#fucking pearlclutchers

[nerdby]

The other day I officially lost hope in humanity after watching a video on YouTube where a guy

Who was reacting to the movie The Birdcage (1994) said that it was offensive and homophobic.

Like that whole movie is a beautiful celebration of queer culture that mocks the hypocrisy of rightwing republican and their homophobic stereotypes, and it's not even fucking subtle about it. So just like.....YIKES.

This is what I'm talking about when I say there are pearlclutchers on both ends of the political spectrum.

Cause that dude was trying so hard to seem woke that it was embarrassing because he missed the fucking point so hard. Like I, as a queer person, was embarrassed for him and also annoyed that he was preaching about shit he was obviously clueless about. And I wasn't the only one. Other people said so in the comments.

This is why there is no fucking counterculture. Jesus fuck.

The Birdcage is streaming for free on Tubi btw.

[shiroselia]

Like yeye whatevs "listen to your playerbase" this or that whatever SSE sure enough

But while you're doing that can you Not make "playerbase" literally just defined as "the fuckers in the instagram comment section" EXCLUSIVELY

[shego1142]

I think it’s also come along with the advent/enforcement of the replies feature, the direct messaging system (tho I do love that) and what I call “tag talk”

I’ve seen a whole lot of people, in their welcoming or begrudging information sharing to the Reddit and Twitter newcomers saying “don’t reblog a post and add anything to the main one unless you think it’s good enough, just add it to the tags.”

And that… feels a bit… off, doesn’t it?

“Put your thoughts and feelings where they’re less likely to be seen!”

In a similar vein I’ve seen people conversing on a post and someone is like “Eugh we have direct messaging just talk there”

The entire ethos of tumblr being a peer to peer communication site has had a huge breakdown, which sucks because it is quickly becoming the only site that still has the infrastructure to be that.

The internet is prioritising a stark and distinct “Entertainers vs the entertained”

In which the idea goes as thus: “if you are not directly making the website money, therefore allowing the website to control you, then sit down, shut up, and don’t interrupt the play.”

It’s very obvious on sites like YouTube, of course, where YouTube can enact wildly inane bullshit policies and enforce said policies by fucking with someone’s livelihood until they fall in line.

But other websites have decided they want a piece of that too. That’s what reddit wanted, more or less; control and profitability. Twitter (rest in pieces) wanted it too.

They’re auto-cannibalising and sifting through their user base looking for the entertainers and silencing anyone they deem “the entertained”

But of course some of it is cultural, we are literally in a depression, for the majority of the world, especially those of us unfortunate enough to be in the United States.

So we have a lot of people coming to tumblr or who are on tumblr who are desperate or petty or both

Who go “Eugh if you don’t have anything funny/interesting to say just keep it to yourself.”

Cringe culture has been repackaged as “boring/annoying/worthy of doxxing” and tumblr users are absolutely afraid to send messages to random blogs they like.

I’m more than moderately aware of it, having been on this site for more than 10 years now, and even I am fully 100% a victim to it.

“What if I say the wrong thing? What if I’m boring/annoying people?”

“What if so many people report my blog just because I said something that annoyed them that tumblr auto-bans me because the company would rather hide the users that a large portion of the website reports than actually review whether what they said was violating terms of service”

Because “terms of service” has devolved to “if what you say might make people upset then we don’t want you here because people being upset looks really bad to the brands that are paying us money.”

I know that sounds like a reach but keep in mind that’s exactly why YouTube took away the dislike button.

At this point being critical of a website can get you kicked off the website, even if that criticism is fair. It’s less rampant on tumblr, for now, but it’s still there.

Social media has become a favourites game. A popularity contest.

It’s no longer about talking to people and making connections and sharing information, it’s about “are you the money maker or are you the product, tell us quick!”

You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?

