#can we stop infantilising idk

[nonebutyou]

literally get so uncomfortable every time i see a post that mentions cooper’s dad instincts kicking in w lucy and maximus

[edge-oftheworld]

okay, I definitely don't know exactly what I'm thinking but I'm going to try. I guess it comes down to the fact that luke is constantly (still, after 13 years) being objectified in like, a we-own-you kind of way. Not deliberately for everyone involved in even mildly perpetuating it, but it is to 5sos culture the way that rape culture is to society in general: it's persistent, it sneaks in in what we consider to be societal or fandom norms. It shapes our opinions and our worldviews and it's like how you can't ask a fish how the water is: the water just is, the fish doesn't know anything else. It's not anyone's fault per se but god we have to do better.

and the thing about 'babygirl' specifically is that, you know who else gets treated this way by society as a whole? 1) young people, and 2) women, girls, anyone in the broad category that is seen as opposite to 'men'. opposite to the people who do the owning and the objectifying and it's a patriarchal problem with its tendrils reaching worldwide. these are the two groups of people that if you are in, you don't have any power. so on the surface it looks harmless, cute even, to call a grown man babygirl. internet terminology is weird; people just say things that aren't quite words and they catch on when you understand the sentiment behind them. we call heaps of men babygirl. sometimes i see people call ashton babygirl. it's one of the things that seems innocent and quirky, at least to start with.

but it's only innocent when you're punching upwards, taking the people who have all the power and levelling the playing field, so to speak. but the thing is, it's not quite so simple as 'oh look a rich white privileged man' when said white man was a child star (and at this point, hopefully we know how people treat child stars consistently, we've seen it play out again and again in different ways, from the carter family to britney to everyone caught up in the 1d/5sos wave to whoever the teen stars are today, and I don't need to explain it) who grew up in the bush, brought up to be kind and hardworking and go the extra mile for people because no parent in rural nsw actually expects their kid to have to navigate asserting themselves in the music industry before turning 18. I'm not saying it was all awful or his parents didn't do a great job. but I am saying that being a white man doesn't exclude luke from living a recipe for exploitation for being pretty and cute and young and talented, so many adjectives we often associate with girls. a marketable stereotype designed to be fuckable and agreeable and never get angry. babygirl.

I could go into some theories I have as to why: but the same thing in a weird genderbent way often seems to apply to luke. people want to own him because he's all of those things; they don't, sometimes the bitterness about that turns into some culturally normalised trend of coming up with an imaginary version of him. but it's more than that, more than being the heartthrob frontman of the band, and comes down to chance as well. he happens to be the youngest of the band; the others are extremely protective of him (and for good reason, i'm also certain the feeling is mutual just not expressed completely the same, but people see what fits the categories in their heads), and he does challenge the gender binary as part of his self-expression (which is a neutral thing, it should always be a neutral thing, there should never be a shift in power between what's deemed masculine and feminine, but there is and this is a prime example of the impacts gender inequality has). we've seen him going from wishing he could express himself in a more gnc way to actually doing it. people caught on early. and of course, most fans mean well but there's always a vulnerability to laying down the masculine for something more feminine even partially. it's baked into the same culture that came up with terms like 'babygirl'.

he also gives off this vibe, probably a youngest child thing too, or having seen him in the public eye from such a young age, looking uncomfortable a good portion of the time, that kind of elicits a we-want-to-care-for-and-protect-you response. and I think what's dangerous about that is that you don't ever think that caring about someone could be at all related to taking their power away. but it can be, especially if you're unable to express that protectiveness in the form of actual conversation (which for a fandom this size, is impossible) and so it kind of sits there unexpressed, without any of us ever hearing in a personal conversation exactly how luke thinks and having the chance to negotiate, what is a better way to treat you? do you feel like we're treating you as a child even though you're 28 and married and a self-made millionaire and an expert at towing the line of vulnerable enough to be so much more human and relatable than most people on this planet while valuing privacy and personal goals and also more than capable of having children of your own too?

all this combined, you have the ingredients for this babygirl fansona (is that a word?) constructed without the guidance of the very man we are perceiving through this lens--even when you can interact with people in person it's very hard to actually change their perception of you. we get crumbs, like the fact that he likes to feel pretty to help with his confidence on stage, like bits of how he's grappled with growing up in the public eye and the ways in which being far ahead of your age in some ways always results in feeling behind in others. these then just feed into 'how babygirl of him' because we don't see the other bits, the ugly bits everyone has that no one has any obligation to share with the world. we hear him talking about mental health but we don't get to witness every minute of his life that led to the things he's talked about, it's very uwu-ified, it's easy for people to take things at face value and the fact that he's someone who tries so hard not to ever abuse positions of power he's in, and then strip his masculinity that still exists even if he's not always masculine, because we still associate masculinity with abuses of power, and then put him in a pretty box that was conceptually given to us for young women, but luke, the most (and therefore some sort of token pretty boy) out of all the band members, is close enough.

finally I want to touch on another trend that could be an essay on its own (it won't be an essay of its own with luke as an example though, out of respect I don't want to dive in too deeply, though I don't think I can respectfully not mention it either). people have a tendency to infantilise neurodivergent people, or anyone who seems vaguely neurodivergent, which is something that people do subconsciously pick up (hence why it's so important to have a name for it if that's you, because people will supplement it with descriptors that are often derogatory, babygirl might not quite be in that category but it still implies a loss of power as I've talked about). People also have a tendency to feminise neurodivergent boys and men in an outright derogatory way: anyone who doesn't like rough sport or who wears makeup or dares to have any kind of feelings. which includes neurotypicals, of course, but when you're neurodivergent it's often a step further; given; unescapable. and this is why I think that something most people think is innocent can become a cherry on top of a stack of other seemingly unrelated things, why it fills me with rage too. every time over the last 13 years luke has done something like get distracted or lose something or be a little bit socially awkward he gets infantilised. every time he gets scared it's 'poor babygirl' or something to that effect. once is cute. after a few hundred times it only erodes his ability to self-actualise and take control of his own narrative, his own gender expression and everything he shares, in a patriarchal, neuronormative world.

and so if you've read this far, I don't want to say you're bad if you've ever referred to luke as babygirl. you're not. but hopefully you've gotten to have a think and start to question, what does this term I use in pop culture actually mean? could it be insulting someone? is it affecting how I view someone and do I need to listen to them a little bit more open-mindedly?

also, hopefully it's okay to say this since luke has started talking about it a little but as myself, someone with adhd, i do also ask that you go and listen to more neurodivergent folk and figure out how to treat us with actual respect. please listen to people all across the gender spectrums too about their experiences with masculinity and femininity and the kinds of experiences that they've specifically gotten when they haven't fit nicely into a binary, however they end up identifying in the end (and as for luke, please don't assume anything about him in that vein. ever. there is one person who gets to decide that and it is luke) and what kind of things they might find offensive and why. this isn't you-have-to-know-everything-at-once but rather a call of, hey, there's a lot of diversity out there and the more diverse experiences you learn to empathise with, the more understanding you're gonna be as a person.

i have so so so many thoughts and feelings about the way this fandom constantly refers to luke as babygirl without taking one single second to think about why maybe it's a problematic thing to do to luke specifically but i lack the ability to organize those thoughts and feelings into anything coherent and concise. can someone else please read my mind and do it for me.

