#for boundaries or nuance or otherwise

[phoebelovingcare]

"gee, bee, it's been a long while since anyone's seen mage sister art from you! isn't that something you used to be known for? what happened?" well you see someone came into my inbox to ask me why actual, genuine, in-real-life incest was bad, not exaggerating, and well that was it for me

[eclaire-went-bam]

i'm annoyed at how much the left values empathy specifically. you can do good things without having empathy, empathy is not an inherently good quality, and lacking it isn't inherently bad. i hate seeing lefties dunk on someone for "having no empathy," which may or may not be true, but considering how many people preach empathy as an inherent trait of the left & "goodness" is irksome. just dunk on someone for the bad actions they have done, it's not hard.

i know it's a good look to be empathetic, but it really does feel like the end-all-be-all here.

i can still have good politics and want better for people & the world without necessary having empathy for these things. i can still be passionate about certain issues just from a factual standpoint, i can still listen to people affected by them, without necessarily feeling empathy for those most affected by them.

it's just like that one tumblr posts where a user pointed out "yes, even free healthcare to annoying ppl like those who went blind at the nft convention" ;;

i doubt many people are empathetic towards them, but we still acknowledge they should benefit. generally speaking we're trying to benefit even those opposed to us with stuff like free housing & healthcare. those are our politics & beliefs, and they don't suddenly "turn off" when you seee someone you don't like. or, they shouldn't. i can hate someone & still believe they deserve the same rights as me. i could not care if someone died, & yet still believe they should at least be able to keep themselves alive with a minimum wage job

frankly, to suddenly change your beliefs on some specific cases bcs you don't like them specifically is fickle, just like how the left is all restorative justice, until it comes to a specific person or crime that is too far, then it's "maybe we should give the state the right to execute people !"

so it does baffle me why so many people here value empathy like it's an inherent trait in the left, or that those opposed to the left are incapable of empathy & therefore evil & demonic.

empathy can ignite action in most people who have the ability to experience it. but that doesn't mean only those people are or do good, and the language the left uses is real isolating for that.

[thebramblewood]

A Very Vampiric Dinner Date, Part 1/3

Previous / Next

Featuring Seth and Morana by @bloomingkyras, Artemisia and Kaspar by @pocketgnome, Bria, Christoph and Daniella by @ruthplaysthesims, Madeleine by @plasmafruittree, Fawzia by @simvanie, and Tiberius by @someone-elsa (dining with my very own Annika)!

Special shout-out to @helgatisha for this stunning restaurant, @someone-elsa for the deco Sims, and @icemunmun-spicy-scalpel for all the vampire food!

Lilith: Reservation for Vatore.

Hostess: Right this way, sir, mademoiselles.

Helena: [hushed] The waitstaff is human? Do they know we’re all…

Lilith: Shh. It’s not polite to whisper — or stare.

Caleb: [disappointed tsk] I see their plasma offerings are still abysmal.

Lilith: You set yourself up for disappointment by expecting otherwise. No one walks into a steakhouse anticipating it’ll be a vegan paradise.

Caleb: [muttering] If I’d had any say in it, I never would have chosen a steakhouse in the first place.

Lilith: We haven’t even ordered and you’re already determined to ruin the mood!

Helena: I don’t get it. How does this place even exist? It’s out in the open, right in the middle of everything! Shouldn’t the townspeople be rioting?

Lilith: The citizens of Windenburg are actually rather accommodating

of our kind. After all, it’s almost too easy for them to stumble

into vampire territory. They've learned not to risk drawing our ire. Of course, handling our dealings here with a lightly persuasive touch is also essential to keeping the peace.

Helena: So you hypnotize them.

Lilith: [distractedly] Oh, Red Count’s Risotto is divine. Helena, you must try it! Don’t look at him for permission. He’d like you to believe it’s all or nothing, but his position lacks nuance. There’s nothing inherently wrong with drinking blood. Besides, the supply here is ethically obtained.  No guilty conscience, no hand-wringing, just exquisite cuisine. See? I’m respecting your boundaries. Of course, it hardly rivals a full drain, but at least it’s a start. [to waitress] Two Risottos! And we’ll split a Rare Stake.

Helena: Lilith, I don’t know-

Lilith: Please and thank you.

Caleb: [dejectedly] Just a plasma tea for me, thanks.

[avephelis]

okay. jrwi fandom. sitting you all down. i need everyone to hear this. all sides. okay? ready? the discourse is stupid. (TLDR: block each other)

making a dichotomy out of what is a nuanced topic, and enforcing it on EVERYONE with an "us versus them" mentality, is stupid. boundaries and fandom activity are not a black and white moral issue, and you are all harassing each other over having different personal opinions. and forcing that discourse onto everyone else.

you CANNOT and WILL NOT "win" an online argument by harassing people. if you group people up, and ostracise/villainise that group, those people are going to LASH OUT. and DOUBLE DOWN. they are not going to magically agree with you. it's frustrating, but that is how the internet works.

boundaries and fandom are complicated topics. jrwi boundaries, especially, hinge on a message from 2021, which has since been contradicted by the source material. it is a grey area. but REGARDLESS of your stance on that, the point of boundaries (about fictional media and fictional characters of age) are to protect an INDIVIDUAL, and what THEY see and interact with. not to create a code of rules for everyone. and as far as i'm aware, nobody has been making the council interact with nsfw content.