[littlestpersimmon]

When I read posts on tumblr that's like.... "out of three hellsites, tumblr is the website that is the most pragmatic", it just sort of makes me go "eh.", bc like. It's not untrue that tiktok and twitter is where things tend to be very emotional, where politics are very knee-jerk. But honestly, is what we have on tumblr really any better. On tumblr, things are rife with European apathy and usacentrism; you can't really say anything here without folk pearlclutching or demanding you to adher to respectability politics. Anyway. Seeing people uncritically reblog things that are "we need you to view this ongoing genocide with nuanced lens" originating from blogs containing pictures of the rubble in gaza captioned with abhorrent shit like "you reap what you sow" is. Like. Well. I feel like I have looked out my window and the entire fucking sky has evaporated. And anything more than "what the hell is happening" as a reaction is treated as if *I* am the one who is insane.

[hometownrockstar]

nothing gets me more frothing at the mouth mad than fucking twitter or tiktok people pearlclutching about Midori (1992) you people dont know ANYTHING about the history i know more about that director/animator than any of you who watch a youtube video that just reiterates the plot of Midori scene-by-scene get the fuck out of my face.

Hiroshi Harada wouldn't FUCKING spend 5 years and all his life savings hand-drawing over 5000 animation sheets by HIMSELF to just make a "shock out movie" all his movies are hand-animated ONLY by himself he spends decades on his other movies, and if you looked into the other movies at ALL you'd notice the striking directing and writing style he employs is also shared by Midori. His works are categorized by intense and unflinching rage and emotions while showing disturbingly real abuse and how it affects a person, he drew from his own experiences of childhood bullying for The Death Lullaby, and his films often deal with themes of the cycle of abuse. Midori is about child exploitation. Hiroshi Harada is an incredibly motivated artist who clearly has a lot of passion for his works based on the effort and emotion he pours into them for essentially no profit (as he never gets sponsors and Midori banned in most places)

[bite-the-bloody-hand]

@undyingembers per your tags THE FACT THAT IT'S CONSIDERED A MORALLY NEUTRAL OPTION AAAAGHHH.

It's like. Okay, obviously the idea was to have all the mythic paths fall into this balance of opposites, but the clear indicators that Trickster is meant to be an evil path, yet they don't seem to want to admit it.

There's endless pondering over the nature of good and evil from the purely ontological standpoint, but as soon as you get into the gray areas of examining how the 'jokes' and 'pranks' you're pulling are pretty fucking evil... crickets. [unless it's goodboy Finnean raising hell about it but what can he do? what can he do.]

Why is it that Trickster is about taking away the bodily autonomy of those you oppose? Like for real I am examining this with a high-powered lens because it really fucks with me that the 'mess with the gods' route is run by the 'i love when things are in the closet' evil pansexual sex pest that loves force-tranforming people.

Every time I think about the damn. Trickster option at the end of the quest with Latverk I mentally side-eye the writer like. Oh you thought that one bit in the Vows and Honor series by Mercedes Lackey was really cooking, huh. Just wanted a version of that without the obvious consequences, huh.

Sorry fam but polymorphing a bad man into a woman to be victimized to teach him a lesson is not the restorative justice you think it is jesus FUCKING christ.

[marginaletchings]

tw s*xual assault mention + minor hazbin hotel spoilers, read at your own risk

So, as a SA survivor myself, after finally seeing the clip everyone's freaking out about?

Y'all need to shut the fuck up. I'd apologize for the harsh language, but I am honestly so fed up with this pearlclutching crap.

There's no actual context for that scene yet. That could literally be one of Angel's films. We just don't know.

Even if it is an assault, literally every episode has a trigger warning disclaimer at the start of it.

Angel Dust's whole thing is that he's a sex worker in HELL. Why the fuck are you here complaining about that being carried to its logical conclusion in a story? Would you prefer we just romanticized it and pretended even sex workers IRL don't also have to deal with that shit, or would you prefer to ignore it because it's ICKY? Fuck you.

No depiction of abuse/SA is ever going to be clean and pretty. That's the g-damned point. You idiots would have lost your collective shit if Silent Hill 2 came out in 2024.

