyone who rebutts your takes "got got by the capitalists" (bold is yours, see above and the post) if they tuned into a show for their faves that you didn't like, or thought was bad, that means they weren't doing the same kind of thinking you did around Kidnap. Or that the only way to distinguish what is good and what isn't is your way.

And the worst part of all of this is, lurkingshan and you, misrepresented the article that interviewed the screen writer, Lux and Sammon, and even @benkaben's essay for your own agenda in the post you're referring to. The exact stuff you're accusing MBDL of doing.

Benkaben's initial post that's also linked in lurnkingshan's post, focuses on the fact that there's a comment in the interview that conflates Shipping, Romance, Fanservice with NC scenes and suggests that it makes a work less serious. For those of you who won't link through to the original article, here's benkaben's words:

And hey, you don't need NC scenes for that! No, sexual intimacy is not the only thing that "proves" a romance exist. I mean heck, you could even go all the way around and have all the NC scenes in the world and still present a story where the characters aren't in love with each other, because sex ≠ romance. Absolutely. But also I'm, really tired™, of this idea that any kind of sex portrayed in media is only going to "taint" the final composition. As If sex and love stories were some dirty stain that automatically made the work lesser: Less serious, less formal, less dramatic. I don't agree with the idea that you have to sacrifice intimacy in order to be taken seriously. I don't agree with the idea that sex is by default, just fanservice and therefore it's portrayal subtracts automatically from the story.

The quote that Benkaben is referring to from the original translation is as follows, just in case you're wondering: (I am not fluent in thai and am trusting the translator understood the majority of what was said)

“Sammon's novels are primarily BL and include numerous love scenes. However, we deliberately chose not to present it as a BL story. While the characters are two men in love, we approached it with a dark drama style. The characters are gay, but we don’t offer fan service in every episode or include NC (explicit) scenes. This has been the plan from the beginning. Our decision to omit NC scenes wasn’t influenced by censorship, airtime, or the actors. It’s because the themes we are addressing are heavy and serious. NC scenes would detract from the story’s focus, which is the dark drama and euthanasia. Some fans of the novel might be disappointed, but we believe there’s other enjoyment to be found in the series, even without NC scenes.

The screenwriter states very clearly and explicitly that this was not censorship, airtime or the actors. It was not for the audience or what you can do on Thai television or giving in to the conservatives as lurkingshan argued. Lux said because the themes they were focusing on were heavy and serious, she felt fanserivce and sex detracted from the concept of euthenasia and dark drama.

In fact, I am going to pull out and highlight this line again:

The characters are gay, but we don’t offer fan service in every episode or include NC (explicit) scenes. This has been the plan from the beginning.

In this way, the screenwriter of Spare Me Your Mercy agrees with your main complaint about Thai BL in general that you spent a solid time going in on, that shows are focused on fan service over storytelling. The decision to remove the NC scenes and anything very romatnic, in the directors view, was to comply with your argument of removing fanservice in favor of storytelling.

Additionally, in this post, which prompted lurkingshan's post, you stated:

And — I believe it was also disingenuous to the two previously adapted Sammon stories of Manner of Death and Triage as well, as both of those dramas were able to hold both mystery and romantic storylines to excellent ends, with wonderful touches of intimacy along the way (MaxTul couch scene, my beloved).

Meanwhile, in the translated interview, that @slayerkitty posted Lux did discuss Sammon's thoughts:

When we spoke with the original author, she was also very supportive of this shift because she also wants to highlight the theme of euthanasia. While she herself is a Sao Y and a writer of BL novels, she understands the adaptation’s focus.

And I was honestly very confused by your post this week adding fan service is the downfall and the cause of censorship (which the director of Spare Me Your Mercy said it was not as stated above), because the director of Spare Me Your Mercy ultimately agreed that shows deserve to have a good script and not be beholden to fanservice. You disagree that his script is good. But that's his argument here.

I was even deeper horrified by this line in lurkingshan's post, which ties back to a previous post of yours:

I appreciated her clarity that despite the show receiving strong ratings and finding popularity with the mainstream domestic audience, that doesn't actually make it a success as a piece of narrative storytelling. And if anything, its popularity underlines why it was a failure as a queer narrative, in particular.

The overwhelming Western paternalism here that suggests that if something is popular in conservative countries and not in the greater queer world means it's a failure as a queer story...That's the statement there: It's popularity underlines why it was a faiulre as a queer narrative.

I think a lot about Casey McQuiston's work, a queer author in America who was raised in some of the most conservative parts of this country. Their work, specifically I Kissed Shara Wheeler is a love letter to queer folx who grew up in conservative communties who LOVE the communties they were raised in, even if that community couldn't fully love them back. I think a lot about all of the boy loves that were turned into bromances in Korea to make the bottom line so that something like Love in the Big City could get made. I think a lot about the amount of money and capital and power it takes to get a story made that a country doesn't want to get told: Saint mortgaged his house to open an entirely QL production house and make the first major GL in Thailand because no one would finance it, The author and director of Meet Me at the Blossom also put her house, and frankly her freedom, on the line to make that show. Because while we'd like to separate the art from capitalist structures, as long as we are living in a captialist world, we are going to have to find ways to both work within the system and resist it. There's a lot of jokes made about how to keep the serious tone of The Eclipse in it's serious true art vibe of telling a very serious story about the deadly nature of the closet and internalized homophobia, that Vice Versa had to have Lay's rain from the sky, because someone had to bring in the money to the company from advertisments to have The Eclipse have the cleaner vibe.

To quote the post by lurkingshan again:

High quality, well-executed, honest and authentic queer art is more likely to be protested than celebrated in places where real queer people are not safe to live free lives.

What makes queer art high-quality, well-executed, honest and authentic? What makes a place safe to live free lives?

In the US? Pose was a beautiful love letter to the Black and latinx trans community, looking at the history of Ballroom in the US in the 1980s. It was succesful in this country, as much of Ryan Murphy's work is. However, it is not safe for the Black and latinx trans communtiy to live in the United States of America. We've got the anti-trans legislation tracker and the HRC had identified 36 murders of Trans and Non-Binary people as of November 30th 2024, disproportionately Black trans women. They acknowldge this is an incomplete account due to: many deaths often go unreported or misreported, or misgendering of victims leads to delays in their identification. This does not even get into the systematic ways in which the queer community as a whole, but the Black queer community in general, is prevented from accessing key resources like housing and jobs with a livable wage.

The US is not a safe country for queer people to live free lives, not as a whole. I live in a Blue state, and am queer and a married to my queer partner. We are not fully out. We are not fully realized as queer humans. Very few queer people in this world live fully out, fully realized lives, due to colonialism and Imperialism. And that's what your argument largely fails to do, is account for the overlay of Western ideals onto non-Western media.

You state loudly that you want good Asian art, like Asian art should be a monolith. It is not for people who are not Thai to decide what good Thai art is, which is why you and lurkingshan do with quotes like this:

I appreciated her clarity that despite the show receiving strong ratings and finding popularity with the mainstream domestic audience, that doesn't actually make it a success as a piece of narrative storytelling. And if anything, its popularity underlines why it was a failure as a queer narrative, in particular.

This is, in my opinion, but you'd have to ask MBDL because he's not allowed to reply to this without violating your wishes, what he was responding to by the following:

"I just wanted to create a post that made people whose queer tastes diverge from others feel welcome to their own preferences and appreciate that there’s not a single stance in the queer BL fandom about what qualifies as good and/or queer work."

People like MBDL and @le-trash-prince, who are also queer, enjoyed the allegorical queer storytelling of Spare Me Your Mercy. The three gay men who you referenced above did not. That's...fine. that's the whole point of MBDL's message, queer people are not a monolith that all agree.

The people of Thailand, overall, enjoyed Spare Me Your Mercy. There is no way to poll what straight or queer Thai people specifically thought, but it's a key piece of the puzzle that Thai people enjoyed this show. Because that's the base audience. That's who they made it for.

But when you say, and I quote this post again: We're getting less of really great queer art in Thailand, because the dampening of queerness in Thai shows might very well mean more bucks for the studios.

You have decided that Thai shows are not great queer art any longer, and that they are dampening queerness off of the critisms of We Are and Perfect 10 Liners, that have been prevalent from your circle. I'll link this one @twig-tea wrote and another one @bengiyo wrote specifically, which comment on shows created by a queer Thai man, and the writing decisions for Spare Me Your Mercy, which were made using an argument you yourself use to suggest that shows shouldn't engage with imagined couples and fan-service. And while these are your opinions, you also, as I have quoted above, stated that:

Finally, a last point about capitalism that I'd like to make. I've been seeing a rising number of posts and comments taking Tumblr bloggers to task for being critical (like, objectively critical) of bad shows. Many folks don't want to read criticism of their fave shows and stars. I want to note that if one takes this position -- the capitalists have won again. If you're someone who's trying to prevent critical takes from being published, well, you got got by the capitalists -- the studios, the managers who want you to be so in love with your faves that you will ponder asking a writer to censor themselves from making a critical take.

