#bullying is never the answer

[bookshelfdreams]

Saw a Take earlier today like "Ed stans have only 1 argument and it's accusing everyone who likes Izzy of being problematic" or something to that effect

and it made me think "Nah babe, you're not problematic. You're just wrong."

And then I thought. Huh. Why do I think that?

It's a perfectly respectable thing to read a text in a way it wasn't intended to be read. In fact, "reading against the grain", doing critical readings, shifting perspectives when engaging with a text - all of thee are important skills! You can, and should, do feminist, antiracist, postcolonial, queer, etc readings of texts that were never intended to be read that way. Hell, all fandom (often) is, is doing queer readings! Ask the text uncomfortable questions it doesn't want to answer!

However. It's pretty difficult to do a queer reading when the text already is a queer narrative. The questions you would ask the text if you did a queer reading, or a reading focused on gender roles, or similar things - those are questions the text is already actively exploring.

If you want to do a subversive reading of a text that is already quite subversive - what do you end up with?

"What's the story like from Izzy's perspective?" is a question ofmd deliberately doesn't focus too much on because Izzy's perspective is the default and ofmd wants to challenge that. There's a reason the angry white man is the antagonist in this show, and if you ask "Okay, but could he be right though?" you're missing the point.

Or rather, you're turning everything that's interesting about ofmd back around. You're asking "Okay, but why don't we focus on a white perspective that strictly adheres to oppressive power structures?" of a narrative who already asked itself this question and gave the answer "Because that's been done enough and there are other stories worth telling."

And I think people are aware of that, which is how we end up with completely bizarre takes like "Izzy has the only queer character arc". He hasn't, but he has the only arc that a queer reading can be done on - for everyone else it's text, plain and simple. Refusing to engage with that text in favour of centering Izzy is basically doing a heteronormative reading without being willing to admit it to yourself.

And no, interpreting Izzy as a queer man doesn't change that.

[celorangeine]

Gary lighting practice but he's about to be thrown into the furnace

This is Gary in the medieval ages getting punished by getting thrown into a furnace

[moonshynecybin]

Marc: “its okay, its okay” while signing a Vale helmet

Me: is it okay because you need everyone to know that you’re the normal person out of the two of you or is it okay because you know Vale is okay with it? Which is it Marc Marquez?

(I know it’s the first one but the delusional fujoshi in me would like to…hope)

its okay because hes still a fan of valentino rossi. which is nuts

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s2 episode 7 thoughts

hmm. hmm. that is the sound if me pondering what i just watched.

(i understand that this episode was an analysis into mulder's self-destructive behaviors when faced with overwhelming grief, but. that does not mean i enjoyed vampire hookup time)

well. we shall start from the top!

i read that it was an episode about vampires which i thought was a weird narrative choice because. hello. scully still gone??? but then i remembered that i too ignored the main quest in skyrim to hunt some vampires and that i had no place to judge

(granted, my main quest wasn't finding scully though. might have given that a bit more priority than saving the whole world. because she IS my whole world)

we open with a guy that looks like joe biden meeting with an attractive young woman. they're making out in a hot tub and we just know someone is gonna get slurped upon. and woe, it be upon us! double vampire attack.

back in DC, mulder gets his old office back! it's covered in plastic. he takes some of it off. he adjusts his calendar from may to november, so we see how much time he and scully had been assigned to other tasks, which also has me wondering how she managed to get a new house that quick.

(also, this calendar is... scantily clad women posing next to tools such as hammers and saws. was this allowed? was this acceptable? was it normal? were the 90's a lawless wasteland and mulder an irreparable freak?)

well. scully is an x file now, and he puts her glasses and id into an evidence bag and closes the filing cabinet which was sooooo evil. but he can't bring himself to put her necklace away. oh man. oh he's gotta have it in case he finds her. he has to hold her close. i'm Fine this is Fine.

so. he goes out to california to deal with the joe biden looking fellow being murdered. and he is not wanted on the crime scene. we know this because someone greets him by saying "nobody called the bureau" and he says "well, they should have" and lifts up the tape to let himself in. because one thing about him is that he's gonna let himself into a place he isn't wanted.

