#i just................. hate people who do this. you're not cool or edgy you're offensive.

[some-pers0n]

On a related note to that proship Wikipedia page, there's actually a hilarious instance of a radqueer *giving a college speech about the radqueer community and recording it online* lol. Moons above, some people are just so terminally online lol. Bonus points for the fact that the speech doesn't even make sense unless you're intensely following discourse around radqueers, much less even know what they are.

www.archive.org/details/VriskerFic8onRadqueerSpeech

Listening to it and just. jesus christ what am I even hearing. "Transableism isn't ableist because being disabled isn't a bad thing and wanting to be disabled isn't bad" imagine being a college prof and hearing that.

(More inane ramblings below the cut + live reactions)

Not to also mention it just baffles me the idea of, say for example, neurotypicals identifying as "transautistic" because they feel like they are autistic. You can't be serious with me right now. You cannot look me in the eyes and tell me that you are oppressed because you identify as disabled despite being able-bodied. I get it somewhat if it's a OSDD/DID thing and you've got alters and whatnot, but it's just asinine. It's beyond terminally online. The second hand embarrassment from seeing that this was handed in as a project is so intense. You'd have to be toiling in the darkest, deepest parts of the internet to even understand this.

"It can't be offensive because most of us are minorities" ??? WHAT EVEN IS THAT LOGIC??? Like can you apply that logic to fandom racism? Like imagine people calling somebody out for racism and they went "erm I polled my followers and most of them were queer minorities so it's not offensive" are you kidding me.

Oh my fucking god of course they're a Vriska kinnie. The way they're describing being "transcharacter" makes me nauseous like... Okay, fine, I understand kinning characters. This stuff here sounds like a cult or signs of some sort of dissociative disorder. My sibling in science you need help if you genuinely feel like harming yourself over not being a fictional character.

"I'm trans-half-blind" be serious with me rn. Be fr. Be honest with me here

I do very much agree that harassment and doxing is utterly vile and I feel for these people and how they've been affected, but I don't think suffering immediately makes their identity any more valid. You can't just be. transdisabled. You are either able-bodied and wearing an eyepatch for fun or you're actually disabled.

The thing with these transdisabled people is that they never identify with "gross" disabilities either. Where's the transdisabled people who want feeding tubes. Where's the transdisabled people who claim that they've got dysphoria because they don't have a oxygen tank. What about the disabilities that aren't easy to make you look cool and edgy? Don't got dysphoria for that now, huh?

God I hate fakeclaiming people with mental disorders but I also think that you gotta have at least something with you in order to feel dysphoria about not being a system or not having autism.

Again imagine being a normal well-adjusted person who (at most) has a Snapchat and Instagram account and hearing this. They just talk about this stuff like you're already aware of it. Goodness gracious. The thing here too is that I'd be terrified of giving them a bad mark for being, well, incomprehensible in case they decided to take that as me being a violent bigot and further harm themselves.

What are they even talking about right now

Why are they talking about the Oxford dictionary

"This calls us attention seekers. Well, don't you know that attention seeking is a sign of emotional neglect?" you didn't debunk the argument. You just said: "Well, yeah, maybe we are attention seekers, but don't you know we're also traumatized? Boom, gotcha there. Now you can't criticize us because we're traumatized"

OH MY GOD THEY ACTUALLY WEAR AN EYEPATCH WDHUAIWHAIUA--

Oh how brilliant of a conclusion: people are people and not everyone's emotions and experiences are the same. How ground-breaking. Curious, I wonder what it would be like to ask a person who has a missing or damaged eye their thoughts and opinions on a transcharacter Viriska wearing an eyepatch and telling people they're disabled. I wonder how they'd feel.

God this whole thing is so immature. They call anybody who disagrees with them a child when they themselves have been doing little more than make cheap arguments, curse, and barely formulate even a single coherent thesis statement. It doesn't even sound like they have a script, more like ramblings straight from the heart.

Kid, I don't really care if a person is transID or whatever it's called. I care if they're a decent person more than anything. I'm not going to maul them and drag them into the streets for people to stone to death. Why do you act like you're oppressed in this way? I get that you and your friends have been mistreated, but to be honest it's still like. ridiculous to me.

Please don't...gouge your eye out...

