#Objectionism

[cloudabserk]

look i understand if you like marius because this is the evil morally bankrupt vampire story. however when people argue that marius was actually really cool and chill and normal about armand i want to fight them

[calicotisane]

Embarrassment

[theonceandfuturequeenoftarts]

Harry wants it known that he’s at the ministry’s Yule gala under duress. It was all he could do to force himself into his dress robes and make himself presentable; he can’t fathom where he’ll find the energy he needs to get through the rest of the evening.

People he barely knows keep coming up to him – as they always do – to shake his hand, chat with him about this and that, thank him for his role in defeating the dark lord. (Still. He really wishes they’d stop doing that. It’s been more than six years now.)

And then there are pockets of people, staring at him and whispering behind their hands. Another constant in his public appearances, though he imagines the content of their conversations is at least a little different from usual, if not the tone. 

He’s just escaped another fan and is looking to make a beeline for the bar when it happens. Harry sees his doom approaching from several metres away but, since they saw him first and he (stupidly) refuses to run away, he stands there like an idiot, wishing he were anywhere else.

“Hi Harry,” Ginny says. It looks like she wants to hug him or get close, and his shoulders stiffen involuntarily. Thankfully, she stays where she is.

“Hullo Ginny,” he replies and, without looking at the man, utters a terse, “Malfoy.”

The smug arse smirks at him. “Potter.”

“How’ve you been?” Ginny asks, which. Rude. If she actually cared about that, she wouldn’t have cheated on him with the git on her arm, but whatever. 

“Oh, fine. Y’know, keeping busy.” God, he hates small talk.

Before he can respond with the requisite, ‘And you?’, Malfoy jumps in. “Yes, I suppose you have been, from what I’ve heard.”

Ugh. Fucking Malfoy. Harry wishes he had a drink or seven. He can’t believe he’d rather be caught in another conversation with that weirdo from earlier about his wand-care habits, of all things.

Ginny gently elbows Malfoy in the side with a chiding, “Draco.”

He’s considering the merits of letting himself be ripped apart by the anti-apparition wards to get away from this conversation – splinching himself can’t be much more painful than this – when a hand bearing a very welcome drink appears in front of him. That’ll do for now, though splinching is still on the table. Especially when he follows the hand to the arm up to the face and of course it’s Ri– Tom.

Harry gives him the side-eye, but accepts the drink. “Thanks.”

Tom leans in slightly, just enough so the two in front of them can’t read his lips. “You looked like you might be in need of a rescue.”

And as he pulls back out of Harry’s personal space, he rests a hand low on Harry’s back. Harry tenses for a moment before just accepting that tonight is all about him being as uncomfortable as possible. He takes a gulp of his drink – something dark and spicy. It burns pleasantly.

When he starts paying attention again, he finds Ginny looking at Tom with surprise; Malfoy is looking at the other man with – is that a hint of fear? And Tom is staring them both down, but somehow managing to do it with a veneer of politeness. 

“Good evening, Draco,” he says pleasantly. “Ginevra.”

“Riddle.” Malfoy’s greeting is stiff, as is the awkward, aborted bow he gives. Hmm.

“And Harry,” Tom says, turning to look at him fondly. “So good to see you again.”

Hoo boy.

“You,” Harry murmurs from behind the rim of his drink. “Are not subtle.”

Tom takes the opportunity to slide his hand further around Harry’s back, lightly gripping his hip and pulling him closer up against Tom’s side. He returns Harry’s withering look with an undaunted smile. “I wasn’t trying to be.”

“Yeah, I’m getting that.”

“When did you two get so cosy?” Ginny cuts in. Her tone is playful, but there’s more than offhand curiosity lurking beneath.

“Uh.” Shite, he doesn’t ever want Ginny to find out how this started, but especially not in public. Who knows who’s listening in or watching. “We ran into each other by chance a month and a half ago” –actually, he’s how I found out you were fucking Malfoy behind my back– “and we’ve met up a few times since then. It’s nice to have someone… uninvolved to talk to.”

