#but real people are not fictional characters and shouldnt be treated as such

[shesmore-shoebill]

Hello I absolutely LOVE reading all your thoughts about smosh dynamics. Your Gracie-Savannah post recently - magnificent. Sometimes if I find myself on your tumblr I inevitably lose quite some time dipping into your tags- especially the Courtmangela dynamics which are my fav. Idk I just thought you should know it’s appreciated by a random internet stranger who loves smosh too

:OOOOO Oh thank you so much that's SO flattering to hear!!! :'D <3333

I LOVE thinking about/appreciating interpersonal dynamics, and Smosh has so many fun and unique dynamics between the cast, its a blast to get to highlight and appreciate them. :) Courtmangela is great, every combination of the three is golden. They all like each other so much and clearly have a super fun time together, its great we get to witness some of that. :D I'm glad my tags help people other than me haha.

Caveat being, obvs with actual people its easy for analysis/assumptions about dynamics to spin into overanalysis/confirmation bias/projection in a way thats not productive. Or healthy! much less accurate lol. So its also very fun for me to get to dig in on some entirely fictional characters in a story, where I can actually do analysis and draw conclusions or use assumptions to talk about themes, and generally treat the characters as elements of the story as they are lol. Im glad that people seemed to like the Grace/Savannah post! I had a blast writing it. This was a really sweet ask, thanks anon :)

[ghostly-rantings]

people not knowing dreampai's lore is like.. upsetting to me, you can literally go on her blog and find her selfies and personal posts very easily, in fact seeing a different profile picture after so long genuinely freaked me out

@one-time-i-dreamt 's pfp looks like an ace attorney mugshot tbh

[a-little-revolution]

@ the anon asking about dwarfism in fantasy: think of it like this. dwarves in fantasy are seen as a separate race, but in real life, dwarves are human beings. to make your fantasy inclusive, you should aim to treat your dwarf characters like human beings, not like a separate race. this means give them all the opportunities that you would give your characters of other races. break away from stereotypes. your dwarf doesnt have to be a miner, barbarian, blacksmith, etc who lives underground. they can be a bard, a healer, a baker, a wizard, an aristocrat, a seamstress, etc. anything at all! they may need accommodations due to their size/stature, but the point is that people with dwarfism are PEOPLE with dwarfism, even in fantasy. even in fiction, people with disabilities shouldnt be depicted as some sort of "other race/species" & shouldnt be excluded out of fear of offending us. just treat us like human beings & everything should be okay!

sorry to barge into your asks & explain when you already did a great job explaining it yourself, this is just a topic im passionate about & this is my favorite way to describe it when people have a hard time understanding. lots of love ♡

Exactly!!! ☝️☝️☝️

[rayasland]

You ought to learn how the tags on this website work, the definition of pedophilla, and how to prevent trivialising acts of pedophilla against children. Focus your efforts on real children, instead of bitching about authors aging characters up, ie. Imagining them as fictional adults and not thinking about abusing fictional children.

Your behaviour is not productive, and not benefiting anyone. Advocate for real children being sexually abused, it will be a far better use of your time. + Puritanism is inherently bad and hinders on depriving us of our rights.

ok

[edit] oh mb i didnt actually read it gimme a sec b4 i reply

[edit2] the excessive use of the tags were on purpose, just scroll if u find that annoying or send someone asks whos constantly doing it

im aware of how they work, it was just a way to get peoples attention cuz we all know nobody would see it without them. im also now aware of the fact i may have over done it with the tags, i didn’t register how many i “clogged up”

u couldve moved along instead of wasting UR time writing this

even if its not real its just… weird to do theres nothing more to say

the post wasnt meant to say “pedophillia against real children isnt as important as aging up anime kids and we shouldnt pay attention to them” just seeing how many people agree with me abt whats on that post and if u dont or js dont think its important dont bother interacting please🙏🏾

i do agree w u that we should advocate for real children going through sa which im pretty sure a lot of people are already doing, but i wanted to bring to light how normalised js writing smut for minors(although fictional) is and how justifying it by saying “its a character” or saying “i aged them up” is strange

part of my point is writing smut involving underage anime characters, even if they are "aged up" or fictional, is still inappropriate and can contribute to the normalization of harmful behaviors irl as well as minors objectification because even if they’re “aged up” in your head it doesnt erase the fact you’re fantisizing over a fictional character who is meant to be treated and viewed as a child

also idfk what puritans rlly are only that they’re a different version of catholic which i dont know of either so idk what u mean there

this was written late at night if sum doesnt make sense lmk have a great day

btw im adding tags AGAIN to spite u 💋(referring to all that went in my asks to complain abt it)

thats all im saying for now im going to bed 🫡

[jyakkopotto-saddo-gaaru]

opinions under cut that i dont think many people will like so if you get upset easily just to be safe i would skip out on this one ,:D

1: every time i see the word proship or antiship or any variation of those a part of me dies a little. do you understand what a slippery slope that is. what do you define as something thats "immoral" to ship? adult x child? i get why thats icky!! i dont like seeing it either!! sibling x sibling? no one should be in a relationship like that!! its exploitative!!

the main issue is that people seem to equate shipping with thinking those characters would be good for one another. it isnt wrong to think pairings are interesting, its wrong to endorse them in real life. feeling grossed out does not mean being violated, and as long as a piece of art/a fic is tagged correctly, those sorts of explorations of fiction deserve to exist.

in general, we should stop trivializing the real life harm done by things such as pedophilia and abuse and incest and all those by comparing them to simple human creativity. i promise its alright and feeling ucky will pass. if you get upset by seeing it im so sorry but it is up to you to filter things. please free yourself from twitter hell.

