#but that kind of brings me to the point where. i dont blame people for handling this imperfectly

[birdy-babe]

No one has ever thought about Blitzo's perspective and I think that's the problem: a tiny analysis/essay

I was rewatching season 2 episode 6 when something kind-of rubbed me the wrong way, and it was how Fizzarolli described the fire.

He states:

And I'm a fizz lover- dont get me wrong- and I understand he was angry and obviously not in the correct mindspace at this point in time-

But this type of comment seems so unfair considering how unfair the circus life for Blitzo was. He mentions how he's angry at Blitzo for being jealous of him- but he never addresses why Blitzo is jealous. Fizz has never (on screen) addressed or even acknowledged how unfairly Blitzo's father treated him and how Blitzo had it harder in life because of that.

I feel like it would hurt so much if your best friend was so blatantly favored by your own father, the father that abused you (I think selling your kid and forcing them to steal without a care for the child's safety counts as abuse), and your best friend never acknowledged that situation and held your jealousy against you?

Barbie does a similar thing on a more extreme level, only thinking about how the accident, the fire, losing their mother, was hard FOR HER. And if you look at Barbie, she doesn't really seem to have any scars (besides on her tail, and the tattoos on her body). Therefore we can assume that Blitzo sustained more physical injuries than her - in addition to losing their mother. Yet its all about how hard it is for her.

So far no one in the series has really ever looked past Blitzo's hard persona and think about maybe why he does the things that he does.

this obviously results in Blitzo blaming himself for the fire- besides the one "You have no idea what I lost in that fire" Blitzo never ever brings up how hard the fire was for him. He never ever allows sympathy to be directed his way in relation to the accident, not from himself or anyone around him. He's convinced he's the monster, the villain of the story. It's why, every single time the fire is brought up, he is solely focused on apologizing, on taking the blame, taking the blows from Fizz/Barbie. He never defends himself. Never once does he try to seek any comfort for himself, not once does he make it about him.

My problem is that everyone lets him.

Everyone sits back and watches as he takes the blows for everything. As if its all his fault. They place the blame on Blitzo because its easier, easier than acknowledging Blitzo's pain too.

Which brings me to Stolas.

In this current Stolas situation, where Stolas goes wrong is by repeating this same behavior that Blitzo was faced with when it came to Barbie and Fizz after the accident. Something happened, people were hurt, Blitzo was hurt, Stolas was hurt- but of course it's all Blitzo's fault - it's always Blitzos fault. Stolas takes very little blame for what happened, even though he very much is equally to blame as is Blitzo.

Also note here: Blitzo has his flaws and he does make mistakes that he needs to take responsibility for. This is not to say he is 100% innocent, he's just not 100% to blame either.

Its always Blitzo who needs to apologize, Blitzo who ruined the relationship, Blitzo who broke Stolas' heart, Blitzo who ruined Barbie's life, Blitzo who destroyed Fizz. This pattern happens so much that Blitzo's turned it into a core belief: when something bad happens, he's at fault. He's the reason behind all the bad things that happen. He's the common denominator.

Which is how we got to today: he doesnt believe he deserves love, sympathy, or comfort: because he believes hes the sole cause for all this pain: therefore why should he feel happiness when all he does is take other's away? Why should he allow himself to be loved by Stolas when he hurt Barbie so badly? When he ruined Barbie's chances at love? At a good life?

It's like he's constantly punishing himself for something he thinks he's responsible for. He thinks he deserves to be miserable as some sort of pay-back for ruining everyone's lives.

And you can see as he desperately tries to act the opposite now. It's subtle, because he has to keep up his hard exterior, but its there.

Every single one of his relationships (besides those from childhood) were created because he wanted to help. Adopting Loona to help her escape foster care, befriending Moxxie and helping him escape the abuse of his father and the mafia, befriending Millie (which we don't know their back story yet but i assume he also helped her out of a bad hole, maybe by offering her a position at IMP? We will see!).

I just think he doesnt get the credit he deserves.

I think if just one person acknowledged what happened to Blitzo, allowed Blitzo to be vulnerable, allowed him to express his feelings, allowed him to grieve and mourn the things that happened to him: he would be able to move on, and improve.

It's even worse that some of the people who are the worst offenders are also the ones to claim they love him. Verosika, Stolas, Fizz, etc. They like him for the fake persona he puts up. This enforced Blitzo's belief that he must repress things, that they wont love him if he were anyone else- if he showed his true scars and trauma and if he showed how soft he really is. They love him for his fake persona, not really for him.

So he lashes out. He's shitty. He pushes them away.

And when he does let some of that vulnerability slip? He's shit on for it. When he expresses it to Fizz, Fizz covers up his words with "Glad you could admit it, want a medal?" The only small reprieve Blitzo got was when Fizz said "I guess you didn't really ruin my life."

When he expresses it to stolas "Treat me like one of your butler imps!" Stolas's response is "You think that little of me?"

Which isnt an invalid response point to bring up (and definitely needs to be addressed, which I think Blitzo is getting to bc he's becoming very aware of his other shortcomings), but at the same time Stolas has the responsibility of thinking about why Blitzo would think that. Stolas has never really listened to Blitzo when Blitzo doesnt fit into this mold that Stolas made up of him. When Blitzo gets angry and expresses how Stolas makes him feel:

"Dont act like this is anything more than you wanting me to fuck you" "You can't just throw this feelings bullshit on me" "give me a second to think!" "Oh, sorry, this entire time I assumed the worst because I was convinced a prince could never love someone like me and I've let my self hatred stop me from apologizing to anyone I could ever care about!" "How could you ever actually care for an imp… Me? How could anybody?"

He's always faced with Stolas bringing it back to...well.. anything else. He either ignores the comment all together or he goes into what he wants.

And Blitzo isnt perfect either, but I feel like we all know that. I think that everyone is well aware of how shitty Blitzo can be, but no one really addresses everyone else. Which is why i'm not getting into Blitzo's flaws, because those are a lot more obvious.

So yeah, thats why I wanted to post this lil analysis. Also because its fun to break apart their relationships and wonder why they said the things they said, get a better understanding of the story and the characters. I could be totally off with all this but I had fun writing it lol.

This is not a blitzo/stolas/fizz/etc hate post AT ALL. I love everyone and think that the story will show us who they are.

Let me know if you agree or disagree!

[christmasjade]

My thoughts on Married in Red+ My general thoughts on Studio Investigrave !

So I really like this game

It was fun to be able to play it on my own with no help from Youtubers and stuff ^^

The game has 1 ending, though you can have 2 different kinds of game overs lol (I'll get to that later)

The mc (Bok-su) and her relationship with the bride (Da-Jeong) is sad , but not shocking lol. You can kind of tell from the promotional art (and the theme of atonement said in the itch.io description) that Da-Jeong and Bok-Su are not on good terms.

I like that Bok-su was able to get her revenge on Da-Jeong. Obviously her way of doing it is horrible, and the groom (Myeong-hoon) being a main part of her revenge is sad, because he had nothing to do with this.

However, I dont feel that bad for Da-Jeong at all. Yeah, two wrongs dont make a right, and people panic, but she essentially ruined Bok-Su's life and reputation to save her own ass, so I really can't bring myself to feel too bad for her.

Sure you can argue that the situations are different, with Bok-Su purposefully killing Myeong-Hoon meanwhile what Da-Jeong did was a mistake, but I personally am a firm believer of getting your lick back, so 🤗..

I also like how the deaths and reactions are the exact same lmao.

The patient Da-Jeong killed was a man, and his mother said something along the lines of like.. "You killed my son" (I dont exactly remember, depsite me literally just playing LMAOO) and Myeong-Hoons mom literally says the same thing/something adjacting to that too Da-Jeong.

Da-Jeong runs off and during her break down says "I didn't do it-", which is what Bok-Su says when shes retelling the story of what Da-Jeong did to her.

Bok-Su had to goal of getting her payback to make Da-Jeong atone and she accomplished it. And the crazy thing is, despite everything that happened, Da-Jeong never said sorry.

She never said sorry. Not when Bok-Su showed up to the wedding, not when the two of them where alone in the garden, and damn sure not when Da-Jeong had "enough" of Bok-Su being there.

She never said sorry, not even when she pointed the blame onto Bok-Su. In fact, Bok-Su repeats a line that Da-Jeong said to her when (I'm assuming so anyway) the incident happened. Da-Jeong told her that she didnt have anything to worry/be mad about.

The ending of the game, obviously, isnt really a happy ending. Bok-Su gets her revenge and makes Da-Jeong go through what she did but 10× worst. So sure its happy for her,but its still horrific lol

Which is why I love endings for the games that Studio Investigrave makes. With the exception of Cold Front, all of the endings across all the games arent truly happy ever after kind of endings.

With Dead Plate, Rody either has to kill Vincent after finding out his ex was killed and turned into food by him AND after he tried to do the same to Rody.

Yeah Rody makes it out alive, but theres still a horrible and traumatic incident that happened. He knows why Vince did it, and was able to get rid of him, but it doesn't erase the fact that Manon is still dead. (Or with the other ending he leaves the restaurant and never find Manon, because shes in the fridge "missing".)

With Elevator Hitch, the cycle repeats for Protag. When he finally gets the chance to leave the Elevator and the building, hes stopped by some..guy ?? (Who looks like an alternate lmao) and is convinced that he needs the job. The exit doors then open up into the elevator again. He never leaves that building, and is probably stuck in a time loop.

With Eloquent Countenance, Angelica either gets the ritual redone on her by the cult, or is stuck in the cult with the knowledge that shes not the only one in her body. But that she shares it with an angel pretending to be the dead wife of the cults pastor.

Yeah, she lives, but she has to wait until Forcas can fully save her from her possession by said angel. The ending, like Dead Plate and Married in Red, is horrific.

And then with the other ending of Cold Front , if you push Winnie off the stairs, he dies in the crash and Auggie takes his place. It's a happy ending for Auggie, sure, but he never gets the closure or the realization that Winnie was never the wicked and mean person he made him out to be in his head. Its disturbing how content he is with it, with the fact that his former best friend is dead and how he replaces him.

