#Thought crime is not real

[moniquill]

Gonna copy/paste some choice tags from the dumpster fire without attribution (this is not about telling these individuals that they're wrong it's about combatting THE MINDSET)

#whenever i post a fic i have to remind myself that if anyone finds anything sexual that's their problem

Good that you are aware that this is a line of thought that you should not pursue! Kinda weird that you need to remind yourself of this but hey whatever helps you get over it!

#The number of times I have wanted to create certain pieces of media but refrain from it because I know freaks will find a way 2 sexualise it

NOT HEALTHY! You are not impacted by others sexualising your work, and you need to work on your basic attitude and perception if you think it's cool to call other people 'freaks'

#Some things shouldn't be sexualized publicly

What counts as 'public' in this instance? Other people's blogs/communities??

#this.#this makes me so mad#ive seen this literally ruin some friends' creativity and ruin the things they like that ARENT EVEN SEXUAL#i also tend to worry about how these kinds of people will interpret my work but i shouldnt HAVE to think about that#ugh#misc

Fun fact: You DON'T have to think about it! Neither do your friends! Their anxiety is what ruined their creativity - the call is coming from inside the house; that is the thing to be addressed and worked on! Not the thoughts and feelings of OTHER PEOPLE.

#THIS OMG#IT'S SO. KRIFFING ANNOYING AND HARD#especially as a whump writer.#i dont WANT PEOPLE REACTING THAT WAY WITH WHAT I WRITE#but at this point I've kinda given up trying?? Im kind of just doing whatever I want because I KNOW im not doing it like that#im done being responsible for people's dirty minds tbh

When you release a creative work for consumption by an audience, you don't get any kind of say in how they react. It doesn't matter that you don't want people reacting 'that way'. If you cannot accept this, you should not publish works at all.

YOU WERE NEVER RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER PEOPLE'S MINDS. It's kind of fucked up that you're judging them as 'dirty', unpack that shit.

#THANK YOU THIS IS THE WORST#do you know how hard it is to write something like torture or 'whump' in general without the youtube comments section invading your mind#don't even get me started when it comes to writing certain kinds of magic#and you then have to be like 'is this so prevalent that it would be naive of me to ignore it?#or is it really just the niche corner of Internet freakdom that I think it is?'#speaking also as someone who was frequently teased as a kid for saying things I thought were innocent but were common innuendos#writing

If the youtube comment section is invading your mind, that is strictly a you problem. If it's invading your actual work (in the comments section) that's what the block button is for. You are putting far too much effort into thinking about this.

#I want to have all these kinds of dynamic relationships#there's one I want to develop to have a certain tenor to it#but I know it will become a ship#I'm doing it anyways#but it hurts knowing that there will be people who will read it and ship the characters#when the characters don't actually have any romantic attachment#I know this isn't just about relationships#but it's the thing about this mindset that bothers me most

It is not healthy or normal to be hurt by ideas that you think that other people might be having. That is disordered thinking and you should address it. Other people shipping your characters does not, in fact, harm you.

#I think the big thing is#you don't have to advertise if it's sexual to you#if that one weird thing does it for you#fine!#Just don't tell me

This is actually entirely reasonable! You don't have to subject yourself to reader/viewer reactions that make you uncomfortable! If people are harassing you, block them!

#honestly real#there is such a huge difference between ‘sex is normal and okay’ and ‘you should sexualize everything and everyone’#crazy how people have no capacity to respect ppl’s boundaries

I'm putting the word Boundaries on the high shelf until genZ and gen Alpha learn that they do not refer to the behavior of OTHER PEOPLE.

via https://theartoflivingconsciously.com/set-boundaries/:

Setting boundaries is about knowing what boundaries you want to establish and enforcing them by taking action within yourself. It’s not taking action to control someone else.

A boundary is not “You aren’t allowed to do ______,” it is “If you do _______, I will _______.”

It’s not “don’t yell at me,” “don’t call me before work hours,” or “stop commenting on my weight.”

A boundary is:

“If you yell at me, I will leave the room or hang up the phone.”

“If you call me before 9 am, I will let the call go to voicemail and call you back during work hours.”

“If you keep commenting on my weight, I will stop visiting.”

A boundary is an action YOU take. It’s not forcing someone to act or not to act a certain way, because that’s impossible.