2: people treat fandom and fiction in general way too seriously. it isnt that deep people are just making things because its interesting and fun 99% of the time it wont reflect their beliefs.

dont even hit me with "fiction affects real life!! what will happen when the kids see it and it gets normalized???" it is not anyones responsibility to parent others children. at all.

can i tell you something? i was a kid who read smut at 9 years old. and lo and behold i am not someone who endorses rape and / or molestation. there are probably hundreds of others just like me who feel very uncomfortable whenever people act as if exposure breeds corruption.

did you know that seeing people say that made me paranoid about me actually being a bad person? did you know i became obsessed with being "good" to balance it out?

you arent helping anyone. this type of fiction can be incredibly cathartic for survivors, it can spread awareness of the issues, and even if it didnt, that shouldnt matter. net zero harm shouldnt be considered "evil".

its okay. its okay, you dont need to be scared of getting attacked anymore. i will defend you with my life. the bug porn you wrote at 15 years old doesnt mean you want to fuck bugs and it doesnt mean youre evil. youre free. its okay i promise. theres a whole big wide world outside of the little pseudofascist bubble you were exposed to. youll be fine.

[steaming-system-takes]

my hottake is many people misinterpret what people mean by "doubles dont exist"

all we are saying is that doubles do not literally exist. we arent telling you that you being uncomfortable isnt valid or whatever, we are simply trying to point out that no two introjects of the same source are the same person or said fictional character, source-separated or not.

as an introject, i and many other introjects in our system used to get uncomfortable around other introjects who shared our source. (I SHOULD MAKE THIS CLEAR THAT IT'S IMPORTANT TO KNOW I AM TALKING ABOUT IN THE CONTEXT OF BEING IN A PUBLIC CHAT OR SERVER, NOT AN ONLINE MEDIA ACCOUNT! a server vs a tumblr blog for example are different. my issue here is when it comes to discord/other public chatting sites.)

you know what we would do? either leave because it is our responsibility or we toughen through it and remember that person is literally a different person from us. im trying hard not to come off mean or invalidating but im really bad at wording

you're an introject on a tumblr blog and people sharing the same source as you make you uncomfortable? valid. blocking is a thing. just dont say anything and block. if someone is invading ur DNI on purpose thats on them. just block and thats it.

you're an introject talking in a system server/chat and someone else happens to have the same source as you? excuse yourself from the chat for the time being or ignore that person.

please do NOT go up to someone and call them a "double". i am not you. you are not me. we are not fictional characters. do not go around calling people " doubles". i could go up to you and say the same thing.(i wouldn't obviously bc i hate that word and it's rude i just mean that i LITERALLY could and it would be the same thing you hypothetically did) i am not a clone of you. (not saying everyone uncomfortable with "" doubles"" does this i just see it happen a lot.)

obviously, also respect when someone says "doubles dni". i just don't.. like it being called doubles bc its kind of dehumanizing and isn't. real in how the term means. it doesnt work for DID/OSDD.

we got over the double thing, and thank god we did, because all it literally did was fuel our DELUSIONS WE EXPERIENCE and PARANOIA from believing it. it also made us have internalized ableism towards other systems for a while. (again not saying everyone who has this as a discomfort is like this, just that it wasnt very healthy for us and ive seen a lot of people where it isnt healthy for them or the people around them either.. ive seen people literally yell at others over their identity??? can we please stop normalizing the double mentality thingie. introjects are NOT THEIR SOURCE or all the same person..)

we've had our unreasonable and finnicky triggers. hell we used to have a trigger for FUCKING APPLES. (long story.) and eventually you have to learn how to get over them. sorry that sounds really rude but i wish people would stop this!! calling people "doubles" is so fucking hurtful like yeah you are allowed to be uncomfortable but please dont spread the doubles thing or yell at people. you dont do that stuff and you just block or ignore and move on? cool. you are a cool person. stay cool

god i really hope this made sense. im the worst at wording.

im paranoid people read my messages wrong so heres now a list of clarifications;

>i believe alters are allowed to NOT source separate if they dont want to separate. as long as it isnt hurting them. even then thats for them and their own system to figure it out, and source separation shouldnt be forced.