he sees the writing of a bible verse in blood on the wall and says something about their grasp of biblical knowledge being "feeble and literal" and i was like okayyy need to have a theological discussion with him

he then scares the other guy who originally wanted to kick him out by reciting a LARGE amount of facts related to similar cases and it's very much giving photographic memory. got me thinking, have we ever seen this man forget something? (directions don't count. they're confusing. but everything else sticks in that man's brain)

he just needs one thing: a phone book. which he uses to call a blood bank and ask about a new guy. who must be the vampire who did this!

so he rolls up to the blood bank and i'm over here struggling because i do Not Do Blood, and i knew at this point this was gonna be a tough watch, but i didn't anticipate the non-blood related reasons why this would be true

anyway he's sniffing around the blood bank and he hears some slurping and wouldn't you know, this dude is tearing into a bag of the red stuff like it's a capri sun. somehow he gets him into custody, where the dude refuses to talk because the lights are on, and mulder comes in with a lamp he put a red filter over, because he was prepared for vampire interrogation.

the vampire is going on about how what he did isn't murder because it's not like animals hunting prey is murder which is. not the greatest approach in terms of legal defense. mulder tells the guard that the guy is delusional and it's best to play along, and he believed this to be true... until he, quite literally, burned to a crisp in the sunlight. and died.

he's talking to the coroner and rattling off a bunch of vampire facts and says he didn't believe in vampires which is so funny to me because like. why is that where you draw the line, my friend. not at bigfoot and definitely not at aliens. but man. vampires are just too out there for spooky mulder. until now!

the coroner has a very funny line: "you are really upsetting me... on several levels" which seems to be the general effect fox mulder has on people. and also because i felt the same way about his dumbass actions during this episode.

coroner finds a stamp on the dead body's hand, which seems to come from a nightclub. so naturally our fbi agent ends up there.

you often see posts saying that "(insert character here) should be at the club". i fear that this is not the case for fox mulder, but it's possible that it's his suit and tie that are throwing me off. he just doesn't seem like he belongs there. i ask myself, where should he be instead? perhaps some sort of star wars convention would suit him better. a book signing with some author he likes. idk, an interior decorating festival. not here.

i shall use my verbatim words to walk you through the next scene:

"pause. he's talking to a woman who was looking into a compact without a mirror. so. vampire suspect. and now why are they getting so close together. and getting a drink. okay now they're leaving to a new spot together? AFTER she admits to vampirism"

(here she did some stuff that required me to look away from my screen due to my Weak Constitution. but also it would have felt necessary to look away anyway because it was getting... charged)

she tries to get him to... suck on her finger... but he won't do it because aids. which is fair. i think that's a smart move, actually. it's just that getting flirty with a vampire he knows was involved with a ton of killings was such a stupid move, i don't know why it's now the braincells start to kick in.

that kills the vibe, though, so she gets another guy to take his place and things escalate.

mulder pulls in at a restaurant called ra. nice! the sun god! and he is... through a window, witnessing some more slurping action. he seems to want to intervene and save this poor soul being feasted upon...

but the poor soul is no poor soul at all! he comes out and decks mulder, and delivers this line with stunning conviction: "i don't know who you are, freak, but we're two consenting adults" and with this, he is forced to flee.

and yeah. it made me laugh. my expectations for the genre were subverted. he signed up for that shit! what he did not sign up for, however, was the next part, where he was killed by the other vampires.

cut to investigating the crime scene. mulder has brought along a forensic dentist, which is a job i had no idea you could go into. he needs to see about those bites, which are very human.

next they go to vampire woman's house. it's a very nice place. mulder... opens her oven. and sees a loaf of bread in there. and i'm thinking, man, i hope this doesn't go where i think it's going. baked goods... ovens... i never want a vampire pregnancy arc. but he cracks open the loaf and something red spills out and somehow, this to him means that she is gone and isn't coming back. he can read the signs of the bread. so add that to his resume. what did the bread tell you, my liege?

he seems to have stayed in her house, however, because he's there when she's back, and says he knows she was using the bread as a charm to ward off evil. because apparently that's an eastern european thing, blood bread to warn off evil. sound off if any eastern europeans in the chat wanna confirm or deny.

anyway. he's IN this woman he thinks is a vampire's HOUSE? what the hell. mulder seriously i need you to stop and think. like you should have stopped and done some thinking a while ago. honestly i'm not mad i'm just disappointed. and he's like "i want to save you come with me before they kill you" ohhh big tough man needs to save her huh. make him feel good inside. huh. certainly no ulterior motive here...

she's monologing about her horrible childhood and how sweet blood tastes. um girl. don't lie to him like that. i have busted my lip open before that stuff does NOT taste sweet and dangerous. it's like a penny with rust that you found in a parking lot.

it seems her vampiric origin story, if to be believed, is that things simply got too kinky. which is a new take on the genre.

