#even then. im sure there are normies there too somehow.

[lazaruspiss]

im gonna say it. normies are real and i Do Not trust them...

[dreamwreaver]

Maybe i was away from tumblr and fandoms as a whole for too long, but im honestly confused as to why people think that charlastor content=Charlie cheating on Vaggie? Wtf?

What, does this change the canon somehow? Do the characters themselves get offended lol? Im just so, so very confused... at what point did people took shipping so personally or dictated fan content must be faithful to canon??? This limits not only the fun but creativity as a whole!

Sorry for the rant, im just very confused because this is not the only fandom where ive seen this happening lately, smh.

Again, this is the result of normies discovering fandom during the pandemic and deciding to claim it without doing research into fandom etiquette.

Like, yes, antis and sticks in the mud have existed since fandom was solely analog, but they were a much smaller, much less annoying part of fandom. I do find it funny since one of the other problematic ships I'm into rn (ghostfang from spiderverse, look it up, get addicted with me) has a character who literally becomes the villain of the story due to his obsession with "maintaining the canon". I'm not kidding; they took on the entire concept of a person caring WAY too much about the canon and turned them into a bad guy.

As for charlastor meaning that Charlie cheated... I mean, some shippers like cheating subplots. Some people use it to vaggie bash because they really don't like her character. The problem is that they find one since fic or art and ascribe it to the ENTIRE group of shippers. (Side note, my condolences to the chaggiestor shippers because they arguably get it worse since they have to be like: am I a joke to you? All the time).

The funniest part of all of that is every single fucking charlastor fic I've read post show drop keeps vaggie and Charlie's dynamic EXACTLY THE SAME as it's depicted in the show. They're just explicitly NOT a couple either because they broke up or because they never dated to begin with. And look at that? Not a single thing about their characters is changed so it's almost like the relationship aspect of their whole relationship was an after thought when it came to the writing.

I could also go on about how vaggie doesn't pass the sexy lamp test for 95% of the season but that's a rant for another day. Or the rampant bi and acephobia. Actually the biphobia thing I'll include because it's topically relevant. One thing bi and pan people CONSTANTLY have to deal with in fandom and irl is the conflation that being attracted to multiple types of people means you are automatically going to fuck everyone; ESPECIALLY when it's a bisexual female character. Sluttiness is not a result of being bi, look at Angel dust for crying out loud! Or fucking... Blitz! Look at blitz! Blitz fucks anyone that's open for it for most of the season and no one says a goddamn word about him being a slut. Or moxxie. Moxxie's bi and he doesn't immediately jump back into bed with his ex even when everyone around him's pushing him to. But even if he DID I'm sure no one would cry that he's cheating on his wife about it. At the very least nowhere to the extent that Charlie would get heat for it.

And the notion that Charlie the bisexual in the relationship would do the cheating is rooted in that same biphobia and misogyny that affects most of how the rest of the fandom characterizes her since somehow she's just a naive uwu baby who can't think for herself and needs vaggie there to "protect" her or else she'll sell her soul to the first sinner that asks for it.

Please understand that if I roll my eyes any harder they will physically pop out of my head.

I personally don't like how a lot of non charlastor shippers tend to write Charlie anyways. I'm very particular about her characterization so I know by and large the safest bet to not see her totally Mary-sue'd is to read fics by my fellow shippers. And yeah, the cheating thing is a major no no for me except in the VERY specific instance of Charlie finding herself attracted to Alastor and doing everything in her power not to let it make her realize that her relationship with vaggie is over. She never actually cheats on vaggie, physically or emotionally, but the more she tries to fight the fact that she's growing attracted to someone else the more she has to take stock of herself and realize what's going wrong in her current relationship that that's happening. And again, it's like... maybe 3 total fics in all of the charlastor ones that tackle that. And that's fine! It's not something that should be on offer all the time. Essentially the cheating concept is something I only like if it's used for character studies and development is what I'm trying to say.

[keefwho]

May 07 - 2024 Tuesday

10:31pm

4.5/10

Im writing on time tonight because DS went to sleep early and I did my dishes early partly because my tummy hurts.

This morning I did my whole body shave with the manscaped attachment I don't usually use which was a good idea, it's bigger than the thing I usually use. It's just not as good at trimming unless you are only going against the grain. I took my shower and for breakfast I made oatmeal using some frozen cut up apples and a side of spam. It was a light breakfast since I've been eating big meals lately. I did my monthly finances finally, just 2 days late.

For work today I warmed up by sketching human torsos but my head wasn't really in it so I didn't do a great job. That didn't bode well for what commissions were going to turn out like. It was just one of those days. I had a bit of trouble on the commission because GT, the guy paying for it, just wanted me to redraw a black and white image of a guy on a motorcycle but as a cat instead. Partway in I didn't think my usual process would be best so I decided to wing it instead and do something more like a lineless color study which turned out to be a good idea. I stopped stream halfway through because little things kept going wrong and my tablet died which required me to restart my computer. DS seemed upset at that which sucks because she's definitely my favorite viewer to have.

Off stream I asked TK if she wanted to hang out in her server VC while I worked. She said she had just showered and likes to wind down after so in a bit we could. In the meantime I worked on the commission with some music. I got distracted a few times but not too badly. She alerted me when she was good to go so I joined her and her boyfriend to chill. NJ joined as well. I mostly listened until I decided to speak up about some frustrations I had today. It turned into a big rant session to NJ who was kinda becoming my therapist for some reason. He asked some good questions but didn't have very good advice in my opinion. He also implied every thing I said was wrong which wasn't productive, I felt like I was defending myself at every turn on things I was confident I was right about. Eventually the topic was abandoned and I left briefly to start lunch. I made stir fry rice with canned ham and mixed vegetables. It came out okay, I wish I had added more jalapenos. I continued work in the call. TK asked what I was working on and I had to explain it was someone's character performing receiving fellatio. Then I worked on something of my own which was my otter giving head and I actually showed them that one since they were curious. It was a strangely classic case of showing "normies" some relatively extreme furry art, but they appreciated the quality of it. Especially the background. After an hour of working on that, I switched to my custom pony VRchat avatar. I more or less finished work on the basic body shape I think, but I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet. TK left and I hung out with the other guys until I was done working. Then I got off to decompress.

I watched episode 2 of Black Mirror this evening. I already got all my thoughts on it out to DS, but my view was trying to positive in that maybe their society would improve with the introduction of the guy's podcast on the state of the system. I think it was left open ended. I got the impression at the end that it was implied he had a LOT of work ahead of him. After watching, I booted up KSP with the goal of further figuring out a way to organize my crafts and do a couple missions. The craft organizer mod is unfortunately bugged which makes it very hard to use. I might just have to get rid of it and think of another way to organize. DS got in bed early and we called to do our usual routine of puzzles and KH2. She talked to me a bit about her struggles lately and I empathize with all of it. It's stuff I'm also working on and making headway I think. Its progress I wish I could share with her somehow without lecturing about how I'm doing it. I know the best thing I can do is support her as she figures out what works for her which I'm eager to witness and hear about. I reached the end of the game in KH2 and next is the final final boss I think. After DS fell asleep I continued KSP a little bit. I also ate the first chicken strip I've made that come un-cooked which was something I was very slightly worried about. I knew it wouldn't really be a big deal, and it wasn't. Since they're frozen it isn't very gross handling them. I just know I gotta wash my hands when I'm done. Its unrelated that my tummy has hurt all afternoon and evening and still is. I keep having to go but it's all ordinary. This has happened before, its just uncommon for me. No idea what could have my stomach like this but I think it's already passing. I getting very cozy watching a Twitch streamer play Fallout 4, I'm probably gonna watch until I happen to pass out.

I wanted to practice "self as context" from my ACT book today but I didn't out of simple laziness. I'm guilty of feeling like I already know everything I need to know but that is foolish and I know it. I turned this journal into a sort of practice by writing it from the perspective that I'm reading it which helps me provide better context for events and makes me look at my own writing style. It helps prevent rambling in a way that I ignore and forget about as soon as the words have been typed.

