#bizarre puritan thinking

[ibboard]

What if I'm reblogging from someone who is a mutual, but they didn't add anything but tags, so I'm effectively reblogging the previous person, who isn't a mutual? 🤔

its rude to reblog things from people you arent mutuals with fyi. :/

💀 my brother in christopher

[chaotic-history]

TGEY DIDNT EVEN MENTION INCREASE

[ohnoitstbskyen]

asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?

With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.

Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.

*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks

I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.

I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.

I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.

"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.

What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?

You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.

And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.

So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.

What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.

They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.

You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.

[violet-moonstone]

is the book "confusing" or does it just ask you to think instead of spoon feeding you all the answers?

is the character "unlikable" or are you being uncharitable and unused to seeing main characters as anything other than a vehicle for self projection and wish fulfillment (either someone you'd want to be or want to be friends with)?

is the writing "problematic" or does it just display complex and flawed characters navigating a cruel world?

are the sex scenes "gratuitous" or do you just have puritan sensibilities and think that sex is something that needs to be justified because you think it cheapens art?

does "nothing happen" in the book or are you expressing your subjective preference for plot-driven stories as an objective evaluation on the book's value?

did the book "traumatize" you or is that just a term you throw around loosely to describe anything that upsets or disturbs you?

remember that one scene at shiz where elphaba says she likes to read things that challenge her because she likes to think about what she reads, and glinda stares at her like she's speaking gibberish?

yeah.

Don't get me wrong, I do understand why people don't like Maguire's writing but there is a growing trend of people hating any fiction that challenges them.

I saw a review where someone was saying they "weren't a pearl clutcher, but..." and then in the next sentence proceeded to clutch pearls. Your tolerance for bizarre fiction isn't as high as you thought it was. That's fine. It doesn't mean the book is bad.

Imagine reading a book for adults and then finding mature topics in it. The horror!

Maybe instead of blaming the author, blame whatever person or circumstances led to to believe it was a kids' book. *Hint* it was probably the popularity of the musical adaptation and the book reprints with the musical cover on it. Can't wait for more people to watch the movie and then read the book expecting it to be sunshine and rainbows. (No hate to the movie, btw it actually looks pretty good).

[blueraith]

Some of you have the weirdest fucking takes on sex that I instantly channel my stereotypical inner millennial and 'literally can't even'

Oppressor vs Oppressed?

Boiling a lesbian relationship down to the grossest, hetereonormative views as possible??

Thinking that anyone who liked a sex scene in media is addicted to porn?????

Like, who tf are you people? Who raised you? Social media, evidently, please touch some grass and quit coming into the main ship tags with your frankly utterly bizarre, puritanical, and just weird-ass takes. They're an instant block from well-adjusted, non-terminally online people who just want to see some good fucking fanart and decent media analysis.

Because whatever the fuck y'all are on about? Not media analysis. You're projecting your hyper sensitive political identity on fictional characters where the gods and all of creation can see you. I'm suffering from second hand embarrassment from some of you because y'all are coming out with your whole chest ranting about how eating pussy is inherently political.

Fucking hell, I feel like I'm aging five years every time I see whatever stupid shit some of the kids are on about.

Anyway, I'll eventually get back to my Vi analysis. Christmas prep is bullshit, and I got distracted with posting my very first smut fic lol.

[lizbethborden]

Its so true, Dworkin and Mackinnon predicted everything about this current era. Porn has become sex now; teenage girls being bullied into anal and getting choked by boys and coerced into sending nudes at an age typically understood as one of “exploration”—now porn defines sex and sexuality; and Gail Dines and many others have talked about the deeply deadening effect of porn on empathy and the ability to recognize women as people. Porn crept ever further into the mainstream and it has totally saturated our culture, from the ‘arts’—not just streaming/TV or Lars Von Trier films, but I’m thinking of stuff as small as frames of comic books traced from porn, art distributed online traced from porn—to the personal intimate lives of human beings, women being choked, spat on, beaten—then again, even back in the 80s, men were using porn to abuse women, and the most widely available stuff was still not as vile as the porn you can find with a 2sec Google search from any phone or computer today. Deepfake porn turns all women existing in public into potential victims of violent and degrading misogynist fetishism and sexuality. OF and its ilk makes it possible for any woman to monetize herself in the form of porn and in a time of increasing economic instability, inflation, high food and gas prices, the upcoming potential loss of health insurance for millions, I’m sure it’s more appealing than ever. Porn terminology is everywhere, “MILF,” “ebony,” etc. And all of this is done under the guise of sexual liberation and free speech, and to argue against it is seen as puritanical, condescending at best, hateful, antifeminist, “SWERF”/“TERF”-y at worst. It is a demonstrated fact of the research done into porn that it shuts off vital abilities to connect with women as human beings, to empathize with women and to reject violence against us; that porn usage conditions the user into seeking out ever more intense, bizarre, violent content to use in order to achieve the same pleasure and orgasm that “vanilla” content used to do for them. What must it be doing to all of us, collectively, to have porn on every level of our culture now? What is it doing to the position of women in our society, already half citizens at best, earning significantly less than men, with our bodily autonomy stripped away in many states, being denied life-saving procedures and medications—not just mifepristone etc but even things like lupus medication and anti-inflammatories that may potentially affect us and our bodies if we chose at some point to maybe get pregnant—even being arrested for drinking or taking drugs while decidedly not pregnant because it could affect a potential fetus at some point? Are we not degraded objects already? What does it mean for us to be reduced to “cumsocks” and pornographic objects on top of all this? How deeply destructive is this society, how much further will it go to enforce the category of woman as hole, woman as receptacle, woman as vessel, woman as meat?

