#i have a problem where i think anything i like or make is inherently embarrassing which ik isnt true i have problems

[eyesopod]

do you have info abt yr ocs posted anywhere? i feel like itd be rly neat to learn abt them ^_^

hello i could kiss u on the lips.

most of my ocs have a tag tht has their general vibe, and theres 2 tags for shared stories/universes (?? i cannot think of the right words rn) that are gs and ss :] every character in ss is shared with my bestie theo sunblisters, and gs is like a legit story i want to make into something. everything else was made for funsies or are from a dnd campaign :P

[johannestevans]

there's a plotline in grey's anatomy where they're setting up one char as having a potentially manic bipolar episode and one doctor shows concern and says he needs to be made to rest

and another doctor goes. oh no, i'm USING this episode he's having. we need it to save a patient

and i actually really like this bc like… that thing of workplaces, and especially workplaces with high levels of burnout and exploitation of its workers whilst using the importance of their work as an excuse, absolutely exploit these neurodivergent traits

i think a lot about the ways in which obsessive traits are wanted and even demanded by workplaces in order to filter an unreasonable or unmanageable workload through one or two people, and because they're "capable" it can be dismissed as acceptable

that person isn't eating or sleeping? well, they're still getting the work done! they're handling it! they're a genius! and who else is going to do the work? how else is it going to get done? they'd need to hire half a dozen people to get this finished otherwise!

and then, you know. that person has other symptoms and indicators of obsession. people start noticing compulsive behaviours. they seem out of touch with reality. their emotions become dysregulated, or they act unpredictably

and god, that's no appropriate way to act in a workplace! that's scary and weird and embarrassing! that's not an alright way to act! don't they know they're not the only person here? if they need help, they should ask for it - if they're going to act like this, they need to go

so they're exploited for the most valuable or useful trait of their mental illness or neurodivergence, that exploitation puts them under further external stress, so that trait - both its negative and positive aspects - are exacerbated… and then they need to be disposed of

the hard work has been done, so they're not losing anything by getting rid of that person, so who cares how much that person's long term health is ruined or impacted? who cares if they can't get another job or need long term treatment? not my problem! the work got done!

and the thing about how these exploitative actions occur within systems and organisations is that like. multiple people can be involved in this process, without sufficient enough oversight or connection with the exploited person, to check in with them before it escalates

or if people DO notice and check in with them, the system is otherwise overworked or fast-paced or badly organised or anything else, they won't be able to do anything to intervene or help that person because that person can't or won't ask for help themselves

and even if they DO ask for help, that request is going to be dismissed because, hey, they're getting it done and they NEED this worker's full concentration right now! the workplace NEEDS it.

the individual worker is meant to make sacrifices

and don't get me wrong, this is a problem of all workplaces which in our current society are inherently exploitative, but for people with certain traits that make them more vulnerable to this sort of manipulation and/or who struggle to set limits or boundaries for their own sake

and higher-ups within that system might recognise that person's vulnerability or they might not - they might know it's there but still exploit it out of "necessity", out of their own reliance on that person

but the end result is so long term and potentially unrecoverable

and obvs grey's is a medical show, and this sort of exploitation is common in healthcare professions (including veterinary sciences), certain research positions, law, but my experience of it is mostly in fucking hospitality, where high employee turnover is seen as part and parcel

[lakesbian]

i remember gregor & his interlude being discussed on here semi-recently as an oddity in terms of how, unlike more or less Literally Every Other Fat Character In Any Wildbow Novel Ever, gregor is portrayed as likable and sympathetic + it's even explicitly mentioned as shitty that it's acceptable for people to mock him for being fat. so i'm interested in looking at what's going on there now that i'm actually rereading it

Gregor walked down the side streets of downtown Brockton Bay with the hood of his sweatshirt casting his face in shadow. Anyone who happened to cross his path and look beneath his hood were quick to glance away. Embarrassed, spooked. Those that saw him from a distance knew him as monstrous as well, but in a different way. To them, he was simply one of the morbidly obese. A man in his late twenties or early thirties, nearly three times the weight he should be for his five feet and ten inches of height. His weight, he knew, was one of the rare things in this modern world that someone could use to mock him openly.

there's a lot of implications to unpack wrt "one of the morbidly obese" and the specific detailing of his young age vs not being the weight he "should be." like, i think the obvious connections between piggot being fat & being unhealthy show that worm is coming from a deeply fatphobic lens wherein fat people are seen as 1. inherently unhealthy and 2. disgusting and/or morally degraded for that perceived unhealthiness. actually, even moreso than piggot, it's the constant usage of the (widely scientifically inaccurate) medical term "morbidly obese," obvious emphasis being placed on the perceived unhealth of fatness via the word "morbidly." the, like, really precise focus on exactly How many times over the weight he "should" be also demonstrates such fatphobic, pseudoscientific medicalization of weight. (not that someone would deserve oppression based on perceived lack of health even if they really were unhealthy and even if it really was 100% their fault, but that should go without saying.) it's being implied that it's bad people are a cunt to him about this, but it's also still being implied that the thing they're being a cunt to him about is something actually Wrong with him. so. not great.

i also can't help but wonder how much of the description about how he's treated (i.e. as so monstrous no one can even look at him and he can't go outside or do anything in public ever) is projection of authorial beliefs. like, true, fat people are constantly dehumanized and treated as grotesque and monstrous to life-ruining extents--but this paragraph coming from an author who consistently describes fat characters with palpable disdain and disgust is like. yeah, i'm sure he would compare being fat to having translucent snail-encrusted skin you can see organs and bones through. hard to believe the description here is coming purely from empathy without aaany elements of how the author views fat people he sees in public in it.

but the most absurd line here is of course the last sentence: "His weight, he knew, was one of the rare things in this modern world that someone could use to mock him openly."

this is very funny because:

brockton bay has a nazi problem. characters in worm make fun of each other for acting [r slur]ed or being gay or not being white or being an addict or looking ugly all the time. what do you mean, being fat is one of the rare things that can be used to mock someone openly. there's a conversation to be had about fat people as accepted targets of mockery even in ostensibly anti-bigotry spaces in the year of 2024, but when this was written in 2011? in worm? it's a genuinely bizarre statement

wildbow is literally always interrupting character narration to viciously mock fat people. literally all of the time. forever. Where is the self awareness.

overall i guess it's nice that there's an attempt to establish narrative sympathy with the fat character, but it's being done with Literally No Self Awareness as to how the work itself treats fat people, to the point where it probably would've been better to not bother including the description of how it marginalizes gregor at all--wildbow doesn't try to do this for any other character's marginalized status, so i'm not sure why he felt the need to attempt it with gregor. like, at this rate, you'd be better off just neutrally mentioning that he's fat when describing his appearance and leaving it at that

[microwave-core]

A Handful of Headcanons

These are, uh, kinda unhinged.

I love Nemona with my whole heart and soul, but I almost always write her (and you, dear reader) as being insanely oblivious because I just can't help myself. Every time I saw her in my Scarlet playthrough all I could think was “You wanna kiss me so bad you look stupid” because that is exactly what she’s like.

Her friends have been telling her for the past Arceus knows how long about her crush, but she never understood where they were coming from. Her obliviousness is completely impenetrable, it’s insane. They’re all pulling their hair out by her inability to recognize her own damn feelings.

Like, it’s to the point that her friends think she’s worried about people’s reaction to her being gay. Penny will casually tell Nemona that everyone was fine with her being gay or bi or whatever but Nemona’s just genuinely a dumbass when it comes to romantic feelings. 

(It’s funny, really, because anyone that would have a problem with her sexuality would never voice it lest they get their ass kicked but I digress.)

But when she realizes it? It’s fucking over. Her entire perspective has changed and she is now a new person. She now spends her nights staring at the ceiling plagued by thoughts of you. She could never fall asleep when thinking about holding your soft hand, or playing with your hair, or feeling your lips against her own. Occasionally, her thoughts become unsavory, and it never fails to make her feel like a complete creep because she shouldn’t be thinking of you like that.

When around you, she manages to act pretty normal. She’s too distracted by you to be overthinking her own feelings. The most she’ll do is just… look at you, but kinda intensely.