But yeah, erm... the game was fun, 10/10 ^^

[bl00dlight]

The fanon concept of Helaegon overtaking canon has been something to see. The only time they talk he completely ignores her wishes and instructions for their son. She never displays any care or compassion for him, and after the funeral, he never mentions Jaehaerys again. I don’t understand how everything she does have to be about him? We see her watching them bring Aegon home, and she does not look like she cares at all. Maybe that will change next episode and maybe she goes visit him, but based off of this it doesn’t make sense to me. Where are they getting this from? If her confronting Aemond was supposed to be about Aegon, we would have seen her and Aegon lol.

EXACTLYYYYY. I mean I have no idea how people are so unbelievably insistent on Aegon being this centralised figure in Helaena's life, when the very plot itself was written to determine how isolated Helaena is within her marriage and family itself.

I don't even particularly find Aegon x Helaena as a dynamic very intriguing, given... the fact Aegon actively doesn't give a fuck about her? Even Viserys and Alicent had more love and care within their marriage and their dysfunction literally RESULTED in the forming of the war. Helaena and Aegon don't speak, have no visible chemistry either? So I don't get the pairing other than girls online who think Aegon is hot, and are self inserting as Helaena? Like I COULD see the vision if Aegon deep deep down had care/love for Helaena. But we know he doesn't? We know he literally feels nothing for her, its even stated by the actors. So???? Huh?

And again, I truly fear for people's media literacy if they think Helaena was asking Aemond about Aegon. As you said she literally could not give a fuck if Aegon lived or died. She's not visited his ass ONCE LMAO. But you know who she did visit and seemingly will continue to have scenes with? Aemond.... hmmmm I wonder why??? It's almost like Helaena has a connection with her younger brother who also has suffered abuse from Aegon and neglect etc. Wowwww. It's almost like... Aemond and Helaena are paralleled in the story. Both just want to make their mother happy. Both keep their heads down and get on with it their ENTIRE lives and let Aegon ABUSE THEM - for their mother.

When Helaena said 'I forgive you' to Alicent, when Helaena showed sympathy and kindness to her mother despite Alicent forcing her into another traumatic situation... what did they think was going on there? Is Helaena saying I forgive you for fucking Cole? Nah i dont think so... I dont think Helaena gives a fuck about Alicent and Criston Cole. I think she is saying she forgives her mother for everything that has happened and everything that will. Because she knows Alicent will suffer in the end, will be alone with all of her children dead, for what? And no one else is to blame but Alicent (in regards to the care of her own children, which we see Alicent struggle with last ep). Aegon doesn't give a fuck about Helaena - because Alicent neglected all of her children enough to the point where they all are in a state of constant servitude to win Alicents love/affection.

Helaena literally sacrificed her life for her mother and so did Aemond. But the outlier is Aegon, who was both so neglected and abused but also pressured to care about the throne that, he became the abuser.

He abused Aemond and Helaena, and I don't get how people don't see that dynamic in the Greens.

I also have to point out, how could it be possible everyone is shipping a character as GROSS as Aegon is with Helaena. Cause let's be real, Aegon is gross, he literally is complicit in the sexual abuse of his little brother. And there is no doubt about it, Aemond def was sexually abused, the difference is - it wasn't necessarily by the Madame. She is still a prostitute who is at the mercy of a Prince? What is she going to do? Turn down feeding herself or risk being punished? Aegon is the one who forced Aemond into it, it's Aegon's fault that the encounter made Aemond feel so much shame and humiliation and wounded Aemond to the point of which that Sylvie is the only woman he is capable of sexual vulnerability with so far. And then on top of it, Aegon is martially raping Helaena? Which YEA it is marital rape considering Hel prefers him ignoring her over being drunk and pursuing her sexually. Do they really think about how deeply fucked up that is lmao? Helaena literally proclaims her preference for total neglect by Aegon, because 'when he's drunk' is implying that suddenly Aegon DOES pay attention to her... and we know what Aegon likes to do to women when he's drunk.

TGC is just a hot dude and a fantastic actor who plays Aegon completely charismatically and with alot of complexity. And Phia is the same, she's beautiful and has transformed Helaena from a dull one note plot device in the books, to a fascinating, captivating character who is the only truly innocent character in her family.

We can all feel the actors intentions behind the screen. Which is why Helaemond is such a huge thing.. because the actors went in with the intention that Helaena and Aemond share an affinity regardless of if it's familial or romantic. We know both Ewan and Phia, could sense something a level of understanding, safety, care between those two siblings. Where as again Phia and Tom have said neither Aegon or Helaena cares much about the other. They can't even bond over the fact they have CHILDREN. Hel is basically just a baby maker.

And speaking of Jaehaerys, I mean what does Aegon say after he finds out his son is dead in the small council? He asks why wasn't anyone there to protect their King? What if AEGON had been killed? Not what if my daughter had been killed, or what if my sister/wife had been killed? He asks what if it was ME?

I feel like that says it all about Aegons character, he is narcissistic and ultimately can only think about his own wants/needs. That is legit Aemonds whole beef with him in season 1, it's not even that he was bullied - it's that Aegon isn't worthy of being King because he is selfish and has no sense of duty/dosent care.

We see when they are kids and Aegon is like "i don't want to marry Helaena cause she is fucking stupid and we have nothing in common." That Aegon can't see beyond the fact HE thinks she is weird and isn't attracted to her therefore = I don't give a fuck about her and I don't want to do my duty.

And Aemond literally responds by saying "bro she's literally our sister/future Queen have some respect and be grateful cause ur the one who gets to keep our bloodline pure and carry it on." And what does Aegon say? " Ew why don't u marry her?" And what does Aemond say, "Yea bitch I would. I love duty/incest. Sucks mum didnt let us."

Okay obvs that is not a word for word account. But we see it RIGHT there as early as these characters introductions - we see Aegon x Helaena's dynamic is one of complete neglect/lack of love. I don't know what exactly is so attractive about that dynamic to so many? But I assume it's because Tom is hot.

Another Helaegon rant done.

[aokoaoi]

Hi Hi!

Can you do a Norm Spellman x male! (Or gn!) omaticayan!reader?

(I genuinely haven't seen any norm fanfics and I'm so sad about it. )

Have a wonderful evening<3

norman spellman x gn!reader.

◗pairing's :: norman spellman x gn!reader.

◗ warning's :: tiniest avatar 2009 spoilers.

◗ author's note :: this is my first time writing a gn!reader, so their might be errors on how i referred the reader to. if you see any mistakes, please point it out, ill fix it right away<3 might write another norm spellman post too bcs i don't really like this one<\3

"What's that?" You peered over Norman's shoulder as he flipped over a ginormous book. He turns at you, looking at the side of your face as he was also confused. "It's a book. I thought you knew what those are?" He questioned.

You were another na'vi from the Omaticaya clan, a friend of Neytiri, Jake's mate. You learned the english language with Neytiri back when sky-people hadn't attacked the clan back then, and you've learned a lot from Kìreysì, who was also known as Grace Augustine.

Like other Omaticayas learning from her back then, you loved the woman and even called her your closes friend. You've never blamed her for what happened, and you even forgiven her unspoken apology.

You awed at the sight of the smooth, white papers, finding interest in it. "Oh, a book! Kìreysì taught me about this, but I kind of forgot." You chuckled nervously, sitting beside Norman. He notices your gaze on the book, and decides to give it to you.

Norm noticed how you sometimes stare at things you find interest in, and it gives you the curiosity and urge to learn more about it. You smiled at his actions, grateful you didn't have to ask to let him know.

Your eyes scanned the english dialog written on the pages. Some were far too deep for you to understand, but some you found familiar with. You flipped over the page, being extra careful with the object as you were scared you'd accidentally rip it.

You let out a sound similar of a coo when you saw the pictures of technologies plastered on the book. You pointed at one of it, and looked at Norman. "I know these, I saw you bring one here!" You smiled.

Norman fondly smiled at your speech, happy you're making bigger progress. "Yep, but if you see someone else bring it, it means danger. Okay?" Your ears twitched at the sound of the word, and suddenly you felt numb.

"Danger?" You frowned, "Why dangerous?" Your head tilted, confused. Norman licks his lips slightly, slowly forming his words in a nicer way to explain to you.

"Well, (nickname). These technologies aren't really safe, and they can harm you. It can even kill you," he notices your ears dropping down at his forwardness, but he continues. "These people carrying these are bad. They're not here to make friends, and they're only gonna harm you. You know about sky-people, don't you?" You nodded at his question.

"I'm one of the sky-people, but my human body is connected to an Avatar body right now, that's why I dont look human."

You frowned, "You're not sky-people. You're far more different from those cruel demons." You stated, brows furrowed as you were upset by his words.

"But I am sky-people. I'm human." You incredulously shook your head as he continued to tell you he's a sky people. You obviously knew about the man being human, and his body being connected to a na'vi Avatar. But you'd never put him in the same category as those merciless demons.

You liked Norman because of who he was, and how he was so different from the species he was related to. You even had to admit that you even had a soft spot for him.

"So you think I'm na'vi?" You also shook your head again at that question. Norman looks at you, confused as to what you're getting at. You noticed his look, and decide to explain yourself. "I know you're not na'vi, and i know where you came from. What I'm saying is that I don't consider you as those demons, because you're different than them."

"I'd rather shoot myself in the leg with an arrow than describe you in the same category as those creatures. You're far more than them, Norm." You grasped his hands with your own, watching as a small fond smile crossed through his face.

"Please don't shoot yourself in the leg."

You hummed, booping his nose with your pointer finger. You sat beside him, your shoulders leaning against his as you leaned your weight on him. "Dou you wanna go ikran flying with me?" You perked up, watching as he closed the book her was holding and placed it back inside his bag.

"Alright. But don't you remember the last time we did that?"

"You almost fell, yes. But that was partly your fault, you weren't holding on to me." You frowned, vividly remembering how the second Norman wasn't holding onto you, he was almost pushed off your Ikran's back.

Norman shrugged at your words, "i guess you're right." He admits, outstretching a hand out for you to take, hoisting you up fom the log you were both sitting on. You cheered happily, holding his hands as you lead him to the direction Hallelujah mountains were.