[im-not-a-simp-i-swear]

Can you do a post where MC scares the brothers with an airhorn? Like goes around, attaches one on a chair, and waits to see their reaction?

AIRHORN PRANK TO THE BROTHERS

The plan was simple, just tape in a very descrete way an airhorn under your favorite demon's dinner chair and when they sit down there later today trigger such airhorn. The beauty would be their reaction...

💙LUCIFER

- he will jump a bit off guard by the sudden noise, and he will feel embarrassed that the rest of his brothers saw that, and boy oh boy will he start pointing fingers at who it could've been

- being you i wouldn't admit to such a crime and instead watch hell at it's most finest

- watch as Luci blaims Satan and Belphie for the prank and how he loses it for such a bad prank

- as Satan and Belphie claim that they wouldn't pull off such a basic prank on Lucifer. The oldest would start interrogating the other brothers

- seeing his siblings claiming inocence, and you being awfully quite... he will be very dissapointed in you, have fun cleaning the HoL for the remaining year.

💛MAMMON

- will also jump scared by the sudden noise

- while he'd confront his brothers about it, they all wouldnt take him as seriouly as the first born

- when he discovers it was you all along however he will get very tsundery? And will start asking why you would even do such a thing to your first man, he pretty much feels betrayed... for about 5 seconds.

- he then will try to convince you to help him out with trying to recreate such pranks with the rest of the brothers

🧡LEVIATHAN

- the embarrasment, the horror, leviathan has fallen for a normie prank... and everyone saw his scared reaction

- while he claims he was just caught offguard by the loud sound, he cant handle the embarrasment and will definetely hide in his room for a very good while

- it doesnt help that it was you who pulled such prank, we all know this boy doesnt have the best self esteem, so such case just lowers it more

- you better show the poor guy some affection to make up for the situation

- as a result he is playing more jumpscare games than usual to not fall for such a prank again

💚SATAN

- will either end up eyes wide open from the sudden honk or will fly away like cats do when they see a pickle (look that up if you dont know what im talking about please its adorable)

- after blushing embarrassed that they got scared by an airhorn, the laughing from the others will quickly die off when his rage starts to show

- start running MC before he discovers it was you, and yes, he WILL figure out who it was before everyone heads to bed, so make sure to be quick

- once he catches you its over, better beg for forgiveness and start planning for a way to make it up for him cause he is p i s s e d

- somehow this gives you an advantage for future plans in the anti-lucifer gang (idk remember the name dont @ me) so that such pranks can be done to the eldest himself

💖ASMODEUS

- will laugh it off but you can see his embarrassment, it doesnt help the laughing from everyone else towards him

- he also notices pretty quickly your silence so he will confront you about it, and by confronting i mean he will enter character and be the great drama queen asmo can be

- it will take a good moment for him to forgive you, specifically a good couple of minutes. You'll notice this by how quickly he goes from never wanting to even look at you again to hugging you

- just avoid bringing up the prank again cause he will pretend it never happened, not bringing it up will avoid an argument as you try to insist that he did get scared by your airhorn prank

❤BEELZEBUB

- is caught offguard but not in the same way as the others

- his eyes will just widen up by the sudden noise but he wont jump or scream, he'll just turn around confused as to where the sound came from

- his reaction and its originality would be enough to make the rest laugh, its too cute and funny to ignore

- he wont even bother finding out who pulled out the prank, if you want credit you'll have to tell him. This'll lead to him asking you why you did the prank

- once you explain the joke behind the prank he'll let out a cute chuckle, he finds it cute and funny that you tried to pull out such a prank on him

- go get some snacks as celebration??? He's hungy anyways

💜BELPHEGOR

- confusion 2.0

- also angy because he was half asleep when hebwas sitting on the chair, who dare wake up the avatar of sloth? >:/

- will start asking the others about who did it, not interogating because that would take so loooooooong, only to be even more annoyed that none of his brothers did it

- when its revealed to be you all along he'll claim that, as either revenge or recompensation, he must now use you as a personal pillow to make up for the wasted time that he was about to use for sleep

[house-of-laminations]

Alright I want in. TW kids, I love me some romantic gore.

Hearts in boxes? Someone read Snow White and took only the best lessons from it.

I’d like to think they all give you different things too. Hearts, of course, and so very Asmo over time. Oh sure, there’s other lovely little organs (haha) he’s love to give you but hearts are a staple. Cut into a Herat shape? Oh darling, only the best for you~! ♥️

And Beel? Where did you….find all of those….teeth? Oh there’s…there’s so many kinds here. Satan has scales for you and sure, that’s fine, and then you go to class. Biology of magical creatures. You recognize the scales are important, they cover something that if you were to pluck from the poor, wretched thing, would kill it. Satan gives you a smile over his book and you give a nervous smile back.

Levi lives to give you all SORTS of things. Only normies give you regular body parts, but the light of an angler fish twenty times what you know an angler fish to be frightens you, but his smile as he’s giving it to you is earnest. Hard to turn down.

There’s more but I’m running out of time!!! But yes! IM HERE FOR THIS!!

aslalkj;laf MC's bedroom somehow becoming better stocked than the most expensive apothecary in devildom. They could make a fortune from all these gifts and trinkets and yet - they don't sell them. It's theirs.

Mammon always leaves you gems and jewels and trinkets but the offerings he leaves you are amongst the most valuable game (magical and otherwise). Claws from a gold dragon. The larynx of a siren. The head of a billionaire. Belphie straight up giving you a jar of souls - animal, human, and other. You don't even recognize it to begin with but you hear their screams when you shake it.

Even Lucifer joins in, though you don't realize it at first. You wake with what appears to be a circular band of colorless metal on your bedside. It's freezing to the touch and makes you feel so despondent the moment your brush the band. There's a large crack running through it, breaking what would have been a perfect loop. The next morning, the loop is joined by bright, warm feathers.

Oh.

Not a band. A halo.

[obeiii-mee]

Hi there! Im back, tysm for doing my HC ;;/ it was super cute, i really liked Mammons and Satans!! If you dont mind if i ask for another? Hdjsks Recently, i slipped while walking home with some pals and scrapped my knee. It wasnt too bad, but it sure looked bad lmao If you can could you do HCs for the boys reacting to MC slipping and scrapping there knee while walking w them? Im sure Mammon would have a heart attack hfjd Tysm!! Keep up the good work♡

Thank you so much! I hope your knee gets better and that it wasn’t too painful! The brothers would all be panicking in their own way but I agree, Mammon would faint or something lmao.

Hope this was OK.

————————————

The Brothers with an MC who fell and scraped their knee:

Lucifer:

-It was a miracle you managed to convince him to come out on a walk with you at all

-The man doesn’t know when to take a break from his work

-He’s more likely to accept if it’s you asking tho, he has an obvious soft spot for you

-The others call him a suck up behind his back because of it

-You were so happy that you managed to pry Lucifer away from his desk, you were basically skipping alongside him

-Long story short, you tripped over your own two feet and fell

-Luckily, your knees and palms were the only things that got a bit scruffy

-Well, actually your right knee looked as if someone tried removing your entire knee cap with a scalpel, skin and all but adrenaline was kicking in and you couldn’t feel much

-You’ve never seen Lucifer freeze the way he did then

-His mind just drew a blank

-You were about to shrug it off and call it a day, get up and continue your walk but daddy Lucifer can’t have that

-He has six younger brothers (and a younger sister at some point) he is pretty experienced when it comes to treating injuries

-You aren’t walking for the rest of the day, let me make this clear

-He will carry you back to the House of Lamentation no matter how much you protest

-In case it wasn’t obvious already, Lucifer gives off massive dad vibes and now he’s bandaging your leg while you’re laying down on his bed

-While the rest of the brothers watch the two of you from behind the door frame because they are all equally worried

-Get ready for the three hour lecture coming your way

-He’s pissed and amused at the same time tbh

-Silly human, falling over like that and hurting themselves

-Lord Diavolo forbid you try to get out of that bed, he will drag you back and make sure you stay there until your knee is better (kinky)

Mammon:

-He was on his merry way to the casino to blow off all of Lucifer’s money and you tagged along solely for the purpose of making sure he didn’t spend all of Lucifer’s money

-You’d both be done for if he did

-But I guess fate really had it out for you on that day since your foot slipped on....something and you tripped

-Both of your knees looked bloody and damaged as hell but you were more irritated than anything

-Mammon on the other hand did a fucking double take and almost passed out

-He screeched his lungs out

-One look at your injured knees and he was ready to drag you all the way to the human realm on foot to find you a doctor

-“MC ARE YOU OK WHY THE FUCK IS THERE SO MUCH BLOO-HOLY SHIT STAY STILL DON’T MOVE! THE GREAT MAMMON WILL FIX THIS...SOMEHOW.”