FURTHERMORE. people are ALLOWED to have their own boundaries. people are ALLOWED to be uncomfortable with sensitive content, and to choose whether to engage or disengage with it based on the information they are given. making fun of people (ESPECIALLY minors) for being uncomfortable with a complex situation, and for disengaging to look after themselves, as well as acting intentionally obtuse, is not counterculture. or a "ha, gotcha". it is not cool. it is immature and needlessly cruel.

and, while it is important for people to have safe spaces, jrwi is a piece of adult media. it is fine if teens are interacting with it and the fandom space, but you cannot expect everyone to cater to your personal comforts in that space. and i don't mean this condescendingly, but everyone NEEDS to be responsible for catering their experience to best look after themself and others. because social media by design is a hostile environment.

block tags that are uncomfortable. block people you are uncomfortable around. and the people creating said sensitive work? TAG IT so we can avoid it. rate it appropriately. it is not funny to intentionally expose people to content you know is triggering for them.

and as for callouts. if there is nobody being actively hurt (which there were not in recent events), you can handle it privately. otherwise you are actively exposing uninvolved people to content they are probably trying to avoid. which isn't productive.

please just be respectful and take care of both yourself and others.

[drdemonprince]

so first off, sorry bc this is super fucking heavy.

re: commonalities between cis and trans men, and that other ask. something I've had to come to terms with is how even as a teenager before I had the concept of transitioning in my head - I still got all of the societal messaging wrt misogyny, etc. I totally benefited from it, even as a woman. I put other girls down. I was the cool chick. I cashed in where I could with it. i was absolutely a chauvinist when I transitioned. I felt inhuman as a woman, but I understood that ultimately that's the way women were *supposed* to be, as much as I wished otherwise. it took a long time to unlearn that.

my personal experience makes me very uncomfortable when I see other trans men talking about gendered socialization, or how overly negative people are towards men as a class. I wonder if they have ever sat down and really reconciled with the way they have, and do, benefit from their gendered position, or if they've convinced themselves they can't be a "bad person" by virtue of their birth sex.

I can't find a nuanced way to talk about this that won't be read in bad faith as essentialist rhetoric. rape culture is the system by which consent violation is normalized, its all the music and books and movies and bad relationships I assumed were normal and romantic as a young adult. I really, really hurt people, and I did it as men are encouraged to do, and as they are rewarded for doing. I found affirmation in hurting people, and it is so fucking easy to do this without even really thinking of it because it's the entire culture you've come up in.

I'm not even talking like, obvious cases here like phyrical domestic abuse & intentional date rape. there are so many subtle boundary erosions, there's weird gray areas around drugs & alcohol, there's attitudes and expectations in established relationships, there's the potential to exploit community for personal gain. there are partners who will fear you, and freeze and fawn and will not tell you "no."

a lot of the "we need a special word for masculine transphobia" types seem to also disavow the possibility that they hold male privelege. but we need to look at that shit, sexual or otherwise. it's scary to see guys who see women talking about it and they knee-jerk shout back "I'm not a rapist" and "not all men." guarantee some of them are, and just aren't aware of it. i was.

Thank you so much anon for this really brave, candid message. I think it's something that a lot of the trans guys crowing in my inbox about how cis men "are the bad gender" need to hear. (yes, someone literally said that to me). Portraying gendered categories, especially ones based on birth assignment!, as ontologically more evil or pure than others sets people up for abuse. Separating cis men out from trans men erases the ways in which trans guys can both leverage power and the ways in which toxic masculine norms are transmitted culturally to everyone regardless of assigned sex at birth. Lots of trans guys are palpably uncomfortable with their power, and can only see that relative to cis men, they experience transphobia and misogyny in greater amounts, and so they presume they must be in a highly victimized category. But they dont ever consider that as men they can and do often wield power over women -- especially trans women -- and they've got to fucking learn how to handle that reality responsibly, which many cis men actually do know how to fucking do. Especially multiply marginalized cis men who have been preyed upon and exploited themselves.

I think it's really powerful to hear you taking ownership of the actions you've taken that have hurt others, and the allure such actions had. Very few people have the courage to look their lower moments in the face and affirm that it's actually a part of them. If we're ever going to stop abusing and talking over women we've got to own up to our shit. I've seen what can happen when men come together to be vulnerable about their struggles, own their wrongdoing, and seek to change -- back when I was working in a men's drug treatment program. We can overcome this shit and take responsibility. But a lot of the birthday boy trans guy squad is incensed by even the idea of owing anything to anyone. Like a lot of MRAs.

[munchychumpkins]

Hazbin Hotel’s main problem is that it’s disinterested in its own premise

They want us to believe that these people in hell deserve to be redeemed, because that’s what Charlie believes. The series never once shows that her way of thinking is flawed or untoward because the writers (vivienne) aren’t interested in the thesis that the show is built upon

Most of the time the only nuance that can be taken from the situations that arise has to be such a reach that it’s basically head-canon. If you want to believe that this person who commits such heinous crimes only does so because they had a tortured past then that’s fine, but you cannot look me in the eye and tell me that the amazon prime television series Hazbin Hotel ever ONCE gave any implication that this character, who we are given no reason to believe otherwise, was a good person before circumstance changed that.