[holmsister]

I think one of the things Dungeon Meshi is definitely about is how different people deal with being an outsider/marginalised/neurodivergent/what have you and basically what im getting at is that Kabru is TEXTBOOK "high functioning [insert diagnosis here]". Its that how they say it still? Don't care.

Basically. This man shows up and you listens to him talk and see how his party treats him and you think. Oh this is a cool guy who has his shit together. And then after like two pages you find out that he has constant flashbacks to Utaya that make him completely freeze, anxiety attacks, thought spirals, is incapable of analyzing his own feelings, is a stuttering mess when the stakes are high, has never done a chore in his life, keeps putting himself in triggering situations and re-traumatising himself, and the icing on the cake is when you read the extra material and it turns out he regularly forgets to eat and lives in a depression nest of dirty clothes and self-medicates insomnia with alcohol and also is 22. Which also kind of puts Misilril not wanting to let him go in another light - yeah for sure she's controlling and infantilising and also its not like she was really helping his issues but also she was not entirely wrong in her judgement. This man does NOT know how to take care of himself. He knows how to do the bare minimum so when he shows up at work the next day he can fool his coworkers into thinking hes got it together enough. For a bit.

He is DEEPLY unwell and he knows it but he is carried by the desperate wish to avoid another catastrophe. If he stops for a moment he KNOWS he'll collapse so he doesn't.

I also think this is why him acting nurse to Mithrun is such an important part of his arc. Its like. This person who has spent all of his adult life focused on a single objective disregarding everything else is faced with what happens when you do that for too long. And the result is a wet tissue of a creature who looks like he doesn't know where he is most of the time.

He is a man on the brink. I have no doubt he felt relieved when he decided he could trust Laios - not even in a Labru way, straight up because he knew he could not keep going like this.

But also like. Of all the characters in the manga, I think Senshi and Kabru are the most lonely ones. Except Senshi seems to be OK with solitude - for sure it's not entirely healthy to be alone for as long as he was but he definitely did well enough. He is very good at taking care of himself. Meanwhile Kabru *knows* a lot of people but can you really say he has friends? Rin, maybe, arguably, but even she does not seem to truly know him, you know? He keeps himself hidden from everyone. I think the only time we see him entirely honest is when he says to Laios that he wanted to be his friend, and hes so shocked when it comes out, you can tell he did not mean to say it. And differently from Senshi, he does NOT fare well alone. He likes people, he needs people. Again compare with Mithrun - he has like a squad of people taking care of him. If Kabru had a breakdown of that size can you say his party would go out of its way to help? Im not sure. Not because they're bad people, but because he's simply not that intimate with any of them.

Idk man it just struck me all of a sudden. Laios is weird and offputting and doesn't care about other humans the way Kabru does and YET he is infinitely more successful at building deep, meaningful relationships and taking care of himself as well. I think this is part of why Kabru is so fascinated with him as well. He can tell Laios has something he doesn't have. Wait this is turning into a whole another post I'll write this next time.

[reddie-truther]

OMFB can we stop the infantilisation of trans men please? i js saw this video which was like “t4t coded ships” and the explanation for why each ship was t4t coded was that the woman was like awesome and cool and powerful and he had puppy dog eyes and was a bit dumb.

WHAT THE FUCK. that’s actually so annoying and i see it so frequently. (im obviously not trans fem so im not gonna talk about how that’s presenting trans women bc it’s not my place) but i feel like literally only two types of fictional guys get HC as trans and it’s either

1.loser bf (the straight trans man)

e.g. scott pilgrim, jonathan byers, trevor spengler

or

2. alternative or gender nonconforming guy (queer trans man)

e.g. eddie munson, boris pavlikovsky, sirius black

and it’s like soooo frustrating to only ever see trans guys being treated like innocent babies who can do no wrong or being seriously over sexualised and over feminised.

examples of good transmasc hcs that go against this:

Eddie k (he might fall into the second category but idk i don’t think so)

Richard papen (js generally i find it interesting and it fits with him feeling out of place)

mike wheeler

boris pavlikovsky (is he the definition of the second category? yeah, is he still good trans rep? i think so, i see myself in him)

nico do angelo

theo decker (WHEN HES NOT BEING INFANTILISED AND HES IN CHARACTER)

it pains me to say it, but regulus black is pretty accurate to trans guys

jon or martin tbf

[eleu22]

can we talk about how people kind of weirdly infantilise gaz?? idk?? it just rubs me like the slight wrong way

and this whole ‘he’d be such a perfect sweet vanilla boyfriend’ like this guy doesnt have issues

stop flattening his character rahh!!

kyle is a strong dedicated soldier!!

cool under pressure!!

he has hopes and dreams!!

he feels emotions like the rest of us!!

he gets mad!!

he isnt sunshine and rainbows price’s baby like cmon guys hes a grown ass man

[velvetvexations]

As a nonbinary person my biggest problem with enby has always been the fact that it's not ever felt like a word. It's quite literally just saying nb out loud but written out. It's never felt like a real identifier. For as much as the shitty I'm just a girl jokes or saturdays are for the boys sayings are like. Scuffed and bad. The words actually sound like they fit and flow in the sentences. Saying I'm gonna go hang out with the enbies later doesn't sound like a word. It sounds like I'm saying an abbreviation in place of a word. Because that's what it is at the end of the day. It never stopped being just an abbreviation of nonbinary but longer this time and it kinda pisses me off that it's treated like a really Good word. It isn't infantilising or anything bc tbh. It's not any more or less mature than someone just saying the damn letters out loud, but it sure as fuck lacks any sense of formality. People can say they're an enby all they want but it doesn't feel like an identifier if I called myself one, it feels like a descriptor. I think nonbinary people deserve a word for themselves that isn't just. The term for their identity but shortened and then made long again. Especially considering that we don't exactly refer to men and women as ems and doubleyous do we. It's petty, but it keeps me from liking it all the same. If a term that took absolutely Zero Effort to come up with is something that a Big group of who it was supposed to describe really don't fucking like, I dont think it's that big of a deal to put in a little more legwork to make something different

That's an interesting perspective. I guess every word needs an origin?