[dangermousie]

I swear I wasn't gonna wade into this but...you all know the saying about hell and good intentions.

I didn't even like Queen Woo (enjoy? sure. It was the definition of trashy fun especially with all the massive ff I was doing. But a good drama it was not) but the puritan hand wringing about the sex stuff (people on MDL, never a font of sanity, are discussing that only porn addicts could like this or that this is all a part of evil westerners to pervert pure Korean culture - no really!) has gotten to me.

First of all, I will never understand why all the complaints are about tits and sex scenes and not ALL THE SERIOUS CARNAGE. Like, surely murder and torture are a worse sin than fornication seeing that the former kills people. (We are not even getting into the fact that this is all fictional so like - no real people were harmed or fucked during any of the filmed scenes.)

Second - the concept of don't like don't watch seems to have gotten lost utterly. NOT EVERYTHING IS MADE TO CATER TO YOU AND THAT'S OK. No maker, let alone an entire entertainment industry owes you to make what hits the spot for you. I don't like (most) romcoms and I don't like those 8 ep shows netflix/disney tend to put out, so I don't watch. I don't sit around feeling entitled about being catered to (there is a difference between being wistful a particular drama or a genre doesn't cater to you and entitlement of "how dare they!")

Third - the argument that all the T&A is new in k-ent seems bizarre. In dramas, sure (because before streaming which is a relatively new phenomenon, it was all on TV only and if you go back far enough, there wasn't even cable and they have regs about what they can and can't show. Still, Yaksha was made in 2010 and had plenty T&A because it was on cable.) But have all those people complaining about all that new perversion never watched movies? I remember watching Untold Scandal, made all the way back in 2003 and starring the then delight of Japanese ladies' hearts Bae Yong Joon and the amount of naked sex scenes!!! Or think of A Frozen Flower from 2008 - it has het sex scenes so explicit it makes Queen Woo look like a church picnic and a gay couple making out on screen (another thing I see MDL peeps complain about - I will never be over some genius saying that the gay king in Goryeo Khitan War was evil addition of evil Western values and having to be told the king was actually historically gay.)

None of that is new. The only difference is that now some dramas have that too not just movies because they are on streaming only platforms and thus having the same lack of restrictions movies have done for a long time.

And finally - there are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be leveled at Queen Woo (or pretty much any other show.) Sex is evil is a bad hill to die on. None of the posters would be around to complain if someone somewhere didn't have sex at least once.

[just-antithings]

I stumbled upon an interesting article on vox which talks about toxic fandoms. Although it’s more about celebrity fandoms, I think it works for online fandoms too. The same author has already written about antis too (“Puritanism took over online fandom - and then came for the rest of the internet”)

The vox celeb article described how modern fan culture shifted away from worshipping aloof and unavailable Hollywood stars from afar and towards complex entanglements and the people they “stan”

the author argues that it’s because of social media, YouTube and twitch making amateur gamers and streamers more popular. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the author claims that these people have 0 training or preparation for how to deal with their new fame and devotees that come with it.

social media made celebrities even more accessible and gave fans with extreme tendencies to connect and mobilize en masse. Nowadays “fans” stalk celebrities openly, proactively and proudly, they often also reject the idea that what they’re doing is wrong or is causing their fave serious discomfort. One celebrity even said they felt like (their) fans consume them as content

but it’s not just fans who are at fault, sometimes celebrities will subtly lean into the ever blurring lines of their parasocial relationships with their fanbases, usually this is done for marketing and promotion purposes.

but this lean-in is catastrophic and has led to real tragedies. The fans feel like they’re entitled to the celebrity themselves, whether that’s through stalking, harassment, refusal to stop filming them or getting handsy and wildly inappropriate. Many intense fans seek to control and direct their favorite stars’ private lives, even to the extend of shaming them and performing backlash against them when they try to have lives of their own outside of their public persona

and what do we or celebrities do when fans form increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories (for example how all proshippers are pedos in disguise who are lurking in every fandom) that distort their sense of what’s real, all so they can maintain their collective narrative in the face of opposing information?

the author suggests that we should do what Chappell Roan did with her extreme fans: call them really weird. It’s a tactic used by the left to emphasize how far outside the norm the extreme (political) views of their (celebrities) or our (antis) opponents are. And I know calling them “weird” is an understatement because they have become far more aggressive, but maybe it helps making others aware that this behavior (of theirs) is not okay

unfortunately this article is paywalled (I could access it by attempting to translate it via google, then switching back to the original), and it’s called “Chappell Roan and the problem with fandom”

that sounds very interesting and relevant! pro tip: you can also try copying and pasting the link into the way back machine to try to get past the paywall

[the-real-rain-world-confessions]

I don't know if this will get posted because it's long and a bit ranty, but I want to get it off my chest and I think a LOT of people need to hear it. I won't reference any specific issue but there have been many like this, so it's still applicable.

