#and he kept saying a lot of homophobic and transphobic shit | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

charbored · 4 months ago

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I'd say my life's pretty average.

I am a [closeted to everyone irl] pan & demi trans guy. I live in Sweden and I go to school.

My family is me, mom, dad and my brother.

I yap. A LOT. Especially on here, Ill say almost anything that crosses my mind.

I like to watch things [mostly queer things], youtube, listen to music, be on tumblr, bike, draw, ect. I absolutely suck at drawing things without a reference tho lol.

[EDIT] I have played the violin for 7 ish years and started playing drums a half year ago.

I LOOVEE Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel and BRCU, on-and-off obsessing over Heartstopper sometimes, but rn my brain really wont let "It's a Sin" go, I just watched it yesterday so it'll probably stay on my mind for a while lol.

I have never been to therapy or anything like that [my parents would never let me, because "there's nothing WRONG with our sweet girl" -_-] but I have spent quite a lot of time researching mental health things because I feel like I need to know whats going on w me, I have ADHD, BPD, probably anxiety [i think i might be some kind of system too but idk if i really am]. I've previously been struggling with an ED but I know what to do about it now/how to recognize signs of it so i dont relapse.

Sooo, onto my ~✨️life story✨️~ [WARNING: YAP, VERY LONG YAPPING]

When I was in elementary school I was sort of a popular kid, but not in a good way, I was friends with 2 different groups who hated eachother to death and they kept pressuring me to pick a side, my 8-year old self didnt handle that so well lol but ngl it was kinda nice to be a little more carefree.

On to 10-year old me switching schools, and doing a complete 180. Quietest kid youve seen, doesn't talk to anyone, just hangs around, zero friends whatsoever. Noone talked to me, I felt very excluded. That was probably the time I started distracting myself with whatever I could to not let myself think about what was troubling me [still do that], and lying to my family and everyone around me that I'm fine, really [ALSO still do that].

I didn't have any friends for a few years after that so when this one guy wanted to be with me I was overjoyed, I saw him like a savior, like the only one that mattered. I became sort of friends with his whole friend group, but we didnt really know each other, I was mainly focused on TheGuy.

We were "best friends", but it was so exhausting. He created drama with everyone all the time, and I had to be on his side, no matter if it was wrong or right. He had to be my 1st priority, but I wasnt his. I ended up getting depressed [again, got depressed 1rst time when I was lonely] and developed an ED during a period when it was all just too much.

I got better and started hanging out more with other friends and kind of quickly realized that TheGuy was an asshole, I just didnt know it wasn't supposed to be like that :/. Me and him slowly drifted apart since he switched schools. He wouldnt stop talking shit about my one of my best friends so I talked to him less and less.

I ended up cutting him off for good when I found out he was homophobic, transphobic, racist and nazi 💀💀💀 he can go fuck himself

Now my core irl friend group is me and 3 friends that I love so fucking much I genuinely cant explain it and theyre all so amazing and kind and funny. I can be myself [almost. not really ready to tell them some stuff but im very sure theyd be nothing but supportive] around them and since that + acknowledging that I'm queer I've been starting to get a little more carefree again, not really giving a shit of what ppl think about me.

Im still scared to come out because the rest of the ppl in my grade are pretty homophobic/transphobic and the only "openly" queer kids have either switched schools or study from home :/ I'm not even sure my parents would support me, theyre both leftist and "supportive" but give of really mixed signals.

My mom will see me borrow Heartstopper books from the library and talk about how she heard about it from some fans online of *band that is supportive af/maybe probably queer*, and is on tumblr because of said band, looking only at posts from their very queer fanbase. She was with me when i bought a rainbow pride pin.

At the same time she WILL NOT say gay or pride or queer or whatever. And she will walk past me watching a cooking show with a famous trans girl and talk about her using he/him and masculine terms, talking only about whether or not she has done *gasp* t h e s u r g e r i e s -_-

I am kinda hopeful about it tho, especially today when I saw some new kid like 2 years younger or something at school today with pan pins on their bag, and a few others with rainbow ones. I wish Ill gain the courage to do that soon.

Im probably gonna go in theater or art in a year, I've been pretty much burnt out for a few years and wouldnt stand doing something I hate, but I have not came up with any good ideas on how to tell my family that yet.

This is really long Im sorry I kind of intended for it to be shorter but whatever lol lets leave it like this

Tagggsss [no pressure ofc :3]

@mlpandwinxfairypony @stagbel @spookky-aint-spooky @worldsbiggestnerd101

@mushroom-girl89 @oversensitiveandoffputting @crowclubkaz @snackypie

@ anyone who wants to do this <3

Another Picrew Tag game because we can't have too many!

Link

Use this Picrew and talk about your life! (Don't feel pressured to do either tho! <3)

So.. I have a pretty normal life to be frank,

Well as normal of a life a girl with dyslexia and ADHD can have in school, which is bullied, feeling guilt for not being able to do anything sometimes, feeling afraid to tell others about your diagnosis, etc..

I was lucky enough to get a diagnosis, but I do fit most majorities where I'm from, I'm Asian (Indian, but I feel afraid to say that because people may confuse me for being Amarican-Indian/Native American), and Cis, and middle / upper class.

[My mum's a Psychologist and Dad's a founder of a small business that sells diamonds to jewelers]

I'm unsure if I have all the help I need, but I'm mostly good! Still struggle with doing anything related to school/work/whatever at home lol.

I've not told anyone other than my mum about my sexuality, but I don't really need to as I'm young enough to not have others wondering about why I've not tried dating yet, and I usually show attraction to men (Tho questioning if I just had a Lesbian phase of if I'm M-Spec, unsure if i ID as Heteroqueer or Bi), tho there was a rumor in my school that I was lesbian since I was when I was like ~10, and I didn't bother refuting it when I became older

I've recently developed a Hyperfixation on Helluva Boss, since I was forced by my YT recomendation page to learn about Hazbin Hotel, and I wanted to learn about the free spinoff I knew I could watch. Then promptly became obsessed.

Thankfully despite being bullied when I was younger, I still love myself, although when my teachers did say 'They were wrong but you actually need to work on X' because they didn't know I was Neurodivergent, it did affect my self confidence a bit, so now I take medication to help with my ADHD..

I honestly don't remember what past me wanted me to write, so sorry past me if I forgot to type anything you wanted me too

So ya, sorry for yapping, you don't have to lol, just like talking about my life, especially since this one is the first of the chain, sorry if it's a bother

@blitzosicedcoffee @blitzvo @samualjennings @amethystoceandespiser @blitzs-largest-horsiest-dildo @speakofthedebbie @toomuchdivergentformyneuro @imbatman27 and anyone else who wants to join!

(Update: Fixed tags)

#tag game

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randompurplepanthergorl · 3 years ago

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My spooky month character HC's (for all the characters I have headcanons for) cause I can

Here they are (Prepare for a long-ass post)

Roy:

.His full first name is "Leroy" he just likes going by "Roy" (but only by his friends)

.Trans boi

.Dead name is "Aliza"

.Huge potty mouth

.Constantly raises the finger

.His hoodie is F L U F F Y as fuck

.Had an absolute shit family (transphobic (Not COMPLEATLY obvious, but they kept using his dead name and pronouns and getting him girly shit), homophobic, abusive, constantly used slurs, hated his friends which where actually MORE like family then his blood family-) but luckily he put a restraining order against them and ran away leaving a note calling them out, basically a huge "fuck you" towards them

.Is almost always sleeping over with Ross and Robert due to the situation (He switches between the places)

.Owns a truck (His dad (which has passed on and was the ONLY nice/GOOD family member to him) left it for him for when he passed on)

.He sleeps in the truck whenever his friends can't have him over (Their parents/brother WOULD like to let him stay but sometimes they just CAN'T so Roy ain't able to sleep over ALL nights)

.Really good with guns

.Pansexual

.Tiny angry boi

.Hates the spooky dance

.If he sees Ross and Robert doing it he will most likely give them the stank eye or glare at worst

.Only pretends to REALLY REALLY Hate Skid and Pump, in reality he only dislikes them

."Most likely to start a bar fight"

.Has amber eyes

.Met the other Hatzgang members when he was a girl and when he admitted he was trans they where 1000000% supportive

.Exact height is 5'9

.Smallest of the Hatzgang but the meanest/scariest

.Make him mad, R U N

.Does not like laser tag (He calls it "Looser-tag") but ironically likes laser tag like video games

.Would protect Ross and Robert with his life

.A lot stronger then he looks

Ross:

.The candy store dude, Kevin, is his brother (blood brother not adopted or step)

.He wears a beanie cause he hates his hair (it's in an unintentional mullet and greasy AF-)

.He and his brother live together with no parents (well, Kevin IS an adult and has a job-)

.Lives in an apartment

.Has an eyebrow ring but does not wear it ALL the time

.Also has three kinds of earrings (has three kinds of piercing's in his ear) but does not wear them ALL the time

.Likes wearing metal style eyeliner but refuses to admit it-

.Is MOSTLY chill like in cannon but my HC version of him also has a little bit of a temper but he'll hide it, but if he let it out- Let's just say, Expect tables to be flipped and a stool coming at someone's head-

.Has blue highlights in his hair but they're covered by the beanie

.He's Bisexual

.When coming out/admitting that/telling someone he's Bi, he will literally play this song and dance to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3swobEQ6Y4 (More specifically the "It ain't no lie, baby bye bye bye, bye bye" verse)

.Really good with knifes

.Not "technically" friends with the spooky kids (their still warming up to him) but he's trying cause he likes them

.Likes doing the spooky dance (yes the whole ass thing and not the less exaggerated version he did with Rob in canon) but won't do it around Roy

."Least likely to start a bar fight but most likely to win one"

.Has sapphire blue eyes

.Exact height is 5'11

Robert:

.His middle name is "Tomas" or "Tom" for short, he'll even use "Tom" as a nickname and like it if someone does not feel like calling him "Rob" or "Robert"

.F l o o f y h a i r.

.Big Gay

.Actually has a crush on both of his friends but refuses to admit it cause 1: he does not want to make it awkward between the three of them if they ended up breaking up and 2: He thinks their straight (Their not)

.Loves plushys

.Has a plush toy army

.Big pure bean with insecurity issues

.Clumsy

.Only Hatzgang member that is confirmed as friends with the spooky kids (confirmed by the spooky kids themselves)

.Has eyebrow ring

.Likes doing the spooky dance but won't do it around Roy

."Most likely to loose a bar fight because he was too busy trying to be nice to people to stop it"

.Has emerald green eyes

.Exact height is 6ft

.Nicest of the hatzgang

.Goontle man (Get it? Like Gentle Man but a goon?)

