#hes really really problematic and just gross for a lot of reasons and i dont see a lot of people really acknowledging that in a lot of stuf

[rubra-wav]

[ Entry #10 ] What it would be like actually dating Vox hcs

A/N I love Vox, but the reality of it is that he'd be terrible for a lot of reasons and I'm not gonna sugarcoat it in here like at all.

Me when theoretically very complex but ultimately still extremely problematic character: *foaming at mouth*

I love him.. but God I also hate him... but I also love hi-

This is a long one jfc.

Cw: Nsfw - no smut but strong themes, discussion of toxic relationships, manipulation, discussion of emotionally abusive/controlling behaviour, insecure aa toxic cis man behaviour, suggestive at one point

Someone asked me what I thought he'd be like with a yes-man reader so here it is

The worst out of the way first

The thing about Vox is that he's got a fuckton of baggage and bad traits that need desperate management, and they would sure as hell not be being managed by him on his own choice.

As his partner, you would NOT be able to be a pushover or shy away from any kind of confrontation about actions that have upset you because if Vox had a partner like this? He'd become the absolute worst version of himself in your relationship because you would not be calling him out or enforcing boundaries with him.

- He's insecure, and it's in the worst way possible.

And not in the 'aw he just needs to be loved and then he'll be healed' way. I'm talking in the 'toxic, refuses to remedy his own behaviours, becomes very emotionally abusive abt it if you don't pull up your boots and confront him abt it and make sure he actually does shit about it' way.

The fanfic community likes to portray him as a victim in the relationship with Val, and while it's true Val is certainly worse for obvious/overt reasons - He's still not just a victim in that situation. He's also terrible.

Just for reasons that are less overt and are thus overshadowed a lot. Acknowledging that doesn't make the shit Val (at least seemingly thus far. Vox side-stepped the drink being thrown pretty fast and seems accustomed to violent tantrums) does to him any less terrible, it's just the truth he's not a poor defenceless victim in that. (Vox literally goes to try use his mind control power on Val the second he seems like he's gonna damage their image then throws his lowest earners under the bus.)

- In the beginning if you aren't giving him attention at all times, do something that reminds him of Valentino even slightly, or if you do something that he just mildly doesn't like; then he will be passive aggressive or straight up aggressive as absolute fucking hell.

The second he feels slighted even a little bit, he's going to be so pissy.

- And he can't communicate for absolute shit. He thinks you are doing shit on purpose to piss him off or hurt him. This is due to his relationship with Val, but it's not him being a sad sob story kind of thing (not all around at least), he will be awful to you if you allow him to ever be just a victim who can do no wrong.

- He will project all his bs heavily onto you in the beginning with complete self awareness and no thought given to managing his own shit.

If you ask what's wrong when he's acting up he probably would be the type of bitch to go 'nothing's wrong' and will then proceed to ruminate upon it until he ends up exploding about it later on. Or, maybe he'll even do the 'you know what you've done' type of shit.

- He would probably expect you to be a mind reader and when you inevitably aren't aware of wtf is happening because he hates being emotionally vulnerable at all and can't describe what's going on properly for himself, he will be an absolute bitch about it. (Carried here from my other hc that he has a bunch of self-imposed toxic masculinity he needs to deconstruct)

- If you call him out, he will likely try to convince you he's not doing it.

- He'll become increasingly more self-aware of his behaviour you are aware of and will just be even worse because he hates that you could see something about him he doesn't want you to see.

Basically, he feels embarrassed as fuck about it, and cannot apologise because that's humiliating as all hell to him, so instead of turning inwards and dealing with his crap he then proceeds to consciously project shit onto you even when he knows he's in the wrong.

He'd rather argue the wrong point and behaviour than admit he's capable of making mistakes.

He will probably also try to hypnotise you into forgetting anything he thinks is undesirable you know about him too.

- You will need to actually teach him real consequences for his actions, but also need to be assuring him that you aren't going to do shit like Val would have or leave him for someone else and shit like that simultaneously.

He needs to essentially be taught consequences, boundaries, healthy relationship behaviour, etc. From absolute scratch. I would literally pay for this cunts therapy atp istg.

- And this is gonna be an absolute fucking nightmare because again, he doesn't want to admit that he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing and that he's in the wrong. All that interferes with his image he wants to put out at all times in your relationship with him.

He's got masks on masks. Even one for your relationship. The second that cracks in any regard, he's gonna be rushing to compensate for that, and if that doesn't work, he's gonna be pissed and most likely end up pushing that onto you.

- Speaking of image. I mentioned this in a fic, but he'd most likely be extremely controlling over your freedom to disclose your relationship, too. If he thought you would look poor as a partner for his reputation (ie. Low status, bad reputation), he'd most likely never want to publicly reveal your relationship no matter how much he loves you - he'd likely hide this completely behind you having privacy but if you say you want people to know anyway he's going to slowly become more and more overtly pissy about it.

And, if you are openly known to be in a relationship, he will be wanting to control your own image as well.

If you step one foot out of line of what he deems perfect, good lord he will be an absolute nightmare.

- Also mentioned in another post, but he would absolutely also watch you through cameras you don't know are there. Same as what he's seen doing with Val.

- He's got practically zero qualms in the beginning of your relationship with violating your privacy or boundaries if he thinks he'll get away with it/that you won't find out about it. This also likely goes for things like checking your texts, calls, and search history without permission.

- The possibility that he'd try to interfere with your personal relationships if he thought they would try drag you away from him or if they take up a lot of your attention is also pretty present.

He's an incredibly jealous person (as seen by him seeming jealous of Angel with Val of all people), so the second he sees you giving someone else positive attention? He's gonna be fucking furious.

- Again, you could not be a pushover in your relationship with him because he'd be absolutely awful. You'd have to basically be reality checking him every three seconds - it's NOT for the faint of heart and even if you're incredibly patient you will probably be going insane from it at points.

Implying you can actually get him to change tho he would become a lot better - he's gonna be fighting you on practically everything because the second he feels out of control of a situation or himself he's gonna be freaking out.

He will probably be straight up terrified if it seems like you are making him 'change', even if it's for the better and will ultimately ALSO benefit him too.

The SECOND he feels out of control of a situation in any way, he will be terrible.

- Also, if you manage to push him on the path to behaviour management this cunt will be looking smug and proud of himself as all hell the second he even slightly does what you ask and will be a bitch if you don't rain down praise on him for it. 💀

- He's so positive attention motivated it's actually pathetic lmao

With that out of the way - the slightly better/good other stuff

- Vox works fucking nightmare hours with his position in hell, and he hates not being able to be around you much so he's almost always trying to make it up to you.

- He'll be on calls with you or texting you most hours of the day (even when he probably should not be) because he's honestly clingy as hell.

If you don't like having a million notifications from someone blowing up your phone with random shit then you are not going to like being apart from him because he is chronically on his phone.

- Another thing is the gifts.

If you want a sugar daddy aa boyfriend? This is the man for you because my God will he shower you with the most expensive gifts you have ever received. New phones, cars, jewellery, clothes, so on so on.

It's bad if you don't like consumerism and want to keep devices even if newer ones come out because the second something new comes out he's getting it for you - even before it becomes publicly available to the rest of hell, it's in your hands. He wants the best stuff and only the best stuff for you. How would that make him look if his partner didn't have all the best stuff? To you and also others

- Also, the second you mention you actually want or need something? It's there right in front of you. Bro has personal delivery drones, and it will be there in under 15 minutes delivered to you or someone's getting shot.

- I've seen a few people imply gift giving is his primary love language, and it's certainly up there, but I personally think that it's more likely acts of service.

This man never does anything for anyone unless it's to keep things from being annoying to him, self gain, or damaging his image. So for him to do things for you that he knows you want from him even if he doesnt particularly want to? He is well and truly in love with you, and that would be how he'd let you know that even if he isn't self-aware of it, lmao.

He doesn't like being told to do things, but he's really good at picking up on what people want usually (unless he's being delulu) so if he notices something or you mention stuff off-hand? He'll try to do it/get it/whatever it is for you.

Material things are just material things. He's rich, it doesn't mean that much to drop thousands for him. Him actually doing things for you, though? Even if it doesn't benefit him at all? That's something else entirely.

Will be annoying asf if you don't thank him enough for it, though. Ie. "Well, you're welcome then." While pouting at you.

- As for spending time with him:

I believe he constantly wants to be alone with you and only with you when he actually has time to do so, so he only wants dates to be one-on-ond most of the time.

There aren't exactly limits upon that, though, like at all.