© aokoaoi

[a-court-of-moonlight-and-ire]

Alright, today Ive read chapters 9-12 and honestly, at a certain point reading this book while knowing all the spoilers stops being frustrating and starts just being funny. Like, Ianthe brings up the fact that people are gonna want to kidnap Feyre for "breeding" to which Tamlin says that no one is gonna dare do that to Prythian's Saviour because then theyll be on the shitlist of the other six courts, but Ianthe says that Rhysand could and would do it because hes The Most Powerful(tm) and hes really manipulative and yeah. shes right. Obviously I know this is gonna be treated as unreasonable and as foreshadowing of Ianthe being evil all along, but shes totally right

Anyway, Rhysand continues to be unbearably annoying but not in any particularly interesting way, so I dont really have anything to say about him. I hate how hes so powerful that six courts all working together would be no match for the night court and he comes across as sooooo insincere. Like, I often talk about not being the biggest Feylin fan because its pretty boring to me, but atleast it was like, sweet because of how genuine and endearingly awkward Tamlin was

Speaking of Tamlin, guess who just keeps getting worse and worse? I had some hope for him when he reduced the guards and gave Feyre more freedom, but then he doubled them again and he did that thing with the barrier around the manor so yeah. Now, if I wanted to be a pedantic asshole I could point out that he listened to Feyre (who managed to very clearly tell him what she needs at the moment, freedom, which was great) and they were doing fine until Rhysand came back, but as much as I would like to blame Rhysand for everything, Tamlin's actions are still his own. And honestly, I find Tamlin keeping any guards around Feyre after what she told him very unreasonable

I think keeping Feyre safe has become a coping mechanism for him because he couldnt protect her from Amarantha back then so now hes trying his best to protect her from Rhysand (and others, but mostly him rn) who was essentially Feyre's very own Amarantha, and obviously its not his fault that thats a coping mechanism he developed, but it is actively making Feyre upset and making it more difficult for her to heal as well, and hes the older one in this situation, hes the guy whos dealt with intense trauma before, he should be listening to her and giving her space

The only thing where I'll kinda take Tamlin's side is him locking her in the manor when he was going to the western border and Feyre wanted to follow them, but even then the force field was way too much. But also, to me it very much seemed like he and Lucien were in a hurry to leave and it was a very hasty spur-of-the-moment decision, but also it felt like the narrative was trying to demonise him more by impling that it was more of a calculated decision. Like, idk thats the vibe that Lucien explaining to Feyre that everyone but her could pass through the shield gave me, but that might just be a personal thing. I mean, Tamlin is clearly being demonised here either way, him being so unreasonable is something that I find very OOC even with the recent trauma hes experienced. But, theres a lot of buts in this paragraph i know, I do also want to acknowledge that Feyre would likely not have wanted to go with Tamlin to this conflict-zone if he had listened to her wayyyyyy earlier and not doubled the guards again. I recognize this kind of behaviour because I also felt like I had no agency over my situation in the past and Im also a very stubborn person, and it lead to me also doing more and more reckless things in an attempt to make the people around me actually listen, and make them understand how serious I was about getting out of the situation that was upsetting me

(In case youre worried, Im completely fine now and Im leaving out a lot of detail for the sake of my privacy and so I can draw a cleaner parallel)

Speaking of Feyre's agency, chapter 12 ended with her having a panic attack because she was trapped and then Mor and Rhysand showed up and Alis just gave them to her??? First of all, insane behaviour, second of all, I hate that Rhysand is meant to be the choice guy or whatever but wont wait for her to come of her own volition. I think it wouldve been better if she had that panic attack and it ran its course and then she either called for Rhys or Mor or managed to winnow to the night court herself and thats how she got there. Also, and this is part of the same issue, I hate that Rhys is the one who originally forced her to read. I think at some point Feyre shouldve realised that all the people in the spring court are withholding information from her but!, she realises that they write shit down sometimes and exchange messages and whatnot so knowing how to read could really help her here and maybe she even thinks about Rhysand taunting her about teaching her UTM, so next time shes at the Night Court she demands that she be taught how to read herself

Because honestly, right now it seems like she has the same amount of agency no matter what court shes in, which is basically none

I was gonna end it on that snappy one-liner, but then I remembered all the stuff with Feyre losing weight and how Rhys remarks upon it and how Feyre notices herself getting thinner as well and I dont have that much to say about it, I just wanted to say that it just made me incredibly uncomfortable

But yeah, now Im done for realsies

[manonamora-if]

i dont know if u feel up for it to answer but like... how do u handle negative comments and ratings and just people being negative about ur stuff? bc i have someone just being rude in comments or like notes and game folders on itch and its making me want to just delete everything and never show anyone anything anymore. or even have an acocunt on itch either.

Hi Anon,

I'm sorry you've been dealing with this, and that it took me so long to answer. I've been thinking about this for a while honestly. I've been writing a bunch of drafts for this one, because my answer seems to change with the day or my mood. Some of my stuff have had some strange interactions lately that's made me question whether I should stay on itch myself. I mean, I don't think I'll ever leave... there are too many fun jams I want to participate and, you know, to force people to play my weird stuff. But I've been more anxious about new stuff or updates I share recently.

I don't blame you for wanting an out. Some users will poison one's experience of a platform, that even opening the site would give them anxiety. It doesn't take much to have events or projects soured. Often, just a few rude words is enough to make accounts disappear without a word. And many platform don't have good safety nets (blocking, moderation, reports) to temper or avoid these situations. Many will have half-ass solutions that, at the end of the day, still allows interactions from blocked users. It's easy to wonder if all of this is worth it...

Anyway, the very boring and short answer to your question: it depends.

The probably as boring and long one is a bit of a ramble:

It depends on the day, or the mood I have. It's easier to deal with comments when I'm confident and things are going find; but I'd feel more hurt or have a harder time dealing with them when I'm a bit more morose (I think most people feel this way). I'll disregard any (even barely) negative points some days, only to take it into consideration a few days later. <- this especially during jam/comps time, just need time to digest criticism of any kind.

It also depends on the content of the comment, their tone, and intent of the commenter. Not all negative comments are on the same level. I've had negative comments in the past where the commenter was genuine, and really gave my stuff a shot, bringing interesting points or important concerns. And though it hurt a bit, because being told you made a mistake sucks, those helped me grow. But those are the good kinds of comments...

On the other hand, I try to disregard the trolls, and the abusive comments (towards my work or me), the ones where the engagement was clearly not done in good faith... you know, the ones who will literally tell me I've made the world worse by uploading my games on itch. Doesn't mean that it doesn't affect me at all*. Some of them really hurt or made me angry and frustrated, some have lingered for hours or days in my mind, a few made me close to delete stuff as well. Words are not just empty things without meaning... *I've had to block a few people both here and other places recently because of it, they had become so insistent on wanting to engage with me while bashing most of my work, my values or the few aspects of my identity that I've shared online.

It would be easy to say I just don't give them the time of day or any of my energy, or that I pretend they don't exist, because, if I do, then the trolls win. But that would be lying. Obviously.

Screaming to the void/a pillow or ranting to friends have helped get rid of my anger and frustration. I've laughed with others about some comments I got (usually the bad faith ones, some of them are funny in how sad/bad they were). I think what worked best for me was just turn off the computer and go outside for a bit. Or turned off the internet and play silly games on my phone. Or picked up a book. Or watch a movie. Essentially, any activity that would distract me from it and force me to take a break. And when none of this worked, because some trolls are just that insistent, blocking/deleting stuff*. *unfortunately, it's not always possible, see second paragraph again.

It does suck that you're kinda forced to grow a thicker skin to enjoy or even exist in those spaces, and I wish those would be friendlier... but I don't think social platforms/the internet is going in that direction anytime soon.

Maybe not super helpful to your decision, but borogove.io hosts IF games (without ratings or comments, though people can download the files), so does the IFDB through the IFArchive (but there are ratings/reviews there, also can be downloadable). I've seen other peeps host their stuff on neocities (no ratings/comments). None of those platforms are like itch, in the positives or the negative. Or just be old school, and email stuff.

[redhoodinternaldialectical]

Thank you so much for the Jason review rec list! It motivates me to start reading his comics, tbh. It helps tremendously that you put so many details of his characterization in it, because it prepares me of the way hes written in it! :D I do have a question, which is: in your opinion, which of runs have the most consistent writing/characterization? Ive heard that hes written.. very inconsistently bcs they dont know how to write him (wont let him be an anti-hero or challenge batman, which also brings me to another question on what counts as his true characterization; is it him before the n52 reboot?) Thank you!

I'm really glad to hear that! I hope you have lots of fun exploring Jason comics :D

Wow are both of those questions very difficult to answer! But I shall do my best to under the cut!

Most runs are very internally consistent with regards to his characterization. Jason will stay mostly the same throughout the run, or have an actual character arc that keeps him feeling like the same character throughout.

Batman and Robin (2009) is a notable because Jason is written by two different authors in it, and Grant Morrison's Jason and Judd Winick's Jason have very different vibes.

What people usually mean when they say he's written inconsistently is that every author has a different take on what Jason should be like, and they all have a different idea about what kind of story they want to tell using him.

Judd Winick read Hush and thought something along the lines of "Wow this story would have been so much better if Jason had actually been the one behind everything that happened here!" and so he wrote Under the Red Hood, and made Jason into Evil Batman: someone with all of Batman's methods and techniques, yet without the commitment not to kill and with a serious thirst for vengeance.

Grant Morrison wanted a much more traditional Batman villain. Villains who blame Bruce for all their problems despite Bruce not actually being at fault and then killing people about it are pretty common. Morrison took that idea and used Jason to fit this mold in a new era where Bruce was gone and Dick Grayson took up the Batman mantle.

Scott Lobdell wanted a story about redemption and healing and family. So Jason gets repeatedly paired with other people to care for or to love and shown parallels in his own life that force him to confront his own unwillingness to forgive and become a much, much gentler person.

The authors of The Man Who Stopped Laughing were faced with the challenge of finding a suitable antagonist for the Joker. Jason is a character with enough of a violent streak to actually be menacing to the embodiment of all evil that is the Joker. But that requires bringing out that murderous streak, and thereby countering Lobdell's characterization.

