#also like to be clear i DON'T think it's misogynistic to criticize them or make fun of them idgaf

[murderballadeer]

respectfully i don't think taylor swift single handedly ruined the music industry and i don't think greta gerwig single handedly ruined the film industry i think some of you have lost the plot

[tossawary]

I finished Volume 3 of SVSSS, which encompasses the main story, and currently have my bookmark sitting at the first chapter of the Airplane Extras in Volume 4. I took a bunch of quote pics but have yet to review them and add thoughts.

Every time I read SVSSS, I forget how... incredible... the inside of Shen Yuan's head is. He's fascinating.

Like, he's misogynistic (even while criticizing Airplane's own misogynistic writing), he's homophobic, AND he's transphobic. Not in a way where I think he thinks anyone deserves fewer rights than anyone else (I think he's generally a nice person, although, holy shit, I would not trust this man to craft policy of any kind) or would prevent anyone from living however they chose to live, a lot of his problematic bullshit stays inside his own head as he tries to understand the world around him using the stallion novel formulas he was given, but he's carrying around SO MUCH unexamined bias that supports his refusal to examine himself and his own desires.

Some of it reads (presumably intentionally) a LOT like the kind of conflicting, problematic bullshit a lot of queer people carry around inside their heads as they struggle to untangle themselves and their beliefs.

And while I do wish that Shen Yuan had been forced to confront and address his misogyny and transmisogyny even further than it does come up (in part because it is DEFINITELY affecting the way he thinks about gay men as well, including and especially Binghe), I do kind of... appreciate on some level that he thinks this way? From a character standpoint? Because I think it's probably realistic for a privileged young man spending a lot of time on the internet reading shit like PIDW to look at the world this way. And it's clear even through his own narration that his blindness in certain areas is causing him a lot of trouble. While I do have criticisms and personal wishes, I do appreciate the depiction of personal character development that is just... a cringeworthy mess of internalized bullshit the whole fucking time.

Also, it's SO funny to me that he reads as SO aro-ace-spectrum to me (probably gay, but generally detached from sexuality and possibly also partially from gender) AND he actually knows... the word asexual, I don't think he has a very broad understanding of asexuality... but he knows the word and yet doesn't personally identify that way. He mentally accuses both Luo Binghe (main story, before finding out Binghe is into him) and Liu Qingge (Succubus Extra) of being asexual for showing no interest in women, only to fail to reflect on how he ALSO demonstrably has no lasting personal interest in the women around them, which doesn't read as very genuine to me.

(EDIT: Again, I am not against a bisexual Shen Yuan interpretation either! I am willing to be persuaded by any author who wishes to tell a particular story. But Shen Yuan's attraction towards women often reads personally to me as very shallow and possibly insincere.)

"I willingly read PIDW, that proves I'm straight!" he sincerely thinks to himself, even though his favorite wife is the one without explicit sex scenes and he also admits to skipping over a lot of them.

"I'm able to tell when women are beautiful, that makes me straight!" thinks the guy who mentally censors nudity whenever demon women lose their clothes, and keeps telling us how "the average reader" of PIDW would react to these beautiful women instead of conveying his own attracted reactions. His actual reactions are generally centered on a woman's narrative significance. The only people he personally seems to find attractive are Luo Binghe and maybe Liu Qingge.

Though my interpretation was that he does probably experience sexual arousal and have a sex drive (see his username), which probably helps with his conviction of straightness, I'm not sure that there's any mention of Shen Yuan even masturbating at all in the entire main story of SVSSS? He never tried to hook up with anyone. Sex is apparently not a priority for him.

(EDIT: He does seem to enjoy sex with Binghe in the "Bing-mei vs. Bing-ge" Extra. He loves Binghe and likes the closeness and the physical pleasure. I appreciate the indication that they're working on moving on from the AWFUL intercourse pushed by Xin Mo's possession and possibly also the System's Scenario Pusher.)

And Shen Yuan seems to view women as being and behaving Fundamentally Differently from men and gay men as behaving Fundamentally Differently from straight men (as soon as he learns Binghe is into him, he thinks about how Binghe isn't behaving like the characters in his sister's gay, non-con, BDSM erotica novels), seeing everything through the lens of novel tropes, such that he seems to view sex and sexuality and gender as being deeply mixed with a person's personality. So he can't be a gay man, because he's too "Normal", in his mind at first, because he doesn't behave like his own mental image of "How Gay Men Behave" (or "How Women Behave / A PIDW Wife Behaves"), while also demonstrably not being anything like "the average reader" of PIDW and also apparently not caring too much about his own masculinity? Like, I do think he likes being the gentleman scholar of Qing Jing Peak, he does like appearing dignified and strong and cool, he doesn't like losing, he doesn't really like playing "damsel in distress" roles, and I do think he likes being gallant towards women, but he's not too concerned about seriously competing with figures like Luo Binghe or Liu Qingge? He's happy enough to back down and let someone else take the lead if necessary. He puts up with being put into the roles of female leads even if it embarrasses him and he rolls with the punches to his pride easily enough. He seems to have decided his Sexuality By Default, so it does make me have a lot of thoughts about whether or not he's potentially going with Gender By Default / Convenience as well.

Someone get this man some amateur and academic literature on gender and sexuality (and a lot of other stuff), stat, so he can ignore it, probably.

[lightlycareless]

Naoya's reaction when y/n's thighs expand 3 times its size when she sits down. For my girlie's that have thick thighs 🙏🙏 plus me. Serious insecurity but damn wouldn't that be Naoya's 2nd favourite thing after tiddies. Definitely would give some criticism that y/n don't exercise enough and that's why her thighs are like that,but would br also smother his face between her thighs? Yes

Hello anon!!

Ngl when I first read this ask (the beginning) I was like HUH? But then I read the rest and was like ugh same. I kind of relate to what you feel, that plus chafing and what not 💀

ANYWAYS I hope you enjoy this debauched piece. :) ehehehe dunno what was going through my head but I liked it.

warnings: NSFW. THOUGH NOT DETAILED, THERE'S SMUT. MINORS DNI. Naoya and the Zen'in are perverts, some more explicit than others. Also misogynistic views, unwanted commentary about bodies.

Happy reading!

You know what I was thinking?

Naoya being so obsessed with your body, that the moment he sees you he doesn’t even bother to make formal introductions or anything; nope.

He just needed to see you sit down one time, one time, unwittingly getting a very detailed look of how your thighs just become bigger underneath your skirt, alongside the adorably cute way you attempted to tug the edge down to avoid revealing too much (Naoya had seen more than enough at that point, of course he did.) and that was it for him to know you’d be the perfect wife.

So, fast forward a few weeks, after making the right arrangements, you’re effectively married to him, “happily” living in the Zen’in estate, where he can keep an eye on you, close to whenever he might need to make use of your wifely commitments—but most importantly, underneath constant scrutiny that not even your role as future Lady of the House could save you from.

The torments you’re subjected to here aren’t ones you haven’t heard before, in fact, you’ve heard enough of them to not care anymore…

But perhaps being married to Naoya, something that many cautioned would probably never happen due to your appearance, was enough to finally make them hurt.

His family just couldn’t… wrap their mind around the fact that from all women in the world, literally anyone else, he chose you: the epitome of laziness as they’d like to say. The sheer example of not being able to control one’s selfish desires in favor of temporary satisfaction.

In a world where thinner, athletic physiques were encouraged, you sure stood out like a sore thumb.

It wasn’t your fault, though. Some people were simply born that way, with different genetics and there was nothing wrong with that.

But to them, that was not enough of an excuse, if there ever was one; and once you heard for the last time how Naoya was simply tolerating you because, well, because of some unknown reason, you had enough.

You were tired of constantly hearing them belittling your worth, comparing you to whichever woman they brought along to hopefully convince Naoya into divorcing you—or at least sow his seeds on a more suitable candidate; a fact made worse when he seemingly didn’t put a resistance to their invitations, chipping away at your confidence.

And above all, you were exhausted of unwittingly highlighting the faults in your relationship, the clear signs that Naoya was never truly happy with you, such as those scarce moments of intimacy the two shared. Those that you didn’t think much of, outside of fear and pain, for he never struck you to be the kind, patient lover (and he wasn’t).

But now that these issues were highlighted… you could only feel sorrowful.