.Likes picking Roy up like a ragdoll

.Likes picking Ross up like a ragdoll

.Likes picking Skid and Pump up like ragdolls

.He likes picking ANYONE that's smaller then him up like ragdolls

The Hatzgang as a group:

.They're all 16

.Literally NONE of them are straight

.Skid and Pump don't even reach their kneecaps-

.They all have huge sweat tooth's (not as bad as Skid and Pump but still)

.Still secretly like trick-or-treating (Even Roy, he just hides it a hell of a lot better)

Pump:

.Chaotic child

.HeHEHEHEHE FIRE GO BRRRRR-

.Can use a gun, which scares the shit out of everyone around him

.Eats A LOT of non-edible things such as a chair, Roy's shoelaces, coins, shampoo, etc.

.Can lift objects twice his size

.Friends with/Likes Robert but is still a little skeptical about Ross

.Would beat up Roy with a pillow

.Is the type of person to use a brick in a pillowcase in a pillow fight

.Likes making 'Woody' kiss people he does not like's faces

.'Woody' is a baseball bat

.VERY Surprisingly does not hold grudges like if someone destroyed something of his he'll be mad/cry about it for like, twenty minutes (ten if the person apologizes) then get over it and go "Ya know what? Forgive and forget, past is past." unless it was something special to him, if THAT's the case then expect him to beat your ass with the brick pillow

.His mask is an actual pumpkin with eyeholes (it was a mask but Roy destroyed it, feeling bad Ross and Robert made him a new one out of an actual pumpkin)

.Hides things in his hair

.Baby John Cena pretty much-

Skid:

.Jack Skelington is his birth father and the Lemon Demon from FNF is his step father

.Chaotic but nowhere near as chaotic as Pump

.Actually sometimes runs away from Pump-

.Really likes Ross but he's not in the friend group cause Pump's still kinda skeptical about him

.Hides things in Pumps hair

.Also hates Roy

.Would probably give Roy a cursed present (such as a fake head in a box, etc. (Both his birth and step dads taught him that))

.Likes pranks

.Second favorite holiday is Christmas

.Pure bean

Skid and Pump together:

.SoMeHoW when their together their immortal (apart their mortal)

.When their not stacked their both about the same height as a Fruity Pebbles cereal box

Kevin:

.Ross is his younger brother

.Has an ENTIRE PLAYLIST of Anti-Cop themed songs-

.He's almost always putting up with the Hatzgang's shit

.Also has blue eyes like Ross

.When at the apartment, or with Ross in general: Helicopter brother

.Will sometimes randomly start yelling out songs like "Bring me to life" at the most random times, never at an inappropriate time but random af- EX:

Kevin and Ross: Just sitting in the living room.

Kevin, out of the freaking blue: WAKE ME UP INSIDE-

."IiIiI hAtE mY jOb-"

.Will sometimes steal candy from work and somehow never gets caught-

.Ross will sometimes joke saying he's like the Candyman monster and he'll get him back by jumpscaring him wearing a costume

.Can and will use candy as weaponry

.7ft tall he could probably crush Skid and Pump at that height

.*Holds Ross* "If anyone even lays one finger on him I'll kill everyone in this room and then myself."

Candy Dealer:

.Actually moves like a normal person instead of, whatever's goin' on with his anatomy in Spooky Month Unwanted Guest- (Look at the way he walks and how his arm moved in that episode and tell me that's normal, I dare you)

.He's not a human, he's a void/shadowy being

.Trench-coat is actually a cape (Like it looks like a coat but it does not have sleeves and when unbuttoned it works like a cape) and can be easily removed

.He can eat human food if he wants but it's not necessary to do in order for him to live

.Goes by He/They/It pronouns (But he/him or they/them is preferred over it/it's)

.Can (Kinda?) fly, like he can't fly-fly but he can fly about two-three feet off the ground at highest- (He could recreate the floating boy chasing running boy meme-)

."If I ever find myself in love I want my partner to be graceful, balanced, stable-" *Insert Kevin falling down a flight of stairs* "-I want that one."

.Immortal

.Buff af

.His 'feet' are like high heal boots with sharp-ass heals- And to match they're fingers are sharp claws

.Does not have to wear the trench-coat technically, he could wear anything or just be naked (What? It's not like his 'thing' is gonna be out- He can make it invisible at will-) but he does have to if its sunny out, it does not harm or kill him but it severally drains his energy if directly exposed to it without covers

.Is immune to drug, cigarette, alcohol, etc. effects, he could seriously smoke fifty ciggs at once and be completely fine-

.Can't swim but can stand up in almost any pool so they'd splash around a bit dramatically shrieking before dramatically sinking then standing up a second later

.It's 12-13 ft tall at full height

.Constantly slouches making him look shorter (still tall but a hell of a lot shorter then it's full height) so when they stand at full height (Mainly he only does it out of anger or is in a situation he can't slouch) it startles a lot of people due to his size

.Can't take the hat off- Ever- Even if he wanted too-

That's it

#spooky month #spooky month roy #spooky month robert #spooky month ross #spooky month skid #spooky month pump #spooky month kevin #spooky month candy dealer #spooky month headcanons #headcanon

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brettyimages · 2 years ago

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saw lots of posts again about the damon/tswift thing and I’ve been thinking about that one saying the fact it made news is everything that’s wrong with modern culture and i just want to say

the whole reason bl*r got to where they were is because That Is His Schtick. Like they were just some baggy shoegaze band and then Suede happened and suddenly every single interview Damon gave was like “oh Brett Anderson is doing heroin” or “I don’t know why people fancy Brett Anderson, he has a fat arse” or “I’m more bisexual than Brett Anderson”, like he realised he could talk shit about whoever was the top star in his field and get column inches

then when Suede died down a bit he looked around and saw that Oasis were the top stars in his field and bingo, new adversaries for him to shit-talk in the papers

he even did it to his fucking GIRLFRIEND but she just went “oh Damon’s not into sex” and wrote a whole album of songs about him sleeping around and being shit in bed

so idk why anyone is surprised that he made a rude and baseless claim about Taylor Swift because that is what he does and has been doing for thirty years - by the way, it’s the exact same tactic Kanye West has used to generate publicity too, not just with his own Taylor Swift feud but also when he says things like “I’m the world’s greatest living rockstar” which makes shithead metal fans see red

and it wasn’t okay for Damon to claim Justine didn’t write any of her songs, and it wasn’t okay for him to say that football would have kept Kurt Cobain alive, and it wasn’t okay for Oasis to say they hope he gets AIDS and dies, and it wasn’t okay for journalists to ask Justine if she would pose nude or if Elastica were ‘in drag as boys’, and it wasn’t okay for the papers to make jokes about what Richard Oakes weighed or harass Brett about whether he was a heroin addict/paedophile/whatever else his rivals threw out about him, and it wasn’t okay for Al*x J*mes to sexually assault Miki Berenyi, and it wasn’t okay for the papers to take bands like Lush out drinking to try to get them to slag off other bands. All of that horrible shit that was printed in the 90s is the reason why we still have racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, lads-mag-reading, ‘things-were-better-in-the-old-days’ Brexit voting, pull-the-ladder-up, right-wing Oasis-worshipping Gen X cunts in parkas dividing our country today.

And look, I WISH we had a weekly music press now like there was in the Britpop era but not if it means that people who behaved like Damon and the Gallagher brothers get to be on top at the expense of the rest of us. Social media is bad and call-out/cancel/chronically online culture isn’t good, but lets not pretend that there were no consequences to printing whatever these twats would come out with that would sell the most papers.

#anyway once again i hate him

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lixxen · 3 years ago

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Hello! I for one would be very interested in a government assigned gender/sexual orientation list. I am making grabby hands at you and this concept - 🧦

Bet!

So, I will break them up by groupings and titles under-the-cut. It is a LOT.

Mild No Way Home Spoilers

Before I go into this though, here is a disclaimer:

None of the orientations I am about to list out are canon. Some of them ARE canon, but with my thoughts added on top of them. Only very specific characters have canon sexualities and gender orientations that have been confirmed (like Yelena being AroAce and Deadpool being pansexual).

If you do not agree with me, that is your own opinion. You are allowed to disagree, but please do not attack me over mine and your opinions. As a trans queer this is purely based off of my perception of the characters and experiences within the LGBT community (online and in person, I used to be heavily involved in my very big city's LGBT community and official organization).

So I must state again, these are purely MY OPINION. You are allowed to disagree. But do not be an asshole about it.

EDIT: This took me two hours.

----

IRON MAN:

Rhodey: A CisHet ally. He himself doesn't fully understand the spectrum that is gender, but he does believe that everyone should be who they are. He is also a firm believer that trans people should be in the military, as long as their shots/form of hormones is not effected by their deployment. If you cannot get to your hormones due to your placement, he will remove you and put you in something that is similar, but gives you access.

Tony: He is a Bisexual Cis man with a preference for women. He was heavily transphobic and homophobic as a child because his father was around men who were like that. Tony realized later on that he was in the wrong. Then eventually he realized he liked men also, but was never open about it. That is why he knows there is a smaller chance of him having children out there. Because he didn't only fuck women. He would debate his gender for a while, especially in college, but end up being cis.

Pepper: Bisexual Cis woman, no preference. She is a great ally to trans people and her fellow women. One of the first things she did when she took over for SI is get her staff more diverse; but in the sense that trans and gay people wouldn't get jobs in their field if they were open back then. So she hired them instead. Tony 100% agreed and fist fought an exec over it.

Justin Hammar: This man is Bisexual and cis. There is no straight bone in his body but he is very good at disguising it. He had the hots for Tony AND Rhodes. And Pepper. In all honesty, this man just wants to fu-

Happy: Our CisHet ally. He genuinely HATES transphobes and homophobes. The second he heard someone talk shit about Peter (See Peter One). He dated a trans woman during the 90's and he protected her with all of his energy.

Pierce: Homophobic. That's all I am going to say.

Ross: Ross is CisHet and is for equality in the way that he will treat you like a piece of meat in the same way. Men don't get a pass because they're men. Outside of work though, his daughter is Bi so he's an ally for her.