Which of these is the true characterization?

None of them.

All of them.

One True Characterization can't exist in comics. Especially not DC comics which has a policy of almost routinely destroying their entire multiverse and building it back up from scratch.

Every character's personality is an aggregate of all the different stories that have been told about them. Those stories are told by dozens of different people, in a constantly shifting setting, full of characters who are also written by dozens of different people. What is and isn't canon changes constantly. All you can do is read a bunch of comics and get the general vibe of a character from that.

Jason's characterizations in particular have been so widely different that it's hard to figure out what exactly you should count as being true to him.

The reason many people may point to pre-new52 comics as 'true' characterization is that an important part of characterizing is keeping in mind the events the character has gone through and how those might impact their thinking and worldview. During the time span of around 1980-2009 DC comics were written such that it was pretty easy to make a timeline of events for any given character. Post-new52 I and many others find it nearly impossible to tell what history any of the characters have.

In between 2009 and now there have been at least two or three reboots. So, for any comic passed 2009 here is a list of questions about Jason that I can't answer:

Has Jason ever been to prison?

Did Jason fight Tim in Titan's Tower?

Was the Red Robin identity originally held by Jason?

Did Jason ever attempt to be Batman?

Has Jason actually stabbed Tim before?

Did Jason ever shoot Damian and Dick?

Does Jason remember the time he spent multiverse hopping with Donna Troy and Kyle Raynor?

Did he ever have tentacles?

Does he know that Dick has killed people? For that matter: Has Dick killed anyone?? Did Blockbuster ever exist??? Is that time he killed the Joker counted as canon still????

Did Jason ever kidnap Mia Dearden?

How many people has Jason killed? I can't even tell you if he's killed less or more than 100

Did the All-Caste thing happen?? Did Lost Days happen???

Was he involved in Hush?

These are really important questions! The list does not stop there either!

This uncertainty does not invalidate the newer comics, but the nature of the reboots does mean that the already difficult task of getting a 'true Jason' is impossible. You have to take every reboot as a reboot, meaning that new-52 Jason and Rebirth Jason and 2005-2009 Jason are literally alternate universe versions of each other. This is both true on a meta level, and has been written into the canon of the fictional world he lives in. Arguing that one is more real than the other is futile.

(Though it does mean that if you want a stable timeline, starting with 2005-2009 era comics is a good idea. It's easier to follow along with what is supposed to have happened and when. It also contains the majority of the events that fandom likes to play off of.)

The versions I like best reside mostly in the 2005-2009 era, and that's true for most of the other Jason fans that I follow on Tumblr, but I know of a few blogs who much prefer Rebirth Jason and neither of us can definitively prove that one Jason or the other is more valid or canon or true or whatever.

Most arguments about which Jason is the true Jason will just come down to personal preference anyways. Many, many people could write essays, pulling up sources and comic panels, to argue very effectively that I'm wrong about Brothers In Blood and Batman and Robin (2009) #1-#6 being in character for him. That's okay. It's cool even! The fact that he is messy and complicated and can be interpreted so many different ways is great! As you read, you'll find out which versions appeal to you best and they might be very different than mine!

My biggest advice is to read each author's rendition of Jason with an open mind, and an open heart, and just see if you like it!

Don't worry about searching out the real Jason. Just vibe with the stories that have been made about him and think about how each appeals or doesn't appeal to you. If you start reading, you'll develop an understanding of him. Your personal interactions with the art/stories will always be more valuable than figuring out the fan or authorial consensus about him.

[misalpav]

the kerala story is copied caliphate netflix series and you dont understand. you support bjp?

did you miss the part where i said that TKS is a MOVIE. and artists and writers take creative liberties??? i couldn't give a flying fuck which netflix series it's similar to bc in the end I see it as a movie and in the larger scheme, media, and every 10 yr old child I know knows not to believe everything they see on a big screen, but apparently you didn't get the memo. the isis fucking exists in India and with it they bring salafi jihadist culture and conversion because that's literally who they are and that's the bottom line. if you're in support of covering up their terrorism then please just stop reading and get the fuck off my blog. again why the fuck are people making such a big deal out of it oh my god. movies such as PK have shown offensive versions of Hindu gods, and in Canada, they made some play about the goddess Kali smoking and shit. I saw absolutely none of you say anything then so why the fuck do you "secular" people care now.

if you denied terrorism in India from middle easterners you'd be an idiot. ranging from pilgrim taxes, iconoclasm, and to forced conversions in Mathura and Kashmir among other places, the native Hindu-Indian population has seen everything over the years. I don't deny that islamophobia is real, but oh my god, the existence of islamophobia and hinduphobia is not mutually exclusive, this is so fucking basic. I can agree that islamophobia exists in many parts of the world and even in India, but this movie has nothing to do with that. again, it's a movie about ISIS and i will see it as such. If you see it as a movie about Islam, then maybe you're the one under the flawed assumption that all Muslims fall under the bracket of ISIS, which says more about you than me in any case.

if we get into politics then, no, i have no strong affiliation with any indian political party and, as someone who can't vote, i have no good reason to go out of my way to pick a side when i like neither anyways. i'm the kind of person that reads everything and figures out what makes sense. from that point of view i can say, IF kerala is a secular state, then they should have no problem with this movie, something backed by the Kerala High Court ruling as well. i also mentioned earlier that this is an issue of ISIS vs anti-ISIS, not hindu v muslim. that being said, if you were a secularist I'd continue to question why you care so much about the government handling religion in media when your entire argument should be separating state and religion entirely. movies and entertainment isn't a branch of the government so you're not allowed to give a fuck what they do as they try and gain viewers.

your bullshit "secularism" only goes to the extent that the agendas of islam and apparently also isis are supported in the public sphere and it fucking shows. secular countries around the world make movies with religion in the center and nobody gives a shit but you guys don't get those memos do you. movies such as priest and the 1972 movie adaptation of the canterbury tales exist show christianity in a skewed negative angle and were screened all over the west. but nope, just ignore that and blame some right wing party for a writer making a story because it inconveniences you and your little anti-hindu agenda.

in terms of this other ask,

again with the word fanaticism. either you're accepting you're a blatant hinduphobe in which case get the fuck off my blog, I said very specifically that bigots are not welcome, or you just didn't read my last post properly in which case read that and then get the fuck off my blog. God, this whole post is so redundant and such a waste of my time. saying ISIS and the BJP are the same is such a flawed undertaking. I also can't think of a single example of a BJP member specifically targetting "muslims whose loved ones were lured into ISIS" and even a quick google and jstor search renders nothing.

The ISIS hijacked 4 Boeing 747s worth billions of dollars total and sent their members on a suicide mission halfway across the globe killing around 3000 people. They've run similar attacks all over the globe in areas including europe, africa, asia, or in other words anywhere they can fucking get to and their hate doesn't even stop at religion, and extends instead to anyone who rejects sharia law. the bjp has run nothing to the scale of the mass-murder and terrorism of isis and i can't decide if your desperation to prove me wrong with the most exaggerated arguments of the century are funny or if your ignorance is just sad. if conserving islam in the middle east with islamic republics and dictatorships is deemed ok, then maintaining hindu culture in a democracy where such members are elected is also ok.

[druidposting]

On the Value of Using Real World Political Allegory to Analize Fictional/Fantasy Political Structures

Figured i should just make my own post on this subject instead of trying to explain it in the comments of other people's posts.

For starters, i completely understand the distaste for bringing "politics" into discussions on escapist media. It can be boring as hell and you can get bogged down with details REAL fast if you dont know hpw to articulate your points. But that doesnt mean its invaluable, or something that ought to be avoided in discussions or metas - i think rather that a solid ability to draw parallels between irl politics and the politics of media you enjoy can help make your media literacy more robust, as well as give you a better understanding of politics in general.

When you draw these parallels, you have to be able to recognize sociological and historical patterns in groups of people throughput the world in order to understand what political attributes youre likening to the ones you think are occuring in the media youre analyzing. Im gonna use CR campaign 3 as my example here because its discussion is what inspired me to make this post in the first place.

A while back, I made a handful of posts about how and why i believed Ludinus' Ruby Vanguard could be likened to modern right wing populism (for instance, the maga movement). This was around the time that the solstice had just occured, and we'd gotten to see a little bit more into the workings of the Vanguard as a political movement, as well as Ludinus' whole evil villain speach before flipping the bridge switch. Those few episodes in the Tishtan tite were the biggest sirens for me in concluding that the Vanguard was a right wing populist allegory, but you could see the first signs even before then, when the Hells interogated that member with Ryn's help.

At the time of making those posts, id seen some dissagreement with the comparison to phony populism, specifically because there wasnt yet any evidence that Ludinus was doing outreach, or trying to pull in the common man - thus, the Ruby Vanguard should be likened more to a cult than a big populist movement.

But what is a fake populist movement if not a cult at a broader scale?

Fundamentally, cults are built on the backbones of lies told by a strongman leader in order to hold power over their people. And while looking at them throughout history, it's kind of hard to know where to draw the line on what movement is or isnt a cult (as it turns out, almost all definitions that try to capture specifics about social processes are very nebulous and riddled with caveats), but you could absolutly describe the Ruby Vanguard as a cult! Just as I beleive you can describe the american MAGA movement as a cult - and you can also describe both as fake populism. I truly think the only difference between cults vs fake populists is the scale at which theyre able to bring in people.

In regards to the broader comparison between irl right wing populism vs Ludinus', the way i saw it at the time was is like this;

You have a large population of politically disseffected or politically unknowledgable people who are upset about the current state of the world.

For MAGA, literally 50% of americans fell into this. Its not uncommon - which is why theyre such a great group to prey on if you want to bolster support for a fake cause.

For Ludinus, it seems theres a large population of Exandrians upset that the gods wont answer their every prayer, or frustrated with their lot in life and are able tp find blame in the current world regime (ie. The gods). We saw this with the first Ruby Vanguard member the Hells ever encountered, when they interogated him with Ryn - the guy was miserable about his life and the state of the world. These kinds of people are PRIME targets for faux populist rhetoric, and this was the first big red flag to me that this was the kind of thing the Vanguard would be built on.

A charismatic strongman swoops in to appeal to the frustrations of the above people to pose as the leader of the movement.