-It was very dramatic, he cried

-You stood up to prove that you were alright because you thought he was going to have a seizure soon enough

-OK, that helped him calm down a little

-At least now he knew your legs weren’t about to get torn off and you weren’t on the verge of death

-Fuck the casino, you were going home

-Like Lucifer, don’t expect you will walk home by yourself

-He will carry you, a bit embarrassed by his initial freak out but still eyeing your wound, concerned

-As soon as you get home and the other brothers help you out because he’s shit at bandaging, he just sits in his own pool of misery and guilt

-Your poor knees wouldn’t be so jacked up if you hadn’t come along with him today

-He was so determined to make it up to you, he stayed by your bedside like a loyal puppy with a wagging tail (flashback to the animal event)

-Overall, he almost went into cardiac arrest and was too panicked to realise you were fine

-You thought he was smothering and overprotective before? Good luck for the rest of the week

Levi:

-“See, this is why I don’t like going out. There’s always some normie laying on the groun- OH MY LORD DIAVOLO, MC IS THAT YOU?? ARE YOU OK?”

-HIS HENRY ALMOST DIED ON THE NEWLY POLISHED FLOOR OF AN ANIME CONVENTION, HE HAS VERY MIXED EMOTIONS

-You fell knees first and hurt them quiet badly but you could stand, even if the pain made you twitch a little

-This confused Levi because you looked fine even though your knees certainly didn’t

-You told him you felt alright and it wasn’t that big of a deal and he absolutely rolled with it

-But you guys still went home after that

-He said it was because you bled all over your cosplay but that’s just him being a tsundere

-Levi is usually very shy when it comes to physical contact but he firmly insisted that he help you walk home

-I mean, he knows you said you were feeling OK and maybe humans just have a lot of tolerance for injuries like that

-But he still felt it was necessary that he took you home and checked out your injuries

-He kept the mood light while disinfecting you’re wound with some help from Satan by talking about how the convention went

-High low-key relieved seeing you walk around like normal two minutes after that

-He started bitching to you about how you made him miss his the event but he didn’t mean any of it

-“Stupid normie, making me miss my favourite Ruri-chan event. You’re lucky I love you and think you’re cute....did I just say that out loud??”

Satan:

-Oh dear, why would you go out for a walk in the middle of a rainstorm? What were you thinking?

-Actually, it was Satan’s idea

-He may be a demon and the prince of Wrath no less, but he is such a sappy, cheesy bastard at times

-He definitely thinks that walking and kissing in the rain is very romantic (bet he read something like that in an erotica)

-You know what’s not romantic blondie? Slipping on a very small puddle and potentially fracturing your leg

-It was just a scraped knee but you were frustrated enough to be extra

-He’s helping you up before you even have the chance to realise you fell in the first place

-Your knee was looking pretty bad so you guys went home just to avoid any further casualties

-He’s actually chuckling all the way back while you playfully glare at him because how dare he laugh at your misery?

-Date night was ruined but at least he got to take care of you

-He knew your knee must have hurt and he felt bad but he couldn’t help but giggle a bit to himself because your fall was so comical

-Ah but he does enjoy fussing over you for the rest of the night a bit too much

Asmo:

-You thought Mammon was melodramatic?

-Take a look at this fucking guy

-He actually screeches even louder than his brother and probably falls to his knees too (but not really because those pants were expensive)

-His screams definitely got the attention of at least 10 random passerbyers

-He’s actually on the verge of crying

-I mean, can you blame him?? Look at your beautiful knees!! They were ruined

-He felt so bad for you, he actually babied the hell out of you that day

-“Asmo, it’s fine. It’s just a scrap.”

-“A SCRAP, MC IT LOOKS LIKE YOUR KNEE IS ABOUT TO FALL OFF YOUR POOR SKIN-“

-It was just a scrap but Asmo’s secret talent is being extra as fuck

-He totally spilled all the tea to the rest of the brothers when he got home

-And then he ushered you into his room

-Funnily enough, he’s pretty good with injuries. Not as much as Satan and Lucifer but still

-He pampered you for the next few hours but that image of your skin being all grazed like that will forever haunt him

-How can you not be so bothered by it?? He’d die if he was in your place

-I love Asmo just because of how dramatic he is

Beel:

-Your shoelaces were undone and of course that meant a fun little trip to the floor of Hell’s Kitchen

-Beel didn’t notice you fell at first, he was concentrating on his food and assumed you were next to him

-But then he realised that you weren’t and for a moment he thought you disappeared or something

-Before he turned to find you laying on the floor, curled up because life was pain and you were suffering

-“Are you OK? Or are you just tired? Belphie does that a lot when he’s tired.” Or depressed one might say

-But for real, he’s good at identifying serious wounds and less serious wounds since he’s an athlete

-He can tell your knees were bleeding way more than they should have from just a simple scrap

-He slinged you over his shoulder and carried you, calmly, back home, with a burger still in his hand

-He’s actually really collective and talked to you while cleaning up your injury to take your mind off the pain

-He knows humans are a little more fragile than demons so even though he knows it’s not a big deal, he can’t help but worry

-It’s kinda hard falling around him tho because chances are, he will actually catch you even if he happens to hold something

-He’s sad if you’re sad so please don’t cry he will bandage your scraped knee do you want the last bit of his burger to make you feel better?

-Comfort hugs afterwards!

-Which is awesome because Beel gives out best hugs :)

Belphie:

-Ah yes, another beautiful day at RAD

-Walking alongside with your grumpy and sleepy boyfriend when a random demon bumps into you

-Wel not bumps, more like shoves you so hard you fall down and tear the fabric of your pants

-While the dude shrugs it off and speeds away

-You were a bit pissed off because rude

-But Belphie was fucking fuming

-He felt so offended on your part

-I mean, the nerve of him

-He was tired as shit but he wanted to chase after him and throw hands, possibly fill his pillow with rocks and hit him over the head with it

-He forced himself to focus on you first before hunting the moron down

-He was a bit concerned when he didn’t see you come back up after you fell

-Turns out, you scraped your knee pretty horribly and now you were bleeding all over the floor

-He’s even more quiet than usual as he helps you up and half carries you to your next class

-He starts taking care of your knee in the middle of DevilDom history he doesn’t give a flying fuck

-He’s still furious by the time he gets home and most of his brothers know to leave him be when he makes that scary ass face

-No talk to him

-He angy

-“Does your knee still hurt?”

-“A bit but it’s not-“

-“Come nap with me.”

-“Why?”

-“Naps shall cure your pain.”

-“...”

-“Nah but for real come take a nap with me.”

-Next day at school, the dude from yesterday walks by him and Belphie smashes his head against the wall

-Before walking away as if nothing happened

-I stan protective Belphie

These HCs are really bad but I love them anyway

Al~

[smolsix]

The LTNM 2 analysis that specifically does its best to debunk the loop theory

I’ll preface by saying i still havent seen the mobile game so RIP me. [i can’t download it and never have the attention span to watch a video of it]

Oh and I haven’t seen the new comics either I wanna buy em and read em in person first WEYHO

Little Nightmares 2 is NOT a loop or time loop. 