Obadiah: CisHet (Derogatory). He realized Tony was bisexual towards the end, before the whole Mandarin deal, and he forced Tony to come out because he kept bringing it up.

Howard: CisHet, but actually an ally. He genuinely had to hide that he was an ally because business men were horrible and he couldn't risk his reputation. He was a bleeding heart when he knew Peggy and Steve. He knew the second that Steve wanted to get Bucky that they weren't straight. That's why he fought so hard. Strong ally with his Bi wife.

Ultron: Hot take: AroAce, but gender fluid. Ultron would abolish gender.

Maria: Cis but bisexual. She took one look at her baby boy and knew he would turn out like her. He always took after her when it genuinely mattered as a human being. He may be like his day, in a playboy and smarts way, but he has her heart. She would have quietly fought for gay rights.

Morgan: This is based off of the deleted Endgame scene and my personal opinion if the 2015 style fics happened and she grew up with Peter. Morgan would be our pansexual gender questioning queen. She would question her gender for years and then end up settling with female.

Jarvis: Jarvis is male presenting Agender and Aro/Ace.

Friday: AroAce, but female presenting Agender.

Harley Keener: Bisexual and cis. He would take one look at Peter Parker and literally be obsessed.

Captain America:

Steve: Bisexual, male leaning, cis. In all honesty, he would probably identify as gay once he's in the modern time. He would have realized that he idolized Peggy and loved the idea of her. She was the only woman that he loved. Sharon reminded him of Peggy.

Peggy: She is our bisexual, male leaning, cis woman. I don't have much to say about Peggy in all honesty.

Sharon: CisHet ally. She is upset that Steve doesn't reciprocate her feelings, but then sees him and Bucky together. Then Sam. And then she meets Karli and her brat squad. She's tired.

Thor/Loki:

Thor: Your biggest CisHet ally. He jokingly becomes the Lesbian god but not because he calls himself that, but because he is given that title by the lesbians. Thor drinks RESPECT JUICE.

Valkyrie: Non-Binary female presenting Lesbian/NBLW. That's all I have to say.

Jane: Jane is a CisHet who had said slurs when in college, but she's an ally now. I love Jane but please-

Frigga: Frigga is a gender-fluid bisexual. She presents as female because she's AFAB and is comfortable. She is gender-fluid in the same sense Loki is.

Gransmaster: Hi in this essay I'll explain why every character Jeff Goldblum plays is either gay or NB and Pan-

Heimdall: CisHet Ally

Hela: This woman is a bisexual MENACE. She fucked at LEAST one of the Valkyries.

Darcy: Bisexual she/they. Thats the post.

Mobius: Our king is a Bisexual Demisexual who is Cis. This man literally studied Loki for YEARS and fell in love with him in a parasocial way. He's lucky that Loki was into him also. (Loki is way too into the fucking dom/sub shit they had gotten into at the TVA and he counts it as foreplay. Morbius can't tell if he's joking).

Loki: Bisexual Gender fluid. This dude is literally a "I will be whatever gender I feel that day and will present that way. I will fuck literally ANYONE". But he is most comfortable with male because he finds comfort in normality sometimes and it reminds him of his early childhood before he learned how to shapeshift. It isn't from him simply rejecting his gender, but he wishes he could redo his childhood and accept himself for what he was. A child who did not fit into any boxes.

Odin: CisHet. He is borderline transphobic, but Frigga literally beat him out of that.

Sylvie: Sylvie is a TransHet. She hated being stuck as a boy and the second her mother taught her how to change forms, she chose female. She hates the idea of being male and is VERY aggressive towards other variants because of this. She is the type of trans person who will get overly aggressive. She is not a good person in the LGBT community. She is too aggressive and gives her and the Loki's a bad name because of this. But its okay. She ends up T4T with a hunter after having a fling with Renslayer and realizing she HATED it.

Hunter B-15: Cis and Lesbian. She has a PHATTY crush on Renslayer. She was Hunter C-20's girlfriend at one point in her original timeline. Their Nexus Event was getting together.

Hunter C-20: Trans Lesbian. She was in love with C-20, who kept her being trans under wraps. Trans hunters aren't uncommon, but the hunters are still people and jerks.

Renslayer: Cis and bisexual. This woman is a menace to society and you'll never know she is bisexual until she tells you. You just think she's homophobic until she goes "you were just gonna think I was HOMOPHOBIC?????" when you call her out for making gay jokes.

Black Widow:

Natasha: Surprisingly, Natasha is unlabeled. But you know she isn't CisHet. You can tell she's Ace though.

Yelena: AroAce. You will drag that away from me only if it is from my cold and dead hands. She is Non-Binary, but female presenting. She/They if you feel me.

Taskmaster: AroAce and Cis.

Melina: Bisexual and Ace. Cis. She would kill anyone who is homophobic or transphobic.

Alexei: CisHet, a confused ally.

Bruce Banner: Bisexual and gender queer. He/they pronouns. Same for the Hulk.

Hawkeye:

Clint (MCU): CisHet. He is a great ally though!

Clint (comics): Bleeding heart Bisexual. Gender queer. This man literally has no idea what gender he is, but he goes by He/Him because it is EASY and he fits best there. He dated Bucky briefly and they had the BEST relationship. Sadly, Clint is a human dumpsterfire.

Kate: Cis and questioning. She thinks that she only likes guys, but girls are so fucking cute and the girl in martial arts club, what was her name? Chavez? She's very cute.

Maya: You would ask her and she would plainly respond with "none of your business." She would be bisexual and ace.

Jack: Our Trans Bisexual king. In the comics he is Bi/Cis, but in the show? Bi/Trans. I will die on this hill.

Elenor: She is genuinely one of the biggest CisHet ally's you will ever meet. She can smell Kate isn't straight.

Kazi: That man is agender but presents as Cis because he is AFRAID. Fisk knows though and absolutely would fight anyone who asks. He's pansexual, btw.

Doctor Strange:

Strange: CisHet who you'd think is very homo/transphobic but he isn't. He actually is very loving and will use science and whatever psychology he has absorbed for fun to prove that you're valid.

Wong: CisHet, but he is also an ally. He dated a dude once though. He had fun but then the dude came out as trans. Wong was in a relationship with a woman this whole time. Fuck you if you think he dated a dude. (Wong's words, not mine.)

Ancient One: Agender who only dates women. She accepts being called She to make it easier on everyone and actually prefers it in the end. She's kind weird like that.

Kaecilius: He's played by Mads Mikkelssen. I want you to guess what I am about to say. He's fucking gAY. Gender queer and GAY. This man is into DUDES and had a very loose concept of gender. Just enough concept to be like "I'm man."

Christine: Our local girlboss is actually demi and cis. She loves Stephen Strange because he crawled so fucking far up her ass in annoyance that she finally broke down and got to know her. She slowly felt herself getting feelings, which she didn't know what to do with at first. But hey, it opened her up to be more social in a.... letting people get close way. That's how she got her current husband. He crawled so far up her ass also in the same way because... she let him. That's big.

Black Panther:

T'Challa: CisHet Ally. He is a great man and puts time into finding out what each gender and sexuality means.

Okoye: CisHet Ally who is just like T'Challa.

Shuri: Shuri is Cis, but she is pan. She literally is the one to introduce T'Challa to LGBT matters. She is currently working on top/bottom surgery research.

Spider-Man:

Mysterio: CisHet who goes to gay bars to pick up bi chicks. Specifically bi chicks. He is respectful enough to not hit on the WLW. He usually gets invited to gay bars, but he will sometimes go by himself. We got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too muCH-

Connors: AroAce Agender. We wouldn't have these concepts if we were all lizards.

Electro: A STRONG CisHet Ally. This man has had so much in his life happen that he has been with enough people to understand gender and sexuality. He has experimented and found out that anything else isn't for him.

MJ (Raimi): Bi Wife Energy. She/Her (sometimes they)

MJ (MCU): She/They bisexual. She will literally out talk anyone who says shit about gender and sexuality. She will literally come for their throats. Gender is a social construct to her and she wishes to obliterate it alongside misogamy.

MJ (ITSV): She/They pan. This MJ has lived her life and since her and Peter B were on and off, she had time to do it. She feels comfortable in her body.

Gwen (TAS): CisHet. She is a good ally though!

Gwen (ITSV): She/They bisexual! They like they more, but she is very much adequate. They come to terms with their body, but in the end they don't care about what's on the outside of their body. They believe that gender is a construct also, so why care?

Peter B Parker: He/They queer. He doesn't like to label himself. He isn't straight, but isn't.... bisexual or gay. If that makes sense. Peters aren't straight cut like that.

Harry Osborn: Gay and Cis. No elaborations here, your honor.

Miles Morales: Bisexual gender queer. This kid doesn't know what he wants to be, but he knows that in the end, Miles is Miles. He/She/They.

Ned: Heteromantic asexual. We stand him tbh. A he/him who doesn't have a concept of gender in the end.

Sandman: CisHet ally. His kid ends up being a lesbian and he loves her.

Octavius: Bisexual agender. But specifically agender after the whole tentacle controlling. He/They.

Osborn: Bisexual and Cis. You wouldn't be able to tell until you walk in on him, his wife, and Octavius making out-

May: Bisexual and cis. She is a big ally and makes sure her work effects as many LGBT kids she can reach. She also really loves Yuri! On Ice, if that says anything.

Peter One: As much as I love transmac HC, I am torn. On one hand I'd like to say he is. But tbh.... Peter would be He/She/They. A gender fluid, almost exactly like Loki! But he prefers to present male. You will actually never find out what he was born as because literally no one besides May know. You're pretty sure he's AMAB. But Ned says some things that makes you change your mind. He doesn't want people fetishizing him, so he just... doesn't say. So people just accept that he's a gender fluid male presenting person. But Peter does stare at himself in the mirror for hours at home, staring into those eyes and wishing that in some other universe he could be something else. Anything but himself. He gets lost in the thought until something snaps him out of it.

Peter Two: Bisexual FTM. I am putting my foot down because he is the OPITAMY of what passing is. Like, as much as I kin Peter One, Peter Two is what a FTM wants to be in passing. He might not be attractive to some people, but he has 100% embodied what it means to be passing. And I'm proud of him.

Peter Three: Bisexual and gender questioning (he is born intersex with more male presenting and his family chose to perform a surgery to make him male presenting when he was born). He understands that he is very attractive and he is the epitome of what people can strive to be. But... that isn't what he wants. When he meets One and Two, he loves them. Because they know who they are. That's why he doesn't think he's amazing. He has a bad relationship with gender because of this. He has trauma.