Personally, this makes me like Angel more than I already did. I really want to see him overcome those scumbags and if porn and sexwork are things he enjoys, I hope he can still manage to enjoy some aspect of them just to spite what he's been through. Or, if he wants to move on from sex work and finds another purpose, that's okay too. I just want good things for him.

I don't use Twitter but if anyone wants to screenshot this and post it there, go for it. Just redact my username.

[feminisedlad]

i still havent beaten cazador yet but i really roll my eyes when ppl pearlclutch about the ascended astarion ending. have you people never heard of vampires before. of course hes calling you a pet, of course hes being mean and possessive, its a vampire fetish why the fuck else are you here. you people would have a conniption if you ever played vampire the masquerade, swear to god......

[j2zara]

Hiiiiii~ 2, 4, 7, 10, 22, 24, 30 for the fic writer game! 💖

Hiiiii friend! Sorry this took all day my brain is dead rn

2. a character whose POV you’re currently exploring

Lol i'm banging my head against the wall getting killed by LJ3porter fic so i'm like. Right in Girlfail Ellie J4 POV hell rn!!!! She's so fun and i do think writing for her is both easy and hard in that i enjoy doing it (and tbh i think i default to her pov usually when im in LJ3 mode) but i worry i make her way too sopping wet and pathetic. Which she can be pathetic but i worry im going like. way too sad wattpad girl with her.

4. a story idea you haven’t written yet

OK! I've talked about a few different things before so i'm gonna. Well. I'm two sentences into twelfth night j2 being sent to pursue Jace on Porter's behalf fic so i feel like that counts as "not written yet." I also talk about how. I think doing a reincarnation au for LJ3 or the clones in general would be so fun. i'm not sure what kind tho, the version in which they're all new teachers at aguefort is so fun and kinda stuck in my brain now. Plus i wanna write Barbarian teacher Tiefling!Ellie x Sorcerer teacher Aasimar!J3 like so so so so bad i think it would be such a funny way to have them never escaping the torment nexus. I also think it would be fun to write something abt LJ3 in their friends with benefits era. Or maybe one of their more official "date nights". I think if they got into doing roleplay in the bedroom is would be so so so so so so fucking funny. Like. Pretending the other is stranger they picked up at the bar or something.

7. your preferred writing fonts

Tbh i kinda would like to find a perfect writing font? I tend to default Arial and it doesn't look perfect its honestly kinda offputting but. my strategy is. When I feel like my writing looks so so so busted i switch to Verdana which is closer to the ao3 font so i can better visualize how it's gonna look. And that helps a bit. Idk im sick.

10. what is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

That's a good question. Actually? A couple years i think? I abandoned my old talentswap for a couple years before picking it up again in college. (tbh my current ch 3.3 is STILL unfinished so i abandoned it again). Tbh i'm not good at letting drafts rest and returning back to them. I either try to power through or end up abandoning it which i don't love

22. do you ever worry about public reaction to what you’re writing? how do you get past that?

I try not to but like. Yeah. I'm stressed basically every time. I joke that when i write original fiction that i have a hoard of angry twitter pearlclutchers that live in my head ready to rip everything i do to shreds but i try not to listen to them. But i'm worried every time. This has nothing to do with how i feel about you guys tbh i wildly underestimate your guys kindness and goodwill just bc im very hard on myself

I was anxious abt IYWD (I was worried it was gonna come across as too soft or too apologetic). I was anxious that nobody would take to Dyke!Jace/Zara in Who Can Blame a Girl, or i wouldn't be able to sell it

I probably MOST anxious of all about Almost (I was SO stressed that ppl were not gonna vibe at all with Bluejay or not gel with the whole "what if the clones were actual characters" , "born to love porter cliffbreaker, forced to do menial tasks for jaceprime" etc etc thought experiment. and i was so so so so so so scared about dropping the nickname Bluejay i was worried it was gonna be completely stupid and i was completely off the mark)

I was anxious abt Biggest Lie (i was worried it wasn't hot enough or maybe too violent or that it was maybe too shamelessly just like. smut lol).