I've been doing my best to stay positive about the fandom but my god, the surveillance of the internet and the "child friendly" insistence is getting ridiculous. No I don't want to chase children off the internet, they can have their space, but they also must understand the internet is mainly used by adults and therefore there will be adult content here. The fandom is not a mess because there are people making erotic writing/art, it's a mess because no one is allowing anyone to have their own space. Between pre-downpour puritans and minors just looking to get adults in trouble for BEING ADULTS, THAT is the problem we have here.

Yes, censoring adult content is important. Having NSFW alts is even better.

The problem?

Nosey people (often minors) who think everyone's business is theirs to meddle in. If someone has "bad" kinks, and makes content about it— going to blow some minds here —they aren't actually a bad person. I had to learn this myself, as I used to be the kind to judge people for it. But they are not reflections of someone's morality. Often times it's a result of trauma, a way to cope with or process something (and in saying that, no, you cannot ask someone what their trauma is to "justify" their kinks. let people have some semblance of privacy)

Something someone enjoys in fiction is not something they are guaranteed to enjoy in real life: take for example horror movies. Your favourite horror movie is Saw? Okay, so that means you're a psychopath who wants to torture people in bizarre ways.

Sounds stupid, doesn't it? Because it is.

We need to let people have their own personal lives again. Not everything needs to be laid out on the table to prove someone is a good person.

You are allowed to not like something, in fiction or in real life. You're allowed to not like NSFW content period. I am in no way saying everyone needs to be tolerant of everything and can't dislike anything, but you are not allowed to stop others from enjoying things that are (despite how much antis don't want to admit it) harmless.

People (especially minors) need to stop hunting for dirt when someone slightly upsets them (usually adults). We are human. We make mistakes. If someone upsets you, communicate it with them, or block them. We don't need to be ruining people's lives with the guise of "spreading awareness" about them.

No, you are not spreading awareness, because I am CERTAIN most people are not reading your lengthy post. They see the big scary words you've labelled this person with (often words that are highly exaggerated or, again, are people misinterpreting a fictional desire, like kinks, as real-life reflections of that person) and witchhunt.

That is no insult to anyone, it's a fact of the internet; Tumblr is another site designed to give short-form content, so big long posts we rarely actually read, we SKIM. Skimming usually means we see the big bad words, scroll past a few screenshots, and go "yep, seems legit", and reblog. We come onto this app for fast, easy dopamine. And drama? We eat that up. But this isn't just silly drama. This is ruining people's lives.

Rarely will people go deeper to look into the other person's perspective, or think about the motives of the person making the post, e.g. how did they get this info? why were they looking for it? and by extension, was this necessary to post and "warn" people about? Or, maybe, just maybe, can we let people do things that aren't hurting anyone (because it is FICTIONAL), and stay in our lanes so we don't have to see what we don't want to see.

Anyways, TLDR: People in the RW fandom, please be careful with who you listen to. If you want to get involved, then do it properly; look into the situation, properly evaluate it, come to a conclusion on your own instead of immediately agreeing with whoever started it. And if you can't be bothered? Then simply don't interact with it, because you are making uneducated decisions that could lead to lives lost.

Thank you to anyone who read this all the way through (if it got posted lol it may be way too long)

.

[despairhasitsown-calm]

i always find it kinda bizarre when people try to frame younger generations as uniquely "puritan" and to blame for every conservative view on violence or sex or nudity because like. yeah sure tiktok teenagers saying "unalive" and "pdfile" and all that. but also i know quite a few people in their 40s and 50s who call rape "doing... things", i don't think thinking you can discuss a subject you don't even have the maturity to call by its name is a generation locked phenomenum

[bugsbenefit]

attraction in ST

or. oh god stop stripping the show of it's themes no please no it needs those, stopppp

actually making this post now bc i'm sick of people claiming anything remotely sexual or even kissing happening to the party (an opinion that often pops up in the context of byler) in s5 would be horrible, sexualising, or out of character for the show

ST has always had a realistic approach to kids growing into their sexualities. the show's never shied away from directly addressing sex and sexual feelings so i'm honestly amazed by the extremely puritan interpretation of the show. i'm assuming, in good faith, that a big part of it is coming from people not having seen the actual show in ages and are just forgetting how explicitly the show handles sexuality. instead of just assuming it's from culturally raised christian people, who feel uncomfortable seeing any portrayal of sexuality, no matter how tasteful or realistic

i'm also saying all this as an ace person myself, i get not being into sex and not wanting to see it. however, refusing to acknowledge entire themes of a fictional show just because i don't experience them is bizarre to me. sexuality is vitally important to a lot of the characters and isn't just there to be fun(gross). essentially, ST is the opposite of porn without plot

so just as a little reminder what's actually IN Stranger Things. canonically.

sorry i had this sc for ages and wanted to include it Somewhere, so here you go. at a little starter... dorry

also this is an old draft seeing the light of day now, if anything's worded weird it's bc i didn't read all of it over again so oops, grammar hard?