Naoya, while insatiable when it comes to lust, seemed to have only spent the night with you for political reasons. To fulfill his duty of securing the future of the Zen’in—not because he ever harbored desire for you.

Yet, why did you even expect otherwise? For he too demeaned you with cruel commentaries, and with the one thing you were mostly self-conscious about…

“You know, your thighs wouldn’t be that big if you actually worked out or something…”

“Don’t wear that. I don’t want you to show your legs—it’s already unbefitting a woman, but in your case… well, it’s only necessary.”

That was more than enough to finally push you to the edge and do the one thing many were constantly pestering you about: not to eat. Though in your defense, it’s not like you felt like doing so anyways, the voices and faces of those that hurt you were quick to put you back in your place if you even did as little as consider it, ruining your appetite.

And you managed to keep this way for a few days, at least until you began to grow sick, tired, unable to tend to your duties as you did before, which did not escape your staff’s attention, and subsequently, Naoya’s.

“What the fuck is wrong with you??” Naoya would exclaim first thing upon returning from a mission; tired. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with the complaints of your lacking commitment, the only goddamn thing you had to do around the estate. “To go ahead and cause problems to my family, taint my name—have you got no shame?!”

“I didn’t mean to…” you murmur, yourself tired as well, due for other reasons, made worse by Naoya’s reproach.

“Then do you mind explaining what the hell were you thinking? What were you planning to do? Get my attention??” He frowns. “Dramatic, but what else could I expect from a woman like you?”

“Please, Naoya… I don’t feel like arguing…”

“No, of course not. You don’t feel like doing anything, do you? Not even eating!” He remarked. “What? Trying to lose some weight, now? Is that what’s gotten into your mind?”

You remain silent, giving him enough of an answer. He laughs.

“So it is that!” He boasts. “I can’t believe it, Y/N! I didn’t think you’d be so stupid to actually do that!”

“Leave me alone…” you whisper, tears beginning to pool around your eyes.

“To what? Puke your guts out, now? Don’t be stupid!” Naoya continues to jest. “I knew women were desperate, but I didn’t think you’d break the mold!”

His words, perhaps out of your already brewing insecurities, or simply because you’ve grown tired of his mockery, wash you over with an unprecedented wave of anger, dropping your heart to the pit of your stomach as you sharply turn around, ready to take a stand for yourself once and for all.

“And why do you care so much, hm, Naoya?!” You cry. “Weren’t you also one of those that always bothered me about my weight? About how embarrassing I am to your name simply because of the way I look?!”

He flinches, startled by your reaction at first, but soon angered by it as well.

“I won’t tolerate your disrespect—” he frowns, yet you don’t let him continue.

“You even ask me to cover myself up!” you gasp. “You’re so—you’re so disgusted by how I look that you—you wouldn’t mind if I spent the rest of my life locked away so you won’t ever have to see—”

“Do you hear yourself?” Naoya seethes, taking your hand and pulling you to him with such strength that instantly startles you, making you squirm in reaction, trying to move away but he keeps you still, understanding you’ve officially made him furious. “Do you hear the stupidities you’re spewing?!”

“Leave—leave me alone.” You whimper, tears sliding down your cheeks. “You’re hurting me!”

“I ought to hurt you more for insulting me!”

“Insulting… you?” you repeat, confused. “How was this insulting to you?!”

“You think I’d let you walk around the estate like a whore? Let you display what’s mine?!”

“Naoya, you’re not—you’re not making any sense.” You respond, shame settling in your heart. “If you’re going to make fun of me—!”

“You’re fucking stupid, did you know that?” Is all that he says before pushing you against the wall, making you whimper when roughly hitting the wooden pillar behind, a noise that is quickly shut by his lips landing on yours, wasting no time for his tongue to battle yours, subduing you. “So fucking stupid…”

He’d murmur, you moan.

“Na—Naoya—” you breathe, torn apart by his desire and your confusion. Didn’t he… dislike you? “St—stop!”

“What is it that you wanted me to do? Stand aside as my family ogles at you?!”

“Don’t you mean—don’t you mean scrutinize?!” you gasp, flinching when his lips move from yours, down to your jaw, then neck… “Stop—stop mocking me!”

“I should feel offended by your stupidity, if anything.” He responds, pulling away from you to take a good look into your teary eyes—as if trying to assess if you really declared such atrocity, or if it was work of his own anguished mind. “Your blindness to acknowledge what I truly think of you.”

“They—they hate me.” You tremble, why would he want you to remember such an awful thing? “You hate me—”

“No, Y/N.” Naoya groans, pressing closer to you while taking your hand once more to move it down to his groin where his hardening cock was in full display for you to feel, destroying the perceptions you had of everything around you—around him. “This is what you make them feel— what you make me feel!”

“Nao—Naoya—” you tremble, trying to move away your hand from his growing length, intimidated that he somehow felt even bigger underneath your palm; giving the impression his desire for you right now was much stronger than any other instances. But… how? Or more likely, Why? “I don’t—I don’t get it—!”

“Do you really think I’d be blind to the way they stare at you? To their futile attempts of bringing you down, of changing you, just so they’d stop thinking what your skin feels like underneath their fingertips—or how sweet your cunt tastes like?” Naoya breathed, continuing to rub your hand against his cock, desperate to let you know how much he needs his release—how he wants to throw this senseless discussion away…

But not without declaring his upper hand, the one he always had with his family, of course. “But they can’t” He smirks. “The moment I saw you, I knew you’d be the perfect wife, the perfect mother for my children.”

The thought of harboring such desire from Naoya made your cunt tighten, the same way his cock twitches.

“They’re just jealous I got to you first.” He continues. “That I was able to see your worth just by your wide hips and ample bosom—you’re the epitome of femininity… but even better—

You’re all mine.”

“But you—but you said horrible things to me—” you cry, his lascivious words still not enough to remove the pain from those awful moments. “Why…?”

“Aw, my love.” Naoya chuckles, cupping your face with his hands and squeezing it so softly, making you pout, a face he always loved to incite from you, amongst others. “I just can’t help it; your reactions are so adorable; you simply make it too easy.”

His hands then travel down to the edges of your skirt, lifting your kimono just enough to reveal your smooth legs to him, the same ones he always had touch and kneed whenever you were close, the mere sight of them enough to make him further spiral into his desire—

If not anger when seeing the flimsy piece of cloth covering your cunt, fingers quick to grab the edge and rip it apart, letting out a quick gasp from your mouth.

“How many times have I told you to stop wearing these stupidities?!” He hisses. “You know damn well than to go against the words of your own husband!”

“But you—you hadn’t touched me.” You fret. “Since that night, we… you hadn’t—I didn’t think it was necessary.”

“You truly couldn’t be any dumber, could you? Just because I’ve been busy does that mean you can go on and disobey my words?” Naoya accuses with a jesting tone that serves to place the direction of his following actions. “My lovely wife is really that naive… luckily for you, I’m the one in charge of doing all the thinking, while you—you just have to stay like this, ready for me…

To take my cock like the good whore of a wife you are, with that lewd body of yours that is only mine. Exclaiming for me to give you a baby, make you a mother, make your hips wider, your breasts bigger, filled milk—”

And the way your body tightens against him, letting out a moan when his hands parted your legs, guiding his cock onto your dampened slit and gently pushed the head into you, let’s him know this desire has settled in the back of your mind for quite some time, but never revealed itself by the stupidities of his own family, his too undeniably.

But after these agonizing days away from you, forced so by his job, if not those insignificant whores his family brought in an attempt to push him away from you, failing to do so for he quickly discarded them as soon as they crossed his sight…

He’ll never let the opportunity to claim you pass again.

Naoya will do whatever necessary to drill that idea into that little, pathetic mind of yours, even if it means fucking you in the middle of the hallway, where all servants and relatives alike would be able to hear his message loud and clear.

The reality they could only dream of in their most desperate moments—but to him, it was only a matter of taking.

“Naoya—Naoya please—not here.” You whimper, your husband had effectively forced you onto the ground and made you take his cock, either from behind, hands and knees on the wooden floor as he teased and kneaded your ass and hips; he was an avid enjoyed of many positions, but this one had to be one of his favorite ones. To see your skin bounce whenever his hips slammed into you, savoring the way your lewd cunt swallowed him whole, down to the base, with no intentions of letting go, regardless of what you said, it was surprising he still had some restraint. “Please—they’re—they’re going to see!”