>im not forcing people to INSTANTLY get over their discomforts and triggers. it takes time. i know. im just asking *some* people to change the way they view things or at least treat it differently (ie stop using "double" and use a different term or wtvr for it, be more responsible abt it etc) and strive to get better about it. i hope that made sense. im not trying to belittle people i genuinely just dont know how my tone is coming off and im paranoid im coming off rude/gen

>yes some of us still get uncomfortable around source-sharing people. it used to be really bad when we were younger but it's gotten better. yes we do experience different kinds of delusions and have severe paranoia and im aware those can be part of why source-sharing people can be triggering to some. this post is only talking about the people who INSIST on calling PEOPLE "doubles" or instead of being responsible for their own stuff and just blocking or ignoring these people will yell at random people. it does not happen a lot but it does happen. this is a post against that, not people who are merely uncomfortable and/or just block/leave without saying anything. if you are just uncomfortable and block or wtvr again UR COOL ur cool /gen

>and honestly im just asking people stop saying "double"... use "source sharing person" or smth else instead 😭😭 the word double is strange and dehumanizing

sorry this was so long.

/lh

^

we genuinely love getting these long and thought out takes, its nice being able to see someones full opinion on something and why they feel the way they do

[crestoflames]

I think I’ve figured out what makes me like a character that does bad things/is a villain/is “problematic” in any way:

it’s if they have power in their current role.

like im all for evil/complicated/murderous women and i love it. all of the Yellowjackets ladies, they’re a bunch of fucked up traumatized women doing bad things but they don’t really have a lot of power in the grand scheme of things.

dahlia hawthorne? she did tons of fucked up shit but she also failed horribly and was an abused child abandoned and treated poorly by her parents and taken advantage of by an adult man when she was 14. yes she shouldnt have done murder but realistically she never had any real power in the grand scheme of things, she was just trying to reclaim agency. (i feel similarly about most female ace attorney villains. except Morgan, fuck Morgan. April may isn’t great either but she’s mostly a caricature)

example of a female character I can’t sympathize with - dr. kelly. yes her circumstances sucked and getting impregnated by a Sleep Paralysis Dream Daddy (SPDD) is so fucked up and you can’t really tell anyone. but she always had the power over her son who she started abusing and poisoning. also bring a medical professional that only increased her power and authority and made it easy for her to get away with crimes and claim her son was just delusional if he ever did decide to tell on her. i cant really ever be okay with her because of that.

Reese also doesn’t really have power - the only power he has is his ability to transform into a very powerful monster, and even then he was kept from being able to do that for years, and once he finally transforms, everyone is basically trying to stop him (his mom, Wayne, Tabitha, and the MC if they decide to). based on the most common player choices, he doesn’t get his freedom like 80% of the time and just goes back to being locked up. he never had any real power and he was horribly abused, and him trying to fight back is used as justification for continuing said abuse and isolating him further. i have infinite sympathy for him (and I can relate to being isolated and treated badly by medical professionals), and i can’t not root for him.

Wayne on the other hand, has seemingly an immense amount of power and also the ability to have people in game (and out of the game) brush him off as harmless, or claim the MC is exaggerating or delusional. he will always be able to control you and maintain the upper hand (or so it seems at this point in the game). he almost has institutional power, where no matter what you say or do, nothing can stop him. and he doesn’t listen to what you want either.

there’s infinite more examples i could probably pull, but in general i feel like this is my pattern with defining which characters I do and don’t jive with. if a character has power and is harming others, I will pretty much always root against them because of my own experiences with people like that. but if someone is lashing out and hurting people, but doesn’t actually have any real power in the grand scheme of things, I will feel for them. usually the best evidence for whether a character has power or not is if they get punished, caught, locked up, or even killed for their actions, which happens to pretty much every character that I sympathize with that I’ve mentioned here. i think it has to do with my sense of justice and “what is right” that just makes me feel gross when a character with immense amount of power continues to get away with crimes, because that’s no fun. it’s just more of what happens in the real world and it sucks. I wanna see assholes get what they deserve (i say this yet im for prison abolition irl lmao. but fiction is wish fulfillment and escapism so it’s different)

[single-malt-scotch]

i'm in agreement with what you've put on your blog about hermitcraft not being an rp server- it just isn't and i'm kind of sick of new age mcyt fans treating it as such. i am curious though about where you draw the line (or even if you do draw a line) between rpf and "character" fanfiction. as you've mentioned, fans are the ones taking the improv bits in videos, creating their own "lore" out of it, and shipping those characters together. obviously, the lore characters are very much linked to their youtuber counterparts, but it's not like most hermitshippers want the real life grown men and women to kiss each other or even are referring to the actual flesh and blood youtubers in their fanmedia (the term cubito from spanish mcyt/qsmp folks comes to mind). do you personally consider this to be rpf?

the rpf topic in this situation is veryyyy hard to make a conclusive answer on and the one i make is one i think people shouldnt take as fact, everyone can decide personally what it means for them. my constant mindset, due to the subjective thoughts, just ends up being "is it rpf? maybe. i dont know. i dont care anymore" but i can explain more of what i really do think

considering i came from 2011~ minecraft youtube there was no concept of "characters" for youtubers outside of blatant series like... shadow of israphel and a bit later, lords of minecraft. there was nothing comparable to what we have today in terms of roleplay. they were still The Person just in minecraft and many of us back then, myself included, called it rpf. and we even wrote fics outside of the minecraft settings-- we wrote stuff in the real world, but it all just looked the same to us because we did not have any separation between a person and a character made out of them. it was the youtuber to me, whether or not i throw them into a lore heavy high fantasy AU (which i did lol), it did not come off any different to me than the fics written about them chilling at minecon.