MAGA had Trump. Say what you will about the man (and i will say a lot), but he had undeniable charisma. This is a HALLMARK of fake populism.

The Vanguard obviously have Ludinus. Again, say what you will, but he seems to be capturing the hearts and minds of the commonfolk.

The things this leader says to appeal to the common man are lies, often presented as surface-level truths. When you really analize their proposed solutions though, theyre either internally contradictory, dont solve anything, or imperically will cause more harm than whats been the status-quo.

Not even gonna substantiate this with the MAGA movement because if you think theres anything good in there you shpuld unfollow me now

Ludinus preaches that all exandrians will be free of the gods, while failing to mention that the method of freeing is an unknown god-eater. Will the whole world be swallowed? Will the god-eater become the new god? This information is conveniently unmentioned by Ludinus, and theres a lot more regarding the whole god situation he's lying about or painting over, too.

Finally, the main thing that typically propells a cult-like movement into being populist-like is a big catalyst event that propells their leader's message into the mainstream.

For MAGA, i think you can chock this up to Trump as a person. The media went CRAZY with him because of how unlike every other candidate on stage was - this bolstered his voice and his ability to preach to the masses, and him subsequently taking the presidency propelled him into the stratosphere.

For Ludinus, this was VERY obviously the Maleus Key being turned on. An event seen across continents, paired with Ludinus' message being beamed into the heads of every exandrian on earth. Before this event, you could predict that the Ruby Vanguard would become a faux populist movement. This was the event that basically confirmed the hypothesis for me.

And, now that we've been able to see hpw expansive the efforts pf the Vanguard have been to draw common folk into the cause, much like right-wing populist efforts, you can even more plainly see the allegory. But as mentioned before, even without seeing explicit scenes of hologram Ludinus popping up in city squares to preach his word, or learning of the countless common folk drawn in to the cause with the hopes of a better life than their own sad lonely ones, you could use examples of very similar political movements irl in order to pretty acuratly predict where the Vanguard's movement was headed.

I'd like to extrapolate this a little further. In those same posts a while ago, I'd also theorized that Ludinus is aiming to become god-emperor of Exandria, and this is for the simple reason that this is a fundamental desire of many real world leaders like him.

With regards to populist revolutionary movements (and a revolution is undeniably what Ludinus is gearing for), you'll see there are two kinds of ways in which the leaders lie to their followers.

This one you see quite often with specifically vanguardist revolutionary movements, in which the leader knowingly lies to their masses, but in service of a greater "truth" they believe in. They beleive that in order to acheive what they truly think will be a greater world, they must lie and do bad things in order to get there

The other kind of leader lies in service of acheiving greater power for themself. There is no real "greater good" theyre fighting for, no better world on the other side. At the root of their being, they simply want to become god-emperors by any means necessary. This kind of person is very megalomaniacal and narcissistic, and will do anything for applause from the people following them. This is the kind of leader Trump is, for instance.

Admittedly, we dont really have concrete proof that Ludinus is one way or the other in terms of how it is he lies to his followers, but i believe that he is more of the narcissistic megalomaniac style of leadership, and we'll be seeing more and more evidence of this as time goes on. It takes a true narcissist to believe they can kill god, let alone a whole PANTHEON. I also beleive that even if a leader starts out as the former, they will inevitably slip into the latter over time (take the USSR for example). When you hold such uncontested power over so many people, given enough time that power will go to your head.

Something you also see a in history, is when the leader of a vanguard populist movement aftually succeeds in their revolution, the leader then becomes a megalomaniacal dictator, again, seeking to be god-emperor of the universe. The obvious examples of this are the Soviet Union and Mao's China.

Furthermore, Ludinus is a smart guy. He absolutly has to know that killing all the gods is going to create a MASSIVE power vacuum over Exandria. He then also has to know that someone's gonna fill that vacuum, and he sure as hell hasnt posited any suggestions for how the Vanguard might go about making sure an even more oppressive system of power isnt instantly installed in the gods' place. And with as narcissistic as this man has to be, would he not think himself the most appropriate person to fill that position? Why work so hard for so long on this insane centuries long plan to rid the world of the gods?

One answer is that he truly believes its for the greater-good. This answer would be the one in which Ludinus quietly fades away into the background once the gods are dead, letting the world carry on unchained as he believes it was meant to.

The other answer is that he realized that when that power vacuum opens up, he will have put himself in the perfect position to take control over everything, thus becoming god-emperor of Exandria.

But yeah, as long-winded as this all was, you can kind of see how exercises like this can really help with media analysis and understanding the motivations of characters, or making predictions on where certain threads or story beats might be going. As humans, we are fundamentally social creatures - does it not make sense, then, that the stories we tell would be woven with the essences of social structure? And whats more fundamentally social than politics?

[terraliensvent]

Since i know you said this was the end of the xiao talk, i’ll keep this pretty breif

people tend to stay away from Xiao because they are very closed off and only speak to their friends, but it’s not that hard to get to know him and appreciate things. Yes, he’s made some mistakes, but he’s being blamed for a lot right now, which i don’t think is really fair. Plus the heavy lack of proof on things lol.

as for where you said you might apply for mod, that would be interesting. You’d continue to run the blog i’m sure, but I feel like you’d might run into a few troubles trying to handle both. If you do however, i’d be excited to see where that heads. your judgment is good on a lot of the topics that come up here, it would be nice to see your stance on things.

sorry i’m aware this isn’t really a vent. just thought i’d state my mind !

post related

yeah i can understand people not liking someone just out of not liking them, but its a different beast when people come in my inbox saying that they were WHOLLY responsible for the Reckoning. like i feel like thats just factually incorrect. you dont need a moral reason to dislike someone, sometimes you can just say someone annoys you.

as for the mod stuff, i would love to apply for mod when/if applications open. with bug and coy in charge it felt very cagey and honestly kind of imposing, but im very inclined to apply now just from the fact that tycho went out of his way to reach out and talk directly about critique (yk, the stuff that actually holds weight, not us just going “coy sux lol.” its fun to make the jokes but someones gotta sit here and sort out the real critique from the shitposting lol), it really gave me a good feeling and i have a lot of hope knowing he has executive control now.

youre right about the troubles with handling both. i honestly dont know if i could hand the blog off to someone else since ive kind of made it circle around my own voice but i think that i wanna implement new rules on here just to make it more palatable (mainly the namedropping stuff)

i think if i did get on the mod team i would keep the blog running but maybe make some changes to things here, just stuff to maybe curb back the way that topics got pretty aggressive. i think it could be interesting to have a direct line of contact from anons to the mod team, and with the fact that theyre probably never gonna bring back anonymous suggestions, i think i could be able to sort out the stuff that holds no weight from the stuff that actually makes good points and pass them along.

and im unsure if i would even make it known whether or not i became a mod because a. privacy concerns, and b. i wouldnt want to make any other members uncomfortable because i know that vent blogs like this are really polarizing.

i have some stuff to think about with this, and keep in mind the whole thing IS a big “if.” in the event i apply and dont get accepted then we can have anon funtimes as usual

[pacifymebby]

i think backgrounds is a thing but also kind of like what they stand for. R is rich and privileged living off her parents money (which is fine) and constantly jetting off to places lol (again fine) and doesn’t have a job or even need one tbh like that’s literally unheard of in the north like you literally need a job to afford a living

I get the crux of what you're saying here but I promise you there is a "posh" north and it's somehow even more horrifying than posh London

But aye those experiences are what shape your values

Thing is can any of us say we don't want to better our futures and give our kids better futures?

I for one hope that one day I'm well off enough that if my kids graduate uni and they don't know what to do with themselves and are trying to break into a tricky industry, they can come home to the family house and keep working on their goals? Like I wouldn't want me kids dossing but id fucking hate to think I'm working my arse off now so that one day in the future I can force my kids to slog it too?

Like I really get where all these anons are coming from about the culture clash and about like how it isn't fair that certain people have life so so much easier, and also like how it's weird that a man who's made a lot of being "rags to riches" is now seemingly dating someone with different principles so is kinda sacrificing his own BUT

1) it's only dating

2) no one in poverty wants to remain on the poverty line, I really don't blame him for "social climbing" he's having experiences that were barred from him by the class system for a long time and that can only be a good thing.

3) maybe he's not sacrificing his principles, I've seen very privileged women learn/grow when they've been in relationships with people from poorer backgrounds (relationships teach both people different things afterall)

4) he's not a hypocrite for shagging. He isn't sacrificing any principles by dating someone middle class. If anything it's weird to say that all working class people must remain completely true to their poverty stricken roots, that only reinforces class structure and makes certain things "not for us" like would you say it's sacrificing principles for a v working class lad from Stockport to go to Oxford? Is he a class traitor? Am I a class traitor for buying a gingerbread man in Morrisons or like idk Waitrose one time? Is it class traitory for working class people to go to art galleries, or listen to classical music, or learn to play the flute, or read lit fiction?

Do you see what I mean like, there's loads of things deemed middle class which have always been "not for the likes of us" but if we start saying any working class person who engages with those things is a traitor to their class then we're the ones reinforcing the structure that oppresses us?

Like idk, I tryyy very hard these days not to judge people who are middle class, because I do know nice people who are, my dad's got some lovely middle class friends... lots of the people I've met in Scotland that are southern English middle class snd have moved up here for cheap rent are nauseating cunts but idk, best to give people the benefit of the doubt until they actually start on the "i just dont see why we should give free school meals to children just because their parents smoke 40 a day and want the latest iphone" rant

The best situ for them is class divide causes misunderstandings and mild irritation but they are happy together anyway and it's not a deep problem. the worst is that the relationship falls apart because they can't understand eachother (this is usually what brings down all relationships though even ones that are class balanced? Is that a phrase that felt weird to write?) Like I grew to fucking despise my ex for being privileged and out of touch but I wouldn't wish that on anyone lol I lost a bestie and it sucked!!

Anyway my point is mostly just that you don't know them at all and to hold your horses accusing anyone of abandoning their principles just for dating someone from a different class background that's meh

Obvs btw anon not all of this is aimed at you in anyway because you aren't the one who has sent me all these things, it's just yours is so far one of the only ones that's on theme with the other anons that's polite enough to post. Some of the stuff in my inbox right now is harshhhh

[leorawright]

Hello! Could i request a romantic tf2 matchup please?