I want to be clear, that MBDL writing a statement about how there are many ways to depict and appreciate queer stories is not saying you can't be critical. It's saying that there are alternative views. People saying if you hate GMMTV, maybe don't watch, are saying you seem to be miserable watching this, you can stop any time.

The thing people are rejecting in your critiques are not that you did not like something, that's fine. It is the sweeping statements that there is a right and a good way to make queer art, and everything else shouldn't be engaged with because it's ruining the genre or selling out to capitalist interests (as stated in the above linked Spare Me Your Mercy post by lurkingshan and yourself, and We Are posts twig-tea and bengiyo). Your words across all of these posts, and this one directed at MBDL are about policing other peoples actions and putting your values onto them. That is the core of toxic fandom. Expecting everyone to engage with it exactly the way you want to.

I'm of the opinion that what's good for queer Thai television is not for foriegn audiences to decide, ultimately. That's for queer Thai people to decide. And some of them may not want to make the greatest queer Thai television, some people may want to make fun queer Thai television, or silly queer Television. And that's also a wonderful thing.

Which is at the core of the argument that Dr. Thomas Baudinette started. Dr. Thomas Baudinette stated the following:

He does not state fully what those anti-social practices are. Are some of them likely toxic shipping, yes. But there's also toxic solo stans. (I do take Dr. Thomas Baudinette with a grain of salt because I also know he's a white academic speaking about a community he's not actually fully part of, and I would like to learn more about what Thai and Japanese and Korean fans think.) But his wording suggests that Thai fans are being influenced by fans of other markets: in your post you discuss the TayGun kiss of it all and there's this quote:

In this case, I would like to note that while we see GMMTV reducing blatant queer perspectives and frameworks from their shows, and promoting friend-ships or bro-ships, in the case of High School Frenemy and the SkyNani branded pair, we see GMMTV's (and Thai BL's) rise continue to grow in certain Asian countries (like China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, among others) that do not allow for public displays of queerness, among other restrictions. GMMTV does not hold branded pair fan meetings in these countries, and yet, these countries are some of the channel's biggest markets for its queer shows and pairs. As well, these countries (I am part-Malaysian myself) do not have public programs of sex education. Thus, if I am to assume that the majority fan bases of these shows are young folks in countries that do not offer robust sex education, then these young folks (of any gender) might not be inclined to join in and participate in conversations about queer equality. We, thus, get the outcry that occurred after Tay and Gun smooched. God forbid fantasies were to have been destroyed because two real-life people kissed. Two men, kissing, outside of the context of their branded pairs and outside the context of a drama. Some people have never been to the club before.

To the first part, GMMTV is not reducing their blatant queer perspectives in their shows. That is factually untrue. They've added more QLs (which at GMMTV are always romances) and queer strands in their non-BLs. In fact, the number of queer shows in 2019 was 3 (2 QL and 3 Will Be Free). The number of shows with QL in 2024 was 12 plus queer themes in an aditional 3 shows. That is an increase of 5 times more queer content in 2024 than in 2019. (source: MyDramaList - filtered for GMM25 and then removing anything not produced through GMMTV). This does not touch on how many of the writers and directors for GMMTV are queer people under the age of 40 sharing their perspectives. Now you don't have to like those queer perspectives but they're not getting less queer. In fact, for the 2025 wave, which did not show a reduction in queer perspectives, but in fact showed a proposed total of 15 BLs, 2 GLs, 1 het (oh Nanon's never coming back), 1 mixed stories with some VERY explicitly queer sections, 1 SkyNani bromance, with 4 BL still outstanding, 1 GL set to air in two weeks, and 6 outstanding non-BLs from the 2024 Up and Above announcements. Second, You conflate the lack of acess to public programs of sexual education to a lack of inclination to join and participate in discussions around queer equity. You then use the word Thus to show causation from lack of access to public programs of sex education and repression of queer people to people having meltdowns over TayGun kissing. Lack of education is not why fans don't have boundaries and can't accept their fantasy bubble being broken. I promise you, Taylor Swift fans yelling at her ex boyfriends over her songs are not doing so because of lack of education about sexual ethics. It's about ownership, which is the heart of the anti-capitalist message you espouse. We allow fans worldwide, not just in specific Asian countries to behave badly becaues they've bought a product of a brand.

The concept of toxic fans is not new nor singular to Thai BL media. @chaos0pikachu has one of my favorite rundowns ever on how the tin hats existed in bandom (and GLEE) before Thai BL was ever a thing. I didn't survive Glee and the loss of Chris Colfer as an actor for us to pretend that the people who do this kind of toxic shit for us to pretend that CPs are the cause. I certainly didn't watch Once Upon A Time fans tweet @ Colin O'Donoghue they hoped his pregnant wife would just die so he could be free to be with Jennifer Morrison for us to pretend this is a BL problem. I definitely didn't watch people harrass Rafael Silva and Ronen Rubenstein out of posting their friendship as a gay and a bi man acting together because the assumption was they were having an affiar behind Ronen's partner's back for us to pretend this was a Thai BL problem due to CPs. I did not watch a bunch of people use interviews promoting the show and the fact that they kiss well to say that Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid are having an affair for us to pretend CPs make this problem.

This problem exists with or without branded pairings, but is entirely tied to idol culture and the objectification of celebrity brand and the intrenchment in being a "Stan" and we've completely lost the plot, Eminem. I still think about regularly Katy Perry asking Stevie Nicks who her rivals were, and Stevie Nicks saying she didn't have rivals but contemporaries. Modern fan culture, globally, in the social media era is set up for rivals: the Swifties, the Bey-Hive, the Katy-Cats, the Barbs, Army etc. Fan culture is like this, and without fans participating in the isolation and ignoring of these people they will continue to harrass and attack people, because as Wicked reminds us, the best way to unite people is to give them a common enemy.

I don't know if you watched the disaster that was Korean netizens sending funeral wreaths to be set up in front of SM building for the member of RII7E who tried to return after fans stalked him to catch him engaging in inappropriate behavior and dug up a middle school girlfriend, which was allowed by the company. I do believe some of this is what he's referring to by anti-social behavior. One of the most horrifying acts of behavior against a GMMTV artist was someone getting into Fluke Nattanon's car and refusing to get out. Like...that's the scariest shit. That shit should be handled. That had nothing to do with shipping culture, and everything to do with a company not enforcing boundaries.

Any time and I mean any time, a person feels that they have the right to objectify a person and control them, that is both NEVER okay and is also NEVER the fault of the person who is being treated that way. No amount of branded pairing is responsible for toxic fans who don't have boundaries. Should the companies do something about them, yes, and that's what Dr. Baudinette is referring to.

To quote @wen-kexing-apologist's essay on objectification of Asian men which you linked in the post on Spare Me Your Mercy:

We all need to, but white Westerners especially, be extremely careful and introspective with the ways we are engaging with queer Asian media

And I take this very seriously. I think it applies not just to the objectification and commodification of the actors, as wen-kexing-apologist wrote about, but also applies to the infantilization and removal of agency of the writers, directors, actors and audiences in Asian countries who are engaging in the process of making and enjoying queer Asian art, suggesting they are not active participants in the process. It is not for interfans to talk over Thai writers, directors, actors and fans of what is and is not true for them and their country's work around queer Thai art.

The long and the short of it, is if you're going to post opinions as facts and undercut anyone who disagrees with you: on what is and what isn't good Asian media, what is and isn't good Thai media, what is and is not queer media, and how people should measure it, and other queer people say out loud: we don't have to all measure queer media the same way and we can have different opinions, and this is your response...I honestly wish you peace.

Clearing The Air On This Wack-Ass Event Of Toxic Fandom That My Brown Ass Was Recently Dragged Into

(*References and endnotes are posted in the comments.)

This past weekend, I was unwittingly brought into an event of toxic fandom instigated by @maybe-boys-do-love. The following is an account of that event, and a rebuttal to misrepresentations that he made in his posts.