Idk maybe it would be easier if we made some distinction between internal/personal gender (how you conceptualize yourself) and external/social gender (how you are gendered and treated by others) cis people and post transition trans people usually have an internal gender and an External gender that somewhat match. Pre transition trans people have mismatched internal and external genders, which can produce dysphoria. I personally don't have much of an internal gender at all, but my external gender is "woman" based on presentation and socialization. When i say "trans women are seen as men" what I actually mean is "non-passing trans women are perceived and treated as men by transphobes, a role which has a very narrow set expectations and requirements in order to fully access its privileges, otherwise they get the same treatment as all queer/"failed" men, which is different from the experiences of people gendered externally as women in a lot of complex ways." there's no universal experience of gender and no such thing as a "real" man or woman, that's what "gender is a social construct" MEANS. But still! Our society treats men/boys different than women/girls. And the way people are treated affects how they behave! It's not misgendering anyone to point out and analyze those differences, it's just sociology and gender theory. It can be trans inclusive if you're not an idiot.

Post-transition trans people still generally risk discovery even if they're completely stealth. Besides that, I think it's too close to saying one is that gender also if we split it between the two, since why would one take precedence over the other when gender is fake either way? Identity is personal and people who tell you you're wrong about your identity are just incorrect, it's really simple.

someone i see often in transmisogyny discourse (not gonna drop the user) liked a post saying "intersexism isn't real and it's transmisogyny to say it is", unliked it and denied it when it was brought up to them, and is now pretending it didn't happen. what do you even do about that

I have no idea who you're talking about, but that's bad, I guess?

The ‘transmasc headcannons are all self indulgent, illogical and antifeminist. but transfem headcannons are all intelectual, narratively complex, feminist praxis’ thing reminds me of the ‘yaoi is all self indulgent, illogical and antifeminist. but yuri is all intelectual, narratively complex, feminist praxis’ thing (idk how common it is in fandoms that aren’t homestuck (cus istg that fucking fandom))

it's so deeply annoying

ngl I've been repeating "fellas, is it transphobic to admit that transphobes are transphobic?" ever since you said it (or at least something close to it? I don't remember if this is a direct quote or paraphrase because I was very tired that day) in one of the ask compilations because it sums up the whole thing so succinctly and also just feels good to say

Sorry about all the assclowns who are so eager to assert their bone-deep conviction that yes it totally is -__-;;

we live in a bad timeline

For the "trans-inclusive" cis girls who still insist "transmascs are BETRAYING WOMANHOOD" -

Riiiight...so, COMPLETELY irrelevant question, but how did you and your friends feel about the weird girl in middle and high school? You know, the anime fan with the punk clothes and dyed hair? Started hanging out more with boys than girls around the middle of the year? You DID extend the "bonds of sisterhood" to her too, didn't you?

No? You called her a traitor and a freak too? Even before she started hanging out more with the boys, you thought she was just being a holier-than-thou snob because she wasn't interested in the topics usually considered "girl talk"?

Yeah, I can't imagine why she would have felt more comfortable with the boys either...truly a mystery...yeah she really did totally betray you...yep...

women throw around "pickme" like it's the worst possible thing to be but most pickmes have a pretty good reason for being pickmes and women who complain about them should do some introspection

I think Androhomophobia is the word for MLMs speaking on their unique oppression!

noted!

"Why do trans men need a special word" why do trans women need a special word 🎤 do you just consider mens experiences the default 🤔

for transfem TRFs: because men is what trans women are transitioning away from so it literally was the default for them and they have a hard time understanding the idea that some people want the thing they don't want and don't want the thing they want

for transmasc TRFs: because of course they want to think they're the alpha dogs society revolves around they're all misogynists

As someone who wasn’t on tumblr when that “kill all transmascs” post was going around, what was that about?

I reeeeally hope there’s some context that I’m missing and it wasn’t just one of those “kill all men” jokes from 2012 with “trans” inserted into it.

Also, it’s really disheartening to see this kind of behavior from people who you would otherwise trust.

if it's older than this past March I wasn't around either but there was a post going around just a couple weeks ago

As a nonbinary person: the entire enby thing could be fixed if we just could have terminology without it being relentlessly mocked.

Some people are going to be uncomfortable with enby because it sounds similar to baby and that can feel infantilizing. Some people will not think it’s infantilizing. Some people will not care. This is normal. I think enban is a good term even if enby wasn’t made to be used similarly to boy and girl. I think more explicitly nonbinary terms are good. I want to have more terms to describe myself. Only having enby is annoying.

Yeah like...not having the infrastructure of entrenched and codified language is difficult.

I think there's a degree to which this sort of thing is "spreading", insofar as I see an uptick in random cis people making flippant transandrophobic jokes and then acting like it's antifeminist to disagree. HOWEVER, I also think the hardcore TRFs' views are escalating over time to the point that when their posts break containment they often sound so obviously fucked up that people who aren't as discourse-poisoned are noticing it, rather than just blindly boosting like "Trans rights, I guess!".

the legacy of trans radical feminism: making cis people a little more transphobic

did that one op imply trans men can all just girlmode like its no big deal and takes no effort. like i do girlmode at work but that entails shaving daily and trying to keep my voice high despite having dropped like two octaves.

i feel like all that saves the façade is that my coworkers have known me since pre-T plus my tits are gigantic

he did imply that!

I think all the transmascs on here talking about how being seen as a girl is a privilege should try being a girl not wearing a bra. Or binding. Just letting them hang out. It's amazing how poorly you'll get treated. Bonus points if you're also obviously autistic and generally GNC at the same time

(On that note I think there should be more of a movement for people with boobs to not have to wear a bra because they are so uncomfortable for me and make me extremely dysphoric and I'm sure I can't be the only one-)

That used to be a feminist thing but it seems like everyone retreated from that issue.