Tom looks amused at that. He’s definitely involved in the demise of Harry’s relationship, and if there’s one thing they haven’t been doing (but probably should), it’s talking.

“I’ve been helping him expand his horizons,” Tom says without apparent innuendo, yet somehow the layered meaning is still obvious. Prat. “Getting him to try new things, keeping him busy.”

“You and half the town,” Malfoy mutters under his breath.

“I see…” Ginny says over him. “Funny how that escaped the rumour mill.” 

Harry laughs awkwardly, wishing for a stray lightning bolt to strike and put him out of his misery. “Must not’ve been exciting enough.”

The conversation dies for long enough to become uncomfortable - well, even more so. Malfoy touches Ginny’s elbow and leans down to speak into her ear. Harry seizes their distraction to turn on Tom.

“Are you sure you don’t want to piss on me to mark your territory while you’re at it?” he asks dryly.

Tom wrinkles his nose delicately in disgust. “No need to be crude. Though…” He gives Harry a considering once-over. “I’m not at all opposed to the idea of you carrying my mark. How do you feel about tattoos?”

Harry snorts. “Not a chance.”

The other man tucks his face in close to Harry’s, breath hot against the skin beneath his ear. “What about bruises?”

As though he doesn’t regularly leave an abundance of those on Harry anyway, what with his penchant for treating Harry like a chew toy. Harry shivers all the same, just a little bit. He can feel the barest brush of Tom’s grin against his neck.

Ginny clears her throat pointedly.

“Good to know,” Tom breathes as he pulls back.

Ginny continues trying to talk to him while Malfoy makes the odd snide comment, Tom attempts to meld into Harry’s side while replying for him and being subtly insulting, and Harry tries to become one with the floor. He realises he’s missed a question when he breaks out of his daze to find both Tom and Ginny are watching him expectantly.

“Huh?”

Ginny starts to say something when Tom cuts her off. "Care to dance?"

If looks could kill, Tom would be in a bad way with how Ginny’s glaring at him. "Harry doesn't dance," she says tetchily. Tom doesn't bother with her, waiting for Harry's wary nod.

He looks back at Ginny smugly. "Perhaps yet another new thing to which I can introduce him.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Harry says, grabbing Tom’s wrist and dragging him towards the dance floor. Best to get this over with, and all the better if it means he doesn’t have to speak with anyone else in the meantime.

"She's not wrong," he mutters once they don't have to fear being overheard. "I don't dance.”

"Just follow my lead," Tom replies easily. “Would it be correct to say you don’t particularly care about stepping on my toes?”

Harry stares at him blankly for a moment before he feels a reluctant smile appear on his face. “It might be the one redeeming part of this.”

“The only one?” Tom says archly, pulling him into the correct hold. And, without giving Harry a chance to breathe or think, they’re off in what Harry thinks might be a waltz. 

"That was quite the risk you took," Harry says, trying not to stare at his feet and hoping for the best as Tom spins him around the room. He is, oddly enough, a much better dancer when he’s not constantly concerned about crushing someone's foot.

"Was it?"

"Yes. What made you think I wouldn't refuse and let you look foolish?"

He catches sight of a pleased grin on Tom's face from the corner of his eye. "The same thing that made me ask you to dance when I've seen your previous forays. You rise to the occasion when I push you.” He looks at Harry, for a moment, proudly. “I also knew you’d be more than amenable to anything that got you away from those two.”

Harry can’t deny that.

“Now look sharp, and do try to keep up,” Tom says, the hand at Harry’s lower back gripping him a little tighter.

“Wha–?” 

And it’s all he can do not to trip over his feet and take them both down in a painful sprawl, but the rush, the heady triumph of making it through the successive, intricate turns, goes straight to his head. Before he can stop himself, Harry lets out a loud peal of laughter, further disrupting the couples around them and drawing sneers and disapproving glances. And he just doesn’t care. Not that he thinks he normally would’ve, but it feels like it’s been ages since he’s felt so light and happy. So, he doesn’t think about the people around him. He doesn’t think about how it’s Tom who’s making him feel this way. He just basks in the sun-warm feeling of contentment – of being okay for the first time in a while.