He's absolutely rich and has ridiculous privileges so you could be on comfy home dates where you two just stay in and cuddle after eating dinner, or seeing concerts/watching movies/etc exclusively where they are not available to just anyone, or something fucking ridiculous like eating a fancy dinner at a custom designed restaurant just for dates under a goddamn aquarium (very likely ngl)

The second he gets to show off his power, he's gonna do it with a smug grin.

- He's also extremely big on physical touch but would never admit it. I already go over this in another entry, but he's gonna have a hand on you at all times (hand on your waist, hip or shoulder, purposely brushing against you more then he logically has to be, etc)

Brief mentions of sexual stuff here

I feel like he'd love someone big on physical touch - both in a sexual way but also especially in a non-sexual way.

He's not used to getting someone cuddling him or holding his hands or literally just touching him at all without some underlying ulterior motive, so he'd probably just melt into your touch.

Also I'll link the post bc there's further takes on this in it but they are ✨️sus✨️

- He would be extremely protective of you- this can absolutely become one of the blue sections really easily- but if you're in a relationship he's gonna be constantly concerned about your safety and whether you are at risk.

I mean, you're in hell. Just about anyone could turn out to be some maniac (ironic he would think that 🤨)

Anyways, point is, you'd be safe from any other maniacs. He would give you the best security and protection probably in hell.

Another thing is that he's gonna be super paranoid at all times about whether you're safe or not. Which would probably get honestly annoying rather than endearing at a point. 💀

- Even though he's really against revealing his more vulnerable parts and what he doesn't think are desirable of himself, he's absolutely craving emotional security with someone.

So when you get him passed that? He's gonna be so goddamn clingy - even more then before lmao.

Ending note

He's an absolute nightmare who's high maintenance asf and could become extremely abusive emotionally, but he really also needs to be romanced properly for that to actually get better by a partner who won't take his bs and knows how to take him down a peg and put him in his place when he's being awful.

And definitely therapy.

The fact that I think all this and know how much an awful person he is and still love him this much as a character has gotta indicate some sort of insanity/j

[ Masterlist ]

[lggy]

I just wanted to tell you, coming from a past total Jason hater who has now accepted that they were wrong on things, that your takes about him and Jess have helped me get out of whatever parasocial disillusioned mess I was in. I just felt like you deserved to know that you weren’t shouting into the void.

THANK YOU

i'm trying to undo some of the damage caused by parasocial rumors n hater stuff.. i feel like i probably come off as a dickrider and it doesnt help that im the wiki guy on top of that and people probably perceive me as not being critical enough, but i think it's way better to approach things (especially accusations against irl people) with all the facts laid out and with critical thinking (bad-faith interpretations are not critical thinking) and also empathy/believing people's first hand experiences.

i'm mostly advocating for stopping the spread of misinformation and rumors.. but i am biased bc i love aphmau.

it's just really hard for me to hate on jess like some people here do after watching that livestream where she breaks down after talking abt the level of harassment/threats/(now as we learned, stalkers) she got during mcd s2. idk i feel bad for her people are so mean to her :(

a lot of people jump on hate trains bc they dont want to be labelled problematic hence all the ppl who tag their aphmau posts as like "jess defenders dni" "jesson supporters dni" "i dont support aphmau" and it becomes one big spiral of rumors and accusations and becomes a toxic cesspool then wonder why jess ghosted all social medias. it takes effort to get all the information and a lot of ppl dont want to do that, so thats why i'm doing it.

idk i just go about the internet as if the creators can see what i say and draw. some ppl straihgt up want to bar the creators from their own fandoms which is fucked up in my opinion. some of you people are proud of bullying the employees which is extremely gross and cringey too. thats just my opinion though

There really are issues with the workplace, a few current/former employees speak up about it. These are issues brought up in just the past few weeks:

( sebastian's og tweet was last year but he retweeted in the beginning of june for some unknown reason but i won't speculate on that though)

last one is just in general that pulls in over the past couple years^ i don't have any sources for the employee who allegedly had ptsd after working at blujay/catface because i haven't looked that deeply into that in particular and dont know where to look for it

i don't really know what to say about the workplace things.. they hired new HR recently so i guess they're working on it.

I can interview a few current employees to learn more but all i know rn is people in the voice and art department

i had more but its 1 am i have work tomorrow oops gn thank you for hearing me out

[ladylaviniya]

I wholeheartedly agree with your stance on AI "art" being violating and problematic.

However, I do have a problem with the way you stated that even though you know MBB to be an adult, she is still Eleven from ST and a minor in your eyes.

She's 19. She's engaged. Because of her career she is probably more independent than anyone of us was at that age. And I do think that perpetual viewing of actors as 'stuck' as a character they once portrayed is problematic.

This is what happened when people thought "omg Hannah Montana has gone nuts" or "what happened to the sweet Demi Lovato?" Or anything else involving child actors.

What happened? They grew up.

Other than that, your point about AI generated images (I'm not even calling it 'art' anymore) stands. It's creepy and violating, especially because AI is getting 'better' (= more accurate) and I'm honestly afraid that before long we will have full-on deepfake porn videos with actors who never asked for that shit.

That said; it does raise the question with me whether or not a similar stance is warranted against NSFW artwork or smut with the actors rather than portrayed characters as the subject. (I've never been a big fan of RPF, and I don't think I've come across "real person fan art", so I can't really say with certainty if it would make me uncomfortable. But the AI things... They just make my skin crawl.)

You make a valid point!!! Warning long ass post reply below.

The Millie thing I think is more my personal view of her physically. I think I view Millie as still a young child is because of her youthful face and the characters she plays. I'm 22. It's still so hard for me to think she's only 2-3 years younger than me. To me she still looks 16. Very young. If she had a sex scene in the next 5-10 years I might still be inclined to turn away. She definitely has accomplished a lot.

I just cannot physically imagine her in sexual light at this present time. She has child like appearances other than when she's dolled up from a magazine shoot with Photoshop and then appears borderline age appropriate.

The same can be said for actor Bella Ramsey who is 20 years old, they have a very young look in appearance and have played many roles depicting them as younger than their original age. But both of them definitely deserve to be admired and respected to the work they've contributed.

So being told there's ai images with "white sauce" on her face makes my insides churn. Either a very young fan has generated that or someone's computer that might need to be investigated.

I never really knew who Hannah Montana was until wrecking ball (wasn't allowed to watch tv a lot growing up as a kid. And I was always told she was a slut in the tv show which is why I wasn't allowed to watch it -by gross male family members.) and I didn't know who Demi Lovato was AT ALL until the drug scandal- that's how I learnt about her music because they played it on the news. I was probably 13-14 at this time. But I think I understand what you're comparing...I think?

Like how Billie Eillish showed her body off when she was 18 and the internet went crazy, but to be fair I also thought she was in her 20s and was shocked when I found out she was only a little bit younger than me.

I still find myself uncomfortable even sexualising 33 year old Thomas Brodie-Sangster 😵‍💫 he still looks 13 to me!!!

REGARDLESS AS WE BOTH AGREE, THESE ACTORS AND PERFORMERS DONT DESERVE THIS AI PORN DISRESPECT.

For years people used to Photoshop actors faces into photos of pornos, I had issues with that.

The difference when it comes to art? Yes I think some people can be disturbing. We have Rule 34 for a reason guys. However the difference is that the art is usually not "realistic." We can tell it's hand drawn whether digital or hardcopy.

AI is luckily easy to spot usually. But it's too close in resemblance to these real people. A lot of porn websites have resorted to using AI, which is why I have a massive issue with this too. AI is two minutes if writing a description and having a computer generate. It's impulsive and dangerous.

Deepfakes, they've already made pornos with Scarlett Johansson, Taylor Swift and Katy Perrys faces I believe. There was a massive scandal when a man used the face of his female best friend in a deep fake porno because he had a "unrequited crush" for her and when she discovered the deepfake video on his computer while he was busy, she left and took him to court over sexual violation and privacy policies. It was HUGE. i hate Ai and Deepfakes.

There's even a constant debate on pedophiles using AI and Deepfakes as a means of gaining CP without soliciting CP... (I say guillotine their cock, hands, burn off their clits and spoon out their eyes with a melon ball scooper spoon but hey that's me ✌️ barbaric barbie.)

The difference between NSFW smut fics and AI porn, is:

1. Smut takes effort and time to write. AI writes and steals content for you. There's no creativity.

2. Because it's a written fic, they should have warnings and tags. It should be noted in RPF that the actors are not the same as your write them to be. This is why I changed a lot of my rpf into the characters they play.