(it's also about being caught in an abusive relationship and the damage that inflicts, but it seems abusive boyfriend came into vampirism at his kinky parties and things escalated from there. which. well. it blew the eyebrows clean off my head, to be fair)

at this point we see that he is WEARING SCULLY'S NECKLACE? he says something like "it's from someone i lost" and she says that she "hopes he finds her"

i did not like the undertones here and certainly not the overtones. because i knew where this was going. he was shaving in her bathroom. and let me tell you something: there is only ever a shaving scene in media because the writer needs a way to get some blood out of someone's body and into the real world. and man. i knew it was coming.

but what i didn't see coming was her SHAVING HIM??? girl. i am uncomfy. and she does, of course, cut him, and then they kiss. aggressively. terribly aggressively. can anyone answer what was going on in a satisfactory manner?

but the gag is: the original vampire- who burnt to a crisp in the jail cell, and was the abusive ex she spoke of- HE'S WATCHING THEM THROUGH THE WINDOW!

he breaks in and taunts the vampire woman about how he had to "wait for her to finish" and i was like cool. thank you SO much for that mental image i'm super happy with it. i definitely don't feel like i need a shower. but then he's going on about how he can't be killed.

here, at the tail end of the episode, we learn the rules of vampirism in this world: a vampire cannot be killed by a non-vampire. and a non-vampire BECOMES a vampire by consuming the blood of a believer and also taking a life. it is only here we realize that this woman is not an actual vampire yet, she just appropriates their culture by drinking blood unnecessarily.

mulder's still sleeping in her bed and she's like "you need to leave" and she stabs the wall to make her evil ex think she's killing him. but when they go to break out, mulder ties him up quite handily and he gets in the car to escape with vampire woman. until ANOTHER vampire woman jumps on the hood of their car. and main vampire woman knocks her out for a bit by running into her with said car, which is super effective.

mulder's leaving the place in shambles, his shirt still unbuttoned, wandering down the side of the hill. back at the house, now that we know the vampire rules, main vampire woman says she can finally kill the evil vampire ex. and he's like how!! you haven't had the blood of a believer or taken a life. so. she licks the blood off her hands (unclear if it's hers or mulders tbh) and says she'll take her own life. and drops a match after pouring gasoline.

so. that brings that to an end. and shabby looking mulder sits on a hill as he learns all four in the house died.

the episode ends with him playing with scully's necklace. which i don't even sort of feel like unpacking right now but maybe another time.

probably not, though, because i just didn't like this episode. and yeah, a lot of it comes down to me not wanting to see mulder hook up with people who aren't scully. can you blame me? is it so wrong to have preferences in this world?

but also, narrative wise- do you honestly see the guy fucking off to cali while scully's still missing to deal with an unrelated problem instead of devoting every hour of his life to finding her, like we saw him do in the last episode? you expect me to think he just puts it off for a lil while? the guy who, just last episode, pulled his gun on the ski lift operator to get to the top where she might be a little faster, and then choked his one and only suspect out of fury? you're thinking this is the guy that's gonna go soak up some west coast rays?

and yeah, he was obviously not himself through the episode- very cold and analytical- but c'mon. we all want to bang a vampire. he's not special. i just personally wouldn't do that if my friend were gone. like how is that gonna help the situation. be so for real. time and place!

and also the whole only learning the rules of being a vampire about 5 minutes before they need it to be plot relevant. that annoyed me too.

overall, mulder, like i said, i'm not mad, just disappointed.

let me know what you thought on this episode- i try to not be a hater, but i also understand that hating in small doses can be good for the soul. if it's a widely beloathed episode i'll feel better in my judgement as i join a long tradition of haters who have come before me.