The only character who even mildly fits that notion is Angel, not a single other character in this series is shown to have a relatable or tragic backstory other than him. Don’t try to tell me to find the nuance because there IS NONE

Vivienne never wanted to make a show that tested the boundaries of what is or isn’t forgivable, she wanted to spend the season showing off the characters that she’s created

That’s what this entire show is. Its character introduction, The Series

[thesulkycroissant]

Sometimes I want so much to write about Clark Kent and Midwestern guilt and religious trauma and the conflict between having power and not really wanting it but knowing you have a responsibility to use it and to use for good bc otherwise what are you doing and the nuance of knowing when you've given enough and when you're being selfish and trying to figure out how do you ever set healthy boundaries when all you really learned from your parents is to give until you're out and then scrounge up whatever is left and give that too

But most of the time I want to write about him getting to be safe

[antimony-medusa]

Gonna be honest with you though if someone outright says “don’t ship my character with other people” or something to that extent regarding smut or whatever I don’t think there should be any ambiguity

I get your point about the nature of fanfic being inherently encroaching upon people’s images so that levity should be extended to otherwise uncommon avenues but I really believe hardline boundaries should be respected, end of, no discussion. If I see people violating creators’ boundaries for their characters Or themselves (and these can be intertwined, it’s not up to the audience to pick apart their boundaries, cuz I’ve seen people try to do that) I’m not going to judge them fairly and I feel like neither should you.

Lines can be crossed and intimacy (not even necessarily romantic!) is a very different monster than the other avenues of storytelling because of how it involves real life relationships seeping into character relationships. Its’s uncommon for people to be like “I wrote A’s character being tortured because I feel like A is tortured in real life” but they Can and Often do that with ship work. So I don’t know, I feel like you’re not affording this the right nuance.

Alright, so, this is another post I'm gonna slap with a discourse and long post warning right away, buckle in.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying, and this is not an uncommon opinion to have! It's still the opinion of twitter/x so far as I know, and I think it's probably the opinion of the bulk of dsmp fans here, as well. I know my posts get notes once they start circulating in hermitblr, but I don't kid myself that I have the majority view. I am posting to explain my views expressly because I know a lot of people don't agree with me!

And in this case we do have a difference of opinion. There's two sort of points as I see it in your posts— we have hardline boundaries about shipping/nsfw from some people, and everyone in the fandom should be abiding by those no exceptions or be thrown out of the fandom; and we have shipping boundaries but not boundaries for other things because shipping is uniquely boundary-crossing and terrible and invasive, in contrast to anything else we can do in fandom.

Taking the second part first, I just don't think that's true. Let's not forget, boundaries discourse started with SMPLive and SMPronpa, and it was not the shipping that caused the discussion, it was the death games. The first real fandom reckoning we had with the notion of boundaries as mcyt fandom was over gore and murder and portraying people in violent ways. Shipping was barely a blip on the radar. The way the discourse has developed now, shipping is framed as the absolute worst thing anyone could ever do with your public image, and everything else is fine, but that is not the case for everyone. Recently the Pirates SMP creators were asked repeatedly for their boundaries (bothered on twitter, really) until they gave them and thus we saw people being fine with shipping but not wanting family dynamic, or being against both shipping and gore, or being fine with shipping but not wanting to be gender bent or trans headcanoned, etc. Not everyone feels the same way about the same things, despite the us-american cultural viewpoint that romance and sexualization is uniquely bad but gore and torture is fine, that everything else is fine.

Like, if we're looking at DSMP, I think there are a lot of creators who would feel just as strongly if not stronger about fics in which their character died of a terminal illness than they would about a fic in which they kiss someone, for understandable reasons. But I see those tropes in the tags regularly!

I think if we are honest with ourselves, if we are going to hardline boundaries about things that are uniquely invasive or bad to do to a creator's character with the view that we are putting all of this up for the creator's approval, we need to accept that this excludes us from writing anything where a character is abusive or is tortured or dies of a terminal illness or is psychologically broken or is age regressed or is neurodivergent or is queer if the cc is straight or trans if the cc is cis or cis if the cc is trans or straight if they're gay— the list of things that would be weird to do in the face of the real guy is really long. And it has most of our favourite tropes on it!

I love writing autistic philza. It would be really fuckin' weird to go up to Philza and tell him about how I write his character as whumped and autistic. Come on now. (But that's within boundaries, so that's— fine? I really don't think it's fine!)

Which is why my stance is that we should be thinking critically about these things, and keeping the fandom seperate from the creators. Some of these things are just not for the creators. They're fine but they shouldn't go on twitter. Y'know?

The idea that shipping draws uniquely on the real person and leads to invasive behaviour but nothing else does— that nobody does "I wrote A being tortured because I think A is tortured in real life"— Look. I have been in the fandom a long time. I remember how all the abused tommy narratives fed right into people assuming his family in real life were abusive— and talking about this on twitter! Where he and his family could see! People did this with WIlbur and Techno too!

I remember people reading about trans tommy and then truthing that the creator either was transmasc or was going to come out as transfemme any day now, publically, on twitter and in his chat. I have seen people she/her tubbo to his face on twitter, with fancams. I have been in chat when people who have clearly assigned Phil "dad" start asking WILDLY invasive things in TTS. If you think that shipping is the only fandom behaviour that can lead to people drawing directly from the streamers for their work and treating the creators weirdly about it, you simply have not been paying attention.

The way the fandom insists on treating benchtrio as children despite the fact that they're almost twenty and viciously attacking their friends for treating them as adults and chiding tommy and tubbo and ranboo for inappropriate behaviour. The list goes ON.

So. The recieved DSMP wisdom is that we should TTS the streamers to check if it's okay if we write a fic in which they die of cancer. We should DM them on instagram to ask if it's okay if we write them as a gender or sexual identity they don't share. We should show up in their twitter mentions to ask if it's okay if we write them as a physically abusive parent.

No????????

