#i love some good ol respectful discourse

[ev-arrested]

A Rant About Canon vs. Fanon, and the Stigma That Comes With "Not Reading Enough Comics"

(Comes with a funny anecdote pls read. Also apologies to @pluckyredhead for hijacking their poll lol)

I'm reblogging this older post because I'm realizing I have more to say about half of the DC fandom not reading comics at all (which, to be clear, I'm not judging). I plead y'all to actually listen, because some of you treat reading comics like a job, and I'm here to remind everyone that it is not that serious.

Let me start off by sharing an anecdote:

In March, I made a post that got fairly popular. It was just a funny little joke using the at the time popular, and now hated "dirtbag!Dick" headcanon. I was fairly new to comics at the time, I was happy to learn more, and a lot of my assumptions about how characters would act was informed by my consumption of fanon, so I just assumed dirtbag!Dick had some credibility behind it. My post made the rounds, and eventually someone reblogged it with a bunch of citations and comic panics, effectively debunking my post, which I honestly don't have a problem with on its own. Again, happy to learn more, and I actually picked up a few of the comics that the reblogger cited and took them as reading recommendations.

However, their attitude in the tags bothered me a little. It went something along the lines of "no idea when this post was made but it annoyed me so much I had to write an essay", which, bruh. After that, I had dozens of reblogs saying similar things about how much they hated fanon interpretations sometimes and how they hated how popular my post had gotten lmao (and as a side note and reminder, see this post. Don't be a jerk in tags).

After 4 months, I've consumed a metric fuck ton of comics, and looking back on my funny goofy post, yeah, I think it's wildly inaccurate. Do I look down on everyone reblogging my post saying how funny they think it is? Absolutely not. People are enjoying a harmless, inaccurate post, and good for them (and shoutout to the people in my tags saying, "this isn't canon at all but it's funny so i'm reblogging". This isn't about y'all, y'all are cool).

Here's the funny part of this anecdote: One specific reblog of the "debunk" post got my attention. It was a person with a pretty large blog I followed and honestly found increasingly annoying, because I would occasionally see them go off about certain fanon interpretations of Batman characters. Initially, I was like, "yeah, I should've expected this, because this person places major importance on 'being accurate'," but then I took a pause, because hold on, I could have sworn this person had already reblogged my post in the past. My original post. I went back through my notes, and I couldn't find their reblog anywhere. Keep in mind, my original post was made on March 15th, and the debunk post was made in May. Their re-reblog of the post was in July, and while I couldn't find their original reblog, I found notes of people reblogging their reblog (god, that's not a fucking word anymore) in March and April. And based on what I remember about their original post, it was anything but negative. It was quite positive, actually. Something something "this is so funny" etc. But here they were in my reblogs again, saying how they hated this fanon interpretation of Dick.

Let me reiterate: this fucken person saw my original post, reblogged it positively, then a few months later saw the debunk post, deleted their original reblog, and then reblogged the debunk post and fully agreed with it, saying how much they disliked this fanon interpretation.

In addition to being fake as fuck, hysterical, and a very, very silly thing to do (seriously, like as soon as I saw that, I was laughing about it for the rest of the day. This person places such importance on hating everything about "inaccurate fanon", and as soon as they realize they accidentally--god forbid--enjoyed an inaccurate fanon post, they backpeddle this hard. 10/10 best thing I've seen on this hellsite), I think this is indicative of a problem in this fandom.

This fandom places such major importance on being "canon accurate" all the time and, in addition to being impossible (as there are so many contradictions within canon that you can't exactly abide by it in the first place), it's honestly just a little very silly. There's such an unreasonable expectation to have read every comic known to man, and while I personally can appreciate a well-meaning correction, I cannot for the life of me understand how a person can get so mad at a harmless post whose only moral failing is being inaccurate with no real world consequence.

Can inaccurate fanon be pretty annoying sometimes? Absolutely, it can. However, not once have I ever harbored negative feelings towards someone just because they were inaccurate about a thing they love, especially if their post was supposed to be a harmless fun thing. In fact, if you feel the need to correct someone, you can absolutely do it in a way that builds on the OP's post that's respectful, gives them an opportunity to learn more about canon, and engage more with the thing they like.

TL;DR Let people enjoy things. Don't be a dick. Comics are not that serious lol. Life gets a lot more enjoyable if you choose to not be bothered by stuff as harmless as this.

DC fandom, I have a question...

No judgment no matter what your answer is, I'm just curious! Reblog, sample size, etc.

[orion4ever]

hey dude, i know you mean well for the ol community, and i think you're really cool and have been following you for a while, but i really don't think all this shitting on rose is justified. spreading callout posts by taking shitty things people have said out of context, especially queer poc, is a real tactic used by terfs to spread discourse and isolate queer people from communities, and it's worked so well that queer people have started doing the same to their own with really good intentions, but the overall effect is nonsense discourse and the spread of hatred. kab herself has publicly said that she and rose have a good relationship and that she thinks most of rose's impact on the games and community has been really helpful for checking her own biases. the screenshots and shitty things you've read about her are not the full story, and yes, i do agree that rose handled certain things really really shittily and i am not excusing that at all, but rose isn't a bad person at all, what the callouts show is out of context and does not show rose accurately as a person, and the degree of hatred for a group of people honestly trying to create a safe space for queer people is wildly disproportional. i really hope this doesn't come off as any way accusatory, because it really isn't, and i really look up to you as a creator. i just want you to be aware that this is something that has been settled by the people involved, and continuing discourse and wanting rose fired goes directly against kab's own wishes and is based on misinformation. thanks for reading this far. please have a wonderful day

I respect you and I appreciate that you reached out respectfully with this.