#when people make things inherently not sexual sexual#eye twitch

THIS IS WHAT FETISH IS. THIS IS WHAT KINK IS.

Literally the only thing that is inherently sexual are the genitals of an aroused human being (and arguably orifices) - your own or a partner's. Everything else is kink/fetish. Yes, even tits. Even other anatomical parts. Everything that you find arousing. You are not different or special for only being aroused by shit that the culture you live in deems 'normal'.

I think the biggest shame about people becoming way too comfortable sexualizing everything is that it limits creative freedom. now you have to worry about someone's obscure fetish just in case you write something and you have freaks online like 👀 ayooOOO like shut up man. if you're finding sexual undertones in mundane things, you don't 'see the world differently', you have a mental disorder.

No one should have to carefully scoot around something because the internet has made it ok to see everything through a sexual lens

[jellybeanium124]

jsyk if I catch any of y'all posting "happy october 7th!" next month that's it. you could not be more of a disgusting, heartless ghoul than if you're looking forward to posting "happy 10/7! death to israel!" 10/7 was a genocidal terrorist attack which has cost thousands of innocent people their lives and there is no word for the absolute depths of evil you'd have to be to celebrate it.

[zero-day-s-sober]

rip dylan you woulda loved edblr

[itscherryterry-again]

yea

[florasletter]

[edwinisms]

it’s actually so wild to me that this fairly quirky YA type show gave both of its main characters deaths that can, in one way or another, solidly be considered hate crimes. they were both flat out murdered as a result of being A) gay and effeminate or B) brown (south asian, specifically) and you could argue whether or not those kids thought of it that way in the moment or whatever but the bottom line is that they would not have been in the situations that killed them if they weren’t of their respective minorities. like legitimately that is a ballsy choice for this kind of netflix show, let alone for the two Main Characters, and i respect it big time

[m4rs-ex3]

ok as an ✨ artiste ✨ i'm here to tell non-drawers that drawing a person you know is a crazy intimate thing. like it seems so simple but depicting someone's appearance forces you to think about everything--every part of their physical attributes to their mannerisms and presence--in a way that makes you feel almost intrusive even if it's just a simple cartoon and even if you're not that close with the person. all this to say that callum drawing rayla is insane. like you don't just do that casually, specifically when you're already in love

[sad-endings-suck]

“Why would you even ship that character with anybody?! He’s basically irredeemable to me—“

TO YOU!! He’s irredeemable to you. But some of us are silly geese that like our men to be the sexy, sad, feral, pathetic wet cats that they really are deep down, because we aren’t allergic to joy.

Is that okay with you??!? Is that permissible in the eyes of the Chronically Online Board of Hypothetical Ethics and Human Resources for Fictional Characters That Are Not Real™️®️.

You can go enjoy your curated selection of stale two dimensional wonderbread men in the corner, like the misguided pitiful lost soul that you are. the rest of us will be enjoying ourselves as our pathetic wet rag himbos and twinks kneel on the ground and beg to taste pussy/cock so hard they nearly come, like real men. just as god herself intended.

[burntblueberrywaffles]

"Coriolanus had this bad thought early in the book so clearly he was evil all along!" y’all hate people with intrusive thoughts and mental illness so much and it shows.

YES president Snow is an irredeemable villain. NO he was not always "destined to be evil". The whole point is that he could’ve been good and yet he wasn’t.

[scarletfasinera]

I hate when people are like "I already didn't like xyz so it's not difficult for me to boycott it unlike those loser customers that actually Liked the thing which I could never understand bc I was never a customer uwu" bc like. That literally isn't boycotting lmao. That is just Never Being A Customer In The First Place, which means nothing actually.

Boycotts are primarily about applying pressure (or completely making it impossible to operate) via financial/commercial/economic impact. AKA it's about money and capital.

If you already weren't spending money on a product/franchise/company, then you were already never part of their sales data, and you just doing nothing & making absolutely no change to your daily life and just continuing to not be part of their sales data as normal, has literally no material impact. You were already never a factor. The people who WERE customers & WERE part of the sales data & ARE withdrawing their money from those sales figures actually ARE making a material impact.

"Supporting" something isn't about vibes or thoughts or feelings or you telling your best friend how much you like a thing, "support" in a meaningful sense is specifically material. It is financial. Refusing to continue supporting something means taking the money you were previously spending on it & putting it elsewhere. If you were never spending money, you were never supporting it, and therefore it doesn't make any difference if you continue to not support it. Boycotting is something CUSTOMERS and CONSUMERS do.