(One night)

[tanadrin]

You've criticised nationalism a lot recently — don't worry, I'm not going to start insulting you or anyone, but could you tell me what your definition thereof is? Because in conversations with other people I have realised not everyone actually thinks it's the same thing (e.g. my mother seems to consider it the same as patriotism, ergo "being proud/glad to be part of your people group" — I doubt this is your definition, but as an example of how far-flung these may be)

i mean. i'd say a few things to this. one, uh. i realize this is annoying but. discourse objects do not have definitions--or rather, they may have definitions which are useful guides to how people use the word, but what discourse objects actually are is constructed by usage, and so will vary depending on how different users of those concepts divide the semantic field, and even depending on the context in which they are used. so, like, be aware of that pitfall

and having laid down that marker, i would then go on to say i don't think nationalism is strongly differentiated from patriotism, either in terms of how it's usually defined or how it's used in practice. i think patriotism is often used as, like. a synonym for a lighter, fluffier form of nationalism. i don't find compelling the idea that patriotism is inherently a virtue. and i think a lot of manifestations of patriotism are also manifestations of nationalism. like the dictionary definition of nationalism is probably going to be something like "preference for one's own nation and its interests especially vs other nations and their interests" and i think that covers a lot of expressions of patriotism, too.

indulging our tribalistic affinity for Us vs Them thinking is cute when it's something that doesn't matter at all, like sports, or which way the toilet paper faces, but i think as a style of thinking it ought to be resisted strongly when it comes to politics. the relevant virtue ought to be solidarity and humanistic feelings that encompass as many people as possible--ideally the whole human race--and not a sufficiently nice form of political or ethnic chauvanism

[gideonisms]

eowyn should have been a lesbian. Eowyn/faramir is like, fine, but it misses the point of eowyn for all baby dyke eowyn stans which is not that she longs for glory in battle and doesn't realize war is ugly and brutal, but that she's caught between two awful options and she doesn't want to be given one based on her gender. She's not in love with aragorn, she envies him because she finds the tasks he has in life more preferable and she hero worships him. Is this the point Tolkien was trying to make? Well, no,

[why-jigsaw-is-a-middle-schooler]

Reason #16

Thinks people who spend too much time taking photos instead of ~enjoying life in the moment~ are Satan incarnate.

[oksurethisismyname]

The Zoro Sanji dynamic in the live action gives major Chad Ryan I can’t dance high school musical 2 homoerotic competitive vibes but maybe that’s just me

[searchforahero]

Hi guys i wrote fan-fiction about Tim doing surgery on Kon and Kon being really gay about it :]

My Heart in Your Hand by searchforahero (anonymous) Fandom: DCU (Comics) Relationship(s): Tim Drake/Kon El Character(s): Kon-El, Tim Drake

Chapters: 1/1 Word Count: 3925

Description:

He feels Tim's fingers press against his heart more deeply than he has felt any sensation before in his life. Tim looks down sharply when he hears the rush of air escape Kon, come to think of it he could probably feel it too, the way his palm is essentially cupping his right lung. "Are you okay?" Tim asks, he's frowning, eyebrows drawn tight, and analyzing Kon's face for any sign of pain or discomfort. Kon grins up at him, he feels insane. This is insane, right? Having his best friend touching his heart and fondling his lung isn't exactly something he expected to ever happen to him. "Okay, uh, I'm glad you don't seem to be in unmanageable pain. You uh, have a nice heart, did you know that? Good and healthy." Tim's frown gets even deeper, which Kon hadn't imagined possible. "Jesus, that was a weird thing to say, I promise not to show up in your room in the middle of the night to steal your heart. You have a nice heart, who the fuck says that?"