I do not repost these call out post to be malicious or start a hate campaign like some people have been accusing others of.

I do not encourage witch-hunting or harassment of Rose or Kab ; As they are people and make mistakes , even if the mistakes are extremely shitty and I understand that those screenshots were a private conversation but frankly , I think some of the stuff Rose said was extremely odd and vulgar , context or without.

I am not in the official OL server so maybe your right about them not being as bad but even if that was the case they should still be let go of the role as sensitivity reader because they’re views aren’t open minded and its ironic that they are supposed to help prevent bias and keep the game inclusive when they’ve shown a weird rhetoric and the paper bag comment actually made my jaw drop.

OL has been one of the most comforting things to me , I was in a really dark place when I started a new save file and fell in love with all the characters and the game so believe me when I tell you I would never want to attack the very person who created and brought me that comfort. It physically exhausted me and upset me yesterday when it all came to light , considering it has been a huge hyperfixation and boosted my self esteem.

I don’t care if GB is okay with their friends talking an insane amount of crap behind their backs. It's not my business, I just think that they need better friends.

Even with this in mind, I can’t continue my support for Kab if they decide to keep Rose on the development team, not purely just because of what they said in private but how they treated my friend. The both of them are insinuating that they’re a “liar” or that they “overreacted” when they just wanted to express a grievance. And a surprisingly large number of people are harassing them and accusing them of starting a “racist campaign” towards Rose when they are a trans minority as well. If the fandom is so quick to villainize my friend for simply speaking out then frankly I don’t want to be a part of this fandom.

I hope you also have a good day.

[cellsshapedlikestars]

"Not some willowy creature who sits up in a tower, brushing her hair and waiting for some knight to rescue her." If you're currently taking prompts, I was wondering if you would take one that tackles the above quote from book-Jon's thoughts. While he thinks highly of atypical and unique females like Ayra or Val, his misogynistic views of women who adhered to the rules of his society (by choice or otherwise) need to go! Time period of your choice/doesn't have to be bookverse.

I'll be honest, anon - is Jon actually any more misogynistic than the rest of Westeros? Baseline everyone is, because the society they live in is.

This prompt came in back when I requested them (like half a year ago, oops) and I've come back to it every once in a while, but could never really think of a way to turn this into a story that wasn't just Jon sitting there and thinking the things I'm about to write. So instead, I'm just writing my thoughts lmao.

I'm gonna put it all under the cut, because I don't normally do this sort of thing (aka, give my thoughts on canon in a not-story way. I don't like discourse, so I'm placing this under the cut & not tagging it to hopefully avoid that.)

Now, I'm no book scholar, I haven't studied them and parsed through them, I don't read a lot of metas (sorry!) and I actually read the books years ago, so maybe I'm completely wrong here, but I always took that willowy creature line as Jon being a shitty teen boy and trying to pretend he doesn't want the thing he wants. Jon's other thought at this moment is "a warrior princess, he decided" - which is just him... coming up with Val’s whole personality despite not really knowing her. He’s thinking in generics & story tropes in this moment. Willowy creature. Warrior princess.

I also think Jon's admiration for "unique females" is less active misogyny and more him... sort of taking Arya's side? Because doesn't Arya 'hate' feminine girls, too? Arya doesn't fit into that role and because of that, she ends up resenting it (which, to me, is absolutely something a young girl would do. I did it. I went through my not like other girls faze). So of course Jon, who adores Arya and wants to protect her and feels a kinship with her as the two "outcast" Starks, would also take that on. Plus, if you think about it, the only real ladies he would have ever interacted with would be Catelyn (who didn't love him the way he wanted her to) and Sansa (who at some point, kept her distance). Every other reference point he'd have is either from a distance, or from stories. You also have his role model, good ol' Ned Stark, who is amused by Arya's "boyish" behaviors, then gives his "girly" daughter a doll because that's what girls like, right? No matter she's too old for it. And Robb "My Sisters Aren't Worth Trading For" Stark.

But Jon doesn't actually hate willowy creatures, if we're equating that with feminine women. He thinks of Sansa fondly enough, he wants to give Ygritte flowers from the glass gardens, he loves that Ygritte loves songs. When he thinks about his mother, he wants her to be a lady. He wants to be Lord of Winterfell. He wants a lady wife and children. I think that the willowy creatures line is based less in actual hatred for feminine women, and more a way for him to pretend it's not what he wants, because he thinks he can never have it.

I think we can also look at willowy creatures another way, in that Jon doesn't respect people who don't use their own agency, or are too cowardly to stand up for themselves/others. But that doesn't necessarily apply to feminine women? Look at Cat, who fought off an assassin and helped her son wage a war and 'saws through' a guy's throat when Robb was killed (thanks asoiaf wiki for that description). It doesn't even really apply to Sansa, who is one of the more passive characters, action-wise. But she stands up to and manipulates Joffrey into not killing Dontos, doesn't bend for Tyrion to cloak her, and runs away with Dontos despite not having a guarantee of her safety.