“Let them.” Naoya moans, the thought of being caught sends a shiver through his spine; and while it’s not something he necessarily advocated for, the constant, tiring need to be proving his authority over you is what forced him to do so. You might as well play along. “Let them hear how tight your cunt is around my cock! How only I can make you come undone like this—”

“N—No—I don’t—I don’t want…!” you whimper, but even when he changed positions, having you on top of him, giving him sight of the breasts he couldn’t wait to see grow when you’re inevitably pregnant, you still do not stop jumping on his cock, moving your hips up and down alongside his, clenching whenever hitting that sensitive spot that always had you seeing stars. “I don’t want to cum—!”

“Then maybe—Maybe you shouldn’t have this lewd body.” Naoya moans, truly believing that he would never be able to stop himself from using every inch of your body for his own pleasure—from fucking his cock between your soft thighs and boobs, admiring the way they completely cover his cock, drowning it in a combination of softness and his own seed, barely able to see where the tip of his head was…

To relieve that same sensation with his own face, asking you—no, demanding you to smother him with your thighs, a sensation that has him thinking if he were to die this way, cock hard, eased by your soft licks and moans, while deep in the sweet taste of your cunt, he wouldn’t mind it, not one bit.

In fact, he hopes that’s the way he goes.

But he’s in no rush to avoid enjoying the present, the warmth of your body besides him when the two eventually stop, careless to acknowledge if they ever gathered an audience, certainly so when Naoya’s mind was firmly set in getting you pregnant, as heard by his following words.

“I’ll see you tonight.” He declares. “It’s about time you give me a heir.”

And you do nothing but oblige, though you doubted all the cum nestled inside your cervix hadn’t done the job already.

“Naoya, you’re—oh!” You gasp when instead of waiting for you to stand up to properly greet him, he lowers down to your level, taking a seat before eventually resting his head over your lap, taking a deep sigh and resting for the first time after a long week of work. “Is… everything alright?”

In fact, you relished the idea. If it meant getting this side of Naoya’s desire, attention you didn’t think to be deserving of, or even capable of obtaining…. Then you were nothing but obedient.

“I’m tired.” He responds, adjusting himself into an even better position and sighing once more. “I don’t want to talk.”

So, you don’t, preferring instead to softly caress his head, moving some of his silky black threads away from his face and letting him relax, enough to dive into the beginnings of his slumber, but not before clearing his mind from one doubt.

“Our baby—”

“He’s fine.” You murmur, placing your hand over your stomach. It’s still very early during the pregnancy to know so, and yet, there was something about you that just made it so obvious that you were carrying a life inside you—

Perhaps it was the way you glowed, or how you became softer with him ever since it was first announced.

Though the latter was mostly the fact that you started to feel… wanted by your husband, a kind of desire that while far from perfect, was enough for you to change your perspective of this marriage, allowing you to open up to him, mostly so when Naoya now defended you from those unwanted comments from his family.

You’re carrying the future of the Zen’in, after all, some decorum must be maintained.

Yet something tells you his changed demeaner ran far deeper than what Naoya wanted to reveal. «All in due time» you suppose.

“I love you, and our baby too.” You say, instinctively taken by this calm moment of domesticity with your loving husband, not expecting a response considering his somewhat cold nature—only to be proven wrong when he turns around to see you, silently placing his gaze on yours in such way that initially makes you think you might’ve ruined this moment, just for him to pull you closer to him, taking your lips in a soft, quick kiss before returning to your lap, closing his eyes and sleeping.

He may not have said it, but the sentiment was the same, and that was enough for you to be happy.

Naoya is still a jerk, but I like to think he eventually got to genuinely care about you. Also, he got real lucky that one time he thought with his dick, imagine if you were a piece of shit too? NAH He'd lose it. He got real lucky that you were nice, I tell you...

Also, I'm still with the pregnancy stuff :) sorrynotsorry.

OH! and also!! It's safe to say that the things Naoya said are NOT a reflection of what I think!! Everybody is beautiful and deserving of love, no matter what body type ❤️

Now, thank you so much for sending this niche ask... I gotta say, I have been thinking about it since I do relate to it............... but I try to keep my work pretty open-ended so anyone can relate :) Still, if there's something you'd like me to write a bit more detailed, just let me know! I'll be sure to try my best tho, some I might reject if I don't feel like I know much about the matter....

Anyways, thank you so much for this ask ❤️ take care, and hope to see you soon ❤️

[cursedvida]

It's really crazy to me to see the hate Mae gets, like I was reading some reviews and I can understand not liking a character but as soon as they start with the name calling their opinion is invalid to me because they have no reason to be calling her a bitch, among other things, like it just reeks of mysogyny, (it's like they just want an excuse to call women names) and seeing it coming from other girls makes it worse like..

"Oh the girl was such a bitch why did she do that 🙄" ..is it really that hard to think for a moment about the circumstances in which mae was raised?? Do they need it spell it out for them?? Like, c'mon guys do you really think that the people trapped in a bunker for generations have anything nice to teach/say about the apes?? Wes Ball please give us Mae's backstory in the sequel!! Your audience needs it bc they are out there calling Mae the real villain and saying Proximus was right 💀 (when he was literally everything Caesar hated in an ape)

Look, I'm usually a polite person when expressing my opinions, but I'm fed up with the hate towards Mae, basically because the arguments people give seem incredibly basic to me, typical of people with little to no understanding. Sometimes I doubt if these people have watched the same movie as me or maybe they have some sort of cognitive dissonance, but seriously, I find them ridiculous. Either that, or they are basically the typical comments from misogynistic guys or women with internalized misogyny who can't stand morally gray and questionable female characters.

And well, having said that, I'm going to present my doctoral thesis on this topic:

One of the things I've seen the most is people saying that Mae is evil, the true villain, or an ungrateful traitor to Noa. This argument seems quite incomprehensible to me because, even though we don't have much data about her, I believe there's something very important that explains why she acts as she does: the Proximus apes killed the people in her group, including her mother. I mean: her damn mother. If we add to that the UNDERSTANDING (I mean, you have to be very short-minded not to assume something so obvious) that she has been raised in an environment where they've probably told her all her life that the apes are the reason for all the evils of humanity and the main reason why humans live in shitty conditions, I think anyone with half a brain has enough information to understand why she does what she does.

Yes, Noa is a good guy, but he's not helping her. Noa and Mae have a common goal and decide to ally themselves momentarily to achieve that goal, which is to reach Proximus. As much as they've formed a bond throughout the story, it's not yet strong enough for Mae to set aside what she has worked for so hard. Mae not only bears the weight of humanity on her shoulders but also emotionally carries the idea that she, as the sole survivor of her group, must complete the mission at all costs. Are those who criticize her telling me that if they truly thought that with certain actions they could not only save their species but also honor their loved ones who have been killed infront their eyes, they wouldn't do them? And that they wouldn't do them for someone they've just met, no matter how much they like them? That's just not realistic, it makes no sense. We would all do the same as Mae in her situation. I mean, I have no doubts.

Another thing I love is when they say she's the "true villain" as if it weren't clear enough that she feels bad every time since she forms a bond with Raka and Noa when she does something that she knows may harm them. She feels pain for Raka's death and clearly, you can also see the conflict and remorse when she detonates the bomb. It's not something she enjoys doing, but she HAS to do it. In the final scene, even though she's carrying a gun, you can also clearly see her in conflict with herself. Clearly, she doesn't want to kill him. Clearly, she has nothing against Noa, and this is evident when she finally accepts the necklace and they even shake hands. You can't tell me that's the attitude of a villain, narratively it's not presented as such, and seeing it that way is to have understood nothing.

Mae is a complex character whose life is based on survival, she's no different from the characters we're used to loving and idolizing in other post-apocalyptic series, the difference here for me is that she's human and humans have to be bad by default and also that she's a woman. Because female characters always have to be the support, the romantic interest, or the unconditional friends of heroic male characters, and Mae is none of that. Mae is a character with her own story and ambitions that go beyond Noa's plot. Mae has her own plot, and it seems that's something that bothers people a lot.

I'm sorry, but the hate towards Mae seems very similar to the one people had for Sansa Stark in Game of Thrones, which basically stemmed from people being misogynistic and hating complex and imperfect female characters, combined with how much they hate seeing protagonist characters with such human and real characteristics that they can't bear the idea of seeing themselves reflected in them.