[de4thparty]

"Shipping Joesara is bad because platonic male/female friendships are rare in fiction!" okay. I don't think me tumblr posting about it has any affect on what is in the text though

[wardensantoineandevka]

also, the fact that "Lucanis has had much of his life planned out for him and that he hasn't had a lot of choices until recently about the direction of his life" is being held as something keeping him from choosing to be not okay with being a killer for hire / stopping him from realizing that he actually doesn't like killing for money / forcing him to find ways to find the contract killer thing more palpable / preventing him from living his truth that he isn't actually fine with being paid to stab people to death is really interesting bc it really ends up framing Lucanis as incapable of understanding the full possible moral breadth and implication of what he does—despite him literally discussing the matter with at least Emmrich and Davrin

like, really fascinating that people would rather create a framework in which Lucanis is oblivious to the potential moral implications of what he does simply because he did not choose this life, or in which he is incapable of understanding what it is that he is doing or is ignoring it, or that the fact that he didn't actively choose this life long ago somehow absolves him of the capability or even responsibility of understanding anything possibly morally objectionable or wrong about his actions instead of imagining that Lucanis is operating within a framework where he fully understands what he is doing and does not see it as objectionable at all. it's interesting that the idea that Lucanis is able to maintain this intense cognitive dissonance is more palpable to some people than the idea that he is someone who is consciously maintaining a specific personal and relative moral framework.

in my opinion, it tends to come across as leaning so deeply hard into the facts that Lucanis has had limited agency in some aspects of his life, that he has very much endured and borne a lot of trauma and suffering that shaped him into the person he is now, and he is finding it difficult to assert his own agency (that he DOES have, being unwilling or hesitant to assert it is not the same as not having it) that it ends up warping it until it is framing Lucanis as having absolutely no agency ever in his life and robbing him of ALL agency to the point that it strips him of his textual perspective and personal moral framework. that overeagerness to emphasize his very real struggles and traumas ends up, in a pattern that I find recurring in many fandoms, presenting him as some endless passive victim who has no control even now over his life and has never contributed to building and maintaining his own perspective and framework. like, it's failing to thread the needle between all these things and facets of his character.

[randomfoggytiger]

Dear Tiger, I have always recommended your blog to many people who are interested in the X-Files. My recommendation goes something like this: “Brilliant analysis, well-founded opinions, without unnecessary judgments about the actors' private lives. But beware! The blog is very fond of David and can't be impartial. It's not hostile, but, even unconsciously, it minimizes Scully's importance and Gillian's talent, to the detriment of Mulder and Duchovny. Imagine the blog as if it were a proud mother talking about a beloved child, extolling (and greatly exaggerating) their qualities, and ignoring their flaws. In conclusion, if you allow for this fierce protection of David, it's one of the best - if not the best - blog about the X-Files.” When I read his analysis of the questions posed by Anon, I couldn't help but smile and remember this recommendation of mine. Duchovny is lucky to have such loyal and positive fans, who get to see the best version of him, always. An excellent 2025 to you Tiger, I'll always keep coming back and recommending your blog.🥰🥰 PS: On this particular topic, I think about 85% of your analysis is correct - but there's about 15% that I disagree with, I think it's more of a speculation/interpretation favorable to Duchovny, than exactly the reality.

I was reading this feeling all fuzzy before I got to the "impossible to be impartial" bit. XDDDD

Ah, well. Do I come across as partial? o.o Hm, I can tone down my language in future if needed-- don't mean to come across as if I hero worship (or mentally coddle) DD. His personal life isn't intertwined with mine, for one; and he's also a man who behaved selfishly, made terrible mistakes, and didn't learn gratitude until AA. He's probably still selfish because all humans are; but he's also made personal changes, has grown a lot, and continues to prove-- via his work and actions and interests and mindset-- that he isn't regressing. I give him the charitability I hand to any other person I deem 'good' and 'doing their best'. Ultimately, I just get super happy for others who are trying and are succeeding or are on the path to their own version of success. :DDDDDD

I will say, you do raise a point I've been mulling over: I don't talk about Gillian as much as I do David solely because I haven't found a blog that gives me all her work/projects/interviews/etc. up front. Though I will stipulate that I don't see the sense in taking his side over hers-- there aren't sides in their relationship to me. And I'm fond of her, too! :))))))) She did incredible work on The X-Files, and incredible work afterwards. And she powered through the 90s as a divorced, single mom with mental health struggles, which is worthy of an award. Again, I simply have less easy access to her work. I do heavily disagree that I minimize GA's importance and talent, unconsciously or not: she's part of a team; and she carried the show on her back in David's absence. That more than wins her a medal of honor. Moreover, Scully is irrefutably a woman so forward-moving and inspiring in her own right that the Scully Effect was created in her honor. (She also inspired me to take better care of my nails. Her manicures are spectacular.) You can't have the show without her.