My view on that is that it is frankly bizzare it is that we have decided that "asking creators for detailed instructions regarding porn or gore" (especially in TTS! When they're fucking at WORK and can't step away! Stop doing this to the hermits!) is normal and fine and responsible but "post your shit in appropriate places and leave the creators out of it" will make you a monster.

Once again, the experience of someone coming up and saying "i think of you as age regressed" and someone saying "i found this fic where you're age regressed" and someone saying "can I write a fic where you're age regressed" is not that different. In all cases you know that the person has been thinking about it and putting it out there, and in all cases you didnt seek out this information, it was brought to you. In all cases it's weird. Just do not bring this information up to them!

If you just think about it for a while, you see that there is an entire host of things that would be weird to force into the view of a creator, especially when you consider that half the time we got these clips from TTS information when we have no idea if the person answering knew the context of what they were being asked, if they were specifically aware of the creator/cc divide that the fandom works with, or if they felt pressured into it. Oh yeah, let's take a TTS clip from Tubbo when it was 2 in the morning for him and he was deep in a minecraft mod when someone asked him about alters and delusions and he was like "oh you mean like— when they can't help it? I guess that's fine." That definately counts as freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific consent to show him anything we want at all times forever. That's never going to make him uncomfortable.

Think a little here.

So I think there's a lot of the fandom that we should not be putting up for the approval of the creators, and if we don't have a firm answer on if they would like potential edge cases, we should probably be thinking about it and keeping it away from them (and I would err on the side of caution), we should NOT be showing up in the TTS to ask them about narratives in which they're institutionalized, or making them a GOP conservative in fiction, or if Wilbur was canon about seeing them as a bottom, or whatever bizzare thing someone is cooking up now. Honestly if you think to yourself "I don't know if the creator would like seeing this", I would be much more comfortable if the two choices we were picking between there were "simply don't write it" or "write it but keep it away from them", and "harass the creator for an answer on this subject and only write it if they say yes" never entered the equation at all.

And to return to your first point, if we already have a class of fiction that we are keeping away from the creators because basic intellectual curiosity would show that it would be weird to show someone, I don't think it's the end of the world to go "okay, creator doesn't like NSFW, so we also keep the NSFW away from them, keep this shit off twitter, block them if you create it, don't show it to them" and then we archive lock it and continue on our little weirdo on the internet ways.

Now, I don't expect to convince you of this, the phrasing of your post does not indicate that you're open to discussion on this topic. That's fine. Nobody has to agree with me. But I grew up conservative christian, and I have already had people try and get me to throw people out of the community for their perceived sins where I was like "well, I really don't think this is that bad", and I'm really resistant to being forced to do that again. I don't think it's a healthy way to run a fandom, to be shunning people for what they're doing in fiction. Harassing creators in chat? Sure, I will block them from my events as untrustworthy. That's hurting someone in the real world. Writing something that I don't vibe with privately on the archive for an audience of 50 people? That is not doing harm to real people. As long as they're not showing it to the creators, I don't count that as offensive.

How's that for nuance.

[bdsmrist]

gonna get a bit personal here, but as an actor it hurts me to see how ppl misinterpret a character as layered and nuanced as kim

now u might be wondering: girl wtf does being an actor have to do w lieutenant kitsuragi. well, i believe it to be the case that actors are storytellers. its our job to write in our characters studies what isnt in the script, to fill in the gaps, and portray that to the best of our abilities.

while in school, my professor’s always emphasized that as an actor, 100% of the time its more interesting when your characters motivations are rooted in love, rather than resentment. and i feel like too often i see ppl understand kim’s motivations be fueled by a desire to reject, protect himself, and detach himself from a world he resents.

now; thats not to say that isn’t entirely true. after all it is what the canon tells us explicitly: that he gave up on moralism, religion, etc, because he again and again was disappointed by the reality of elysium. therefore, that must mean that from there on out kim was a lost soul, that when coming to contact with harry’s spark, it lit his ambitions once more

and yes, to an extent, thats true, but its not the whole truth. to imply otherwise is very derivative. one of the things that makes kim such a compelling character is how he never stopped loving the world around him, *before* meeting harry. and even tho he limits how much he allows himself to indulge in it, it still bleeds through the cracks. hence, when he meets harry, he pours his devotion into the case, and in turn, into harry, without even knowing the guy

would a detached character have the patience and compassion he has for harry on day one? absolutely not. the man is borderline coddling to harry despite it all. and you can hear it in the performance!

jullian champenois’ voice is characterized by its mellow, soothing quality. hes gentle about it! and the actor made that choice for a reason! kim is a gentle person! he stands his ground, he sets boundaries, keeps u in course, and is nothing of a pushover. but regardless, his temperament is calm and reassuring. thats his function as a literary device! to contrast harry’s self-hatred and self-loathing with compassion and understanding!

think about it: would a character thats insistent on being a cold wall, sit on the swing-sets with harry for the pure purpose of just being there so harry doesnt have to confront that alone? if kim only wanted to keep people at an arms length, would he insist you two to be the ones to break the news to working class woman about her husband when ur at her doorstep? he said it himself; the precinct couldve handled it fine.

if kims actions were rooted in resentment towards an unfair world, would he be an instrument of justice for the rcm in the first place? kim, who verbatim despises the cops who become cops so they can use policing as an ego outlet?

kim kitsuragi cares. he cares very deeply, and i believe that the walls around him are a result of kim attempting to keep himself *in*, rather than keep others *out*. kim keeps HIMSELF on a short leash, because he knows that otherwise he’d go all in, just like harry.

harry and kim are at the opposite ends of the same spectrum of people that are too passionate for a world that does not reward such earnestness. therefore, harry copes with addiction, and kim copes with restrictions. regardless. its all comes back to love.