1) Chronology of Events and Clarification of Communication, Connections, and Blocks

Late last week, @lurkingshan posted a thought piece about separating art and commerce in discussions of queer shows, and talked, in part, about Spare Me Your Mercy and the show's ratings popularity in Thailand as compared to its narrative shortcomings. The piece also talks about the artistic success, versus the public outcry, of the South Korean queer show, Love In The Big City. I, and a few others, reblogged the post with thought pieces of our own. (If you are interested in following along, reading the second link is a necessity.)

Tumblr user @maybe-boys-do-love subsequently posted, separately on his blog, a reaction post to Shan's post and my reblog of her post (1). His reaction contained misreads and dangerous misrepresentations of Shan's and my writing.

Shan and @maybe-boys-do-love had previously mutually blocked each other (2). Therefore, @maybe-boys-do-love went around the block to react to Shan's post.

He did not make clear to his audience that he was reacting to Shan's post. He wrote his reaction post without citing or linking to Shan's post, and did not tag me as well, thus removing both myself and Shan from a discourse that we had instigated, and prevented his audience from knowing or understanding his reference point for his reaction.

Mutuals reached out to me with @maybe-boys-do-love's piece, having previously read Shan's and my posts.

I DMed @maybe-boys-do-love to note to him that I had seen his post, and that I preferred to be tagged directly in discourse. I wrote that I would write today's post as a means of correcting the incorrect assumptions he made about my opinions. I also checked with @lurkingshan to make her aware of the post and ask if she wanted to be included in a response. Shan stated that she had already blocked @maybe-boys-do-love for previous instances where he indirectly vague-posted about her and misrepresented her writing, and that she had no interest in responding, but was fine with me doing so.

I then publicly reblogged @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post with a clarifying note, sharing the link to Shan's original post and my reblog of our original SMYM discourse. I noted publicly that his reaction post contained misreads and inaccuracies that I will be clarifying today.

@maybe-boys-do-love deleted my reblog. I do not see my original reblog of his reaction post in his reblog notes. Mutuals confirmed, from their blogs, that they also cannot see my original reblog of his reaction post.

I requested to him by DM that he reinstate my reblog. He did not. He reblogged my reblog from my own blog (sorry, y'all) with a response to me and a general defense of his original reaction post.

He denied in DMs that he had deleted my reblog. I stated that I didn't believe him, and requested for our DM conversation to end (3).

2) Toxic Fandom and Expectations of Personal Accountability in Public Forums

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of responding to @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post, I want to take a quick second to talk about toxic fandom and accountability, because it's been a topic bubbling up particularly in the world of the fandom of Asian, and specifically Thai, QLs. My public and private conversations with @maybe-boys-do-love about this reaction incident, prior to this post's publication, have been filled with a kind of noxious disingenuousness and deceit that has given me the damn creeps.

I've had tussles with other bloggers before about our disagreements of the art and economics of Asian QLs. The discourse has been almost always so much fun, often argumentative, sometimes gritty, sometimes passive aggressive, and sometimes parasocial involving the celebrities and creators of these shows.

I have always kept discourse respectful, and I pride myself with integrity on responding to any point that has been shot my way. I have been blocked for my takes, and I have encouraged others to block me if my takes are not to their liking, and they attack me for them. I encourage folks who don't like my takes to curate their Tumblr experiences, and take agency for what they agree with and want to read.

If I rant about someone's potential faves -- someone's fave shows or couples -- I put trigger warnings on those posts (here and here are two examples, and the most immediate link above also has a TW), knowing there's a lot of sensitivity out there over content. I trust the judgement of readers to read those trigger warnings and to skedaddle.

In other words, I take full responsibility and accountability for my writing, and I expect my readers to engage with me in good faith in return. I'm proud of the critical posts I've made over the last two and a half years here on Tumblr, especially my exploration of the history of the Thai BL genre through my Old GMMTV Challenge project.

I posted recently that the Asian QL scholar, Dr. Thomas Baudinette, believes that the number one threat to the growth of the Thai BL industry is toxic fandom and the prioritization of problematic markets.

It's funny that I posted that a few days before this incident happened. The specific elements of toxic behavior as demonstrated by @maybe-boys-do-love, as stated above, are that he

a) subverted blocks to read and respond to Shan's post without citing her, b) he did not clarify for his audience what he was reacting to, thus rendering untruthful his real intentions in writing his post, and c) his actual reaction post contained misreads and misinterpretations of Shan's and my analysis.

I'd like to name some elements of toxic behavior and fandom that occurred in the public communication I had with @maybe-boys-do-love to highlight them in order to emphasize the disrespectful nature of this incident.

In his reblog of my clarification post to his original reaction post, @maybe-boys-do-love writes,

"I also want to respect that not everyone wants to get involved in a back-and-forth on here."

Because of previous DMs, reblogs, tags, and comments on and of my work that @maybe-boys-do-love has made, I know that he is very familiar with my blog and my writing. We have previously communicated publicly and privately. I do not know why he would make an assumption that I would not have wanted to be tagged in his original reaction post, reacting inaccurately to points I made in my Spare Me Your Mercy post, considering that he and I have a public history of prior engagement. 

This assumption (remember the adage about assuming…) makes so little sense to me that I can only conclude he is coming from a stance of a disingenuous and untruthful defense.

More concerning, @maybe-boys-do-love follows with:

"I just wanted to create a post that made people whose queer tastes diverge from others feel welcome to their own preferences and appreciate that there’s not a single stance in the queer BL fandom about what qualifies as good and/or queer work."

Again, as @maybe-boys-do-love is familiar with my blog, I do not know why he would assume that my work is insular so as to not welcome different perspectives and discourse on my opinions -- as he and I had actually engaged, in the past, on our opinions of other content, and that there is overwhelming proof on my blog that I love engaging in discourse with others.

The statement that "there's not a single stance in the queer BL fandom" about my work is disingenuous, disrespectful, and toxic.

If it's not clear in the most obvious way -- and it may not be clear to some -- I am a personal blogger, posting my opinions and analysis, on a personal blog. My blog isn't Encyclopedia fucking Brittanica.

@maybe-boys-do-love indicates in his reblog that his mutuals helped him get around his and Shan's blocks. 

He also identifies as a "flaming gay guy" to characterize his position for his love of Spare Me Your Mercy, leading him to go around the blocks to comment on Shan's original post.

"Friends of mine shared the post with me knowing the love I, as a flaming gay guy, had for Spare Me Your Mercy."

I want to note that in the context of this characterization, I myself reached out to three gay male friends (one Asian friend, and two white friends married to each other). (There's nothing that IRL people love more than an Internet beef.) These three individuals range on the flaming spectrum, and assured me that @maybe-boys-do-love's position does not count as spoken monolithically for the gay male community (4).

Which leads me to my last point (for now) about toxic fandom. As iterated above: these Tumblr blogs we write on are personal blogs, homes to personal opinions, created by individuals.

The danger of trying to leverage group-think or group-speak to validate toxic opinions and toxic engagement with others is high within fandom discourse. I see it all the time on X in BL shipper circles. Maybe @maybe-boys-do-love's friends were too cowardly to write reaction posts of their own, and asked their friend to write one on their behalf. If that's the case, @maybe-boys-do-love can show us the receipts. But I'm guessing that didn't happen.

Within group and family therapy arenas, and human relations and business environments, counseling often focuses on "I-speak" -- the practice of using the "I" pronoun to claim accountability for facts, opinions, recounting of details, and so on. Using the "we" pronoun to justify a position -- without identifying who your "we" is -- weakens a stance, and at the same time, creates panic and fear within a group or community. It's a tactic often used in gaslighting or supremacist situations to generate collective fear over incorrect facts and threats.

This tactic is useless in a scenario like this, when there is ample published proof that @maybe-boys-do-love published a misrepresentative reaction post that did not link to the original source, deceiving his audience; he subsequently tried to monolithically speak for others, and to leverage and claim community to justify his doing so. It's wrong, it's disingenuous, and it's toxic.

I wouldn't want this guy speaking for me, and I hope readers of this post wouldn't want him to, either.

3) Responding to Misrepresented Points in MBDL's Reaction Post

Note: Much of @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post reacted to points that @lurkingshan made about Spare Me Your Mercy and the Asian QL genre. I have consulted with Shan on my responses and she has approved them.

My entire rebuttal is long. An abridged version is below, and the entire rebuttal is linked here at this private link.

I want to start my response to misrepresented points in @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post by highlighting the most noxious misread he made. He writes,

"and just a friendly reminder that a simple BL romcom is equally as queer of a story as a story about HIV."

Much of @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post seemed magically conjured out of his ass to assume or imply that certain points were made by @lurkingshan when they were most certainly not.