3. Fics require imagination. AI is visual. No one can police your genuine imagination.

4. There are actors who have been uncomfy or flushed at the sight of themselves or the character version of them in NSFW Situations. Loki the pole dancing art and mpreg were show to Tom Hiddleston, who had a chuckle and many emotions of confusion with disgust and horror. I can imagine many actors would prefer to see an effort in art and literature when it comes to evil things instead of just some half baked computer program that creates lewd and anticlimactic imagery.

.

The only time I have ever excused it's use was for the chance to see my dads face move again because I don't have many videos of him, and as morbid as it is there's a comfort to seeing him smile in ai moveable photo scanning apps. But to many others this would be considered disrespectful to the dead and to be honest I would side with them if it came down to banning ai and Deepfakes forever.

[zagirt]

think its cause the whole “master and servant” dynamic and even though gir follows zim’s directions decently enough i guess it counts but even if they were more traditional in that depiction, people have been romanticizing master/servant dynamics in fiction for forever. it obviously can be troubling in real life but this is literally a fictional world were “poop” is a soda and its an alien and is robot.

plus i dont think ive personally ever seen a zagir shipper ship them in that kind of dynamic of “zim as master takes advantage of his servant robot’s obedience” its always been stuff like “gir who clearly has freedom of will is more intune with things like earth culture including romance and realizes he has a crush/is in love with zim cause he sees around the world and in media fall in love and he wishes that for him and zim and of course gir is the one that is always trying to smooch on, gift zim flowers, etc etc and zim only familiar with being an angry irken, is more annoyed about this than anything and thinks its just a thing that will pass as its just gir being silly as usual.” (i like to think zim just gets used to it and accepts it, is arguing with dib one day and gir just comes up and gives him a cheek on the kiss and then lives and zim never stops what hes doing and dib is like what huh did anyone else see that?)

like thats the main/default way i see it of course there might be people out there that ship it in a gross way (but tbh really we barely have any shippers as it is so like if theyre out there theyre not making content of it, which is fine as i just care for wholesome zagir things), and of course there are plenty other sweet scenarios were they “fall in love” in a wholesome way like zim realizing “oh yeah i guess i do care about gir a lot, in fact maybe i would care if anything happened to him and maybe seeing him be stupid sometimes makes me smil- oh no.” and then theres some cute drama from that because oh no hes a great irken soldier he cant fall for his robot servant!! zim isn’t capable of love even!! whats wrong with zim!! and gir is like “awww it ok” gives him a smooch and zim is like SCREAMS THATS NOT HELPING

but yeah half the time gir isn’t even around zim and is just doing whatever he wants, which is interesting on its own because zim never automatically needs him, and it only takes a couple of tries against something until he’s like ok i need gir for this and then gir comes from god knows where to help, be it that sometimes he makes it worse

people who complain about a power imbalance or anything like that just dont like the ship which is fine! but to go out of the way to make up reasons they dislike it is because its problematic and anyone who likes it is problematic too is dummb

it shocks me when people say zagir is a power imbalance

im sorry but in most works ive seen under this ship GIR is the one taking initiative

and honestly it just?? doesnt make sense??

the whole point of gir at first was to be like "haha sir unit that doesnt obey"

thats the point!!! gir is still willing to do what zim asks but way less compared to that of a normal SIR unit

also if you ask me, gir is just generally the type to do things like confess first and take initiative on affection

(bonus for this ranty post; gir would beat zims ass at board games)

[fineanimesideblog]

dragon ball for the fandom asks :D

WoAh I somehow didn't actually expect to get any of these?? Thank you! OK here goes;

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

gonku 👁️💋👁️. Not just because he Sparks Joy (though he does) but because his character is genuinely very multi-faceted and really interesting in a lot of ways that don't really seem obvious until you deep dive into the veritable hell that is Overthinking Dragonball Lore™️. I love that he's such a legend and a hero but also very very much Just Some Guy. But he's also NOT a complete moron and just. I could go on about him all day. No thoughts only Goku supremacy.

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

OK this could be so many characters honestly, the way Toriyama draws kids is ILLEGALLY cute with their round little designs. I go absolutely feral over any picture of tiny Goku, but since I don't want to put him twice; Gohan. ALSO an insanely complicated character with a bonus of some crazy trauma but that's not what this category is about SO. Anyway I want to pick him up and squeeze him.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

I've done all three members of the Son family now sjdjd but seriously. Chichi is amazing and anyone who says anything bad about her owes me money. She's not perfect and has flaws in the same way nearly ALL the characters do (where it's mostly played for laughs until it Isn't) and she gets SO much unnecessary flack for it that other characters don't. Respect her or leave my sight 😤

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

🥰🥰🥰🤗🤗🤗🤗💕💕💕 omg hiiii hi there 17 hiii. What is there to say really. hi for the love of god HELLO

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

look listen it doesn't get much more problematic than this. but in my defense i don't like frieza in an "omg scrungly 🥺 i want him 2 be redeemed" way. I just think he's funny and adrogynous and so so good at being a major bitch and i like watching him fuck as much shit up as possibly everytime he's on screen.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

i have no specific beef with vegeta in cannon and in fact i think he's kind of funny and kind of interesting (sometimes) but speaking purely as a mascot for his fans well. I would put him in the toilet. vegeta gets stanned by THE most annoying people on the planet to THE most rabid degree where no one can even point out the obvious flaws about him without fearing for their lives ALSO his schtick got kind of old after awhile. You are NOT goku's bestie you will NEVER be krillin grow up and get a hobby that isnt pretending you dont love your wife so you can continue to collect your Evil Severence Package or whatever.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

look i can accept *checks notes* mass genocide and space racism but i draw the line at unfunny gross sexual harassment of minors. Die forever.

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

Omg do you have more cute hcs with the lov and class1a/1b

I dont care how long or short it is, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE READING THEM 💕💕💕💕💖 😊😊

Theyre so comforting <333

YES I HAVE A BUNCH. COME TAKE IT ALL.

Tomura is an expert in video games, right? Well, he's currently working from afar with Hatsume and Melissa to create a VR system to help the kids at UA train.

Everything because the first thing he did when meeting Nezu was telling him the UA system sucked.

No more public exposure, no more simple barriers keeping away the villains from the kids, no more pushing them to dangerous places with no proper supervision.

The new job of the League when it comes to working is the UA is keeping the place as safe as possible and helping the kids recover from the trauma of the war.

Dabi doesn't like working directly with the kids, so his job consist on patrolling around the UA. In case a crisis is reported, he's the first at the place and his job is to keep the crisis on minimum 'til the teachers arrive.

The funniest part is the type of crisis he has solved so far. They include:

Helping people with their crushes because they tried to confess and caused an accident. (Dabi has the fun of his life with it, being honest).

Accidents in the kitchen. (No much he can do except using Shoto as a way of taking down the flames).

Stupid fights (He is banned from helping in those since he cheered for Shoto when he was fistfighting Iida for saying something to Midoriya).

And his favorite: keeping Mineta at bay. Dabi is not the type of gentleman that defends women constantly, because he just doesn't care about helping anyone. But Mineta is a type of gross he would have incinerate in the streets if he was a man and not a kid. So instead, he just walks from a safe distance and keeps scaring the kid when he's about to annoy one of the girls.

Tomura always find Dabi is the halls complaining about the no smoking rule

They make fun of each other a little until they realize they should be working and there are kids staring at them.

Class 1-A talks about Dabi like the older brother who was in jail.

Oh, but Dabi told me...

They are actually well informed about a bunch of stuff and they know how to take care of street criminals better now.

Ah, but they're also the ones who check if he is not drinking too much, if he's having proper rest, if his burns and staples are taken care of, if he's not too anxious or depressed, if hes' taking his meds...

If he's not following one of those, they call Natsuo. Oh man, Natsuo has become the emergency contact of half the League somehow. Maybe because he has a golden heart or maybe because they all are scared of Fuyumi by some weird reason.

Shoto is the other emergency contact when it comes to Dabi, hmmm, but sometimes he just follows Dabi bad example and well.

Dabi is the anti-Santa. He's gonna give you that one gift you wanted but everyone said no because it's dangerous.

"Dabi, I'm trying to make a safer space for the kids" , "Tomura, I'm trying to make them relax".

After getting fired twice by Aizawa, Dabi is finally behaving.

This has nothing to do with the fact that he's finally dating Tomura tho.

WHICH TAKE US TO: SPINNER, THE BROTHER WHO ACTUALLY ACKNOWLEDGES HIS RESPONSIBILITIES.

Spinner works in the same thing as Dabi, but he's the reliable one.

Getting Uraraka down when she starts floating on her sleep, calming people down when they're having anxiety attacks, noting when someone is having a bad day and requesting the teachers to let the person rest...

Spinner is the one actually helping them with their ptsd. He makes everything so easy and pleasant. It's like they're just kids taking classes and having fun.