We’re shown Mono at the start of the game appearing from a TV, implying based on his later ability to teleport between them that he teleported there somehow. Where he got this ability is never implied, but I believe that because he is a resident of the pale city or near it that TVs have a certain affect on him. Note how Six is largely unaffected by the TVs throughout the whole game and makes an effort to pull Mono out of them. The Viewers are continually captivated by them and the TVs have some sort of affect over them. 

Likely the Radio Tower’s signal warps people into being affected by the TVs, and Mono living in proximity was also affected by it.

Six also has her hunger again, although it’s only seen at the end of the game. I believe Six was already a resident of The Maw. In the room you find her in the radio tower you’ll notice on the wall a painting of a girl in a yellow dress with the face scratched out, which is also located on The Maw in the lady’s quarters. I also do NOT think the Thin Man created this room for her to calm her down, but rather this room was created by Six’s mind. If Mono is to be believe to be the Thin Man caught in a loop, he would have NO idea about this painting. And if he did, why would he put it there for her? I bring up her hunger as a possible correlation to Mono’s abilities, and that her hunger is a product of The Maw and likely its food has this affect on people, same way the Radio Tower has its affect on the residents.

So Six already having ties to the maw could imply ltnm2 is either a sequel or prequel, but w the presence of dark six from the tv appearing in this game w such a loud presence im highly leaning on prequel. but i know that some creators said a while back it’s a sequel??? idk

For a time loop to take place the radio tower or thin man need some control over time, which is not shown in the slightest. How could he possibly turn back all the events, and for what purpose? To prevent himself becoming the Thin Man?

I’ve seen a lot of people mention that the Thin Man specifically goes for Six in the first encounter w him, but I honestly think it’s just that he sees Six first. The pulse that goes through the room when he enters causes her to fall out from under the table, and if you specifically do not hide under the bed he will capture Mono first, completely contradicting this idea.

So why did Mono become the Thin Man? I believe that the radio tower simply replaced the Thin Man after he was destroyed. It needs to keep status quo and as a result, found and locked away a suitable replacement. I know people think he was trapped in there for a long time based on the sequence where we see him slowly turning into the Thin Man, but consider how long Six was also in there and how fast she turned into a creature as well. She was in there maybe a few hours, it’s likely that the sequence was a creative choice to get you confused and invested in what’s happening to him before giving the final reveal, not as a means to show a long time has passed.

Obviously because of this, it’s likely that this ending is also alluding to Six’s fate at the end of the first game. After she kills the lady and consumes her, she gains her ability to suck the life out of people at a glance. It’s entirely possible she will replace The Lady as a result, should The Maw function the same way.

Also, Six is NOT a monster, she is NOT “evil” and whatever else you want to call her. She is a child who is only 9 and she is a product of her environment. In this world the slightest mix up means death, and she has grown up in this world. When you first meet her she’s very apprehensive in helping Mono until she needs help, too. In the playground she hardly plays, opting for standing around areas [like standing up against the goal post instead of playing w a ball or anything] or vaguely doing things. This can imply that despite the fact she is a child, she hasn’t been able to have a childhood. She still enjoys childish things like toys [implied by her room], and has a sense of curiosity [how often she plays w the x-ray whenever you’re around it and her animation showing her looking at the toy she’s holding or at herself], but hasn’t been able to actually indulge in child things most of her life.

Her letting go of Mono was a case where either:

A) she wasn’t sure they’d both make it out in time and decided to save herself

B) she knew she was getting hungry and would kill Mono when they left together

I’ll honestly take either of these, they both make sense. 

I also want to touch on the idea that the hanging man is either mono as the thin man, or original thin man, and here’s my ideas as to why it’s neither:

For it to be the original thin man, we need to assume he wasn’t destroyed by Mono. If he wasn’t, then why did Mono replace him. If he was, he couldn’t have gotten to the maw to hang himself, and why would he leave a note.

For it to be Mono as thin man he needs to have somehow gotten to The Maw before Six, and then killed himself there in that specific area. I want to mention that the Thin Man’s appearance outside of TVs is distorted and not at all solid in the same way as normal people. For mono to get to the maw he either had to have taken the normie way there on ship, or teleport through the TV. But based on what we saw, his teleport ability can only be done through TVs already turned on by the outside, and they must be near each other [he never goes great distances]. It also makes sense that he could possibly not even affect TVs too far from the radio tower where the thin man stays, and where the frequency reaches. Basically I’m saying you’d be hard pressed to make it all the way to the maw in the middle of the ocean [or where ever it is haha]. 

The only TV we see within the maw itself is in the library and must be turned on. so we can’t really guage TV population within the maw. and should the TVs affect people as they do in the pale city, i highly doubt they’d be left on carelessly should they warp the guests. 

oh yeah and

the chair sizes are completely different, since i’ve noticed people saying they’re the same chair.

ANYWAYS all else i wanted to touch on was that it’s very very likely the bosses in the maw are actually puppets! in the hospital you will see their faces pinned to the wall, fitting for the mannequin area! not sure why the mannequin’s are affected by light but the puppets on the maw are not, who knows.

that’s all i got, i’ll post any changes i have to my ideas after the comics/vln

EDIT: I just remembered that we DO see the thin man in a TV at the end of the DLC for ltnm1, but it’s unclear if this takes place in the maw or the pale city. 

This means that either he does have more power and is capable of jumping farther and that point is moot [but then that means he didn’t get here till after the events of the maw so, it still doesn’t line up w hanging man], OORR it was just in the pale city and was a simple teaser.

[vr2]

haha anyways genshin must be on some wild fucking shit if they think theyre gonna try and drag out their main story for like 2 years. on god having like half a year between main chapters of its already weak spindly little story is like mindboggling decision i do not trust your storytelling skills at all to make any of the hype worth it but i also think thanks to the general playerbases inability to read they will continually feel disappointment at how poor genshins main story content is and how it is purveyed to the reader especially in comparison to the lore which is completely jarring in quality of delivery.

in the archon quest at the end of liyue chapter you get a lore dump from zhongli where he just stands there and gives you like 3 quest prompts about shit that exists for no reason other than idk “they needed to put the plot threads in there asap and they forgot they had an entire world to do it in” and then that mf disappears. forever. literally exiled from the overworld unless you pay like ninety quid to summon him on his banner. not to mention every single other npc you meet will never appear again outside of their instanced quests. it’s such a weird jarring end point that you’re left stranded in and its not only a frustratingly awkward delivery, it honestly just seems pointless. why couldn’t there have been an extended epilogue that involves talking to the npc character FROM inazuma, talking to beidou who is a pirate with an electro vision about idk ... travel and her ELECTRO vision being granted which is a feat she in known for in the lore of liyue folk. it could even be someone from the qixing like ningguang who surely would know about the status of foreign nations or keqing who has an electro vision and would absolutely have something to say about baal’s stance on things and her condescension towards humans. god it could still even be zhongli just space it out, let him invite us to dinner and chat over liyue cuisine and let inazuma come up naturally thgouh paimons huge appetite to eat new things. not only would the pacing be better, the plot threads be put in a way where you dont immediately forget them because they’re being rapidfire talked at you, but it would be a great way to make the character seem like theyre people with lives and not just trying to move the plot along and be on their way.

conversely, the story of arundolyn and rostam, the legends of mondstadt and the ordo favonius, the lion and the wolf, the building hints towards the cataclysm of khaenri’ah and what kind of nation earned the scorn of the gods -- its all slowly fed to you piece by piece linked through artifacts, world lore, in-game books, weapons and sometimes the world itself. you uncover things as you explore and the more thoroughly you explore - the more you discover! it’s rewarding, it feels natural and its some of the most fun you have piecing together stories and building out this strange world like some kinda anime historian and it encourages theorycrafting rather than a concrete set of events and characters being straightforward. its genuinely interesting that theres a whole society and cast of characters from the days of yore who are intimately connected with our current cast and the world we live in but also very much their own interesting characters who hold their own legacies and wills, carving them into the stars for ill or good.