NOT ONCE IN @lurkingshan's POST WAS LOVE IN THE BIG CITY DESCRIBED AS A "STORY ABOUT HIV." IN FACT, HIV WAS NEVER MENTIONED AT ALL, BY ANYONE, IN THE ORIGINAL POST, OR ANY OF THE REBLOGS AND ADDITIONS.

That was a heinous and noxious misread and reduction of @lurkingshan's post, wholly inaccurate and misrepresentative of the tone and content of Shan's original writing, and more revealing about him and his perspectives about the shows, than anyone he was pretending to fight.

And nowhere in @lurkingshan's original post did she claim that a BL romcom was not as "equally as queer" as any other story.

I want to respond specifically to an analysis of capitalism and markets that I made in my reblog of Shan's post, that @maybe-boys-do-love then reacted to.

"just a reminder, if we wanna talk about capitalism, that the whole idea of a work being better or worse, queerer or less queer, more valuable or less valuable based on it’s reception in numbers (either higher or lower) is not something Marx and Engels would be into, since they ascribed to exchange value over use value. The labor put into the work is where it’s at—and all of these shows had plentiful hours of (queer) labor put into them! But not everyone who talks about the wrongs of capitalism on here is actually interested in the finer details of how capitalism operates, the full political and economic realities of the companies making these shows, nor the individuals who are forced to fight for change within capitalism’s global structure."

This was such a convoluted, random, and inaccurate reaction to my post that I had to send it to a family member who is an actual professional economist (again, remember, IRL people love internet beefs) (5). He assured me that Karl Marx and Fredreich Engels would NOT have wanted to get tangled up in this beef.

But, anyway. I'm not a communist, and when I speak about capitalism and the markets to which Asian QL content is marketed to, I'm not analyzing the quantity of labor put into these shows that needs to be exchanged on the various Asian markets in order for the shows to be made. That's a very specific sightline into production budgets that maybe tingles @maybe-boys-do-love's brain. I think he was just trying to sound smart.

I want to be clear that he reacted to nothing I wrote in my post. This was a made-up stream of something that only established how he watches and judges shows.

But because I used the word "capitalism" in my post to talk about how GMMTV and other studios are addressing queerness and queer perspectives in their shows, @maybe-boys-do-love found reason to take issue with my writing, and to assume an air of intellectualism to establish a false sense of superiority -- by posting drivel.

All responses can be found at this link.

4) Conclusion and a Public Request to Respect Boundaries

As I wrote above: I wrote this post to make a public record of rebuttal against misinterpretations made about my writing by @maybe-boys-do-love.

I will publicly request that @maybe-boys-do-love do not contact me again. Do not reblog, tag, or comment on my posts.

If I have to block @maybe-boys-do-love, I will. However, I want the ability to read any further reaction he might have to this rebuttal, especially if he continues to besmirch my writing inaccurately and disingenuously.

As he demonstrated that he could not respect Shan's boundaries prior to this incident, I will say publicly now:

RESPECT MY BOUNDARIES.

And I want to thank the many mutuals who reached out to me during this incident to offer your support, and to notify me that this public incident of misrepresentation was taking place.

[sophieinwonderland]

Different anon here: It’s honestly strange to hear this argument of a “neurotypical autistic person” as a parallel to a non-disorded system.

I’m someone who was coercively dx’ed with ASD and who has tags & words around this filtered on multiple platforms because I have to be in a certain headspace before engaging with discussion around autism (if I want to do that). I view autism as an inherently clinical term just from my experiences around it and randomly seeing people be positive about them being autistic can sometimes feel extremely unsafe - which I’ve seen is apparently somewhat similar to how some OSDD & DID systems feel towards non-disordered systems.

I know there’s also more to the parallel being drawn by the original anon than just that (like a common thing I’ve heard is feeling like is something isn’t disordered, folks won’t take you seriously anymore - but that’s the fault of society & the medical system, not random ppl around you - among other things), but managing your (general you) social interactions online so you feel safe is up to you. There’s a difference between blocking/filtering/muting things because you’re uncomfortable with it or don’t want to see it and going out of your way to harass people about how you feel. But there’s also nuance to that in itself on a public platform like tumblr because I know a fair amount of people realistically won’t do that, and you have a fair amount people treating the blogs of others like their own and/or assuming that all posts are directed at them personally, and I don’t know of a good solution for that (with syscourse, I’ve seen both anti-endogenic folks and pro-endogenic folks randomly give unsolicited advice to blogs about how they could effectively ‘better represent their community,’ and it feels like a violation of boundaries).

Maybe none of this is relevant, idk, but I felt like sending this.

Host:

It's a bit weird to me too for similar reasons. Unlike being plural or being a system, Autism is an actual diagnosis. I can completely see where you're coming from.

Unfortunately, there's no word for having autistic traits while being just outside the threshold for diagnosis.

I'm in a strange place as far as viewing my autism as a positive goes. Overall, it's a disorder that has had a serious negative impact on my life. However, if given a chance to change things and be born neurotypical, I wouldn't take it.

For all the bad that's come with this, every aspect of how I think is influenced by it in some way. It allowed me a unique perspective that I wouldn't have as a neurotypical person. Not to mention that I can't imagine Soph existing in a world where I wasn't who I am today... and I couldn't accept that.

I'm not proud, per se. But I am who I am and wouldn't want to change that.

I guess I'm in a spot where I can see why people would feel positive about being autistic even if I don't feel that way myself.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi! I've been following your blog & have really enjoyed the discussions you've hosted about the issue of cultural appropriation in Americanized Greek mythology retellings. As someone in the Armenian diaspora, I struggle with what is appropriation due to the cultural mix caused by diaspora and, historically, Armenia's Hellenistic period under Macedonian rule. What would differentiate a Greek-American from an Armenian-American in terms of proximity to Ancient Hellenism?

Same anon with the Armenian cultural heritage question. The character count for these asks is rather restrictive, so I wanted to add here that there are many, many differences between a Greek-American's relationship to Ancient Hellenism and that of an Armenian-American. I was hoping to hear you share a Greek person's thoughts on the issue, but I did not mean to equate the two at all. I hope that came across. Thank you.

================= end of ask ======================

That's a very interesting case and I'll take some paragraphs answering it if you don't mind 😁

By "Hellenism" I understand you mean "Hellenismos"/"Greek culture", as called by the Hellenes today? At least I hope so :P But in any case, the difference between a Greek-American and an Armenian-American to the ancient Greek culture/religion is pretty big. (As you also mentioned in the second part of the ask)

For some who may not be aware, since the Macedonian Kingdom the two peoples have a great connection, continuing to the Byzantine era, united by the Orthodox faith, and the recent co-existence (and genocide) in Anatolia. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Greeks and Armenians in the US are closer culturally than to their WASP peers. Greeks who know their history see Armenians as brothers.

Still, in my perspective, Armenians have "slices" of Greek culture and connection to Greek culture and history, but still significantly less engagement with Greek culture than ethnic Greeks. This goes vice versa for the Greeks and Armenian culture, as Armenians had a whole bunch of influences during the last two millennia that Greeks didn't have. That's why I said "pretty big difference" in the beginning.

Of course, it's possible that most Armenians have quite a clear image of the Greek gods and Greek antiquity because of that shared past. Unfortunately, I don't know the relationship of Armenians to the Greek deities, and you have connections only to Armenia so we can't cross-examine this :/

What I can hypothesize is that Armenians in the homeland understand how to view ancient deities better than the people who are from "the new world" because living in a society that inhabits their ancient home automatically teaches you these things. Or maybe relatives who lived there teach you these things even though you didn't grow up there.

I don't know your exact background so please forgive any assumptions on my part, but I make them in case some of them resonate with you. (So, feel free to correct me!) I think the fact that you mentioned such an ancient event for the Armenian-Greek connection rather than the more recent history of the peoples might be an indicator that you were raised in a quite westernized environment which places a lot of value on antiquity. So there might be some further distance that you'll have to mentally "cross" to come closer to the ancient Greek culture and faith.

Due to the common elements between the Greek and Armenian culture that can be accentuated in the diaspora I understand that the discovery of a silver lining is difficult. So my recommended guide is this:

1) If an element feels foreign to you and you know it was never Armenian, it is indeed outside of your culture.

2) Hooowever, if Armenians at some point had the same fashion, dishes, and beliefs as ancient Greeks of a certain era, then the culture of that particular period is part of your ancient heritage because these elements were adapted by Armenians at the time. I mean, if something Greek was also used by ancient and medieval Armenians I don't see why it's misappropriation if you consider it part of your heritage.