Besides, class 1-B knows he is amazing at cuddling and people love his hugs. Just by seeing Spinner, they cheer up.

He and Shinso are responsible for the purple hair tendency among the kids of General Studies. Their heroes.

He's also the one who helps the kids with their training sessions when they need a partner but there's no one else to help them.

He became one of the official bus drivers of the school after taking some lessons and requesting a license.

He sings with them while they travel, he always has snacks in case someone is hungry and he has pills in case someone is motion sick. Well, a bunch of pills since Dabi is always motion sick.

He had a crush on Tomura but he realized it was more platonic than anything.

Now now, Tomura and Spinner have matching gamer tattoos that said Player #1 and Player #2. Dumbasses in action.

If Dabi is the problematic uncle and Spinner is the responsible uncle...

That leave us with: Compress the artistic dad and Kurogiri the dad who's always working far away but you can totally rely on.

THE VIDEO CALLS WITH KUROGIRI AND COMPRESS ARE SO CUTE.

101 Flirting with Compress.

All the kids in all courses have a personalized mask. Compress is addicted to creating them.

His beautiful, mischievous kids that once, trying to distract him, stole his prosthesis and kept it going around the school from room to room.

Turns out it was a surprise party, but man if it was fun because Compress pretended the whole time he was a pirate looking for his long buried treasure.

HE GOT A PARROT AND HE NAMED HIM RED BEAK.

Bakugo almost exploded the whole place after hearing such a ridiculous name.

Well, Red Beak loves making fun of Bakugo, repeating everything he says.

RED BEAK AND KIRISHIMA ARE BESTIES. YES YES.

The Bakusquad would kill for Red Beak.

Sero is teaching him Spanish, Mina is teaching him to dance, Denki is teaching him bad jokes and Jirou is teaching him to sing.

Tokoyami is the official protector of Red Beak. Koda is the translator.

On the other hand, Kurogiri always gives them some honey and other things when he visits the school.

He congratulates them on their achievements, he hears them for hours talking about their adventures and he is the old friend you call when it's 3am, you're feeling bad but you don't want to worry no one else.

If you want to solve a problem, call Kurogiri. He's gonna give you the clues but let you solve it yourself.

The award for the dad with more patience goes to: KUROGIRI.

If you really really need to run away from some hours, he can use his quirk to rescue you and he would prepare some tea for you, wrap you in a soft sweater and walk with you through his yard. You can pick flowers or fruit with him until you calm down. Or you can watch old movies with him. Or bake. Being with him is like floating around in the sky, no worries, just clouds and stars and soft noises and lights.

The school always knows when it happens and they are okay with it. Mostly. Just don't do it too much.

Toga is another good option if you need to talk but you don't know with who.

She's actually a great listener and an expert on making things look less stressing than they are. You see, she pays attention at your triggers and moods and if she sees something is bothering the students, she finds a way to distract them immediately, while letting the teachers deal with the problem.

Ah, the queen of gossip.

If you want to know something about someone you need to pay the prize, tho. And she won't even tell you if she considers the secret must be guarded 'til the grave.

She's the one who takes the messages to the parents because she's fast, can hide at plain sight and doesn't put them in danger.

You never know where Toga is. She someone studies like the rest of them, but she's like, selected to secret missions. She has a lot of info but they all trust her somehow.

Maybe is the fact that she would kill and take a stab for you. And that she would never put Deku or Ochaco in danger. Or her family.

She's also Mineta's biggest nightmare.

Try sexualizing the girl and win a terrifying week, courtesy of Toga Himiko.

She won't let you sleep, she won't let you eat, you're gonna wish you were never born. She can make you feel as sexualized, observed and stalked as you make the girls feel. Oh, she's gonna show you exactly how it feels to be a girl.

Also don't sexualize the boys around her either. Stabby queen is not gentle to those who are not gentle with her friends. Period.

Friendly reminder: 0 stabbing accidents since she started studying at UA.

BECAUSE THEY GAVE HER A RUBBER KNIFE.

And finally, the Tomura headcanons.

He's always falling asleep on odd places. The kids have a new name called "let's put a blanket on Tomura".

And then they call Dabi or Spinner to take him somewhere more comfortable.

He's working so hard. He's really working so hard on redeeming himself, even when everyone has already forgiven him. But he has this fear of being a failure or being too much...

The kids are also well trained on how to help him through his anxiety or panic attacks. Even more, some of them have always a pair of gloves in them just in case.

Momo is more than happy to make him more.

It's kinda sad how much he's suffering even now. That's way they all do their best to let him know his doing great.

Kisses in the cheek, compliments on how he's looking, new products to his hair and skin, playing the games he recommends, telling how badass he is when he trains them...

Somehow being around Tomura has help them realize how important is communicating stuff. They all are way healthier now.

Tomura is just... So sincere. He's been instructed to share his thoughts, because he had a problem before with communicating properly. That means he used to forget saying certain information because it was obvious to him, but not to others.

He doesn't mean to hurt people. He's just saying what he thinks. Which also means he offends a bunch of people not by accident. And he doesn't apologize because he is just doing what he's been told.

Midoriya and Shigaraki's discussions are epic. And so are their fights. Yes, they fight like siblings. Which is crazy funny because they are like "friendly reminder you tried to KILL ME" and "WELL YOU DESERVED THAT FOR BEING A DICK".

They've finally found out that you can complain to him or get a little violent and he's not gonna even blink, just hear you out.

It was because Bakugo got a little violent with him and yeah, he just stared back waiting.

You can't imagine Dabi's anger when Tomura told him about Kotaro. He was frustrated because at least Tomura did step on Endeavor and humiliated him for life, but him? He is angry with a man that's dead and gone.

Okay no, the whole League is angry about the things that has happened to the whole League. That's the thing with finally being able to relax and feel. It all comes back in a flood.

They have prohibited being around school when the parents visit. Specially because they are no very civil to shitty parents.

And if a kid confess about having shitty parents, oh boy. The League is gonna BE PISSED.

The UA is still a total chaos, but now in the right ways. They have more normal problems, they don't have to win war and kill evil lords, they complain about not having money to go out and forgetting their homework. And the ex-villians can complain about life being boring a needing more action.

That's a good thing. That means they all are healing, together.

They're gonna be fine.

[mariaiscrafting]

just saw discourse described as a game of telephone by an @angeloncewas anon, and I have never seen a more apt description for internet discourse and all its issues.

I'm usually hesitant to side with people who are super against cancel culture because there is almost always at least a tinge of anti-wokeness which manifests in actual, veiled bigotry, or the desire to "go back" to being a bigot without social or career repercussions. however, if you understand internet discourse and cancel culture as basically a game of telephone, I think that sums up a really big issue with how it actually functions.

a lot of times, the reason cancellation is ultimately ineffective in fulfilling its original purpose- providing a plurality-based means of silencing, deplatforming, and/or taking the power away from harmful people and bigots, as an alternative to legislation or corporate policies -is because people now brush off cancellation automatically, assuming it's likely sensitive drivel from minor stuff, usually taken out of context. this isn't a totally unfounded fear, though. because cancellation is just a game of telephone, the original problematic action or words spoken are oftentimes blown out of proportion, fueling the internet outrage machine.

first, you usually have someone who makes an allegation or posts receipts about another person, making an explicit or implicit claim about that person's character and essentially making a case for why that person should be deplatformed, prosecuted, unsubbed from/unfollowed, ostracized from their industry, etc. because it's very easy to make these claims, you get thousands of them popping up all over the internet every day, so many are bound to be generally unfounded, biased, incorrect, misunderstood, etc. that problem is then exacerbated by others, who feel outrage at seeing the original accusations, and spread the word to their followers or friends. the issue then is that they summarize or reformat the issue at hand, oftentimes generalizing, equivocating, or misinterpreting the original accusation.

so you can get a stupid telephone-like chain like this:

amanda: "Jim is so gross, look at this. if you support him, I dont want you near me: [3 second clip of Jim calling a young woman on tik tok hot, without realizing she is 16 years old.]" -> jamie, amanda's follower: "did you hear that Jim is objectifying underage girls? so fucking predatory" -> linda, jamie's follower: (quote tweeting jamie's tweet) "bro he's such a pedophile, what the fuck" -> 5 hours later, "JIM PEDO" is trending on Twitter

it's not like all internet discourse or cancellation attempts are usually unfounded. like, a grown man should not be calling an underaged teenager on tik tok hot in public, this is true. but the minor issue at hand could have been rectified by simply pointing this out to the CC directly, and him thereby apologizing and taking care to always look for/ask people's ages when he reacts to things on-stream/on video. instead, the one comment is taken by one person, slightly reshaped to not really be the truth, but not really a lie, taken by another person who extrapolates meaning from the second person's summary/paraphrasing, and next thing you know, thousands of people online all think this horrible thing about someone because only 4% of them have even seen the original video/tweet.

it's just shitty telephone, man.