But hey, for Sansa Stark, I would have killed, and now for Mae too. Mae haters basically DNI

[momentomori24]

I swear to God, Twitter being able to accumulate so many brain-dead, malicious, pseudo intellectual low lives all in one place at the same time is a phenomenon worthy of being studied under a microscope in a science lab. And no, that is not a compliment.

Thankfully people have already spoken out against this bullshit-- the fact that people needed to is already maddening to think about-- but as someone who got the basic gist of what happened literally yesterday I'll also put my voice out there: Don't you fucking dare try to paint Hbomb as a murderer over this situation.

Somerton may be a lying, misogynistic plagiarist and conman, but he obviously doesn't deserve to die and while I do make fun of the guy, I genuinely hope that he continues to have a life after the dust has settled on everything. Not on YouTube or any social media platform for a long time at least, but just a life nontheless. I don't wish what he's potentially going through on anyone, and I hope that he makes it through this. But regardless of if he does or doesn't-- and God forbid he doesn't-- none of this is Hbomb's fault. It's not his fault, or Kat's fault, or Jessie's fault (because apparently there's people blaming her too cuz WHY NOT), or anybody's fault. All they did was call out his actions, hold him accountable for the harm he's done. They have done nothing to deserve having to carry this on their shoulders should the worst happen. They did nothing wrong. They didn't kill James (he's not confirmed dead yet either btw). They are not murderers. And to the people saying they are: say those words out loud, listen how they sound like, and re-evaluate. Just cease.

And to people like this:

''Oh I'm not blaming him for anything I'm just blaming him for what his audience did because according to HIM you're responsible for your audience'' Yeah, you people can shut your mouths too. Of course you're responsible for your audience, and that includes Hbomb too. However, your tiny, godless little monkey brain can't see why your argument is still rubbish even with that in mind. The difference between James, Internet Historian and Hbomb is that Hbomb never promoted problematic behaviour to his audience. If you promote problematic shit like harassment or misogyny or racism, then yeah, you're absolutely responsible for how your behaviour influences your audience. But that's not what he did. He made it very clear where he stood on those things, literally stating that ''if anyone were to harass Somerton on his behalf they are worse than him and will not see the light of heaven''. He's done his part in making it clear that harassment is wrong, so if someone went out of their way to go against that and harass James anyway that doesn't reflecf on him at all. Also, what the hell do you mean ''hatemobbed'' to suicide? I don't doubt there are people who went to extremes because those bad apples always exist, but most of the things I've seen are valid critisisms, memes and call outs about that guy. If holding people accountable for their actions and poking fun at them a little counts as 'hatemobbing'' (which has Filip calling his critics a ''lynch mob'' energy tbh) what the hell do you call actual hatemobbing then? Do we just let people continue being shitty because calling them out ''damages their mental health'' or ''drives them to suicide'' then? Is that a world you want to live in?

Same thing goes for people like this:

Criticing someone for their objectively bullshit content and wanting them dead are two seperate things. What the actual hell is wrong with you. The plagiarist in question is a person. Those ''harshest critics'' are still people. And because we're people, we care. I'd rather James pump out more plagiarised slop than commit suicide. I'd still hate him for it, but I'd prefer him being alive over the alternative any day. We all do. None of us would sleep easier knowing he's dead just because he wouldn't be ''committing the cardinal sin of putting out a 'pure content mill' video'' because someone taking their own life is horrific-- especially Hbomberguy, how dare you even try to imply that?

And this gets me to the reason I'm furiously typing all this out in the first place: Hbomb is the fucking victim here, so stop treating him like he isn't. He tried making things as right as possible by compensating those that were burned by James through a video where he revealed everything there needs to be known about the guy so that less people fall victim to his actions and lies. To just ignore the harm James was causing while he had the evidence to prove it and platform too big to threaten into non existence should he speak out would've been bad. So he didn't. He did the right thing by sticking with the people James had stolen from, giving them a voice and making them known after they've been scrubbed from the picture by decidedly being uncredited for their works or bullied into silence. He shouldn't have to deal with this for doing the right thing. He shouldn't be labelled a murderer for doing the right thing. He shouldn't have to have the death of a man on his conscience for doing the right thing. People claiming otherwise are obviously wrong, but I can't imagine what all this must feel like right now. Because even tho they're wrong, guilt isn't a rational thing, and I know that if I were in his position I'd still feel like a morally bankrupt individual were the worst to happen even if I knew that it was not my fault. This isn't a funny story. So to add to this dumpsterfire by using it as a prop to bash on a creator you don't like and immediately write Somerton off as dead even when he's not even been confirmed dead yet to do that shows how little these people actually care about the thing they're talking about. They don't care a guy potentially killed himself-- what they care about is using it to paint Hbomb in a bad light because they don't like him. Here they are, posting memes and ill jokes about this very delicate situation while barely a day since the news broke out had passed. It's opportunistic, it's sickening, and literally the exact thing he criticised in his video when talking about 'content mills'. Like, I know none of these clowns bothered to actually watch it, but have some self-awareness. And some shame too, while you're at it.

This long story short: I'm writing this to contribute to the narrative not getting twisted to make Hbomb out to be the villian. Same goes for everyone else. Don't let these people paint them as the villians. If I see another person pull this shit again I will literally bite you and shred you into salad and spit you back out because I hate you so much and I mean that wholeheartedly.

To Hbomb: you will never see this but if you do, take care of yourself.

To the asshats this post is about: Delete your account. Cease all together. Stop talking about this. Just leave him the fuck alone.

[otrtbs]

Hi I hope you're doing well 🌷

I had a question. I'm totally asking out of pure curiosity, it's not a criticism or anything of the sort.

In ahb (this masterpiece of yours) Sirius's favorite painting is Degas' Dancers.

I wanted to know if you knew the background of this painting and if making it Sirius' favorite was a deliberate choice or if you had no idea at all.

Because the Ballerinas in Opera Garnier in Paris were all really young and mostly, they were poor. The dancers were often their family's hope to crawl out of misery.

The audience was full of men.

In fact, the sad flip side was that there was a whole prostitution network behind the scene. With these young girls. Men could pay for backstage access to watch ballerinas change and sometimes rape them.

So Degas was a big customer.

That's how he painted the dancers and most of his works.

That's again how he sculpted the ballerina, her tutu was added meaning the 14 year old girl was posing nude.

Degas is also suspected of being Jack the Ripper, there are a certain number of credible leads and potential evidences.

That's why I was wondering if you knew.

Since there is this whole chapter where they insult Picasso (as they should) I found it strange that Degas being a known major p*do did not receive the same treatment.

Ps: I'm french, I don't know if I made any mistakes writing this, if I have please excuse me I tried my best 🙏

Okay hi, hello! I am doing well and I hope you are as well! You have unlocked Art Historian Thesis Nat, so I am going to put an extremely lengthy post under the cut, I'm so sorry (this is literally my area of study,,, i fear i am incapable of being brief about this)

I do want to clarify that right off the bat, I don't necessarily think many of these art historical figures are "good people". Like none of them are the best, most moral, upstanding citizens you should model your life after (but they're also dead sooooo). But I also understand that I did take some time in my fanfiction to make my hatred for Picasso very clear, and so I can also understand the confusion in not extending that same hatred towards Degas. But there are a few reasons for that, that I'll try to explain below!

The direct historical documentation of Pablo Picasso's violence towards the women in his life is vast and damning. If you want particularly good insight into his violence and abuse, then I recommend reading Marina Picasso's (Picasso's granddaughter) memoir titled: Picasso: My Grandfather. I also recommend Françoise Gilot's (romantic partner of Picasso) books, Life with Picasso and Picasso and Matisse. It is through the memories of the people who loved Picasso and who loved him in turn, that we hear of his sadistic nature that drove his lovers to suicide and we get personal letters that he wrote to Gilot in which he says things like "Dora, for me, was always a weeping woman… And it’s important, because women are suffering machines" and "For me there are only two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats." His granddaughter has this to say about him: “He submitted [women] to his animal sexuality, tamed them, bewitched them, ingested them, and crushed them onto his canvas. After he had spent many nights extracting their essence, once they were bled dry, he would dispose of them.” And Gilot says: "I am the only one to not have been sacrificed to the sacred monster(…) and is alive to tell the tale. He was a wonderful person to be with, it was like fireworks, amazingly creative, so intelligent and seductive(…) but he was also very cruel, sadistic and ruthless with others and with himself (…) It was the greatest love of my life, but you have to protect yourself (…) The others did not, they clung to the powerful minotaur and paid a very high price."

