#does this need a discourse tag?

[ghouljams]

I know every fandom has it's fair share of "incest"(not sure if thats the correct term) but it seems like the cod fandom has it so much more than the other popular ones

I mean maybe I'm not 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 enough and I know every person has their own turn ons and off but it can't be just me who thinks this is weird/cod fandom has like so much more of it (and I have been on the internet for a good 8+ years and have been deep in fandoms)

(idk maybe I'm just rambling out of my ass because I have ocd and intrusive thoughts place my own family members the moment I say words about a family)

Omg hi friend!

First of all I want to say that I'm glad you asked because I've actually been thinking about this!

I have a major(MAJOR) turn off for actual incest in fanfiction. Maybe because I lived through homestuck and people fucking love incest in that fandom, but I cannot read it without getting squicked out. Faux-cest though doesn't seem to give me the same problem and I think it's because there's always an undercurrent of "this is pretend" when done right, it feels porn-y, fake. I think it's because (in my mind) faux-cest falls under the "humiliation/degradation" kink, there's an overt power dynamic there that feels... different from actual incest fics.

Which also? The amount of people who have DDlg/MDlb kinks in this fandom is insane. Every day I see people calling Price "daddy" and I just... I'm gonna be so honest with y'all I hate seeing "daddy" in a fic, I don't mind caretaker doms but I just can't get into age play or the uwu cutesy way some of those fics go. But that's just me.

All that to give me some credibility in telling you: I don't think it's the cod fandom at large, but maybe just the writers who all follow each other and seem to get the same brain worms at the same time(I am guilty of this).

I think for some people there's an element of "I just figured out how to write this kink and I'm making it everyone's problem" and for others it's a "this seems popular at the moment let me throw my hat in the ring." Personally I had a faux-cest dream that I didn't particularly enjoy, honestly felt more like a nightmare, but I figured other people would see kink in the horrific so I popped it up on the blog.

Anyway I don't think you have to be "freaky enough" or even put yourself through reading a kink you don't enjoy, there's a reason I've been putting trigger tags on all the faux-cest stuff! I want people to be able to filter it out. Hell, a lot of it squicks me out, and I've written some of it. I don't really see it as any more prevalent in the cod fandom than others though. I mean every fandom has a decent portion that jump straight to incest stuff, you may have just managed to avoid it fairly well.

[revvethasmythh]

i can't believe it. they're doing orym discourse on twitter. again

[castleofravens]

unpopular opinion but you're allowed to say that characters such as fitz or keefe or sophie exhibit toxic behaviors.

teenagers can be manipulative. teenagers can be cruel. teenagers can be jerks sometimes because they are still learning how to be people.

and saying they exhibit toxic behaviors isn't calling them toxic, just as saying a kid did something naughty (drawing on the walls, breaking something, etc.) doesn't make them a bad kid, you aren't defined by your behaviors because those are things you can change.

however it is still a perfectly valid thing to say "hey this behavior isn't healthy and they should be held accountable for this" because that's... something that is applicable to real life as well?

i'm a little older than a lot of the main keeper crew but still a teenager and i've dated people my age who were manipulative/toxic. you can absolutely have those behaviors as a teenager, and a shitty home life or mental health issues are explanations but they should never be excuses for that behavior.

topics such as this especially when they deal with trauma, mental illness, abuse, and interpersonal relationships should be looked at with way more nuance than a lot of people give it.

because yes, keefe (just as an example) does have textual evidence of toxic behaviors regarding his relationships (particularly with fitz and sophie), however that does not make him a toxic person. he does care about his friends and girlfriend (i don't remember if they made that official or not), he's just... inexperienced with relationships? and doesn't have much healthy examples from older figures to go off of for how he should act (just as fitz doesn't have healthy examples from older figures for how he should manage his emotions). (i would love to write an essay on cassius and gisela's relationship and how that affects keefe's relationships) (or the vackers' attitudes towards image and how that affects fitz - and biana's - self image)

i think a lot of keefe hate just stems from frustration that he doesn't really get held accountable a lot the same way other characters do, and i get that, but that still isn't an excuse to claim he's some horrible unredeemable person. he is a realistic and flawed character, you can't fit him in any "keefe good" "keefe evil" box, he simply is.. keefe? he definitely has shit he needs to work through but he's not... forever doomed to be some monstrous villain or whatever, a lot of people need a little (or big) nudge in the right direction to self awareness. people change, that is the nature of... i would say humanity but they're elves but i think the point would end up the same