And the fact that he repeatedly denies Stannis because "Winterfell belongs to my sister Sansa" tells me he doesn't actually think less of women who follow traditional roles. If he did, he could easily think Sansa wouldn't be able to handle it, or doesn't deserve it because she's a woman.

Now, like I said, I'm no book scholar, so maybe there's some other point where Jon's like "women are stupid and useless" but I'm not remembering them.

.

TL;DR: Jon is a teenage boy who grew up in a misogynistic society, who has one negative thought about a generic willowly creature, but when he actually knows women, seems to respect them well enough

.

Sorry anon, I know this was supposed to be a writing prompt, I just couldn't make it into an actual story. But I still had thoughts about it. clearly lol

now, if anyone disagrees with me on any of this, that's fine! This is just my opinion and conclusions I've come to, all while having a very pro-Jon and pro-Jonsa bias (and as someone who spent most of their child/teen years resenting the color pink and pop music and girly girls, only to grow up and realize I like all of those things, along with my grunge music and horror movies and questionable taste in fashion)

[counterfictional]

OK. change of plans, we're going to do these prompts because they seems short n' sweet.

Prompt link by @local-xenogender-icon

Thank you for posting this prompt, it was very nice to do.

Alterhuman alphabet!

(feel free to copy, paste, fill in and credit me!)

A - awakening

When did you realise you are an alterhuman? At what age, how long ago?

2013-2014. It was due to youtube videos about otherkin/therian wolf packs after a rabbit hole of looking at werewolf things.

B - balance

Does your identity affect your social life (school, work, ect.)? Does it cause troubles or not?

No. It's not something that gets shown through.

C - city

Do you live in a city? If yes, is it hard for you to be away from nature? Does your therio/kintype even need nature?

Won't say where exactly we live aside we don't live by a beach, which can be a nice ol' kin trigger. Nature is always nice. The ocean is very nice. Do I need it? I can live without it. After all, this isn't a seafaring body.

D - diary

Do you have a diary about your alterhuman experiences? If not, do you want to start one?

I have not. I should. That would be nice, to try and encourage more experiences. I usually take note of plural experiences because time in/around tlpa community, so I have internet journals worth of sporadic activity concerning internal non-singular affairs.

E - experience in the community

What is your experience and thoughts about the alterhuman community?

I don't like the system discourse seeping in, it is scaring me and it makes me think people are not understanding what it means to disqualify these experiences. I'm confused about quadrobics. I'm always saddened about fictionkin's dilution, though that is from outside in. I do think we need less posts about the community itself and more experience posts. There's a reason why the online conventions are always more enthralling, and that's because they bind together love for sharing experiences.

F - friends

Have you told your friends about your identity?

Hmm... I am open about it online. I don't directly tell people.

G - gear

Do you have any gear? If yes, is it handmade or bought?

No.

Funny to think, cosplay could count as gear in this situation. Would I wear cosplay...... perhaps? Perhaps...

I - identity

What is (are) your therio/kintype(s)?

I boil it down to OC and fictional salmon shark (Syakesan, but I'm certain I may have went by the game's english translation: Sal). My very first kintype was kitsune, though not really sure we're that or not anymore. It is there as a shadow, and I do have some respect for Inari still.

J - jokes

Do you like to make little jokes about your identity or is it rather serious for you?

Life's a comedian and I am a joke. There's truth in jest.

I can joke about it but it is serious for me, yes. The absurdity and the brevity of it.

K - knowledge

In scale of 1-10, how big do you think your knowledge about alterhumans is? Are you new to this topic?

Not new. 8. If you ask me for advice I'll sugar coat it with "I think's" and "I could be wrong's".

L - liking, loving

Do you like your therio/kintype(s)? Do you love or dislike it/them?

Love yourself, right? I have trouble with that!

I only hope people don't try to believe I think bad bad things are OK. What a pain.

N - nature

Does your therio/kintype live in the wild, or rather not? (E.g. it's a house pet, or it's a robot.)

I lived in a house. In the sea. Suburbia?

O - otherhearted

Are you also otherhearted? If yes, what is your kithtype(s)?

Oh geeeeeeez there's some characters out there that remind me of me. I have to restrain my petty little mind from grasping onto them in any way, including otherheart. Akechi Goro reminds me of me only because it reminds me of Sal me. Playing that game (persona) was an experience!

P - popularity

Is your therio/kintype "popular" or is it rather rare?

....I'm........... popular to some.... Oh, there's some me's out there. I salute to theeem. And for OC, well I am one of a kind <3~

R - real body

Do you feel good about your psychical body? Do you experience gender dysphoria?

I have to separate myself from my body. It's fine, but the body is jarring. Aha...

S - sex

Does therio/kintype have a different sex than you?

Nope, I is I.

T - traits

What are your alterhuman traits? (E.g. a need to hunt, bark, ect.)

The need to.... uhm.... hm... See, though I'm a shark I'm pretty humany. I don't have the desire for the hunt. The need to mope. The desire to hate myself. The want for something more.

Urges

If you have a theriotype, are you good at controlling your animalistic urges? Do they bother you?

Rawr! I haven't an urge in the slightest.

We do get claws and teeth. The symbolic wolf of fear and anger. But that's different.