SO STOP FUCKING BRAGGING ABOUT IT & STOP MAKING FUN OF PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ARE BOYCOTTING FOR "EVER LIKING XYZ TO BEGIN WITH" & STOP SPREADING THIS FALSE IDEA OF HOW BOYCOTTING WORKS LMAO sorry for capslocking I remembered I was annoyed

I just hate this low-morale mean-spirited bullshit some people do in the notifs on boycotting info posts where they arbitrarily moralize about something they just don't understand so they can pat themselves on the back for doing literally literally nothing AND inadvertently spreading misinfo in the process. Be quiet. Go do something that matters. There are plenty of posts going around, including from Palestinians themselves, with lists of references for how to help Palestine & other similar causes for people currently in crisis, please please do something For Real instead of boasting online about your fandom superiority complex as if it means anything.

[proshippers-against-censorship]

contact is based on actual interactions and relationships so...

pro c is being in favor of having sexual/romantic relationships with the thing/person one is attracted to

anti c is the opposite, being against having sexual/romantic relationships with the thing/person one is attracted to

it could only become real contact if one admitted/confessed their feelings or made a move towards having a relationship. you cannot harm others by thinking about them.

Right you are.

[hellofastudysession]

am i rlly going to write a death note literary analysis when i could be doing other things

about the discourse going on in the tag abt "death note is acab and thats why the characters couldnt better the world with the note (/written in somewhat jokey matter)" vs "death note is trying to say we all have potential for evil, especially if you get a chance to insta-hurt ppl without repercussions, and it doesnt matter if youre a cop or not", i personally feel like it ignores the things that i like abt death note, which is "both of these things are true", and simultaneously "both of these things do not matter". the first part of this is dedicated to the first point, the latter to the last.

first point. i think its an important part of the message and themes (unintentional or not, and i lean on the former because... come on, can you really say the author intended you to not think of the cops as good people, at least compared to light and l) that light is a cops son, and that almost everyone who gets the death note is cop adjacent/thinks like a cop and is already corrupt/powerful when they get it (mello raised to think hed be just like l, yotsuba group is self explanatory; you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me teru "churchill" mikami, who was hand selected by light out of a bunch of rabid kira supporters, is a normal citizen). i appreciated the cop post bc its rlly important to not gloss over that aspect.

all of this would be an argument for "only someone like them would do something like this, and i am not like them, so im above them and immune to thinking about what id do with it", but... misa is the MOST important outlier in all of this bc her murders are solely selfish in nature and shes not doing any of this for "the greater good"!!! her nature of being an exception and still a very very bad person is really really important...

or it would be if death note gave a shit about her character at all!!! im not talking about her tragic side, im talking about exploring the ramifications of her killing people the way lights murders are (somewhat) explored. that would strengthen the message greatly! but shes dismissed and that weakens it overall. firstly, she's dismissed by the characters when l only sees her as a way to get to kira and basically shelves her the rest of the time. secondly, shes dismissed by the narrative when her character is gradually ground down to a stump and (not to sound perilously close to the bad takes ppl meme about) she never faces repercussions for her actions. every other character using the death note is treated relatively seriously, but misa just dies bc her love is dead. im not saying this isnt a... fitting punishment or that it isnt in character, but it doesnt fit snugly into the theme other people are talking about of "you reap what you sow" at all.

we do have something of an equivalent to misa's grayscale motives. surprise surprise, its light yagami. first is light's characterization in the musical (i will also note that misa never kills anyone in the musical). light's thinking is coplike, yes — he literally starts his first song by talking about "throw[ing] away the key" — but also, oddly enough, could be read as progressive and therefore sympathetic to tumblr ("let the corporations make the regulations / and hold no one accountable when everything gets wrong / let the rich and famous get away with murder / every time a high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk"). compare to the anime and manga, where his bigotry and pride and disgust come from a place of lukewarm dissatisfaction and boredom. the musical has much less time to play around with lights character, so it gives the audience something to immediately hook on. more on how that actually plays out later.

in the animanga, none of this is justified from the start. animanga light could say he was just killing people to make humanity way, way worse, and that wouldnt matter, because at the root of it, it was always his boredom that made him pick up the note. of course he actually believes in justice and believes hes doing the right thing (no, he believes he's doing the wrong thing, for the sake of the world... the right thing, because he is god...), but it was boredom at the start. all animanga light says about justice and righteousness and the law is a front in the end, bc he is exactly like l and misa — amoral. selfish. searching for entertainment. hedonistic. we know this. he kills naomi misora*. he kills lind l. turner. everything hes saying deserves to be dismissed from the beginning.