What are your thoughts on the idea that TERFs genuinely do hate men the most and the only reason they specifically target trans women is because they see them as men that are "trying to sneak into womens spaces"? I think it makes sense on the basis that they treat trans women badly but sometimes ally with cis men who also hate us because those men aren't "explicitly trying to trick them"

I mean yeah exactly lol TERFs see trans women as men in the middle of actively doing a misogyny or trying to perform a fetish in front of them

[autisticlancemcclain]

What’s your most hated fandom characterization for each of the main 7?

hoo boy am i glad you asked. although i’m gonna be real, my issue is less with fandom characterization, because you do you i don’t give a shit, and more with how people go batty if you personally are not a fan of fanon characterizations.

like, lemme be obvious and talk about my biggest example. i am a brown eyed lance truther. we know this. the amount of weirdo comments, weirdo DMs, and weirdo asks i get is atrocious. i post a lot of them bc they’re so stupid they’re funny but the amount of people per week that tell me to kill myself is lowkey wild. the amount of people that love to say some variation of “i liked your fic but you ruined it by making lances eyes brown! his eyes are blue!” and i’ve checked other brown eyed truther’s fics — either they delete their comments better than me, or they do not get the same thing. idk what the deal is lol.

i will concede to the point that i’m a contrarian and annoying about it, but a list of the following non-fanon headcanons/characterizations i hold that have been commented on in some derisive way:

- bitchy hunk (lol)

- non “cinnamon roll too pure and baby and good for this world” hunk*

- allura is a good character (🤡)**

- allura is a sweetheart

- allura is not a drill sergeant

- kuron was a good iteration of shiro

- red paladin lance/black paladin keith/blue paladin allura

- retired shiro

- pidge is not cruel

- pidge is not an infant and can handle things a regular 14-15 year old can handle

- small details are irrelevant (think lances family, exact prekerb details, etc)

- keith gyeong and lance sanchez

- fucking brown eyed lance. i’m saying it again

- tall keith

- non omega keith***

- readmores

- autistic lance

- adhd keith

- non asshole/cruel keith

- comphetting gay lance****

- shallura

- bi shiro, demi keith, essentially any sexuality headcanon that isn’t mainstream

- hunk who isn’t food obsessed

- that’s about it

*stop infantilising hunk

**the allura hate is ridiculous and largely rooted in anti-Blackness. it should not be a fight to say that she had a reason to feel betrayed by keith’s heritage, that she did not “get in the way” of klance, that her death was stupid and ridiculous, that she is often pushed over in favour of klance (not as in she’s less popular, but that her/her death are used as a plot device to further klance), and that she is as interesting, nuanced, and multifaceted as the rest of them.

***people, inevitably, feminize characters in fandoms (largely because many people in fandom are young women, i know i feminize characters simply bc i’m making them like me and i’m feminine lol), and my issue is that people (in the general sense, not everybody) love to feminize keith and then get really mad if anyone else is feminized. this is not about fem or trans woman keith btw. this is about people omega-ifying him and then losing their MINDS if i don’t share that headcanon.

****i literally only wrote this once and then never again because people lost their minds. but as much as i love bi lance, i think it’s interesting that usually, when we see “boy crazy” or “girl crazy” characters, especially if they have a lot of chemistry or homoerotic tension with a same-gender character, people are like oh ya that’s comphetting. that character is desperately trying to outrun the gay thoughts. but with lance, who was definitely girl crazy and cared more about having a girlfriend than actually dating and falling in love (think “mrs blue lion” — he didn’t give a fuck about who he was marrying, so long that it was a girl), calling him gay will have people saying you’re erasing bisexuality. as if he was not fucking straight in the show. so.

sorry this is so bitter and ranty lol. been in a mood

[tfpriests]

[copy pasted from disc,2D fiction as always I get hrhrjmr at thought of otherwise real things peeve me

am i attracted to blanket training ?

That cult documentary made me think about it to this day,im not a nepio but I find it erotic to think of a physically disabled man <- (maybe one closer to curly from m0uthw@sh actually in general this relationship makes me think of him n j!’mmy),

incident caused,maybe possible to help if alot of effort is put or dealt with by someone with knowledge but the random pain and lack of resources make it difficult to do anything even if the people around him did care

All he can really do so he can keep getting painkillers,checkups and most importantly help with general body stuff (eating/drinking/toilet/mental) is infantilise himself act 10d more helpless than he is for their pleasure ,they train him in odd ways too like blanket training as it’s for babies it doesn’t really work on him but he has to act like it or else those beatings won’t stop

I think it’s cute ,treated as a baby just for some numbing cream and pain killers,it does feel good after a while maybe he’s into it?he can’t tell

I never think alot about the people doing it ,I think one would be the general bad guy personality is what you want although I prefer the somewhat delusional (for example : oh god this is literally my son,maybe he’s not a baby but I’ll treat him as such ) type who is caring when he wants to be but when violent his hand does leave a mark even on already scarred and ‘ruined’ bodies

I do like when they have someone else aboard even if they are not violent they are simple following on because of knowledge and skill.they aren’t overtly sexual but they watch just as intently as the man doing it there is definitely alot of erotic thoughts in mind

they r loving kind and smart but their lack of care for someone like the victim no matter the history makes make them useless

This won’t make sense but o wanted to ramble and as u can tell near the end I am sleepy we crazy

Idk if I should add as whump but I will despite the mess it is maybe I should’ve gone into detail of the punishment but I think the denial of pain killers is the true cruel part

[girlcalledwhatsername]

Hello! I saw your post about not reporting blogs where people express feeling suicidal and venting. Somebody in the reblogs mentioned the same applying to ED posts, so I wanted to ask, does that mean we shouldn't report pro-ana blogs either?

Hello!

Yes I saw that addition, I was going to reblog with it but completely slipped my mind.

This absolutely applies to pro-ana blogs. They are highly triggering, yeah, maybe they're even anti recovery, they are all sorts of things, but at the end of the day it's just another hurt mentally ill person in need of support. You can easily unfollow these blogs, you can see easily block them. I would encourage doing so absolutely, it makes me uncomfortable too.

The basic thing we need to understand is what "reporting" someone entails. Think of it as going to the authorities and complaining about this person, that's what reporting is like. Which is why it's fine to do it for hate speech and harassment and spam bots and all that. But when we report mentally ill people for showing signs of mental illness we are giving them up to the authorities to be exterminated or locked up or hidden away and cut off from society and possible support systems or losing a space to vent. No one should have that authority over our lives.

The bottom line is that whether a mentally ill person is recovering or not recovering or doing it in a way you don't like, they still don't deserve to be locked up for it. Idk how the application of such laws works in different cases but the vague wording of "is this person harming themselves or shown the tendency to harm themselves in any capacity" (such as exists in most Psychiatric laws) can easily extend to pro-ana people and then they'll just be further traumatised and that's not gonna help anyone.