W - wondering

How do you think you would look like, if you could psychically shapeshift into your therio/kintype? (Describe or put an inage here!)

White guy.

Y - yarn

If you wanted to buy/make a tail, would it be real fur or fake/yarn fur?

Deep down (like if you put a shovel to the dirt only slightly-- that deep), I want a canine tail. That'd be fun to wear. Yes. Any kind of fur.

Z - zoo

How do you feel about zoos (a place)? Are they good or bad in your opinion? Do you want to go there to meet your theriotype (if you are a therian).

Not the expert. Think aquariums are great, or some of them. I see the sharks and go hello there, suckers! In all seriousness, do really love going to aquariums. Love it to bits, more than the zoo.

[catzeatyerface]

I looked at a bunch of the reviews for characters on Dislyte and here’s what I saw:

Falken: Mostly horny. I love the comment “Why’s his waist so small? For guys to hold?” and also “Classic case of hotter in 2D” XD I think he mostly looks good in 3D but it’s just when he’s using his Falconer skill he looks kind of wonky and plastic.

Tang Xuan: Also pretty horny, but also I love that everyone had the same thoughts as me which was “t-boy swag”. And apparently they originally used a female character model for him in the beta? So yeah, this is canon whether the devs want it or not. My fave comment is “Happy pride month to this review section.”

Tang Yun: Some gross comments (horny≠gross) but mostly like his brother just a lot of queers claiming him/swooning over him. Some of my fav comments: “would marry this depressed yandere goth man” (literally so accurate), “my little meow meow” (correct term usage), “scrunckly boy” and “scrinkly boy” (sounds cute, hopefully isn’t terrible), and “poor boy must be dying of sensory overload having 6 ears”. And of course lots of comments about his big ole butt.

Mona: Mostly respectful and talking about how awesome she is and what a good DPS she is for beginners (very true). Love my gay daughter.

Sally: She’s a chubby woman who’s a support so of course most of the comments are about her being a mom 🙄. There were at least some ppl calling that out and saying she’s beautiful.

Xie Yuzhi: Thankfully I only saw like one inappropriate comment and then a bunch of ppl telling that person they’re gross. And don’t give me any discourse about short adults, i’m not say you can’t find him pretty, or cute, or whatever but if his appearance inspires horniness then that’s questionable. 

Lu Yi: This poor man is just being torn a new one for his outfit.

Long Mian: Summed up as “he’s creepy but also super hot” and true. But also someone said “he’s just angsty cause his dog died.” and I thought  that was a joke/John Wick reference but it was actually true asdgfdasdscdfv.

Unky Chai: It’s all basically just either “cool dude I’d like for an uncle” or “GILF” which is expected.

Arcana: HE IS A FASHION ICON AND I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS SLANDER! I WILL NOT!

Q: Poor sweet baby DX They introduced him as an annoying pervert and so now everyone absolutely despises him even though he’s sweet. More love for Q, I’m with the person who asked the devs to rewrite his story mode dialouge.

Sander and Drew: Oh God, my phone! My phone is melting!! They’re too horny, my phone is going to explode!!

[tom-whore-dleston]

Barbie and the 900 Followers

HOLY SHIZZZ!!! I'm freaking out in silence but I am just extremely thankful to have met so many amazing folks like y'all! I love you guys for real 🥹🫶🏽

Since the Barbie movie releases in almost a year, I thought I'd hype up the movie in advance with a Barbie themed sleepover. No sleepover is complete without our fave doll 😊 Plus, Simu is in it so I gotta give the husband my full support bahaha

*in Margot Robbie's Barbie voice* NOW WHO'S READY FOR SOME FUN????

In the Barbie world:

Starts: July 16 @ 9am (PST)

Ends: July 18 @ 11:59pm (PST)

You are welcome to send in asks before the sleepover starts, but I won’t start responding to them until the start time.

As always, please be 18+ to participate! If I do not see any indication of your age in your bio or you do not have any posts/reblogs, you will be blocked! No exceptions!!

You don’t have to be following me to participate. Everyone is welcome 😊

I disabled anon feature to avoid meanies and minors.

Please send one emoji per ask. You don’t have to worry about spamming my inbox, I will see everything 😉

I will not write/discuss anything revolving around non-con, underage, a/b/o, bathroom kinks, blood kinks (only exception is vampire AU if applicable), incest, step-cest, foot fetish, pregnancy/babies.

I only write for female reader inserts with no specific race/ethnicity, hair/eye/skin color, body type, etc.

I reserve the right to deny writing/discussing any other things that make me uncomfortable.

C'mon Barbie, let's go party!

Ken Loves Barbie 👩🏼‍❤️‍💋‍👨🏼 - Mutuals only! ask me who I ship you with and I will write a lil sumn on your relationship with them (will only ship with fictional hotties) 

Blonde Bimbo Girl 👱🏻‍♀️ - Writer followers! send me a fic that you wrote and I will give you a good ol’ tom-whore-dleston essay review

Life in plastic 👠 - Send me a hottie and a prompt from one of lists below and I'll write a quick fic (feel free to add AUs/tropes/etc. for some flavor)

fluff/smut/physical || angst 1 & 2

You're my doll 💄 - Let’s play an ask game (cym, fmk, wyr, etc). Feel free to spice it up to your liking 😉

Dress me up👗 - Send me any scenarios or concepts that you envision for any of my AUs (Teach Me Tonight, Honey Baby, The Avengers Sweethearts) and I will write a drabble or head canon for them

Dreamhouse Adventures 🏠 - send me an AU/trope + hottie and I will make a moodboard (check out previous moodboards I have made for ideas)

Feel the glamour in pink 💖 - the floor is yours to get to know me better, thirst over a hottie, talk about your day, etc. Please just be respectful and do not send me any celeb discourse!