-I’m a heterosexual/heteroromantic woman

-my pronouns are she/her

-im a Mexican woman who’s slowly gaining confidence in herself and her capabilities! Im pretty antisocial, but get very excited when I get to talk about a topic i love and enjoy extremely! I tend to have a hard time making friends, but deeply cherish the ones i do have. I try to be as creative as possible whenever i can, which includes trying to be more optimistic in my outlook on life. I tend to overthink a lot, but only to find different ways to get through a problem or situation. People have told me that I give off a very serious persona, even some telling me Im like their mom or even “45 years old”, but honestly i just have a different way of thinking. I tend to examine life though many means, either psychological, literal or spiritual, and often find myself lost in thought. Other than that, i just enjoy talking about my interests whenever i can and just trying to be a better person every day.

What i look for in a partner:

-i look for someone who listens to what im saying and feeling - meaning that they take my feelings to heart and actually listen instead of trying to fix the situation, putting in their own personal opinion as a way to fix the situation, trying to fix me, or just ignoring me in general.

-im a pretty sensitive person, so i want the kind of partner who compliments you when you do something right/are proud of instead of someone who will call you things like b*tch or something like that (its just not my kind of thing)

-i want someone i can trust and will apologize when they do something wrong instead of making an excuse to avoid the blame when deserved

-someone who will stand up for me and teach me how to stand up for myself when someone or something is trying to bring me down (basically a supportive bf)

-i have depression and anxiety, so i would love if they would find different ways to comfort me when im not at my best

-ive never been in a relationship before, so i want someone who will make me feel safe and secure with them as well as remind me that its ok to not know how to do things and help me when I feel embarrassed or ashamed of it

-i have many insecurities about my body, more specifically how people point out how skinny i am, my poor posture, messy hair, and especially how i never smile that much (its hard for me sometimes for some reason), so i want someone who will make sure i am loved in a way where I’ll actually learn to love myself step by step

-sometimes i feel like there’s always something preventing me from having someone like me romantically (either my personality, appearance, interests, etc), so i want someone who will make me feel loved no matter what im into or what i look like

My hobbies:

-i love to draw! Ever since the 5th grade, ive been drawing almost every day, specifically characters from tv as well as my own! I grew up always loving cartoons and animation, and hope to one day go to art school and hopefully get a career in animation! I specifically love 2d animation since i grew up with it and tend to adore movies and shows from the 1980’s-2000’s that show the different types of animation accomplished within those years.

-i love watching old cartoons from my childhood! Whether it be Hey Arnold, Invader Zim, or Spongebob, i always enjoyed watching the characters on screen, even becoming inspired to hopefully make my own animated series one day!

-ive been learning to sew stuffed animals and dolls for a few months now! Its been really fun trying to study different patterns and making my own little dolls of my favorite characters!

-i love Space! Although i dont know much about it anymore, its always fascinated me how beautiful the solar system can be. My favorite planet was always Jupiter, and whenever my family used to visit Mexico, I would be captured by the beautiful scene of stars dancing among the sky. It was as if it was so pretty that even merely touching the solar system would make you pretty too!

-i love to listen to music with basically everything i do. Whether it be drawing, getting ready for the day, going on a drive, or going into a store, im always playing music through my earbuds. It helps to calm me down, which is definitely needed for me. My favorite bands are Ninja Sex Party, j^p^n, Tom Lehrer, The Dreadnoughts, Shadow Academy, System of a Down, and Falling in Reverse to name a few!

-i like to listen to comfort audios every now and then. These are basically audios where your put yourself into a scenario with another person (aka “speaker x listener” format). These audios can range from “slice of life” and “domestic settings” to things like “talking with your local barista” and even “alien saves you from your dying planet”. It can get pretty creative, and can honestly bring great comfort when i need it most!

-i like listening to musicals, with my taste mostly residing in musicals people most likely havent heard of before. My favorites at the moment are “Twisted: The Untold Story of a Royal Vizier”, “Something Rotten”!

Hope this wasn’t too much lol, but thanks for the opportunity!

Okay I really appreciate all the information you gave me and I was stuck between two mercs so I did both and you can pick which one you like better!

For the first Merc I've picked

Demoman!

Demo is definitely one of the sweetest people and one of the most in touch with his feelings

He does things pretty spontaneously so he doesn't give you a chance to overthink

He listens intently whenever you tall especially if it's about what you do and don't like

He'd never insult you and he always tries to see your point of view on a situation

He's smart enough to recognize when he's wrong in an argument and he'll apologize

He's super supportive of anything and everything you do

You: *breathes* Demo: YEAH THATS MA S/O!!!!

He couldn't care less about how you look

You could have just woken up and he thinks you look absolutely gorgeous

If he could he'd spend hours watching cartoons with you since he absolutely loves them

You and him go stargazing some nights to just relax

Please show him your music tastes he'll listen to every song of your favorite artists

He's such a musical theater nerd and you and him gush over different musicals

Or if you're looking for someone I bit more thoughtful I'd suggest

Heavy!

Whenever the world feels overwhelming and you feel so insecure Heavy will be right beside you to tell you you're beautiful and to shield you from the outside

He does research whenever you two have a disagreement and he comes to you when he realizes he's wrong to apologize

He always waits to think about what you feel before he says anything

No one can say anything bad about you bevause Heavy is standing behind you and daring them to say it again

For him, looks don't matter in a relationship but since he knows you're insecure he goes out of his way to give you a different compliment about your outfit or hairstyle every day

Sometimes you two draw together even if it's not Heavy's speciality

Long walks at night are one of Heavy's favorite ways to bond with you

He does research on your favorite musicals and he'll definitely take you to some of them as a surprise

Hope these were okay! I tried my very best and thought about each Merc carefully for around 10 minutes!

[prince-tulip]

Im so sorry for what I've done...im trying to be a better person, its just hard when all I want to do is fix everything ive ever broken. Trying to grow and understand these horrible illnesses, impairments or injuries, whatever life may throw at me. Its a journey im trying to bring to an end..i want a beautiful life..

The bitterness is something i still struggle with, maybe it plays into my life, more than i wanna admit, the guilt and shame i feel in those situations alone makes me want to die. The unrelenting feeling of emptiness topped with a conflicting sense of invalidation. God, it is so ugly to feel..disgusting completely. I am disgusted with myself. I have a need for filling roles for people that i feel obligated to fill, its about that shame. Its about not knowing how to let go what needs to be let go because you dont understand what letting go is. Its about not giving into nostalgia. Not seeking validation in something that can no longer give you that, not falling in to bad habits or abusing drugs, abusing alchohol, abusing, sex, porn, anger, depression, hate, impulsiveness, just things that hurt you..im trying to be clean..im trying to break free..theres a big picture im trying to paint, im focused on me and trying to just be good to others.

I can be alone, i can be who i need to be right now to find who i will be later. Im strong and steadfast. I love you, all of you, anyone who ever was there or will be. Past, present and future. Im coming to terms, one day.

The pain was real, its real. The realization of my wrongs are real, the achingly painful emptiness is real. I need to feel it and face it. Face the realization. The realization that i mirror othed people. That i don't give people boundaries or myself.

The realization of it all...how was i so detached, so careless...i can blame it on all i can but it doesn't mean i didn't do anything..doesn't take away from the false reality i was living in, that i didn't understand that it literally tore me apart, changed me to hurt loved ones, its as if i wanted to get to a point to where i was so crazy and so fucked up. Split personality, split reality, split fucking brain, filled with contradictions and fears, making any kind of decision is aweful, it makes me change as a person, like i will die or the worst possible event will happen, it is unrelenting. Theres so many ways that i didnt know how to function without living in destruction. Was it my bpd? Was it my autism? Was it my anxiety? Was it the cognitive distortion? Or was it whatever defense mechanisms i made up in my head?...why wasn't i a better person to people i truly love? Or am i just not a capable of living normally with normal relationships?

Im in deep pain and i can only try to be a better person from here..thats all i can do, there's not much time left. I could die tomorrow. Which i act scared in that regard but i also have always had a weird feeling of relief in the thought of dying instantly, anywhere or anyway, whatever time or place.

Selfish, i know. Its too easy right? If i always thought about how i deserve nothing but punishment then why would i wish to die? For that would just bring peace.

My brain almost undoubtedly would go "oh thank goodness now i don't have to make that phone call now" and laugh with a hint of irony. Nervous in way of course as well. For why shouldn't i be? For if there was a heaven or hell, I do not in the slightest know where i would go. Probably somewhere in between if i had to guess.

[orenjibot]

This is just me airing out a bit of my grievances right now so I’ll put it under a read more. It WILL be long but i will try to keep it short or make a tl;dr at the end of it. Idk honestly.

I WILL NOT delete this AT ALL because i swear I’m not bound by any legal NDA or anything and i’m not even trying to start shit with people. I’m just PISSED OFF and need to share it once and for all.

Edit: I added a tl;dr if you guys don’t want to read my thoughts.

So okay. I had a rant about trying hard to be in a community of any kind in a post I reblogged. I will spare the details of not having the right tools to COPE with my adhd since it made me socially awkward and basically come off as a weirdo and stuff. I have improved lots since but like you know lmaooo

You see. Here’s this thing about my thoughts of my time as a mod on the compass en (fan) discord. I was a mod for this community for years, only because we were severely UNDERSTAFFED for years to the point where I was essentially the ONLY person doing any mod work what so ever. This isn’t to blame other people or mods though. It’s a fan group anyways, people have obligations, people change interests, people hate what the group has become and ETC. I was never mad in these situations.

The issues I’ve had with being a mod was essentially just not knowing what to do and what was okay. Like there was one person who would constantly just act horny 25/7 and it seemed like??? Everyone was okay with that??? Like??? There were minors??? In the server????????? And also those jokes made me uncomfy like it’s a public server not a friend group.

