#You guys god forbid I hate people who are into incest like a normal person

[transmasc-slykinnie]

I don't get why proshippers don't understand dni goes both ways like if you don't want to hear me tell you to get help or that I hate your guts the block is right there, any argument you have is immediately just gone until you sickos get help and why hound ME for questions like??? I don't gaf about the true route!!! I hate it because the whole weird ren in sei's body!!! Ask someone else who actually gives a damn!!! I just like ren by himself because I think he's cute!!

[stheresya]

recently i was watching an youtuber react to a right-wing conservative complain about evil being too normalized in hollywood nowadays. he was upset that villains always have sad backstories that, in his mind, were an attempt to justify their evilness. and one of the examples he cited was kylo ren from star wars. he thought the idea of rey (the heroine) and kylo (the villain) falling in love was absurd, because kylo was evil and thus did not deserve love nor sympathy from any of the good guys. isn't this familiar? only i'm used to hearing this from people who claim to be in the opposite side of the political spectrum.

this also reminded me of another time i witnessed another right-wing influencer call grrm "sick-minded" for including incest in his work. mind you that this person was a fan of asoiaf and did not have any issue with all the other violences in the series. only the incest was just too much. this made me think of antis who occupy horror/gothic fiction spaces who looove spooky aesthetics and gore but lose their minds if someone holds special interest in a problematic character or relationship or, heaven forbid, if someone eroticizes the grotesque.

i'm from a country where the death penalty is outlawed. my country also has one of the highest crime rates in the world. of course, this could be explained by the fact that we have a lot of social inequality as a result of centuries of colonization + some imperialism because we're America's backyard. but some politicians and influencers try to get it all that this is a morality problem, that some people are just born rotten, all to justify them enforcing harsher security policies (re: killing people), which obviously affects poor the most. they hate the idea of morally reprehensible characters being humanized in media because it puts to question their black and white worldview, a view that is only possible through the dehumanization of 'the other' (usually poor and bipoc). the idea that people resort to crime because they are led to by the harsh conditions they live in infuriates them because, in some way, it puts these people as victims of their circumstances, victims of a harmful system that they keep enforcing. and so they need pop culture to keep reinforcing the good vs evil mentality, because nothing is more threatening to the authoritarian worldview than nuance.

anyway, this made me come to the realization that we're too obliging with antis. we treat them like misguided teenagers who just need to live a little more and understand that fiction isn't reality, that fiction exists as a safe space to allow our imagination to venture in the wildest and darkest places. but this is a case of a harmful ideology infiltrating spaces that should be celebrating freedom of creativity. everyone knows (or should know) that believing the main role of art and fiction is to promote good morals is borderline fascist rhetoric. certain "progressives" are parroting that idea by turning it into rainbow puritanism. but it's still conservatism nonetheless. just because they don't use god's name to justify their stances doesn't make their goals any less conservative.

[nightcoremoon]

I love horror, I just have impossibly high standards

anyway some of my favorite is the kind that is totally normal from the start, there's nothing off kilter or weird, everything is fine. it's mundane. but then maybe something strange happens and it's less mundane, maybe it's more colorful or lively. but it's not like it's scary or anything. maybe it's a little left of center but it's still fine. life goes on as normal.

but then suddenly it's not fine.

and it recontextualizes everything up until now and you realize oh my god it wasnt mundane at all, it was just pillars of foreshadowing and you realize this is the most terrifying thing you've ever encountered.

maybe it goes on with the weird scary shit and things resolve themselves later, but that gives you time to breathe and get accustomed to the horror.

maybe it just ends. maybe it's just suddenly "surprise, shit is fucked!" and then ~fin

that would be ideal. like, in the sixth sense, you find out Bruce Willis was dead the whole time, you see him making peace with his death, and then the movie ends. except without all of the overreliance on shock horror and the visually disturbing (for the 90s) shots of the entire rest of the everything.

but if the twist happens at the halfway point and things stay absolutely horrible for a while that's also good, like coraline. started off pretty normal, got a little weird, and then suddenly boom ITS HORRIFYING OUT OF NOWHERE.

a perfect example of the last line twist would be the girl with the green ribbon on her neck. aww the boy likes the mysterious girl and they fall in love and get married, really normal the entire way. and then oh surprise HER HEAD COMES OFF. simple yet effective.