I know I've said it before but GOD imagine being a prof and receiving this. I would be utterly terrified and don't know what to do because it's clear the person is not exactly in. stable condition mentally.

[zippers]

cw: discussion of q slur and transphobia under the cut

lol throwback to three hours ago when i said i was glad our school didn’t call our gss program “qu**r studies” and my friend, a gss major (who said she has only taken one gss class so far lol), proceeded say stuff in a mocking/taunting voice like “oh, you don’t like the word qu**r? does the word qu**r make you uncomfortable? I’ll have you know that qu**r studies has been used in academia by actual good qu**r academics for decades. i wish our school called it qu**r studies. you’re offended by the word qu**r? too bad, because only some qu**r people are offended by the word qu**r. Most qu**r people actually prefer the word qu**r because it’s inclusive of all qu**r people, not just el gee bee tee”

and whenever i tried to interject something about how ??? i have a lot of trauma associated with the word as i encountered a lot of homophobia growing up in Texas so would you like, intentionally rubbing the word in my face as though there’s something wrong with me for flinching whenever i hear that word? i have friends who identify as qu**r and i’m fine with it as long as they understand that not everyone can view the word in a positive light. also it’s not as though “gender and sexuality studies” isn’t also inclusive????? it’s literally ????????????? the most inclusive way to say that???????????? so why was she getting so defensive???

especially since the way she was saying it was in the exact same tone (i.e. mocking/taunting/teasing me with the word) as i’d hear people using the word as a slur would use?????? like I was having flashbacks to that as i was sitting there because of her???????

and i was literally shaking and i just said “i’m not having this conversation with you, i don’t want to argue about this, can you please stop saying that,” etc. and i just said “i dont want to offend you with my opinion” and she said “oh don’t worry, you won’t hurt me,” and i just said, straight to her face, “well, i can’t say the opposite is true.” also there was (another lesbian) sitting with us and she just looked so uncomfortable with how my other friend was acting. (i am the mutual friend between them and i invited the rude one.)

also she literally said, to my face, that she can pass as a guy/not a woman better than me. i was like ???? i’m literally not a woman ????? and she was like “ive been asked if i was a guy or a girl before. i would pass as a guy. you wouldn’t” and she mentions how she’s got short hair while i have long hair, and how she looks more androgynous in general. then she says that she was also considering to “pretend she was a guy” (an idea which i gave her when we first had a conversation over text about the dress code.) and what the fuck. you’re a woman and i’m not. i wouldn’t be “pretending to be a guy,” i wouldn’t be pretending anything at all. i would just be.... being myself, which is not a woman! a cis girl should not be saying this to a nb person. the context was that i was opening up to the two of them about how i was super upset that women are required to wear a skirt or a dress to enter certain religious places on our greece trip and how that was going to be super dysphoric for me, and how i was thinking about just dressing up really fancy in dress clothes and a tie.

As a side note... after the qu**r thing happened, I said that archaeology (we’re in a greek archaeology class) was rooted in racism, imperialism, and orientalism & she was like “wow you’re just attacking everything i love!” like okay... you love racist things then lol i wonder what that says about you

like wow this year my friends really are showing their true colors????

[yammoba]

Im not done actually. I wanna talk about the specific kind of catharsis that i have only really gotten from ranfren and like, the hazel video about Elfin Lied.

I grew up on the internet. I spent a good portion of my youth using the internet to try to escape all the things that sucked in my life, my shitty friends, my body, feeling like a powerless idiot. Feeling like a total outcast because no one knew what wolf's rain was. I wrote edgy stories about assasins and murderers because that kind of stuff felt cool. (Serial killer ocs were everywhere it was hilarious) It felt like a way to state my individuality. It felt freeing to think about that kind of stuff when i was supposed to be a "good" kid. I watched elfin leid and thought it was the most deep anime i had ever seen (seriously go watch the hazel video about elfin leid, on youtube, she does a better job characterizing being this age at this time than i possibly could). I watched all sorts of edgy problematic skits and shit on youtube.