I didn’t want to do too much where it comes off as being on a powertrip or SILENCING people based on a simple dislike/disagreement. The laid back moderation wasn’t a bad thing and not that many people were horrible people (and most of them were good people who stop when told). Essentially, it made it so that a lot of members in the server when confronted with directly would basically NEVER take any mod seriously. On multiple occasions, it pissed me off on a personal level.

But what can I even do? I’m only one person and the server owner was busy most of the time and can’t afford to put any time into dealing with the server anymore. It was truly a time where I was just off on my own and idk what to do.

Anyways, I’ll be skipping ahead of the timeline and to the one time we had to demote a mod entirely for improper mod behavior.

So this guy… I’ll call this guy Allen to avoid dropping names— so Allen here was allegedly DATING a minor. Yeah. So as the “head mod” I did grapple with whether or not I should bring it up with the rest of the other mods and even the server owner. I kept hearing more and more shit from him which was FURTHER backed up by the fact that I was actually griping about it for a long time until the guy finally got his fucking shit together one time after I left cause the bozo basically did nothing anyways.

It made me absolutely livid how this guy saw being a mod as some sort of status for clout. Like this guy flat out was making fun of being a mod for the server and basically just went “I dont have to do anything cause everyone’s asleep when I’m awake and awake when im asleep! So easyyyy lmaoooo”

There is NO actual proof about this, but this was backed up by the fact that he did absolutely nothing and continued to shove everything for me to do. So like, the dude was basically a lazy ass mofo.

I didn’t even know anything about the guy dating a minor until someone told me about it and sent us proof of it. A lot of us were of the mindset that “it didn’t rly matter to us what they did as long as it was sfw so we don’t have to take immediate action” but… we saw both of them chat in the cps server and for sure they were sending nsfw shit to each other based on what they’re saying about hcs (like it had waaay too much sexual energy in there to say they didnt talk about nsfw privately amongst themselves).

I really got bit pissed off at all of this so I took it up to everyone immediately. Like first of all, the server also has minors so it was really a huge red flag for us to keep the guy around as a mod.

This happened when Allen was trying to host his very own tournament (last year around this time), but failed cause he decided to put it off to oblivion and even rushed me to do everything. I volunteered to help but only to stream it and nothing else. When i brought it up to him that I can take over and do everything so he didn’t have to, he declined. Like this guy did nothing at all and expected ME to do it all for him when i made it clear from the get go that I wasn’t going to do that. The dude was clearly irresponsible. Even more so than me and he also has adhd like me. Like dude is just a bitch.

It made the poor guy PARANOID. Like he immediately stopped talking in the server after he was demoted and basically stopped working on the tournament all together. I didn’t want anything to do with him after all of this and the fact that he was unapologetic about dating a minor as long as there’s love. Like no. Bro. Wtf. (I heard this second hand so take that with a grain of salt)

Now here’s the kicker. Out of personal spite, and to not leave my work unused, I decided to host my own tournament after some time has passed. It was a challenge that I enjoyed, but I’m not cut out for stuff like this so I wasn’t going to do it anymore than one time.

But guess what? Allen joined the tournament with his team. And this was the team that gave me SHIT when we (me and my two helpers) had to give them a DQ for basically doing everything wrong. I wasn’t even surprised that something was going to come up with this group. It only sucked because they sure wrapped up a now former friend of mine into their whole schtick and basically started to hate me for something they clearly didn’t do right.

Not only did they think we were powertripping, they deadass thought we did it out of spite for them. Like no. We didn’t even do that. Like it’s a casual tournament but we had rules to abide by and it would be unfair to let them play when everyone else followed directions, read the rules, and was doing as told. That team did NONE of that and said that we, the staff, did it out of favoritism.

Like c’mon that was the SILLIEST reason I have ever heard. Imagine it being favoritism because EVERYONE ELSE FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS.

Granted, I can agree that my attitude wasn’t the best because I was tired and also FED UP with the fact that they didn’t even listen to what I was saying as the organizer. They flat out ignored all I was saying and decided on their own that I was okay with everything. Like no I’m not trying to make a callout post on them so I won’t post any proof of this, but ask anyone who was the staff with me during the tournament and they can give proof.

I will also say that my instructions wasn’t clear half of the time so I can understand that they might’ve been confused aside from not reading it. I will say that I didn’t make it extra clear at all about the timeframe. I had a lot going on the latter half of November and most of December so I know that that was on me. But they deliberately threw everything onto my shoulders and expect me to organize their team for them which is stupid to begin with.

The biggest reason why this did happen was because my former friend didn’t respond to a question I had asked ahead of time about their schedule. I had asked for them to tell me if their schedule in JST, so japan time. She only gave me a weekend schedule and nothing else so I assumed she answered in jst. And this point when I asked again to confirm if this time was okay, her two teammates responded in her stead by saying “yeah it seems like she’s free at this time”, which also meant that we all read her reply the same exact way.

She came out to tell me when I was asleep, that she couldn’t make it and didn’t even TRY to talk it out with my other staff and I only woke about a couple hours before their scheduled time cause I sleep funky hours. Like they expect me to get everything sorted out in 2 hours??? Like??? That’s not enough time??? And we couldnt find anything that worked with the staff and their opposing team, so they HAVE to play at their scheduled time.

Then they said they’ll find a sub, which technically isn’t allowed without prior discussion. They clearly didn’t read the substitution INSTRUCTIONS either. I still had every right to decline them of a sub since they didn’t ask for permission for one and assumed that it was okay.

But like whatever man, I didn’t care by the time we discussed this far. They then basically just…. Didn’t even tell us anything afterwards for an hour and 20 minutes. Like an hour before their match started and 10-15 mins after where they had a short waiting period before we hand them a DQ. We had strict attendance rules and it was their responsibility to let us know they found a sub before their match started… And not AFTER we handed them a DQ.

They tried to argue with us that we have to let them play and that they couldn’t “understand” why they can’t. Like it wasn’t that hard to understand that we couldn’t do that because it was unfair to everyone else who was following the rules. I couldn’t reschedule it to a different time due to everyone’s busy schedules and it would require having to do everything over again. Like granted, it was my first time doing this and I was very stubborn on not asking for too much help because I didn’t want to rely too much on people. It just came at a bad time when everyone was busy too. So I admit to just being an inexperienced first time tournament organizer and knowing that a part of this is also my fault, but not entirely.

Like, again, this really wasn’t done out of personal malice or anything of the sort. But this team also went out of their way to cause problems for everyone involved and basically quit last minute when it was time for their other match (after they got DQ’d for their match in the semis), which pissed the other team off. They led everyone to believe that the staff did something wrong, when really it was their incompetence and miscommunication that led to everything happening. I offered my side of the reasoning for what we did to my former friend who was the only one who tried to at least talk to me, but instead kind of gave me an attitude like I owed her something.

I actually thought she was blaming herself for what happened and I said stuff that said I was sorry and she didn’t deserve that, only to find out that… they thought it was…….. favoritism?? And I was just… “????? Huh????” So like… I don’t know what I can even say when they believed something so comedically foolish. They’ve been watching way too many dramas man like if I wanted to be spiteful, I wouldn’t do something that heinous. I also make it clear when I dislike people so if anything, I would’ve just trashed their application from the get go to be petty. I don’t have the energy to plan it out like that or even be that petty as to not let them play. If that was a concern to begin with, they could’ve just not joined at all. I did so much to work with their schedules and yet they conveniently threw it out the window in favor of a fictional revenge plot they made up. Disrespectful.

I still never gotten an apology or even an admittance that they misunderstood what was going on. I can only apologize for things I have done, which was just sounding crabby and being unclear about stuff. But favoritism was not something I or anyone did. This still hurts me right now. Even if they don’t want to apologize to me, apologize to everyone else.

The only saving grace was that when all of this was happening, all the participants didn’t ask or question us directly too much on what was going on. It, at least, showed to us that they were confused and/or also knew that we (the staff) wouldn’t do something this egregious. Still, it hurt that everyone didn’t even try to defend me and was perhaps skeptical, like maybe I am this irresponsible (I’m not).

However, there is more to my grievances about this.

Aside from feeling like no one respected me at all, even when I’m the one with the MOST POWER in the conersation, someone told me how everyone (in their server) wanted them to host the tournament. Like, it was very hurtful to hear that everyone else wanted this person to do the job. That everyone wanted them to do everything. It really pissed me off. Being a mod IS a damn thankless job, but I have never felt so hurt and betrayed. I was doing so much for everyone and was trying to make things more fun for people, but nah. They really wanted this cool person that everyone loved and babied, and not some boring old guy like me. Well, I’m sorry I made everyone’s times there boring and bland as fuck. I hope you guys are having more fun now that I’m not there ruining it for you all.

No one even tried to actually defend me when all of this WAS happening. Like? They really left me for dead. Not a single person wanted to believe me or support me until I said all that I could share about it in DMs. Then they all realized that the Allen’s team were being petty about it.

I’m ridiculously tired because this wasn’t EVEN drama to begin with. It was just Allen’s team being vengeful (mostly just Allen and his bestie who was in the team). I was just being dragged down simply because they couldn’t take an L.

Had Allen’s team came up with a better rebuttal, I would’ve let them play. Had they said they got a sub before we gave them a DQ, I would’ve let them play. They did not even try to have a discussion with us and tried to be petty because they thought we were being petty. Like please we don’t got time for your kiddy fights, man. I hope you’re all happy that I suffered for whatever the fuck y’all did.

It was just so damn weird how they correlated this as a “power trip” when…….. it really wasn’t that and everyone could probably read the chat log and will still say that it seemed like miscommunication. Like literally no one got in trouble for anything because it was just… wasn’t even the problem they made it out to be. This was something they could’ve tried to talk it out reasonably with us but they chose NOT to. That is ON THEM entirely.

Given how I was also repeatedly just being disregarded even AS a mod, I was completely fed up with it all. When there were issues, no one brought it up to the mods directly??? And told the server owner instead??? LIKE??? He never even told me that’s how everyone actually felt, i only knew because when I used to be in Ann’s server, they all told me what they felt about the changing times of the server (which can’t be helped in most cases) AND the fact that I can tell that’s how people felt based on the vibes.

Was I really THAT untrustworthy as a person and a mod?? Was I really that incompetent to everyone???