Oh, I love you, Ken 💘

♥ Real life hotties ♥

Simu Liu*, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Holland, Austin Butler*, Barry Keoghan, Andrew Garfield, Harry Styles, Oscar Isaac, Michael B. Jordan, Benedict Cumberbatch, Hayden Christensen

♥ Fictional hotties ♥

Marvel: Loki Laufeyson, Xu Shang-Chi/Shangqi*, Peter Parker (any variant), Xu Wenwu, Erik Kilmonger, Scott Lang, Thor Odinson*, Druig, Kingo, Eros/Starfox, Sam Wilson, Pietro Maximoff (Age of Ultron), Joaquin Torres, Bucky Barnes, Moonknight (all alters)*, Stephen Strange

Star Wars: Din Djarin, Anakin Skywalker*, Obi Wan Kenobi, Poe Dameron

Other: Kim Jung* (Kim’s Convenience), any of Sim Liu’s SNL characters (I am dead serious), Adam (Only Lovers Left Alive), Johnathan Pine (The Night Manager), Robert Laing (High Rise), James Conrad (Kong: Skull Island), Nathan Drake (Uncharted), Arvin Russel (The Devil All The Time)

An * indicates who I am simping for most at the moment and highly encourage asks for them!

dividers: @firefly-in-darkness

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Oh good someone found the 'metrosexual' Eddie! I tried finding it but there's so many comics to look through... anyways though the one where Poison Ivy grabs him by the balls and tells him he doesn't have any is from Detective Comics 797-799. Ed also spends the whole time lamenting that he "doesn't understand women" while being led through Ivy's jungle by a hulking handsome man and wondering why that guy's here to lead him around when Ivy hates men. He's really just like that post that goes "a character so misogynistic he circles back around to being gay"

alright well. I auditioned a couple quick jokey responses to this that would let me just get on with my night but. nope. simply wouldn't suffice. since you went to all the trouble of telling me EXACTLY which issues to dig this up in, might as well have a gander.

first off I'd just like to say from the bottom of my heart

outta my way gay boy I'm boutta get it

anyway this whole plot is apparently kicked off because everyone's pissed off at Eddie because of the Hush thing and trying to kick his ass and for some reason he decides the solution to this is to hide out in a park that Poison Ivy has taken over and turned into an impenetrable super-jungle. I personally love when the Riddler is being hunted for sport, so this is great for me.

already lost and sweaty he encounters the hulking handsome man anon warned us about, who looks like this if anyone's curious

not really my cup of tea but he looks like he takes great care of that hair and I respect that he's dressed for comfort

should be mentioned that this bullshit takes place as an entirely separate story smack at the end of issues that are actually mostly about Bruce, Barbara, and Cass trying to stop some kind of turbo gang war. may or may not be related to whatever's going on over in Poison Ivy's helljungle; I'd like to thing the editors threw it in as a little treat for the readers. alright gang, we've slogged through an awful lot of violence and Bat-angst - now put on Yakety Sax and watch the Riddler have an absolutely terrible time!

anyway, onwards to #798. the Eddie and Pam segment begins with what I can only describe as an incel collage

in light of that last one I do feel the need to bring back this bad image I made recently as part of my awful ongoing quest to watch Gotham

Pam tells Eddie that he's not a real supervillain because, and I am paraphrasing slightly here, he's a little bitch and absolutely no one wants to work for him because there's 0 prestige involved. she announces that she's going to kill him (fair) and he decides to just take his chances jumping off a cliff instead. godspeed, you little freak.

the Pam & Eddie portion of #799 opens with Eddie once again sweaty and hauling ass through the jungle while Pam dicks around with him, getting increasingly aggravated. she steals his tie to be petty and also says this, which

idk there's some kind of metaphor for queer discourse in there somewhere, right?

anyway Pam gets his ass so good Eddie just begs her to get it over with and kill him, at which point Pam pulls the ol' switcheroo and decides to just let him leave as an even bigger emotional wreck than he was to begin with.

anyway in conclusion he's pathetic and definitely riding the self-pitying incel train hard but there's not actually any instance of Poison Ivy referring to, targeting, or otherwise involving his balls in any way. her MO here seems to lean much more towards vine-based bondage and asphyxiation than CBT.

and that's probably for the best.

anyway for those curious this mini-story, titled "Low," was published in 2004, written by Shane McCarthy with art by Tommy Castillo, Rodney Ramos, Tony Avina, and Nick Napolitano.