"but doesnt that mean you agree with the discourse post you wrote this post to argue against?" like i said, i agree with both of them! but i... still think its not right to reduce death note to the message of "the power to kill people is bad". because that is not exactly what the story is saying, even though that's literally its whole plot and therefore reaching that conclusion is self explanatory (lmao). let's look at the concept of mu. nothingness. "there's no heaven or hell". The Real Slay The Princess (Death Note Essay) Starts Here.

in light's final moments in the death note manga, while screaming about not wanting to die, he remembers that the first day they met, ryuk told light that "there's no heaven or hell. no matter what they do in life, all people go to the same place. all humans are equal in death". it is retroactively revealed that light knew this the whole time, operated under this knowledge for all the years we watched him — the knowledge that nothing he does is actually bad, that nothing any human does is actually bad, that shinigami are not "evil", that the universe does not care. that no one cares except humans. this oblivion absolutely terrifies him more than anything anyone could ever do to him. its what he thinks of before anything else as he flails there, screaming, dying. one could say everything he does after that day is him trying to escape that fact, or wrest control over it. but it doesnt work.

here are the lyrics of requiem, the musical's final song, sung over the bodies of l and musical light, a light who was at least somewhat good-intentioned at first: "sleep now, here among your choices / then fade away / hear how the world rejoices / shades of gray / gone who was right or wrong / who was weak or strong / nothing left to learn". this is the final message the death note musical and the manga chose to leave us with. there is no judgement. even after all that acknowledged hurt, after all the damage done, there is no judgement.

in the manga and anime alike, the world is just as fucked when light picks up the death note as when he dies. sure, we as readers can guess otherwise logically (and be optimistic, believing the world was never fucked regardless), but that's not what death note wants you to think. it ends with matsuda and another member of the task force noting how the world is worse again even though they killed kira (matsuda is clearly much worse for wear, but still determined), we see the shitty motorcycle band again, it ends with misa and a whole kira cult on a mountain even though kira died a long time ago...

its extremely important that light is never killed by any human or any aspect of the law. he is always killed by ryuk: a chaotic force completely detached from human sensibilities, one that does not care about good and evil. same with l; in the anime, manga, and musical, he is always killed by rems senseless, morally gray love (and you could argue in the kdrama that hes killed by love there too lol). justice is just a set dressing.

this is not just because death note is a tragedy, because good and evil can still matter in a tragedy. the theme of "nothingness" and "good and evil doesnt matter here" is also shown in a situation relatively unrelated to light winning or losing, or being good or bad. and its in fucking lawlight of all things. we all know ls not a good person. we know lights not a good person. this is tip of the iceberg death note knowledge. but the moment they start to interact, none of that starts to matter. textually, their relationship becomes more important than the people theyve killed and hurt. and the thing is? the thing is? THAT WORKS STORY-WISE. THAT'S ENTERTAINING. AND IT'S NEVER TEXTUALLY CALLED OUT IN A LASTING WAY. l and lights relationship, no matter how much i meme it, is genuinely important to the themes and "mu" because it makes it clear that despite all the pretensions, despite everything, this was never about good and evil. and it still works in the story. this is why death note is simultaneously a comedy — isn't the battle of good and evil supposed to matter more? well, fine, i'll keep watching this anyway. that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down the moment l dies, though, and a relationship built on nothingness (the "mu" sort, meaninglessness, not "character development" nothingness, theres plenty of character development) gives way to just nothingness (again, "mu", not light's post-l depression nothingness), forever.