i took a number of years away from this fandom and so the change like... oof it was a lot to understand. it confused me a lot (still does), i did not at all get this idea of separating them into their own character. the thing is, the extent to which people do so is again, subjective.... but for the most part the point nowadays is to say its not the Real Person at all anymore, even if the difference is only that there is absolutely no mention of the outside world and it is often heavily enforced to remember it is Not the real guy.

and thats where it just gets complicated. whenever i write i always generally imply its a game. and if its not a game i still think of it as guys playing a game. they are behind a screen and i may even reference the real world. so for me? yeah, its in the vein of rpf if we're looking at it that way. people who create a fictional realm with the guys made into characters that fit into this crafted world, well i guess its not... or is it?

the whole topic of saying hc isnt roleplay isnt to scare everyone into realizing they were writing rpf the whole time. but kinda to say- one stop being afraid of the label rpf. and two honestly i define "rpf" fandoms as a fandom built around real people. mcyt is built around real people. no matter how much you do make a character out of the youtuber its still in many regards.... the youtuber.

so yeah this isnt a conclusive answer some may want. short: it is always rpf because i define rpf as being a fandom based around real people. when it comes down to specific content (headcanons, fics, art) its totally fine and makes sense to not consider it that individually but in an overall sense i would categorize it as such because i also grew from an mcyt fandoms who saw it that way

[blueiight]

i really enjoyed reading your answer re: louis x lilly

the iwtv fandom is my first ever fandom and i just wish people admitted that desire doesn't exist in a vacuum.

and if fanfic and fan art is a reflection of a creator's desire then it's always helpful to interrogate where those desires come from or what social structures (especially oppressive and extractive ones) are fuelling those desires

thank u! i find the ‘reflection of a creator’s desire’ thing to be not necessarily true tho like there may be different reasons a creator may have for investing themselves in certain dynamics outside of self inserting or what they directly believe in? like me im p sure ive never dated or fw nobody white or even nb like dat not for like any particular reason its just never happened that way in my life so far i only had 1 who never went nowhere but i think lestat x louis r p fascinating lol. but what a creator finds worth centering & analyzing in a narrative over another could certainly be informed by a creator’s rl values... whats seen as worthy of being ‘fixed’ in a narrative by the fan, whats seen as ‘right’. as ive said time+time again, ppl do not view louis’s pimping as a moral evil bc their views on pimping rl lolz. like u shouldnt need a fictional character to tell u whats right or wrong u should have a stable moral compass in the real world then see these fictional characters as tools in communicating compelling narratives even w/ their own flawed worldview. like.. the whole appeal of the monster is that the monster isnt real. but treating the monster as if it cant ever technically exist, reflect our own irl monsters, or as if it isnt even a monster in the first place is o__o. back to miss lily. i feel like canonverse louis saw lily as ‘above’ sex not only bc of his orientation n all yet not ‘above’ being someone he purchases + makes spend time w/ him as a front, as a ‘confidante’ of sorts [but hes tricking u out so u have to indulge him!] before lestat came bc she was a fair play salloon girl, ‘owned’ + only ‘worthy of being fucked’ by a white man. louis cannot buy the fair play salloon until miss lily was killed by lestat, until lestat transforms him, until lestat bestows upon him the loan to do so. theres fascinating social+sexual politics at play here. likeee do w/e u want in big time AUs be creative there all u want.. limiting miss lily in a AU to strictly what she was in canon or even supplanting a strictly sexual element / one note thing w louis reflects a dearth of imagination+ a funny outlook on what in fiction u deem worthy to transform doe?

[bungoustraypups]

big fucking disclaimer: i am not, at any point in this argument, saying that misogyny is ok or acceptable, especially not towards real people. i am also not saying people shouldnt examine their biases, fictional or otherwise. i am only saying that everyone has their reasons for doing things and making blanket statements about why someone is doing something or that if they don't do abc that means they must be xyz is a shitty thing to do regardless of what you're talking about

i mean that's. not what i was saying. i never said gay men are incapable of misogyny. but there's plenty of ppl out there who place more emphasis on male characters or masc-aligned/presenting/otherwise male-identifying characters for reasons that do not include hating or disliking women and it's... incredibly disingenuous to just make a claim like that.

there's also a lot of authors who don't write a lot about uninteresting characters of any gender, not just women, but i digress. there's also some subjectivity to what makes a character uninteresting, bc its not universally agreed on since its opinion-based as well

i agree when it comes to like, patterns of behaviors which also include misogyny, there is an issue in and outside of fandom with the way female/fem-aligned or presenting characters and also real people are treated. but there's one thing here i feel like is being... idk, forgotten?