[agent-cupcake]

consider: nuvestra

~hubert and constance should have had supports they’d be fantastic

~could be romantic or platonic, dealers choice

~aesthetically prime (seriously! blonde hair/dark hair, purple eyes/yellow eyes, short and bubbly/tall and sneaky)

~super mega ultra chaotic energy

~constance would follow hubert’s other supports perfectly... he’s mad at her bc she’s annoying edelgard, she gets mad in return because she’s contance von nuvelle, they argue, she proves her intellectual and magical value, he softens up and admits that her tenacity and desire to help the empire is, in fact, a good thing and he might kind of sort of maybe respect and enjoy her company, and she preens + decides that he’s actually pretty cool and they could work well together 

~they’re both idiots and rude in a similar way so her bullying tactics wouldn’t work and he’d never be able to intimidate her which would force them to find common ground in more normal ways

~like, he could take cheap shots and try to scare her all he wanted and she could be petty and haughty all she wanted and it wouldn’t mean anything to the other person... making it even more satisfying when they came to a mutual respect

~ambiguous morals!!! (constance in crimson flower goes full ham i love it)

~coffee dates (caffeine benders)

~intellectual equals who would butt heads a LOT but always come back for more bc where else could they find that? like seriously, constance’s familiarity with the shadow library alone would make her of note to hubert, let alone her zany weird brains and her potential interest in the stuff he would know about black magic

~their arguments would be funny and honestly if they didn’t get their big ole egos involved they’d probably have fun with the academic discourse

~he could temper her wilder ideas and she could encourage him to think more creatively

~laugh crits!!! my god!!! 

~they’re both secretly really insecure in very similar ways despite their overconfident exteriors. there’s some heavy stuff they’ve both gotta unpack, maybe having someone who understands would make it easier? 

~constance could stand to learn to be more emotionally aware, so maybe having someone who is similar to her would help her figure that out? (i could be reaching, but i don’t like the uneven emotional dynamics in some of her other supports)

~he DOES get this in other supports, but hubert neeeeeds to learn tolerance for opinions and thoughts that diverge from his own and he deserves to have his soft side fed bc he’s cute and deserves to be valued

~hubert getting the full brunt of constance’s manic excitement would be cute. like, just picture it. she’s too oblivious to take hints or be scared away and he’s secretly soft and even though he’d say he hated it, would he? would he really?

~likewise, constance would go along with his evil plotting given enough incentive+logic, no matter how villainous he seemed in a way i don’t think many other characters would

~constance could teach hubert how to ride a pegasus and overcome his fear of heights... like, in the dark or on cloudy days, but STILL

~even if the relationship stuff wasn’t going the best, they’d still be fantastic research buddies

~basically, intellectually and emotionally i feel like they’re on the same level and there’s not much of that weird imbalance they have in supports with characters who are just fundamentally different from them, you know?

okay that’s all thank you for your time

[veliseraptor]

lan qiren is the best father figure from older generation

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

if you hadn’t specifically said “older generation” I would absolutely have made a joke about Lan Xichen but you robbed me of that opportunity.

I mean, okay, I feel like this is a little weighted because we don’t know much about Nie dad and we have very limited information about Qingheng-jun. but based on canonical information I guess...let’s look at his competition?

Jiang Fengmian, who seems to have largely abdicated parental responsibilities to his daughter and made his biological son feel like he hates him, arguably hasn’t done anything actively bad but also hasn’t really done anything to mitigate the emotional or physical abuse of his children and/or ward at the hands of his wife.

Wen Ruohan, who I feel like we have limited data on as a father but was pretty busy trying to conquer the other sects and did manage to raise two pretty intolerable sons, which doesn’t exactly speak well of him but could also be not his fault. Hard to say, I’d put this as “insufficient information.”

Qingheng-jun, absentee dad.

Jin Guangshan, who...well, he seems to have loved his legitimate kid pretty well, so I guess you can say that for him? Actively terrible in like, literally all other respects, but he also wasn’t responsible for any major traumatization in Jin Zixuan’s life. On the other hand, did kick a teenager down the stairs, and that teenager was still his son, so. Lose all positive points on that one, and treatment of literally every other child he has. 

Ouyang-zongzhu, actually...well, he’s obnoxious, and his friendship with Sect Leader Yao doesn’t exactly say good things about his character, but on the other hand Ouyang Zizhen is a pretty well-adjusted kid who seems to be mostly lacking in trauma so...compared to some of the other fathers here he is doing better than most, and he does belong to the older generation. So actually if we’re counting him then I might have to nominate him as the best father figure of the older generation, purely by inference of managing to turn out a decent and non-traumatized child, which is more than literally anyone else on this list can say. 

Though again, we don’t know much about Nie dad. So that’s a big ol’ shrug emoji.

But if we’re talking, like...main sect leaders, here? I guess I have to give it to Lan Qiren, mostly because he did at least try and while he definitely did contribute to fucking up Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen, he wasn’t I would say the primary source of their issues, and he did not kick anyone down any sets of stairs.

I’m not stepping into the discourse about Lan Wangji’s punishment because I’ve seen too much back and forth about it to really want to get into that, and don’t feel qualified to evaluate. It maybe knocks some points off that might put him behind Jiang Fengmian just for avoiding causing actual physical harm to his child figures (by command), but I personally dislike Jiang Fengmian more and have less sympathy for him, so. 

but ultimately I think I’m proposing Ouyang-zongzhu as an alternate. yes, he may not be a good person!! but also his kid seems okay and while that is not necessarily a metric for good parenting, again - nobody else can make that claim!