its almost as if the main quest writers and the lore writers are completely separate, work on different floors and they dont ever meet because why ... why on earth would you deliver critical parts of the main story in such a blatantly poor way and make it have none of the nuance and intrigue as the worldbuilding? in a game that is designed for the express purpose of making people sympathetic and invested with characters to spend silly money on them? you think your paper thin story is going to let you do that? no gacha game is allowed to have storytelling subpar to the most average middle of the pack lightnovel and get away with being a gacha game. your story has to have at least a few moments where i am dazzled, daresay fucking delighted, at least a second where i have to stop and say ‘this is cool as hell’ or ‘FUCK ITS HAPPENING’ or else it is well and truly expendably worthless non-product! you have to be a little more ambitious than making some normie shit and try and make the story have a little heart! i dont doubt that they can do it, im sure there are talented writers there since i like a lot of the characterisations but man, let em free you need them no more than ever

the only thing i can think of that explains how watered down the story feels in comparison to lore, is a fear of making people ‘read too much’ in the main quests which honestly doesnt seem to be much of an issue to them. lanternrite wasnt that long but the sheer amount of npc dialogue feels staggering because its all ultimately ... inconsequential. we have no investment into these npcs and theres like 15 odd quests of it, it goes from cool world flavour text to genuinely feels like its taking up space all because they are trying to endear you to the lives of these generic npcs when you’d rather know like even one thing about chongyuns life and daily routine or xinyans performances. being able to see kaeya for one second even was the most fun and even then i was still disappointed cause its like bro? you didnt even let him do anything and it was JUST him? in the world there are so many characters explicitly referenced but never utilised and it makes their complete absence even more noticeable and frankly fucking baffling? not even fate episodes for all of our 12 SRs? actually nevermind, even the character stories are somehow unforgivably generic!

honestly i feel like the best event so far was the unreconciled stars event but by my standards it definitely felt like ‘solid gacha game event story’ with a touch of something more interesting with the inclusion of scaramouche’s lore insight. i was hoping this his how events would be in genshin, i really thought that this was the ‘standard’ but for some reason, its beginning to seem like that event was a bit of an outlier? i would gladly take less events and have them be more like the unreconciled stars event, with character interactions and slowly improving and hashing out who these characters are over never-ending carousel of random events that are mostly fetch-quests or fluff.

idk man its just a strange mess of me enjoying genshins world and theorycrafting, loving playing the game and exploring but feeling like the ball is not bein dropped but violently slammed into the ground by the sheer lack of character content whilst being praised by everyone under the sun for ‘story’ and ‘characters’. m*hoyo do better bitch! you already made such a good roster of characters now fuckin do something with them! stop releasing new characters without bothering with any of the existing ones! i beg of you!

[nextdemonking]

Hey, Lord Diavolo's humans! This is Leviathan(Avatar of Envy, one of the Seven Rulers of the Devildom, and Grand Admiral of Hell's Navy!) speaking! We all got kinda busy yesterday because apparently humans don't know how to wash their hands and there were some concerns about witches and there were some other things at the meeting too, and then we had dinner(i didn't wanna go but they dragged me but it was good i guess) and idk where Lord Diavolo went after that but that's why he didn't answer questions yesterday! And rn he's at RAD being a good student and stuff(i got my fill of going outside yesterday thx lol me and my lil bro belphie r chillin at homeeeee)

Anyway he wasn't really sure how to do some things himself so he asked me to do a little cleanup! Me!!! It's only natural since all my other brothers are normies who can barely use their DDDs lmaoooooo I also helped him access the human internet from his DDD in the first place lol(yw!!) but anyway he's not great at the more technical aspects of things so I fixed some stuff up for him ay his request!

┌(・。・)┘♪As of now I have♪└(・。・)┐:

Added a layout to the blog for those of you not on cell phones! He told me to make it look nice, and I think it's p damn kakkoi myself!!! ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ I had to mess with the coding a little bit but it shouldn't be so much the human who made it'll be upset. maybe i'll make my own layout someday lol it wasn't hard to edit it at all so how hard could making a new one be?

Cleaned a few of the asks that tumblr put out of order! I didn't bother fixing any grammar errors or anything because i'm not great at english grammar either lmaoooo cbaaaaaaa. It looks super authentic that way anyway! Maybe i'll tell him to leave in more typos? It'll feel more real if he doesn't clean it up too much, right?

Updated the log! It's on the Ghoogle doc with the rules and about and stuff and should link everything that's gone down so far! I even pre-input some things for asks he'll probably answer tonight!

That's it for now! If the layout looks weird or it's hard to read or it doesn't work right or something, let Lord Diavolo know and he can let me know and I'll fix it when I'm not busy playing games!

Later I'll maybe do some other cleanups?? If I think of smth like i know I need to move the blog to another blog as its sideblog so he can follow people but like that's a later concern because right now i need to be ready for my stream! (You're on human internet so you can't see lol but if you somehow have devildom internet check out tremble.tv/leviachan!)

L8r normie humans! (　　)ﾉｼ ←no face cuz im walking away lol

Leviathan out!!!

[sometipsygnostalgic]

xenoblade chronicles  2 rapidfire review

π after i started writing up a 5000 word review and was still on the “character” section ive decided to make a rapidfire version to get to the fucking point. 

Story - at the end of the day, it’s a tale about how to deal with all the pain and insecurity that life throws at you. how to dig down deep and find a way to continue in what you may interpret as a dreadful world. it also has some of the most satisfying mysteries and plot resolutions i’ve ever seen in a videogame. utterly touching themes. unfortunately gets a bit too shonen at points especially with the protagonist. also quite possibly a lowkey harem anime.  

Story rating - 8 out of 10.   

Characters -  mostly all amazing in the english version. 

Rex - a top lad. your best mate. however, becomes a total flawless gary stu pretty quickly. better than many protagonists out there. i like the way he gets people to open up by acting so casually friendly around them. 7 out of 10.

Pyra - unfortunately the weakest character in the main cast. has 3 forms that are treated as different characters for some reason, and no emotions beyond “sad” and “in love with rex”. her mythra form is a slightly better character who will talk to other cast members and sass down people. however mythra also comes across as weak and overly emotionally fragile at times, considering she is supposed to be the Master Blade. i suspect she exists for rex to have 4 3 girlfriends at once.   

Azurda -  dragon grandpa. subversive in that when he dies for the hero to move on from the homeland, he immediately resurrects himself as a cute furry thing that sleeps in rex’s helmet. best videogame decision ever. gives top advice.

Nia - welsh. double furry. how old is she? 6? most useful NPC. swears a hell of a lot. hilarious sassmaster with an intriguing story and well-rounded motivations. consistently interesting relationships with other cast members up to the end of the game. even remains the same after receiving her compulsory magical girl transformation. has the most awesome magical girl transformation. gives the main villain super cancer, causing him to blow up like harry potter’s aunt. probably the best character. lightly orbits the black hole of the rex harem, struggling to maintain geostational stability against the powers of fanservice.  

Dromarch - a good dad cat. there is not a lot else to say about dromarch, except that you can ride him, which is badass. he and azurda are the old dad types babysitting the kids. 

Tora - meh meh. actually likable mechanic child. why is this furry cat thing a key member of my party. despite rarely ever upgrading his blade he has made me basically immortal many times. nopon mask is underrated. masterpon is same at start of game as at end of game. that is to say he is an ambitious child, and a bit of a pervert. however, has terrible taste in upgrades. has many IRL blades pointed at him.  

Poppi - poppi artificial blade who speak like masterpon. poppi α has cool design. poppi α adorable and cool. due to being newborn blade, poppi have refreshing and truthful view on world. poppi have tragic artificial sister who almost die terribly after evil nopon brainwash!  poppi have most sad heartbreaking scene at end of game. however, poppi QT and poppi QT π designs can die in big fire.  poppi good at throwing shade. it endearing and special trait. 