this discussion is centering on fanfic. which is written for self-indulgent fun purposes. fic authors are not and should not be held to the same standard as published authors because we're out here doing this for free and for fun. i'm not gonna write about ships or characters i personally do not want to write about, regardless of gender. it's for fun, not for profit, and there's waaaay less people out there who read fic than there are people who read published novels

if a fic author never wants to write fictional women from their fandoms that's not indicative of how they feel about real women. if a fic author focuses more or exclusively on m/m ships that's not indicative of how they feel about real women. fic readers are a niche within a niche, not nearly as broad or widespread as fiction/book readers in general

this is advice i feel should be more targeted towards authors who write original fiction with the intent to publish it to a wide audience, not to fic authors who are doing this for fun and tend to get understandably irritated when someone goes "so you hate women?" because they personally don't really wanna write about female characters in their fandom series online. shockingly, most fic authors tend to only write things they personally feel like writing, that we enjoy writing, and not to please the internet crowds or anyone aside from ourselves, and we share it so people who also want to read the things we have created can consume them, therefore assuming those who don't like it or don't want to consume it won't or will stop once they realize it's not for them

ultimately if you want more of something in fandom the best way to get it is to be the change you wanna see in the world or encourage people who already want to do it, to do it. but you won't get anywhere by saying things like "i assume you must hate women if you prefer writing/reading about male characters or m/m ships for any reason"

Re: whoever wrote this really hates women, what are some of the more frequent red flags you've seen?

Okay so this was based specifically off of reading a fic where two different canon female love interests were written off as "cheating bitches" despite neither of them being unfaithful to the male love interest in canon, so...that, for one thing.

A non-exhaustive list of things that make me think the author really doesn't like women that much:

Women regularly being described using derogatory language (bitch, slut, etc)

Major female romantic rivals being written off as cheating, abuse, gold-diggers in an out of character way (for fics)

Female characters being described as shrill, hysterical, etc

Male characters being written in negative ways by giving them traditionally/stereotypically feminine traits (e.g., overly submissive, especially to an "overly assertive" female character)

Transmisogyny

Fridging female characters

Relationships between two women (usually two cis women, when genitals are relevant to the conversation) being erased or existing only as an afterthought while m/m relationships are a major focus

Female characters being derided or "getting their comeuppance" for being popular, being attractive and aware of the fact that they're attractive, liking/caring about fashion, being "overly" interested in men, etc

"Not like other girls" narratives

Erotic descriptions of women's dead bodies

[yeraskier]

okay i told myself i wouldnt say anything but i’ve never actually been capable of not saying anything so i just want to say most of the jaskier hate that i’ve seen on here is absolute bullshit.

sorry! respect people’s opinions and all that jazz but i dont respect unnecessarily hating a character you deem completely and utterly irrelevant. side character this and side character that yet you speak of him more than the mains you claim to love so much.

most of the hate ive seen directed towards him has been “oh people love this side character too much its annoying” which?? who the fuck cares if we love a side character? hes hilarious, hes talented, hes charming, he cares so fucking much about everyone and everything around him its actually sickening. why should we not love this man? you can hate that man but giving other people shit for loving him is ridiculous.

(also there was this one post i saw when i first got here about how you don’t treat a side character the way theyve treated jaskier, and that is a Very relevant point here. hes hardly a side. and also that show has three main characters, so by that logic you shouldnt give much of a fuck about anyone who isnt ciri, geralt or yennefer.)

and i saw a post, which was the real fucking kicker for me, about it being stupid for people to include jaskier in family posts. like okay i get it, jaskier is not exactly part of the family (yet!) but as if youre gonna tell me to not include him because as far as im concerned, he is in the family. he stuck by geralt’s side for twenty years, and yes while i agree he just latched on unwanted, he stayed, and treated geralt better than most people in his life ever had. he cared for yennefer and her safety (which was reciprocated by her right away) even after their very unfriendly history. he took ciri back to kaer morhen, a girl who he really didnt know, simply because 1) geralt needed him to and 2) it doesnt matter to jaskier who you are, if you need help, hes fucking there. and maybe a lot of my family shit with them is based purely off potential but if theres a lot of potential why should i not dive right in? Why?

and i will say this because i feel like i cant avoid bringing it up, but a lot of the posts were also mentioning people sidelining/hating yennefer because of jaskier. and im not saying thats complete bullshit, i havent seen it but it could be true, but to treat it like thats the case always when most jaskier stans also love yennefer is absolutely absurd. i personally have never seen a jaskier stan hate yennefer because they love jaskier. but if youre reading this and you hate yennefer because you love jaskier, youre fucking a moron. (if you hate yennefer at all i consider you a moron but thats for another discussion altogether.)

and listen, im not saying its stupid to hate jaskier. hate him all you want, but at least have a reason that is in his control. ive seen a shitton of jaskier hate on reddit that just call him annoying, which i dont agree with, but thats a fair reason to hate someone. you dont want to be staring at someone who annoys the fuck out of you, and you shouldnt have to!

but hating him because people love him? being mad at people who find comfort and joy in a fictional character? like are you serious. do you understand how miserable of a person you have to be bothered by that?