[aprito]

hello <3 since i got these asks at the same time i decided to combine my thoughts on them in this post. yet another annoying sjw essay from yours truly on this blog 

before i get into these i think i need to preface why im like. i guess overly hyperfocused on a certain unproblematic base (same age au / platonic canon) for them and avoid the ped0philic content like the plague lol

tw for pedophilia ment, rape ment if that makes you squicky. ALSO THIS IS LONG AND RAMBLY

as i’ve mentioned a couple times already, ive been into the ship since i was 12, back when it was very very common to not only post untagged (nsfw) canonverse content of the two in writing and in drawing but also non con and the like, so you can imagine how bad my first impression online was. thinking back on it ...as a child i found it disturbing but didnt really register how problematic it really was?? (i know, but i also lived in the middle of nowhere and had no one explain this to me) 

skip to 2014 aka me coming back to naruto at 17ish and i had kinda become hyper aware of the fact that there was an increasing amount of people online who had come forward with explaining how fictional problematic content, mostly pedophilia, had been used to groom them into starting relationships with adullts. it was also a time where a lot of people didnt believe these victims, not registering how common it was for minors to be online friends with adults who had no boundaries and no qualms exposing them such content. not gonna get into my personal life here but i was lucky to not having gone through this myself. like... it kinda was my first time truly realising how fiction can EASILY be used to manipulate others irl (and yes i will not argue this, if you dont think fictional media can form and manipulate people’s opinions on attitudes, countries, cultures and virtues, pick up a book about the effects of propaganda media at least once please) 

i, being young, still liking the dynamic but not really the romance, would point this out here and there in the fandom and get into fights with grown adults in their mid 20s who assumed i automatically hated the ship(s) and tried to restrict their freedom of speech or whatever, heard everything from the “age of consent doesnt exist in naruto” to the “sasori looks like a child what does it matter” despite people clearly playing on him being older and experienced. it made me so upset that people were just consuming all this content uncritically and exposing children to it tbh?? not really just sos but a lot of minor/adult ships in naruto in general. and thats where i sat down and thought, i do not want to be a grown adult talking down to children that point out how unsafe the fandom is. theyre absolutely right in drawing these boundaries and calling out adults who defend the uncritical consumption and creation of this content. i do not want to consume or create content that predators could use to groom minors, and i absolutely do want to let younger people in fandom know that i am respecting their comfort zones and want them to have a safe and fun experience. after all, naruto is not an adult show and i think a lot of people forget that!!!! i am not perfect in that regard but its something that i, at the age of 23, am very passionate about and strive towards to.

and i guess thats where same age au was born for me and i have been sticking to it ever since. 

so finally we can move to the first question 

aside from the fact that we both dont like canon sos, i dont think it would work out even if i wasnt prejudiced to it anyways. in all honesty, 35 year old canon sasori is not a redeemable character to me, given the fact that he’s easily amongst the cruelest villains in naruto (torturing and killing and taxiderming people for his own fun personal gain, never for a goal that served anyone but himself. how do you redeem having over 300 corpses in your backpack that you felt absolutely no remorse for killing). sasori was legit one of the only cruel villains that didnt had someone else pull the strings, which sends a clear message on kishi’s part, who absolutely loves to redeem villains LOL.

being that old, he obviously had already been very manifested in what he believed in, even if it was shakey, to the point where the first crack in that world view (sakura and chiyo protecting each other) immediately had him give up on his life all together. that, in my opinion, is not a man who’s going to know what healthy relationships would look like, regardless of it being romantic or not. 35 year old sasori to me has the same appeal as an expired can of tuna and he’s probably very happy 6 feet under. he’s supposed to be a failed gaara in that sense that he had no one to look out for him and therefore was never going to experience anything but a bad ending in life. its fine that hes dead honestly, it wraps up his short character development the best IMO.

adding to that, seriously, sakura was obviously interested in knowing why he was that way, and called him out for being seriously fucked in the head, but it’s weird to me that people assume she had any interest in actively rehabilitating him, let alone starting a serious romantic relationship with him. sakura who’s not only very, uhm, immature and straight forward when it comes to her romantic viewpoints also, as a big bootlicker, wouldnt soil her standing in the village by starting anything with a disgraced and far too gone criminal like sasori. shipping that version of sasori with sakura intimately is still going to set her up for a huge power imbalance that would be difficult to handle imo, even if she was the one in the fight ultimately exerting her power over him. i would still look at it and think damn she deserves better than having to play therapist for man like that lol.

additionally, even if you ignored all of this, you cant really ignore that sasori had already known her as a child, and that had been his first and most impactful impression of her. i dont think that sasori would look at 35 year old sakura and see her as a grown woman and not the little green girl she was in the fight. plus, you easily fall into predatory comparison territory between the “childish” and “womanly” and i have seen way too often in fic just being boiled down to her now being fuckable. a lot of of ships do this and i would just like to remind yall thats it not normal for adults to want to start relationships with children they have seen grown up or known as a child when they themselves were fully grown adults. therefore, maybe if sakura hadnt met sasori before it would be less of a problem? but that also obviously defeats the point of the dynamic and the reason he died in the first place. so yeah, it sounds kind of doomed especially if you were to make it romantic. 

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE SECOND QUESTION

let me preface this that im not fundamentally against age gaps, even if im not super interested in it. after all, colorblind had a 5 yr age gap (with sakura being 21), even if, say, i wrote similar fics today i probably would make it smaller lol. i think it can be handled well if both parties have enough life experience to deal with it, and the author is cautious of where the age gap starts, i think a 10+ year age gap would be fine in a scenario where the younger party (i guess sakura) was at least 25-27ish, meaning she has completed most of her most formative life stages and probably had been in relationships before, meaning she would be able to handle it without having to fear a huge power imbalance. the older the younger party is the less the age gap is going to matter tbh .TsukiHoshino and AngelOfDeath10 both handle age gaps in their fics really well imo, so i do not mind reading about them.

unfortunately, a lot of people in this fandom think making sakura barely "”””legal””””” (18, not even 20 which is hilarious to me because the source material is obviously japanese) because they both cannot stand her being past her “prime years” of being young fertile and fuckable to much older men as well as thinking a 20 year old is automatically old enough to handle that type of relationship. ive seen a lot of unironic takes that believe it will absolve them of callout posts if they throw around age of consent and “shes 18 now suckers!!!” enough lmfao. absolutely hilarious. aging a minor up without aging the adult down seriously reeks of predatory “cant wait until youre 18″ narratives and thats why i find it similarly disturbing as straight up pedo shipping.

ultimately, sasosaku is and will always be a inherently problematic ship in canon, which is why i think it should always be handled a little more responsibly in fandom spaces, ignoring or outright excusing the main problem factor, which is sasori, isnt going to convince anyone that the dynamic in itself is well written and interesting enough to explore in aus, like giving sasori the redemption most of us wanted him to have by aging him down to a point in time where he was still realistically going to allow being positively influenced, similar to gaara. 

so really, what i think is well handled age gap and how most people handle age gap in the naruto fandom are two different worlds at times lol 

tl;dr

canon shippers have never been anything but gross when i was younger and i didnt wanna be like that, even if youre “smart”enough to differenate, actual creeps dont really care and might use your content to blur the lines, sasori isnt rly redeemable so romantic canonverse realistically wouldnt make much sense and is still iffy, age gaps are fine if they are handled well, but given that the dynamic doesnt really need the age gap to still work im not that invested on making that an essential part of my shipping experience.  

thank you for reading and hope this makes sense!

[mis-calculated]

I'm sorry i mean this in the most well intentioned, i want to support good credible people and stand up for people who have been wronged or marginalized by shitty people in power but i am honestly very frustrated and tired by the large issue of cancel culture from all sides.

And this isnt to say that people who are documented to be shitty shouldn't lose their position of power to others way more worthy. But theres a lot of moving parts to it that make it way more complicated than people have a tendency to paint it and I'm just so frustrated and hurt by a lot of people.