Block liberally. Block the tags, block the accounts. But understand at the end of the day that it's no different from vent accounts that just need a space to honestly and in an unfiltered way talk about their depression and self harm and suicidal ideation because it's always better for people to have it out than to hide it away. The more people interact with each other, even if they're sharing tips for such harm to others who are choosing to engage this way, the more community they have and the more chances of having if not recovery then at least a support system to fall back on when things get bad. And remember here to not infantilise mentally ill people by saying they don't know better and are getting badly influenced by pro ana or vent blogs. They are there engaging because they have the same thoughts and need someone to talk to about it in a particular way.

I know people who have been in these circles and yes there is harm happening, but cutting those people off from their community doesn't help them, it just drives them into isolation. People find their way out when they're ready and when they are exposed to different ways of dealing with these things.

Ik I'm not gonna come out looking as a model of sanity for this but I got a lot of my self harm under control through harm reduction that included "allowing" self harm in certain situations till I stopped associating it with coping completely and I've been clean for a long while now.

These things, these self destructive techniques we see are a symptom of larger underlying issues and just stopping that behaviour from being seen or isolating it isn't helping. Being able to vent till you detangle the underlying issues is the way to go about it.

Let people be in charge of their recovery or their choice to not go into recovery yet.

It's their own business.

And trust me, pro ana blogs aren't recruiting people without EDs to start having EDs any more than someone venting about being suicidal is trying to get other people to join them in killing themselves.

Thanks again for the question!

[maschotch]

same anon as the morgan ask lol - no you’re so right about the weird vibes of hc’ing reid as transmasc. like if it was just sometimes… but it’s all the time, it’s disproportionately him, much more rare for hotch or morgan or luke or anyone to be transmasc. and like… people are always calling reid their /babey boy/ and it’s kinda the same with a lot of popular transmasc hcs, it’s young, skinny, white, shy or "socially awkward", "feminine" in some way, characters. it rubs me the wrong way. depends on the reasoning. but for reid it’s always,, "oh cause he looks young for his age, he has long hair, he’s so /cute/, he’s my baby boy, he’s shy and girls are shy" etc. like. classic infantilising of trans guys, classic transphobia against transmascs. nothing against some reidgirls but can they stop being weird about it? can they explain why they’d not hc hotch or morgan as transmasc, unless they’re doing t4t reid and someone? why i’ve only ever seen one hc of any of the women as transfem? & don’t feel bad about preferring to talk about hotch - i’m a morgan fan but i’m a (low empathy) prentiss fan first, i don’t mean that everyone has to obsess over morgan, i just wish people would appreciate his strengths & flaws & experiences & overall character a bit more in general.

admittedly i’m also the person who sent that last low empathy prentiss ask btw, big agree with all you say. of course i don’t mind that people have different opinions on her to me but just…. sometimes i’m like, did we watch the same show? a lot of the things they consider "empathy" moments from her are just being somewhat kind, and like, yeah i don’t think she’s evil so of course she has the capacity to be kind and exhibit some compassion. but every time she gives a grunt of disgust at a crime scene or whatever, it’s just to show that she disapproves of what the unsub did, not that she’s devastated or shocked in the way that many of the others on the team seem to be. and probably somewhere between having a shit relationship with her mother, the way she canonically has said she would change everything about herself to get approval from other teens when she was moving schools all the time in high school, and her undercover missions at Interpol… somewhere in all that, she clearly developed some acting skills, the ability to manipulate people, mirror and read people but *manually* rather than by having empathy. for her job, that’s necessary, idk how to say "manipulate" in a way that doesn’t sound that bad but i don’t mean it as inherently bad lol. and having less empathy would help her stay calm, logically analyse problems, not be fooled by people pretending to be upset, not have too much guilt get in the way of manipulating suspects (necessary to her job obviously), etc. however, it can diminish her ability to comfort friends from an emotional POV, might make her more impulsive/reckless because she doesn’t consider the effects it might have on herself and others, and it probably would contribute to how in those Lauren eps she just assumes her team members would be mad at her because she doesn’t *know* how they would emotionally feel about that. and maybe she does worry that she’s a bad person bc of her low empathy! who knows! i haven’t actually thought *that* much about it, i’m just kinda rambling about a few patterns i see, but i do think she has low empathy. and that you’re very right about the writers just… being inconsistant and weird with her character a Lot. i’m glad someone else sees what i see with her.

signed, the only morgangirl 😔 lmao

yeah :// like it’s tricky to be overly critical of trans hcs without being disrespectful or belittling people’s experiences (bc there are some people who i know identify with reid’s gender ambiguity (???)) but idk… it’s hard to ignore the pattern of the internet favoring their submissive breedable skinny white little twink as the main char seen as trans. like. what are we saying here lol

and yeah same thing w characters… you cant really fault anyone for preferring certain characters but when they take character traits/experiences/plotlines from morgan and give them to reid?? it just feels?? distasteful? like if youre gonna change everything about reid to make him/his backstory more like morgan, just… write about morgan? idk how to describe it. it’s like… if there’s a set of angsty tropes that are pretty standard—used by both official network writers and fandoms—that the showrunners divvy up between characters, and the fandom enjoys certain tropes that apply to certain characters, and the fandom’s favorite character is different, then they’ll give those same tropes to their favorite character without acknowledging the other character at all. idk if that makes any sense, but it’s just glaringly obvious when it’s the exact same type of skinny white guy that becomes the fandom’s favorite every time

but yes i am a very big fan of low empathy emily <3 i think it’s one of those “repressed lesbian jj” concepts that explains away a lot of the shitty character inconsistencies?? emily’s inconsistent bc she’s acting, bc she’s playing a part, bc her mask is changing as she tailors it to the group dynamic and her place within it. which is just FASCINATING to me lmao i love it so much. it’s something i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, but despite that i feeel like i dont have a lot to say on it? it’s less like a “here’s a list of headcanons for this character” and more of a “here’s a lens to watch the show through.” it doesnt necessarily addd anything, it’s just a different perspective that imo makes things make more sense lol. i think she’s made peace with who she is and doesn’t spend too much time fretting over whether she’s a bad person. like i don’t think she’s answered that question necessarily, i just think she knows it’s kinda pointless trying to figure it out. n e ways yes i like that you also see it :)))

[the-bren-system]

Vent vent vent dw about it

Wow she doesn't do it on purpose at all but that one housemate of ours is terrifying. Scares the shits out of me. So much. She's so self annihilating that I can't even talk to her because she just casually says and does horrible things to herself. That's not good not safe not good. Don't feel very safe.