[weebsinstash]

Do you ever wonder how complicated or nuanced it might be setting personal boundaries with a poly yandere Asmodeus and Fizz. Like do you ever workshop Lust Ring worldbuilding culture and realize "oh wait shit wouldn't it paradoxically be really easy AND ALSO borderline impossible to be open with and enforce your personal boundaries in a place perpetually encouraging the most openly brazen of carnal displays"?

Like. Obviously I like one of them more than the other but silly little guys are growing on me and, just. Imagine being a Sinner and being down in the Lust Ring and realizing they have a completely different culture around just, showing your body and being open with yourself and your desires and, you're suddenly not sure what things are sexual harassment or considered their normal culture and you're not sure what you're even allowed to verbally express discomfort against because. Is it actually something normal and YOU'RE being weird and mean to THEM? Or, are you unintentionally letting people do REALLY creepy things to you?

You move out of Pride and your new coworkers in Ozzie's building are constantly eating dick and pussy shaped foods? Your coworker is throating a dick shaped ice pop at their desk? Your coworkers are varying levels of half naked? That's not perverted, it's normal and healthy and they're confident in their healthy sexuality :) oh, but you think that's weird? You don't want to look directly at someone's tits when they ask your opinion on their new nipple piercings? Aw, aren't you cute, being too shy to be open with yourself! maybe we all need to show you a few things to welcome you to Lust--

Like, I know Ozzie is dead set on consent but I often brainstorm different variations of those opinions or otherwise in a yandere setting. Ozzie is accepting and open and body positive! Therefore he might be completely in the nude while he sits in a recliner and you're asked to bring him something and he ISN'T EMBARRASSED AT ALL. Aw, he doesn't care if you see his dick, he's not ashamed of his body :) and you don't want to tell him to cover up because he's so nice to you, right? Like..... the perfect fucking gentleman BESIDES these um. Conflicting opinions on modesty and boundaries. Like genuinely he is such a good man fr i want him biblicly 😩❤️

These two out here with their fucking "what are you talking about, this blatantly sexual thing we're doing isn't sexual at all, you're being weird and seeing things thst aren't there and also dont kinkshame us wow thats rude?" bullshit. Oh so you got too drunk at an office party so they made sure you got home safely so no one took advantage of you? Yeah that's cool! Or it would be if they didn't take you to THEIR home though! Oh, it was weird for you to wake up literally sandwiched between them in a pair of pajamas meaning they undressed you? Yeah? Well you had to get your sleep and there's only one bed and they wont make you sleep on the couch and Ozzie's chest is nice and broad and warm and Fizz can rest his face on your tummy and-- why are you scowling and looking grossed out, they were just making sure you were warm and cozy, but if that made you uncomfortable, they're sorry you felt that way from them just trying to so something nice for you--

I recognize it's canonically antithetical to his actual beliefs but yandere Ozzie who is like "oh you're not comfortable sharing details about your sexuality or your body or your sex life with me? I mean. Oh gee it would be like so awkward if we were having drinks as friends and I charismatically loosened your lips over time by repeatedly pressing the issues until you give in! It's not a real 'no' if it eventually becomes a 'yes' right?"

Fizz is like. A fucking jester. He's a clown. He's THE silly little guy. So you almost regard him as this nonsexual cartoonish entity until he occasionally has shit slip out of his mouth that reminds you No Honey That's A Grown Ass Man, he's saying shit like "oh wow seeing that crop over there reminded me of the other week where Ozzie and I were doing horseplay and you should've SEEN when I took one to that huge butt of his, he was SCREAMING into the bridle gag and-"

I FEEL LIKE YOU'D CATCH THEM LIKE, ULTRA WEAPONIZING T H E I R RULES. Yeah, consent is important! That's why you're not allowed to flirt with that dilfy incubus, because, what is that in your hand? Gasp, is that a single shot? You've been drinking therefore you can't consent and you're being CARRIED away if that gets you to stop talking to this guy

Like imagine you're this shy bullied little thing and Admodeus is treating you like this precious egg that he can't wait to hatch and then it's like, you're dressing up sexy and coming on to someone ELSE talking about how you wanna suck THEIR dick and suddenly he's all "uh um uh hm you know what?you're moving too fast, people are gonna take advantage of you, you're not ready, let me take you home--"

"BLOWJ0BS FOR ME BUT NOT FOR THEE" for reeeeeeeal!!!!! You're sitting in like, the living room, basically forced to be celibate (unless ya bone them) and in the next room over IN THE ONLY BEDROOM you're hearing like *spanking* *bicycle horn* *that one oh yeah sound effect* *shaking tin sfx* *water splashing* *rubber ducky squeaky noise* *slide whistle* *whoopie cushion* and then the both of them limp out of there visibly disheveled and asking if you want to order a pizza because WOW THEY'RE JUST WAY TOO HUNGRY TO COOK DINNER TONIGHT FOR SOME REASON--

[sk-lumen]

How to declutter for a fresh New Year 🫧

The very first time I got into the spirit of minimalism and decluttering physically, mentally and emotionally, it was challenging as I still had a lot of resistance and attachment to things.

I started this during winter many years back, and it's becoming easier and easier. Not just as a great practice before the new year, but also as a habit throughout the year or whenever I feel like it.

When I started seeing how the mental load, the brain fog and distraction and worry... shifted into peace, relief, joy and mental clarity every time I let go of things, I understood why it's important to not be a hoarder. Physically or otherwise. (Of course this has nuance to it and it can be a privilege to be able to do it, but that's for a different topic.)