I don't understand why the fuck internet celebrities, particularly in the youtube gaming sphere can't just be decent people for once in their life. And this isnt even from someone who "stans" their favorite celebrities or anything. When I engage with youtube I legitamentally just watch content creators I enjoy and sometimes allow myself to get inspired through them. I don't really engage in fandom culture, I hardly ever even super find it important to meet them at a convention, I literally just watch videos about games I enjoy where the creators seem nice and intelligent and inspiring in some way and just think about them as cool people I wouldn't mind being friends with if circumstances were different. And even after appropriatly distancing myself like everyone on this website says to do, I still end up getting hurt because the average celebrity apparently cannot handle their fame going to their head in some way. I'm angry at creators for letting themselves sink to these levels.

I'm also frustrated at everyone on all sides' inability to fully grasp the weight of what their content means to people and how it affects them. Im angry at content creators for not realizing that through theyre platform they do have a bit of a responsibility to their fans and that even a fan that engages on a healthy level with a piece of creative work is likely to be moved by it in some way. Im also angry at people that continue to perpetrate the idea that if you feel some sort of genuine hurt and sorrow towards media with eventually problematic creators, that you are also problematic and a shitty person for not dropping it immediatly. I am not kidding when I say I don't know how I would have made it through middle and early high school without the Harry Potter series, and I'd be lying if i said that it wasn't one of the most impactful things I read to my creative endeavors, as well as still being a comfort universe for OC's I have purely for myself. Does that mean I support J K Rowling being absolutly shitty towards trans people recently? As a fellow trans person, absolutly not. The Game Grumps Wind Waker playthrough is a series I literally watch at this point as one of the few things that can calm me down when I'm having a panic attack. I think I've been watching their playthroughs since I was twelve years old and whether people like it or not, it has affected me in a profound way. Does this mean if the current allegations turn out to be glaringly true, or others continue to come out, that I am supportive of these disgusting behaviors? Absolutly not. But it still fucking hurts like hell.

Another layer to this has been the rising conversation in the classical music community about the unfortunate reality that much of our musical canon is from old white guys, some of which with deeply racist or classist views. And yes. I genuinly think its so terrible and unfortunate that the only music we have record of reflects pretty much one singular demographic of people, while everything else was pretty much lost to the unpublished masses. I also want to continue to dedicate some of my musical efforts to continuing to support female, lgbt, or poc in the classical music scene who are unfortunatly fighting against more of an uphill battle than I can fully comprehend due to my own privilages. Last week a kid in the year below me made a comment about how infuriated he was that the music history professor talked about Wagner in class without mentioning his gross antisemetic views, which i think is pretty justified anger. I think its really important in mentioning in these figurehead composers, especially people like Wagner who's platform was grown from his antisemitism, both their work but also their moral problems. However, they then said that we should stop learning about Wagner because of the shitty things that he's done. And I've heard that same sentiment echoed all the time in classical music recently. And again I believe this is a way more complex issue where I have to disagree. Whether we like it or not, Wagner's music is directly related to an entire school of thought in music from his time, and is also a major reason in the way opera music shifted and why our modern film music exists. You cannot just extract Wagner from the history and merely learning about him doesn't mean you are continuing to perpetuate the ideas that he believed in or supporting him and providing him a platform. I would argue that not learning about him at all and being uninformed is almost worse in a way because that also leaves room for atrocities to be swept under the rug and lost to time that shouldnt be. But there are people around me that strongly disagree and may view me in a certain light because of it. And im just so frustrated with it.

I've done a lot of growing in the last year and i genuinly do want to be a better, and more informed person every single day. I am so overtly aware of some of the privilages i have due to merely my race that others do not and I continue to examine and reexamine how that affects the views that I hold and this situations that I find myself in.

But I'm also just so fucking angry at the people who screw up like this in the first place and also everyone who perpetuates the idea that media is simply just media and if youre upset youre probably also problematic.

This is a rant and a half and i apologize and hope it makes atleast some sort of coherent sense. I generally dont share my views on stuff like this because Im aware of the ways it comes off. Im just so tired and upset about the things that were important to me in my life getting tainted or ruined by people being shitty but also feeling like I don't have a right to mourn it. Thanks for reading.

[gay-country-fangames]

please lets not be shitty

tws for talk of racism, eugen/cs, n*zis, slavery, genocide, etc. read at your own risk but please be aware this message is important. so this isnt specifically related to hetagames but its related to hetalia and i think its important that everyone hear it again just to be sure. im going to shelve my rabid persona for a minute because this is super important and a super serious thing.

making hetalia OCs or 2ps or personifying characters based off of problematic time periods from their history is not okay.

some examples include: -n*zi germany this is so wrong for so many obvious reasons everyone should know by now but for the sake of the post im gonna go into detail a lilbit. so many people were killed and both physically and mentally tortured during this time period, a large group being jewish people. during this time period german schools taught eugen/cs to their children which was a  h i g l y  racist concept. n*zis basically hated everyone that wasnt a blonde blue eyed ‘pure blood’ german. everyone else deserved to die according to them, and thats just.... not something that you make an anime boy about? like no. please. -civil war era america/the confederacy/the confederate states of america this one some people seem to think is okay for??? some goddamn reason??? no??? okay i know a lot of non-americans might not understand what exactly the civil war was so here we go heres a very watered down explanation. once upon a time there was slavery in america. we all know that. but at one point the public opinion shifted to thinking ‘hmm, maybe slavery is actually really fukin gross and bad? hey lets pass a law to ban slavery.’ and the southern states went ‘wait no we like slavery.’ and they went and said ‘this law would violate our constitutional right to states rights. we should be able to choose whether or not each state has laws against slavery!’ which is bs by the way they just wanted to keep owning slaves but they called it a violation of states rights so they could start a war over this shit. so then the south decided to form the confederacy and then they declared war on the north to try and break away n have their ‘right’ to own slaves. by the way this wasnt just a buncha racists fighting for their right to own people a lot of them also made their slaves fight in the war. so black people were being forced to fight for their own enslavement. lovely. spoiler alert they lost hella bad and the emancipation proclamation was signed which helped pave the way for black people to be free. the confederacy through its entire short life stood for nothing but slavery and racism and that is  n o t  something that its okay to make an anime boy out of okay please stop this.

-Communist Russia okay look. look. stop what youre going to say and read this. okay? okay. yes i know himaruya kind of wrote about this already. no that does not make it okay. hes human just like anyone else and hes realized his problems and faults and doesnt write that shit anymore. and even if he hadnt thats no excuse. even if he had kept making it that wouldnt make it okay. creators arent perfect and everything they do isnt automatically moral. popular people do stupid insensitive shit all the time and they have to be held accountable for it. anyway if you really need to be told why communist russia isnt good ‘uwu anime boy’ fodder then you really need to read a history book. but in short; genocide. mass starvation of their own people. imperialism. etc. bad shit. lets not.

-Mafia AU Romano okay this isnt really a time period perse but it felt like it belonged on the list so i put it on. its my list i can add what i want. so anyway ive seen southern italian people express blatant discomfort with this before, and from what i remember it stems from both racism and classism to a certain extend and thats just.... uncomfy. i get the appeal of a mafia au ok some people find crime hot but if its blatantly making people uncomfortable then id suggest you stop. other peoples comfort is more important than your fanfic. just make some generic crime lord au or summ instead idk it dont have to be the mafia all the time an it dont have to be romano all the time. if anyone who has a better feel for this wants to expand on it be my guest.

anyway im sure theres many more but these are the things i see the most. feel free to rb and add your own “please dont”s to the list. an before anyone gets on me about “why is this stuff bad but things like ancient rome arent” look ancient rome did about as much bad shit as england did but we dont all cancel mister arthur monster brows do we? the difference is these examples are narrowing a character down to one specific problematic period of their history (or in the case of the mafia thing one single small problematic part of the countrys history) and ancient rome represents the entirety of the countrys existance which did more than just imperialism and murder and shit. ok mun lei out now.

[sothischickshe]

did i ever send you asks? did i???? anyway i have faith in you and believe that you can answer #3 four times ❤️❤️❤️❤️ (but also i really want you to answer 4, 20, 6, and 9 heh heh)

i dont fucking KNOW, am i to remember things???? although i presumably would have felt a jolt of disgust at seeing your username so maybe i’d recall if you had???

re 3 x 4, im a total hypocrite cos i did basically this to someone else but ugh, topics make it easier!!!! but ok

3. rant. just do it

i. serenity isn’t that good of a film. look, i like firefly, i like it a lot! and obvi i can appreciate why ppl feel fondly about the revival-ness of the film, and it was trying to tie a lot together. but i hate how the thread of moral greyness of the show was kind of lost and suddenly they (and especially mal) are like there is RIGHT and WRONG blah blah blah. (also, i kinda hate how in the board game characters get neatly denoted as im/moral... feel like whoever made it was watching a different show to me tbh)

ii. the make your own post button is free!!!!!!!!! sure there are times when additions are totes reasonable and fun, but if you wanna make a different point... just make your own post.

iii. i mean i’m not a lesbian so maybe this isn’t my rant to have but i had an anon gold star lesbian ask in my inbox which i deleted... like fuck off with that gross judgemental shit?

iv. nore’s whole waffle abt how they’ve had so few lady guests on drink champs bc the only women whose phone numbers he has are his wife and foxy brown is LUDICROUS. first of all... dream fucking guests???????????????? so!!!!???????????!!!! second of all, hire a booker???????? third of all MARY EP WHEN. i feellllll like dave east was sorting that out for real yea??????????

all right, good number choices. i’ll give you that.