Why this matters: The evidence for Degas being so virulently misogynistic and cruel towards women is extremely less substantial and more speculative in nature.

Degas being Jack the Ripper. Degas being Jack the Ripper started off as a tiktok theory posed in early 2024, (though you can find an article as early as 2004 written by The Guardian's art critic here) and while fun to think about and speculate, it isn't true. August and September and November of 1888 is when the Jack the Ripper crimes were committed in London and Degas was in the South of France at that time receiving medical treatment because he was in extremely poor health. (Which you can find in The Letters of Edgar Degas edited by Theodore Reff (I'm sure there's. free PDF version out there somewhere)). Also, self-admittedly speculative, but Degas didn't visit the East-End of London when he did make his excursions to London because he was classist 😭. So, it would be odd for him to know the ins and outs of the streets where the murders took place. And also he had failing eyesight starting at 36, so the odds of him being Jack the Ripper are extremely slim.

The Ballerinas Yes, while it is true that the ballerina's were often subject to horrific conditions and were prostitutes for the "wealthy" patrons of the opera house, this does not mean that Degas partook in that. in fact, most historical documentation surmises he didn't. Degas considered himself a "realist" painter rather than an impressionist painter, wishing to document "real life" in all of its ugliness, beauty and unstylized truth. Therefore his primary concern was documenting the opera house and ballet in all of the moments, not just when the girls were dancing on stage. And in many of his paintings, Degas captures the opera patronsn in his ballerina paintings as lurkers behind the stage curtains as sinister black shadows, or as men predatorily watching in nice suits (e.g. Ballet, 1876 and The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage (1874)). But Degas himself, was NEVER a ballerina patron, he is even quoted as saying "People call me the painter of dancing girls. It has never occurred to them that my chief interest in dancers lies in rendering movement...". (now this is not because Degas was morally outraged at what was happening to the ballerina's, but because he viewed the men abusing the girls as committing a sin against God by sleeping with prostitutes). But while Degas had access to backstage, he was never a customer. And in fact, Degas is a notorious, well-documented celibate. This is because Degas believed sleeping with women would make him lose his special painting ability. No lie. Here's a direct quote from Vincent Van Gogh in his a letter to his brother Theo about the artist: "Degas lives like a little lawyer and does not like women, for he knows that if liked them and went to bed with them, he would become intellectually diseased and would no longer be able to paint." Degas was also known to reject ballerina's advances as well (again, fearing women would take away his magic painting power).

Feelings towards women By all accounts, Degas friends describe him as being reclusive towards women to being jovial with them, but always kind to them outside of a working environment. He even developed friendships with his fellow contemporary women painters. In a working environment, Degas was obsessed with perfection, demanding ballerinas contort their bodies in painful positions, and making them hold those positions for hours at a time. By all accounts, this was not because he hated them, but was obsessed with capturing their movements, the limitations of the human body, and he demanded perfection from himself. (x x x) (i.e. his obsession for his work and drive for perfection as a painter made him demanding and harsh towards his subjects, not his pure hatred of women).

Conclusions: So by many accounts, Degas was not particularly fond of women, and had little regard for his dancers. But the claims that he must have slept with the ballerina's and been a patron/customer "because that's what all men did back then" are not backed by any evidence. only evidence to the contrary. I went in on Picasso because those that were close to him have written first-hand accounts of his monstrocity. This is not the case with Degas. So, while I didn't tear him down like I did Picasso, I wasn't lauding him as a saint either. I highly recommend reading the article called Degas's Misogyny by Norma Broude which details the ways in which modern times have run away with this idea of Degas being a sadistic woman-hater and how we've gotten to this point. Anyway, TLDR; I was aware of the dark "underside" of the Paris Ballet at the time in which Degas was painting his works. Do I think he is Jack the Ripper and a man who participated in ballerina prostitution? No, not at all. At the end of the day, I am just an art history girl, telling anyone who will listen that there is not enough documentation on Degas to take these claims as 100% truth, or put that man up there with Picasso. Peace and Love! <3

[forevermore05]

1. I can't speak for other cultures that were represented in this show (I'm so sorry if your representation was ruined too), but since I'm a South Asian and specifically an Indian and Hindu. I think I have some credibility. Ok, so this may depend on the interpretations of Hinduism that you've grown up with if you're a Hindu reading this. Well, growing up, I was always taught that Chakras were so important. I learned that the GODS could not accomplish something unless they access all their Chakras (again, this is the interpretation I grew up with it might not be the same for you). So the fact that watching Aang just be able to live life without accessing all of his charkas properly was a big slap to the face. Let me just say this right now. If you were representing a culture, especially the culture that you base the entire show on you either do it correctly or you don't do it at all. Don't make it half-baked because that's just disrespecting the people who follow that religion. And you're emphasizing how insignificant their religious values are (mind you Hinduism is one of the oldest religions in the world). What little representation we had was also ruined.

2. I also want to talk about another point since I'm here. I think I've made it very clear that I'm a woman of color. Even though me and Katara Are not the same ethnicity. She was my representation through skin color. And it's so interesting. How even though I knew that she was not my ethnicity, I still grasped onto her as a representation. Now this is not a PSA for studios to say "Hey, let's have a person that is brown, and everyone will be okay with it because they will have a person of the same skin to relate to." No this is me criticizing the lack of diversity in the show. The fact that you can base an entire show on a culture but not be able to handle a main character from that culture. And also I think the reason why I like Zuko and Katara ( I've made this point before) But the amount of respect that they have. As a woman of color, I have not exactly received respect from other men whether that be because of my gender or my skin color. So seeing a woman of color be respected regardless it's just so refreshing to me.

3. Also I want people to be mindful that a lot of people who ship this ship. Are women of color and/or part of the LGBTQIA2S+ community. However, I'm going to talk specifically about women of color since I'm straight. A lot of us have come from countries that have been colonized and still face the repercussions of colonization to this day, so what I'm trying to say is. When woc ship this duo they know what they're doing and they're not doing anything wrong. It's disrespectful to insult them for being racist and misogynistic when in reality a lot of these women face misogyny and racism in their own lives. They understand why they ship this ship. They understand it very well because they able to see and understand what is truly going on.

4. If you have a problem with this post and want to potentially hunt me down. I'm only saying this because I've seen other women of color be harassed for liking Zutara. I need you to remember that I'm a teenager. I'm a kid. I don't think you want to beef with a kid. And no, it does not matter that I'm 18. You shouldn't be harassing anyone over a ship. In fact, accusing shippers of being racist but then being racist to that poc/woc shipper is insane. It kind of shows that those people are not on a moral high horse.

5. I'm a kid......don't even think about it.

[utilitycaster]

In the end, it is misogyny but in the form of that Imogen (and most of the female cast, if we are being fair) gets reduced to just being a woman to the point that criticizing any real flaw, wrong doing, or "hey i personally maybe perhaps don't like that she did this" is turned into an attack on her because she is a woman, because after all, all women are perfect and so so dainty they must be protected (sarcasm)

Without mentioning the attacking real women in the name of the fictional one

It really is the "God forbid a woman do anything" but in it's worst form

Sorry for venting, been having thoughts about the fandom for the past 5 years

YUP. I do recommend Unlikeable Female Characters by Anna Bogutskaya which I devoured in like, one sitting over my winter break and posted a bunch of excerpts from but this discourse is extremely not limited to the CR fandom. I mean, think about all of the endlessly churning nonsense about the women of Gone Girl and Midsommar. I am going to see Love Lies Bleeding tomorrow and have steered well clear of really any discussion because I simply would like to see buff lesbians in a crime drama but apparently the discourse is rancid.

Of course there are people who assume ill of female characters while excusing men. That is absolutely a big problem. But again, we can barely talk about that. I recently made a post about how Laura is not a particularly chaotic player, and indeed is one of the most cautious players in actual play, and again I think there is a serious and important conversation to be had about how there's probably a reason why, say, Travis and Taliesin are more likely to make extremely bold moves, because they didn't get raked over the coals during C1 for stealing a cool broom from a guest character! I actually think Marisha has managed to hang on to some of her boldness and it makes her a stronger player but I would not have been surprised if she retreated after the hate she got from Keyleth. But yeah, in actual play, bold moves are pretty important. We can't even talk about how real-world misogyny holds back the actual actors without some moronic wretch being like "FIGURES THAT A MISOGYNIST CUNT LIKE YOU LIKES A MALE ACTOR."