Flash: Listen up kids because I LOVE Flash. He would be a bisexual cis kid who is NOT out. He would be in love with Peter Parker and envies him. That's why he obsesses over Peter. He tells himself that he hates Peter instead of love. If his parents ever find out, he's dead meat. He has zero feelings about not being Cis. He knows he's cis. But Peter... he envies Peter SO MUCH. At first, yeah. He doesn't like Peter. But by the time Far From Home happens, he just wants to know Peter better but can't backtrack. By No Way Home... he genuinely is trying. He wants to backtrack. He wants Peter, but he knows Peter loves MJ so he is fine with just being friends.

Toomes: CisHet Ally.

Liz: Cis Pan.

Betty: An overly confident CisHet Ally. She will do anything for the LGBT community.

Venom: Agender, but male presenting. He is not asexual like his species. He likes people in general and is a major monster fucker.

Eddie: Cis, but he's bisexual.

Annie: Bisexual trans. I love her.

Dan: CisHet clueless ally.

FATWS:

Bucky(MCU): Gay Cis. He would bring two lesbians out to places so they could go on dates and he'd be their protection. Steve would unknowingly go along with it. He is more closeted and quiet about it. I would say that he would have a long talk with Zemo (once they were on speaking terms) and they would work out their problems together. I would go on a ramble about how their relationship would be very weird because its not dating, but its something like that. But he and Sam would 100% date on and off, because they need couples counseling. Zemo would be during the biggest gap, to fill the void. It is mutual in all honestly. This would be years after FATWS and if Zemo wasn't taken by Wakanda.

Bucky(Comics): Gay and Cis also, but he is VERY fucking out there. He is not afraid of his sexuality. Him, Sam, and Clint would be in a poly relationship until Clint fucks up. Then it would go to Bucky and Sam. Natasha would be before Clint BTW.

Sam: Bisexual, woman leaning. Cis. He in all honesty doesn't talk about it and goes for broken men. Women, he finds the epitome of the perfect women. But Sam isn't perfect.

Walker: Sigh. This CisHet man can't fucking shut up.

Zemo: Bisexual He/They. I love this man. He would have the best grasp on He/They energy.

Contessa: Cis Pan. She fucks.

Karli: Genderqueer straight. She doesn't know herself.

WandaVision:

Wanda: Bisexual Cis. She's pretty comfortable with what she is.

Vision: Mans is heteromantic and asexual. Agender, but he choses to present and go by he/him.

Agatha: Cis Lesbian. She doesn't see the need for men.

Pietro: Mans is CisHet, but an ally.

Monica: A cis lesbia, like her momma.

Ralph: Trans Bisexual. Mans is just living his life tbh.

Daredevil:

Kingpin: This man is cis, but he doesn't understand romantic attraction. He doesn't. You could label him, but in all honesty it isn't worth your time. He IS an ally though. He also loves Wesley and Vanessa. But in two separate ways. I wrote about this before.

Matt: Bisexual Cis. He has spent many days hating himself for being bisexual as a teenager, but ended up realizing that everyone has sin. He doesn't go to hell because of his sexuality. He goes to hell for what he has done. He also just wanted to kiss Foggy when he was in college. But then Elektra happened.

Foggy: Our He/They bisexual. This man,,, loves Matt Murdock. He was the only person to SEE Matt Murdock in the way that truly.... had understanding. People liked Matt, yeah. But he's hot. Foggy knew him like he knew himself.

Karen: Bisexual and Cis. She prefers dudes, but we've all seen her backstory. She had a girlfriend or two and she misses them a lot.

Frank: Pan and cis. This man wants to rock Matt Murdock's life. But also, he loves Karen like he loved his wife.

Claire: CisHet. She's a great ally.

Elektra: A feral she/they who is aromantic and bisexual. She doesn't actually love Matt in the way he loves her.

Wesley: Gay.

Vanessa: Bisexual and AMAB. She in all honesty, is who I would want to be if I was female.

Shang-Chi:

Shang-Chi: Bisexual Cis. He had a boyfriend or two in college. But he usually leans for females.

Katy: She/They who is WLW. She hates labels because sometimes she likes dudes, but sometimes she doesn't. Also isn't her style.

Wenwu: CisHet. I don't know how to go about this man, but he has bi wife energy.

Xialing: Cis Lesbian. She is too powerful for me to describe.

#I listed out a TON of other characters #so if anyone wants to see the rest of them #you just gotta ask #im too tired #asking matt #fuck #marvel #sexuality #gender #matt murdock #daredevil #tony stark #peter parker #doctor strange #thor #steve rogers #sam wilson #bucky barnes

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trilies · 2 years ago

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As someone who was there from ground zero: It literally all started because some rando thought it was cringe. Literally that. They picked a single dumb comic panel, whined about it on twitter, and it picked up speed from there. But it's not enough to just.... not like a thing. There's no *clout* in that. So you had a whole bunch of people starting to spew homophobic bullshit, but hiding it underneath fake ass concern trolling. Because wish fulfillment from a queer artist living in a queerphobic country is, uh. "bad representation". That a lot of the "ironic" homophobia looked a whole lot like the genuine article was something a lot of people tried really hard not to think about. Also added into the mix were a LOT OF TRANSPHOBES who were really psyched to spread their bullshit rhetoric. Lots of "real men don't like stuff like this" (very "no fats no femmes" on grindr of them) and "this is fujoshi bait" or OUTRIGHT calling the creator a woman As a note, the creator is a trans man. Even now, a lot of the arguments against it are literally just "he's fetishizing queer men", which is an interesting thing to say about a trans man. Of course, when you ask them just what that means, they go weirdly quiet. No one wants to admit that they sucked shit straight from terf ass. And that's not all. Because cringe and accusations of bad representation are still not enough for the clout hungry. so some dedicated haters dug NEARLY A DECADE BACK just so that they could find some shit. Ironically, the shit they found, they only found because the creator had already apologized for it before the shitstorm was even a bubble. You'll find that the detractors often like to frame it as much more recent matters than they are, because, again, this all happened near decades ago There's two main things 1. He said a racial slur For context, he was quoting that one Free! meme video series on youtube, and was a non-english speaking teenager. Like, this is context (just like how long ago this happened, and his apology) that detractors like to mysteriously leave absent in their explanations. (Fun fact, when this was all first blowing up, I kept hearing vaguely about the slur usage and was like "Wow that seems way more important than the stupid cringe shit". And when I finally tracked down someone with a screencap using it as proof of what a horrible person he was..... It was literally the screencap including the creator apologizing. So it was never about genuinely caring about racism.) 2. He drew RPF of BTS members once. ....While being younger than them. ...Which he also apologized for when he grew up and felt he'd overstepped boundaries. He went on to delete his posting of the comic, although it continues to live on in part because the haters saved it and keep spreading it around. All of that are the excuses people like to use as they literally tell him they hope his plane crashes tldr People hate it because they can't just Not Like A Thing, they have to make it a moral panic, no matter what lies they have to make in the process, and now they're puppets for bigots.

Actually, serious question.

Why is the Boyfriends webcomic hated/shit on so much? Like wth is wrong with it?

Also, everyone is screaming about stereotypes, ESP with the goth character. Like I don't get how he's a stereotypical trans guy? Idk, I don't get why people are telling other people to kts over it. I don't get what the hell is happening and why it's so horrible ppl feel the need to harass and threaten people online who enjoy it.

#james shenanigans #it's literally just queerphobia and racism all the way down tbh #like I'm not dumb enough #to think that him being a queer man of color #has nothing to do with this #big post

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we-stand-toether-in-space · 4 years ago

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LETS GET THIS STARTED!

Hello, we are the Space System!

This is our introduction/DNI/PI/Masterlist post!

(sorry it’s so long I have lost the ability to put a “read more” here, so it’s just gonna be unbearably long)

Because I need to make this clear apparently:

We are a traumagenic system. No, we won’t tell you what our trauma is. No, you wont get a list of our triggers. You are only getting that bit of information on us because It seems to be increasingly needed in the climate of Tumblr Systems.

Starting off with clear boundaries:

DNI (Do Not Interact) if:

You believe in the killing of any group of people (Kill All men, kill all __, “we should kill ___” it’s not accepted here and we wont answer your ask if you try to justify it.)

Want to talk about politics exclusively (it’s acceptable to ask about our stance on something once or so, just don’t expect an answer much different from “Idk what’s going on with that” or “I have no stance” cause that’s basically our stance on most things.)

SAYING THIS BEFORE THE NEXT DNI: we’re here for memes and friends, we don’t actually care that much for syscourse. We don’t agree with ��Endogenic” people, but that’s not gonna stop us from reposting their memes cause memes are funny and it’s wayyyy too daunting to look through someone’s blog and the tags they post and it doesn’t make memes fun anymore for us. If you want something we reblogged off of our page cause you don’t agree with us, send us a DM and we’ll gladly take it down.

NO Endos, non-traumagenics, or Tulpamancers. for those of you actively following me and noticing that this has changed, I’ve learned new and better information and I’m sticking to this now. Unfollow if it makes you uncomfortable.

You’re a TERF (Trans-Exclusionist-Radical Feminist)

You’re a Heterophobe (A hate group of LGBTQ+ people who strive to legitimately make straight cis people KYS (I don’t know of another acronym for a group of people, so gonna stick with that one. They exist and if you come on here and vehemently deny that they do, we won’t respond. If you follow #mysterious to it’s first posting, you will see our reasoning.), Homophobe, Transphobe, etc.

Want to engage in Syscourse. We are new to the syscourse thing and are seeking out active sources for information on this topic. Don’t argue here, but if you feel you need to plead your case we will accept a DM explaining your side.

NOTICE: THIS DNI IS BEING CONSISTENTLY EDITED AND WILL CHANGE OVER THE COURSE OF THE NEXT FEW WEEKS. PLEASE DM US IF SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE OR CONTRADICTORY, WE NEED THAT INPUT.

PLEASE INTERACT (PI) IF:

You‘re a traumagenic system

You‘re a singlet (don’t have a system)

Have questions on our experiences as a system (we will try to answer as many of these as possible but it may be a little too personal and that’s okay, we’ll answer the ask with “sorry we can’t answer that” and maybe give another tidbit of something)

Want to submit a post/ask info-dumping about ANYTHING SFW. You want to info-dump? Go ahead there’s at least one person who’s interested in it or will be once they know more!