3) It's useful to examine the differences between the "original" Greek cultural element and the Armenian version of it because they might differ slightly. A hypothetical example: Greeks might have worn a specific type of chiton but Armenians adapted this clothing to their own culture, so if you say your ancestors wore the "Hellenic" type and not the "Hellenized Armenian" type, this will be an inaccuracy. From what you told me, it seems to me that you have as your heritage the "Hellenized Armenian" elements and any Hellenic elements that were imported to Armenia. Not the whole of ancient Hellenic culture.

But at the end of the day, cultural proximity to something ancient doesn't matter when calling out disrespectful things. There are Greeks who don't care about misrepresentation and there are xenoi from the edges of the world who do. You were able to understand the Americanization part despite not being sure about your claim to Greek antiquity. You can also learn about the Greek ancient past and engage with modern Greek culture without a care about your ancestry.

I don't know if I covered your concerns or not. If you'd like to ask something more specific on the matter, please do! Thank you for entrusting me with your thoughts and, as I always say, this is just my own opinion on the matter. Other Greeks or Armenians - or other knowledgeable people - feel free to add stuff!

[doloresdisparue]

Okay, I watched the video now and I did not like it. I obviously sympathise with any attempt to set the record straight on the novel, Nabokov's intent and the reality of Dolores so to be clear in the grand scheme of culture I am aligned with this person, we're nitpicking within a circle of people who all broadly agree here, same as when I criticise the Lolita podcast. I already disagree with the premise of the video for several reasons but there were a few points that ticked me off specifically. Under a cut for length.

First of all I think citing from a bunch of opinion pieces, not all of which have scholarly background is not ideal. The essays this person cites also contain some absolutely ludicrous statements. One quote that is cited but cut off right before it gets really bad is From Roxane Gay's essay:

The aesthetics of Lolita in narrative and film are choices, and those choices undo or at the very least diminish the ugliness of the story they represent. Those choices seduce the reader or viewer. They lull us into believing that violation is perhaps not so bad. In most movies that deal with sexual violence, we see beautiful men doing terrible things to beautiful women. Rape is ugly, but rapists never are. This is such a contrast to how most of us imagine rapists. Or that’s what I would like to think. In my mind, rapists are hideous men, repulsive in every way. At least literature can accommodate ugly realities more effectively than film and television. We can write about ugly things beautifully but still make it clear that they are ugly. We aren’t seduced or distracted by images of charming, handsome men with an appealing streak of silver in their hair.

This is such a deeply irresponsible sentiment it boggles my mind that it came from a writer I previously respected. We would certainly like to think that all rapists are hideous because that would be easy but I was under the impression that we had collectively moved on from the Victorian sentiment that beauty equals morality and you can safely know someone is evil if they're not conventionally attractive. Part of the POINT of Lolita is that Humbert gets away with what he does because he is a conventionally attractive, educated, charming white man. That a queer, fat, black person (all things that are or were maligned as inherently bad/ugly by western society) would even suggest that we should not have attractive people do bad things on screen because people who do bad things are ugly inside and therefore ugly outside is so utterly baffling I struggle to put it into words. I also think that the majority of people are, in fact, capable of seeing a hot person do something bad on screen and not immediately conclude that this means they should also do or endorse said thing but maybe I'm optimistic there. I feel similarly about some of the other essays cited but since this is supposed to be about the video I won't go through them too.

The video posits that since Nabokov wrote for five years and wrote towards the trappings of a specific medium, changing said medium is "irresponsible". Firstly, five years is not a long time for a film to be in development, nor even a script. Secondly, this, to me, speaks of a very flat uninspired view of the concept of adaptation. Just because a story was geared towards a specific medium doesn't mean you can't adapt it. Of course you can't film Lolita 1:1 the way it is written. THAT would, in fact, be fatal. But there are plenty of films that skillfully depict unreliably narrators, including ones engaged in very bad behaviour (Gone Girl, American Psycho, Fight Club, Black Swan, to only name a few mainstream titles). There are also a plethora of movies filmed from a Bad Guy perspective in general, innumerable horror films where you follow someone doing awful things, often someone who fully believes they are justified in what they do. Somehow people arguing against a visual adaptation always forget that the novel has a VERY clear framing device. Humbert is introduced by someone who declares him cuckoo-bananas and only valuable as a case study and then we have him talking to a potential jury. I know the previous movies also ignored that but that doesn't mean it HAS to be ignored. I would argue it is a central pillar of the way the novel works and it is very easy to adapt. Have it the way the musical does, put him opposite a prison psychiatrist, open and end the movie that way, have the psychiatrist either comment in voiceover or flash between the actions of the past and the interview if you're scared of the actors pretty face distracting the simple minded viewer too much. It is NOT hard to frame the story just like Nabokov did and I fully believe there are talented scriptwriters who can do that. Calling a medium change inherently irresponsible is just stupid, I'm sorry. There is nothing irresponsible about changing the medium of a story per se. All the ethics of it lie in the production.

The potential impact on child actors is metioned and I fully agree with their point that it would be irresponsible to cast a little girl. While some movies (like one of their very examples, Mysterious Skin) have filmed scenes of child sexual abuse ethically with strict precautions to protect the child actors that would be very difficult to do for a story like Lolita and, as the video says, I would rather not risk it because real life children matter more. Regardless of the filming itself the media attention and reaction would no doubt be EXTREMELY damaging to any child actor so, no, we should not cast a child as Lolita. However, the other example the video cites as a good CSA movie features a 22 year-old playing 15 and we live in a day and age where studios are distastefully adding whole CGI replicas of dead actors into their movies so I don't understand why the possibility of casting a short, skinny 20 year old and digitally augmenting her face and proportions a little is never brought up. I have personally seen someone call the cops on an ongoing production featuring a 23 year-old because she was styled to look young. It works. This is entirely leaving out the fact that animated films that are not for children do, in fact, exist and animation is a medium that can be used to tell adult stories. The association of animation with childhood could, depending on the style, even work in the favour of the horror of it all if one were to adapt Lolita that way.

However, while I agree wholeheartedly about the ethics of casting a real child and I massively appreciate linking the topic to parent influencers and the way young child "influencers" are treated because that is a really important topic there is also an idea throughout the video that I don't love and that is the depiction = endorsement idea. Especially in the context of claiming a Lolita movie would be pandering to pedophiles and therefore be equivalent to CSEM. I understand this in the context of a real child being sexualized or made to act out a kiss or similar things with an adult actor (though even then I think it is HIGHLY irresponsible to equate this to filmed evidence of actual CSA) but none of that is a prerequisite for a Lolita movie, as I stated above, which leaves us sliding down the slippery slope of the 1996 CPPA which declared everything CSEM that showed a character implied to be a minor engaging in sexual conduct. If you think about that for longer than the reactionary kneejerk Protect The Children this essentially bans any and all teen movies and shows. There is nothing inherently wrong with adult actors playing kids engaging in acts real kids should not engage in. This applies to media about sexuality (which is vital for teens) just as much as it does to media about children experiencing violence and trauma. In fact it's GOOD across the board, regardless of genre, because child labor laws in the US film industry have historically been awful and I'd much rather squint a little to pretend that 30 year old is 16. Media showing underage characters in sexual situations is not inherently unethical. There are degrees of taste, obviously, but implying media with underage characters or depicting CSA could appeal to pedophiles and is therefore close to CSEM is not only stupid but also wildly disrespectful. It's also a nonsensical argument because any movie featuring a real child could appeal to pedophiles. Just like the rest of us they don't need to have the object of their attraction presented pin-up style to find them attractive. If you want to prevent children in movies from potentially appealing to pedophiles you're going to have to ban children in movies.

I'm not even going to touch on their attempt to claim that depicting murder is fine but you have to draw the line at CSA because "murder is an exclusively physical act" as if we haven't had endless conversations about the normalisation of violence in media and movies being used for propaganda that LEADS TO murder. I have to assume the maker of this video is American because the people trying to cleanly separate sexual violence from "acceptable" physical violence usually are. That cultural disconnect is too complex to go into here but let's leave it at I Strongly Disagree. If you're going to handwring about Forbidden Subjects at least be consistent. I think Stephen Schiff is a hack who never should have gotten to touch Lolita but he was absolutely correct about the American movie landscape being accepting towards movies depicting nonsexual violence versus sexuality being immediate cause for censorship. His main issue (among many others) was viewing Lolita as a story of primarily sexuality in the first place not in pointing out the hypocrisy of American media standards.