Here are ways you can start the new year fresh (or just clear the energy any time you need):

Online / social media

delete old files or photos you don't need from your devices or cloud

unfollow accounts on social media that don't inspire/uplift you

delete old messages

archive or delete conversations you no longer want to see

block or delete numbers that are affecting your mental health

Home

throw away things that are broken or falling apart (clothes, items, lingerie, etc)

donate or sell clothes you no longer use or want

sell items you don't use anymore but which are perfectly functional (hair straightener, lamp, etc)

throw away or repurpose gift bags, bags, cards

put away items you still need but are not using in this particular season - ie. put away into storage any winter clothing during summer, it's just cluttering your hangers

reorganize your home, your room, your bathroom, move furniture around or replace decor to give it a fresh exciting new feel and remove any stale energies

Physically

salt bath with essential oils to release any tension or toxins

lemon water, ginger and turmeric shots for cleansing

drink plenty of water or green tea or mint tea for improved digestion

Mentally

dedicate a journal to write down tasks, lists, to vent any negativity, or just thought-dump at the end of the day in order to feel lighter and clear-headed

have a calendar or agenda to note any important things, to lighten the mental load

say things that keep bothering you for days/weeks, do things you've been antsy to get done for days/weeks

Emotionally

journaling is an amazing way to offload emotionally

going to therapy

talking to a friend or family

cultivating healthy boundaries and communicating your needs

Spiritually

do a guided meditation to clear your head

spend time in nature, in the forest, by the sea, away from noise and crowds to clear your energy

you can also use crystals like crystal quartz to cleanse your aura

[idleorbitals]

sandray making out in ray's car. we knew this scene was coming on multiple levels but still. ouch on multiple levels

says the man that is about to give the puppy dog eyes of all time. of All Time

sandray are so tough to watch right now because the reason they're wholesome is that they're properly guarded against each other. ray, though he's clearly catching feelings for sand, is in love with someone else, which is very fortifying. sand is testing his own boundaries and being honest with himself about what's working and what isn't. he pulls physically away from ray multiple times here. this scene also has him admitting that he's never had sex more than once with someone he wasn't seeing seriously. when ray asks "so do I have to be your boyfriend to get more?" and sand says "i'll never take someone like you as my boyfriend" and then ray says "can't you just make an exception for me?" neither of them are saying what their words are (of trailer playing us again!!)

ray is not really offering, not in any meaningful way; sand is not declining as much as he is protecting himself. multiple times in this episode sand has indicated that he might be open to something serious with ray and ray has playfully offered something serious in a meaningfully disingenuous way, specifically to ward off the real conversation, and sand has performed brushing him off, to make it clear that he understands what's actually being offered and not offered. it's so twisted because all their surprisingly healthy communication is happening at a level where their words mean almost perfectly the opposite of what their words Actually Mean. it's only healthy because they both understand the nuance here. dangerous fuckin game boys

then mew calls. I've already seen some discourse about this so here comes my addition: yeah it's a good move to prioritize getting your drunk friend to a safe place. ray is doing a good thing here and he's also doing nothing wrong, even if he weren't. as aforementioned in the healthy communication bit; as sand will say shortly; he's made no promises and is well within his rights to do what he pleases, whether or not that comes at the expense of sand's feelings.

yes, and: I think this shot summarizes really well the emotional heart of this. sand is not offended by ray picking up the call. he's feeling some physical feelings, obviously, about the interruption. but it's only when ray physically shrugs off his arm that he does the kicked puppy face. we see it again when he sighs and swallows his feelings until he hears ray say "sure, where are you? i'm coming" without any acknowledgement, implicit or otherwise, of what ray will be leaving to do so.

there's a perfectly valid scenario here where ray is interrupted in the middle of fun sexy times by the deeper bonds of friendship and goes honorably to attend to those priorities. but that's not what this is, or not the whole of it. he's not just picking mew's safety over sand in this moment; he's actively pushing sand away in favor of attending to mew, before he even knows what the call's about.

sand is duly hurt and we get to hurt along with him, /especially/ because he's going to take ownership of his own pain in a moment and reiterate his own responsibility. "I don't have the right to be upset with you," he says. and on some level, this is true. but it sure is easy to get why he's hurting

(all ofts watch throughs)

[buckley-diaztruther]

there is a lot of folks really heated at eddie for this last ep and I gotta say yall, none of it felt ooc to me. I think in the lead up so many folks built up a fantasy of what they WANTED from the ep (eddie fondly exasperated but indulging buck completely in contrast to cruel skepticism from temu) when the reality is eddienhas ALWAYS been a bitch(affectionate) when it comes to his skepticism. Just because it feels weird to us to see him getting along w temu again doesn't mean it's ooc. I think we also built a fantasy of him now aggressively hating temu because he saw he was classic petty eddie at the bachelor party. but 1. I don't think the show would be THAT overt w Eddie's jealousy, he always displays it in little looks and comments but is otherwise generally neutral if not nice to bucks partners. 2. it is possible for eddiento be jealous and still like temu as a friend, much as we wish he didn't. they've effectively written put temus dark past and it's all about him just being dry humor and sarcasm, which at times can line up well w Eddie's humor. there's a reason they got on so well at the beginning of s7, no matter how we as temu haters feel about it.