Have questions about anything SFW really! Even if we don’t know, we might Google it to find out!

Need to vent. Even if we can’t offer advice, we’ll certainly try to cheer you up!

MEET THE PEOPLE (Finally!):

Generic, AKA: A- He/him. Will talk about anything SFW. Anything. One of the ones who will take an Info-Dump and run with it for three years. (Sadly Generic has split and gone AWOL. Only reason this is kept up is cause his tag is EVERYWHERE on this blog)

Hosty- He/they, da host. Basically Generic but less aggressive and more giant squishmellow hooman. Feed it information, this is a threat *gerbil with knife photo*

Gold, AKA: F- She/Her. Will love you like a Mother. Need to vent? She’s there for you.

Bluejay- He/Him/They/Them- ???? (They don’t wanna tell you but he‘ll just pop up at some point.)

Kai- She/Her. Pffft do whatever you want with her she doesn’t care. mostly only here cause she holds Phault (and his little demon army (of our littles)) back from doing stupid shit

E- they/them. Fictive, very analytical. Wants friends but really doesn’t know how to talk to people, they’ll end up sounding distant and off. Not sure if they have emotions or not, but maybe they do? We don’t know very much about him really.

Phault- They/Them (but really any pronouns they literally don’t care. You’ll see we switch pronouns for Her a lot.) He’s more of a caring type. She’ll sit and pretend to make you beautiful candles and send you a google picture of the prettiest one they could find to cheer you up. One of overexitement and many words. Will take an Info-Dump and Go “TELL ME MORE!!” Even if you just summarized the whole Lord of the Rings saga. Will join a fandom. Tries to be a bean.

Mysterious- They/Them. No information, antisocial as hell, cusses a lot. only decided to create an alias cause nobody runs this blog correct.

PLEASE NOTE: this is not in any way, shape, or form, all of our alters. Not even close. So sometimes someone will want to spontaneously post or we’ll have a funny moment with someone who doesn’t have an internet alias. These situations will be handled in a way that the alter(s) want, and this may lead to this list changing.

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sml8180 · 4 years ago

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CiN Behind the Scenes ~ Ch 3: Infiltration

Original Upload Date: 9 September, 2020

Length on Google Docs: ~11 pages

Docs Word Count: 3,651

Reference Tally: 3

NOTICE: This chapter contained content featuring Janus’ father, who is Homophobic and Transphobic. As such, he misgenders and dead-names Janus throughout their conversation, and things do get physical between them at the end of their argument. I’ll be putting bold notices by any sections talking about this content, so that you can skip those sections if you so choose.

1) This was, obviously, a pretty long chapter. I think the average chapter length for this story was around 8 or so pages, with a few breaking 10 pages, and at least one hitting 12+.

A) Fun Fact: This entire universe was originally going to be a 10-chapter idea and end at that. Obviously, I got really into it, considering Chaos is Normal on its own ended up 22 chapters.

2) You do not wanna know how much I looked into different types of hidden/wear-able cameras for this chapter. You really don’t. I did learn some really interesting stuff, though.

A) The cameras Remy and Remus wear in this chapter are based on some stuff I found. Technically speaking, neither camera (nor any of the others I feature later in the story) are really out of the realm of possibility in the real world. Maybe a bit advanced, but they could be possible.

3) The team trying to get cameras going and clear, along with audio stuff is honestly fun to write. Similar segments pop up in other chapters, and it’s always amusing to me, for some reason.

4) “I was born first and you know it, Remus” is a line I forgot I wrote, but adore, honestly.

A) My older brother and I have a 10-year gap in age, so I was literally winging every single sibling moment that goes down between the twins. Hopefully they mostly came out okay.

5) Apparently there’s still a typo in the original Doc that I managed to correct immediately before posing. Uh....

Dunno how I didn’t catch that going through before I got it into the Ao3 editor, but I did catch it before actually hitting Post on the chapter. So... At least there’s that?

6) I love writing Janus and Virgil being good friends/caring about one another. It’s just something I love.

7) Having Virgil and Janus get spotted by Remy and Remus (as well as by Logan, and Roman, via the camera feeds) is honestly something I originally didn’t really intend to put in. But, I felt like having these passing glimpses of the teens made things feel a little more connected when I went through and added it as an experiment, so I kept it in.

8) Giving Remy and Remus their various nicknames and codenames in this chapter was too fun.

A) Calling Remy “Sandman” was something I really wanted to do at some point in the story, and the opportunity seamlessly presented itself here, so I couldn’t resist.

B) Later in the chapter, Remus claims that members of the Venom Order (who all use a sort of codename, to protect their identities; hence why Virgil goes by Spider and Janus goes by Deceit) call him “Beetlejuice” literally came from the fact that while writing this chapter, I was listening to the “Beetlejuice” musical soundtrack a lot, and uh... Yeah, it kinda just happened from there. Opened up the perfect opportunity for a joke in a later chapter, too.

9) Logan having to divide their attention between the cameras, Remy and Remus’ audio, and having to listen to make sure Patton and Emile are alright is something I planned from the start of the story. I wanted this to happen at least once. Logan has been protective and even at times a bit paranoid over Patton’s safety for most of the boy’s life, and this is an example of them doing their best to make sure he’s safe, despite the fact they’re doing something extremely dangerous just upstairs.

10) I can’t help but headcanon that Janus almost always wears layers not just to help with dysphoria, but also because he fidgets with the top layer of his clothes when he gets nervous. As such, he has a lot of hoodies, jackets, and vests in his wardrobe.

A) He also wears layers because he just likes how it looks. Yes, this is me projecting. I like layered looks, okay?

NOTICE: This is where I’m covering the conversation between Janus and his father. This section does describe Transphobia, abuse, and emotionally-distant “parenting” (if you can call anything Janus’ father does parenting at all). There will be a second notice once we are beyond that particular section, so simply scroll to that point if you don’t wish to read these next few points.

11) I wrote Janus’ father as being a very cold sort of parent. If he weren’t a Homophobic, Transphobic, all-around piece of shit, he’d still be a bad parent. He hardly gives a damn when his son does well, and only ever really responds if he feels Janus has done something wrong (like, y’know, existing, since Janus is trans, and Joseph refuses to see him as his son).

12) Joseph repeatedly misgenders and dead-names Janus throughout the conversation, and it was really hard to write. I had to check my work several times to make sure things were “correct”, and I didn’t have any slips that Joseph wouldn’t make.

A) If any of you hated Joseph immediately once he opened his mouth, then I did my job. I wanted everyone to hate this asshole. I hated this asshole, and I created him. So, yeah, fuck Joseph “Viper” Prescott.

B) Luckily, I didn’t need to write a ton of Joseph in this story (and likely won’t need to in future stories), because I really hated him from the start, in the “I created you to be awful, and god damn, you are awful” way.

13) Janus telling Joseph off by saying “I am your son! If you can’t see that, then you’re fucking blind, old man!” was a line I wanted to include some form of from the start of the chapter, and it went through a few different iterations before I finally decided I liked this one best.

A) Also, Janus immediately realizing he went too far with that statement is intended to be a relatable moment (as we’ve probably all had that moment of, “I shouldn’t have said that”), but also intended to show that Janus knows how his father reacts to that kind of thing, and the resulting “Anxiety vs Might as well go all in” sort of conflict Janus has is there to hint that things really aren’t good at home, and it really has changed the way Janus tends to think and approach some situations.

14) Depicting the very quick emotional shifts with Joseph was another thing I had trouble with, but for a very different reason. I have ADHD (I don’t keep this secret, I’ve posted about it and make an effort to be open about the various ups and downs I deal with as a result), and it has a big impact on my writing style. It’s why I try to be descriptive (especially when it comes to places and character body language, expression, emotion, and clothing), since the details help me keep track of tone, location, and the like.

With Joseph, though, I had to throw some of that out the window. I try to keep emotional shifts for characters consistent, and at least hint to them coming up, to make it easier for myself (and other readers who might also have a hard time with sudden shifts and cues like that) to keep track of things. I couldn’t do that with Joseph. Because of how I wanted to portray him in this story (especially this chapter), I had to make things sudden. Hence the sudden and quick way he lashed out (though the inciting force is “clear”; he was angry concerning Janus’ comments), and the rapid shift to him once again being cold and stoic once he’d struck Janus and the teen was on the ground. It was hard to keep it draft-level quick, rather than going through and “refining” it.

NOTICE: We’re done talking about all the really bad stuff. There’s some talk of the aftermath, but all the really explicit things are out of the way, so it should be safe to continue.

15) Virgil is basically me at any gathering. Just, stick to the edges, people-watch, and silently panic if anyone approaches.

16) I think this is the closest Virgil gets to really flying off the handle in this story. I don’t think I ever have him get this close to going and physically fighting someone at any other point, and damn do I wish I had, honestly. Virgil is really protective of Janus, and seeing his friend (read: crush) in his current state sets him off. He’s still fuming when Janus gets his attention again and is clearly desperate to just get out of there, but he pulls himself together and helps Janus out, because he knows that going after Joseph won’t be the helpful thing in this situation.

17) Logan flexing their fingers before starting to really get to work once Remy patches them into the Order system is honestly something I have a habit of doing when I start writing, especially if it’s cold, since the joints in my hands tend to get stiff and lock up a little. Also, I really couldn’t resist the really obvious spy/hacker bit. The opportunity was right in front of me, and you all know by now I take the opportunities when they come.

18) I originally didn’t want to leave the chapter where it ended, since it was a pretty decent cliff-hanger and felt like an awkward stopping point at the time. That being said, I’m glad I did it. This and most of Chapter 4 were going to be one entity, but that would’ve ended up way longer (Chapter 4 ended up roughly 8 pages on its own), and it would’ve been a lot of fairly heavy content all in one go, so it was better broken up. It made me very glad for the little POV shifts throughout, because it gave me a clean place to cut the chapter apart and made it a little less awkward.

And, I think that’s about it for this one! This was a really long chapter (probably the longest I’d ever written as of when I wrote it), and it was full of stuff to help kick off future interactions in the story.

#Chaos Behind the Scenes #Chaos is Normal AU #Long Post #tw: transphobia #tw: abuse

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trilies · 2 years ago

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can somebody explain to me why there's so much hate for the boyfriends webcomic? i don't understand why but it seems like very intense hate so i hope there's a good reason....