She’s just in so much awe at your existence, how you could look so beautiful, so elegant, just sitting there. Your every action sets her heart ablaze. Please give her affection, she deserves it even if she can be inexplicably stupid at times.

Cynthia would be such a wife-guy, it’s unreal. I have given this much thought. Sometimes I think about those alignment chart memes and everytime I do I think about the champions in regards to how they would treat their partner and, without fail, Cynthia and Leon fall into the wife-guy section and I will not elaborate further (that is a lie I will elaborate if asked). 

People across the world look up to Cynthia as a pillar of strength, as a serious badass who could curb stomp you with a single look. These people have no idea how much of a nerd she is, but they sure as hell know how much she loves her wife. 

Every interview she’s ever in, she will bring you up. No matter how much you might beg or plead her to, to avoid the embarrassment of her unabashed declarations of love, she will not stop. She cannot stop herself even if she wanted to.

She is the definition of relationship goals. All of her interviews have comments like “get you a girl who will talk about you like how Champion Cynthia talks about her wife” under them. 

And she absolutely adores your embarrassed reaction to them, too. You just look so adorable when you’re flustered. Don’t worry, she won’t tease you that much, that’s not really her style. She’ll always make it up with hugs and kisses and chocolate and anything else your heart may desire. She loves you more than anything else, after all.

Geeta is lowkey a sugar mommy, no matter what. Certified Girlboss™ over here is so busy, which she’s not inherently against as a workaholic, but it does prevent her from seeing you.

And so whenever she does get time for you, she will spoil you. Gift giving is her way of showing affection, at least when it comes to you. She’s practically made of money, please spend as much as you want. It’s her treat and you deserve it. Don’t even think about pulling out your purse or wallet, she will not let you pay. 

During quiet moments in her day, she’ll pull up a store on her phone and scroll until she finds something you’d like. She’ll be scrolling through fancy-smancy stores during an important meeting or when talking to someone like Nemona or Clavell because she just thought of the most darling thing to get you and she needs to find something suitable this instant. And she’s not slacking off or not paying attention, either, she knows exactly what is being said around her.

She’s also shameless. On more than one occasion, someone’s seen her looking for fancy, incredibly expensive lingerie. They’re incredibly embarrassed about it, but Geeta doesn’t care. She is in no way flustered or worried, just amused by their reaction.

If you don’t live together, she’ll totally send packages to your house or apartment. She’ll usually tell you, but sometimes she just doesn’t and suddenly you're opening your door in the morning only to be greeted by several packages. 

Not so much of a headcanon as much as it is a concept, but Courtney and Shelly pining for the same person. That’s it, that is the thought,

These two are their own brands of unhinged, and they would absolutely rip the other to shreds if it meant winning your heart. Courtney is just batshit insane. She’s feral. She’s completely unhinged and would go to any lengths necessary to get you by her side, no matter how much she has to dirty her hands to do so.

Shelly is also unhinged, but she’s far more calculated. She’s part of the brains behind Team Aqua, and so she’s not going to take action without considering all her possibilities first. She’ll go to the same lengths Courntey will go to, but she'll consider all her actions before making a commitment.

There is very little you can even do in this scenario. They would choke each other out with their bare hands if it meant having you. Don’t think this can end in dating both, they would never tolerate the other. They’re just going to continuously fight each other, try to one up each other, until one of them snaps. 

Drasna is severely slept on. I don’t even have a grand vision to put here. There is no idea, there is no headcanon, and there is no scenario. All you get is the concept of Drasna.

Just like… look at her. She borders on milf and gilf, she is decorated in dragon bones, she is sweet and kind and could kick your ass. She is gentle and loving but changes into cold and savage when in the midst of battle. 

She could curb stomp your ass any day of the week, and you (by which I mean me) would thank her. Not that she ever would. She cares about you too much! If you did battle her, she would attempt to go a bit easier on you, toning down the intensity a bit, but it slips out every now and then.

Also, do you think she’d have fangs? That’s how all the dragon tamers are in my head, so it’s not really Drasna specific. Actually, don’t answer that, she totally does because it’s my fanfic and I get to make the rules.

Anyways, Drasna would totally live in a cute little cottage. She’s from Celestic Town (apparently), so she likely prefers a quieter, humbler lifestyle. That is to say, you get to live with her in a cute little house that’s surrounded by nature and is also covered in dragons. You get to unwind at the end of the day by sitting in your cute little garden with her, and isn’t that just the dream?

…. How do we feel about gilfs? Like, in general. Milfs are pretty unanimous, I think. We all love a hot mom, but what about hot grandmas? I say that like the Pokemon grandmas are hot which I don’t think they are (except Cogita, obviously) but like… is there a consensus on this?

I don’t know man, when I look at Agatha and Bertha and Opal it’s just like… that’s a grandma. She’d bake you cookies and ask you about school or work. Agatha has an implicit risk, as you will be jumpscared by her ghosts. She’s also a little bitter and would totally just bitch about the people that get on her nerves. She’s old, she doesn’t care about anything anymore.

Bertha is the kind grandma who always asks if you want to help her make the cookies (she will not be offended if you decline). She’ll ask how your life is and will give you so much useful advice. She’ll also tell stories from her youth, and she looks so happy when she does it. She’s just nice, that's all I have to say.

Opal. Oh Opal. This specimen already has the cookies baked when you show up at her door unannounced. She knew you would be coming. Come sit down and complain about your life. She wants all of the gossip. Tell her everything, especially about your love life. Be careful about what you tell her, though, because she will not hold back when giving you her opinion.

Sorry I couldn't help myself. I had to write this out. I’ll go back to the regular headcanons.

Regular is a strong word. I desire Sada carnally. She is broken and I can fix her, okay? I have thought about this a lot, and I would subject you to all of those thoughts in incredible detail if I was strong enough to truly capture her image.

Real talk though. Sada is hesitant to fall in love again. She’s gone through a messy divorce before, and doesn't want to go through that kind of thing ever again. But she couldn’t help but fall in love with you, which leads to one of two things happening.

There’s the realistic option, that her love for you will make her work even harder towards finding paradise, which basically just leads to how the game plays out. She spends more and more time in the crater until she decides to move into it and eventually gets got by Koraidon, but you don’t know that. It would suck, but you would not be totally alone as you would have Arven there, going through the same thing. At the very least, he’ll turn out slightly better (until he has to tell you that Sada’s been dead for Arceus knows how long). 

But that’s sad, so I present to you the ideal option, that her love for you makes her realize how damaging her workaholic nature has been. She’ll be able to take a step back from her work, from the time machine and Area Zero, and just be able to live in the moment with you and Arven, like a normal family. She starts working as a regular professor. Hell, she might even start teaching at Naranja, where she’ll get to tease Arven everyday.

Anyways, regardless of what happens you get to be Arven’s stepmom, and that makes it worth it because he deserves a good parental figure in his life. I love him, he is my son, and he deserves the world.

Speaking of milfs: Lusamine. Hear me out. Technically, there are three types of Lusamine. There’s Sun and Moon Lusamine who is completely unhinged and selfish and will stop at nothing to get her way. There’s Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Lusamine who is also slightly less unhinged and will stop at nothing to get her way, but she’s doing it for a greater cause (although it’s still kinda selfish but sometimes it’s the thought that counts). Then there's the anime Lusamine, who is actually pretty normal. Not unhinged or feral or incredibly selfish, just a mother trying her best for her two kids. 

All three of them are near and dear to my heart, but, to me, Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon Lusamine reigns supreme. She’s the best of the other two, where she’s both unhinged and trying to be a good mom (after the Ultra Necrozma business goes down, anyways).

When she becomes more adjusted, not worrying about saving Alola from an unworldly entity, she’s incredibly supportive, both to you and to her kids. Speaking of kids, if you don’t support Lillie and Gladion with your whole heart, she will cut you off. Her family is important to her, especially after losing Mohn.

Writing this, I realize that I might just be invested in giving these kids better lives, but whatever. Lillie will open up to you pretty quickly. She wants to do all kinds of mother-daughter activities. Please just spend time with her, she will love you forever. Gladion takes a bit longer, but he’ll cave to your kindness in time. He won’t admit it, though, he has an edgy persona to upkeep.