This also goes hand in hand with what I think is actually an irrelevant comparison. The video mentions "good" examples of CSA movies that are told from the POV of the child victim. This is irrelevant. Lolita from the POV of Dolores is fundamentally a different story with a different point and narrative function. We can talk about wanting that story too but it has no place in talking about adaptations of the novel. It is funny that an example given is Mysterious Skin though, because that does also very prominently an uncomfortable start with mostly POV shots from the perpetrators perspective on the child as the abuse is happening. This is deeply uncomfortable on purpose as much as it is a technique to keep the child actors safe because they were filmed entirely separately with no full idea of the nature of the story and it shows that there are very effective ways of depicting CSA even from the point of the abuser without turning out garbage like the Lolita movies provided the films are actually made by people who view the story as CSA and think CSA is bad.

If one is actually interested in seriously considering or discussing this instead of bringing movies into this conversation an example to go off would be Michael (which also took pains to safeguard the child actor) as a child abuser POV movie that presents an entirely uneroticised view in the style of Haneke. You could look at Hard Candy for cinematography that toes the line but stays painfully uncomfortable by virtue of presenting the child as A CHILD (though an unnamed production member did attempt to assault the child actor at some point so no points of real life safety here) or The Babadook for a movie largely about someone abusing a child that featured said child for large chunks of the movie but still upheld extremely strict standards to safeguard the child actor. I could go on but I've already spent too long typing this breakdown.

I also notice that the video REALLY tries hard to deflect the blame from Kubrick in regards to the awful movie adaptation and the abuse of Sue Lyon. Given their mention of a Kubrick loving phase I'm not feeling inclined to be charitable about that. James B. Harris was the abuser of Lyon and the producer of the movie, yes, but Kubrick was the writer and director. Kubrick was also FAMOUS for micromanaging his sets and nothing getting done without his explicit approval. He is as much if not MORE responsible for the tone of the movie than Harris. He was the one who re-wrote the script. He and Harris had a production company TOGETHER, they were on equal footing. They were friends. Lyons abuse was an open secret, NEWSPAPERS called her a Lolita jokingly referencing her "relationship" with Harris. Kubrick knew and he let it happen. He is responsible for the movie and he is responsible for either turning a blind eye of facilitating the sexual abuse of Sue Lyon. His grave is a gender neutral bathroom as far as I'm concerned.

The whole argument Kubrick makes that this video blindly regurgitates regarding the Hays Code is also nonsense. There were movies before Lolita that depicted child sexual abuse. Kubrick's argument was in regards to wanting to make the movie more erotic and sexually explicit because he too saw it as a love story (as he said himself). It would absolutely have been possible to make the movie about child sexual abuse, the book doesn't feature any explicit sexual interaction either. It would have still been a struggle and rest mostly on implication but the Hays Code did not keep Kubrick from making a good movie his own disgusting views of the story did.

Lastly, throughout the video they use the word "pedophilia" to mean anything from actual pedophilia to child sexual abuse. These things are not synonymous and muddying the waters adds to a cultural belief that anyone with an attraction to children is inevitably destined to also abuse children which drives pedophiles away from seeking help and learning to manage any urges safely and instead only exacerbates mental health issues. I know no one likes to think about the well-being of pedophiles but no one chooses to be born with that attraction and for the prevention of child sexual abuse helping people who suffer from it to access therapy resources IS important and will benefit everyone. The believe that pedophilia = child sexual abuse also helps offenders who are not pedophiles (which, by the way, as far as available numbers go is THE MAJORITY) brush their own actions under the rug as not driven by a persistent exclusive attraction to children and therefore negligible. Let's not add to any of that. And while Lolita is, of course, a story about a little girl the language in this video seems to relegate CSA in general to something that is done solely to girls by men which, again, from the available numbers we have, is NOT THE CASE and perpetuates a societal belief that protects female abusers and leaves male victims alone and without support. Let's not.

new lolita video essay by finalgirlstudios!! i think you'd like it

i have to say the title does not make me inclined to watch but maybe that's a fault of the clickbait economy and the actual point of the video is more nuanced.

[hologramcowboy]

I am interested to know your opinion on shippers obsession with JA. Both J2 and cockles/destiel shippers go to great lengths to prove Jensen is either with JP or Misha. Its like he is a prize and whoever has him is the winner. JA is absolutely adorable I know but why is him being with either of these men romantically important to these people.

Anon, as promised I took my time answering this and gave it my full attention, this is probably going to seem like the most judgmental post in the history of ever and possibly the longest but here goes:

When it comes to shipping, I've stated before that I love seeing people engage their creativity, fall in love with a show and then with creative license create something new that brings them joy. That's so awesome to see. But shipping has a dark side or, rather, a small percentage of people who are set on ruining the fandom experience for all.

Let me start by saying that Your question would be better posed to a shipper that would be open enough to discuss with you. But since you asked me, in particular, it probably was for a reason so here's my perspective. As always, please ignore whatever doesn't resonate and follow your inner guidance.

From a psychological point of view, no one becomes over invested in anything without projecting a personal issue unto that situation/person. I think the hateful shippers (let's remember there are also normal people in this group not just cray ones) see themselves in the people they ship so, for them, their favorite star getting Jensen is like them getting Jensen. It's a projection of an inner frustration. People devalue themselves so they don't see themselves as valuable enough to be in a great relationship, which is why they chose someone to stan who embodies what they want to be and who can have what they think they cannot have.

Psychologically speaking, taking sexual identities that don't belong to Jensen and trying to force them unto him is damaging. It would be damaging to any human let alone someone who is outside of these fandom groups and can't understand everything about them. But people never put themselves in Jensen's shoes. It's one thing to build a story inspired by a series and love it so much you share it with the actor and another to confuse the real-life actor with the character you created. But I do get that these people need to see themselves in Jensen and Misha/ Jensen and Jared/ etc., they need to be recognized, they need to win. That's human and natural but what I will never get is WHY they bully Jensen, make up lies about him and objectify him when they know this hurts him. Even the people who think Jared and Jensen are in a relationship, like that's cool as long as they don't harm anyone with it, it's their prerogative but when they assault others who believe differently or attack the actors then it becomes a toxic, toxic thing.

I should share an important aspect from my perspective, Actors use sexuality a lot in their scenes, they use it to create chemistry. So often, these rumors happen because people are ignorant about an Actor's toolbox and how sexuality is included in mostly everything. Why? Because it is primal. For this reason, there are exercises aimed at creating chemistry and when script analysis is done it's always best to give special attention and look for the main chemistry/climax points of any story, that's the ultimate goal after all. This chemistry might be sexual or otherwise, but it is the fuel of the story and it is what captivates the audience. Aside from this, the whole point of a tv show is to bring to life a plot with chemistry so everything is set up to support and feature the through line of a story. In Supernatural's case, it's the love between the two brothers, that's the core of Supernatural and so the whole show was dependent on the chemistry between the two leads, which meant they had to find to super attractive men who also vibed believably that they could share a strong bond despite being basically in competition as Actors.

All of this not considering the intimacy the camera creates from a cinematic point of view. So, it's funny to me when people think this one or that one are dating just because they have chemistry because any actor that is trained can create chemistry with anyone within minutes. That being said, people get discarded all the time during audition due to said chemistry, mostly not because they suck at creating it but because execs/directors/ etc are looking for a certain zing which you either have naturally or you learn to create masterfully. Sometimes it can even be created from the outside in by manipulating what the audience sees and how they see it through masterful direction, styling, context creation, etc.

Another point to consider is that someone who is highly desirable (think leading man, leading men and women are usually the men and women most want to sleep with) will magnetize others regardless of circumstances and create chemistry on a subconscious level. People automatically assume and start rumors but it's to deflect the fact that they are attracted and magnetized to said individual and perhaps lack the maturity or awareness to handle it in healthy ways. Think of any sex symbol, people all described them differently based on how lude or intelligent the person doing the describing was but they all had one thing in common: Blind Desire. Unfortunately, when blind desire hits people and they do not have the tools to process it some can get pretty evil. Look at Elta, she's shamelessly built her whole identity around sleeping with Jensen and gives zero f**** about the damage to his image she's done time and time again. So, his own wife behaves like an obsessed fan would. It's sad and heartbreaking. But this often happens when people have magnetism, most don't know how to process it, so you get these really weird experiences that make you want to move to a different planet and directly affect your self-esteem because when people are obsessed with you, you're not going to blame them, you're going to blame yourself and feel like there's something wrong within you. Whether people admit to it or not, what they do does have an impact on the Actors not just on their own mental balance.

So, the point is, shipping in and of itself isn't bad, it's only the percentage of people dead set on hatred and malice that choose practices that harm the actors and other fans that sucks big time.

Jensen is innocent in all of this and besides doing his job as an Actor, he has done nothing to encourage this type of behavior and it does not reflect his values, beliefs and choices, the only thing it reflects is the nature of the people who are being vile.