#james shenanigans #queerphobia tw #literally just queerphobia and racism all the way down #like wow i wondere why #a mundane slice of life fluff comic gets so much hate #when it's written by a queer man of color #truly a mystery that will never be solved

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surveys-at-your-service · 4 years ago

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Survey #388

“i wanna stay inside all day / i want the world to go away / i want blood, guts, and chocolate cake / i wanna be a real fake”

Name three people who you'll never forget: I doubt I'd forget Jason even if, God forbid, I had dementia. That's trauma for ya. I HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHLY doubt I could EVER forget my mom, either. In many different ways, she's literally kept me alive and has done so, so much for me. Then there's also Sara, whose friendship with me matches no one else I've been friends with. Have you ever been told you are fake? No. What was the name of the last pet of yours that died? Teddy, my dog. Do you like pineapple? I do. When was the last time you wished the day would just get over with? I know this sounds seriously depressing, but that's... pretty much every day. My life is just currently such a drag that being awake bores me senseless. But it's funny, because then some nights I stay up late for like... no reason. My existence alone is confusing. Is there any specific number that has any significance to you? No. Do you remember much from high school? I remember a lot from high school. Where would you go for the ultimate honeymoon? Isn't there a black sand beach in Iceland or something? Take me there, man. I'd also love to go to the Bahamas, but ew humidity and also I'm afraid of the Bermuda Triangle lmfao. If you had to get a tattoo tomorrow, what would you get? The big piece I want to get on my left upper arm; it's called "Denialism" by NukeRooster on deviantART. I got her permission forever ago to get it tattooed. Do you have any alarms set? What time and what for? Not currently. Have you ever had to work while there was a film crew at your work place? No. Have you ever supported anyone’s Kickstarter? If so, what was it? No. What do you like in your omelet? Ham pieces and cheese. Have you ever boycotted something? Yes: Chick-fil-A. Homophobic, transphobic pieces of shit aren't getting my business. Has anyone ever borrowed something from you, and not returned it? Yes. Most notably a video game I LOOOOVED as a kid. I was mad salty and still am lmao. Do you vent a lot on social media? God no, not anymore after embarrassing the everliving FUCK out of myself with a suicide note. What was your first bill you started paying on your own? I don't pay any bills bc unemployed. .-. Do you watch ASMR videos? No. What is your favorite charitable cause to donate to or volunteer for? The Trevor Project. Have you ever received a misdiagnosis? Yes. A psychiatrist I had in middle school thought I had ADHD, which was ABSOLUTELY ludicrous. Most recently, my long-time bipolar 2 diagnosis has been questioned, but I do think I have it. I think. Does it bother you when others don’t share the same religious beliefs as you? No? Freedom of religion is a thing. What was your last argument about? Ummmm... I don't remember. Probably something with Mom. Have you found your first gray hairs yet? No. Somehow. You'd think all the stress would have me pure gray by now, lol. What are the names of all the pets you’ve had? Dude, I've had WAY too many for this. What’s the most you’ve ever spent on a cosmetic or skincare product? *shrug* Who was the last person that invited you to go somewhere? Did you accept? Mom invited me to come with her to Nicole's to get out of the house because at the time our A/C was still out. I didn't want to go, even though damn did I suffer, haha. What was the last food item that you toasted, other than bread? That's... a great question. I don't know if I toast anything other than bread. Have you ever named any of your pets after a cartoon character? I remember I had a cat named Taz when I was younger. What was the last thing that someone else recommended, or suggested you try? My TMS doctor is like SUPER friendly and makes the treatment go by so fast (it's exactly 22 minutes and 30 seconds; don't ask why), and recently she was fangirling to Mom and me about the show Once Upon a Time, haha. I saw very little of it with Jason, but Mom did check it out. When was the last time you wore a hat? What kind? I have zero idea. When was the last time you ate a bowl of ice-cream? What flavour? Oh wow, it's been a long time. It was probably vanilla with chocolate syrup? If you menstruate, has your cycle ever synced with anyone close to you? Yes. Tell me something positive about the town or city that you live in. ... You said "positive," right? Did your parents have high expectations for you to excel in school and go to college/university? Yes. They were pretty serious about going to college when my sisters and I were younger, but they opened up to the concept that maybe it wasn't for all of us (coughmecough). Are you a polite person? I genuinely think I am. I definitely try to be. Have you ever been in a relationship where everything with your partner felt natural and effortless? Sigh. Yeah. Have you ever been in a relationship where everything was difficult and rocky? No. That's not the kind I'd stay in very long at all. I mean yes, there are always bumps, but there comes a point where you gotta say fuck nah and find something better. When you were a teenager, did your parents set rules about dating? Other than keeping age gaps in mind, no. Have you ever committed a crime that directly harmed another person? No. Did you grow up in an urban, suburban, or rural area? My childhood home was suburban, but leaned towards rural. We were on the very edge of the town. Which disease do you personally think is the most horrible? After seeing my mother suffer from borderline stage 4 ovarian cancer, I've gotta say cancer. My mother is the strongest person I know and yet she cried so frequently from chemotherapy. It broke my fucking heart. The person I copied the survey from mentioned especially childhood cancers, and I have to agree. Like just... why. "Everything happens for a reason." Bull. Fucking. Shit. Just TRY and convince me why a young child has to deal with CANCER. Do you remember where you first drove to after getting your license? I still don't have my license, as I've said in many a survey before. What did you get into trouble for the most when you were a kid? Being on the computer too much. What is your biological sex? Female. Do you use online dating? Or do you use another method for finding dates? Nah. I'm at the point in my life where I wanna let love just find me and not actively search for it. What is the oldest gaming console you own? We MIGHT still have our old Atari? If not, it'd be a GameBoy Advance. Which accents can you emulate pretty well? Just British. Do you think you'll ever manage to do everything you want to? No. But then again, I think that sounds pretty realistic? I doubt most people check off everything on their bucket list. What do you fear most? Probably becoming truly homeless, living on the streets. Do you wear shoes around the house? No. Are you a good driver? If you can't drive yet, do you think you'll be good? I mean, I'm not the worst in the world. My mom's always pointed out though that I ride on the brakes (which I do out of fear) and I tend to speed up and slow down quite a bit. I also stop kinda abruptly sometimes. What is/was your favorite thing about school? Seeing friends. What are you most likely to spend money on? My own personal money, tattoos, lol. Have you ever been a complete fangirl/fanboy over anything? @_@ Do you hate how, when the public like a celebrity, they overpublicize them? I feel bad for them, more than anything. You breathe wrong and suddenly it's news-worthy. It's like your every inconsequential action is under heavy surveillance and judgment, and it seems so unfair. Have you ever became attracted to someone you weren’t at first because their personality made you find them physically attractive? That was Jason for me. I never thought he was ugly, but regardless, he became THE most attractive man in the world to me. Have you ever worked in retail? Yes. -_- Are you even a little bit racist? Nah man, it's 2021, baby. Were you more fond of swings, monkey bars, or seesaws as a child? I was all about the swings. Do you believe in a near-future apocalyptic event? I don't know or care, honestly. A gamma ray or whatever they're called could incinerate us all tomorrow. A black hole could swallow the earth in an hour. We don't know. Do you have a chandelier in your home? No. Do you have a bar with stools? No. Is your Christmas tree faux or real? If faux, what color? We use a fake green one. Do you eat the crusts of your bread? Yes; it's the first part I eat. Which body type would you say you had? Did you know whales can survive on land? :^) Have you ever flown a kite? Yeah! I used to LOVE doing that with Dad as a kid when the field across our house wasn't in use (tobacco was grown there). What’s your preferred flavour of jam? I just like grape. What kind of animal did you last pet? My cat! Name a celebrity that you admire that nobody would expect you to: I massively admire Jeffree Star's work ethic. Do you prefer to shave or wax? Shave. I used to wax my eyebrows, but now I just don't care. Would you ever have sex in a public place? Uh, no. Do you think Jenna Marbles’ videos are funny? I've actually never watched her. Your favourite pasta dish: Just your normal spaghetti with meatballs. Strangest thing you’ve ever seen? Probably what I'm assuming was a star (but it was green???) flickering and then fizzling out of the sky kind of like some sort of backwards firework. I'd been watching it literally grow over a few nights, so when this happened, it was a big "?????? the fuck??????". It honestly scared me for some reason so I went inside after that. Aliens? I say aliens. Ever had a crush on somebody of the same sex? Yes. Has anybody ever called you a bastard? I don't think so. Who is the last person you ignored? uhhhhhhh Would you wear feathers in your hair? So actually, for my first prom, I wanted to wear a blue jay feather I had in my hair, reason being Jason's nickname from his parents was always "J Bird." It ended up not working out because we couldn't make it look natural with what we had. When was the last time you were well and truly scared? Hm. Favourite member of your favourite band: Ozzy, obviously, haha. Who’s your favourite female rapper? I don't have one.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''teen idle'' by marina

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destiny-smasher · 4 years ago

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“But I can't walk on the path of the right, because I'm wrong.”

So, The Last of Us Part 2 is out. It’s about 25 hours long. I’ve played it. I loved it, but it’s got its flaws. I think the hype buildup was overblown, and I think the zealous hate from the leaks was also overblown. This is a beautifully produced game that is trying to do much more than the typical AAA game tries to do, and in so trying, it’s messier, muddier, and more complicated than its predecessor. I love it for that, despite my issues with how the game ultimately resolves things.

I think Naughty Dog was either intentionally misleading audiences (which, given the marketing, is possible) or perhaps Neil himself has a different concept of the game he directed than what was actually delivered. Despite how it was advertised, The Last of Us Part 2 is not inherently about ‘hate’ or ‘revenge.’ It’s not just a revenge story.

It's a story about empathy, about how human beings and their interactions have layers, and how we are better when we extend blind empathy to others instead of blind hatred. I gotta talk about this. SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE GAME to follow.

Seriously, final warning for SPOILERS.

This game is simply too big, too complex, and has too much going on for me to write a single piece going over everything there is to talk about, but there are some things I need to say that inherently rely on discussing the entire game in a spoiler-filled way.

Let’s start with the most noticeable thing that has hit me over this game’s reception: people like Joel way more than I would’ve expected. SO much of this game’s negative reception seems to be over Joel’s character and the circumstances around his death. I was not at all surprised that he died - I was a bit surprised at when and how he died, in the moment, but even by the end of the next scene, it had washed over me how much sense it made. He died in the same way everyone else dies in this series. He had it coming in the same way anyone else in this world has it coming. He was never a hero. If you truly look at Joel as a ‘hero’ figure but don’t extend that same logic to Ellie and Abby, you do not make sense to me.