also, folks are really defensive of buck being roasted by both of them purely bc theyre defensive of buck in general (same bestie same). the fandom has clocked very early on that buck is some flavor of adhd and the RSD is out the wazoo on this guy. and a lot of us empathize w that, can relate to it. and inthink that leads to a LOT of projection. not a bad thing, but I think that it can make folks a little blind to the nuance. buck can be genuinely hurt by the dismissal from eddie and eddie can still be ok and fine for laughing and poking fun to an extent. him and buck have always had a relationship that was heavy with friendly jabs and mocking and roasting bc thats a very normal thing in relationships, esp ones that are secure. it's easy to be comfortable ribbing each other the way they do (and they've said some BOLD shit even early on) because they trust each other to not go too far and that their relationship is still secure at the end of the day. it's newer, less certain relationships where you're going to tip toe around sensitivities until you really understand a person's boundaries. and while buck has clearly struggled w being put down and rejected, outside of the divorce era it's never been something that is obviously a crossed line for buck and so I don't think this is anything more than a silly 'et tu brute' kinda feeling from buck. I don't think he's really THAT torn up about eddie laughing.

also I'm gonna say something a lot of folks hate to hear. even if buck genuinely is so distressed at every perceived rejection, that is NOT Eddie's responsibility. eddie is his friend (and future husband I know) and yes, he should and does have care for bucks feelings and boundaries. but sometimes people act like eddie has to coddle buck and treat him like a baby to protect his feelings or that eddie just never would ever be mean or dismissive to buck and 1. that's not true and 2. RSD means something that was 100% ok yesterday might feel like a devastating rejection today and unfortunately, that's for buck to contend with. he's an adult and responsible for his own emotions and reactions. he can be hurt and work thru them (solo or w eddie) but even in romantic relationships it's not all gonna be sunshine and rainbows and not every hurt feeling needs to be met with a thousand apologies and amends because sometimes w rsd your reaction can be disproportionate to the cause and that's up to buck to tackle w his therapist.

I say this all, BTW, as someone w extreme rsd who v much was amd is buck in a lot of my friend groups - the 'immature', naive and hyperactive kid who won't shut up and gets their feelings hurt at every little thing and then youre getting hurt more because you're laughed at for being sensitive. it fucking sucks and a lot of that was extrapolated by having shitty friends. and yall, the 118 are not that.

Anyway sorry that got way out of hand and I went on a huge tangent but tldr stop acting like eddie is ooc and a dick for laughing at buck and stop treating buck like a baby when he's a grown ass man thank u love u

[olderthannetfic]

RE: porn addiction discussion:

I've seen a lot of both breakups and divorces over that very thing in the past decade, Imo I don't think its reasonable to expect everyone who has seen a dissolving in their relationship due to the excessive pornography usage of one partner partner to just suck it up and get used to liking porn themselves, accept watching porn together as a replacement for their sex life, otherwise /they/ must be some non-communicative creep who just wants to use their partner like a dildo.

More and more chicks get pressured by guys into doing that. Or like the other asker said, acting out things from porn that they dont wanna do, and regret it/dont enjoy it. I think its less about ~protecting pristine sacred christian piv~ and more of an acknowledgement that its not realistic to expect the majority of sexual relationships to be able to healthily function like that as long as theres 'communication'.

Communication isn't the end all be all when there's only one clear party that this scenario benefits. The person with the broken dick. To promote the idea that they should, can and is be used against people who don't want that for themselves or their relationship, under the guise that if their boundaries are firm they must be some flavor of "sex negative/christian/radfem/prude"

There's nuance to the topic. People with the same level of porn usage can be happy together, engage in their kinks mutually, all that jazz. But there are also an increasing number of relationships where a dude uses porn and sex-positive language to pressure chicks into doing things they dont want to, having the kind of sex life that they dont want to, which becomes a slippery slope. Or a dude gets so into porn that hes leaving it open on his computer for their kids to see in an exhibitionist sort of way, completely disregarding welfare.

And I don't mean that as any sort of hyperbole or rhetoric, that example happened with my own Dad. Lemme tell you, your father leaving open pages and pages of anorexic amputee torture porn on the family computer that you, as an 8 year old girl, have to rush to close before your younger siblings come in the door after you home from school, will have an impact on both that relationship and ones level of comfort with porn longterm.

And even then, I still got into relationship after relationship once I was old enough, where guys were constantly wanting to replace sex with watching porn with them, and when we did have sex they always wanted to 'try something they saw' rather than just have fun doing something mutually enjoyable and intuitive. Partners sneaking off at my 15 year old sisters birthday party to jack off to 'teen porn' in the bathroom, leaving home for work early just to jack off in a gas station parking lot for 2 hours, watching porn in bed next to me when I have to get up for work soon, being unable to maintain an erection without porn-related stimuli (be it watching or scenarios), spiraling into cheating, etc. Years and years of sex positivity, attempts at understanding, experimenting, and accommodating, and communication on my end didn't help, until that communication was "I can't keep trying to salvage this by myself anymore, I'd be happier alone."

Not everyone is going to be down with it, or should push themselves to be, and not all reasons for not wanting that for your own sex life are rooted in some Christian or Radfem rhetoric. Lived experience plays a role in such stances. Strong boundaries can be hard to build when there's pressure in both the bedroom and outside world that the ones you have are 'wrong', but it's worth it to stand up for ones own comfort, security, and happiness rather than endlessly accommodating.

Personally, I'm overjoyed to have now found a longterm relationship now where the furthest extent of that either partner engages with is fanfic and lewd art. I wish everyone the same luck in finding a partner that has compatible desires.

--

~broken dick~

Oh please.