(an aside: there is no one to root for in death note, and the only things to root for are either interesting character relationships, convoluted plots, or complete and total destruction: for everything to end so no more damage is done.)

not to say that death note does not encourage its readers to consider what damage they might do with the death note (obviously.), or that its characters never do. look at matsuda, a much easier heroic figure to latch on to than soichiro because of his unique place in the cast dynamic and because he's willing to consider both sides of the situation and kill light instantly for all he's done. its just that the story's own stance on the subject is... complicated by the existence of shinigami worldviews and by its own insistence that the world cannot change for the better.

also, this is not to say that this is executed well by the death note manga at all. it is a very strong tool, artistically, to establish and then violently remove any emotional connections between characters and make your story only about the exceedingly convoluted lengths characters go to to survive and catch each other so the reader can realize how ultimately pointless all of this is, but like... is that a good story choice if that's all you do? i would say not really. add in a good dollop of misogyny that destroys the second-to-last character who might actually be an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast's dull one-track focus on winning and justice, and youve got yourself a shitty story that... honestly still achieves what it went out to do, just not in a way id ever want to replicate.

anyway, back to the parts death note's actually trying to say. no matter what any human does in their life, no matter how they try to hurt or help the world, they all die in the end. hey, light, they all die in the end. once dead, they can never come back to life. and the seasons turn. and the world rejoices. and you say "goodbye"...

that's all.

no analysis of death notes overarching theme would be complete without nears final monologue, the definitive roast of light, the "you're just a murderer" speech: "what is right from wrong? what is good from evil? nobody can truly distinguish between them. even if there is a god." if we take this as talking about the actual god in the room (ryuk) as well as light, then near admits that humans will never be able to withstand these overwhelming forces and that, using justice and happiness and selfishness, they are just scrabbling to find meaning in things they ultimately have no control over.

but of course, near does not stop there. "[...] even then i'd stop and think for myself. i'd decide for myself whether his teachings are right and wrong." nears alright with not having control over everything, because near can still control nears own actions. these forces can and do exist, but they have no sway over nears own humanity — unlike light, who caved.

one of the creators of death note said they believe its message is "life is short, so everyone should do their best". the first time i learned this, i was like, thats... nice and optimistic, but an awful reading of the story! "life is short, so everyone should be desperate and striving like light yagami", who literally cut off other ppls lives for his own life? what character in death note are we supposed to strive towards when we "do our best"? they all do awful things with their lives! honestly, maybe they shouldnt have tried their best, if this is what their best is!

but with the view of "mu"... it makes a bit more sense. just a little. maybe.

there is no good and evil. there is only what humans think, and no matter what we do, we all die in the end. it is easy to be crushed and terrified by this in the same way light is, but what is more important than justice and righteousness and finding meaning is... doing your best. not being a person that hurts others too much. not letting yourself get swallowed up by an ideal. not going too far. and simultaneously, trusting yourself.

it leaves a few questions, though... was the currently dead l even a little bit right about his blatantly amoral approach, then? was there a point to this pain, and me slogging through this dumbass manga, and all the people that have lost their lives to a selfish teenage cop's son and the whims of everyone chasing after him? was there a point to any of this...?

the manga** never answers this. it stays clinically impartial until the very end. the musical is anything but clinically impartial (and i love it so much for that), and its ryuk that has the last word.

"there's no point at all."

of course theres no point. none of this was ever supposed to happen. that is what matters more than all the hurt and the crimes and the pain.

and that's... actually okay, because it's over now.

yes, death note has many really important themes present in its story, but its viewpoint is nihilism first and foremost. thats why its so fun and easy to play around with all the other messages, because no matter what fun or torment or awful things or righteous justice or absolute nothingness or sentimentality happens in between, there is always an end.

there is always the end.

[existence-is-a-liminal-space]

same people that reblog shit about there being no morality in death or how their against punitive justice will say that killing the league was the best end for them. y'all hear how you sound, right?

[xxri]

maría for the ad astra zine! lc u will be missed T_T

[im-still-watching-anime]

i understand that ace attorney has many characters that simply NEED to be bullied and that sometimes things slip through the cracks but i really think that we as a fandom have been failing severely by not clowning more on kristoph’s hideous ass white shoes

[panimoonchild]

"I hope Russia wins" - someone said

What the hell did I just read before had planned to go to bed?! I hope that the user is a bot. But... There are so many comments like that. Thank you everything-changed-me for reply to them. I don't have the energy to do that. You can report about them. There's no point to engage further.

Now I will try to sleep with thoughts about my sister in Kyiv and my relatives in the occupation. That all of them will see tomorrow.

I wish everyone safe dreams but not Russia and Russian supporters (Iran, China, North Korea). Sweet dreams✨