I’ve seen a LOT of hate getting thrown at Abby, and frankly, I do not understand it, and if you hate her but do NOT hate Joel or Ellie similarly, then I inherently don’t respect your opinion? You’re being blatantly biased and unreasonable in exactly the way this game is arguing you should not be. Straight up. Get your transphobic jokes the fuck outta here. Get your homophobic takes on Ellie and Dina the fuck outta here. Get your xenophobic complaints about the MUCH more diverse cast of characters in this sequel the fuck outta here. The ONE case where I could see a reasonable thing to be conflicted about is Lev’s character, because they are a transgender kid who gets deadnamed by some NPCs. As a transgender person, I personally found this to just...make sense and feel organic to the world, and none of the actual characters in the narrative with names or roles in the story ever deadname Lev. Lev is fucking precious and I love him, and I think his inclusion adds inherently more to this game than otherwise, despite the understandable conflict some might feel about his backstory. To ME, the fact that all of what Lev goes through and how Yara and Abby do what they can to look for him, that says to me, “protect trans rights” and I am glad it is there. Trans people have to deal with that shit sometimes, I think it’s fine having it be PART of a wider narrative. It doesn’t define Lev’s story, it doesn’t dictate the plot of the game, it’s a spark that sets some events off and I think that adds more than it could potentially take away, as does the overall representation in the game.

Getting back to this element of bias, though, I get that you “went on a journey” with Joel and Ellie in the first game. I get that. But you spend about as much time with Abby in this game as you did with Joel in the first game. And I see a lot of people are SOMEHOW totally fine and chill and cool with Joel going on a murder rampage in the first game, specifically killing at least one man who was specifically trying to save humanity - they cite that Joel is a morally gray person who has done bad things and is trying to become a better person. Sure, cool, OK. And Ellie, sure, ya’ll will think her going on a bloodthristy revenge quest is cool, fine, A-OK, because Joel was murdered. But somehow they are physically incapable of extending that same empathy to Abby, even after the game bends OVER BACKWARD in every reasonable way it could. Why is this? One person tweeted at me the simplistic, reductive idea,

“ I know the sensible thing that naughty dog was aiming at was that we'd feel sorry for abby and eventually grow to like her, but for me I just don't. I loved Joel and I love Ellie. They didn't kill anyone who I loved as a character. Abby did. “

At least they’re being honest with themselves in that they literally missed the entire point of the game. You having personal bias you cannot remove yourself from does not make for “A DEEPLY FLAWED STORY” or whatever the fuck people have been tossing around.

I personally don’t buy any of that bullshit until we get into the final hours of the game during the epilogue, but we’ll get to that.

Everything in the first 20-ish hours of this game felt organic and believable and completely in line with the first game to me, and the fact that ALL OF IT happens as a direct after-effect of Joel’s selfish act at the end of the first game really contextualizes how/why it was called ‘Part 2.’ So honestly, all of this nonsense about this sequel being ‘badly written’ is just...bonkers. I will agree it’s not some master class in writing - neither was the original game. But both games are very similar in writing style, tone, and the world presented is consistent, while character motivations are realistically complicated. Naughty Dog has never been great at plot, but the real quality of their work comes through in how much effort they go to in order to present realistic feeling worlds and characters, and from the environments to the actors to the extra animations on top, I think the details and the context they create are where they shine.

To better understand where I am coming from with this game, let me lay this on you.

During the scene in that basement, when Abby shot Joel in the leg, and Ellie shows up...I realized what was about to happen. Ironically, it was exactly what I had originally predicted was the thing going on WAY back when the game’s reveal trailer was dropped -- that Joel was dead, and was motivating Ellie’s revenge quest. If you’ve read what I have written of Arcadian Rhythms, you will have some idea of my feelings on Joel and Ellie’s relationship -- in short, I think it is complicated, and just as damaging as it is good. That’s real life. That’s how reality is for many relationships, especially ones between parents and their kids, especially in my experience. When I realized Joel was about to be murdered, my feelings and thoughts were not jumping to ‘oh fuck what an asshole I wanna kill these people’ or ‘oh no not Joel’ but rather, my immediate gut thoughts were ‘yupppp Joel kinda deserves this, he literally did this to who knows how many other people, but why are THESE people, specifically, out to get him?’

When Ellie later cites to Dina that there’s ‘no point’ in speculating as to why these people murdered Joel, because it could be for one of many possible reasons, I found that to be interesting -- Ellie herself acknowledging that Joel had fucked over many other people, while still pursuing revenge herself.

I do think the theme of ‘the cycle of violence’ is very core to this game and arguably is its strongest central theme, specifically because violence in wholly integrated into its gameplay. But narratively and structurally, empathy is, I would argue, even more paramount. This game spends about 12 hours of its runtime (so about half of the entire game) actively trying to encourage you to understand, relate with, and empathize with Abby. The developers COULD have had you swapping back and forth between both characters, which might have resulted in better pacing, but I think it would’v taken away from what they were going for. It’s that long, slow burn that makes Abby’s side of the story work, in much the same way the long, slow burn of the first game does what it does, and the way the long, slow burn of Ellie’s revenge quest helps us see just how far gone she is.

But “arghh I hated Ellie she kept making bad decisions that made no sense” some of you say, “they did her DIRTY” some of you say.

No.

Joel did her dirty.

The Fireflies did her dirty.

And it’s this exact concept -- that our actions and choices have consequences and ripple outward beyond what we can initially imagine - that is at the heart of why I think I love this game so much. Most video games depict a pool of water that is either a constant whirlpool, a raging clash of waves, or stone dropped in the middle and the ripples spreading out. The Last of Us Part 2 is more like a series of ripples all happening simultaneously, and not all of them are as apparent or even important, but it’s just...a bunch of ripples all happening all over the place.

And it breaks my heart, during 2020, a year when human rights, systemic racism, a worldwide pandemic, late capitalism, and entire countries submerged in protests because their government is fucking them over...has people shutting off or refusing to turn on their empathy to anyone outside of their bubble. In 2020, when the world needs empathy more than any other year I’ve experienced in my life thus far, a game like this goes SO FAR above and beyond what most games try to do, in a very risky and controversial way, to actively invite its players to fucking STOP AND CONSIDER for a damn moment that there’s more to the world than JUST YOU and what you care about. That your actions have consequences beyond your singular perspective.

Ellie is fueled by rage for a number of reasons, and we don’t even understand all of them until literally the final moments of the game, which I found to be appropriate as it ends on a note of reminding us that there is ALWAYS something we don’t know, something we don’t understand, motivating someone else’s decisions.

Ellie was robbed of agency, of purpose, by both Joel and the Fireflies. Joel robbed both Ellie and the Fireflies of their purpose. And the Fireflies robbed Ellie and Joel of theirs. In return, Ellie is left without purpose, and all she’s really left with is a broken man who desperately wants to be a dad again, to the point that he will murder and lie to hold on to that. Don’t get me wrong - I don’t necessarily hold it against Joel that he murdered people to save Ellie. I will always defend the idea that it was a fucking selfish decision that would realistically lead to consequences. But in the same way Marlene points out to Abby’s dad, ‘What if it was your kid?’ ie ‘What if it was someone you loved?’ I get that, that’s the beauty of how the first game ended. It presents a zero sum game where there is no ‘correct’ choice that everyone can agree on, but in the back of our heads -- and Part 2 actually states this as a point of fact -- we all know Ellie would have CHOSEN to sacrifice herself, had she been asked.

So it was deliciously realistic to me to see Ellie grappling with the frustration, distrust, and anger of Joel having not only robbed that purpose from her, but having lied to her about it. And in the end, it was also wonderfully realistic that part of why she hated Abby so much was that Abby inadvertently robbed her of her chance to try and rebuild and repair that broken relationship.

But here’s the thing, though - the thing I see fucking NO ONE talking about, and I can’t decide if it’s because no one is picking up on it or what.

Both Ellie and Abby are haunted and driven by broken men making selfish choices. Their selfishness keeps both characters kind of locked in to desperately grasping at violent acts to justify a purpose.

Some will play the flashbacks with Joel and will feel warmth and nostalgia and admiration. Some will play the flashbacks with Owen and feel disinterest or disgust because ‘why should I care about these people?’

For me, I couldn’t help bu draw parallels to how both Owen and Joel were men trying to be good, you know, not being specifically evil people, but men who were a bad influence on the women around them, who were great and good and charming and all that until things didn’t go the way they wanted, pushing and prodding with passive digs and pressure to reaffirm their own hopes that despite their mistakes, they’re ‘good men.’ Owen is admittedly much less well developed in this regard, partly because his arc just isn’t as deep or interesting, partly because he didn’t exist in the previous game. But I still could not quite shake it. I grew up with men like Joel and Owen as my father figures, so there’s personal bias there.

I literally had an actual nightmare that woke me up in the middle of the night partway through playing through this game because Joel was in it and I said or did a thing he did not like, and his reaction spooked me awake, in part because I LIVED that growing up. (not murder, but violence, passive aggressive manipulation) I absolutely adore the depth given to Joel’s character, that he has LAYERS to him, and I loved seeing Tommy similarly expanded upon. (him passively prodding at Ellie to try and make good with Joel felt a little manipulative, given that he KNOWS what Joel did; and even his wife’s prodding at Ellie at the game’s outside to ‘make good’ with some old jerk who seems all expectant about being rewarded for basic apologizing, ech)

Last of Us is a horror game, Part 2 even moreso, but it was the feeling of men like Joel who do bad things and then try to justify them after the fact that actually creeped me out more -- all the more creepy because I KNOW Ellie and Abby will give up on better choices to try and ‘do right by them’. I was relieved when Abby began to break free from these old, poor choices, even shortly after making more fo them during her half of the story. This brings me to another fascinating aspect of this game: how Abby’s story is a combination of both Joel’s and Ellie’s.

Dunkey (of all people!) recently praised this game and compared Ellie’s and Abby’s narratives to TLOU1 and Uncharted 4, and I agree with him in a lot of regards, there, but I think what the team was more going for was for Abby’s story to feel like a combination of Joel’s and Ellie’s while simultaneously being directly impacted by Joel and Ellie’s story.