When a character who is a man - or in some cases, characters who are not men but are played by men - does something people don't like we can say "wow, I didn't like this, but it was an interesting choice by the actor!" but we aren't allowed to either talk about the reasons why a real world woman might hesitate to play a character who does ugly things - because of the misogynistic backlash that will land specifically on her as a real person - nor can we compliment her for going for it and playing a complex flawed character, because how DARE you say a woman is anything less than some kind of Divine Feminine ideal. At best you're allowed a two-dimensional caricature of She's So Sweet And Good But Sometimes Gets Angry (this also happened to my friend Keyleth).

And this might reveal my own biases but like. I as a woman don't love being called self-centered, but that, personally, would probably lead me to some reflection. If you call me a girlfailure, even jokingly, I am going to break your nose. It's really telling that like...one of the absolute no-brainer "hey stop calling grown women girls" feminist tenets has gone by the wayside particularly with the set of people who think that meta that fails to put women on so high a pedestal they are untouchable is misogynist. They are awful towards women, fictional and real.

A line that always stuck with me from, bizarrely, a book about wordplay, was that Victorian men would treat women of their same classes as their superiors, but never their equals - they would coddle them and protect them but they wouldn't actually engage with their thoughts and foibles. (This happened to my friend Jester).

Anyway my personal solution is to keep going. On some level, as my previous post indicates, while I don't want the harassment it also only underscores my point, that a lot of these people are way more invested in being a dick to women on the internet than writing meta about the pretend women they think they like. I have to imagine they're doing this because either think they're entitled to meta they like from people who can actually fucking write it because god knows most of the people making this complaint have the most "if you can't dazzle them with brillance, blind them with the most purple-prose bullshit you can muster" attitude; or because they literally are just champing at the bit to attack women online with the ostensible veneer of "but it's FEMINIST to call THESE women cunts because they said my blorbo wasn't saintly and flawless." However, again, I know that I'm pretty bullheaded and forcibly unlearned the uh, patriarchal idea that women should not be confrontational. I do not blame people who look at this whole situation and say "I'm going to keep my thoughts to myself because this is so unpleasant."

[amnyatas]

Wasn't sure where to reply to the post about there not being enough content about the Guild Wars 2 ladies but I will say for me personally, I definitely do tend to prefer playing with, fantasizing about, my male characters more. My experience irl as a woman has been in some areas traumatizing, or there's been a lot of shame associated with concepts I wanted to explore as a character, for example: fighting, sex, being ugly, getting hurt. It feels safer or more comfortable with a male character because it provides a kind of distance that allows me to explore and experiment with feelings and ideas that may not feel safe or open to me as a woman with certain experiences.

Further more, it's hard to identify with Guild Wars 2 female characters, as non of them are allowed to be ugly. Middle age does not exist visually in Guild Wars 2 for (human looking) women, nor do torn ears and split lips. They can't be fat, or even particularly muscular - even if they are a war marshal. You can't look monstrous without it coming across as some kind of joke either. There is a kind of unreality, or an over idealization of female characters in mmorpgs whether it's a lack of customization options, or a lack of down to earth female characters. It always leaves me feeling like they're still forgetting their female player base sometimes. Still, I do have female characters. I keep them pretty private because they feel more personal I guess. I'll try to make more effort to share them.

i really don't even know where to start here but i'll do my best.

i think in general i wasn't clear enough, i don't mean the game is misogynist at its core(or that it isn't), i don't even mean individuals are for the most part, i mean little things like that add up and then we have discourse like people shitting on Eir for being a bad mom (on a poll with Cadeucus like. hello?), but being wholly lenient on Rytlock for being in a similar situation where he was far less responsible. Or Caithe being hated eternally for her egg-tastrophe vs Canach's vigilante streak being widely ignored or joked about.

really, its got nothing to do with personal trauma, i can't tell you how to deal with that and if your way is good or bad for you or anyone else. i had someone approach me because they saw their bad relationship with their mother in Eir and admitted they were taking out personal frustration on a fictional character. we all have issues and hangups and ways of dealing with it, that's not the issue, the issue is if it starts affecting how we treat others because of it.

you don't have to sit and try to appease the criticism i make either, just...think about it?

like honestly bringing up womens' appearance ingame is a valid point if it were actually related to what i was saying, but also none of the men in gw2 are really fat either. its a problem persistent in the wider video game industry, not just gw2--i'm talking specifically about the gw2 fandom on tumblr, and my experiences here. which i'm finding i'm not alone in feeling this way, and its kind of frustrating to have an ask like this show up, missing the point and making it personal. its really not about anyone specific!

maybe i wasn't clear enough but its not a gw2-only problem. its the same thing that happens in every fandom. which doesn't make it right, it just...goes unspoken about and it makes people feel like no one cares.

just asking folks to think about where their biases lie, and hell, not even to stop at how they think about fictional women, keep asking yourself if your hatred or dislike or boredom with a character is because you genuinely feel that way or if you have some internalized things that you maybe need to work through.

[thebreakfastgenie]

My take on "white woman tears" is that the tears are real. There are people who can cry at will, but tears (or the lack of them) are most often an involuntary physiological response.

I think in most cases it's just that being told you're wrong and hurting someone is a humiliating experience, especially when it's true. Specific to the context of calling out racism, a lot of white people don't really understand systemic racism and see it more as there are The RacistsTM who are the bad people. I think the popular white American image of a racist is, like, George Wallace. This especially applies when you are dealing with white people who think of themselves as tolerant and are not only being criticized, they are being asked to reevaluate what may be a pillar of their sense of self.

The real issue with white women who burst into tears when they're called out for racism is that they have re-centered the conversation around their feelings. For white people who are actually committed to antiracism, one of the basic steps is learning that systemic racism is more important than their personal feelings. People are more likely to notice rank they lack than rank they have an abundance of, so white women tend to be more aware of how they are affected by misogyny than how they uphold racism. Once again, part of antiracist work is becoming conscious of that. You see this too with working class white people who have a negative emotional reaction to being told they have white privilege, because their understanding of their lives revolves around the economic privilege they lack.

The way "white woman tears" is so often framed is "[white] women are manipulative cunts who can all burst into tears on cue." This perpetuates misogynistic myths about women. It's also worth noting that privileged white people bursting into tears when faced with the possibility of consequences for their actions is not a female phenomenon. The poster child is Brett Kavanaugh, who is not only a man but a man who burst into tears when he was called out for sexually assaulting at least one woman, and he did not even face any real consequences. I also don't think Brett Kavanugh was crying on cue. When you've been protected from consequences your whole life, even the slightest possibility that you might face them now is a very emotional experience. His tears did not make me feel bad for him in the slightest, but that doesn't mean they were fake.

Which brings me around to another thought, which I think a more productive way to address this would be to stop treating tears like an emotional trump card. You don't have to comfort someone just because they are crying, especially if you know they're crying because they've been rightly called out. Crying is also not the only manifestation of negative emotional reaction to confronting racism. Arguing and defensively talking over people of color frequently comes from the same place. I think we tend to associate arguing with white men, and therefore see it as more logical, but it isn't.

I also want to acknowledge white women crying is especially frustrating for women of color and Black women in particular, because they have been forced since birth to limit their emotional expression. To return to Supreme Court examples, I cannot even imagine the media reaction if Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had shown any emotional response whatsoever to the Republican senators who would not stop talking about child exploitation materials during her confirmation hearing.

I also want to be absolutely clear that white emotions after being called out for racism should not ever be the responsibility of people of color. Antiracist work can be very uncomfortable for white people. It is our responsibility to work that out.

[thenightfolknetwork]

Hello, I seem to have found myself with an issue at work. My wife’s a demon. Literally. Her family hails from a realm of chaos but we met when she moved here for work. I talk about her fairly often so I had assumed all my coworkers were aware of her genus.