[the-magnusinstitute]

Does the institute have HR?

No need for ‘human’ ‘resources’ when you’ve got Rosie with a baseball bat!

[canisalbus]

Have you ever watched the devil wears Prada? There's something about machete that really reminds me of Miranda, and it really does make me think that a top position at a magazine or museum, or even as an academic would make a lot of sense in the modern!au. (Would be funny if he was an early modernist cultural/art historian or specialising in religious iconography from the canon period?)

Machete has been compared to Miranda a handful of times over the years, but I had never seen the movie until a couple of months ago. And now I kind of get what they might've meant by that.

[kaibette]

!! Clip Studio Paint Users !!

https://www.clipstudio.net/en/news/202211/29_01/

First deviantart, now CSP. They are, in fact, using the data set full of stolen work.

Also, they’ve provided us with this little tidbit

[stagefoureddiediaz]

in case it wasn’t obvious bucktommy is over in this episode. You get to be as petty as you want after all the bullying you received.

Hey Nonnie

We’re not going to be rid of him by the end of this episode, the plot device still has a bit of being a plot device to do, but it will be very clear that Tommys time with us is very near its end - I remain in the belief that it will be an 808 breakup but I don’t think we’ll see much of Tommy in 807 if we see him at all.

So BT will be well and truly headed to the graveyard and when we get to wave him goodbye I will pop the non-alcoholic Prosecco I have in my fridge waiting for him to be gone - you’re more than welcome to join the celebrations - they will be epic!

I won’t be going near that side of the fandom to gloat etc - I have better things to do - like enjoying his departure and the freedom it brings Buck (and Oliver as well!). I’ll also be flinging myself into the sun over the fact that we’re going to be getting buddie very soon, but you can bet I will enjoy the feeling of vindication (I have a post with the vindication gif saved and ready to go!) and it will make that nosecco taste even sweeter!

It just goes to show that bullying is never a good look and it will make you look stupid and nasty in the end!

[coldflasher]

anyway, thanks to that moment in the sound and the fury where barry is standing around watching with blank frustration like "god i wish i'd taken a language in high school" while hartley verbally eviscerates both cisco and eowells in multiple languages, i now headcanon that len speaks a second language, mostly cos barry would find it really annoying

[celorangeine]

And also I would be interested to see genderbend versions of preps in your style ^^

I LUUV this idea

[tswwwit]

What are some ideas you have floating around that you don't have any plans on writing but like to entertain as a thought?

Many of them, in fact! Though they sort of vanish from my memory if I don't make a record of them, here's a few ones I jotted down when they came to mind.

For a domestic one: Bill thought he'd hate a lot of being married! Even though he loves Dipper, he thought he'd rebel against the chains of domesticity - and in some ways he still does - but one major benefit he's found is not having to be 'on' all the time.

No need to be perfectly performing all the time! No shoving around for social influence, no intimidation, or clever tricks. No commanding attention or taking up the room. Hell, there's surprisingly little upkeep! Bill can undo his tie and pick his nose and bitch about his day to someone who isn't bending over backwards to agree with him on everything. Someone who doesn't give him a weird look and sneer if he, god forbid, actually wants to sit down, read a book, drop the grin for an hour or two.

The concept in question is Bill's very first moment of great surprise. That when he isn't being the most charming, terrifying, and exciting guy in the universe, and just chilling out for like, five minutes, Dipper comes over and snuggles up to him on the couch, or wraps his arms around his shoulders and kisses the top of his head. And when Bill asks 'what was that for?', Dipper shrugs and goes 'eh, just felt like it'. It's both baffling and extremely compelling.

A short where Reincarnated Dip is Definitely Sure he's Not Gay!!! Especially not for this Hot Demon Man who is getting so close and touchy with him with his big smile and horrible wiles. Yep. Just keeping an eye on him to make sure he's not up to something Nefarious ™.

A discussion between Dipper and Bill where Dipper insists that Bill should understand this, or not do that, because, like. Y'know, Bill's a guy! There are guy things! Making Bill stare at Dipper like he's an idiot. He proceeds to informs Dipper how that's stupid for multiple reasons! First, that Bill's Not Human to begin with, his gender can't be put into a little box! And frankly, he never filled out the paperwork for his original one, come to think of it. Sure, he/him's fine, but c'mon, sapling, thinking of the whole shebang like a binary is dumb as hell. Now Dipper has to do some mental readjustment re: his own issues with masculinity/gender.