Abby grew up in a military community, even though she expressed an interest in science -- just like Ellie. The death of her father drives her on a quest for revenge -- just like Ellie. She does some horrible shit to people all in the service of trying to protect a kid as some desperate attempt to feel better about all of the bad shit she’s done -- just like Joel. She starts to let herself be empathetic to other people and tries to become a better person because of the kid she takes under her wing -- just like Joel.

In a way, you could argue Part 2′s overall story is kind of repetitious. Ellie’s quest for revenge is a bit too narrow-minded and blind in her rage, and Abby’s story kind of recycles many components we have already seen up until that point. I think what’s there still generally accomplishes what it set out to do: get us to question and try to understand why people do what they do, and consider our own place in that cycle, in those ripples.

I think many aspects of this game that look circumstantial on the surface are not accidents.

I think the recurring imagery of water is an allegory for how we can let rage, anger, and hate drown us. The game’s title starts with a boat drifting in water, and the title changes after the ending to a boat that is beached. The Seattle arc shows a gradually increasing focus on water flooding the environments, culminating in a big rainstorm with crazy waves. The final fight sequence (which tbh I hated but we’ll get to that) takes place literally IN water, involves Ellie trying to drown Abby, and ends with the two of them going separate ways in their boats.

I think it’s no accident that Abby and Ellie’s desire for vengeance is ultimately caused by the same specific moment, and I think it’s interesting that many people seem to skip RIGHT OVER the idea that Ellie feels such a deep sense of rage at Abby killing Joel only because Joel made the decision that caused Abby to kill him in the first place -- and the good and bad that came from that. It’s just a brilliantly complicated web, I think, and that further highlights that none of these characters are inherently good or evil, which is pretty much the entire point of this world in the first place.

I think it’s interesting that both Ellie and Abby grumble insults all of the time over the people they’re killing, and both try to justify their violence with thoughts like “well we’re better then that, we don’t do THOSE kinds of things,” which is, ya know, literally the kinds of mental hoops actual real human beings jump through to justify doing bad shit to each other.

I liked the idea of the trading cards until fairly early on when I found the ‘Dr. Uckmann’ card, which...made me roll my eyes a little at first, until I read the description, which then made me feel more actively uncomfortable than maybe anything else in the entire game, to be quite honest. Partly because it rang of entitled self-importance, but partly because of the reports of Naughty Dog crunch culture.

And on that note, let’s talk about how this game arguably crunched its employees way more than it needed to while simultaneously making its story more bloated than it needed to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I love indulging in more STUFF than it required. I can totally see the appeal of writing extra stuff to a story like because you can, because it’s interesting, because it’s fun to MAKE shit. But when you are a AAA game development studio who is potentially crunching your employees into burnout, maybe a fairly pointless epilogue on top of a game that is already arguably a bit too long in the tooth is...maybe not the best way to go?

On the upside, I enjoyed playing the Santa Barbara location, I loved getting some more Abby/Lev time, I liked seeing Ellie a bit older, I LOVED the scene at the farm with her, Dina, and JJ. I loved the gameplay challenge that was the Rattler’s base. I loved that this game had noticeably larger environments to explore.

But tbh a LOT of content could’ve been cut from this game to make a smoother, better paced experience while simultaneously putting less strain on the developers. I do think the extended flashback sequences focused on non-violent gameplay is important enough to justify itself, but I think a lot of the more violent or unnecessary parts of the game (like the entire sequence on the Seraphite’s island and the Santa Barbara sequence) all feel like...EXTRA? Which on the one hand is great because hot DAMN more beautifully rendered locations, content, etc. but on the other hand I’m not sure it adds as much to justify the real life pain and misery I’m sure some developers went through to create it all, and in a way, it doesn’t quite justify its own existence if we’re being critical.

I get what they were going for with the Seraphites and the WLF but neither group is developed enough to really accomplish the goals of empathy. I think focusing on specific members OF those groups is better, because that is ultimately how real life people break down their walls of bias, -isms, etc. -- they just interact with and befriend people from these groups and realize organically “oh hey we’re all...people, huh.” The game’s attempts at naming NPCs and dogs don’t do much when the game actively rewards you for killing them (speaking of which, I played on Normal and there were way too many items imo, we’ll see how that is on higher difficulties). We could get into the role of violence and gameplay but that’s a WHOLE other can of worms.

But the Rattlers in the final act are even worse. After this entire game of being actively encouraged to empathize with other people from other groups and let yourself consider they aren’t evil, the game just...shoves an objectively worse group of people at you, asks you to murder them, and then...discards the whole thing without a second thought. I found this to be fun from a gameplay perspective (sorry Neil, playing your game actually IS FUN when you put so much work into making the violence fun to engage with) but I found it weird and frustrating from a storytelling perspective, as if the whole thing was an undercooked, unfinished final act that they cobbled together because they just...wanted enemies with helmets and an environment depicting southern California. Hell, tbh I don’t even get why Ellie had to be there other than the developers didn’t think players would be OK just...letting Ellie live a life in peace on a farm or that players would be OK NOT playing as Ellie at the end and letting her beat the shit out of Abby.

I actually LOVED the farm sequence, it felt so...weird for a while. Like you’re just waiting for the hat to drop. And when it does...it’s just PTSD. And that felt right. That felt good, that even though Ellie was spared, after all the shit she did, because she let go and spared Abby in return, she got to live this peaceful life...except life’s not that simple and old scars can still hurt.

I loved when Tommy showed up and we got to see that darker side to him we KNOW has been there this entire time, but Ellie maybe hasn’t been forced to see it. All the way up until this point, I felt I could understand where the characters were coming from and what motivated their decisions.

And then Ellie decided “no, actually, maybe if I throw all of this away I can maybe get rid of this PTSD I got from throwing everything away before.” And then it got worse when after she breaks into this fucking slave house to free people, after she saves Abby and Lev from dying on posts, she STILL wants to fight. ANd Abby’s where I’m at -- that ‘fucking REALLY?’ feeling. I utterly disliked the fight scene in the water. It was the one time in the whole game that actually felt like misery porn to me. I was honestly going into it expecting that maybe Ellie’s stab wound from the trap would cause her to be too weak to fight, and she’d literally drown from bleeding out because of her own unrelenting pursuit of revenge. But nah, we’re put through a pointless, brutal fist/knife fight that...doesn’t really have purpose imo. WHatever you wanted to accomplish here, you could’ve done back in the theater in Seattle. (on that note I LOVED the Ellie boss fight, what a fun gameplay thing and also just tense all around since you really couldn’t tell what was going to happen, but I LOVE that Lev stopped Abby from killing Dina, even though she had every reason to)

I can imagine different versions of the Santa Barbara sequence that offer a more edifying conclusion while still working in the environmental and gameplay components they seemed insistent on working in. It’s the one major portion of the game that, now that I’ve had time to process, I feel the most conflicted about.

Neither Ellie nor Abby “deserve” a happy ending in much the same way Joel didn’t “deserve” a happy ending. This game has no true protagonists or villains (anyone who is presented as a ‘villain’ is minor, and we don’t find out much about them anyway). I think Joel was lucky to get the time he got to live in community once again, to rediscover his humanity (look at all of those flowers they left at his house, this man who fucked over humanity and murdered countless people had a chance to live a few years of peaceful life again), I think Ellie was lucky she got time to even live what she did on that farm with Dina and JJ, and was lucky to still be alive at the end of the story. I think Abby was lucky to have been able to break free from a life of militaristic bullshit and rediscover some of her own lost humanity.

I think a lot of people admire Joel as a hero when it’s clear he was never one.

I think a lot of people admire Ellie and try to idolize her as the smarmy kid she could never permanently exist as.

I think a lot of people hate on Abby for EXISTING (and being a woman -gasp- WITH MUSCLES) and I’m pretty pleased with Laura Bailey getting to play this role (and Ashly Burch getting a supporting role in this game, too, for that matter).

I think The Last of Us is not ‘about Ellie and Joel.’ I think The Last of Us is about humanity, and exploring it through different angle. Sometimes needlessly gritty and dark ones, but Part 2 gave us even more light-hearted, pelasant moments than I could have expected. I think people who look so reductively at this game -- now officially a ‘series’ -- as ‘Joel and Ellie 100x forever’ and literally anything outside of that being bad and a waste of time fundamentally missed the entire purpose of this game, ironically ignoring what it is trying to passionately to convey. I think Naughty Dog’s marketing of the game actively misled people in ways that are rare for the industry, and I do think that is a bit shady - but on the other hand, being misled actively improved my experience with the end product (which is arguably why they did it). I think the way Sony has latched on Joel and Ellie as ‘Playstation Icons’ and encouraged people to buy up TLOU merch depite there not being much TO turn into merchandise says something.

Also? Frankly?

I am SO FUCKING TIRED of “angry sad dad” games.

Like. I loved TLOU 1, I loved the new God of War, etc. etc.

But God of War took basically NO RISKS and had NOTHING TO SAY that countless other pieces of media have said to death. That’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with that, I really enjoyed it and look forward to the next. But this game actually has challenging thoughts, complicated things, it is trying to get players to consider, and most everyone I see shitting on the game either hasn’t played it or doesn’t seem interested in games that exist for something beyond making them feel good about themselves? I dunno.

I think at the end of the day, TLOU as an entire series, and specifically the sequel, isn’t about Joel and Ellie, that was just the more focused lens the original game had. For its messier, muddier experience, Part 2 strives for nothing more than many pieces of media have but for something that is still rare in the space of AAA video games.

It takes some risks, it makes some missteps in getting where it goes, for sure, and it’s by no means some holy gift to mankid, but it passionately goes to GREAT lengths to explore and express a fairly simple idea:

empathy is a choice, understanding others is a choice,

and we are all inherently better off when we choose to blindly accept understanding than when we blindly choose hate and violence.

Just because we can’t walk ‘the path of the right,’ and just because ‘we’re wrong’ doesn’t mean we should let the phantoms in our lives continue to keep a hold on our future. Just because someone does some good things doesn’t erase the consequences and ripples of the bad they have done, and just because we do bad things doesn’t mean we can’t do good.

The way to end the cycle of violence is empathy.

It’s simplistic in concept, but if you look around at not just the reception to this game even before people could play it, but just the STATE OF THE WORLD IN 2020, you will see that maybe we still need such basic, simplistic concepts to continue to be explored in big budget media.

#tlou part 2 #tlou #The Last of Us #The Last of Us Part 2

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