Again, I could be completely off on this, this is just my impression so please find a shipper that can openly and kindly speak to you and explain their valuable perspective because I am sure they have so much more to share and explain.

[nightswithkookmin]

GOING ON A HIATUS

Thanks to everyone who's taken the time out to read my posts and has enjoyed it so far. It's really been fun and entertaining exchanging thoughts and having these much deeper ship discussions.

I thought this issue was gonna go away but I woke up this morning to more people messaging me about finding my last video analysis on several other platforms without appropriate credit.

But that's not disturbing. The disturbing part is the people sliding into people's DM'S on other platforms to get them to take down my video because they don't want people sharing my content on other platforms as they believe it would only make my blog popular.

For those worried about this whole credit business, thanks for showing this much concern for me? I really appreciate the love and concern if it's from a genuine place of concern. Thank you...

I think some of you already know this by now or might have figured it out, I am a law student, I am very much well aware what is and what isn't within my rights? Lol

I honestly didn't see this whole credit thingy as a big deal. It's not. Not to me. Lol. I repost people's photos without credit too all the time. Often, it's because I don't know who to credit and most time my lazy ass just forgets to. Lol. I think it's normal? It's inconsequential I mean.

The videos I use are usually often water marked by the appropriate owners so I don't go through the hustle of figuring this whole credit business out. If I should decide to come back here again I will check that habit of mine?

While this whole credit business is not a big deal to me, malicious slander and defamation to my character is and I don't take it lightly.

It has been brought to my attention that some Jikookers from Tumblr have since been sliding into people's DM's on other platforms asking them to take down my video and or remove the credit they give to my post.

They are telling people I am problematic, calling me the Taekook Lives of the Jikook community. That I have been spreading lies about Jikook, that the Jikook Tumblr community hates me or something like that and to further caricaturize me and make me appear more evil in order to get people to turn on me and hate me, they make up the most ridiculous lies about me claiming that I believe a notorious serial killer is innocent.

Now I have since deleted my YT account because I don't want my colleagues to find out I am into shipping too lol- shipping is a guilty pleasure of mine and I know how this fandom works unfortunately. I've been a silent part of it since 2014. I mean it's started already. The Doxing and shit.

The original post under which these replies are from couldn't save sadly as my account has been deleted but you can see from my notifications the general feel of what my interests outside shipping looks like.

I am interested in a myriad of topics, from literature, Aliens, writing, Harry Potter, history, activism, advocacy, philosophy, law, politics, NASA, and mystery and murder among other things.

My quora is mostly filled with notifications from my Book community and True crime community and often I do share my thoughts and answer questions with regards to the psychology of murderers, legal evidence, notorious villains in literature- well I guess now you know the kind of lawyer I want to be if and when I'm able to complete law school.

But what has my interest in these topics got to do with Jikook and shipping please?? How does this prove I hate Jikook and spread lies about them?

This Kookie Min Monsta person slipped into someone's DMS and asked the person who had put up my video analysis to take it down or discredit me because to her I am problematic. She is not the only one.

You want so bad to paint me black- no pun intended just to win an argument? You claim I am the evil malicious person here but I am not the one sliding into people's dms trying to take credit away from people for their hardwork, spreading hate and negative energy, making things up to manipulate people's perception of others and get them to hate and turn on them- and all because of A SHIP? Damn. This is pathetic.

Who died and made you the gatekeeper of the jikook shipping community? Honestly antics like these don't work on me try again.

I made a video commentary on my Booktube YT account- yes I am part of the book YouTube community as well sue me or better still slip into their inboxes and tell them I voted for Trump therefore I hate chipmunks.

The commentary I made on YT months ago was when I was in the highs of finding a new passion and it was on Ann Rule's book, The Stranger Besides Me- a true crime novel on Ted Bundy which I found so poorly written that at the end of the book it left with me wondering whether or not Ted Bundy was guilty at all!

The Author's writing style which deviates from most writing styles of True Crime novels I have read gave me trust issues as I stated in the video. It felt more as if she was writing a made up fictional novel than an actual True Crime novel but because she knew Ted Bundy in person she made it seem as if we just had to believe her account.

Then there was this whole thing about the police not being able to match the DNA samples taken from his rape victims, to his own Semen because his Semen was DNAless- in lay man's terms. I'll spare you the technicalities involved.

As I stated in that video, I do believe Ted Bundy was guilty but I do not have much faith in the Judicial system, or criminal procedures or even the Author of that book- a sentiment most people within the true crime community share as well. We just had differing views on whether the writer's style took away from the narrative and waters down on the extent of Bundy's guilt.

We had a Similar conversation about Chris Watt. If the community I was engaging in didn't have a problem with my commentary why do you? Please don't meddle in things you know nothing about. It's embarrassing.

The conversation about whether or not Ted Bundy is innocent is moot but a philosophical one. It has nothing to do with Ted Bundy's guilt but more so the criminal procedures involved in his case and the different accounts that exists surrounding his case.

He was electrocuted, he confessed to his crimes no damn person with brains would think or assume he is innocent and I never said anything of that nature drew any conclusions to that effect.

Besides, I moved on from Ted Bundy a long time ago. Now I am into the Serial Killer who writes death poems and signs it off with drawings of the size of his dick at his crime scenes- mind your own business please or don't and let's have an intellectual discourse about him? Lmho.

I am also into cat memes if you care to know and have a whole IG dedicated to cat memes. I believe human beings are the most dumbest species in all the galaxies and when the Aliens arrive I am snitching.

When my mind is at rest, I often wonder if Aliens have masculinity complex and if they do whether or not their masculinity is contingent on the size of their dicks or whether they have to engage in a battle to the death with an alien grizzly bear to determine who is the man.

I love BTS memes too- a little too much and often end up debating over the internet with random people over whether BTS memes are funnier than cat memes- I'm weird, true. But how does all of that make me a bad person?

It's crazy how these people can go on these other platforms to ask people to take down the credits to my posts as well as my posts itself but can't ask people who run to these other platforms with misinterpretations of my work to take those down.

Instead they come on here to call me out for people's interpretations of my work?? It doesn't work that way. You are the author of your own opinion and interpretation of other people's work. You don't call out the original author for someone's opinion of their work. If that were so I would be emailing Stephanie Meyer for Anna Todd and her After series. Get some education.

I have since blocked this person and others whose Tumblr I have been able to find thanks to all those that's helped me finding them on here.

My gf also tried reaching out to the persons who shared my post after we realised this was becoming an issue and had asked them to credit her or my blog- but honestly I don't care about that yet she won't give it a rest. Lol. My ride or die this one. Sigh.

However, we realized soon that this is not about 'stealing' credit- can't call someone out for not giving credit when I suck at that myself. Lol.

This is about people's malicious intentions and their attempts to silence me and take away my right to freedom of expression however way that they can. This is wrong and evil.

I honestly don't care for all these ship politics these people are engaged in. I've had enough intelligent conversations to know the distinction between arguments that flows from bruised egos and actual conversations around a subject matter.

This whole I am right, she is wrong politics... y'all get that the point of having an opinion is not to be right, right? We all cant have the same perspective and you can't call someone a liar for holding views that is different from yours. That is a bizarre mentality to have.

As I stated in my post, that content I made was a rebuttal to the Taekook theories running around on the internet alleging JK glared at Tae when he pulled on his shoulder because he was jealous Tae and Jin were having fun behind him. He wasn't. He was worried Tae was gonna expose him and JM holding hands behind Suga.

If you don't think they were holding hands then Taekookers were right and his reaction was because he was Jealous of Taejin I guess...

But thats your truth. That's not my truth. I don't believe Taekook is real. JK isn't jealous of Taejin he is not Twelve- but then again he was sneaking around behind Suga holding his boyfriend's hands so I guess he is twelve? Lol. Jikook!

Do you.

But please stop the evil malicious attacks and seek immediate help. There is such a thing as right and wrong and this is just plain wrong. Your Karma and chakra are in the negative nodes and you need to fix it. It is not funny anymore.

Thank you to everyone who has shown genuine concerns for me in the past few days and thank you so much for trying to stand up for me. There are good people on here and I have met and interacted with a lot of them and thank you so much for such a wonderful experience and insightful discussions.

I don't hate people because of our differences in thoughts, beliefs, opinions. There's always room for dissenting opinions in every sphere. At the very least, we can agree to disagree and shake on it. But You can't make up shit about people just to prove your opinion is right and their opinions and views which differ from yours are 'wrong.