TLDR: the show has never shied away from explicitly addressing sexuality. buying into the puritan fanon version of the show is going to make your s5 viewing experience worse because that show doesn't exist

season 1

we're starting the show off with Stancy, which is very sexually charged in general. (even in s4 Nancy still experiences physical attraction to Steve despite them having unchanged compatibility) the plot surrounding them in s1 explicitly focuses on Nancy having sex with Steve and later regretting that choice. the scene that everyone remembers, is of course, the "explicit" (not really, because ST is really tasteful with how it shows these teens explore themselves) sex scene

they're in sophomore and junior year of highschool here. around 15 and 16 years old - yet the show doesn't shy away from letting them figure things out. and it's not like this sexual theme is contained in only that scene. it keeps coming back the whole season as Nancy tries to sort her feelings out and deals with the aftermath of that night

also sidenote here while still at Steve and his party: even Steve's friends are very casual with their sexualities. and yes, they can even explicitly mention sex and specific sexual acts, no holding back here

Nancy's character conflict in s1 very much hinges on her sexuality and sexual themes. and it's not like there is a magic you need to be at least this old rule to know what sex is on the show like so many people seem to believe, because even 12 year old Mike seems to very much know what his sister and Steve are up to. he even goes out of his way to use it against her

iconic line! but i've seen insane takes trying to spin this into something not alluding to something sexual. i'm sorry to say if he doesn't think they're full on having sex he at least thinks they're getting very intimate with each other regardless

so not even the youngest characters on the show are "innocent and pure" the way fandom likes to claim when it comes to sexuality. and of course they aren't. real 12 year olds know what sex is, they're young not oblivious

and the following seasons make that even more obvious

season 2

as of s2 the kids are getting more involved with the sexual jokes, not just making them about other people but even being directly involved with those themes themselves. which is also realistic. with 13 sexuality starts to get thrown your way by every possible form of media. lots of them start developing crushes, have no idea how relationships work, etc. it's messy, typical teens thrown into the dating game. (i say all of this from a developmental media psychology perspective thanks uni and not personal experience sorry lmao, i'm a bit too ace to have my own input here)

s2 features comedic and awkward mentions of sex(ual activity) towards Lucas and Max,

older peers giving their 13 year old friends well meant advice on how relationships work,

and has even younger characters play around with attraction/kissing/love as well, which is incredibly normal for kids to do at that age

they're all young and the show treats growing up realistically. while the theme of attraction or sexuality gets more relevant for them (in scenes that are often received with awkwardness by the characters themselves) the show offers them safe territory to stand on. none of them are directly confronted with sexuality and are instead offered people to seek advice from for example

meanwhile the sexuality theme for the older kids is still very much explicit. just as Nancy's arc is still heavily tied to her romance and sexuality (which ties into her non conformity themes - she's an ambition driven person trying to escape the culdesac life first and foremost)

not only do we get another sex scene (this time with a cut away), there's also explicit jokes about it after

sexuality on the show is continuously awkward and messy. Jonathan and Nancy are only 16-17 here - no one really knows what they're doing or what the right way to go ahead is and Jonathan rightfully almost does a spittake here. out of pocket Murray

sexuality. is. awkward. (we get is s2 thanks)

season 3

s3 gets even more explicit with it's awkward puberty sexuality themes

from Dustin talking about how much he likes kissing Suzie (and her liking him not having teeth for it?) which weirds Steve out to the repeating, awkwardly received, "happy screams joke" (which gets a callback in later scene)

sexuality is still awkward for them. it's a realistic approach to what 14 year olds act like and know. they're actively dating by now, they're kissing people And have messy relationship situations. all while still acknowledging knowing what sex and attraction is, duh, of course they know that. but i'm explicitly pointing it out because i see obscene amounts of people claiming the characters are completely sheltered and even implying that they know what sex is would be gross. to that i say, do you not remember being 14???

and while i'm at s3, also let it be mentioned that even the adults are suffering at the hands of the sexuality theme here. Hopper's hookups with random women are focused on in s1, but now that he's getting closer with Joyce they get very explicitly told to just have sex. literally

not putting the whole dialogue in here, i already have too many images because there's so many sex mentions in this show and he really just tells them their mating ritual is painful and they should tear their clothes off and fuck right now

thanks Murray, always insightful

season 4

and s4 has stopped just confronting the kids with the existence of sexuality, but is tentatively starting to explore mature themes more directly - which allows them to tentatively start exploring their own sexualities instead of just having to acknowledge the general concept of sexuality

Max gets to ogle shirtless Steve

Lucas has something under his bed that's never confirmed as anything except "100/10 gross" but had 90% of the audience i saw immediately assume something sexual (magazines or the like)

and has a bunch more direct nudges, from the kids "experimenting sexually" as Murray says

to Argyle explicitly telling Jonathan he needs to have sex with Nancy again

to Hopper and Joyce's escalating make out in a church while shirtless

to visual innuendos (i'm looking at you hose scene. this one wouldn't be such a big deal if there wasn't a genuine moral panic about it last year. which was crazy. people literally had to pretend the scene didn't exist to escape the witchhunting mobs, except instead of being killed for magic it'd be for looking at a canon scene and acknowledging it. crazy times - aside from that there's also more visuals you can take as innuendos in s4e1 which there's already posts about out there so i'm not getting into them here, i'm more focused on the overt textual references)

to Yuir extensively talking about pleasing women and making them cum (I'm sparing you from that, the sc in at the top was already enough)

to explicit graffities all over the place, like here as an example "give me head until i'm dead" which is in frame for the whole phone call and Steve talking about his bitchlesness. and is also some of the only easily legible text (i hope this is readable, most of my screenshots kind of died a bit so maybe you need to look at an actual clip to see the text)

that is aside from the "DRUGS" poster which touches on another point s4 makes. the show doesn't just explore sexuality, it also puts the kids into more mature situations in general (not talking about the deaths, this is a horror show), specifically drugs