Or maybe you're into an evil bitch and you want selfish and crazy Lusamine, which is also understandable. She’ll do anything for you, and I mean anything. She would be pretty controlling though, and she might love the Ultra Beasts more than you, but that’s the price you’ve gotta pay if you want her unhinged.

Oh and also, please don’t look into Ultra Wormholes or Ultra Beasts. No matter what version of Lusamine you’re into, just don’t. Lusamine would never recover if you disappeared like Mohn did.

I’ll end this with Marnie, because I like her. She’s kinda quiet and maybe even a little shy, but she’s adorable and loves you with her whole heart and soul. Her quiet nature, though, is lost when you start doing… basically anything. Whether you’re battling or studying, she’ll be your number one cheerleader.

When you’re battling other people, she’ll be hyping up your every move. You're her girlfriend, you're obviously up to snuff, and she’ll remind you of that fact constantly. She’ll even bring in Team Yell to help out. She wants the entirety of Galar to know how strong you are. 

But she’ll cheer you on quietly, too. When she senses you're overworked or stressed, she’ll be bringing you blankets and hot tea before you can even complain about your problems. And when you’re settled in, she’ll bring you curry and huddle into your side. She’ll even get Morpeko to cuddle up to you. Feel special, Morpeko won’t even do that to Marnie, and she would complain if it wasn’t making you feel better.

If you’re battling against her, she won’t openly cheer you on like normal. She’s a gym leader, she can’t just go throwing a match because she loves you! But she’ll compliment your strategy when you're doing well. Team Yell won’t be cheering for you, though. 

Also, Piers would be totally chill with you. He couldn’t be intimidating even if he tried, he is a literal twig. He just wants his sister to be happy and safe, and mans knows you would never do anything to hurt her. Besides, someone has to tell you Marnie’s embarrassing childhood stories and baby photos.

[kitkats-and-kittens]

Okay. Once again interacting with miraculous ladybug.

Lord help me 😭😭

But unfortunately I wound up watching the statue episode. I can’t remember the name, but I know everyone who has even a semblance of knowledge about miraculous ladybugs knows what I’m talking about.

Genuinely I got so baffled about the whole sub conflict of that episode.

Basic synopsis is that Mary sue and Adrien head to this wax statue museum because babysitting? And it turns out they have a statue of him (which is also strange, like he clearly didn’t know about it beforehand) so he decides it would be funny to replace the wax statute version of himself to prank Marinette.

Marinette comes in. Is sufficiently fooled and then starts acting like an absolute freak with this wax statue of her crush. Which granted, on its own isn’t entirely weird, like shes 14 and while I never did the whole kissing photos of your crush thing I have friends who did and yeah I make fun of them, but I’m not going to condemn them for it. However they’re in a public setting and while at 14 our standards were on the floor, I think we still had enough dignity to not attempt kissing a wax statue in public.

But that’s not where my issue lies. Rather when Adrien recoils as one who are near victims of assault are prone to do, Marinette is so humiliated that she gets mad at him. For what? Idk, because this would not have been anywhere near as big of an issue if you hadn’t been acting so weird with what she thought was a wax figurine.

I’m assuming the whole problem lies with the fact that Adrien didn’t break character sooner and let Marinette act like an idiot in front of him. Which granted he defo could’ve like backed up beforehand, but also he seems genuinely surprised when she tried to kiss him. Like he looks confused the whole time she’s pronouncing her love to him and maybe I’m reaching, but he’s shown to not be the best with social cues, and it’s not exactly criminal to assume that he really just didn’t pick up what Marinette was putting down.

I mean she does all of that and he still doesn’t realise she might like him. I’m just saying.

Still Marinette has absolutely no right to be upset about the situation she has put herself in. It pisses me off that the writer were twisting this to make her seem like the victim when she was acting weird as hell. Attempting to kiss a wax statue of your crush and then having them apologise for it is weird enough on its own.

But when your crush is also a friend you hang out with regularly then it’s just downright disturbing. Like I’ve had crushes on friends, but at 14 I definitely was not constructing weird romantic fantasy’s and roleplaying with a wax mould version of them.

Am I crazy??? Cause I feel like the whole fandom sees it as more of a second hand embarrassment moment, but I find it genuinely weird. Like Marinette sees Adrien as less of a person and more of a character she can project her fantasy’s onto and while I don’t really think there’s anything inherently wrong with that (she’s a teenager, of course she’s putting her crush on a pedestal) I feel like the fact that it’s never acknowledged by the narrative just makes it weird.

[androdetective]

I enjoy reading you takes on the show so I just wanna ask, how do you think a healed/healthy tulio would look like? or do you think he is beyond saving ?

This is a really interesting question. I can imagine what steps he'd have to take to better himself, but I can't see him actually taking them. Tulio is a very proud guy. He also hates vulnerability. He is also very selfish and inconsiderate. Many people point to his high ego as one of his flaws. And to some extent, I agree, but I think the way he goes about it is the actual flaw. A high ego simply means that one has a high self-esteem/importance/whatever. This isn't inherently bad. People valuing themselves is cool. But with him, it leaves him dysfunctional. This impairs his quality of life. It leaves him quite insecure, actually. He's sensitive to people critiquing him or making fun of him. He doesn't like being ignored. Which leads to desperate, often embarrassing, attempts of trying to get attention. He's even had a moment where he admitted he thinks he's a useless asset of the show. Which seems like the opposite of how he presents himself. Both to others and even himself. This is unfortunate for him. These are quite common problems and insecurities. He has a high ego, but he is also very insecure with a lot of things. Like his looks or image or how he appears to friends. It's like he hides behind a high self-esteem to cover up his low/just very mixed and dysfunctional self-esteem.

The thing is, he chooses to be selfish and mean. He chooses to lash out at his friends whenever he gets insecure. He doesn't apologize as often as he should. He takes advantage of everyone. He doesn't learn from mistakes and continues hurting his friends all the time. Having low self-esteem didn't make it so that he had to be a bad person. Even a high self-esteem wouldn't make someone be an inherently bad person. Neither of those things matter when it's his actions that do.

I think that in order for Tulio to heal, he'd have to admit he's not perfect. He'd have to be fine with being a flawed person. And that being flawed doesn't mean he's the worst person ever that doesn't deserve anything. Tulio would have to learn how to cope with not having to rely on constant attention. That his friends still like him even when they aren't paying attention to him. And that his attempts at getting attention aren't the best/can hurt, for himself and even others. He'd also have to realize that lashing out won't make his problems better. And also he'd just have to not be a bad friend/person and be more nice, even if it might leave him vulnerable. We know he likes people. He just doesn't always show it enough. He'd have to apologize to his friends and coworkers and actually take the steps to being better and nicer to them. Also stop exploiting workers. Honestly, he'd have to go over all this in therapy. He has the money for the best therapy too.

But would he? I don't think Tulio likes being insecure. I think he'd like to overcome that, but he wouldn't take those steps. He's too dependent on his facade of being perfect. He'd hate the idea of going to therapy and acknowledging he's flawed. I think he's too comfortable with his maladaptive coping skills. Probably too scared to get better, too. But also, he does like being mean. He likes being selfish and rude and horrible. Even if he didn't have really bad insecurities, he'd still be some sorta mean person.

Now for a hypothetical healed Tulio? I'm thinking he'd be similar to how he was in season 1. That being more calm, less snappy, and a bit more professional (a bit 💀). He still had a bit of an ego, but it wasn't as bad as later Tulio. He was also nicer to his friends and not as cruel. I'm thinking back to those times he wanted to cheer up/make things up with friends. Like cheering up a depressed Bodoque or in the movie where he was very selfless trying to make things right with Juanín. Those times showed a more genuine Tulio, a Tulio that actually does care and has the ability to be selfless. I think if he was healthier, he'd have more moments like these. He'd overwork Juanín less, too. (with the movie I just assumed he'd do that but alas) (Although Juanín would probably still overwork himself as he has genuinely bad workaholism but that's another topic) He'd still have some quirks of his personality but he'd be a more pleasant/tolerable person. His friends would like him more, and he'd be happier. Unfortunately, he's still too set in his ways, so not only will his friends continue to suffer, but so will he. I don't think he's unfixeable, I just think he'll refuse to get better.