And after Almost i was probably second most anxious about Stay / Leave. It was just a wip i really struggled with and idk it was so.... insular i guess? b/c it was so niche and the wip ended up being SO LONG and kinda emotional and sappy? Like again i think i was having the same doubts i had abt j2 in which i was like what if i can't sell people on this relationship. What if i've failed to convey something sincere. (that one was crazy tho bc i really really really really tried to release it and not care what happened bc i knew only a handfull of ppl would read it and i really really really tried to be cool and for a while i was but it was just hard i was so nervous and i don't think it was anyones reaction is really was just my nerves that were putting me in such a bad and upset mood and then over the next day or two i. I made this joke earlier that like. I PROMISE and hope i'm not overinflating my ego when i say this like i'm perfectly aware that i just write silly smut online but it really was so so so so funny. to see everyone practically overnight be like.... wait. Are LJ3..... in love??? And now LJ3 is like such an integral part of clone lore.

24. how do you recharge when you’re not feeling creative?

That's a good question bc i feel like. When i'm stuck in one medium i tend to just try and distract myself with another so when im bad at drawing i write and when im bad at writing i draw. But thats not exactly recharging. Tbh i do think i need to find better things in my routine that rejuvenate me i think i haven't been particularly good at treating myself well lately

30. share a fic you’re especially proud of

I'm cringe and usually will shill if you want divinity (you're gonna have to go through me) as one of my favorite things i've ever written. But im also extremely confident most of y'all have already read it. I'm very very hard on myself so i swing between thinking the things i make suck and also being like. Fairly proud of all of them.

But idk it was my first ambitious thing i wrote and FINISHED in a long time and honestly? I do think its slightly better than the rest bc the iterations are all reliant on the original so they're very intertextual and repetitive which isn't BAD but. The extra work it took to make IYWD work makes it feel different to me. There's a LOT of stuff in it that i'm proud of that i honestly kind of miss b/c Porter is so smitten for Jace in a way he hasn't been in things i've written in a long time. I'm a softy who likes when jaceporter are soft and kinda in love... sue me... And like. i always feel so self congratulatory talking about the Loving To the Point of Invention Detect Thoughts + Teleport but i really felt good about coming up with that. And i still like the flashbacks a lot. It always feels so embarrassing to admit that i like. Get emotional thinking about the flashback of them on the bed. Sometimes i tailor make a scene just for me. "I promise i'm never going to let anything happen to you ever again" "as a paladin or a barbarian" "both" is like. Such a scene just for me. And I think the ending is good too. "I'll take it. I'll take it all" just felt so. fitting. It's so him getting to hear himself say to porter "i'll take the thing with you that is broken and fucked and full of compromises even if it has to end". Sigh. Sometimes you're an english major and you agonize over being a good writer for like two decades and realize that you might not be as horrible as you think.

(For the record. i think if i were to rank what i've written for fantasy high from fav to least fave, i'd say IYWD, Biggest Lie, Stay / Leave, Who Can Blame a Girl, Almost, Tell Me How, and it feels weird to put Almost that low bc i do like it. Tbh i regret making it so short i think i could've pushed it further)

Anyway!!! This got long winded as hell. Thanks for the asks they were fun to do!

Send me Fic Writer Asks! / Here are the questions!

[nerdby]

Wish there were more 18+, non kink related communities for age regressors. I want it to be 18+ cause even saying hello to a minor is enough to get someone labeled a pedophile these days especially if you're an age regressor or queer and I'm both. And like heads up--

Who the fuck do you think is fueling the kidcore and nostalgiacore trends??? Adult age regressors and "inner child work" is literally just a synonym for age regression that people use because of the stigma against age regressors.