She keeps breaking our stuff. And it always looks like an accident but... It's not. Not quite. And she's doing it because she hates herself so she takes it out on the house. But a lot of that stuff is our stuff. And idk if she realises how triggering it is, when someone we care about keeps breaking our stuff. And idk if she knows how much she's hurting me. But it scares me.

She's just sick, I get that. I'm sick too like really sick sick sick. But thing is, I don't hurt others unprovoked, just bc I'm sick. So when other ppl do self sabotage by hurting ppl they care about that just terrifies me and I can't help it. Because even if it's not on purpose it feels very destructive and mean. And maybe when it's not on purpose that's worse actually because then I can't get mad. And because I can't get mad I just have to stand there and be upset. Quiet style.

And then maybe Anon or Sonny will explain to her why she's being a problem. And she'll laugh. She fucking laughs and acts like it's a joke or something. Like it's just a silly little ADHD quirk that she can't help because she's a little baby or whatever (she's 24) and I hate that so much. Stop infantilising yourself and then breaking my furniture. Stop it A, stop it. I'm so sick and tired. You make me so scared. Stop.

I know you have problems but stop making them my problems I have so so so many already please stop doing this.

And people do this to us because we have a flat affect so subconsciously they just think we don't care about anything. But the thing is we do. We care so much about everything we just have disabilities that stop us from expressing the same way. And so we can't say or do anything.

Because you can't confront her because she'll do that defensive bullshit where she laughs and treats it like a joke well it's not a joke, A. You're hurting and scaring me. Stop breaking things that are mine, that I bought to help make the house more comfortable. How am I supposed to feel comfortable if every time I try you just break my stuff. I know you don't care about yourself but fuck sake you need to care about yourself so you'll stop hurting the ppl around you in your indifference. Stop it stop it stop it grow up grow up grow up.

And we've had this conversation 40+ times (not even exaggerating) about how she's sabotaging her whole life and ruining it over and over again and she just doesn't take it seriously. She refuses to listen. She thinks it's quirky and funny that she makes life really hard for her housemates. It's not though.

I feel like I can't leave my room because she's 100% doing something shitty down there. And I'm not being snobby at all. This level of childisb slobbish behaviour is genuinely disgusting and upsetting. Fuck fuck fuck.

Neurodivergent or not stop hurting other people that's not excusable what!!! Stop it!

And yeah I'm being a bit mean here because she's going through some difficult things. But I don't care about being mean exactly when it comes to somebody just. Not being respectful or considerate. Or being destructive to those around them. I'm gonna be mean about that. I'm not a very patient person and I can't stand it when ppl screw up my life even if it's by 'accident' - besides, when it's this consistent and people are constantly telling you to stop then it's not an accident anymore.

But yeah, I can't get mad about that can I? Because I'm the scary crazy person and anything I do to stand up for myself is scary. At least that's what everyone seems to think every single time I do.

- Bug

[clarabowmp3]

Kind fed up how many 'Taylor Swift Fans' only care about talking about her exes and how engaged she is 'obviously' to her new guy she's only been dating a year. I thought we as a society stopped seeing all women as future wives and mothers. It feels reductive and regressive to fixate on how engaged she is every time she leaves the house and it sucks most fans take away from TTPD is that she wants to get married and get married today even to a guy she hardly knows and hasn't lived with long term. Hey, she may announce she is engaged tomorrow and I'll eat my words but some of my fellow fans are getting a bit too fixated on her engagement status for my liking and it's reducing her to her love life success and not her creative success which is yucky to me.

Yeahhh I feel like, at least when it comes to taylor, the whole concept of marriage is pretty loaded/complex and interesting, and esp with songs like the prophecy and loml on ttpd it’s kind of a heartbreaking narrative. Ig some swifties might be doing that as a means of rooting for taylor, in the sense that if you take away the superficial conclusion that ‘oh taylor wanted/wants to get married but couldn’t, so getting married would make her happy,’ then I can see how the speculation could be done in good conscience, but yes ofc just as you said, it doesn’t make it right. But what’s even worse are those who try to make her love life into some kind of a reality show, where there are ‘villains’ who hurt her and ‘heroes’ that sweep her off her feet like do you not realise how incredibly infantilising, insulting and demeaning that is??? I think those people forget she’s a real life person with real feelings, not smth to egg on for more shock/entertainment value.

I think she summed it up pretty well in lavender haze ‘the only kind of girl they see is a one night or a wife.’ The way I interpret this (in the context of ttpd) is exactly this, that she doesn’t want the conversation surrounding her to be reduced to her love life (at least at the time - her persona has changed so much recently idk). But at the same time, the idea of marriage seems to appeal to her, maybe as a symbol of even more commitment, and it hurts to not have your partner feel the same way. Her desire to get married or lack thereof has nothing to do with what’s appropriate for people to discuss abt her. It’s just another facet to her personality but apparently this is the 1950s cuz god forbid a woman be more that her romantic interests

And yea you’re right, maybe they will be getting engaged soon or maybe they won’t, but whatever the case is I don’t this I (or you!) shld be eating my words. At least imo, it’s about the principle of it. For arguments sake, let’s say they do get engaged tmwr. That still doesn’t make all the engagement speculation right/moral! Because then it’ll be speculation about their wedding, any kids they might have (tho ppl have alr started on that now 🤢🤢) and so on. My point is, it’s never ending, because it’s not about whether or not/when they’ll be getting engaged, it’s about that underlying problem of misogyny and reducing women to figurines to impose outdated, regressive narratives on.

[darkhats]

my response to that one cookie run drama video from 2019

if u were in the fandom at around 2019 you'll remember this video. really a grand hallmark of its time. this is probably the most unecessary thing ill ever do but i see alot of recent comments from a month ago agreeing with this and i think thats extremely sad. im mostly doing this as a fun nostalgia trip and also i really want to justify me wasting 14 minutes watching this

first of all i want to say this video is fucking awful. just dreadful. like girl what the fuck are you even saying. i'd only recommend watching in full if you want to hear about the fandom in 2019 with a condesending voice talking down to you the whole time and even then you could probably do better just scrolling through the discourse tag

i suggest you pull up the video yourself as i'll be responding by timestamps. if i sound angry at some points its because i am

you can skip to 1:40 the rest is just intro stuff

1:47 | im really curious why you put this screenshot while saying "entitled fans" bc u never elaborated and i would really LOVE for you to explain whatever this one meant

1:50 | for the "huge amounts of hypocrisy" bit i have no idea what this is? this would be hypocrisy if the twitter acc in the previous screenshot and this tumblr blog r the same person but theyre not. we don't all think like a hivemind? this post is stupid in general stop infantilising asian ppl like they have no idea what a black person even is