However, on Friday a couple of colleagues I don’t know so well pulled me aside to “discuss how I speak about my wife”. Apparently when I’ve been referring to my wife a demon they had been assuming I’m nothing more than a wife-hating misogynist. I unfortunately understand where they’re coming from; a lot of men my age do to speak poorly of their wives, but I adore mine! She’s the best thing that ever happened to me and when I call her a demon I say it with nothing but complete respect for her genus and her culture.

When they confronted me I panicked. All I could do was mutter some vague promise about doing better, then I scrambled to my car before they could say another word.

Since then I haven’t stopped thinking about what happened. Do people think I’ve been complaining about my wife for the last 20 years and have always been afraid to speak up? Or worse, do some of my acquaintances even support with that kind of behaviour?

In addition, should I speak to my colleagues about their assumptions about my wife’s genus? I’m rather uncomfortable that they heard “demon” and assumed I meant it both metaphorically and in a derogative manner. They’re generally nice people who were trying to call out what they perceived to be poor behaviour on my part. I don’t want to put them off intervening in future, but that doesn’t change their mistake now. I just don’t know what to do.

[Inspired by this post https://www.tumblr.com/acecorvid/744120113970790400]

Oh dear, reader. It sounds like you and your colleagues have got yourselves into a bit of an unnecessary muddle here. Fortunately, it's nothing a little clear communication can't help.

First of all, I absolutely agree that there is something problematic in their quickness to hear negativity and criticism in terminology relating to infernal species.

Based on the way you've spoken about your relationship here, it seems unlikely that you've been using this language while also speaking about your wife in a derogatory, dismissive way.

By failing to see these context clues and simply assuming you couldn't possibly be talking about an actual demon, your colleagues have shown their own sapio-centric bias.

At the same time, though, it's a good sign that they're willing to speak up against casual misogyny – even if their enthusiasm is, in this particular case, misplaced. You can use this good intention as a way to navigate the conversation itself.

Instead of telling them all the ways they're wrong, start off by acknowledging their efforts to push back against the patriarchy. Use this as a way to segue into the actual issue, letting them know that their willingness to speak up to you makes you feel able to correct their own misapprehension.

You don't need to belabour the point. However, I do think it's worth explicitly noting that it was a particularly unfortunate mistake to make, given how it feeds into sapio-centric culture in general and anti-infernal prejudice specifically.

Of course, this doesn't address your concerns about how you've been perceived by your friends and coworkers prior to this incident. Unfortunately, there's nothing to be done about people's past misapprehensions. At the same time, I wonder how realistic your concerns are.

You've known some of these people for 20 years. You speak about your wife often, and are supportive and enthusiastic about her culture. Presumably at some point you've mentioned engaging with her cultural practices, celebrating certain holidays and rituals, visiting family on other planes, and so on.

If anyone who's known you as long as all that still hasn't picked up on this, that's really on them.

As for worrying that you may have acquaintances who think you agree with their misogynistic views, the answer there is simple: do your actions otherwise indicate that you might be a person who would support such ideas?

If someone says or does something misogynistic in your presence, do you have the integrity to speak up about it? Are you involved in supporting equality and diversity in your workplace? Are you someone your friends and acquaintances could come to for support in the face of discrimination?

Most importantly, as the example with your colleagues demonstrates, are you a person who can hear criticism and make an effort to unlearn your own prejudices and preconceptions?

If you can answer yes to those questions, you have nothing to fear. You are already doing what you can do push back against structures of inequality and prejudice, and are in little danger of being mistaken for a bigot. And if not, you have some next steps to take on that journey.

[Clickable link to the original post]

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[brw]

Do you have any criticism towards the Magnus Family fans?

Anon, all I got is criticism, I'm a full time hater ❤️❤️

Okay unironically though, if you're looking for specifics, well my prevailing feeling about Magnetfam folks is that a lot of them feel like Batfam people who got lost. By that I mean it feels like a community built around fanlore and fan material, as opposed to actually engaging with the text itself, or if they do engage with the comics, it's often being read with those fan interpretations in mind. You see this with people making House of M to be this great AU thing that makes them a royal family, and not the deeply ableist, misogynistic, racist storyline that it is.

Equally, and I want to make it clear that there's no wrong way to get into comics, and this conversation is much more about how movie characterisations keep them from engaging with comics on their own, but a lot of them appear to have gotten into comics via the X-Men movies, and specifically via the prequel films, which offer a very warped view on Magneto, and especially one on Pietro, not that you can call that character Pietro in a meaningful way. It's in the way the focus is primarily on Magneto, with Wanda and Pietro (especially Pietro) being more accessories to him than actual characters.

Look, I hate the retcon as much as the next person, but Wanda and Pietro's mutant identities, while important, have never been a defining aspect of their characters, and you can easily make a recognisable Pietro and Wanda without making them children of Magneto. But then they wouldn't be related to the X-Men, and you can't expect us to read something that isn't the X-Men, right? It's interesting, because the bulk of the comics that discuss Wanda's mutant identity and her experience of being a Rromani mutant witch are Avengers comics, but those don't count because X isn't in the title. Pietro makes more sense to be related to the X-Men (he was in two different volumes of X-Factor after all), but even then, his character journey can never be contained to just what he does in X Books, and I feel like a lot of people ignore this because of the preoccupation with Magneto. It isn't a bad thing to have a favourite character–but it feels weird to position yourself as a fan of the whole "family" while Wanda and Pietro's relation to the family is only an nth of the total comics they've been in.

Also, I get frustrated with the blanketing of all the interesting dynamics in the family to be the same, "I choose you and I love you" relationship they seem to have now. This is going to be a controversial statement, but I don't think Lorna and Wanda should necessarily get along. I think they respect each other a great deal, but they have never grown up together in any way, and they've never enjoyed the same experience of being on the same team and building a solid dynamic like Lorna and Pietro. And that isn't a bad thing! As someone with family members I was estranged from my whole life and only met as an adult, sometimes you never gain the same level of intimacy and love that you do with people you've lived your whole life knowing, and sometimes you just don't really get on. And that's okay too! It's an awkward situation, but that's just family as a whole a lot of the time, and I would have appreciated seeing the different ways different people in those situations react to suddenly having an entire sister they never knew about. Plus, it would be an interesting spin on the norm, which is that Wanda is much more approachable and social than Pietro, but with Lorna she's suddenly the one struggling to make friends. I dunno, I just think a lot of the complexity of family dynamics gets sucked out and that's a big shame to me because one of the most interesting parts of this side of the Marvel Universe is the exploration of navigating new family as an adult, which is a difficult experience I rarely see represented in media.

Finally, and this is completely a me thing, but I don't like the way Vision and Crystal are excluded from the family. Regardless of your opinions on the healthiness of their respective relationships, objectively speaking they are incredibly important to the family as the reason why Wanda and Pietro each have children. There is no Tommy, Billy or Luna without Vision and Crystal, and it kind of shows how the emphasis really is on Magneto and Magneto alone, because everyone who doesn't have a relationship with him is excluded. As I've discussed before, Wanda objectively loves Crystal as a person, and she should be far more prominent as someone Wanda values as a sister in law than she is. Additionally, Vision and Pietro have a much closer and more mature relationship than they are depicted with in fanon, because people saw that one panel of Pietro calling Vision a watch out of context and have never read anything of them together since. Vision and Crystal ARE a part of their family, and if you can't accept that then I think you need to get into something else.