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

Bts definitely not fictional characters I 100% agree with that part and some people do treat them like that but the other part. Are we just supposed to wait for them to die before we talk about anything theyre not historical figures but theyre public figures and artist art itself can definitely be queer coded and ngl they have a lot of art that you can view from a queer lense even if most of them are straight most not all because theres confirmation all are not straight unless your super in denial also saying real life people cant "queer code" is :/ that's not exactly the right word its called signaling but its literally existed since the dawn of time for people who cant be out but want to be recognizable to other queer people some people act obtuse because they know its unrealistic for any of bts to officially come out because of the damage it would do to their career and they feel life if its not explicitly acknowledged they can pretend nothings there and they dont be acting like fruitcups and they dont have to combat the fact that theyre homophobic and hate the very people they claim to love and support or that it shouldnt be discussed because it endangers even though theyre the ones releasing the content to be looked at and analyzed like if someone posted a pic of one of them kissing a guy that would be bad but discussing how they seem to love the pink purple and blue color combination is not https://twitter.com/rocktanbangwool/status/1544198292137037824?t=iON93qWQrB33tSa3KddEyA&s=19

Op who said that because they are real people, it means they can't queer code sounds too much like someone who doesn't like the idea of any of the BTS members possibly being queer, so they transfer their dissatisfaction in making comments like these. It's always obvious, they're not subtle at all. As you said, there is such a thing as signaling. How come this discourse doesn't happen if it would involve a woman connected to a BTS member. In that case, it's what? Straight coded acceptable, even if they're not ''fictional or historical characters''? I have to laugh.

BTS are public figures and there is 10 year content out there that involves 7 people who have never publicly dated so of course fans can mostly base their arguments on what they see. It's not completely their fault. It's the culture surrounding it and it's not that any member is required to reveal their partners because at the end of the day, it's their private life, but BigHit had a big contribution to creating a homosocial environment for so many years in which not even female stuff is allowed to show up on camera, which was not the case 6 or 7 seven years ago.

They may be real people, but their art can be queer coded and analyzed. But I'm fully aware that even talking about their performances or songs in such a context is at best, frowned up and at worst, a rejected hypothesis.

As always, it's hypocrisy and homophobia. And not just that, but the generalization, with little nuance and the mockery. BTS are ''fruity'' only in the context of ot7 - they're attached at the hip, they want to stay together and marry each other, look at how they slap each other's asses - because army doesn't actually believe this. It's the ot7 fantasy and BTS are ''fruity'' because fans can't possibly accept that some of the members could be straight and others could be queer. So yeah, they do treat them as fictional characters in the story army writes daily. But in the case of actual queer coding in art or the signaling, all of a sudden it's ''delulu territory'' because they never said anything explicit. Sure, because any BTS member is in the position or it's necessary for them to put on a label just so their fans know exactly their sexual identity. Shippers are sometimes in this category or those who reject a certain ship. They do use a similar argument - ''until they don't come out, I can never be sure if they are queer or in a relationship''. Yep, you can never be sure, but not because of that reason, but because it's someone's private life and as an outsider, no one knows all the ins and outs of someone's identity and relationship. This is more of a matter of public vs. private life. It's stupid for someone to say they don't ''believe'' 2 guys to be in a relationship because they didn't come out, as this is something that will probably never happen and these fans know that. It's a cheap argument.

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

re: your most recent post izaya is a pretty twink with an ego and veneer of composure and untouchability in addition to having a very dangerous occupation, an abundance of bad karma, and not that many people in his life who would care if something happened to him (haha… unless?) like i actually cannot think of a more suitable candidate for whump fiction than him 😭

(since its been a while: the context is izaya rape fics)

oh no i ABSOLUTELY understand the appeal and i even have one of my own cooking up in my Brain Meats, i just think its funny that EVERYONE instantly saw izaya and wanted this specific thing to happen to him even today, considering rape fics are kind of taboo to write about, like- people will DEMAND some kind of justification over why youre writing it if you do amything thats deemed Wrong such as show the rape happen, focus too much on it, focus too LITTLE on it, etc... rape is (understandably) touchy subject and it tends to get fandom in particular riled up because of the general puritanism going on

not to say that there arent wrong ways to handle a rape scene/rape fic- i heavily dislike rape as cheap drama, where it happens and is never brought up again in the fic, or leans too heavily into the ultra gratuitous- which is NOT the same as whump or extreme angst imo. theres a difference between a hyperfocus on the rape as a plot point and a way to dissect izayas character, which includes reactions to trauma which could include things like repeated breakdowns and things people deem "wangst," BUT the end goal is to portray what the author thinks would happen if izaya were to get raped

but things that just are gratuitous exist for no reason other to torture izaya- but wait, you might think, your icon is from "breaking izaya," famous Rape Doujin! whats the difference?

the difference is, rape porn knows its rape porn. it doesnt pretend to be an insightful, introspective look on rape or a rape aftermath. it's meant for weirdos with noncon kinks (read: me) to yank it to and markets itself as such. in a way, gratuitous whump fic is the written version of noncon doujin, kind of?

the line between "acceptable gratuitous" and "unacceptable gratuitious" is VERRRYYYYY blurred and can vary from person to person- for instance there are a lot of people who think noncon doujin shouldnt exist at ALL!

but yk there is a certain good and bad way to write about rape, but you... kind of only need to worry about that if you want your work to be a serious look on the subject. but there is a certain clumsy way to write even gratuitious sadiatic whump that ends up treating the subject matter with less weight than it deserves

what the fuck spurred this rant on lmao. i just have a LOT of thoughts on writing angst and whump as its Kind Of My Whole Thing as a writer- i write good angst and i'm known as The Angst Guy that WILL make you cry. and i have written rape into stories before! quite frequently actually, but not as explicit whump; more story beats that contribute to the backstory and current personality of the character. so i dont know much about rape whump in particular so i might be a bit off base here

anyway yeah uhhhhhhh rapefic rant. rape does not look like a real word anymore

[2000swootie]