And i cannot stress enough how much 4chan was a central part of internet meme culture. But also saying this, it doesnt really explain, 4chan was a lot different back then. Now i think most people on the outside equate 4chan with /pol/, and while /pol/ is a scumhole of a board that does polute everything else, it isnt and never was the only thing on that site. There was more cross over between the various boards, and gamergate hadnt happened yet so, while "edgy" jokes were the norm it wasnt nessecarily about the actual meaning behind the jokes. It was more of an arms race to see who could be the most shocking. Pedobear was a widespread meme. He would just show up, the joke was, its a bear who likes to molest kids wow. But the "comedy" came from using him to twist stuff that would otherwise be inncocent. Im not saying its a good joke, i think its more that people have forgotten or never known the comedy was "supposed to" come from the shock, the subverted expectations of normalcy. South park shit. Though id argue south park is worse at actually promoting and spreading harmful mindsets the internet had a lot more genuiene connection and wholesome moments that made it a little more valueble than south park. But the two do kinda go hand in hand.

Of course there is something to be said of how this culture of offensive shock humor became firtile ground for alt right fuckos to spread their fucko shit to people who's brains were still developing. Im not trying to say that this era was a Good Thing, im just trying to explain some context as to why folks are able to forgive and look past these kinds of things, especially in cases where people have shown themselves to be different, even if they never "apologized". Its easy to look back and say everyone should have known better, especially an "adult" at age 23... guys i hate to tell you this but you dont automatically gain level 10 pure sight on the eve of your 18th birthday and are instantly able to see all the ways in which the world around you is wrong and fucked up. Especially if the general cultural vibe in the spaces you're hanging out in is "lets be fucked up on purpose because it fun and no one understands us anyways so lets see who can be the edgiest." Like yeah, we "should have known better". The general online culture has made vast strides in promoting acceptance and justice, even though theres a bunch of fucks up and stuggles that we are all still dealing with.

As someone who lived through that time, and used stuff like elfin leid, and higurashi and tohou memes and weird 2chan and 4chan memes as a way to cope, to escape how i felt, to feel like i was "in" on something. To feel like i wasnt alone. Both in a cultural "weeaboo" way and in a direct way. where i had online friends and we did edgy wolf rp and talked about our psychic assassin ocs with heterochromia and purple hair but made sure to give them lots of "flaws" because these werent mary sues no way only loosers have self insert mary sues.

Im referencing all these specific things because when i read randal's friends it was like someone took that time in my life, both the aesthetics (of anime, of the internet) and the feelings and wishes, the alienation. The feeling like a fucking weirdo but having to learn to take some kind of pride in that because i didnt really feel like i had anything else going for me. Feeling simultaneously above everyone because I had Refined taste, and like sewer scum because i just was. It took all that and presented this story thats like, ah yeah, -me too-. That was a fucking time wasnt it. It was pretty funny that we were like that, it was fun to have so few inhibitions. It was a time which we lived through. and it can just feel... validating to see a story that makes you feel in some way "no i wasnt alone". And its also just like, nostalgic. I think about this a lot but theres a certain kind of nostalgia that one can feel for things that werent nessecarily good. Or for things that were difficult or troublesome. The fact that the comic is on a neocities website is kind of the perfect example of this. Every webcomic used to have its own site, and you have to have a bookmarks folder for your webcomic and everyday (since most of those bitches didnt stick to a schedual) you would go through and check every website to see if there was an update.

Ughhhg, what im trying to get at is there are reasons why both the more "acceptable" parts of ranfren and the "problematic" elements of the comic are like part of the charm, because its cathartic and "nostalgic" and validating for someone like me, a weeaboo who got memepoisoned at too young of an age. And because that appeal is so specific to a certain part of the past it isnt like shocking that captain howdie has some not great stuff in the past. Nor is it really shocking that they havent felt like "adressing it and apologizing" or what ever the fuck some people claim to want.

Ill go through some of the stuff more specifically bc someone said they were curious, (might take me a bit i think i have a lot to say about the rats) but i felt like i had to try to explain why people (me) value this work, despite or in some aspects because of some of the more problematic elements. i dont even think i really did, its a difficult thing to express in words.

Tl;dr ranfren is pure catharsis for weeaboo weirdos who grew up during the darker ages. The bad things and the good things are part of that. There is not much that does as good of a job at being that.

[echodrops]

I know you've said you're a Kingdom Hearts fan, so in honor of Kingdom Hearts 3 coming out at the end of the month, what are your hopes/expectations for the game?