Morag - technically the group normie. however, very weird. when you first see morag she reeks of pure chilled badassery. logical and with a strong sense of justice and compassion, morag starts off as an intimidating antivillain but becomes a staple member of the party. even though rex and the gang are fugitives in her city, she lets them leave because she senses they weren’t crooked ruffians and they had a purpose of their own. but she comes back to kick their ass when she thinks they’re causing more trouble, and is actually quite pissed off about rex and pyra holding back on her. has a sweet relationship with the emporer, her distant cousin/adoptive kid brother. morag learns on her adventure the value of the optimistic views the kids  around her have of the world, and says multiple times if more people thought like they did, maybe there wouldn’t be so much political nonsense  stopping people from living together peacefully. morag has a lot of pride and cannot deal with being oneupped. i love her.

Brighid - Morag’s wife blade who is one of many that struggles with the thought of losing her identity after regenning. has a diary of her past lives. uses it to taunt mythra about that one time she kicked her ass. pretends to be a little distant but low key super emotionally invested in the cast’s development. literally asked a main villain if she was like her past self that he knew, causing him to reconsider his entire philosophy on blades becoming completely different people when they’re reborn. bitchslaps rex that one time. Owns everybody at some point. such a beautiful character design that i never even noticed her chest is basically bare. 

shellhead Zeke - the prince... of NOTHING. wishes he was still a student. that one time he nearly died, he was probably impaled by a falling twig. enjoyed playing Team Rocket. surprisingly wise for a teenlike NEET. does not look after his precious turtle. potentially does have a thunder powered eye. however, definitely requires second contact lens. unfortunately not comparable to rex in combat especially as his Luck stat means using a legendary crystal on him is like throwing it away. 

Pandoria - i often forget pandoria is a blade because she is zeke’s girlfriend, also i never use her in battle due to his redundentness. well reknowned for also not looking after turtles properly. also well reknowned for slam dunking the prince over his nonsense while being equally silly.  

BAD GUYS

Jin - apparently has special people-drawing trait that makes all the good cast who know him shocked he is ordering such evil bastard things to happen. not entirely sure what that trait is. emo about much bad stuff that happen to him and his driver. wishes to never forget his life with his driver. dirty child killer.very aniime. why is he the only flesh eater whose core turns red?  okay character with decent enough motivation. was confused as to why Malos was following him until the very end. 

Malos - evil bastard. cheesy villain. you can kick his ass many times and he will get back up 3 minutes later and laugh at you while swallowing back the bile of a bitter defeat. is actually a little tragic by the end of the game. dies for no reason. makes morag jealous because he found his purpose in life, though im not sure what that is.  

Akhos - N3RD. probably the most likable member of Torna. had a silly Blade companion who he was really upset died. i like how he was sentimental about his ‘sister’ blade. 

Patroka - most forgettable Torna member. a little bit tsundere. 

Mikhail - grew on me significantly at the end though like Akhos and Patroka his backstory was unceremoniously dumped on your lap at the last second. must be a great fan of Prince Zeke as he’s heard of the term Blade Eater. also why has Mikhail got awesome blade powers and immortality when Zeke hasnt? maybe Mikhail is “possessing” the blade per se.  

Amalthus - emo bitch. stared God in the face and raised his middle finger. hypocritically creates flesh eaters then sends witch hunts out for them. i like that he reminded himself every day about how bad humanity was by doing his best to help people. so despite the praetor being this “benevolent” figure he had somehow manifested a being of pure hatred. 

Theres a lot of other people I cant be assed talking about right now.

Character rating - 9 out of 10. Even though some important characters arent as impactful as they should be, everybody is memorable and I can remember all of their damn names and backstories.  

Gameplay - not particularly amazing. battles are alright, RPG-wise, with orb breaking combos and cancelling being fun to use. but they’re highly limited by the fact you can only control 1 character at a time and there is no Co-op feature. they also take an incredibly long time, even for just one enemy encounter, and there can be unfair Spike damage moves that oneshot you. my most satisfying moment battling ever was when i was fighting Aeon, the final boss, and got a Full break for the first time... I decimated the fucker when he was at 60% health. 

Of course, those are just the battle mechanics. 

The game is full of complex mechanics that do nothing but add tedium. Every single quest in the game forces you to farm for certain “collectibles”, plants that grow in specific unlisted locations that respawn when you fast travel. Many character “affinity” upgrades, which can lock out certain areas of the map, special skills, or unique interactions, also require you to do this shit. A guide is NECESSARY for this.  There’s also the Merc Missions. Little did you know, you will need to complete Merc Missions to reach the end of many blade quests!!!you know what’s FUN? Waiting for a timer to pass after 25 fucking minutes!!!! this game has NO RESPECT FOR YOUR TIME WHATSOEVER. 

the biggest bullshit of all is when you’re locked out of the main story because a specific character on your team hasn’t unlocked level 3 of a specific skill, because there’s no way that you’d be able to unlock that by naturally playing the game as you have to go out of your way to fill the criteria and grind something or other for 20 minutes. 

This makes sidequests absolutely worthless.

The saving grace for the gameplay is probably the customizability of the blades themselves. Not so much the skills you can attach to each blade, but that you can unlock a number of fun characters to use, and they will have their own unique dialogue. The drivers and blades talking during battle also makes a 20 minute fight feel a lot quicker. 

Battle gameplay mechanics: 6 out of 10. Fun but could be better.  Sidequests, crafting, and field skill mechanics : 1 out of 10. Worthless trash that should never have been greenlit. 

Considering that you will be spending so much time on the gameplay, why even bother playing the game at all?

It’s very much the story that pushes the player to move onwards. If this game didn’t have such a fun cast and meaningful plot then I’d probably not have gotten past the first act. 

Music and Environments - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is filled with vast, beautiful and diverse environments. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of interactivity with them other than killing monsters or foraging those bloody collectibles, but they’re beautiful enough with a diverse range of monster inhabitants that give them life. The MUSIC is godlike. My favourite track in the game would be the song used for the city in Tantal. Very ominous and beautiful hymn, sung in English. 

Music and environment rating - 8 out of 10.

Localisation - While many sneer at the localisation choices for this game I thought it brought it to life. Granted I have great bias as being a Welsh girl who is familiar with the differences in UK regional dialect, but it felt like the dialogue the characters were saying also had a heavy makeover to fit the new voices... I really don’t believe that Rex’s Japanese voice actor also sounded like a Top Lad, or that Nia’s japanese voice actor sounded as much like she was ready for a valleys bar fight.  However there are some clear obstacles as well - the characters seemed to have no idea of the context of their lines. This is obvious when they shout something for a long time. Rex’s “HIYAAAAAAAAH” and Nia’s “NOOOO MOOOOORE” sound comically off-tone when they are supposed to be epic. It’s the works of someone who read those lines off a script without knowing what was going on. Tora’s actor saying “meh meh” sounds like it was meant to be a COMPLETELY different noise. Morag and Zeke never go off-course, however. I think either they had an advantage with more visuals being completed by the time they were cast, or they just don’t have diverse enough dialogue in the game for it to have been an issue.

Localisation - 7.8/10 too much Meh. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Xenoblade chronicles 2 is a highly addictive game that pulls you to the finish line with an interesting plot and a cast you just can’t let go of. While Pyra is certainly the weakest link of the characters, and the game has some extremely goofy shonen scenes that it’s hard to take seriously, and oh dear me that’s an awful lot of boob shots, I had a lot of fun powering through it. I’m going to have a tough time letting go of this story and these characters. 

Unfortunately the gameplay itself is not similarly addictive, and becomes more of a chore for you to get to the next cutscene or funny interaction.

Final rating - 6.5 out of 10. While a worthwhile experience, the greatest story in the world cannot save this game from piss-standard design choices. It is probably better to spend your time on a game that doesn’t have anti-fun mechanics. But I’d be hard pressed if any had a cast that touched your hearts quite like that of Xenoblade Chronicles 2. 