"rpf is proshipping" no the fuck it is not, anon. real human beings are not fictional characters and should not be treated as such you sick fucks. you have a parasocial relarionship with like human people who 99.9% of the time do not want to be fandomized like that.

i still cant believe theres people in the proship community who tell antis that real kids arent comparable to fictional characters and shouldnt be treated as the same thing, and then go "shipping and fandomizing real life people totally falls under proship!"

honestly its on a similar level to all the propara people trying to co-opt proship, if you treat real living breathing things who cant tell you to stop like fictional characters then youre not proship, youre just a grifter using the proship label as a cover and you should be chased out of the community. i dont care if thats a radical statement its the truth.

rpf falls under proshipping bruv

And I can still be against it.

I'm not harassing or threatening anyone (the most important part of being proship) for liking rpf, I'm just showing my opinion that I'm against it

[relaxxattack]

on the torture thing i know it was a while ago but. i feel like downplaying the whole torture thing that happens in dsmp is so. hm. people will be like "think about all the pain c!whoever is going through!" but. you are defending torture. like c!tommy literally had a whole turnaround bc with c!techno he would torture ppl (also i wanna remind that c!connor got tortured canonically- he forgave c!tommy but he is still traumatized from it iirc. its more cemented in canon than c!fundys torture is, where the latter seems to be more that the yelling is canon but the torture was exaggeration and had no bearing on the plot, just one of the few times where a cc is messing around w their friends in a semi canon way) and as such tommy like. grew out of torturing ppl and Doesnt Want That To Happen Ever. tommy torturing others was resolved and he decided not to do so because its immoral.

and then theres the other three torturers. c!sam, c!quackity, and c!dream. obviously c!dream is just completely in the wrong. theres no debate to be had there. c!sam was completely in the wrong as well, also no debate, he cut off his (at the time i think freshly exes iirc?) boyfriend's arm and tortured him and took his first life over worthless things- yes while spiraling but mental health deteriorating is a reason, not an excuse. spiraling does not justify irrational torture of a loved one. people who gloss over this moment, or hell, even praise c!sam for it are.. uncomfortable to be around at best. especially if excessive (and there are people who praise him for it and not in a "c!sam is an interesting and complex character" way but in a "he was in the right" and even girlboss comments kind of. are icky here. [also not to bring race but hm as a poc maybe the fandom could stand not to romanticize the torture of a poc by a character played by a white man. i dont blame cc!sam, not at all, and i think it fits in the story and is not something to criticize the creator for. but please god fandom be normal towards c!ponk. treat him as a person who was hurt by c!sam not just someome c!sam is still in love with after torturing and killing and amputating him. please. hes a person outside of that relationship.])

and then.. c!quackity. even more complicated than c!sam, really. but i still think its immoral to torture a prisoner who cant fight back, abuser or not. i genuinely think dream deserves to die over getting tortured, or at least just. left alone in prison. at most wait a while and then maybe make attempts at getting through to him and if they dont work let him be. but torture is immoral regardless of who you're doing it to and id argue that saying its okay takes away c!dream's humanity. c!dream is a terrible and disgusting person but to treat him as less than human (and i dont mean from like. a design point. nonhuman dreams fuck i mean this in a morality sense) feels.. off to me? like as an abuse victim treating an abuser as just some toy to fuck up is,, idk. it feels off. like im sorry to break it to the fandom but terrible people are still people and treating them as less than people because theyre terrible just doesnt work. it takes away how serious it is that people hurt each other and that the pain will stay. people die, killing c!dream, if anything, actively acknowledges that hes a person who can die like everyone else. torturing him does not. i dont care as much about like girlboss or w/e statements w c!quackity bc yeah hes doing somethin about an abuser but its a terrible solution and c!quackity is an immoral person for doing it, understandable motives or not. c!quackity is more sympathetic than c!sam and c!dream (and while not currently more sympathetic than c!tommy, their reasons for torture do differ and id say that c!quackity has a more sympathetic reason than c!tommy did) but hes still wrong for doing this.

like. idk. dsmp fandom learn how to realize that just because source is full of gray morality doesnt mean that you should start genuinely defending immoral actions just because they arent equal to real life. theres a difference between how dsmp government and pandoras vault just cannot be compared to irl government and prison because they dont function the same and how, in the roleplay, the fictional torture is like irl torture whether you like it or not. the way that the characters' mental illnesses and deteriorating mental health mirrors real life and the way that the abuse c!tommy and others go through mirrors real life is the way that the torture that characters who are canonically effected by it mirrors real life.