[swordscleric]

I can't stop thinking about the post from a few days ago about how Critical Role has been great at doing personal faith but didn't put the necessary work in to discuss the religious/god angle of c3 in-depth. Like the fact that Cardinal Respa was linked to both the Dawnfather and the Chained Oblivion is, on a personal level, very interesting (fallen/corrupted priest goes hard) but like does that mean that there's a Papacy somewhere in Exandria dedicated to the Dawnfather? If so, are there more cardinals who ordain the bishops of the Dawnfather? Are there Conclave-level intrigues going on in the Dawnfather's Sistine Chapel? Why is the Dawnfather so Christianity-coded in vibes alone if there's no actual outline of his religious organisations? With Downfall the Dawnchild/Dawnfather thing makes the allusions to Christ as Son of God co-existing with the Father textual - was there a Dawnfather Schism around whether the Dawnchild was a separate mortal? Was there a Reformation about how the Dawnfather's Pope kept selling indulgences? Is that why the priest of the Dawnfather Grog & Pike offer a drink to doesn't partake because of a cultural shift between Protestant-Temperance-League-coded and Catholic-coded Dawnfather congregations? Why do I have so many questions about the religious organisation of one of the most important Prime Deities in Exandria and to Critical Role's 3 campaigns? How on earth were the cast (and us as the viewers!) meant to care about the gods if all they had were "really tall kings" instead of interrogating how religious organisations provide both a place of healing and community to a wide range of people and also a place of horrific harm and abuse for a wide range of people?

[relaxxattack]

rereading the hivebent commentary makes me so annoyed that people are never really willing to analyze the actual effects that alternian culture clearly had on every troll, especially the highbloods. pretty much the only troll who ever actually gets taken in the context of her upbringing is vriska.

no one ever seems willing to think about the character arcs of trolls like equius and terezi, who are also bluebloods with extremely hypocritical and toxic understandings of the people around them-- equius is boiled down to a gross creep who is just like that naturally and definitely didn't get it from his society in any way, whilst terezi is scrubbed of virtually all her flaws and turned into a strange sort of based love interest character who is all about being gay and too cool to be tricked by any of the alternian propaganda. quadrants? classism? how silly! terezi would never believe in stupid shit like that. she's quirky! and GAY!

despite the fact that equius and terezi both obviously have much, much more to their personalities than that-- and the alternian empire is informing way more dangerous things about these kid's beliefs than "kiss annoying people".

[charcubed]

I NEEEED people—especially those with unfathomably large platforms???—to start doing just a tiny bit of internal evaluation before they log onto a blue website and say “I don’t want these queer characters to fuck in canon” or “I’d be fine if these characters never kissed again” or whatever.

This is a post about Good Omens and the prospect of Aziraphale and Crowley potentially having sex in season 3. It's a response to a tweet that I'm crossposting, but let it be known the above statement and this topic applies broadly across multiple fandoms too.

But anyway, in regards to Good Omens specifically:

I am seeing this take that essentially boils down to "Canon has now made it clear that these characters want to have sex with each other through subtext (i.e. Aziraphale and the ox), but I don’t want that to reach narrative completion because the idea of them having sex makes me uncomfortable or isn’t my personal preference” and it is, to put it mildly and delicately, A Very Bad Take.

This is rhetorical (and I do not expect or particularly want an answer), but: explain to me how and why queer characters who are unavoidably visibly queer (aka 2 "man-shaped beings") fucking on screen wouldn’t be a net positive, especially when you can indicate how canon has set it up.

Presumably, some people say things like this because ~they want to see them as visibly ace.~ Okay. But by some of these people’s own admission, there IS more evidence in canon now to indicate these characters crave sex with each other (vs arguing otherwise)... yet people would rather that be ignored/erased all for the sake of them feeling comfortable or feeling better about what canon shows or doesn’t show explicitly??