[wortsandall]

i feel like layla is hard to write and its not her fault. id hate for her to end up being just the wife to marc or in some kind of caretaker role, but at the same time the one season of the show doesn't give us much to work with.

she's just kind of there. its hard to get a handle on her character because she's there as a wife reveal. she definitely cares about marc and has justifiable anger towards him and the situation. but its hard to gauge her actual motivations. all we know about her is:

she steals stuff that was stolen first

shes married to marc

her work is an extension of her dad being an archeologist

she worked with marc

so its clear that she cares about justice being served. and from working with tawaret she cares about others lives and children (but that's a given for most female characters)

as a result, esspecially in writing her, i feel i lean into the more negative traits we see because that makes her feel more like a rounded character. i want to focus on her impatience, maybe her anger. but also she was quick to forgive marc (kind of) and i think that can be a flaw. quick to forgive the ones she loves, which could get her into situations.

but i also want to place doubts on her. she's not just marc's wife but a person in her own right with flaws. and i think there's potential to explore how much she did not believe steven at first. when exactly did she start to think that it was real, and not marc making shit up to avoid her? what if a part of her was still waiting for marc to say "sike" and that's why she almost kissed steven or feels drawn to him? what if?

but i also don't want marc to be the start and end to her character. there's interesting groundwork, even if we havent seen that much of her. like her relationship with her dad and Egyptian archeology in general.

i kind of don't want her to be nurturing. i want her to be compassionate but not in motherly way. i want her to be a good friend and a good person with her own hang ups. its difficult to be pretty much the sole support for someone who is severely mentally ill and struggling, but that doesn't make her a bad person necessarily.

but im also thinking about fandom reactions to an extent. if you make a female character do anything even slightly negative, people accuse you of being misogynist. even if you're simply not that compelled by her character. and people say they hate it when female characters are only depicted as care takers, but they take issue if you change them in any way. but im trying to ignore the critic in my head.

my point is that im not all that compelled by layla or her relationship with marc, which makes it hard to write because i still want layla in their life. but layla confuses me as a character as she's just kind of there. and even when she has her moments that are compelling, it's quickly moved on from. like marc being there when her dad died or her not believing steven for a good chunk of the show. so its a weird dichotomy where she's justifiably angry but not angry enough. but maybe i can do something with that.

[franollie]

do you personally think that fandom brings up misogyny unnecessarily and even when it has nothing to do with the issue at hand?

like some people get up and arms if you don’t ship batcat or brutalia (you’re not obligated to like anything for any reason) or if you ship bruce with someone else this topic will come up for whatever reason even though when there are actual instances of blatant misogyny in fandom and it’ll go fully ignored by these same people.

a point of bruce’s romance is to establish that he can’t really be endgame with any one person so i personally ship him freely. i don’t know why fandom is so obsessed with tokenizing certain shippers as certain prejudices when i’m sure that they genuinely have never interacted with said shipper one on one in their entire life

sorry for taking so long on this i have a LOT of thoughts on the topic

ok so in short: yes, i do think fandom loves to cry misogyny.

that being said, fandom operates in a blatantly misogynistic way (see how in large fandom favors men over women regardless of whether or not that man had more or less screen time than the woman). misogyny in fandom is a very real thing, but it is more a fandom as a whole problem than an individual problem. the only way the problem of misogyny in fandom can be solved is by actually engaging with the women in whatever franchise you're enjoying (writing for them, making art, reblogging art, writing metas, etc). show them the same amount of love that you show other characters

with that in mind, it is also important to note that sometimes you just don't gel with a ship or a character. i agree that people are drawn to certain dynamics and relationships, and you are allowed to ship what you ship. let's take the brutalia/batcat v bruharvey/batjokes because they are similar in dynamic (batman and one of his rogues). it wouldn't be fair to call a bruharvey or batjokes shipper a misogynist just because they don't ship brutalia or batcat. now, if they ship batjokes but hate talia for killing, then you could play the misogyny card. really it's just a matter of how you specific people interact with characters. i think a better example of this is superbat v clois.

i'm gonna try and stay as unbiased and objective as possible because superbat fans scare me lmao but a lot of the criticisms for superbat are about how it ships these characters at the expense of their relationships specifically with the women in their lives. to be even more specific, clark's relationship with lois. it isn't fair to say that "all superbat shippers are misogynist because they ignore lois" because i don't know why every superbat shipper ships superbat. maybe superbat is nostalgic to someone because they grew up reading justice league comics or the world's finest comics, maybe they haven't read or watched that much stuff with lois/clois in it, maybe they just think the idea of superbat is fun, who knows what the reasoning is. the problems really arise when they begin to change lois's personality and character to fit their ship whether it's by writing her as some bitchy ex of clarks or as a "girlboss who doesn't need a man and is superbat's biggest shipper uwu".

i do think when it comes to comic book fandoms in particualr there is another added layer of fandom superiority when it comes to shipping where there are the "correct" ships and the "incorrect" ships. but that's a whole other topic for another day

just to reiterate: fandom misogyny is a very real problem (look at the top 10 ships on ao3 for the past 5 years and that becomes abundantly clear) but the only way to combat it is by actually creating and sharing works positively featuring the women you like.

[queenvhagar]

So I start reading Sarah Hess’s interviews and she’s just downright… gross? Disturbing?

She defended adding in the Aegon rape storyline and said that there are probably a ton of guys who have done that, that doesn’t make them evil people.

I have been choosing to ignore that whole plot since it wasn’t in the books. But why would someone actually say that? Just straight up disturbing.

She also was the one who came up with the Larys / Alicent SA scene.

Just wtf??? None of it was in the books so I don’t understand why she added it into the show. It’s like she has weird fantasies and is getting to put them to light on tv

It's so weird because like. Sure. Rape culture is so normalized and so many guys out there have done harmful things without even thinking about it. And I guess we could do a story where it's delicately explored and there's a meaningful story that actually explores how women deal with this kind of thing... but like it is so clear that the intention was to make Aegon irredeemably evil and show Alicent's reaction to the scene. So why would SH even say that this thing about comparisons to real life abusers if this was the purpose of including this in story? Like why excuse IRL abusers while at the same time obviously using the same exact thing to try to make Aegon irredeemably evil? It makes no sense.

And the Larys scene is gross and unnecessary in sooooo many ways. It became a meme because it was so out of pocket and unneeded. Like imagine making a disabled character a sex abuser with a kink based on his own disability? And then making it happen to a character already shown to have been groomed by an older man that told her not to tell anyone they were meeting in secret and then later shown to be maritally raped by him against her will as she disassociates... and now this character also deserves to be knocked down a peg and shown looking shamed and uncomfortable as she's made to reveal her feet to a sex abuser foot fetishist with a foot disability? Like what in the actual hell? The victim blaming misogyny and the ableism at play is absolute disgusting and it just became a meme by the general audience because it served its intended shock value.

People out here defending her and saying her critics are unfairly misogynistic against her... yeah no sorry. She's just kinda got some messed up stuff going on and made the writing worse by putting it on our screens (and don't worry there is equal hate for Ryan Condal going on, all the criticism is NOT just focused on her).

[chariotofgod]

the phenomenon of an individual needing to "condone" or "condemn" everything really interests me when hits a critical point like this. maybe it results from a misunderstanding of what 4chan was/is. as if you can condemn 4chan as a homogenous culture and not at least as heterogeneous as tumblr is.

there are fascists, terfs, and libertarians who are here or were popular on here who participate in a lot of the same linguistic and cultural rituals as the progressive part of the site. some of these individuals even being critical in its cultural development. does it make any sense to "condemn" Tumblr as an entity because of this?

like obviously we can point to 4chan as the root of a lot of misogynistic and racist subcultures that now permeate the American and European Right. but then like. the origins of SCP, creepypasta, the growth of furry culture, the inception of the MLP fandom (as filled with paranoid homophobia as it was, which is obviously hilarious in retrospect), and even the standard formats for how shitpost punchlines are delivered all come from there.

they don't have their fingers in so many pies "for some reason???" it's because 4chan was a diverse and complex culture group that defined the early internet.

the continued treatment of it as "fringe" or "a place that's so scawy to visit :(", i think, creates a sense that whatever cultural products we decided to keep from 4chan were deviations from rather than products of its culture.

there are obviously a lot of problems with this. one being that it creates a lack of critical evaluation of 4chan's cultural exports (not that i'm rushing to categorize them as morally good or bad, just that it's important to consider).

another being a lack of perspective on why and how marginalized groups tended to thrive within the space in spite of its hostility towards.. everything (a kind of countercultural edgy nihilism which was not *inherently* reactionary, but definitely a response to 2001-2008 American and European neoliberal positivism).

anyways. you spend two seconds on a board that's not /pol/ and you quickly find an overarching paranoia around "redditors" who invaded after 2016 when r/The_Donald was shut down. there's a marked difference in the website's culture post-Trump, when the fascists on /pol/ (who i don't think you could call a majority) forged an alliance with Trump-aligned redditors.

pretty much any "oldfag" on the website is extremely resentful of this change. you could not take pity on them in a "where did you think such edgy nihilism would lead?" sense, but it also makes it quite clear that the website's earlier dissonance between anti-social behaviors and pro-social politics was not an accident. and while i would not want to adopt early 4chan's philosophy full sale, i do think there are things to learn from it.

whatever. post over. kisses, mwah, xoxo. 💋💋💋