I am not a victim though, and they are not bullies, psst. They are just vile pathetic human beings exposing the greens of their insides. What you do says more about who you are as a person and human being. And this is who they are.

Just be a nice decent human being. That's what this world needs. Fix whatever is broken inside of you and free your mind and spirit. Hate is never the answer.

I'm going to be away for a while because I have studies, work and other interests I want to pursue at the moment- it's just my AADD flaring up so if you see me henceforth raving about Nana at least you'd know why. Lol. She's wrecking my Jimin bias. Lmho.

Spread positivity, do the right thing, stand up for a good cause and keep supporting Jikook. Jikook is real.

Until we meet again.

Signed,

GOLDY

[cryptid-science]

Shadow People

They usually come at night. Maybe you're reading or watching TV or just lying in bed. He's most often a man, and may be wearing a hat or a hood. A lot of times you'll only catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of your eye, as he flits across the wall or disappears through a doorway. Sometimes he's just a shadow, a flat projection sliding across the wall or ceiling; but other times, especially in the dark when you least expect it, shadow people appear as a full-bodied black apparition, jet black like a void in the darkness itself, featureless but for their piercing empty eyes.

The foggy Santa Lucia Mountains run along the central coast of California, and for hundreds of years, the Chumash Indians and later residents have told of the Dark Watchers, shadowy hatted, caped figures who appear on ridges at twilight, only to fade away before your very eyes. A visit to the Internet reveals hundreds and hundreds of stories from people who saw shadow people in their homes, on websites such as shadowpeople.org, from-the-shadows.blogspot.com, and ghostweb.com:

I opened my eyes and looked towards the middle of the room. I saw a large shadow in the shape of a person. It had no facial features that I could see and it wasn't moving. It was just standing there looking at me... I blinked and then it was gone.

I felt like someone was watching me so I turned to look toward the hallway and there it was in the doorway... It was a black figure. I could only see from the torso up. I felt it was a male and could feel that it was looking at me... I started to walk towards it and it disappeared back into the room.

There, at the foot of my bed, was a tall dark figure like a shadow. It appeared to be almost 7 feet tall with broad shoulders and was wearing what seemed to be an old fashioned top hat and some sort of cape... I watched as it glided past me and out the door of my room.

Correction: Further research suggests that the Chumash did not necessarily have any legend that reasonably corresponds to the Dark Watchers, and thus this link is probably the invention of 20th century ghost story tellers. - BD

It goes without saying that skeptics have long-standing explanations that, from the comfort of your armchair, adequately rationalize all the stories of shadow people. These explanations run the gamut, all the way from mistaken identification of a real shadow from an actual person or object, to various causes of optical illusions or hallucinations like drugs or hypnogogic sleeping states, even simply lying and making up the story. I think that probably everyone would agree that these have all happened, and therefore they do explain some people's experiences. But here's a fact: Try to offer any of those explanations to someone telling you about a specific sighting, and it will likely be immediately shot down. "I was not asleep." "I know the difference between a regular shadow and what I saw." "What about my friend who saw it with me?"

The truth is that it's probably not possible to explain most sightings. If it was some mysterious supernatural noncorporeal being who flitted through the room, no evidence would remain, and thus there's nothing to test or study. It's so trivial to fake photos or video of something as vague as a shadow person that when these exist, they're interesting but practically worthless as far as empiricism goes. Only in the rare case where an actual physical cause can be found, and you're able to consistently reproduce the effect at the right location and the right time of day and in the right lighting conditions, are you able to provide a convincing explanation. Most of the rest of the time, all you have is conjecture and hypothesis, and the eyewitness is likely to reject these.

When I was a kid we once lived in a house where if you walked up the stairs and one of the upstairs bedroom doors was open a crack, you might see a flash of movement inside the room from the corner of your eye. I saw it a number of times, and other people in my family did too. I thought it looked like someone threw a colored sweatshirt across the room. But: I never saw it whenever I walked carefully up the stairs and kept my eyes on that crack; it only happened if you weren't looking right at it and weren't thinking about it. The more you learn about how the brain fills in data in your peripheral vision and blind spots, the less unexpected and strange this particular experience becomes. I have no useful evidence that anything unusual happened, and I have good information that can adequately explain what was perceived. I personally am not impressed enough to deem it worthy of further investigation, but others might be, and that's a supportable perspective. But unless and until some substantial discovery is made, the determination that it must have been a shadow person or ghost is ridiculous. Nothing supports that conclusion. And yet my story is at least as reliable as 99% of the shadow people stories out there. I was not on drugs, I know the difference between a shadow and what I saw, and other people saw it too.

Enthusiasts of the paranormal offer their own set of additional hypotheses about shadow people. One proposes that shadow people are the embodiments of actual people who are elsewhere but engaged in astral projection. This is not an acceptable hypothesis. Like shadow people themselves, astral projection is an untestable, undetectable, unprovable conjecture. Explaining one unknown with another unknown doesn't explain anything, and the match itself cannot be made, since neither phenomenon has any known properties that you could look at and say "What we know of shadow people is consistent with what we know of astral projection." We know nothing about either, so there's no logical basis for any connection.

The same can be said of another paranormal explanation for shadow people, that they are "interdimensional beings". Let's make an outrageous leap of logic and allow for the possibility that interdimensional beings exist. What characteristics would they have? How would we detect their presence? What level of interaction would they have? How would they affect visible light? Since these questions don't have answers, you can't correlate interdimensional beings to the known properties of shadow people. Neither one has any.

But there are phenomena to which we can correlate these stories. We know the details in the eyewitness accounts, and we know the psychological manifestations of conditions like hypnogogia and sleep paralysis. A hypnogogic hallucination is a vivid, lucid hallucination you experience while you're still falling asleep. You're susceptible again eight hours later when you're waking up, only now it's called hypnopompia. But this seems such a cynical, closed-minded reaction. When you suggest hypnogogia as a possible explanation to a person who has witnessed shadow people, many times their reaction will be understandably negative, if not outright hostile. "You're saying I'm crazy" or "You're saying I imagined it" are common replies. Hypnogogia is neither a mental illness nor imagination, and to dismiss it as either is to underestimate the incredible power of your own healthy brain. Too many people don't give their brains enough credit.

I had a dramatic demonstration of the power of hypnopompia — the waking up version — when I was about 10 years old. Early one morning, the characters from Sesame Street put on a show for me in the tree outside my bedroom window. It had music, theme songs, lighting cues and costume changes: A full elaborate production, and it lasted a good hour. To this day, I have clear memories of some of the acts. I even went and woke my parents to get them to watch, but by then the show had gone away. I knew for a fact that I hadn't been asleep. I'd been sitting up in bed and writing down some of the songs they sang. Those writings were real, on real paper, and even made sense when viewed in the light of day. It had been a completely lucid, physical experience for me. But it only existed inside my own brain in a hypnopompic state. My brain had composed music, performed the music, written lyrics, and sang them in silly voices for some director who must also have come from within me. The skits were good. The actors were rough-sewn muppets, independently moving and climbing about, even swinging through the swashbuckling number, on tree branches representing the lines of a great pirate ship. Yet through it all, I'd been conscious and upright enough to actively transcribe the lyrics. That's the power of a brain.

But many believers reject the idea that their brain has such capabilities, and instead conclude that any such perceptions can only be explained as visitations from supernatural entities. One such believer, Heidi Hollis, has gone on Coast to Coast AM radio a number of times with suggestions to defend yourself from shadow people:

Learn to let go of your fear.Stand your ground and deny them access to your person.Focus on positive thoughts.Use the name of Jesus to repel them.Keep a light on or envision light surrounding you.Bless your room with bottled spring water.

Interestingly enough, such actions may actually work (although it's not the techniques themselves that are responsible — plucking a chicken or beating a drum could work just as well, if you think it will). Sleep disorders in the form of disruptive episodes such as these are called parasomnias, and the primary treatments for parasomnias are relaxation techniques, counseling, proper exercise, and the basic lifestyle changes that contribute to better sleeping habits. True believers who reject any notion suggesting their experience was anything but a genuine visit from a supernatural being, but who apply any such remedies as Hollis suggests, do indeed have a good chance of finding relief, when the process of applying the remedy brings them some peace of mind. Even though these remedies are rarely going to be as effective as professionally guided treatment, the fact that they can sometimes work only reinforces the true believers' notion that the shadow person was in fact an interdimensional demon, and that sprinkling holy water around the room did in fact scare it away.

These experiences are weird, and can be scary. But they're also fascinating, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities to experience the true power of your brain. To conclude that it's a supernatural being is to rob yourself of the real wonder of what's probably happening. Fa