[deeplightblue]

just say you're misogynist and move along. -nicola had the timing right- k. shes a scapegoat stand in for all you who think she can do no wrong and want to toss her at any cock in the vicinity. but antonia has been the punching bag for nic dick riders to take their bitterness out on. it has nothing to do with luke. nic isn't even a person to you lot and female partners for male celebrates are subject to the most vitriol and almost always from female fans. ask yourself why a man who is exactly antonia's age and is also riding on their more famous partners coattails for a meal ticket isn't the target of a mass bullying campaign like she is. try to answer it without being sexist. no - she was twerking in a bathroom and antagonizing us- slutshaming shite or -nicola did it more perfectly- slobber. where is the pearlclutching moral purity hoard to wahwah about the power imbalance now? goofy af

What power imbalance, what twerking in the bathroom? GO FUCKING ASK THIS QUESTION TO THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY TALKED ABOUT IT. I’m not responsible for everything you read online and clamper. Just say you are a dumb coward and can’t actually face those people who have been hating on that girl and move the fuck along.

And yes, Nicola did it “more perfectly” Suck it :)

[doomhamster]

There's one argument I've been seeing frequently of late in the BG3 fandom (especially over at @bg3fandomcritical-active where it seems to be at least one anon's Favorite Argument Ever, and it drives me up the fucking WALL:

"Why do you even want to talk about devils/vampires/mind flayers doing bad things? That's what's expected, they're bad guys, they're monsters. It's just stupid to pearlclutch about them being evil."

Which... technically they're not WRONG. Making deals with mortals for their souls is indeed what devils do! Vampires drink blood and mind flayers eat brains! These are the facts of the setting!

EXCEPT bringing up that "hey this evil being did an evil thing" is not actually always about "pearl-clutching". Actually.

I don't mention that Mizora entrapped, enslaved and tortured Wyll because I'm surprised that a devil would do a bad thing; I bring it up because too many people in this fandom talk about that situation as though Wyll has himself to blame, or as though he should blame his father, and ignore the fact that none of it would've happened without Mizora.

I don't mention that Astarion was forced to seduce and manipulate people and bring them back for Cazador to feed on because I'm so shocked that vampires would do such things; I mention it because I'm sick of seeing people in this fandom talk about those people, those victims of vampires, as though they deserved what happened to them. Because they had the temerity to think Astarion wanted to fuck them, just because Astarion did his best to convince them of that! (They were probably all drunks and criminals anyway.)

And so FUCKING forth.

[jmtorres]

if your profile says "dni proship" hi why the fuck did you follow me. you are in the wrong place. fuck off with your thoughtcrimes pearlclutching.

[cuntstable]

the thing about ao3 dickriders and the "proship" crowd at large is that it's essential to understand that they operate entirely on bad faith arguments and that strawmanning is a favorite pastime of theirs, which is where you get them falsely conflating resources for combating csa with content that exists for the express purpose of sexually exploitating children as to paint perceived and would-be detractors as pearlclutchers allergic to the presence of mature subject matter. like, I'm not going to pretend for a moment that these arguments aren't absolutely fucking batshit ridiculous but I don't know, it's just a particular brand of insidious that I don't think can be laughed off as just chronically online weirdos being chronically online given how horrifically misunderstood of a topic the general umbrella of sexual abuse is far beyond greasy fandom shipping corners of the internet.

☝️

[wyrmguardsecrets]

"The game is rated T" and therefore it's a good idea to let a kid hang out in Goldshire with TRP3? The game's plot, quests and cutscenes are rated "T", the game at large is rated "Online interactions aren't rated by the ESRB" The entire community shouldn't have to sanitize itself to the point that unsupervised children can run around in it. If you're worried about what kids are exposed to, supervise your fucking kids instead of pearlclutching about your personal hangups in their name.

y'all are missing the point of what people were saying, which is that sexually explicit content in /s or in mods like trp can be reported, lmao. it's against tos. that's all there is to it.

[goopaspect]

youre pearlclutching about ai gay sex cats meanwhile you want to fuck android girls? pathetic