[yikesola]

Compare and Contrast: Dan and Phil Bedrooms Over the Years

i’ve been thinking for a while how to tackle this meta, trying to find a gimmick or an angle— like “baking through the ages” where i looked at dan’s posture compared to his growth spurts in baking videos bc it’s one of the few consistent examples of them standing together in frame but it all boiled down to “dan slouch😩”, or just picking pieces to compare their size difference (shoulders, hands, ass) but that felt uniquely dehumanizing if i actually committed to it. so i widened my horizons. size difference need not mean bodies alone— so let’s take a look at a decade of bedroom discourse (ummm ,, minus the discourse) 

we’re gonna start with childhood bedrooms: 

tiny, teensy, might not look so small if these weren’t tol boyes but they need space for their big ol limbs to spread out! horrible colors, the both of them. and worst yet, they know it now, but at the time? kings of interior design, they thought themselves. anyways, this is an excellent starting point for them; when comparing sizes might as well start with the smallest right? except these aren’t the smallest....... things were about to get much, much smaller.......

college dorms:

look ,, they had the least amount of say in these than in any of the other bedrooms (i guess the childhood bedrooms had little of their input but we cannot forgive or forget those paint jobs!) that being said, despite their best efforts to tack stuff onto the walls, these are dismal rooms. the smallness, the lack of light, their posture— far from their best rooms. 

of course, while dan was mostly chilling (supposedly👀) in his dorm rooms, phil was enjoying the freedom of his first manchester flat: 

it’s (again) quite small. we can see the lamp on the floor bc of no room for a bedside table, lion surveying all this domain, and the sheets in the color scheme we know and love. bare walls still :/ he’ll get there. 

here’s the thing about a first flat ,, it’s supposed to be a shoebox. phil’s working with no budget, he’s trying to tame the wild west of the internet into an actual career, he’s happy just to have a flat, never mind the size! and anyways, less to clean, right? he’s doing just fine. there’s room to grow, and he’s ready for it. he’s ready for a place with, well .... for example..... two bedrooms. he’s ready for 

the manchester apartment: 

TABINOF provided us with handy dandy floorplans for this one 🙌 thanks boys! we also learned in TABINOF that the reason phil got the larger room / en suite was because he had the larger number of subscribers at the time. that’s certainly a judicial way to decide something like that ,, and since we decided earlier this is a discourse free post i’m not gonna say anything about the en suite room usually designating master bedroom while the smaller room usually designates that it’s the guest room. not gonna say that at all. why ,, who are you?? 

now we’re working with some Space! 👏👏 more furniture in the bedroom than just the bed?? TWO bedside tables each???? who are these young professionals! i’m so impressed with them :’’) sure..... you might have to sidestep between the foot of dan’s bed and the wall. sure .....  phil’s en suite might roughly be the size of his bed. but this is what we call Progress ✌ their hamster cages might feel slightly cramped as is, but all that’s about to change babey, as the boys take on the big city in 

the london apartment:

bless TABINOF, she’s providing a crude foorplan again! they’re good-sized rooms, the entire reason this apartment won out for them, lazy introverts that they are. no en suite this time, but dan’s room is juuuust a bit bigger what with his desk/piano zone and we can see that’s because he’d surpassed phil in youtube subscribers by then (again, very judicious, fellas! what a way to make that choice that clearly matters so so much considering these are Separate Bedrooms and all) 

these rooms had all the space they needed to lean into their respective aesthetics and then some. i always think about (and wrote one of my very first phanfics about *cough* cheeky spon *cough*) dan’s disillusionment with the space, how he refered to it all as ugly and just wanted to gut it. i think despite the big big bedrooms, it’s clear the boys were feeling trapped. in the london apartment, in the branding they’d really honed in during the five years they spent there, in the inarguably of two distinct spaces— Dan’s Room and Phil’s Room, can’t possibly mix them up, they’ve got color-coded duvets after all. 

that’s why from here on out we see a shift in how the size is changing. before, there had always been an upward trajectory. both dan and phil were looking for bigger spaces with every new bedroom. and then the growth became inverted, most notable right away in 

the second london apartment:

dan doesn’t actually use his bedroom for a filming location anymore, something that seemed important to him regarding a work/life balance. we can absolutely respect that, but thankfully there were occasional liveshows from the bedroom lovingly dubbed the moon room, because of the very spacey-themed decor (something dan and dan alone enjoys, we all know. phil’s space merch? idk her.... this is a 👏discourse👏 free👏post!👏👏👏👏) the moon room is a very good size, and has an en suite. it’s such a good size in fact that we can see dan was a good enough fellow gay to offer to store some of phil’s things in there, as phil’s room in this flat is muuuuch smaller than the last few he’d had. maybe he missed the special sort of embrace that claustrophobia can bring. 

we know all too well however that dan and phil do well with change— when that change is on their terms! which leads us to.......

final forms (for now!) :

dan abandoned the moon room to embrace the actual moon, to embrace the black void of space, to ascend and live by the light of his smile and sparkly jacket :) phil found a patch of white wall which is a very convenient thing considering how many flats and offices and forever homes might have just the very same thing. the space is pretty set, and he seems to enjoy it. just enough room for trinkets (god remembered when he just tacked papers onto his uni walls?) a lava lamp and a houseplant! 

they’ve both come so far 💞

****

Meta for @phandomficfests​ Bingo Fest, prompt: Size Difference

[motherboxing]

Okay. So, it’s become really, really apparent to me that I cannot use tumblr anymore. The simple fact is it has become a compulsive way for me to harm myself and feed into my own worst tendencies, including (among other things) an overwhelming and pervasive feeling of social paranoia that often leads me to believe that everyone I know is talking about me behind my back and deciding that I’m a dumb lying bitch who isn’t worth treating like a person. I am aware that “everyone is turning against me” is literally textbook paranoia, and that said paranoia is mine to manage; I just don’t think I can manage it, or basically any of my other C-PTSD symptoms, and remain on this website, or probably on any social media for some time. 