[acearohippo]

Alright I’ll bite. First of all, I don’t give a shit about tang yun, you can blast off about him all you want. I have a problem when someone starts implying that the creators are intentionally making it incest or, sorry, “”incest undertones”” with proof the size of a walnut

Second, obsession and possessiveness is not inherently romantic nor sexual. Are both the tang brothers and Yuuhime and Yamato’s relationship toxic and abusive? Very much so, especially on the latter relationship. You are allowed to hate these relationships and talk about how toxic and abusive it is. But-

Third, the proof you have is *checks notes* a blush and the word hogtie. And for Yamato, it was caressing her cheek. Kay so, Tang Yun blushing could be interpreted as embarrassment or shame since the context is that Tang Xuan literally just told him “don’t tie up people you love bitch, that’s weird” (exaggeration but still). Putting yourself into a hypothetical obsession mindset, would the target of your obsession saying that make you: A) make your heart go Doki Doki B) embarrassed? For the hogtie thing, hogtie isn’t inherently sexual either just because it’s used in bdsm. Fucking police hogtie people. The definition is to bind all four limbs together and knowing dislyte’s translation history, probably what was originally meant.

And Yamato “lovingly caressing Yuuhime’s face which mean he obviously wants to fuck her”… bro, have you never seen any villain ever do that. It’s a common trope to sadistically caress or touch a person’s face while they’re impaired or captured. He’s doing it to show the power and control over her. It’s possessive and abusive to a T but it’s not fucking incest. Like literally give me a list of actual romantic or sexual gestures he does to her cuz I haven’t seen it, I got my binoculars on.

My original point was that by consuming media where sibling relationships turned into incest, thus, incest media, you admit that you are biased towards seeing these interactions as potentially becoming incest and thus would influence your critique on them. As for your whole “I added tags to explain you can just ignore me UwU” You wrote a hella provocative post. You can’t expect a paragraph of fucking tags to handwave away anyone who would get pissed at you.

Sighs. Alright, I guess we’re doing it. First, let me remind you that the three definitions of incestuous, the adjective, I’ve been very specific on using, are:

Constituting or involving incest

Guilty of incest

Excessively or improperly intimate or exclusive

All of these are pulled from the Miriam-Webster Dictionary. Got that? Good. Because I have only been using the term “incestuous”, specifically to highlight the inappropriate levels of “affection” both Tang Yun and Yamato express towards their respective siblings. Not. Once. Have I said anything that about Dislyte intentionally making incest in there stories. What I have said is 1.) I am not going to forgive them for having incestuous overtones between the two siblings during the final act of the Sea of Sorrows event and 2.) the imagery Tang Yun brings up when speaking to his brother (or implying something to his brother) is uncomfortable. Not once do I say or imply that I think Dislyte is trying to push a romantic bond between the two siblings. Incestuous, the adjective, isn’t inherently romantic or sexual coercion, it is simply intimacy that is improper, inappropriate, uncomfortable, manipulative, abusive, and so on. Companies that have incestuous relationships with their customers have manipulated a state of dependency on the customers with their products, rendering them docile and accepting to whatever demands the company asks of. Incestuous can relate to intrusive thoughts, the way someone thinks- consciously or inadvertently- not necessarily how they act. Incestuous is just a descriptor, not the event.

This is why I specified that "incest media" is not the same as "media with incestuous overtones". The former is a kink, the latter is an unfortunate story telling device.

We see this in Tang Yun’s voice lines, in game, and how they are literally about how he feels towards Tang Xuan. If he can’t have him, no one can. All that he does, he does it for “his dear brother”. He simultaneously looks forward to the day and fears the day he can destroy his brother with his two hands. He was accused of abducting his brother and then he says he’ll hogtie him if he disappears like that again. These are all uncomfortable levels of obsession. It’s excessive. He agrees with Yamato’s intense stance on “protecting” his sister, Yamato who took away her second of freedom to be the one in charge of her actions through the musical device. 

This is now the second time someone brought up Tang Yun blushing, I don’t know why cause that was never my focus. The two times I’ve brought up the incestuous overtones, it was always about the actions and their implications, never about the physical reaction. Him blushing doesn’t mean anything, but him cutting off his justification for his possessive thoughts when he noticed his brother getting upset with him after voicing them? The implication that he’s holding back his darker thoughts so as not to spook Tang Xuan, the object of his obsessions? That’s infinitely more solid proof of the disturbing nature of his affection.

The fact that they are SIBLINGS is what makes it appear more incestuous than a regular villain/victim combo. You know why no one sees villains “caressing” their victim’s cheeks “lovingly” as incestuous? It’s because the victim isn’t usually related to them. Cause, guess what, when there is a familial relationship? The consumers of the media will see it as incestuous. Because it is. It’s a line being crossed/blurred between family. If a villain does this action to their victim of the same sex, guess what? It will be interpreted as homoerotic overtones. If a villain does this action to a child, it’s interpreted as paedophilic overtones. That’s the point of being able to make logical inferences, without the author needing to explicitly state “Hey, this villain right here? Immoral as shit.” They can use this sort of tool to exemplify the corrupted morality of the villain. The posts I’ve made were never about the two siblings being incestuous, but it being used as a tool to paint Tang Yun and Yamato as immoral bastards. I understand that not everyone will pick up on that, but as someone who has consumed media where this happens often, I can pick up on that story-telling tool. Because, once you notice how it’s been used, you will pick up on it quicker.

Speaking of noticing things, did you truly read my post or did you skim through it and get upset? Because I made sure to find an example of hogtying that wasn’t NSFW and highlighted the position itself, rather than any sexual implications of it because this post isn’t about anything sexual. If you still saw it as sexual, then I can’t really blame you, or anyone, for seeing it that way. The thing about tying people up is that it is seen more often as a sexual kink, and I was worried about people having that imagery which is why I tried to minimise the damage by finding a demonstration that wasn’t overtly sexual (you’ll notice it’s more of a diagram featuring a fully clothed man with a neutral expression on his face, with colours contrasting only the rope and number/angles against said man) and by explicitly asking people to ignore any NSFW implications to focus on the the vulnerability.

It’s ironic, because I got this image from an online journal/news outlet documenting the US Criminal Justice system. The image is in reference to police hogtying, and yet you still got the BDSM reading I was trying to avoid. That, accidentally, proves my point that the imagery Tang Yun conjured with that specific phrasing is disturbing, seeing as it is directed to his brother. When it comes to siblings, there shouldn't be any sort of sexual implication between them.

It also doesn’t disprove what I was saying about vulnerability, because the position is used to render victims immovable and, historically, has been used against minorities in overt displays of power imbalances, rendering them vulnerable for sick displays of superiority. I’m sure the Dislyte devs understood the weight of that word, corrupt policemen being an international plague, and that’s why they had him use hogtie rather than just threaten to tie him up, something way less emotionally charged.

Let me reiterate, that the phrase I have been using, “incestuous overtones”, is used to describe any sort of uncomfortable intimacy between two people, specifically siblings in this case. If I was calling it incest, I would tag it as such. Its not incest, it’s implied. And implications can be just as uncomfortable to see/read as demonstrations. While it wasn’t my intention to be provocative in my post, I guess I’ll accept it since it’s inspired this sort of conversation. At the end of the day, I’m just a fan trying to piece together the behind the scenes relationships of one of my favourite characters. If you don’t notice anything incestuous, there is nothing wrong with that. That’s the fun thing about storytelling, people can get different interpretations from the same material depending on their experiences. I recognise the incestuous red flags, you only recognise the abusive red flags. I know that the overtones are done in a way to provoke discomfort in the audience, you are interpreting my understanding as a callout to the Dislyte Devs. I am telling you that’s not even close to my intentions but, at the end of the day, if this is how it feels to you (and others) then I cannot do much about it. I’m not going to spend all day going back and forth with you, you cannot convince me there aren’t any incestuous overtones. Likewise, I am not here to convince anyone that what is happening is incestuous. I am responding to your queries, but this isn’t me trying to evangelise anyone. I don’t care whether or not you agree with me, but you wanted my side so here it is.