I don't mind if it starts out the gate with being seven levels of fucked. dead space 2 opens up with nicole, narratively speaking just moments after she end jumpscares you in the first game, so we're already off-put. then 60 seconds in we see isaac in a straitjacket being questioned and in the background there's flashes of being on the ishimura and nicole's ghost walks up to you and slavsquats and her eyes light up and she whispers, then SUDDEN WHITE oh cool it's ok look it's franco from dead space ignition that's cool aww he's saving Isaac oh wow it's a really creepy atmosphere OH MY GOD IS HEAD IS GETTING STABBED AND HIS FACE TURNS INTO A GODDAMN ZOMBIE HOLY SHIT THEYRE EVERYWHERE RUN BITCH RUN CHAOS LOUD MUSIC BLOOD GUTS FEAR QUICK MASH THE A BUTTON OR DIE!!! oh everything is quiet now. good job you survived, now walk down the corridor to the next intense scary part. lather rinse repeat.

I like horror when it's well executed or creative and not schlocky and relying solely on savini's gore or unnecessary carnage.

friday the 13th is like, oh wow that person just got an axe in their forehead, I sure am quaking in my boots. oh wow the tall stuntman picked up a sleeping bag and slammed it into a tree, this sure is realistic. oh the scantily clad teen girl is running slowly through the forest while cain hodder slowly walks towards her, and he somehow catches up and stabs her with the machete. wow the effects sure look like foam core and wax got cut in half and is squirting ketchup everywhere. the music is sonically engineered to force my pulse to increase and I guess this is horror? oh look someone else got murdered. oh look another murder. I'm sure glad we spent the first 45 minutes of this movie getting to know the shallow garbage characters before they all get merced. wow crispin glover sure does know how to shake his head when a prosthetic attached with fake blood is on his head. oh look a dead body with arrows in it, the scream queen is piercing my eardrums, I guess this means I should be scared too. yawn. it's so fucking boring just watching people die over and over again. at least the later installments were either hilarious or batshit crazy. punching a dude's head clean off was the funniest thing I've ever seen in a movie given the context, and JASON GOES TO SPACE is the dumbest shit in any film but that's what makes it awesome. it had a stupid fucking robot fight. yet everyone hated it, so they rebooted it and surprising literally nobody it was the same shit but with more cgi so it looked even less real (not that it did in the first place). yet this franchise made hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket sales alone. nowadays there are people who see hockey on tv and ask "why the fuck is that guy dressed up like jason voorhees".

tell me why a free swedish gold source mod with blocky graphics and muddy textures and the worst lighting engine in 20 years and some bad questionable design choices in an almost direct ripoff homage to silent hill 2 and resident evil 2, crammed with bugs and bad collision and hard crashes if you die in a specific level while holding a flare which you literally need to always have lit because that's the mechanic the entire level was built around, by a team of like 6 people (half of whom were the voice actors and navmesh modelers), is still one of the best and well-crafted pieces of horror media I've ever consumed, while trash like the fucking craven-less elm street remake gets its dick sucked by everyone else because OH WOW ITS SO SUBVERSIVE AND EDGY AND GORY WOW COOL THIS IS REAL TRUE HORROR!

of course I'm approaching this from a purely american lens. japan's horror is phenomenal. mainly because it's not built around buckets of blood and literal pig carcasses and abusing actresses and actual rape scenes (although it's funny that people are totally okay with all of the graphic murders because killing people is okay and indulging in torture porn is fine but oh, god forbid a film shows something skin-crawlingly uncomfortable for the sake of making you feel disgusted and wanting a cold shower, no, the line is drawn there, you can stab a naked girl with a power drill or drop a chainsaw on her body and that's fine but if a snowman slams her body into a wall while his carrot nose is inside her hoohah that's when it's going too far? seriously? whatever I've beaten this dead horse). but eurocanadamerica's obsession with gore porn in horror and blumhouse's shitty jumpscare factories have reduced it to just... loud noise, stabbing, loud noise, stabbing, lather rinse repeat. this is horror now I guess.

nobody takes coraline seriously as horror. nobody takes the green ribbon seriously as horror.

the monster chasing you isn't horror. it's terror. horror is when you step on a bear trap while the monster is chasing you. the monster chase without the bear trap has no impact, it's just "watch this person fear for their life and die". yeah, if I wanted to watch a snuff film I'd look outside of mainstream markets. "oh but if it's just a movie it's not real" so says the people who suicide bait cyber bully and harass teens who ship a 17 year old with a 19 year old, or two people who work with batman, all over fictional alleged pedophilia and incest. because it's all bad unless it's violence. only sex is bad but not violence.