[lgbtpolitics]

As far as I remember, taking the piss out of the "Not like the other girls" trope was taking the piss out of the films marketed at young women, where a teenage girl who looked the same and acted the same as every other girl in the show, was highly praised, and given romantic attention by boys because she was Not Like The Other Girls. Even though, objectively, she was absolutely like the other girls. It was about the trope about 'triumphing' against an unfair school popularity system that had one undeserving girl at the top by... replacing her with someone else. It was about films pretending their protagonist was plain and not conventionally attractive, while she was played by Anne Hathaway or Hilary Duff. It was about films always depicting needless conflict between two girls who would probably get along just fine if they didnt need to hate each other to advance the plot.

I don't know when this turned into taking the piss out of the girls. But it definitely did, and anyone acknowledging that they don't conform to stereotypes.

People who experience being outcasts definitely develop a superiority complex a lot of the time. I'm a physicist and I spend a lot of time with self proclaimed nerdy outcasts. Once you've heard someone unironically call someone a 'normie' who therefore will not get their memes, you can't unhear it. It is also definitely tied up in gender roles and misogyny aswell (incidentally a lot of people I know border on incel behaviour and im pretty sure this is how incels are formed). It is super annoying and it absolutely goes too far sometimes.

But that does not mean women have to conform to being like other girls. I can't stand this attitude that girls not automatically loving every girl they meet is somehow enforcing misogyny. Even just mentioning that most of my friends are men is usually met by some kind of judgement. People like to put this narrative on me that having very few women friends is obviously because I think I'm better than other women. Of course it couldnt just be because I study in a male dominated field and therefore I actually meet very few women. People are just bothered by the notion that frienship doesnt have to be decided by gender and project this, but masked as a feminist critique.

There was a line in Sex Education in which Ola yells at Maeve that she pretends to be a feminist while 'tearing other women down'. For those who don't know Maeve is poor, lives alone in a caravan, and is constantly called a slag by everyone in school because a rumour went round about her and a boy (I forget the specifics). 'Tearing other women down' is what she called Maeve responding to the constant harassment with a few sly comments. Was it the girls who threw the word slag at her, who ridiculed her for a sex act that never even happened and acted like that made her less pure, that were accused of being misogynists? No of course not, it was the girl who was a bit sharp towards most people.

On why “not like other girls” isn’t a useful criticism anymore (and maybe never was)

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the way people have been talking about femininity in feminist spaces for the past few years really fails gender nonconforming queer and neurodivergent girls.

In particular, I’ve noticed and seen others talk about the tendency to push the ideas that women never enforce gender norms on other women, never punish other women for not conforming to gender norms, and that female bullies essentially don’t exist because girls would never do that to each other. I’ve also noticed how the “face” of internalized misogyny has become the blatantly queercoded, neurodivergent-coded girl who’s Not Like Other Girls. That’s not an accident.

There are feminist circles made up mostly of women who have never had a problem with being accepted by other women, and their ideas about how girls and women treat each other are very influential. The things is that they don’t realize that how other women treat them and how other girls treated them growing up isn’t universal. They’re unaware that they aren’t accepted just because they’re women but because they’re able to check off a number of conditions that signal to other women that they “belong.” One of the more important conditions is being able to do femininity the right way. They’re unaware that there’s a huge difference between women who can do femininity the right way and choose to subvert it for feminist reasons versus women who can’t do it the right way at all, and that difference has a huge impact on how other women treat you. A lot of these women are probably well intentioned, but that doesn’t make it okay that their viewpoints, which erase women who are marginalized in ways they aren’t, have become so mainstream.

This, of course, has a disparate impact on gender nonconforming queer women, who can’t do femininity right because it leads to things like dysphoria and depression, and autistic women, who often can’t do femininity right because of sensory issues with makeup/tight clothing/certain fabrics, because they’re unable to understand the social rules that govern things like fashion trends or matching clothes, or because their special interests aren’t seen by their peers as acceptable things for girls to be interested in.

The problem arises because women in the first group, the influential feminist circles, seem to have decided that the idea of female bullies is a patriarchal trope pushed by men (girls wouldn’t do that to each other) and that only men enforce gender norms on women (girls are so much more accepting of other girls uwu). Gender nonconforming queer and autistic women, who grew up as gender nonconforming girls, know that this idea is frankly bullshit because they were bullied and ostracized by other girls for not being able to do femininity right or enough, but when we try to talk about this, we’re shouted down by the first group of women as just having internalized misogyny. The entire time I was in middle and high school, I only remember having my appearance insulted by a boy once. It was almost exclusively something other girls did. And yet we’re told that our own lived experiences can’t possibly have happened because “bullying is a boy thing, girls are all friends.” You would think that this conversation would at least be happening in queer circles but even there, gnc queer women are the only ones talking about it, while everyone else is all, “It’s so great how lesbians never enforce gender norms against each other. Anyway, here’s my fanart of a canonically butch character wearing a dress.”

So here’s where the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls comes in. The stereotypical girl who’s Not Like Other Girls is blatantly queercoded and blatantly neurodivergent coded, and that’s not an accident. It’s because those are the girls who are disproportionately likely to be rejected by other girls because of their inability to do femininity right, and that’s something that the women who love to talk about the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls have subconsciously picked up on.

Now, I’m not going to try to claim that no one who thinks they’re not like other girls has a sense of superiority about it, but overwhelmingly, the girls who think that aren’t thinking “I’m not like those dumb sluts.” They’re thinking “why am I not like the other girls.” For me (an autistic lesbian), my Not Like Other Girls phase was never about thinking I was better than everyone else. It was an attempt to explain to myself why I was being picked on and excluded by other girls, even the ones who were my friends. I knew I was different from other girls because I was told that by other girls. And the idea that girls who hang out mostly with boys are doing it because they hate other girls is largely false. Lots of teenage gnc queer and autistic girls hang out mostly with boys because they find that there are fewer unspoken social rules between boys, boys are less judgmental about their appearance than other girls, girls their age are starting to develop interests they find alienating, and/or because they’ve just given up on trying to befriend girls after years of rejection. It’s not internalized misogyny, it’s a trauma response.

All this vilification of the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls really accomplishes is making gender nonconforming girls and women into the main perpetrators of internalized misogyny and gender conforming girls into the main victims. It should give us pause that our idea of a stereotypical victim of internalized misogyny is a thin, blond, pretty queen bee-type and our stereotypical perpetrator is a queercoded, neurodivergent-coded girl with no friends, because it’s a blatant example of homophobia and ableism in mainstream feminism. It’s because the women with the loudest voices want to feel like they’re always the victims and never to blame. It should concern us how many posts are dedicated to condemning girls who think they aren’t like other girls when I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a single post condemning girls who bully other girls for not conforming to femininity. That’s an incontrovertible example of internalized misogyny that’s honestly a much more widespread problem, and everyone either wants to pretend it isn’t happening or has decided they’re okay with.

Gender nonconforming queer and autistic women grow up being ostracized for their gender nonconformity and no one can even make a post telling them its okay to be the way they are without having to add about a dozen disclaimers to avoid hurting the feelings of gender conforming women and still having 20 people in the replies reminding them that “some girls like to wear makeup :)” Meanwhile people will make 380 posts about how feminine girls should be celebrated without a single thought to how that contributes to the alienation and exclusion gnc queer and autistic girls are experiencing. Not everyone needs to learn to love pink or whatever. It’s so okay for gnc women to have deep negative feelings towards femininity as a concept when it was the reason for their abuse at the hands of other girls. That’s not internalized misogyny. 

Anyway, I remember around the turn of the decade when the idea of the girl who was Not Like Other Girls really took off and I remember being able to picture exactly who it was about, but looking back, I can’t for the life of me remember whether that person was someone who actually existed irl, or whether it was the result of a popular media trope that everyone just assumed was also a problem irl, or whether it’s always just been the most acceptable women with the loudest voices blaming gender nonconforming queer and autistic women for something we weren’t doing.

mod k

tl;dr - Blaming girls who Aren’t Like Other Girls for internalized misogyny is victim-blaming bullshit. Girls thinking they aren’t like other girls is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

[lgbtpolitics]

As far as I remember, taking the piss out of the "Not like the other girls" trope was taking the piss out of the films marketed at young women, where a teenage girl who looked the same and acted the same as every other girl in the show, was highly praised, and given romantic attention by boys because she was Not Like The Other Girls. Even though, objectively, she was absolutely like the other girls. It was about the trope about 'triumphing' against an unfair school popularity system that had one undeserving girl at the top by... replacing her with someone else. It was about films pretending their protagonist was plain and not conventionally attractive, while she was played by Anne Hathaway or Hilary Duff. It was about films always depicting needless conflict between two girls who would probably get along just fine if they didnt need to hate each other to advance the plot.