Basically, I think this boils down to: you think I'm implying a sexual/romantic relationship is happening between the Tang twins and Yamato and Yuuhime, but that couldn't be further from the truth. It was never sexual/romantic to begin with, just disturbing and uncomfortable to watch happen between siblings.

Has it occurred to you that, perhaps, you're doing the projecting?

[lepertamar]

one of the big.....among the biggest-on-a-narrative-level changes in the revised stars is not really a change as much as making something that in the previous version was very very slippery and avoided and impossible for me to textually justify but still got a deep deathly tingle of on the back of my neck. and which in this version instantly makes everything 5x richer and more layered and pierced-to-the-heart-of The Issue even as it triggered me intensely, that is:

the preceding context, which is not the point but is necessary, is in chapter 4 or something, there's this change, where lucifer's reading from a book about something unmemorable, changed/restored to being a book about a girl who was falls in with a 'bad crowd' and is tricked/forced into burning herself (lu reacts with vicious disgust-based ableism/pity as well as doing it in a context that's very........clearly testing yenatru to make sure he reacts the way they want, they aren't very on-the-nose vicious usually):

but that's not the main point. the main point of this change only makes itself clear many many chapters later, when lu is about to go track down tamar:

hopeful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

that’s the problem!!! the problem lu has is not having to be around a g-d manifestation, the problem is not the triggering reminder, the problem is that tamar is someone who liked it, who doesn’t want to be saved from it. tamar being miserable and forced into it and hating it would fix everything for them!!!!!! would immediately be no problem for them!!!!!!!! even though that would approximate their own trauma more and should hypothetically be more triggering!! but that is not their problem, triggers are not their problem. hopeful!!!!!!!!!!!

even though, a few pages earlier in the same chapter, talking to the same person, they said:

and i wrote in my liveblog chat, i feel very deep shame and embarrassment every time i try to justify the connection but truly:

the stated reason for this revision was 'better continuity with The Lives That Argue For Us, and I see exactly why.

but also, it is so so SO much better. it is so much more cancerous and corrosive, so much gears-turning-other-gears in the psychology/society/narrative/themes of this series. it is no longer single-note trauma as a floating disconnected excuse that does not affect anything or get affected by the traumahaver's frameworks anymore. the really really dread-feeling part is how lu is...charming and insightful and actualized and likable and a good person (....when they are interacting with eliya, or with kjorel, and not when with anyone they like interacting with.) and like???? kinda normal, not in any way edgy or shocking, and not at all inherently or unusually awful. in fact it would feel less bad if they were…..the badness is that, just like irl, people who are not awful can and do sincerely and unironically act like this, because they just think there is an exception, that there are people who are the anthropomorphic representation of not-being.

[owlf45]

Hi owl, did you ever have problem with making your character made mistakes? Or maybe made them do something wrong? Because i currently have this problem i like Izuku too much and i just couldn't let him made mistakes eventhough i know its part of growing up, but i dont know why i just can't do it? I dont know whats wrong with me,

Oh yeah absolutely. I was dealing with this all the time. Especially a couple years ago, I was a perfectionist little shit who cringed in second-hand embarrassment whenever a character made a really stupid mistake/decision. I'm not going to assume your age but I will say it gets easier when you're older to embrace that shit.

I'm going to put a TL;DR with advice up here because I can never shut the fuck up and write a normal amount of words to anything. So here:

TL;DR: If the scene where the mistake is made is too hard to write, write the aftermath. (The mistake is important, but the fallout is usually more so). Using humor/minimizing the amount of time you spend on the consequences of an action can help. Characters can make mistakes without the scene being embarrassing. If you hate the embarrassment of a stupid decision/mistake, rewrite it so it's not making you feel yucky about your writing. Realize that mistakes are not inherently moral/representative of your character being a shithead, and mistakes are sometimes unavoidable (AKA, Izuku broke the laws saving Iida from Stain. A mistake, but not one that was truly in his control). Shit happens. Shit happens! Shit happens. Mistakes happen, it doesn't have to be a big deal.

There's a lot of conflict in the original series where the characters do the right thing, but they get in trouble because they don't listen to the rules. I find that you can still create conflict and acknowledge that characters shouldn't be the ones doing x, y, z (there's a very popular trope where Izuku and his classmates' adolescence comes into play—AKA, they're children, they should leave certain shit to the adults/professionals, even when the pros aren't enough).

It also helps if a character you're really attached to genuinely feels like there's no other option in a situation. Especially with Izuku, he doesn't necessarily try to break the rules. He just values the lives and safety of others over himself and over the law. So yeah, he's going to save a kid he sees is injured and break like, ten laws in the process and probably 3 bones, but that doesn't mean he's bad or wrong, he just doesn't ask for permission because there's not enough time. (Think the Stain fight). It's a mistake, but maybe it's an unavoidable one.

Also, mistakes are not necessarily moral. They don't have to be catastrophic or a reflection of being a bad person. When writing your scene, just remember: shit happens.

If writing the mistake itself is too hard, instead, skip it. Just write the aftermath.

Like. Okay. Example time. Izuku wasn't communicating well with Katsuki on the field because he got frustrated, and the previous night he had a dream about them as kids promising to be hero partners and it got him too deep in his head. And because Izuku wasn't communicating well, because he was out of it, someone got hurt, and the villain escaped. That's a hard scene to write. So I wouldn't write that. I would write the scene after that. Like this:

Izuku's in the locker room, sitting with his head bowed towards his knees. He hasn't moved an inch since he landed there an hour ago. His ears are still ringing from the villain's quirk. No one's dead. But it was close. It hasn't been that close in years.

A locker slams beside his head. Izuku startles.

"So are you going to explain what the hell that was about?" Katsuki says. Oh yeah. He's pissed. Of course he's pissed. Katsuki was yelling on-scene and Izuku had reached up and turned the earpiece off because his head was spinning. He didn't hear that the villain had a partner until it was too late.

And then after this snippet ^^^, they duke it out because of course they do.

At the end of the day, characters make mistakes because they're human, but as a writing tool, they make mistakes to reveal a deeper problem. Izuku doesn't communicate with Katsuki some days because they haven't worked out all the issues in their relationship. Izuku tries to go vigilante as a 12-year-old because he wants to help people more than he cares about his own life. Izuku doesn't argue with his teachers when they tell him off, he just nods his head and goes right back on his self-destructive bullshit because he didn't have a very constructive relationship with his teachers in middle school.

Or maybe a character says the wrong thing to a person who needs help, because they don't know enough about the person/situation. Or maybe a character is an immature child and fumbles a very important conversation with a Very Important Adult. Shit happens. It doesn't have to be a big deal to your characters. Also don't make yourself feel yucky over your writing just because you're trying to shoehorn in some kind of mistake that doesn't progress the plot or character arc.

[ooglywooglies]

yknow that thing i said awhile ago about how trans men and trans women probably inherently make each other dysphoric. i think i was right, i love my girl mutuals and people i follow and stuff but sometimes all the girlcentric stuff kind of wears me out, like dont stop posting what you wanna post but i need to figure something out.