4. do you think it’s ok to separate the artist from the art?

i think it’s ok to enjoy things made by terrible people. you can’t change what you like, and i think it’s disingenuous to pretend that you can. like, i hate r kelly, but that doesn’t make ‘vibe’ a bad song, nor can it. however, you can choose whether or not you (still) want to engage with that person’s creations, and i think you do have to make a decision as to whether you want to (financially) support that creator. (i do not!)

ultimately, i think you can rarely successfully separate creator from creation, their perspective leaks in. and understanding that can make your appreciation of their creations much better! or it can help you critique it, especially if you find something about it unsettling but are finding it hard to identify/name.

i do think it’s ok to enjoy ‘problematic’ things made by ‘problematic’ ppl bc everyone and everything is problematic somehow, especially if you’re going back into time. everyone’s lines in the sand are gonna be differently placed and i think that’s ok. there are some creators works i have no interest in engaging with. there are some i have already engaged with before learning more about them, and i cannot turn off the existing opinions i have of those works, though they do become shaded by the things ive learnt so im unlikely to want to engage with them. there are many that i disagree with on many things but whose creations im still interested in engaging with bc i like experiencing a range of perspectives. i DO curate my experience with media pretty heavily - i don’t own a tv or subscribe to any streaming services or listen to the radio. if i feel like im engaging with a lot of men-led media i tone it down, lol.

but i do think this is probably the wrong question. the question is more CAN you separate the artist from the art? and i think the answer is no, or at least i don’t see how you can do it well, without losing its context. and artists who encourage you to.... i think are hiding something tbh. (like!!! did anyone listen to that seinfeld ep of wtf???!? WTF indeed)

20. describe your blog in 3-5 words

profoundly and rage-inducingly unsearchable

6. how many pairs of shoes do you have?

answered

9. favourite brand of clothing?

eh, i’m not really big into brands. whoever makes these oversized men’s tshirts i keep (kept) swiping from conferences? they’re very good quality.

for shoes it always WAS adidas anyway, lol

ask meme which again i’ll point out has a wide range of numbers on it which are not the number 3

[dull-bun]

was that callout post unironic? like you actually believe women writing mlm smut is inherently fetishizing? i genuinely thought it was a joke at first when i read it. yes, some women fetishize mlm, but writing mlm smut isnt inherently fetishizing. im saying this as a gay man. ive personally written smut about m/m, f/f, and m/f couples. its all in good fun and an exploration of how characters would interact in an nsfw context.

i didnt look at that individual's blog yet, so maybe they are fetishizing mlm, i dont know. but the wording of your post is very clear that you think just the act of a woman writing mlm smut is problematic, which is ludicrous. if the person youre calling out genuinely did something wrong, people wont notice from your callout, because they'll see the way you phrased it and find your claim ridiculous. callout posts that focus on a non issue are unfortunately common, and are a real problem, because they lead people to become desensitized to callouts. ive seen so many bogus callouts that at this point, i see "callout" at the top of the post and i have a 90% expectation that it'll be bullshit.

if this person really did fetishize mlm, id reccomend trying again with the callout and providing specific examples of the fetishization. if not, just block them and move on with your life, since you dont like their content.

lol first I DID block them jesus ch r i st Uhhh I said I was done talking about her but um s i r ?? Okay, lets say she isnt fetishizing mlm relationships, right? Then she is letting minors read her work. From what I’ve seen she isn’t saying anything about it, which she should. (This only goes for smut content, minors reading fluff and angst is fine ig) She also made smut of a character in a child’s body She mostly makes well, smut, and it grosses me out. She makes a lot of ABO too which I feel like is fetization, idk it was always odd to me. This is now, personal against me, but she’s,,, ugh, I wouldn’t like her even if she didnt write total bullshit. She doesnt like a character and will never write for them because he ‘gets in the way’ of her love for another character I feel like she’s sexualizing mlm relationships because she mostly writes just smut of them, which I guess wouldn’t be wrong but she is a female. The reason I hate people of different gender writing smut of two genders that they are not is because I feel like that place should be reserved for someone else. oh and well, mlm and wlw (especially wlw) has been sexualized so much by straight people, and if she’s straight it would be icky if she wrote that shit. And no lol, I will not change the post. It gets my point across well enough. *YAWN* anyway, from now on I’ll be deleting any asks about this shit, I honestly hate y’all defenders so much HAJABKWDB (also where are you looking, there is almost no callout posts unless you’re actively looking for them. Sure one or two may pop out but??? Also sucks that my post is top for like a few hours but you could’ve just ignored it man idk) lol anyways I just woke up from a nap whats u p

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I JUST NOTICED ITS STUCK TO ANOTHER HEAD AND THE BOTTOM HAS A FACE WHATTTTTTTTTTTTTT

[roflbosslegend]

for the ka/mi/ji/ro thing the thing ppl normally say is wrong is that kyouka likes to hurt kami and laughs whenever he gets injured etc. Kami also is really gross towards the girls too sometimes but its normally the first reason i see for why ppl dont like them

oooh yeah that makes sense but I like wouldn't say it makes it problematic like kaminari shortcircuiting is played off as a gag in the show and this may just be from me not rewatching the show in ages but what I remember with kaminari and the girls is just like normal boy level stuff, and its a shounen written by... you know... so its like disappointing but expected. I get disliking it but i wouldnt block or put someone down over it kaminari has a lot of other traits making him a good guy (I THINK I REALLY HAVENT REWATCHED IN A WHILE)

[mineqishis]

i know other people have said this but i didnt like them so im making my own post. sorry for the lack of puncuation, i am a dumbass

serizawa is his own character and has lots of development and a personality and growth and is capable of being independent, and it’s really annoying to see the way most people portray him in serirei content/ just in general. making him entirely dependent on reigen and void of personality or confidence without him is problematic for a Lot of reasons (that im too lazy to get into bc this is already too long), and also just Doesnt make sense considering that serizawa’s development is based around him learning that he can be independent and doesn’t need a single person monitoring every aspect of his life.

 there’s also a recurring theme where people treat him as if he’s a child which makes me want to throttle all of you. just because he dropped out of school doesn’t mean he’s a child. he’s older than reigen. he might have missed out on opportunities in his youth but that doesn’t mean he’s trapped in that stage of his life forever. honestly it just reeks of ableism that autistic/ coded characters are constantly infantilized like this. not to mention the creepy power dynamic that happens when people write serirei content with serizawa as this foolish childlike character and reigen as this mature adult. i feel like i dont have to explain the gross implications of that.

i love serizawa and serirei, and im glad there’s lots of other ppl out there who do too, but u have to be careful of the way u portray characters in situations like this. i love serirei bc there’s real depth and development and it’s just genuinely good, but there’s also a lot of gross people out there who are jumping at the chance to turn any m/m content into their generic fucked up 2012 tumblr otp. criticism of this kind of stuff gets ignored but as an autistic gay man it makes me really uncomfortable to see the way relationships like serizawa and reigen get treated by fans, bc it isn’t limited to fandom spaces like everyone loves to claim. this stuff really does affect real life, and i literally have had people talk about me and my partner the same way ppl talk about m/m ships on here and it really makes me want to go feral

[roomfullofcunts]

I love you're writing, btw. You are a blessing upon the fandom. I have a bit of a dumb question though as someone who has only been lurking around the D:BH fandom for a few weeks... is there a reason why fans seem to universally hate David Cage? I feel like I missed all the good drama and am now trying to piece together the story based on numerous angry authors notes. (You're not obligated to answer if you dont want to you just seemed approachable) :)

Thank you anon :3

I don’t mind. Someone can probably word this better than poor sleep-deprived me, but I think with Cage there was already some history regarding his writing or behaviour. As someone who’s only been exposed to half of Heavy Rain, I wouldn’t really know, but that’s the impression I get; meaning that what people criticise about DBH is not an isolated event. As for DBH itself… My biggest issue with it was how ham-fistedly the race allegory was handled. It was clumsy and cringey at best, and ignorant and offensive at worst. I don’t really have the energy to go into it in-depth, but this is a pretty good write up.