the violence cannot stand on its own. it needs to have narrative purpose. resident evil, all of the zombies and monsters were bioweapons being manufactured by a corporation. silent hill and cry of fear, all of the monsters are just the embodiments of the protag's inner demons. dead space, the batshit crazy religious cult wants to turn everyone into the undead since that's their idea of heaven, and you have to fight them and stay alive so you can prevent the universe from getting omnomnommed by the blood moons. f.e.a.r., a little girl with some psychic powers is studied, tortured, abused, and :/ raped (at least you don't see it) and she naturally responds by lashing out at the ones who hurt her and trying to reunite with her baby, who is... you! (spoilers).

what is the plot of friday the 13th? dumbass kids get drunk and have sex and let a little kid go missing and his mom has a psychotic break and starts killing them all, then they kill her and the kid kills more people and then he kills more people and then he dies and comes back and kills more people and then he dies so someone else starts killing people and then jason comes back again and kills more people again and he gets arrested and they try to execute him but he won't die so they cryogenically freeze him until he kills people in the future, and in a different timeline he kills people and fights freddy krueger. it's pointless. popcorn. drivel. there is no narrative purpose, it's just murder for murder's sake. and that's scary???

like I said. impossibly high standards.

I love horror. but holy shit is a lot of horror bad.

[wtffundiefamilies]

@emeraldboreas

Courtship’s big problem, at least how Gothardites do it, is that it inhibits truly getting to know your potential partner. My husband and I were engaged four months after meeting, but those were conversation-heavy four months. We discussed everything under the sun, in private. Lots of intimate conversations that the Duggars simply can’t have with their siblings or parents around. For example, if one of the Duggars isn’t dedicated to fundamentalism, that needs to be discussed–but they can’t.

It’s been nearly three years since we married. My husband is the same man I thought he was when we married because I got to know him beforehand. I doubt the married Duggars will be able to say the same.

That’s really the main problem - they talk about how they “get to know” the person through courtship, but people alter their behavior in groups.  The guy who laughs it off when “Josie spills milk in his lap“ in the Duggar home may well rage out when his own kid does it at home.  And with the goal of marriage ALWAYS in sight, the courtship prospect knows they have to behave as JimBob wishes for a set amount of time - and then, once marriage is done, they can revert to whoever they really are.  I mean...fuck, remember how downright normal Derick seemed at first?

Hell, it happens in secular relationships all the time - people are on their best behavior at the beginning of a relationship, and it’s easy to be that way when you still feel like the person is perfect and you’ll NEVER fight and NEVER be pissed at them they will NEVER annoy you etc.  I’m not saying it’s always going to be that way; plenty of people are completely upfront about who they are from the get-go.  I’m just saying you shouldn’t rush into marriage if your lifestyle forbids divorce for any reason in case you’ve landed one of those people.  (Let’s all pause and stare meaningfully at Josh.)  That is NOT the time to marry someone you only know from group conversations and who is never able to “let their guard down” until you’re married.  That just seems like a horrible combination. 

@whatthefundie 

I feel like they do genuinely care and love each other, but I wish courtship would allow couples to actually get to know each other properly before pushing them into marriage - there’s so many things you don’t know about someone from hanging out in group setting etc aaaaah it stresses me out

Yeah, they do seem happy together.  And hopefully they will remain so as they truly get to know one another.  But how candidly can anyone really speak with parents and chaperones eavesdropping?  I think Joy and Austin may have had more of a chance, though, since I don’t think her brothers really give a fuck about hovering over them when they talk.  Unlike Josh’s creepy “protective��� bullshit, they seem to feel like Joy is capable of picking out her own husband without their input.  I could be wrong though, and we’ll see more next season.  But I feel like their “chaperoning” would have been less weird and intrusive since they’re all friends with Austin on their own terms and they don’t just know him as “Joy’s future husband.” 

@harkinianmahboi

I fucking hate Jill.  She's such a narcissist, not to mention a neglectful mother.

Despite being the least interesting person of all time, she sure finds herself fascinating.  I mean, she’s all she wants to talk about.  Preferably on social media while Izzy climbs around the house like Spiderman. 

      @redwhirlwind89

I can't decide whether or not Jill is more like her mother or father. She's as moronic and zealous as Daddy-O, but she's as stupid, neglectful, silly, infantile, and selfish as her mother. Maybe THAT'S why she's Jim Bob's favorite? Because she's the most like Michelle? Certainly brings home my belief that there's some incestuous connection between them that no one knows about.