of course i could just be more pissy than i need to be but like. i also do not think its Super Serious. i just think that while people can joke around maybe theres some stuff that just shouldnt be treated as Not Serious and Definitely Justifiable just because its fiction. have fun if you want, make girlboss jokes and continue to enjoy the characters because theyre written amazingly and be lighthearted about it if you dont want to be super serious. no one can or will stop you. just. yknow. make sure you arent genuinely defending something horrible. dont be like the people who defend how c!tommy was and is treated just because he fucks up. c!tommy has done some fucked up shit but he doesnt deserve to be treated as less than human and that spreads to everyone in the story. sorry for the super big ramble i just think about this a lot idk - (the dsmp fandom is scary so im not revealing myself just yet. so like idk. im just gonna be 🎭🎪 anon for now)

anon you are so smart i really don’t have anything to add 

[g0dtier]

Ok look even i realize i cant make a post like that before elaborating so as someone who has an art degree, was groomed themselves and was raised by someone who worked with teenagers who were groomed specifically for 20 years, heres my take on why tumblrs mentality towards fiction (&real degeneracy) is wrong and what you can do to help victims

Im gonna leave out the whole "fiction = reality" shit because at this point everyone knows it doesnt, they just cherry pick where to believe it does. This is not a black and white issue. Fiction may bring up something that was already there, but since none of us are shooting celebs because of books or molesting animals cause furry shit exists, its safe to say theres a line. 1000s of teen boys idealize that one dipshit from fight club. 99% grow out of it. The few that dont were already fucked up and wouldve ended up blowing some shit up either way. No, ao3 is not normalizing pedophilia and you are in no way helping victims. Youre kind of being a detriment.

Pedophiles may use fiction to groom kids, but they did that before fandom existed as well. There is no big difference between using fiction of 2 teens vs fiction of 2 adults to groom a kid cause a pedophile will either say "youre so much more mature than these fictional kids" or "youre so mature for your age you might as well be an adult, i think this fictional adult couple really represents us" and the minor will still take it as a compliment because that is the point of the action. The reason the abusers can take advantage of them is because they want that validation, for reasons listed below. The form that validation comes in doesnt matter.

Tumblrs mentality is purely focused on outrage. Its about hating the perpetrators and pretending people who arent perpetrators actually are, not about helping the victims.

People here have a wrong idea of what a relationship between a minor & pedophile looks like & how they function. People forget that while to us normal people the minors come across as victims in a horrifying situation (which they are), to the minors themselves it doesnt look anything like that. The problem with many of these relationships is not that the minors dont know what theyre doing or are doing it against their will, the problem most of the time is that they, in their minds, are active participants who choose to do this.

Pedos often actively look for kids in fragile situations. No self esteem, bad home life, severe depression. These are the reasons kids want the validation i listed before. Theyre vulnerable to it because they dont get any of it anywhere else and here theres an adult figure just giving it to them.

The point of a grooming is to give the kid validation and make the kid rely on them. To make the kid believe that the adult is the only one who understands them. Its to put the responsibility of the abusers mental wellbeing on the kids' shoulders in the kids' head. And 99% of the time kids already have a close relationship with the abuser when it gets to that point because of aforementioned validation. They create codependency.

So you know what angrily screeching "pedophile!" at any adult interacting on any level with a teenager does? It gives the abuser a reason to call themselves the victim and itll give the minor, whos likely already reluctant to be open about something an abuser does making them uncomfortable because many of them already have low self esteem and dont trust their own judgment and are scared of the consequences (for example: losing what to them is the only person that understands them) even less likely to talk about it. Because regardless of what tumblr thinks, most of these kids do not realize theyre being abused until much later. Theyre not waiting for someone to give them an out.

And no, no matter how hard you try, youre never gonna convince teens that the person theyre talking to is abusing them. Almost every single victim talks about how they hate abusers but how theirs isnt one, adults included. Theyre just misunderstood, or lonely, or really didnt mean it like that. Teens arent gonna listen to randos on the internet trying to convince them the 23yo who "relies on them for help and who is only in love with them, a 15yo, because theyre just really special and cool" is an abuser. Teens are gonna do stuff behind the back of others and lie about it because teens have a really bad case of "dont tell me what to do" syndrome.

What you CAN do to help teens:

- vote for more funding to health care, specifically mental health care. I know everyone rags on cps but cps does not take away children for no reason and will ALWAYS strife to work it out with the parents by offering personal help if possible

- strife to create a safe space for teens to talk about their experiences. Demonizing any adult interacting with children, no matter how creepy it may seem to you or me, makes the victims more reluctant to come forward. Theyre abuse victims. Adult abuse victims dont respond well to "girl youre being abused leave him!!" either. They respond a lot better to "wow dont you think he shouldnt treat you like that? Dont you think your feelings matter and hes being unfair to you?". You need to demonize the actions, not the context of the relationship because teens have already decided the context itself is fine and its usually not what they have a problem with and they wont till theyre older, no matter how hard you try to convince them.

- giving teens safe spaces to learn/talk about sex and what is or isnt right in a relationship. Most pedophiles are not stable. Theyre often codependent or manipulative or overbearing. Teach kids how to recognize these signs and that theyre not ok.

What doesnt help teens:

- taking down ao3 or yelling that some horndog on twitter drew an adult character looking too young. Taboo fiction is not linked to actual degeneracy and doesnt normalize any of it and is not a more succesful tool to help groom kids than anything else. Pretending it is will make minors less likely to seek help tho because the fear of backlash as stated above.