Now that I've got my comments out of the way, thank you so, so much for dropping in to let me know your thoughts! Your words were (and are) so kind; and the knowledge that you spread my work to others, and that they might enjoy it, too, is... it's wonderful. And if you have to buffer my blog ahead of time however you need, go ahead. As long as others know what they're getting into, I suppose. XDDDD It really does mean the world. We all have days where we wonder if we're just shouting into a void; and some days the void is wider and darker than others. But knowing that you and others think my meta is worthwhile... it puts a lot into perspective. And being described how you've described me is.. thank you. So, you know what? I'll wear "loyal and positive fan" with pride, even if you punch on "Impartial"-- it's how you honestly see me; and I'm not at all offended about that. Now that I've thought about it, I'm downright amused.

Lastly, disagreement is always welcome! If you want to share, I'd be curious to know what the particulars are-- it keeps me on my toes by forcing me to double check my own opinions. >:DDDDD

I'll definitely be rereading this ask in future when the void gets bothersome. Thank you, thank you!

[thegreatyin]

is it a hottake to say we need to stop cancelling things for the audacity of having someone working on them do something twitter users find morally objectionable. "the art director of this thing draws weird furry porn" yeah and good for them?? what does that have to do with my enjoyment of this entirely unrelated piece of fiction

[yappacadaver]

also i just think that, with the narrowing of the scope of roleplaying in this game, and in that vein the complete inability to generate disapproval with companions... given that all companions are incapable of rejecting rook outside of literally one companion and one scene, i think the term "playersexual" is absolutely called for. these companions sit around waiting for you to romance them, you can romance all of them, they will never reject you (again save for thee one exception), and they will never even have an issue with your character flirting with the others. no jealousy dialogue, no crisis scenes, no way to build a character they could find objectionable

[age-of-moonknight]

Werewolf by Night: Red Band (Vol. 1/2024), #2.

Writer: Jason Loo; Penciler: Sergio Dàvila; Inkers: Jay Leisten and Aure Jimenez; Colorist: Alex Sinclair; Letterer: Cory Petit

[solitarelee]

I'm pretty dubious about this community thing, but in the name of giving it a shot I have joined frogblr, which is just pictures of frogs and has like 400 people in it

[freakinator]

i feel like perhaps my own sense of morality and personhood gets a lil lost in translation when i do analysis type shit so just some things to keep in mind when reading anything from me

i dont really have an internal sense of morality, simply consequences and principles

this means i dont really care for whats "good", simply for whats logical which can sometimes be confused for/muddled with whats good cause to me whats logical is whatever causes the least problems in the long run

this also means that things like hypocricy, selfishness, deceit, etc are value neutral to me and are only really problems when they actually Cause problems so when i say someone has a trait thats commonly seen as something negative i dont necessarily see it as such

related to the above, i believe most personality traits are value neutral including things commonly seen as "good" and that on their own they dont mean much of anything, their meanings come from how the actual person uses them

its also why i dont really take much note of "negative" values until they pass a certain threshold or if im specifically talking about those traits

i react a lot more than i actually feel cause if i align with what i actually feel then yall are literally getting nothing from me ever lol

im a Lot more paranoid and emotionally & interpersonally disconnected than i let on which definitely colors how i do analysis

this especially applies to psychology things cause things related to it can be a genuine danger for me (both socially and my own psyche) so im a lot more hyperreactive of warning signs regarding that (whether perceived or true)

uhh i dont think it actually Changes what i say but it might change how yall read my posts, unless ig youre someone who already assumed i dont actually care that much lol