tags were getting too long so im just continuing the post because i guess i cant express the sentiment i want to without dragging on

if you pay attention to my long posts youve probably figured ive been going through some insecurity issues recently, a lot of it is not helped by the fact that i keep doomscrolling on tumblr and digging into discourse tags like the whole "transandrophobia" thing, ive since changed my mind about that tag btw. yknow how i said before that "its a stupid term that has no basis in reality but the transphobia and misogyny trans men face is a real issue that probably needs a specific name for categorization purposes specifically on tumblr dot com" no i think its not important afterall

mostly because ive been watching the decay of this tag for a long time and it keeps CONSTANTLY getting infiltrated by terfs and transmisogynists and ive been talking to someone who is trying to deradicalize people involved and shes like yeah this whole theory/movement/framing basically encourages self pity and resentment so its a breeding ground for transmisogyny (and regular misogyny) and i think i agree with that

but its hard not to see the problems with this tag/community/whatever it is and the response transfeminists have to it and now just go god transmascs are fucking annoying, and i feel embarrassed to be associated with them

and thats stupid, its basically the same thing as white guilt, yknow that thing where when white people learn racism exists they go oh well im sorry for being alive it would be better if white people were just never born. its like no one asked you to feel sorry for YOURSELF (or anyone else, poc in this situation just want you to be responsible when necessary and be respectful)

so like, im not ashamed of being a trans man i guess, not on the basis that theyre capable of and often perpetuate transmisogyny. i think ive talked before about feeling like being a trans man could be antithetical to feminism because some feminists suggest that manhood/masculinity is an inherently toxic and oppressive class, if thats true transitioning into manhood/masculinity would be a morally objectionable thing to do. i think being a man is not inherently bad, i think that gender is not a choice even if one has some benefits over the other (why would trans women ever "choose" to be women if the only factor of gender was privilege) i think this sentiment im so worried about is something basically only terfs (cis radfems) actually believe and try to perpetuate

but i also mentioned on another post that "tumblr tricks you into thinking trans people are annoying" and also that a lot of transmascs both in the tag but also on this site in general are like not older than 22

a lot of the trans guys i follow or are friends with (none of my twitter guys are here and i dont do twitter anymore) are closer to my age, being in their late 20s and you can FEEL the maturity difference. i think being on tumblr does make you think that all transmascs are basically annoying middle class teenage white people who only watch childrens cartoons and it makes the stereotypes about transmascs feel even HARDER to escape from. I CONSTANTLY feel insecure about having feminine interests, about being minimized and belittled, being infantalized, being emasculated, it really doesnt fucking help that im also (south)east asian and historically east asian people have been like hyperfeminized/emasculated compared to other groups

im not sure if im done with this post or not but i got distracted after writing this so i cant remember if i wanted to say anything else so im just gonna be done now

[r0sepetalbed]

I know but I can't fix it.

So, I am perfectly self-aware and conscious that my taste in men is a problematic--not to mention a paradox--thing to begin with.

For instance I long for peace and calm and stability, maturity and understanding. Yet, at the same time I wouldn't mind if he was mean, if he was ignorant, if we fought and disagreed.

Worst of all, I would forgive him for hurting me, in all regards, but frankly I draw the line at betraying me, if he lacked loyalty. I know, that sounds quite stupid, makes one wonder "where are this girl's priorities and why is she okay with anything else?" My answer to that might be insufficient. When you know, you know. For instance, my parents had a rough relationship, many bad moments and good and calm ones sprinkled in. But they never looked at other people, never betrayed each other. I know, bare minimum, but there are couples that cheat. I'd rather go through hell than get cheated on, that's why, in my skewed perspective I could forgive him or her if he mistreated me as long as he is loyal.

This only applies to me, I don't believe anyone else should be subjected to such things, maybe it's my martyr complex, ever the victim, but at my own hands. I have experienced almost all forms of abuse except drug and sexual abuse--thank God--and I must say I am an ungrateful b-word for feeling okay and at the same time haunted by it. Why can't I be normal and feel a certain way about it? Still, there are moments in my life, where I am happy and genuinely, the unbridledly desire of betterment and healing so close, yet out of reach. Finger tips graze the edge and I realize, "no, this scares me, it feels weird. I'd rather stay miserable."

Well maybe I don't explicitly think I should stay miserable, but I return to my old ways. That brings me back to my type, my "romantic" interest. It's embarrassing vocalizing it, so I write it down instead.

I don't idolize bad men, not those serial killers or criminals, I actually have a very tame and mild obsession with men that any woman would like; Mads Mikkelsen, Cillian Murphy and so on. Well that, and mostly fictional men. Women too, but that is a topic I am yet too shy to delve into.

Someone I want, or maybe desire is not equal to what I need. I know the differences between the two, yet desire wins over conscience. Forgive me God. I need someone gentle and patient, warm and welcoming, private and mature. But I want someone who is emotionally not there, controlling, older and wiser but also self-aware of his own flaws yet unwilling to change, someone stubborn and cold yet warm, keeping me starved but feeding me enough to keep me alive for their love.

Someone who has the power to destroy and build me back up, who knows every secret of mine and doesn't shy away from tough love.

And that is a problem, I know, but I don't see why exactly, I don't see why I can't love someone who is deemed unlovable, so long they are not fundamentally bad people, I find a way to long for them. No one is inherently bad or good and I'd rather want someone I can feel comfortably with, even if they are not the healthiest choice.

I want someone who is on a black and white spectrum a dark grey.

But I shouldn't, because I know I can't handle it, I am far from perfect or healthy or happy or mature. I would crumble on the outside and I'm afraid I won't like it, I hate showing vulnerability, especially to those I hold dear.

I am working on it, baby steps.

[coristophanes]

Well this post certainly isn't going to go in the direction I had thought my first post would go when I made this account a few days ago but I told myself that this account for just kinda posting whatever comes to mind; Like a journal of sorts.

I doubt anyone will end up reading this but if you do, I do know that this could be posted privately, but my brain tells me that if it's private there's no point in writing it at all when I could just keep it in. Also I don't know how tumblr is supposed to work but I don't really care. Wow this mobile formatting bothers me. I also don't think I used the semicolon right but I care even less about that.

I'm gonna be talking about mental health and suicide so trigger warnings or whatever.

---------------------

So uh how to start. In my experience, whenever people talk about suicide or whenever it's protrayed in media, it's always a lingering thing, you know? It's always talked about like this monster looming over a person and all it takes is one particularly bad day for it to get close enough to get you. It builds and it lingers and it just always hurts. For so many that's just how it is I'm sure.

I've had my share of suicidal thoughts, they've never gone further than that but they happen. But I feel like my experience is different than the lingering monster. At least I think it is but I'm not really sure, which is part of why I feel the need to write it out. My suicidal thoughts aren't lingering, they're reactive. They happen in response to things that upset me, even just minorly.

I struggle greatly with self worth. Its not that I feel inadequate but more that I feel purposeless? I guess? I'm capable of so much, I know that I am, but I'm unable to use that. I've tried furthering my education, developing a career, going to the gym, taking care of myself better. I can never manage. It starts out strong but lose focus. School in particular was tough because the littlest fuck ups snowball. All it took was a single missed assignment to cause a domino effect leading to me literally missing 80% of all my classes and classwork.

I don't really know where I'm going with this but I think I got off topic. The littlest mistake, embarrassment, bad memory, anything, is enough to pop into my head the idea of "it would be so easy to just do ___ and have it all be over with." And then it's gone. Either I push it out or or it just leaves and I don't think about it until the next time. The thing that spurred all this on in particular is that I've spent too much money recently. Was laying in bed, thought about my spending and then just "this sucks, I suppose I could just end it." Only reason I'm thinking about it now is because I've chosen to think about it because you know... Probably not a healthy mindset to have.

But when I got to writing the first part of this post I started thinking "is this really different from the looming monster metaphor" (not my best work). Sure it's not inherently the direct nono thoughts always looming over me, but those triggering thoughts absolutely are. I find myself always needing some kind of distraction lest the thoughts creep in. I watch so much Netflix and YouTube and tiktok, etc, just to keep the thoughts from rearing their ugly lil heads. Even as we speak, or I guess as I write, I'm rewatching suits on Netflix in a little popout window on my phone (if your curious where I am, Mike just got arrested for being a fraud). Notably, I don't typically listen to music because I'm still able to empty my head when I listen to music, leaving it open for the thoughts I don't wanna deal with.

Honestly I don't know where to go with all this at this point. I'm kinda out of thoughts to write down. Uhh might see Oppenheimer next week, that'll be fun. Maybe barbie too, idk about that one though, kinda harkens back to the spending problem.

Harkens? Did I use that right? I'm gonna assume I did. I probably didn't but who cares, whats gonna happen? The nonexistent reader gonna make imaginary funny of me for harkening wrong? I think not.

This was never the intent of this account. I thought I was gonna be funny and just kinda post random 'quirky' thoughts but uhhh I do think there's gonna be more of these in the future because it felt good to get this off my chest.

Future Topics you can look forward to [or dread]:

- My emotions [or lack thereof]

- My relationship and why I think it's struggling [spoiler alert: I might be aro but I have no idea]

- Why I randomly changed from round to square brackets [I didn't feel like fixing them once I noticed]

- quirky silly goofy Minecraft Roleplay Server trauma (trauma might be a little strong but the hyperbole makes it funny.)