[demeterdefence]

do you think that the SA with apollo was planned from the start? lots of people seem to think rachel meant it to just be bad sex and then retconned it to be assault

oof, that's a tough one. i have definitely seen that argument / belief in anti lo circles and several other lo critical blogs have discussed this in far more depth with far better understanding than i, so i won't novel spam the dash, but i am honestly and genuinely torn on it tbh.

like it wouldn't surprise me if that's true, because rachel has demonstrated over and over how poorly she understands consent, safe dynamics, and just female agency in the first place. there are definitely some aspects of the initial assault that, looking back on it now, made me wonder. considering how rachel's been trying to retcon some of this out it's difficult looking back at the assault and wonder what exactly rachel's thought process was in the plot as a whole.

that being said, i did not start reading lo until long after rachel was fully fleshed out on webtoons, so i could not even begin to say how she was on tumblr, or anything before the season 2 finale tbqh. and i can give her the credit on this at least, i have always viewed the assault as 1000% no doubt no question assault. genuinely it scares me if rachel wrote and drew that whole thing out and didn't know it was rape, because for many many many people, myself included, it was just so blatantly familiar and clearcut as rape.

it's one of those things that i just can't wrap my head around because it has not been resolved, or really addressed with persephone being in charge of her own healing. it keeps getting thrown in as a kind of hurdle for people to cross, and apollo has never been taken to task for it, punished for it, faced any splash back. even when daphne finds out what he did, she's immediately put into the position of running for her life, and then when she's finally free she just ... doesn't tell anyone?

what's even more concerning is that we see numerous male characters in the text play fast and loose with consent, and rachel really wavers on whether it's bad or not. ares keeps hitting on persephone when she clearly doesn't like it, and he usually ends up getting the narrative coming down on him; zeus lies to demeter to trick her and that gets handwaved away to make room for the bad blood between demeter and hades. hades grooms persephone and then initiates sex when she's in the middle of a bad mental health spiral (obviously just my interpretation of it but i viewed a lot of that scene as persephone having an anxiety attack, and regardless of whether that's canon or not, she's definitely not in the right space for hades to initiate some weird ass daddy dom routine.) so rachel seems to understand what consent is to some degree, but the issue of consent disappears depending on who is asking for it. rachel makes it clear that hades is totally fine and doing the right thing for persephone, whereas if we saw zeus doing that same thing to hera, the narrative would definitively label zeus bad. so whether rachel always intended that scene to be rape, or figured it out later, i think the big question is: why aren't all the characters held to the same standard of consent, and why are so many female characters constantly the victim of men who do not ask?

[melancholic-pigeon]

Okay this is the *actual* last comment, for real, but I just found out Spider is now smearing me as a convert and accusing me of being involved with drama I was not involved with because he mistakenly attributed my apologies for his public temper tantrum as being about something unrelated.

THIS IS A FALSE ACCUSATION and I do not appreciate having yet another bit of fake malicious intent falsely ascribed to my actions and* attributing a completely unrelated attack to me.

Also, it's very sad and disappointing whenever a Jew gets mad at a convert because something else is going on in the Jew's life and the convert happens to be in the splash zone and the Jew falls over backwards to smear the convert and invalidate her faith.

Just....the childish aggression is making me so, so sad and disappointed, from someone I used to think very highly of, who is now lying about me and publicly smearing me with false accusations based on a conflict he started because he misinterpreted something I said and I went out of my way to give him the benefit of the doubt when trying to clear up the mistake HE MADE that led him to decide bullying and attacking me for three fucking days was appropriate and okay and that I'm the bad guy for saying it's wildly unprofessional to behave like this in public to a former customer face.

Sorry, but facts, reality, linear time and the truth of what I actually said and did are on my side here, and I will not stand for being smeared and attacked and shat all over because I had the gall to try to kindly resolve his uncalled for, unjustified temper tantrum.

I am also not sorry that I left a side note in the tags that it was also unacceptable for HIM to drag his daughter into a stupid internet slapfight based on his own reading comprehension failure. Because it was and is unacceptable, and she needs to hear that message from someone.