I’m sorry, but—speaking as an ace person, to be clear—your personal preferences for the story shouldn’t / don’t affect anything here. There’s too much in this.

Yeah, I understand on a personal level not having “representation.” I almost never see myself or my unique experiences and identity reflected in stories. And yet, I also understand that that doesn’t change any story or the world in which we live. Things like this are not said in a vacuum.

Any queer characters having sex on screen IS a net positive. It is rare and impactful, and openly calling for or hoping for otherwise when canon points to its potential is a detrimental alliance with purity culture, whether intentionally or accidentally. Because we live in a Goddamn society!

Who knows (other than Neil Gaiman) whether Aziraphale and Crowley ARE going to fuck on international TV. None of us do! But the subtext right now blatantly says they’re starving for it. And you don’t have to like the prospect of that, but honestly? We SHOULD get to see it play out. There’s no truly legitimate reason we shouldn’t ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Whether you "prefer" it or not.

And my ultimate hot take is… if someone balks at the idea of that or doesn’t understand the importance of it, despite even seeing the subtext… then they should perhaps unpack that? Just a thought.

Truly the way fandoms are managing to hit either “subtext doesn’t count :/ ” or “let’s keep it to subtext so it’s ‘open to interpretation’ :) ” nowadays depending on what corner one visits is MADDENING. Whiplash-inducing. Surreal. And so much nonsense you can’t pick where to start.

So! I do genuinely hope I'm not kicking off discourse but I felt this Needed To Be Said (and on more than one site). Because posts like “even if they never kiss again, we’ve won <3 “ make me want to be like…

These characters are YEARNING. Do not doom them and us to it. For once, we can reach for the stars and maybe–against all odds–pull them down. Embrace it!

---

[Update: after more discourse has occurred, I have somewhat elaborated on this further, from the POV of the significance of the queer themes in Good Omens and more specifically how they center illicit pleasure/desire]

[sadtrashking]

since we're talking about people pushing paternal dynamics onto tubbo. I don't think there really is a character who would fit into a paternal role for him, literally no one. If you try to force it you're only gonna make whoever you throw into the parent role an asshole because at some point every island resident has been an asshole to him. Also, you have the issue that most of the people you throw him with he has flirted with. A few examples are him, fit and pac constantly flirting and him giving pac a lap dance on the first day, all of the jokes about bad filling his hole, and hell piere literally asked to have sex with him once.

Of course, the character you see this most with is Phil. And while they consider each other family it would be fucking depressing to make phil his dad because phil often treats him like shit, looks down on him, and treats him very condescendingly at this point. Pre purgatory it was less obvious but since then and frankly since the eggs went missing while caring for each other phil often stands in opposition to tubbo and only praises or speaks positively about him when he's not around. I could see it as a one-sided relationship but it only kind of works if only tubbo sees him as a guardian and phil doesn't see him as more than a kid with destructive toys.

Also circling back around fitpac are poor choices to make tubbo's parents please the three of them have made many sexual jokes and comments to each other. Plus fit can be pretty brazen and cold to tubbo even hitting and knocking him down which are actions he would never do to his son so once more it makes a character way more cruel and a asshole.

Not to mention how much of this is grounded in ableism that as someone with dyslexia and adhd it's very infantilizing

[osamucide]

if this bothers anyone they can kindly feel free to leave or ignore it or whatever but can we stop flooding the x reader tags with half-baked thinkpieces on why people should or shouldn’t do whatever with their writing. every other post is “you shouldn’t romanticize [x]” “you’re problematic if you do [x]” “stop writing about [x]” “[x] is gross and if you write about it kill yourself” how about if you don’t like certain content you heed the content warnings, block the tags, don’t interact with it, so on and so forth. of course part of our responsibility as writers, especially ones dealing with sensitive topics, is to label and tag our works appropriately but let’s be real—i hardly see any writers (at least within the bsd fandom) who don’t make it abundantly clear what they do/do not write about, interact with, or tolerate. wait until you find out how much fucked up shit happens in real life and how much some person on the internet coping with their trauma by writing self insert fanfiction about a cartoon character doesn’t fucking correlate to the perpetuation of that fucked up shit at all. it doesn’t even have to be that serious. people are going to write and read the content they want and they’re allowed to and you spilling your complaints all over the x reader tags “to boost attention” isn’t gonna change that. if you don’t like something ignore, unfollow, block, mind your own business. it’s actually super easy