2:02 | "gatekeeping what kind of ships you're allowed to like" with this screenshot u a proshitter or sumn🤨

the rest of the things they listed will be talked about later

2:51 | oh wow the "fixing art" thing. i dont think this is a thing anymore but it definitely was a big thing back in 2019! the thing is im quite neutral on it because a lot of artists dont like their work being edited but on the other hand if you dont like when people put the correct skintones on your art then maybe you should colour it right the first time

i will say though if you see cool art of like dark choco or espresso and its whitewashed and u wanna edit it so its not and u keep it to yourself then idc thats fine to me. the grey area is when it comes to characters like moonlight or alchemist, who's skintone is quite difficult to pull off in some artstyles. a lot of the examples in the video use people like cherry blossom or cotton candy who don't quite fit in the same category but are usually targets of this anyway

a very simple fix is to just use a different colour but to not make them significantly lighter from how they look in canon, which alot of the examples you showed don't do. they all look pale as shit compared to what they actually look like ingame and thats why people complained about them

also your marina video is fucking awful btw

3:53 |

4:56 | "so many people in the fandom hate the developers" im one of them hiii. i should probably use this time to explain why (please note that this was made in 2019 so a few of the points im bringing up here will probably be a bit too recent)

devsisters really love showcasing whitewashed art of their characters (they used to do it on their forums rarely but thats now gone) and recently they've been quite excited to dabble in the whitewashing themselves (keep in mind the others except from twizzly gummy don't really count as whitewashing but they're all significantly lighter than their regular appearance). its like a hobby or sumn. everytime they host a fanart contest i brace for god damn impact. and this has been a thing since FOREVER

speaking of race and ethnicity, lilacs costume (and redesign in general) is just... bad but i dont think they were even introduced at the time of this video. milk and yam WERE though and its extremely baffling to me how this went through an entire team/company and got greenlit. its insane how shit they are (if it was just yam on his own i wouldn't hate him as much, i still wouldn't like him tbh, but they decided to pair him up with a white saviour). would i call them racist though? ...idk? they've been moving funny recently cant lie

another thing is the valentines day video which pisses me off to even think about. in that vid theres alot of.. ships that definitely arent legal. and whitewashing ^_^ they still haven't addressed it btw if ur curious. but it happened this year and honestly i wouldnt blame them for not thinking devsisters would do something like that bc i sure didnt!

theres also the thing with nfts but no one couldve foresaw that one coming

i assume when you mention people saying devsis are transphobic that you're talking about characters like dark choco or cinnamon who weren't referred by any pronouns until they were magically given he/him pronouns later on. nonbinary people can use any pronouns they so damn please but i get why people would get annoyed about them both suddenly being referred as he/him. wouldn't call it transphobic though. other than idk, how tf am i meant to defend something when u dont even telling me what ur talking abt

and 5:29 is quite the bold claim if you have to say "do i have evidence for this asian hate? no.." when bringing it up again btw

now we're onto the "stories from a few people" section. the few people are actually just two, the first one just runs their mouth for way too long. dw they both suck. ignore how the creep art person is there its been addressed already in the description (which is funny because the creator remembers this video still? and they presumingly agree with it still..?)

7:00 | i would heavily recommend putting the video on like 1.75 speed and just reading the reply yourself because this person goes on for WAY too long. excuse me if the timestamps are wrong because of this but at this point i really just do not care

the first thing i want to address is the cuphead and cookie run fandom comparison, because its just as ridiculous as it sounds "i have no idea why its so focused on being sensitive about cookies sexualities, genders, and races, when other fandoms dont even take subjects like that as seriously. im pretty sure the cuphead fandom takes its bosses less seriously than the cr fandom does its cookies..." literally what the fuck are you on about? excuse me as im not a cuphead fandom connoisseur here but how are either fandoms connected?? they both got a vastly different audience, gameplay, artstyle and characters (+ character design). the only thing similar is that theyre both popular i GUESS. also maybe the cookie run fandom is so "sensitive" about cookies races bc they keep getting whitewashed every 5 seconds🤔? just a game theory tho🤔

7:25 | pisses me off ever so fucking much. the "ive never seen a fandom get so disrespectful over issues that i honestly dont think even exist" while talking about MILK COOKIE COOKIE RUN are u crazy are u dense im glad you can frollick along in ur flowerfields not having to ever deal with racism but I cannot. and if ur not talking abt him then you'd be talking about the "sensitive about sexualities/genders/races" thing and yeah man u right none of that is real. the LGBT disappeared suddenly in 1987. all humans were destroyed as they had race. we're all grey goo people

im not even sure what the complaint even is.. oh nooo someone did a milk redesigning the controversial parts of his design... how ever will we recover..?

8:15 | yeah as everyone knows i can make a character as pale as i want in fanart as long as i say these are my humanizations actually. garbage argument, most people dont draw the characters as actual cookies and most of the fanart does just fine with eyedropping the characters original skintone (oh im sorry, dough!!) so whats the excuse?

dont worry this person is done now we're almost at the end

11:18 | for the other reply, its the fiction doesnt equal reality shit do you really need me to go over this one? do you really. if they just cookies and its just fiction then why y'all feelings hurt so bad. also lumping in whitewashing with age and gender while ur talking about peoples headcanons is a bit weird btw

anyway the last thing i want to go over is the "cookie run fandom is soo obsessed with debating on whitewashing, ages, gender and sexualities!" thing thats so prevelent with these arguments. 2019 had this fun period where with every new cookie that came out there was some sort of controversy with them (millennial tree and raspberry mousse being he/him, roll cake and sorbet shark being a child or not, ect.)

whitewashing is obvious why so i'll move on. some characters can be seen as lesbian coded (white choco and rose for having majority girl fans, sea fairy in general) and there are a few characters that explicitly aren't referred to by any pronouns (dark choco before the guild adventures, peppermint, ect.) which u dont see everyday in games. so yeah.. people care about these things because they like representation. who would've thought?

now im gonna be fucking real. the arguments over cookies ages were always annoying - the reason why the fandom has arguments about ages so much is because devsis REFUSES to tell us canon ages. think about it, majority of the "canonially confirmed" children in the game are from a child event that happened in LINE. thats a completely different company running the game. because of how character-heavy the game is, ships are a very big part of the fandom. i sincerely doubt theres anyone in the fandom who doesnt like any ship and at the time rarepairs were rly common. so when you've got a fandom who really likes to ship and developers that dont ever mention ages then you get a fucking mess. i dont know what sorbet shark or roll cakes age is and its pointless to even debate it because id rather just have the devs confirm it themselves (not like they ever will). and even for the one singular time they did specify that one of the characters was a child, they still showcased fanart of said kid being shipped with an adult anyway

but that concludes the video and thus this response! i have wasted so much time on this i honestly could've showed you them ranting about how "cookies dont have skin colours" in the video or the part in the marina video where they complain about how people "think whitewashing is bad but make non-black characters black" and moved on but what else would i do on a sunday night?