This kind of discussion is obsessed with "porn" meaning mainstream live action porn aimed at straight guys and with the kind of dumbass men who think that stuff is a model to emulate. In reality, there are shittons of types of porn. People who pressure their partners suck regardless of why.

These experiences sound shitty, but I'm still rolling my eyes at this spin.

[twopoppies]

look, i’m all for defending a grieving person, but simon? i mean… it’s actually infuriating that he’s there when he is the one who caused the boys, caused liam, so much grief throughout life. and we don’t even really know what went on. what little we do know is already so bad. it’s almost like a twisted joke, the fact that he gets to be close to liam’s family and friends at a moment of sadness and loss when he is the one to blame for so much of the suffering liam went through. even if simon wasn’t a horrible person, even if he hadn’t actively mistreated the boys (which we know he did), at the very least he didn’t protect them, didn’t take care of them. he had a huge responsibility, are you kidding me? most of the boys weren’t even of legal age when he took them in. those were kids under his wings. that’s a major, motherfucking responsibility, and he, at the very least, failed. he failed the boys, he failed their parents. that’s not just a “mistake” that you get to regret. those were lives that were forever changed, forever marked by his terrible ways. imagine the awful things he told the boys, the awful things he made them believe to be true for his own gain, in the name of his own greed. and today he gets to go to the funeral and cry along mourners? now that’s funny.

look, i’m not the kind of person who only sees things in black and white. nuance is important. but some things are what they are, no in between.

i’m sure liam’s family knew what they were doing in regards to everything. to the media, just as much as simon attending. what matters is that they did set boundaries by protecting bear and by keeping that weirdo rogers at bay. maybe this is what they wanted, to choose which battles to fight. nothing really matters.

Agreed. Just a small, unimportant correction. Roger wouldn’t have been able to be there even if they wanted him to be, as he’s under investigation and the police have his passport. But, otherwise completely agree with your sentiments.

[drdemonprince]

on the topic of your "bad gender" posts, the one you made mentioning sexual abuse (especially by mothers) is something nobody talks about at all and I'm glad you mentioned it.

My psychiatrist said I have CPTSD after I went through a huge breakdown after putting pieces together that I've been experiencing long-term sexual abuse from my mother (incredibly long story, but you get the idea). I still completely struggle with seeing what she's done and does as abuse, because it is totally buried in my mind that it is not abusive or strange because she is my mother. No matter how many times my friends and partner say it's wrong, or things like "imagine if it was your father", or my DBT therapist is straight up with me and tells me I was groomed by her, I just cannot get the idea that her being my mother specifically makes her behavior acceptable. (especially since I didn't come out as broadly transmasc until I was 18, and was thus seen as a complete extension of her and her body prior to).

I genuinely cannot comprehend where the line is between normal care and abuse because of what I've learned (from her or otherwise) maternal care looks like "compared to" paternal. And I just haven't found anything that's been able to really help me grasp what I've experienced because I just cannot understand why, or what I can do. The only thing I've found with others describing my specific experience is the MDSA subreddit, which is usually just extremely triggering for me to browse (obviously the content, but also the daughter framing and just the everything about it) so I don't go there, but it has shown me that many of us have lived very similar experiences, we just rarely recognized it as abnormal because it was our mother. Perceiving men as the inherently "bad gender" especially in terms of sexual abuse just makes me see red, and is a lot of why this can keep going on unnoticed. I don't really know what I'm trying to say, and I'm sorry to dump this here. It's hard to discuss the nuance of it without being kinda specific. I just saw you mention it and I rarely see the topic brought up, so I guess I just wanted to say thank you for doing so

Thank you so much for sharing this, anon. SO many children endure parentification, spousification, covert incest, and sexual abuse at the hands of their mothers and never get that mistreatment recognized as such because people view women as benevolent, passive caretakers rather than full human beings who are capable of harm. Adults wield immense power over children, particularly parents, and this power structure functions in much the same way men's power over women does -- it makes children into the property of adults, and facilitates abuse.

You are not alone in this experience at all. I'm sure you've heard all about Jeannette McCurdy's Memoir, but if you haven't read it, you might find it affirming. The poet Anne Sexton also sexually abused her daughter, Linda, who wrote a memoir about it called Searching for Mercy Street that is also a powerful read. The host of the podcast The Mental Illness Happy Hour is an adult survivor of covert sexual abuse at the hand of his mother, and he speaks about it quite frequently and thoughtfully on his show, and has interviewed numerous guests who have also survived covert incest. As a male survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of a woman, he's a rare, needed voice, and I've gotten a ton out of listening to it. There's also a self-help book on covert incest that I've read and appreciated called Silently Seduced. You may also find value in Issendai's analysis of estranged parent forums -- lots of documentation of abusive female parents and how they justify themselves to be found there, and the author eviscerates it expertly.

I hope that reading and listening to some of this material will help you to more clearly see the outlines of your own abuse and to recognize it as wrong and distinct from true maternal care. It wasn't my mom who was the chief boundary violator in my household, it was my dad, but a lot of what he did mimicked the traditionally "maternal" abuse profile, and all these resources helped me wrap my head around it a lot better. It's triggering stuff, but I think it is worth plunging these depths when you feel safe to do so, to what ever degree you can comfortably manage. You might want to dig up the Mental Illness Happy Hour episodes specifically about the host's abuse experience first, since that focuses on a man's experience of having been groomed by his mom.

Thanks for writing. My inbox is open if you wanna talk. This stuff was a foundational trauma for me that I have processed heavily and I'm always willing to discuss it more with people who have been there. <3