I don't know when this turned into taking the piss out of the girls. But it definitely did, and anyone acknowledging that they don't conform to stereotypes.

People who experience being outcasts definitely develop a superiority complex a lot of the time. I'm a physicist and I spend a lot of time with self proclaimed nerdy outcasts. Once you've heard someone unironically call someone a 'normie' who therefore will not get their memes, you can't unhear it. It is also definitely tied up in gender roles and misogyny aswell (incidentally a lot of people I know border on incel behaviour and im pretty sure this is how incels are formed). It is super annoying and it absolutely goes too far sometimes.

But that does not mean women have to conform to being like other girls. I can't stand this attitude that girls not automatically loving every girl they meet is somehow enforcing misogyny. Even just mentioning that most of my friends are men is usually met by some kind of judgement. People like to put this narrative on me that having very few women friends is obviously because I think I'm better than other women. Of course it couldnt just be because I study in a male dominated field and therefore I actually meet very few women. People are just bothered by the notion that frienship doesnt have to be decided by gender and project this, but masked as a feminist critique.

There was a line in Sex Education in which Ola yells at Maeve that she pretends to be a feminist while 'tearing other women down'. For those who don't know Maeve is poor, lives alone in a caravan, and is constantly called a slag by everyone in school because a rumour went round about her and a boy (I forget the specifics). 'Tearing other women down' is what she called Maeve responding to the constant harassment with a few sly comments. Was it the girls who threw the word slag at her, who ridiculed her for a sex act that never even happened and acted like that made her less pure, that were accused of being misogynists? No of course not, it was the girl who was a bit sharp towards most people.

On why “not like other girls” isn’t a useful criticism anymore (and maybe never was)

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the way people have been talking about femininity in feminist spaces for the past few years really fails gender nonconforming queer and neurodivergent girls.

In particular, I’ve noticed and seen others talk about the tendency to push the ideas that women never enforce gender norms on other women, never punish other women for not conforming to gender norms, and that female bullies essentially don’t exist because girls would never do that to each other. I’ve also noticed how the “face” of internalized misogyny has become the blatantly queercoded, neurodivergent-coded girl who’s Not Like Other Girls. That’s not an accident.

There are feminist circles made up mostly of women who have never had a problem with being accepted by other women, and their ideas about how girls and women treat each other are very influential. The things is that they don’t realize that how other women treat them and how other girls treated them growing up isn’t universal. They’re unaware that they aren’t accepted just because they’re women but because they’re able to check off a number of conditions that signal to other women that they “belong.” One of the more important conditions is being able to do femininity the right way. They’re unaware that there’s a huge difference between women who can do femininity the right way and choose to subvert it for feminist reasons versus women who can’t do it the right way at all, and that difference has a huge impact on how other women treat you. A lot of these women are probably well intentioned, but that doesn’t make it okay that their viewpoints, which erase women who are marginalized in ways they aren’t, have become so mainstream.

This, of course, has a disparate impact on gender nonconforming queer women, who can’t do femininity right because it leads to things like dysphoria and depression, and autistic women, who often can’t do femininity right because of sensory issues with makeup/tight clothing/certain fabrics, because they’re unable to understand the social rules that govern things like fashion trends or matching clothes, or because their special interests aren’t seen by their peers as acceptable things for girls to be interested in.

The problem arises because women in the first group, the influential feminist circles, seem to have decided that the idea of female bullies is a patriarchal trope pushed by men (girls wouldn’t do that to each other) and that only men enforce gender norms on women (girls are so much more accepting of other girls uwu). Gender nonconforming queer and autistic women, who grew up as gender nonconforming girls, know that this idea is frankly bullshit because they were bullied and ostracized by other girls for not being able to do femininity right or enough, but when we try to talk about this, we’re shouted down by the first group of women as just having internalized misogyny. The entire time I was in middle and high school, I only remember having my appearance insulted by a boy once. It was almost exclusively something other girls did. And yet we’re told that our own lived experiences can’t possibly have happened because “bullying is a boy thing, girls are all friends.” You would think that this conversation would at least be happening in queer circles but even there, gnc queer women are the only ones talking about it, while everyone else is all, “It’s so great how lesbians never enforce gender norms against each other. Anyway, here’s my fanart of a canonically butch character wearing a dress.”

So here’s where the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls comes in. The stereotypical girl who’s Not Like Other Girls is blatantly queercoded and blatantly neurodivergent coded, and that’s not an accident. It’s because those are the girls who are disproportionately likely to be rejected by other girls because of their inability to do femininity right, and that’s something that the women who love to talk about the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls have subconsciously picked up on.

Now, I’m not going to try to claim that no one who thinks they’re not like other girls has a sense of superiority about it, but overwhelmingly, the girls who think that aren’t thinking “I’m not like those dumb sluts.” They’re thinking “why am I not like the other girls.” For me (an autistic lesbian), my Not Like Other Girls phase was never about thinking I was better than everyone else. It was an attempt to explain to myself why I was being picked on and excluded by other girls, even the ones who were my friends. I knew I was different from other girls because I was told that by other girls. And the idea that girls who hang out mostly with boys are doing it because they hate other girls is largely false. Lots of teenage gnc queer and autistic girls hang out mostly with boys because they find that there are fewer unspoken social rules between boys, boys are less judgmental about their appearance than other girls, girls their age are starting to develop interests they find alienating, and/or because they’ve just given up on trying to befriend girls after years of rejection. It’s not internalized misogyny, it’s a trauma response.

All this vilification of the girl who’s Not Like Other Girls really accomplishes is making gender nonconforming girls and women into the main perpetrators of internalized misogyny and gender conforming girls into the main victims. It should give us pause that our idea of a stereotypical victim of internalized misogyny is a thin, blond, pretty queen bee-type and our stereotypical perpetrator is a queercoded, neurodivergent-coded girl with no friends, because it’s a blatant example of homophobia and ableism in mainstream feminism. It’s because the women with the loudest voices want to feel like they’re always the victims and never to blame. It should concern us how many posts are dedicated to condemning girls who think they aren’t like other girls when I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a single post condemning girls who bully other girls for not conforming to femininity. That’s an incontrovertible example of internalized misogyny that’s honestly a much more widespread problem, and everyone either wants to pretend it isn’t happening or has decided they’re okay with.

Gender nonconforming queer and autistic women grow up being ostracized for their gender nonconformity and no one can even make a post telling them its okay to be the way they are without having to add about a dozen disclaimers to avoid hurting the feelings of gender conforming women and still having 20 people in the replies reminding them that “some girls like to wear makeup :)” Meanwhile people will make 380 posts about how feminine girls should be celebrated without a single thought to how that contributes to the alienation and exclusion gnc queer and autistic girls are experiencing. Not everyone needs to learn to love pink or whatever. It’s so okay for gnc women to have deep negative feelings towards femininity as a concept when it was the reason for their abuse at the hands of other girls. That’s not internalized misogyny. 

Anyway, I remember around the turn of the decade when the idea of the girl who was Not Like Other Girls really took off and I remember being able to picture exactly who it was about, but looking back, I can’t for the life of me remember whether that person was someone who actually existed irl, or whether it was the result of a popular media trope that everyone just assumed was also a problem irl, or whether it’s always just been the most acceptable women with the loudest voices blaming gender nonconforming queer and autistic women for something we weren’t doing.

mod k

tl;dr - Blaming girls who Aren’t Like Other Girls for internalized misogyny is victim-blaming bullshit. Girls thinking they aren’t like other girls is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.