Jonathan uses weed as a coping mechanism the whole season and Eddie even sells the stuff in full bags (insane weed selling practices btw, even i know that). Chrissy (17-18) wants to do weed and ketamine. and we also see Lucas (14) hungover after drinking at a party for the first time

the show does not shy away from portraying realistic teen experiences

Murray called s4 very well, the kids pound some bears, smoke some ganja, play nintendo, and experiment sexually

literally. you have drinking, weed, and confusing queer sexualities. they took this list step by step

and all of those pretty normal things teens tend to explore. and i say that as someone who was decidedly not into those things. the ace experience is a bit different, but i can still acknowledge how that period was like for my allo friends and people in general

there is an extreme push in this fandom to reject any form of sexual jokes or references in the show, made mostly by people being uncomfortable with portrayals of sexuality. however, the themes not only still exist, they're also very prominent throughout all 4 seasons and are important to a lot of the characters directly

and it's also noteworthy here to see how ST approaches it's sexuality theme. it grows with the characters. starting out as jokes and being received with awkwardness to slowly letting them figure things out on their own time and turns. an extremely realistic progression and very common for coming of age narratives such as ST. it's a far cry from shows exploring sexuality or sexual themes for the sake of the viewers enjoyment like Euph0ria (don't want it to show up in tags)

based on what we currently know s5 could very well be taking place in 1988 or later which would place the party at around 16-17 years old. going into the season with the fanon version of the show that is completely clean and non sexual will 100% set you up for disaster

ST is very realistic and non exploitative with it's exploration of teen sexuality so there is obviously nothing to worry about in the sexualization department, that's just puritan fear mongering. however, it's very likely that we're going to get more than holding hands or pecks on the lips from the characters that are now older than characters we've explicitly seen hook up before. there could be more intimate scenes or making out, yes. but there's also at least one basically guaranteed vulgar joke in there, all seasons have them

there's no real theorizing or speculation about s5 here, anything could happen and i'm not placing bets, i want the characters narratives to be wrapped up well first and foremost and trust the writers to do it well. however, going into s5 with some of the mindsets i've seen circulating on here and expecting the show to be "clean" and cater to a version of it that's never existed outside of purified fandom could genuinely make you feel blindsided by the shows canon themes

not targeted at anyone or anything specifically, just using this as a bit of a reality check of what the show is actually like after recently rewatching all of it in one go

[olderthannetfic]

Re: the puritanism in how fandom talks about smoking, drinking, drugs, etc. ....the weirder part is that so many people who think that way will impose that on your narrative even if you don't intend it. And to be clear, I'm talking about people who agree with that kind of thinking imposing it, not people who are tired of that prudishness. Case in point: I wrote a fic once where I had a character get a little tipsy at a party who was being a little hard on himself for how his drinking was loosening his tongue and causing him to motormouth (projecting a little bit, alcohol also tends to do that to me), and then he realized how his one friend must not mind because she's the one giving him drinks. And most people got that, but someone in the comments was like "I'm glad you showed the dangers of excessive drinking and it was wrong for that friend to push drinks on him." ???? He wasn't drinking excessively, he was just being hard on himself, and I made it clear that the friend wasn't "pushing," he accepted the drinks. It was brought up in terms of "oh, maybe I'm not being so bad after all, if this friend is fine enough with this behavior to get me more drinks." It was such a bizarre response, like a person who only knew how to relate to drinking through DARE PSAs and not like how real people who drink at social events think and talk about it.

--

[cleolinda]

Okay, I am having an issue I can only attribute to The Autism, and I am curious as to whether anyone else vibes with this:

I have an extreme aversion to wearing brown clothing. Like to the point where I started to wonder if I was persecuted by colonial Puritans or steampunk pilots in another life or some shit. It has only developed since I became an adult; I had a perfectly witchy brown and black maxi dress I wore as a teenager, and a pair of shoes I got compliments on all the time. Brown is fine in nature, in decor, on animals, on other people, on anything that isn't me. Love a good neutral (can lean slightly warm) brown eyeshadow; looks great with my complexion. Brown eyes of all shades are beautiful and I love them (I have green). Don't drink coffee but it's not brown's fault. Buy me a chocolate factory and I'll live in it. No real fight to pick with the mere existence of brown.

I wear black. Accessories, shoes, purses, jewelry, wardrobe staples, whatever: always black for the last 20+ years, never brown. It's like I decided that if I always stuck to black, everything would always coordinate, and it just... spiraled from there?

When I went to pick up my new glasses a couple weeks ago, there was some kind of mix-up, and the frames weren't black; they were a dark, almost-black brown with light amber mottling: tortoiseshell. "I HATE TORTOISESHELL" I blurted out (once the sales associate wasn't present. Nobody is paying him enough to deal with that kind of weirdness). I really did not know that I hated tortoiseshell at all until it came up when I was first browsing frames three weeks prior, and I blurted out, "I HATE TORTOISESHELL." I did not know this about myself! It might not have even been true until that moment! It's not the pattern; it's purely the very yellow/orange-leaning shade of brown, on me. Tortoiseshell is lovely on other people! It's aesthetically cromulent! I reacted like someone had offered me a tarantula. I don't know.