[blessthosewhocurseyou]

Hate when I see Eurylocus discourse on my dash because somehow the mayor takes on him seem to be

1) "he did nothing wrong"

False. Sir does it suprise you that the musical about extremely flawed people has flawed people in it?

2) he needs to have horrible things happening to him forever

Sir. Sir. Why must the pendulum swing like this. That it's entirely understandable that Ody doesn't choose to save the crew at the cost of his life after he was just betrayed does not mean it was a good thing to

3) Why would Odysseus do that and choose to have all of them die what an asshole move Eurylocus did not deserve this

- not, technically wrong. Also makes me wonder if you some how missed the entire musical. Sir. This has been for shadowed from song one. He *says* he'd trade the world to see his son and wife. He sings about doing monsterous things to get him pretty regularly. How did you think this would go? How would you possibly think this would go?

4) Eurylocus didn't do the mutiny out of nothing he saw Ody sacrifice people so why are people made it him

Sir. Yes. The character who did something had motivation to do that thing. He is *meant* to be sympathetic. He can be sympathetic and make poor decision at the same time. (And arguably the poor decision is less the mutiny itself and more the cows, which he does when basically being captain)

Like a lot of this is just

Dear fandom people

Is this perhaps the first story you are experiencing? Are stories new to you? Are characters that stand in opposition both being given a sympathic motivation new to you?

[aliusfrater]

related to my lrb but i said it like three posts ago. people on here looove to treat spn gifset excerpts as inherently severed from its context. the conversation i just rbed literally includes dean relating this couple's dynamic to his and sam's... but the gifset excerpt doesn't include dean's line about it and so half of the notes somehow made it about dstiel (and extended it to samleen of course)

[wikiangela]

.

[twistedappletree]

Thinking about Lan Sizhui teaching Jin Ling how to play guqin.

Thinking about Jin Ling absolutely bored to tears by the fundamentals until he hears how beautifully Lan Sizhui plays and suddenly takes an interest (in the guqin, definitely the guqin, he’s interested in the guqin only, okay??)

Thinking about Jin Ling practicing outside of classes because he wants to impress Lan Sizhui by how much he’s improved and wants to make him proud and wants to see his face light up with a smile—I mean, what? No no no, he just wants to show initiative to learn, that’s all there is to it, nothing more. Nothing at all.

Thinking about Lan Sizhui finding Jin Ling asleep on his guqin after a night of wearing himself out with extra practice and gently waking him up to safely escort him back to his room so he doesn’t get caught by their seniors. Meanwhile, Jin Ling sleepily leans against him on the walk back to his room because it’s normal, he’s just tired, it’s obviously normal because Lan Sizhui slips his hand into his and smiles and Jin Ling’s heart feels like it’s on fire. Oh no.

Thinking about Jin Ling opening up to Lan Sizhui about his nightmares from all the trauma he’s endured and Lan Sizhui staying to play guqin for him until he falls asleep, each note chasing away every bad dream that tries to disturb him.

Thinking about them practicing guqin alone together the next day. And the day after. And the day after that—and they really are practicing but it’s a little hard to focus when Lan Sizhui keeps putting his hands over Jin Ling’s to move them to the correct strings, and Jin Ling’s face is a breath away from Lan Sizhui’s every time he leans over to help him.

It’s just guqin practice, that’s all there is to it, perfectly normal. 🩵💛

[thedeadedhooman]

homophobic guy from supernatural who got dumped by his costars

[brettdoesdiscourse]

Saying "no one needs to be the twink or femboy" and "I just feel like theyre shoehorned in so often" then using THIS COUPLE as an example is wild

[qiu-yan]

weeb poll version 2, except specifically for people i think deserve the death penalty