[snobgoblin]

Personally idk if its because of me only being a fan since this year, but I never understood why the fandom was demonising Paula so incredibly much.

Like yes, okay, she betrayed 2D, and broke 2Ds trust, and cheating is always a touchy subject, but when I learned about the lore I took that information in like all the others and went "Okay, that happened"

From then on I was always pretty neutral towards her because everybody makes mistakes right, and she apologised to 2D and did seem to hold regrets in the Almanac, so I'm fine with her. What happened happened, it's not like other characters didn't do worse. And, to be fair, the line "When I saw Murdoc, with his thick greasy her, green skin and yellow teeth, I thought ouh, he's the one for me" will always be hilarious to me sorry not sorry

So yeah, I don't think she deserves to be so demonised, especially not in the same breath that protects 2D because "he's a innocent uwu bebe"

He's not •-•

...can we talk about the infantilising of 2D in this essay I will-

UHUH

i will always defend Paula because not a lot of people do and yall need to stop trying to change my mind I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing I'm arguing for the sake of Paula

[death-gloss]

dude I have seen the infantilization of so many grown men in the public eye. (it probably goes for everyone but I don't follow mainstream celebrities so all I see is just musicians mainly, save for like some Marvel shit who get the same treatment) but yeah like. the unlikeliest of people, like Pete Steele, Kurt Cobain, guys from Korn and MCR, etc. and I mainly see it from younger people, like teens, and they should 100% be able to enjoy the music too, but it is really weird. it reminds me of the recent conversation online about infantilizing trans men and nb people. idk! I thought I was gonna have a point to this ask LMAO but it's 8am I haven't fully woken up but yeah you're not doing anything wrong and basically I agree the infantilization is. very weird.

Its VERY bizarre and I’ve seen it too, i tend to see it more with short men? For some reason? I.e. Joey Jordison, Frank Iero etc maybe it’s because teens can project easier on someone that’s their height idk. That could tie into the trans man infantilisation because we also tend to be on the shorter side.

Its definitely teens, all the people getting mad at me for saying I find Joey sexually attractive are teens claiming I’m ‘sexualising him’ and its ‘disrespectful because he died’. Like no he was hot the whole time. Teens can and should be interested in music! And music communities, but they shouldn’t be butting themselves into adult conversations when they aren’t old enough to grasp the topic.

Its a weird ownership almost of these celebrities, probably the same reason some people get so angry when a celebrity dates someone else it breaks that illusion of ownership. But idk who needs to hear this but you don’t own anyone, and grown adults don’t need teenagers to ‘defend their honour’ or whatever. You’ll grow out of it eventually but stop making adult fans lives so hard lmao.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

Hey, this is about the age of consent post. I don't know how it is where you live, but I know in the US the age of consent doesn't mean "U can't have sex until X age" it means "An adult will go to jail for having sex with anyone under X age." It's not meant to stop teens from screwing each other, it's meant to stop gross adults from screwing teens/children.

first of all i should point out i am referring specifically to a thread where their reasoning was based on their own maturity level at that age, which they seemed to think should be a barometer for the law, regardless of the fact that their experiences are not universal.

secondly idk if the law is actually different where you are but here that is only one facet of it. legally it still means that people under that age are considered to be unable to consent to sex even if both are under that age. while i think it's rare for this to be prosecuted it does limit the resources people have access to if things go bad. criminalising things doesn't make them not happen, it just makes it harder for people to access resources

in some places there's a "romeo & juliet" defense where it isn't subject to prosecution if both are close in age and neither is in a position of power, but that isn't universal (e.g. i think this exists in ireland but i don’t think it exists in the uk, uk law is very much like... it is illegal for people under 16 to have sex, with anyone. just because it’s rare for people to get prosecuted for it doesn’t mean it’s legal!)

but also like. 18 is an adult. i knew people who were fully independent of their parents at 18, working full time and living with a partner. there would be no power differential between them and a 21y/o in the same position. i also knew people at 18 who very much weren't, but there is no universal age of maturity, because people are different. also I can't speak for anyone else but once I got to uni etc, age really stopped coming up in conversations with my peers (because... they were my peers regardless), so if you're expecting people of that age to stick to some 2/3-year age gap for arbitrary legal reasons I reckon it's all gonna get fucked

raising the age of consent to 21 is stupid, infantilising and basically just gives governments another way to hurt queer people (can you really see them enforcing that equally for straight people? dream on). there was also a lot of swerfy stuff on the thread, as you can imagine ("20yos should never do any kind of sex work") which -- again, criminalising it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. it just means those people can't get help when they need it, because they would end up facing legal bullshit themselves. NOT TO MENTION it also sets a precedent for raising age of consent for medical procedures, and let's be real, who would that hurt first? trans people. it's like. half a step from "no sex until 21" to "no hormones until 21". this is not a bullshit "slippery slope" argument, this is a fact, with precedent, that debates about at what age people can make choices about their own body have wider implications, and that when your governments have a vested interest in limiting trans people's access to care (especially young trans people), that's going to be the first thing to be hit by it

so yeah trying to protect young people is important. but this isn't the way to do it. you can't legislate gross people out of existence like this -- all you do is hurt the vulnerable more. what you can do instead is remove barriers to resources and stuff that put young people in a vulnerable position where they might be exploited (including things like jobs and housing, because people get stuck in abusive relationships when they don't have the resources to leave), as well as educate people about healthy relationships and empower them to make their own choices. that way people who aren't ready to have sex at 18? don't have to! the resources part is crucial there -- you need to create a situation where it IS a choice -- but legislation can't do the job of those resources.

now what we SHOULD change is the fact that you can also join the *army* at 16 in the UK, even if you can't be deployed until 18 -- and believe me they advertise HARD to teenagers and do everything they can to convince you it's a good bonding experience :) :) please sign up to learn how to murder :) :) because *that* is fucked up and that *is* the kind of evil you can legislate out of existence, most other countries already have because recruiting teenagers is fucked up

anyway. will not be engaging in any more discourse about this. didn't expect anyone to read the post, was just venting for my own relief