I have now reacted so bizarrely--I've spat out "I HATE BROWN" on previous occasions as well--that I'm trying to unpack what the fuck is going on. My best theory at this point is that it has something to do with a neurodivergent aversion to yellow, which I REALLY REALLY HAVE. (Again, yellow is fine wherever doing its own thing, love a gently yellow flower, but I do not want to wear it and it kind of hurts my eyes a little if it's too much. Like I almost feel queasy.) I keep trying to stress-test this aversion in my mind--what shade of brown would I wear? A sweater that's such a dark and neutral brown that it's almost black? A really pretty "brown sugar" color like the eyeshadow I like so much? "Redwood"? "Raw umber"? "Beaver" (........)?

My secondary theory is that it might come down to some kind of involuntary self-assertion thing. "I SAID I WEAR BLACK, WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO ME??" I think... that's a good bit what happened with the glasses. Although I really do react very strongly to the sight of the amber bits (on me).

Anyway, I am usually a very measured, even stoic person with this kind of thing--to the point where I don't stand up for myself enough--so here we are, trying to figure this out. Do you have any kind of vehement aversion like this? Not to something rational (I can't deal with seafood and I stand by that), but like, "I jump back from this like a vampire from garlic and I have no idea why"?

[bobbybutterfly]

About Vixen?

So you want Lieutenant Vixen? I’ve got Lieutenant Vixen. And not only one. But TWO!

Oh yeah! We got the show female fox and the manwa male fox!

I tried to render this piece more. I think the clouds turned out better than the characters. The hard round MAX OPACITY brush really did wonders for my art. But it’s time to introduce softer gradients. I got to constantly innovate after all. I first drew the characters with the hard round MAX OPACITY brush. I found their uniforms a bit too monotone. So I added some red to them with a very textured brush. Not the best idea. You can still see some of it on the female fox’s butt. I would have removed it but… I merged the layers and I couldn’t reverse it. Whoops.

Life goes on. So I used the airbrush to smooth out the texture. It preserves the original brush strokes while making everything more united. I learned that from working on a piece inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci. I think the best turned out the male fox. For the female fox I used a little too much airbrush. Soft brushes are really hard to master.

I could ramble more about the art process. I think it’s something really important to document and share. But now I want to get to what I think of Lt. Vixen.

At first I was kind of annoyed at her popularity. Men being unable to see a female character and not sexualize her challenge. But then I watched the episodes she was in and I was like OH. As a pansexual I was HOOKED! Special shout out to her voice actress Lim Um-Young. The whole show is bizarrely horny for puritanical North Korean standards. Looking at you mice maids. If you want to learn more watch Paper Will’s video on North Korean entertainment. It’s great.

She is also definitely one of the best characters. A true girl boss. So sad they didn’t make any more episodes. So much lost potential.

Her male counterpart… I haven’t read the manwa because I know like three words in Korean. So all I can say is that I like his character design. Both of their character designs are great. I imagine he’s probably your general evil angry guy. The stories are generally focused more on plot than character. And that’s alright. All the more room for head cannons!

I don’t include the wolf army in my AU because they’re a little too modern for my taste. I like to keep things early 20th century vibe you know. Also by the time I got around to season 2 the first time I was already kind of burned out. But here are my ideas.

At first I thought Lt. Vixen could be trans. But I didn’t have much ideas on what to do from there. So I thought why can’t there be more than one fox? Specifically the manwa fox could be her twin brother!

The two of them grew up in a shitty orphanage. They were their only family and they HATED each other. I got to give them names. Vixen is the female fox and…I dunno Bob is the male fox. It’s just so you don’t get confused while reading. The hard life in the orphanage made Bob more empathetic and inward focused (he writes sad gay poetry trademark). Meanwhile Vixen lost all her empathy and her range of emotions is very shallow. I like the creepy idea that she just doesn’t have a soul poetically speaking. She bullied Bob their whole childhood. Bob feels weak and like he can’t do anything without his sister. Even though he views her as the embodiment of evil.

The only way they would become anything more than poor factory workers was by joining the military. Both of them earn their ranks by seducing their hireups. Even though Bob hates being in the military and would love to just go be sad and gay somewhere else, for the first time he feels like he can be something without his sister. When he starts to earn his ranks faster than Vixen she does not like it. And she murders him!

Oh my goodness! This post been going on for ages. I haven’t even gotten into my ideas for Lt. Vixen X Geumseagi and how Bob plays into it all! Send me another ask if you want to see that.

[belle--ofthebrawl]

Earth Wife (Terra, Pebble, Ivy.) ficlet under the cut! Post-line up change. Terra discusses Ivy's new place in the band with Primo.

(this is developing a plot)

“She’s not going to last.” The First Emeritus had remarked, leaning back in his chair. Terra, adjacent on her own seat, chose to lean forward instead. Propping her elbows on her knees and blowing smoke out of the corner of her mouth as she watches the ghoulette in question.

“Why'd they fuckin’ pick her then.” Is her only response. Her tone is disgusted. She has every right to be. There's something else afoot here, she can smell it, sure as shit on a summer day. “The boy’s ready for his moment. He's better suited.”