I think she’s a mini-Michelle for sure, at least when it comes to Izzy.  I really expected her to be a great mom and all about her kid (soon to be kids).  Maybe she’s depressed, maybe having kids immediately was a mistake when she really wanted to have time to act like a kid herself.  I don’t know.  But Izzy seems to be a social media prop for her, just like Michelle’s brood was one giant prop for her TV show.  Her eyes just look so empty all the time.  Meanwhile, Jessa lights up every time she looks at the Spurginator.  (And I assume Good Hank as well; we just haven’t seen them interact yet.) 

My guess is still that Jilly Muffin is Daddy’s favorite because she ratted out the kids who were trying to get away with things (I know Michelle claims they don’t like snitches in the Duggar house and told the kids to work things out themselves, but I don’t buy that - from Michelle, sure, since she wouldn’t have wanted to be bothered, but JimBob not love a chance to preach and boss?  I don’t buy it) and always did exactly as she was told with a smile.  She cheerfully raised her siblings from the time she was six and a half.  Jill was the anti-Michelle when she lived with her parents.  (And their relationship always seemed a bit off to me.  I don’t think anything happened, but I do think that JimBob’s “be the first man/husband prototype in my daughters’ lives” MO blurs every line between emotionally healthy parent/child relationships and emotional incest.  And I think that affected his relationship with Jill a lot more than it did Jinger and Jessa.  Joy and Johannah were both treated like Jill when they were young and cute but that seemed to be fading for Joy as she and Hannie got older; we’ll never know if Johannah became less of daddy’s favorite as she got older as well.)

Jill is like Michelle in terms of how she treats her child, but overall I think Jessa got Michelle’s personality - smug, full of herself, confident, bossy, and convinced that Jesus loves her best.  The only difference, and it’s a big one, is that Jessa is a competent, mentally sound adult human.  She doesn’t need an army of people to do everything for her and she’s not completely disconnected from reality.  (Jill seems to be well on her way there, though.)

@redwhirlwind89

HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW YOUR OWN KIDS BIRTHDAYS?? EVEN IF YOU HAVE 20 OF THEM?? Lady, I know you had your IQ banged out of you by The Boob, but get the hell real. That's 20 dates out of 365 you have to remember to congratulate your children for not killing themselves taking care of you and your household. No, strike that...18, because you have 2 sets of twins! *ugh* So much anger. When you can't keep your kids' birthdays straight, you have too many damn kids.

21 technically; though Michelle doesn’t count J’Caleb - for all her bleating about life beginning at conception (she totally forgot him with her “19 kids here and one in heaven” speech); I highly doubt his “birthday” is remembered around the house (though I’m willing to bet they do something to remember Precious Jubilee Shalom - which I’m not criticizing.  What I AM criticizing is the fact that if she had been miscarried at the beginning of the pregnancy, farther back in Michelle’s babymaking career when she wasn’t the Final Fetus, with no TV cameras around, I imagine she’d be as forgotten as Caleb.  And AGAIN I do understand that a late-term miscarriage is its own thing and maybe that would affect someone more.  But for people who base their entire lives around preserving the Almighty Blastocyst, I find it disgustingly hypocritical).

That said I think/hope she was joking. 

@missposabule

Oh God poor Anna

Agreed.  This seems like a shitty thing for her to be tasked with.  I’m sure she insisted on helping, but that had to have hurt.

        @undercoverduggarblog 

i REALLY want to know all the cringy ways they phrased it

Saaaame

        @discussingtheduggarfam 

lol but honestly though, i got some of “those” date night suggestions from friends that were rather risqué. my favorite g-rated cheap date idea was try cooking a new recipe while listening to frank sinatra.

Part of my curiosity comes from the fact that, uh, I don’t know how adventurous fundie sex tends to get.  Like...what specifically were they suggesting Jinger and Jeremy try???  TBH I’d rather have the g-rated ones. 

        @tenaciouscreeper   

Yeah I honestly wish I got date night suggestions at my bridal shower. I’m sure most of mine would have been rather risqué though 😒 people got so damn raunchy and it was annoying rather than funny. Not that my husband and I haven’t had good ideas ourselves but it would’ve been nice to get ideas from others you know? Especially considering that we lived out in the middle of nowhere. (Apologies for any typos I didn’t catch. On typing this from my new phone.)

Yeah, I think it’s a nice idea, especially for people who’ve barely spent time alone together.  (And agreed that I don’t get why people are so...gross about things.  Guys, we’re adults.  I think I’ve just gotten old.) 

      @gingerbreaddoll

For people who brag about how modest they are they really are very immodest.

You speak the truth.