End of story. Keep digging that hole as long as you like, Spider. It's not helping your case and is continuing to make you look progressively worse and more unreasonable, and the only person you have to blame is yourself.

*revised for clarity

[meyerlansky]

i do think 14 year old luke deserved to get smacked around a bit for laughing about the pig actually

maybe not chomped in half

but maybe the adults in the room should've let the kids have a little slap fight at dinner is all i'm saying

[tinyfantasminha]

Are you a non-sharing, selective o sharing Jack/Idia yume?

Hi, I'm selective sharing with Jack and sharing with Idia! tbh I only touch my Idia yume like.... twice per year

I have more intense personal feelings towards Jack which regrettably makes me more selective about the content I want to see (sometimes I'm cool and sometimes I block based on vibes) but I do wholeheartely support AND encourage people to love Jack Howl! l don't want anyone to feel discouraged to yume with him, he's already so overshadowed and forgotten in favour of the other popular characters, he NEEDS more love!!!

[misiahasahardname]

Wait Raj too? Ripper and Raj brothers?? 👀

yeah!! i wrote a bunch of stuff for a nowen family au during ict

sorry if it’s incomprehensible. ya girl-type-creature is incapable of forming coherent sentences

the original total drama took place in 1997 instead of 2007 to make noah and owen’s ages as parents make sense

raj is older than ripper, which is surprising for people. ripper and raj are also twins, which is even more surprising for people!

raj and ripper’s full names are ‘rajesh könig-fraser’ and ‘rhynnfrew könig-fraser’

i headcanon ripper to be welsh, so for that to still be true in the au, owen is of welsh decendance. this means that raj and ripper are part german, part indian, part canadian and part welsh! it’s a very rich cultural background.

raj and ripper regularly speak german or hindi in the house which confuses owen/makes him feel left out since he can only speak english

noah tries to comfort him by saying that learning a language when you’re not born speaking it can be hard, and that owen can speak a bit of welsh while noah can’t. this half-works

noah tried to prevent the boys from discovering what total drama was because they are embarrassed about their past. unfortunately, wayne got in the way of this (big total drama fan - is the reason the brothers auditioned)

owen has a part time job at an ice-cream parlour, and noah teaches languages and psychology at raj and ripper’s highschool.

raj and ripper are Little Dipshits ™️ and decided to take german as their language in school for an easy A, but ended up with noah as their teacher and, as the loving mother they are, they started the school year by calling the two out in front of their entire class.

wayne is the family’s neighbour. he became raj’s best friend immediately, and would constantly be invited over for playdates. ripper became his friend by association.

noah needs glasses for reading. when ripper is mad at them, he will hide those glasses and scatter clues around the house with writing purposefully made tiny and messy to make things harder.

owen sparked raj’s love for hockey. he regularly takes him to see games and picks him up after practice (his shift ends at around the same time raj’s training sessions end)

the family is visited by owen’s parents and brothers very often. they’re always there to come to babysit the boys. noah’s family (the ones in other continents and who live in canada) live far away. they go to their closest family during shorter school holidays, extended family in germany for christmas, and extended family in india in the summer. (they still get to see noah’s closest family there since they all go to those places when noah does anyways)

sometimes, eva and izzy just. randomly break into the home without any warning. this always frightens noah and owen, but ripper and raj are always excited to see them. ripper loves izzy because of her unpredictable nature and the fact she allows him to do stupid and dangerous stuff, and raj loves eva because she’s super sporty and a very worth competitor. they also give awesome birthday gifts.

total drama episodes air the week after they’re filmed. not necessarily for the au, just a headcanon of mine.

owen and noah flipped their shit when ripper and axel kissed.

raj and ripper love to engage in eachother’s shenanigans, but they also love to scrap, insult and pretend they don’t know eachother. they are eachother’s number one supporters and number one haters.

april fool’s day gets very dangerous in the könig-fraser household………

raj and ripper have always shared a room. ripper is absolutely pissed that he’s not allowed to sleep on the top bunk.

noah and owen are really used to being called into school (or the hospital) because of their sons. neither of them know how to do anything without getting in some sort of trouble.