“The boy” as she calls him is near double her height and a respectable four hundred years old but to Terra, he’ll always be a fawn-legged new summon, so green and wet behind the ears he might as well be one of new saplings Ivy picked out for the orchard. He's more than good, more than suitable for the job. But the higher ups had taken her suggestion and ignored it. Giving Pebble the unceremonious boot and yanking Ivy out by the roots.

“Someone wants my brother to fail.” Primo continued, cupping his hand to re-light to end of his cigarette. “Now, all due respect to the lady, but she's not exactly…fit for the lifestyle.”

Terra peers over the rim over her sunglasses, taking her eyes over the hunched figure of Ivy in the dirt. It's the happiest Terra's seen her since the news broke; examining the plants with her usual attention to detail, dirt up to her elbows and smeared on her face. The sunlight makes her glow, the fresh air helps her bloom. Terra thinks of long, stuffy bus rides and fluorescent lighting. Cramped, sterile hotel rooms and tap water tinged orange.

“She'll survive.” Is all Terra says. She loves her Papa but right now, the ground’s not steady. Ain't nobody better than sussing out shaky foundations than her. Someone could hear her, someone who shouldn't. Her Papa could say anything and be brushed off like dust on a windowsill. Terra is a servant. She might belong to him but insubordination is insubordination. She's toe-ing the line as it is.

“More to life than surviving.” Primo responds enigmatically. Then, just as bizarrely, “Do you think it's time for a transplant?”

Terra doesn't say anything. Just watches as Ivy stands up, brushes dirt off her legs and turns around to wave.

“There's a couple that might need it.” She responds, jerking her chin up in response to Ivy. She thinks about the work involved, about fragile roots and notoriously fussy blooms. “We’d have to get it done at the right moment though.”

“Can't do it before tour.” Primo continues. “Too much work and they’d pull you away in the middle of it. Have to be afterwards. Right when she comes back.”

“No time to rest?”

“Can rest when the work is done.”

“How very Puritan.”

Primo chuckles, soft and slow as a trickle of smoke snakes its way down his body. It doesn't dissipate, but crawls along the floor until the trail reaches Terra.

“The garden is always worth the work.” Primo says. “Wouldn't you agree?”

Her eyes are on Ivy as she approaches, her smile fading when she catches sight of their faces.

“What?” She asks, alarmed. “What's wrong.”

Terra glances at her Papa, who's settled comfortably into his role of an old man admiring a pretty young lady. He plays it too well for Terra’s comfort, but then she's never been any better herself.

“Just a pity you finished before that rain started.” The First says. “Now you’ll have to shower inside.”

“Oh, boo.” Ivy says, an understanding smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “Sorry I’m denying an old man his peepshow.”

The First Emeritus taps his forefinger to his temple, on the side of his Lucifer eye and Ivy snickers, flicks dirt at him and Terra's heart breaks to see it. It took her so long to open up, to finally be comfortable and someone decided to take all her progress and destroy it. Her Papa is right, Ivy's not suited to the touring side of the Ministry's outreach.

Outreach in general, is not Ivy's strong suit. There's a reason Primo requests privacy in his gardens and it's not all the poisonous plants he keeps. Humans blundering in and bothering Ivy would cause problems no one wanted to deal with. She liked who she had and she liked where she worked. Deviation from her routine brought up fear and distress, the kind chamomile had no hope of calming.

She doesn't know why Ivy’s like that. Frankly she doesn't care. They're all a bit unusual at the end of the day. Terra’s just glad that after decades of careful flirting, Ivy finally clocked on. It's been good to see how being loved helped her blossom. She doesn't think Ivy would have taken as well to Mountain if that foundation hadn't been built first, but there's no use speculating. Terra's built her little family up as best she could, providing a stable frame for them to grow upon. S’what she does best.

Ivy’s still teasing Primo when Terra re-surfaces from her thoughts.

“Look, what did you do to her?” Ivy says, pointing a filthy, gloved hand at Terra. “She's up in space.’

“Nothing she didn't explicitly ask for, multiple times.” Primo says unashamedly and Ivy gasps.

“Oh, you beast.” She says, but her eyes are twinkling in a way Terra doesn't get to see too often these days. “Suppose I can't tell you to leave, no. You're both stuck in those chairs, too useless to move.”

“Stoned to high heaven.” Terra says, though they aren't and Ivy knows it. “Be a dear and check on the boy’s progress with Pebble? Make sure she hasn't tricked him into eating a magic mushroom, at least.”

“I'm sure he's fine.” Ivy says, but she looks to where the kitchen window is with a worried expression. “They were going over pastries today, I think.”

Sure enough, if Terra sniffs the air she can smell something fruity and delicious and Ivy's too sweaty to be the source. That's a different kind of delicious, one Terra wouldn't mind tasting if Ivy felt like sharing her pre-lunch shower.

“Pastries!” Primo booms, startling them both. “Ah, when I was a boy back in Sicily…nineteen twelve, I believe…there was another boy, the baker’s son.”

He gets up from his seat with surprising agility, crushing his cigarette in the nearby ashtray before offering an elbow to Ivy. She takes it, after removing her thick gardening gloves. Glances at her Papa with the fond smile of someone who's heard a similar story many, many times and looks to Terra, her hand outstretched. Terra leaves her own seat to accept it, sticking her cigarette in the corner of her mouth. She supposes they aren't the strangest threesome the Abbey's ever seen as they make their way to the kitchens but they probably come close. Already she can hear Pebble shouting, probably from a stool as she bullies the poor kitchen staff to her every whim.