There’s also the problem of how the women in the game were handled. Compared to Markus and Connor’s relatively complex, existentialism and ethics-driven character arcs, Kara was a “maid-bot” who wanted to be a mother. That was the extent of her humanity. Oh, and the sex bots. Even North’s whole personality seems based on the fact that she was a sex-bot, and the trauma she suffered because of it.

The force-fed straight romance rubbed a lot of people the wrong way too, not least because many people felt Simon should’ve been open for romancing as well, but also simply because it was just such a prime example of a shoe-horned straight romance where none was needed.

I’ve seen more criticism that has to do with world building or narrative, but these are the main points I usually see when the topic comes across; i.e race, gender & heteronormativity.

The problem I think is that DC built a plot revolving around something incredibly loaded in terms of race politics, but didn’t actually want to make a political game. He romanticises civil rights movements but doesn’t actually truly address the issues why those movements were necessary. Not to mention the awkwardness of essentially equating *objects* created to be subservient with black people. Yikes.

I’m sure much of this was unintended, stemming from ignorance and tone-deafness. But that doesn’t change the fact that many people (and especially Americans, who are closer to the topic than I as a European am) found it incredibly… well, shitty. Add to that the dissatisfaction with some of the narrative aspects, and you end up with a lot of fanfic authors denouncing DC as too incompetent to be paid any attention to, and embrace Death of the Author

Having said all that… Look, fandom keeps reiterating this -

it’s okay to like things that are problematic.

I greatly enjoyed DBH. I’ve sat through two playthroughs on my own console, and plan on doing more. I think the game is visually gorgeous, it’s one of the few “walking simulator”/QTE-heavy games I’ve actually enjoyed mechanics wise, and I thought the plot, when separated from it’s political ineptitude, was actually very captivating. I enjoyed the characters themselves, I cared about them and I cared about the relationships you could build. I think it’s a good game. I also think it’s an incredily badly handled game.

I also want to say this: A lot of us already spend a lot of time dealing with upsetting politics in real life. I’m a half-asian queer woman living in a country where right-wing politics are constantly trying to gain more foothold. And you don’t have to participate in the oppression olympics to feel anxiety about whichever country’s current political climate. Not to mention the personal problems most of us deal with, even the most well-adjusted of us. The real world is draining, so-

It’s absolutely fine to participate in fandom and not want to involve yourself in political discourse about the source material.

You don’t need to excuse yourself, you don’t need to apologise for your enjoyment of the product. You’re allowed to scroll past, blacklist, mute. It’s good to be aware of the nuances in the material, and it’s good to be open to the criticism people have about it, to be an educated consumer. But if it starts giving you anxiety or feelings of guilt about liking it - whether it’s a book or a game or a tv show - you’re allowed to take a step back and idk, go read some one-shot fluff-fics or that five-part smut series of your favourite gross ship.

[kanansdume]

Lol let me be clear: when I say say Problematic(tm) I do NOT mean it in the ultra sincere 2013 era Your Fave Is Problematic but in an ironic use of the word that literally means "Oh no! A female character is flawed and human and not perfect and has neurosis!" since even amongst Star Wars fans I see her written as St. Padme the Voice of Reason, and while I suppose I prefer that to people viciously misogynist, she is a more interesting character for a lot of reasons you mention.

I'm very flippant writing on Tumblr especially Star Wars and anything fandom wise so I meant Problematic(tm) about as seriously as the way people use "poor little meow meow" or whatever the meme is. I mostly agree with all your main points!

I do think George Lucas' anti-Arab racism does play a significant enough role in the text and world that I cannot take it out of the movie or how characters fro Padme to Anakin the Lars family frame it out of the discussion, but ultimately in that regard I'm less interested in the in-universe worldbuilding (since Star Wars is kinda cringey about race) and wider conversations about the depiction of aliens based off Arab cultures across sci-genres as a point of important discussion (I think it does tie into characterization elements in a way that cannot be ignored but also...Star Wars is so bad at dealing with race that I can't ignore the cinematography choices, in which bodies are shown and which aren't but that tends to put on my film nerd hat. I don't think you can take Padme's dismissal of the Tuskens out of the picture yet there is obviously a wider structural issue here that, again, given Lucas' own racial stereotypying in the movie I dont think you can *completely * take out even though to me I'm more interested in real world genre influences than if a fictional queen of Naboo is more racist than anyone else on the planet (And honestly probably not but my bar for whatever the GFFA equivalent of White People from the West is pretty low, which isn't great, but I agree that's not all there is to the story and you can't take systematic issues ouf of it even if Star Wars worldbuilding is...in need of more POC behind the scenes.

@texasjew

I entirely agree with your point about the inherent racism in the Tusken depictions, not even just anti-Arab but anti-Native American too since he’s styling them like Bedouin Arabs but also using a lot of old Western narrative tropes in how they’re written into the narrative. It’s gross, it’s ugly, and moving them into a Noble Savage trope like TBOBF did is not necessarily all THAT much better and Star Wars still has a lot of work to do there if they want to keep using the Tuskens and setting things on Tatooine to move them away from their very horrifically racist origins.

And from that lens, I absolutely understand being unable to divorce Padme’s choice here to brush off what Anakin did to them from the racist writing that it is and have that impact Padme’s characterization. I haven’t seen someone explain it in that way before, and I actually find that I completely agree with that. It DOES impact her, it’s impossible to separate the way they decided to have Padme react with the racism inherent to the Tuskens and their depiction. You can choose to headcanon it away, obviously, as plenty of people have done (and as the films do, arguably), but it’s there. It’s unavoidable, and it’s horrific. It’s certainly not INTENDED to read that way, I don’t think that Lucas intended for the audience to understand this moment as Padme being racist towards the Tuskens, but his own racism stains Padme whether he intended it or not.

And since Padme is such an underdeveloped character and really just stands as a catalyst for Anakin’s fall, we don’t have a motivation already laid out in the writing that makes this moment make sense. There’s no good explanation in the text for why this doesn’t seem to bother her all that much. And while part of that can be perhaps attributed to sexism in how badly written Padme often is, it’s also now impacted by the racism of not seeing just how horrific this moment should be. It’s horrific because some of them were kids, but it’s clearly intended to be LESS horrific than the Jedi children later because they’re TUSKENS. This is intended to be just a stepping stone for Anakin, that yeah he murdered some Tuskens and it’s not okay, but they were just TUSKENS. I’ve seen people talk about how he shouldn’t have killed them here because we just go from Anakin killing a bunch of kids to Anakin killing a bunch of kids and his progression doesn’t feel quite as natural. But even though the audience is clearly meant to disagree with Anakin’s choices, when he says “they’re animals” it’s hard to disagree after what we saw they did to Shmi and the entirety of their depiction in the films up until this point.

This post was predominantly written to try to make peace with a lot of the choices made about her even beyond this particular one, because her sudden feelings for Anakin make very little sense even if we set aside the problem of the Tusken massacre and her reaction to it. But you aren’t wrong that this moment is a particular sticking point, and it’s hard to separate it from the racism Lucas’s writing for the Tuskens is covered in. Which makes it VERY easy to just say that maybe Padme was little racist, too, because it’s one of the easiest ways to justify that moment. That hey, she either already dislikes the Tuskens or is just taking Anakin’s word for it because these aren’t her people so it’s not her job to defend them. I don’t know that it feels in character for Padme, not because she’s a saint, but because the canonical in-text writing for her does have her sympathizing with people who are not her own, there’s no REAL reason she shouldn’t have that for the Tuskens, as well. But I can’t disagree that it’s easy to see the racism of this entire sequence and just apply it to Padme because it’s impossible to divorce the two in some ways.

Broke: The reason Anidala is so toxic is because Anakin had PTSD that no one recognized or tried to treat.

Woke: The reason Anidala is so toxic is because Padme had PTSD that no one recognized or tried to treat.

Bespoke: Anakin had PTSD that the Jedi teachings would've helped him manage and overcome had Palpatine not interfered and poisoned Anakin against those teachings and encouraging him to lean into behaviors and habits that exacerbated his own PTSD which directly led to his behavior towards Padme and in their relationship that caused issues. In contrast, Padme had PTSD that she chose to set aside in order to keep functioning as Queen for the next three years and never dealt with or managed and cannot function without burying herself in work and in service of some kind which is why she sacrifices all of her childhood dreams of having a family to be a senator when asked after her terms end and she routinely refuses and rejects the care of people who truly care about her like her family and hides things from them in favor of playing out a fantasy with someone who cannot judge her for her own issues and isn't interested in her as a person enough to go looking or notice them anyway.