I always felt like I was some half rate guy that no one liked. I tried because I knew that without someone there to manage it, it would’ve been so much worse. But it seemed like to me that everyone thought I was useless and a waste of space. They rather have that popular someone everyone loved to do my job for them. It would be so much better and much more fun, right? I agree.

I didn’t become a mod because I wanted clout. I wanted to help. I did it out of the pure love and appreciation of finding this community at one of the worst times of my life. And I still do want to help, but after all of this? Good luck on that. You all have to beg for me to come back to help. None of you guys deserve me at all.

Anyways, yeah, this is the extent to my side of the story WITH my personal thoughts and opinions on it. I don’t have the energy to make a tl;dr right now after saying all of this. So i’ll make an edit for it later.

This is why I personally left the server and cut off most of the people who I met there if they didn’t try to contact me again or get back in touch with me… And assuming I didn’t contact them first.

There’s just too much bad feelings in it for me to want to stay around. The thing with Ann and some couple others before her and this whole thing, all were as a result of being in this community, made me realize that they don’t want me around anymore. I figured it was time to me to step down or take more of a backseat, but now? Early retirement. Fuck this shit man.

Tl;dr: This is a rant of one of my MANY grievances about being a mod in the compass server. I am not blaming anyone for any of this as I understand that this was just the result of the circumstances that happened with everyone at the time.

The key points being:

Understaffed mod team and a busy server owner, which led me to struggle with modding as I wasn’t sure what was okay and what wasn’t, and overall a lot of work on me being the only person modding a whole server of people. I didn’t mention it before but it stressed me out constantly for years.

Having to demote a mod for misconduct. His list of crimes goes from bad work ethics, bad display of behavior on multiple occasions as a mod, irresponsible with organization (tried to host his own tournament but failed and had me doing most of the heavy lifting before it was ultimately “canceled”), and the worst of all: dating a minor (5 years younger than he was). This point later comes back as this former mod (whom I called Allen for the sake of using a name, it isn’t his name/online handle) joined my tournament with his team.

The team being the one that caused me a lot of trouble because they firmly believed that we were abusing our power and said we deliberately sabotaged them on purpose. None of which was true and I’m sure a lot of people have noticed this, but I refrained from dropping too much details as I’m not here to start shit or make it a callout post. Talk to the two helpers and they can probably explain it better. I listed various reasons for this happening and debunking some potential misunderstandings. The issue was largely miscommunication and I am aware of the issues it caused.

Most of this from that point onward was just my personal thoughts about feeling unappreciated, even under-appreciated, for all the stuff I have done. This extends from members not respecting what I had to say to feeling as if people didn’t want to listen to me or want me around because they thought I was useless, irresponsible, incompetent, and boring. “Clearly”, they don’t want someone like me as a mod so I left as a result of that. There is a lot more it but this is but a summary, so read it all if you want more details.

Overall, I’ve been disrespected and disregarded heavily before, but it felt somewhat clear to me that the community had a bias and very much wanted me to leave despite all that I was doing to make the server a better place to be in. I left after determining that they do not deserve me and if they want me back, they are all going to have to BEG for me to come back.

[youraveragegoat]

Fr had a dream where my brother brought a child hinted to be related to me in some way to my parents house but then just sat on the couch and watched sport while I had to take care of her.

Usually I wouldn't mind, but 1) I don't fucking talk to my brother and 2) he's the one who brought her you can't just leave her alone and expect me to pick up the slack when I'm literally not supposed to be here. (I came to pick up some boots I ordered) Take responsibility, oh my god.

And this little girl was a fucking handful. I'll talk bad about children all day I don't care but it was clear to me that the way she was acting was because of her home life so I can't blame her too much on that front.

Eventually, more people got to the house, including my parents. And my poor fucking mother was so excited that my brother and I were under the same roof. When I was trying to make food for this little girl, going back and forth with her about what to make, my mom saw she already had a box of some dessert and we made a deal with her that she could have the dessert /after/ she ate dinner instead of /as/ dinner and she was happy about that.

Oh but all of a sudden my brother speaks to me for the first time, "Dont let her only eat sweets"

And im already aggravated. I'm putting the fucking dinner in the oven and he gets to act like he cares all of a sudden? But My mom is there so a half-shouted "I wasn't going to" is all I can do without making her sad.

In real life, for some reason, the onus is on ME to make up with him when HE'S the one who caused this rift in the first place. I tell my parents every time they bring it up that all he has to do is apologize to me AND MEAN IT, and I won't have a problem anymore. But he wouldn't mean it. So we remain here. With my mother sad. Anyway.

The dinner gets served and my dad asks my brother to pray and he makes it ABUNDANTLY clear that 1) he isn't remorseful and 2) he's doubling down. He lifts his beer bottle and makes a pledge and it's all I can do to say "Oh My God Fuck You" and I'm already moving towards the door to leave when he calls back and threatens to "Gut [me] like a fish" so I say "Do it then, bitch" and shut the door behind me.

I'm going to an auditorium I used to hang out in when my father, who always took my brother's side in this argument texts me that if I "speak like that again, he'll shut my mouth for me."

It takes me a moment before I decide to not text him back because I know he's just reeling from me cursing in front of him. My dad's not that kind of person, he just gets mad easily, so giving him time to calm down is the best way to have an intelligent discussion with him.

That doesn't mean im not mad too though. I'm stalking up and down the empty rows of seats because the familiarity both hurts and grounds me and I knew it would. But I'm still pissed.

Real life context: my friends and I just watched the fnaf movie, and saw a few horror movie ads

So. You know. I'm walking in this big empty theater, angry as all hell, when I hear the tinkle of a bell and children's laughter behind me.

I'm literally too angry to be scared I guess, because I just turn around and stand there and wait for the thing that was trying to scare me to show itself. And as soon as the thing turns the corner, I just grab it and start wailing on it.

It's like a furry plush type monster, and there's blood on my hands, sure, but im too mad to care. The struggle moves out into a stairwell, but It eventually stops moving and ITS A DREAM so I just pull throwing knives out of my back pocket which definitely weren't there before and stab the thing into the wall so it's hanging there.

And I take a breath but hear more bells tinkling and children's laughter on another floor. And im still mad, so I start running up the stairs to kill that thing too.

At this point, I'm like Okay that's too unrealistic and I wake myself up.

[martyrlamb]

I'm the first anon, hi again and firstly, I want thank you for not being aggressive (most people are when it comes to this conversation) while voicing your opinions.

Before I start, please check this post out: https://www.tumblr.com/blackheartbiohazards/730522787180085248/i-dont-want-to-read-this-is-totally-valid?source=share

My opinion, as clearly as I can put it, is: the writer doesn't spread the harm of the porn industry by writing whatever they want to write. Same applies to the readers for reading whatever they want to read.

Fiction is where authors can do the really uncomfortable stuff. Where they can explore the darks part of existing, because it's good to be able to go “I connect with this and I should consider why.” Or “this brings me comfort, how can I break that down?” Stuff like that.

The writer simply doesn't spread the harm of the porn industry by writing whatever they want to write.

I support the right of everyone to read and write what they want because I don't know their situation, don't have the right to demand an explanation of their situation, and have seen what happens when people try to excuse banning and censorship of written text or harassing authors with the excuses of “it’s just the bad ones,” “we’re just protecting kids,” “we just have a few concerns,” “we’re just being good people,” and “if I wrote something gross I’d expect to get called out”

What we have to be careful about is not condoning such themes in reality. If you, somehow, get “this person is okay with harm to real human beings” or “they promote the harm and romanticize what porn industry does” out of that, you really need to re-examine your mindset.

to preface: i may come off a bit more aggressive/forward in this post because it's something i'm extremely passionate about.

okay, so, i looked at the post and specifically the quote, ""I don't think anyone should be allowed to read or write this because it is disgusting to me" is authoritarian." has stuck out to me because not condoning the romanticization + fetishization of illegal acts isn't authoritarian. if your idea of personal freedom being challenged is someone refusing to accept graphic depictions of incest, non-consensual/dubious sex, and violent kinks in writing that you're meant to take pleasure in—then the discussion ends here. there's nothing i could say that would get you to seriously consider my points. referring to some of the tags on that post, anti-censorship is meant for media and literature that is wrongfully struck down for making people uncomfortable despite the message's importance. whether they were using these terms extremely literally or you took it out of context, i'm not sure, but i'm talking about smut here and using the term "authoritarian" to try and prove why i should simply ignore people condoning illegal acts is farfetched.

... because by writing it, they are condoning it. if they need to explore why they connect with things the way they do, or why they find comfort in the taboo, then they need to take those steps alone without posting disturbing smut to the internet for countless other people to read. they aren't just writing this type of stuff for funsies. people don't get inclined to write things like that for some harmless fun. they're writing it because they at least find some kind of pleasure or release when they do, which is bad. this goes for consuming it too, but there's a few other points i want to bring up to that point later.

you may not think there's a link between this kind of extreme writing and the porn industry, but there is. these "stepcest" and "non-con" categories would either not exist, or not be as mainstream as they are without the existence of it in porn. porn is the reason that it's quite literally everywhere you look on the internet and why people are so desensitized to it in the first place. it has been increasingly worse in the writing community. especially to those, like readers, who consume it often.

i don't blame readers or writers who have been exposed to the consumption of extreme porn because it is a pipeline. you really don't realize it until it's too late and you have to take the steps to remove yourself from that kind of space. slowly, the reader will consume more and more content as it gets more extreme, and in a little while they'll find some kind of pleasure in it for various reasons (comfort, connection, trauma). they're desensitized to the illegality and violence of it. you don't keep returning to that kind of subject matter without an ounce of real desire unless you just love the shock value, which is a whole other issue.

when someone is desensitized to this kind of violence, they will think it's okay in their real personal lives. maybe not to even do themselves, but have someone do it to them. i've seen countless people believe they're into extreme kinks because of how the internet has desensitized them.

by spreading this content, they are condoning it. because even if you don't want to partake in incest or sexual violence someone does. and i can guarantee that they read and enjoy the type of smut that's being written and posted on here (and any platform, for that matter). writers are allowed to write whatever they want to write, but we also need to take a step back and look at why they want to write it and expose it to other people. that is why i have such a huge issue with it.