“After you, my dear.” Primo says grandly, opening the door for them and ushering Ivy in. She murmurs her thanks and walks ahead as Terra waits for her Papa.

“We will talk more later, ah?” He says, patting her shoulder. “About the transplanting. I have an idea of where these plants of mine should take root, but I would like to hear your opinion on it.”

“Yes, Papa.” Terra says obediently. “I’ll do my best.”

“I know you will.” Primo says with a faint chuckle. “My most rocksteady ghoul, ha! That is what you are, yes.”

“Terrible old man.” Terra tells him with a smile. She spies Pebble with the boy, tugging him around by his apron strings as she directs who gets what plate as the Abbey trickles in for lunch. The little earth ghoul shoots Terra a questioning look, one she waves off with a mouthed later.

Ivy? Pebble mouths back, eyes darting around to catch their ever elusive blossom. Already gone through a secret passage, she’ll take lunch in her room. Not alone, if Terra and Pebble have anything to say about it.

Don't worry. She locks eyes with Pebble, giving her a quiet nod. She'll be ‘right. Pebble raises an eyebrow and Terra only jerks her head to their Papa, even now sliding easily into the role of harmless old man once more. To the average observer, retirement and age had softened him. Made him and the work he did easy to overlook. Terra knows just how far his roots stretch though. What hidden places in the Abbey they touch. And even she can't guess at the depth they reach.

Pebble hands her an extra plate, tells Mountain to get the dishes started after he's had food of his own. She'll meet him for practice afterwards. The boy nods, trying not to look morose at the prospect of dishwasher duty, but they all have to start somewhere. That new little water ghoul is in the kitchen too and Terra thinks they'll get along just fine.

“What's the word?” Pebble asks as they slip into a concealed passageway, accessed by pulling a sconce. Terra waits for the section of wall to slid back into place before she speaks.

“Nothing new.” She says, as the rats scatter away at their footsteps. “Talk of a big transplant, is all.”

[ash-imagines]

Alright, it only took me a decade, but I finally watched It Follows. Spoilers and whatnot.

So, the obvious conclusion is that It is an STD or something, but that feels too easy. It might be sexually transmitted in a sense and very detrimental to the health of those who catch It, but I feel like It is something a little less obvious. I think It is the embodiment of the bizarre mentality that society has about sex in the United States. The biggest reason that I see in favor of this conclusion is the "do you feel any different" moment towards the end.

Sex is seen as a very big deal in the states, and it's unavoidable. Advertising uses it because sex sells, people talk about it like it's life-changing and the best thing you'll ever experience, but there's also a stigma around it. You aren't supposed to discuss it in polite company or enjoy it in unconventional ways, lest you be seen as a pervert or a freak. Sexual education in this country is notorious for being beyond awful, trying to scare children into never wanting sex rather than actually educating them about the subject.

I don't have the post right now, but I was definitely thinking about the "Americans don't go to bathhouses with naked grandmas and therefore have a warped perception about what the average person's body looks like" post. Because that's very true. Nudity of any kind is viewed as inherently sexual here. People still frequently lose their temper over the "indecency" of a parent chestfeeding their child in public.

And, I don't know if this was an intentional decision or just a coincidence, but one of the first places that I saw people just casually existing without clothes on was in the changing room of a public pool. Pools are pretty important to this film, as you may know.

So, that's the kind of environment that our main cast has grown up in. They seem like young adults, none of them with a ton of sexual experiences under their belts, and this weird attitude around sex is something they're finally old enough to confront head-on. They're still somewhat in the awkward teen stage of sex and romance, young enough that their first crushes, first kisses, and first beers are still pretty fresh in their minds. But they aren't kids anymore, either. They have the freedom now to have sex if they want. It's not forbidden to them anymore. That doesn't mean the cultural perception of sex that they've grown up with and continue to live in doesn't still get to them, though.

Lots of people feel guilty about having sex or masturbating, even though it's perfectly natural. The puritanical attitude surrounding sex is something that runs incredibly deep and takes a long time to unlearn, and it's actively worsening because of the growing censorship of the internet to appease advertisers (but that's a discussion for another day). I think the It in It Follows is the physical manifestation of this cultural puritanism. It can look like anybody because anybody could perpetuate It, whether or not they mean to. It follows and is such a hassle to get rid of because It's baked into the foundation of our country. And, perhaps, It can't go into the pool because that's someplace where being unclothed with others isn't seen as sexual, therefore It doesn't have any power in the water.

As for the "do you feel any different" moment, I think this is something lots of people feel after having sex, especially for the first time. All our lives, sex is built up as being a monumental occasion, the biggest deal ever. But when you actually experience it, isn't it kind of underwhelming? Like, sure, it's nice, but it's definitely not everything it's hyped up to be. But, even after finding out that sex isn't the height of human existence, cultural perception of it doesn't change. Only your own perception changes, and It continues to follow, though maybe now It follows at a distance.

That's really just the way I interpret the movie, though. I'd be interested in hearing some other perspectives on the film. One of the things I saw brought up in discussions about this film is that the focus is entirely on heterosexual relationships, and people wondered whether the curse can only be transmitted through heterosexual sex. There's apparently a sequel in the works, and I'm wondering if that's something they might address.