- Cheese probably. Idk why or when but cheese is important to me and I'm gonna discuss it eventually.

- the fact I think I have ADHD or some other neurodivegency (but you'll never catch me telling someone because I despise self diagnosis)

- hyperfixation of the week

- the fact that I accidentally went back to round brackets

- the fact that this list is way too long now but I don't really care to delete any of them but like whatever? Nobody is reading this. Probably. Like I said idk how tumblr works.

Uhhh anyway bye.

Sike I realized my about me section isn't actually made yet so breif background info I should probably put at the top but uhh fuck you.

Cori, 22, Agender(ish), Use any pronouns but if you ask me which ones I use I'll tell you they/them otherwise you'll end up using exclusively he/him and I don't want that because that is incorrect, sorry. Canadian... If that's relevant. I like purple. Big fan of Satyrs. Love D&D. Not straight but don't ask me what I am or I might have to kill you (I don't know). Fun fact: approximately 65% of the crushes I had while in pre-post-secondary school ended up realizing they're actually various flavours of transmasc (one's actually Triple A but don't worry about it).

None of this is relevant, but my episode of suits ended so I'm just kinda rambling until I can find a good point to stop typing, otherwise return of the bad thoughts. I hope tumblr posts don't have a word limit (looking at you twitter [or should I say 'X'] {I shouldn't say X, X is stupid})

Wait this is already and incoherent disaster I can just stop now.

K byeeeeeee

[minu-moni]

Thank you for all your answers!

Honestly your issues with the intermission are so much different than mine that I’m a little embarrassed to talk about it kahfkfja but let’s do it anyway!

My only issue with the intermission really is regarding mainly Spades Slick’s character, specifically his sexism and misogyny.

Now, before anything else, I wanna clarify that this is by no means me saying “you can’t make bigoted characters”, my issue with his character isnt him being sexist in and of itself, but him being sexist as a reflection of Hussie’s own bigotry.

With the majority of intermission characters being male, interactions with female characters are scarce and stand out because of it, mainly Spades Slick interacting with Snowman. What stood out to me the most is the way he addresses her when they interact, mainly calling her a bitch.

It stands out to me because Spades never refers to her as an asshole, a motherfucker, a dipshit or any other cursings. No. He calls her specifically a bitch. And only a bitch. Which is particularly uncomfortable because Snowman’s silhouette is one that makes her slim waist and boobs stand out, so essentially him calling her a bitch and nothing else reads to me like slutshaming.

She’s not a bitch because she treats people poorly and is a dictator. She’s a bitch because she’s a woman with big breasts.

Spades also behaves weirdly towards Ms. Paint, jumping straight into flirting with her when they meet, which also plays on the sexism Spades has. It just feels weird (and particularly uncomfortable) to me that they don’t even talk before he starts flirting, which rings me very much like those construction workers that whistle when women walk by them on the street or hospital patients flirting with nurses.

Now, none of this inherently means Hussie is sexist. Correct.

Except this isn’t only a thing with Spades Slick, but something Hussie has kept consistent since Problem Sleuth.

Notice the way he names the characters in that comic. The male characters have actual names, like the three main characters, Problem Sleuth, Ace Dick and Pickle Inspector. But the female characters are named after sexist stereotypes for women, ie: Nervous Broad; Hysterical Dame. This is something he has carried since those times, and it lines up chronologically since the intermission is very early Homestuck.

“Oh, but this all lines up with what noir movies and stories do, and that’s where the basis for the Midnight Crew and Problem Sleuth come from.”

True, but just because those movies had sexist tropes, doesn’t mean you’re obligated to include them in your story. Just like Bridgerton isn’t obligated to abide by “black people weren’t aristocrats in the regency era”. The decision to put this on the story was a conscious one Hussie made.

It’s not Spades’ character that is the issue, but the fact that he’s written like that because Hussie has a sexism baggage.

Also I really don’t like the idea of Snowman living with like 15 men. Nothing about this is relevant within the comic, but thinking about it too much makes me uncomfortable. Give that woman some female friends please (and maybe some girlfriends too)

A lot about Snowman is written as sexist actually. She is the “bad girl” stereotype that men love putting in their movies to appeal to the male-gaze, barely has a personality in comparison to the Midnight Crew, has a body that makes no sense for a species that apparently reproduces through cloning (even tho she’s hot as fuck and I love her) and is called a bitch (and only a bitch) by the character that interacts with her the most, which sums up like 90% of the time she’s on screen or mentioned.

And this isn’t only an issue with the intermission characters (see the Hussie putting boobs on female trolls despite them being basically insects discussion).

As a woman reading these stories, these little things are stuff that not only feels unnecessary, but are uncomfortable, and I know for a fact I’m not the only one that felt like this since I talked to people about it before.

If it was just the characters, it would be mostly fine, I could easily ignore that, but since it’s an issue with Hussie as an author, it’s something more worrying than just writing a bigoted character.

I don’t know Hussie, so his visions on the subject could’ve changed (and I hope they did) since it’s been a long time since he wrote these characters, but it’s still something that bothers me when I read the intermissions and anything with Spades Slick in it.

I like Spades as a character, but that trait of his and the implications it has are absolutely something I would change.

Genuine question for my homestuck intermission colleagues: are you guys genuinely content with the way the intermission characters are written (The Felt, Midnight Crew and Doc scratch) or is there anything that bothers you? Would you change anything if you could and what?

[madisonrooney]

been getting more and more emotionally and socially drained by work. ik people on here joke a lot about like “i hate being perceived and seen and known” and all that but i honestly have felt that way a lot of my life, and when you work in retail, youre constantly in view and being watched yknow? 

sure i went to school for a big chunk of my life but at least in college when the mental illness really started fleshing out, i could just hide in the back of the class on my computer and an entire semester would go by without my classmates learning pretty much anything about me. now its not only customers but coworkers, youll say some embarrassing shit, which isnt uncommon when youre there as many hours as you are since you start to get rambly, and you cant just shrug it off bc guess what youll see them again tomorrow and the next day and the next day...

ive already had to leave early bc of panic attacks on two different occasions. ive already cried while out on the floor. ive already cried in front of multiple leads and managers. and again, you have to face them again and god its humiliating. 

i just constantly find myself needing time in complete isolation and silence to recuperate, but not having much of it. typically, i only have 2-3 hours after i get home to do anything before i go to bed, and it usually takes me that much time just to catch up on my social media. even if i forgo that for a night, with my attention span, i still cant get much of anything done.

plus im typically busy on any and all of my days off

i just. would really love to have like a week where i just do not have to be seen by a single other person, or at least my public outings can be anonymous like shopping or something. i feel my best on days like that. during quarantine, i honestly had no problem not seeing anyone else besides my parents for more than a year. if anything, i got sick of my parents lol. id spend months on end on my own and dont remember having much of a problem at all with it. sure, id want to remotely hang out with friends, but that would feel more comfortable bc i didnt necesarilly have to be on camera and i could end it whenever i wanted to. i remember going 13 days without setting foot out of my front door and i honestly loved it.

anyway im getting off topic. going back to the matter at hand, i guess my brain is just trained to think that im gonna get a “summer break” at some point but i wont. i feel like i need something like that but idk if i can get it. even if i had my own events going on, it would be nice to have a few days in between where i just had nothing going on, which is what my summers used to be like.

bottom line is this doesnt have to do with my job specifically, its just jobs like this in general. i think in serious enough cases, im good at not just taking what i get but getting what i want out of a situation and i would say thats the case here. im not complaining bc i should have a different job and just dont feel like getting one, im complaining bc capitalism is just inherently like this. my job checks all the main boxes for me: i get pretty much all the days off that i want, the hours are late so it works with my whack sleep schedule, and its not a creative job where theres work to take home, it ends at a certain hour and then you dont have to think about it until you come back, which is p much necessary for my ocd. anything beyond those three factors matters much less. so yah, its the best i can get all things considered, but it still has its issues.

the one potential thing that could get me less social interaction would be training to work in the back, but i mean id still have to socialize with coworkers, plus ive heard you kinda make your own schedule back there so haha thats a no go for my ocd. it also seems too physical for me.