Ooh, good ask. Gonna answer this one before some of the others because it’s a bit time-sensitive. (I can’t believe the release date is finally upon us…)

Hmm…

Fears:

1) One of the good characters dies. At this point, I just really, really don’t need to see any of the good characters get a bad end. They’ve literally all suffered enough–they’ve all HAD a bad end already–that I really hope that Nomura doesn’t try to go for the drama points and kill someone off or make someone a sacrifice. Everyone needs to come home in one piece at the end of the day, and I mean everyone–Roxas, Axel, Xion, Namine, Terra, Aqua, Ven, Riku, Sora, Kairi… I guess, GUESS I could deal with the data kids or Repliku maybe not making it (because I was surprised by them coming back in the first place), but if any of the main good guy cast doesn’t see the happy ending they have more than earned at this point, I will feel very disappointed. Honestly, if everyone survives and manages to become their own person by the end of KH3, I don’t care what other bullshit plot twists happen. Bring your weirdest, Nomura.

2) Zero mention or connection to Strelitzia. If they’re going to feed way more into KHUX’s plot than they claimed, they might as well do something with Strelitzia too.

3) People bitching about how the game isn’t as good as they wanted it to be. I actually got a chance to play the demo at an event and I found it fun and beautiful but not earth-shattering in newness. It really felt like KH2 with flashier graphics. And I’m totally okay with that. It just needs to be a fun game to play, not the best, most perfect game ever created. Tuning out the inevitable haters is going to be exhausting.

4) Forced Roxas/Xion pairing. Look, for all Nomura’s talk about friendship focus, we know Sora/Kairi is coming. I like Kairi, by which I mean she deserves to have a more fully realized character and a more active role in the plot than “object for Sora and Riku to save.” I want to see her grow. I’m not going to begrudge the series its Sora/Kairi endgame. But… (and absolutely no offense meant to anyone who loves this ship, you do you!) I actually hate Roxas/Xion. Again, it’s nothing against Xion herself–358/2 had some truly garbage writing but Xion was as much a victim of that as anyone else. (She’s probably one of the better written KH female characters, actually…) I’m just still confused about the addition of another Kairi-esque potential love interest for Roxas when Namine was right there. Furthermore, the confusion over whether Xion being a clone of Sora means she’s equivalent to a sibling of Roxas (since apparently KH3 is treating Roxas and Sora like [metaphorical] brothers re: Big Hero 6 trailer) just makes this pairing really odd and somewhat discomforting to me. There’s been so much hyping up of the Kairi-Xion connection via Axel that I almost feel like Namine has been pushed to the side quite a bit; I’d rather see her return to focus, personally.

And some hopes:

1) Vanitas redemption arc. I get that not every bad guy deserves a redemption arc, and you definitely won’t see me lobbying for Xehanort to get one, but even if you discount the novels, Vanitas is an extremely interesting character who–despite being yet ANOTHER Sora-clone-esque design–still manages to feel unique and is just plain fun to watch on screen. His ability to create Unversed is cool, his attitude is refreshing, and he has a lot of potential to flip things on their heads if he were to change sides. I think his presence would be a great chance to finally live up to the “Darkness isn’t evil in-and-of-itself” idea they mention a few times and then completely ignore plot-wise… Hell, if not a full-blown redemption arc, I wouldn’t mind Vanitas just flipping Xehanort off and going to do his own thing. So long as my edgy son gets to live through the end of the story… T_T

2) Axel and Kairi friendship! Please just let Kairi adopt Axel as her sarcastic big brother and have them team up to roast everyone else’s bad decision-making… They deserve this, if nothing else.

3) No DLC. Please. Tiny cosmetic stuff would be fine, but please no episodic content. Nomura said he wouldn’t but we all know that man sits on a throne of lies…

4) The playable Riku sections are short. Riku is fine, don’t get me wrong, but in a mainstream KH game, I feel like Sora should be the central figure as much as possible.

5) Roxas isn’t norted. Roxas isn’t norted. Roxas isn’t norted and he gets to unleash a serious ass whooping before the end of the game. If anyone deserves to just kick some bad guy ass, it’s Roxas.

That’s really about it. Honestly, I’m keeping my expectations for the game low because after 13 years, I’m just glad to have a KH3. I’m going to enjoy it for what it is and let contrary opinions and ideas roll off my back.