[ganymedesclock]

I think there's a tricky place we can fall into with discourse about prejudice where the pattern goes,

"sometimes people will be angry! Demanding minorities to be sanitized and peaceful and pleasant to groups that have hurt them and in the face of behaviors that continue to hurt them is unfair!"

Which is a good thought!

But then it becomes, "it is always ethical to bully people who are More Privileged Than You!"

At which point there are three problems,

Problem one is that bully mentalities are not good, not in a moral sense as much as a practical one. Even incidents we do celebrate, like that one time a neonazi spokesperson got punched, we don't celebrate because it's a bullying action. It was a targeted act of deplatforming. That guy wasn't embarrassed because we wanted to snap his underwear and send him home crying. The punch was a means to take the platform away from a dangerous person who was using it to spread hate speech. The goal is to stop the harm. The goal is to stop the harm.

The goal is not to be a bully, because being a bully feels good and fun and cathartic and the more you encourage that impulse the more you will actively want to find people to bully, because it feels good, and being left alone with your feelings doesn't feel so good. So the categories broaden. As a means to vent anger it fails, because it makes you angrier, because you want to be angrier, because if you have more justifications there are more people to hurt. An endless buffet of people to hurt! You're better than ALL of them! (Not good for you, not good for praxis, not good to be around)

Problem two is that every human being on the planet is complicated and Privilege is a thing we can identify much more easily in vague abstract than we can in practice. Trying to split hairs and divide everything down to the finest degree to rule who outranks who on the great objective scale of privilege, creates a model where people are incentivized to strip themselves down to victim status for credibility. And most of the categories are extremely broad and affect people to very different degrees. Is my disability "disabled enough" for people? Or because I don't have physical disabilities and I'm not nonverbal, should I shut up forever, regardless of what I'm saying? Are strangers on the internet entitled to my medical history?

At that point it's basically just repeating ableism- you're only credible if you're suffering SO much you can't live without help and then we should all pity you and see you as such a victim. And that's just one example. There's a lot of ways this can go wrong.

Problem three- and the thing that inspired me to make this post- is that if you establish a narrative where the closer to a cis, white, straight, perisex, allosexual, able-bodied, english-speaking christian man in America someone is, the worse a person they inherently are, which gives ownership to all these qualities to the worst people.

I feel like I often see jokes or discussions of characters where male characters are ascribed 'stupidity' as a trait when the thing that the audience is clearly actually reacting to is that he's. nice. trustworthy. patient. And I feel like that's kind of unfair, isn't it? Are we implying any sufficiently smart man would hurt and maltreat others? That the best thing he can be is stupid? As a transmasc person myself, I don't really like the idea that if I reached a point in my transition where people saw me as a man more than anything else, they'd be afraid of me and have to decide if they think I'm too stupid to hurt them.

Men don't inherently suck, cis-heteronormativity creates a shitty box to put men in and this experience hurts them. If the hypothetical Perfectly Normative Man I listed above is the winner of the 'game' that prejudice creates (again, in America, not necessarily in every country) he wins a really bad prize. The primary nexus of misogyny, of racism, homophobia, transphobia, acephobia, ableism, prejudice against intersex people and non-christian religions and secular beliefs are directed off him, but he is made a soldier for these causes because he is never that far off the crosshairs. A cis straight man is often culturally socialized to be terrified of queerness because there is always the warning he could fail to measure up, and become rejected like those Others. Virtually always, in some way, he is already Other himself, even if he hits all the 'correct' categories he may not hit them in a way that power approves of.

This is a system that perpetuates itself through suffering, and the worst possible men, cis people, straight people, so on and so forth do not deserve to be given the right and privilege to speak for the category.

[pennielane]

I know you said "a discussion for another day," so if you don't want to post this (or if it's just too long) no worries. But as someone who went from absolute 0 (knowing the Beatles only from the most basic cultural osmosis) to 100 (in deep in the fandom), I have lots of emotions about the whole narrative thing.

For me, the core problem with this topic in Beatle fandom, as I see it, is that a lot of people who know even a bit about The Beatles (or just classic rock) have trouble understanding what the people who only engage The Beatles as pop culture icons do and don't know. The idea that the "Paul is a boring and inferior" narrative still matters in pop culture feels wrong because it has mostly been stamped out for anyone with any actual knowledge. But as someone who only had the most basic knowledge of The Beatles as cultural figures less than a year ago, I feel very differently. Because the impression I got through cultural osmosis (and seeing as the sources of that impression were tv, movies, and music, not family members, I think it's accurate to the general cultural idea), was that John's solo career was almost as great and important as his Beatle career, Paul's solo career was completely embarrassing and terrible, and George and Ringo didn't have solo careers to speak of.

I don't think that's the biggest injustice in the Beatles broader legacy. I couldn't, for 1 million dollars, have told you George's name. If you had asked me to name all four Beatles I would have said John Lennon (because he's John Lennon), Ringo Starr (because his name is easy to remember), after a minute or two I would have come up with Paul McCartney, and then I eventually would have said Yoko Ono after being completely unable to think of the fourth one.

There is one area where I think Paul fans (but John fans too) get fired up that doesn't really matter to the larger cultural understanding of the Beatles. The idea of "Paul songs" and "John songs" was completely alien to me before joining the fandom. Or any attempt to "split" the credit. The general cultural knowledge I had was that all the Beatle songs were co-written by Paul and John. If you had stopped me on the street and asked me which of them was more important to the songwriting, I probably would have guessed John based on the evidence of his solo career being good, but it would have been a new idea to me in that moment. I also would have had no idea there were any Beatle songs not written by Paul and John except Twist and Shout (which I knew was a cover). I would have pulled a Frank Sinatra and credited the only George song I had ever heard of (Here Comes the Sun) to Paul and John.

How much fans care about the broader legacy of the Beatles as cultural icons is another topic, but I think this idea that the "Paul being inferior isn't a real narrative anymore" comes from fans, even casual fans, not knowing what their broader legacy is. I also think there is still time for the broader cultural legacy to change (especially when the world reacts to Paul and Ringo's deaths) but the further we get from history the harder it is to change the general public's understanding of it.

I have some more nuanced thoughts on pieces of this, but this is the gist.

initial ref

hi. okay. i've thought about this a lot over the past few days. i agree that we, on here, see the beatles through the skewed, myopic lens of Being A Beatles Fan. but at the same time, i sort of disagree with the point you're making. because your perspective is inherently singular, too.

for instance, i remember my pre-beatles super fan days well. my dad was obsessed with band on the run, so i never viewed paul as inferior to john. contrary to your experience, i actually hardly knew anything about john. i knew his name because he died in a tragic way, but i knew nothing about his solo career except for the song imagine. i could name ringo because, like you said, it's an easy name to remember, and i also couldn't name george until later on (my dad started pushing all things must pass on me right before i dove into the beatles so i became familiar with george then). but see, my experience is singular, too. so we're both not in positions to speak on anyone else's perspectives about the perception of paul being "inferior" to john or not, because everyone's introduction to, and knowledge of, the beatles is so wildly different.

the reason, though, i said i don't think that narrative exists anymore is because of how revered paul has become in mainstream media these days with people like dave grohl and taylor swift constantly praising him, as well as bits like james corden's carpool karaoke (barf james corden but anyway), etc. every time you watch a talk show where someone exceptionally famous discusses meeting paul, they're always like ohmygodpaulmccartneyisagod.

and sure, maybe these people are all beatles superfans (we know dave grohl is), so their perceptions could also be skewed. but, using their huge platforms, people like dave and taylor are putting it out into the zeitgeist that paul is someone to be respected, and i really do think it's been sticking. was the narrative different in the 80s, 90s, and even early 2000s? sure. but we're not talking about those decades. i meant present day i don't think that assessment of paul being inferior stands up anymore. of course there are uninformed people who are going to think that, but i do believe the trend these days swings towards people recognizing his talent and impact on the music industry.

also the second message you sent - that you're based in america - i think also makes a big difference. i'm not from the UK so i can't speak to the general rhetoric about paul there, but i've got to think that it's much more complimentary than in the states.