More on this below the cut. Please do not reblog this post.

I’ve spent some time over the past few days talking to people I trust about it and I waffled on saying anything about leaving in the first place. But I really care about a lot of the people on this site and I want to stay in touch. I hope that eventually I’ll be able to figure out a way to use social media without going into death spirals about it every day. I don’t think I will ever continue using it for traumablogging or hyperpersonal oversharing, but sharing cat photos and talking about my work is ultimately harmless and also something I need to be able to do, like, as an writer in 2019. So, whatever, Watch This Space in a few months, I guess. 

For now, I need to respect the realization that this website doesn’t help me anymore. It used to feel like I could use this place to say things directly and honestly to other people that I couldn’t say in my daily life, to the people around me. When I couldn’t look someone in the eye and say I was raped, I could go on tumblr and type it into a text box and someone would see it and maybe understand. When I felt like there was no place for my voice in public discourse, I could share my thoughts here and feel like in some capacity they mattered. That was really, really important; part of why I’ve been so reluctant to leave is that I don’t want to act like my time on tumblr has never been valuable to me. But at the same time, more and more it just upsets and triggers me, and it no longer feels constructive to share my pain in this public forum, or any public forum. Like I said to my girlfriend, I need to be dealing with this stuff IRL right now, and doing it Online is no longer a path towards that, but away from it.

Yesterday I called my best friend, who understands maybe better than anyone I know how exhausting and demoralizing compulsive relationships with stuff like this can be. They pointed out something that I hadn’t really been thinking about: how something that’s a neutral or even positive part of your daily routine can become a site of trauma, and how continuing to engage with it like you were before it did becomes a means of repeatedly triggering yourself. I know that’s what’s happening here. There are no accommodations that I can ask for from mutuals that would change this, no way of improving this site’s accessibility to me. I literally just have too much C-PTSD for it. 

I feel sad. I know that leaving this site for an extended period of time, and at time time/in this manner, may mean the end of a few friendships I’ve built here, and that’s really just devastating. All of you are why I’ve stayed on this website for so long. I’m someone who has a really hard time dealing with feeling close to people (good ol’ C-PTSD trust issues) and the relationships I’ve built here are important to me. 

To that end, if any of you ever want to talk about movies or cats or TV or art or Montreal or even just say hi, PLEASE feel free to e-mail me, it would honestly make my day. You can reach me at ellehumour at gmail dot com. I will probably edit this post in a few days and remove my e-mail address from it, but if you miss it, you can message @thepfa and ask him for it and he will pass it along. 

In the meantime, I’m going to withdraw from the public internet for a while. I do not believe I will be gone forever, so like, if you want to keep following this blog, eventually there will be Bonky photos again and probably posts about my book and etc. If you don’t want to, that’s fine too. It makes me sad to think about losing any of you, but I have lost many people in my life, and though it always hurts, I am still here. 

I love you all and I hope that wherever you go, as much as is possible, people are kind to you, or at least not unnecessarily cruel. See you on the flip side, or something.

[uneryx]

Renee Gets Salty About Dark Magic

This post got long, and got away from me, so I’ll tl;dr it

1. dark magic is a metaphor for consumption and materialism and is ultimately bad because it harms others unnecessarily and is not a sustainable resource

2. the elves were dicks for banishing humans but (especially if humans sucked all the magic out of the land themselves) they were kind of justified, even if it was an extreme measure

3. Eating meat is not the same as dark magic if you’re looking at things from an animistic point of view, which the elves likely do

4. it’s okay to like problematic characters and you don’t have to portray Ezran as a monstrous enfant terrible to feel okay about thinking Viren is justified in what he does.  In fact, pretty please stop doing this, everyone in all fandoms. It’s fine if you don’t like the protags but that doesn’t mean you get to say Ezran or Rayla or whoever is EVIL. It’s called Ron the Death Eater and it’s a fandom trope that has pissed me off for going on fifteen years. Deliberately misreading the text isn’t cute. Stop doing it.

5. The show isn’t over, be patient, you’ll probably get to see some comeuppance for stuff anyway. And if you don’t, there’s always fanfiction. 

6. For the love of baby adoraburrs please tag posts that go in the vein of “the writing is bad because Viren is portrayed as a classic villain/elves good humans bad/the protags aren’t held accountalbe” with “TDP CRITICAL” I would greatly appreciate it because I’m getting super annoyed with posts that deliberately misrepresent canon to uphold a favored side and it’s affecting my enjoyment of the show. Now! Actual long and discourse-heavy post under the cut!

 Ugh I don’t want to start a big ol’ argument with people because I’m still on vacation and don’t want to spend the rest of today arguing about cartoons on the internet, but this has been on the kettle for a while and I feel QUITE STRONGLY about some of these things, so just... let me express my views here and don’t come for me because I’m about to talk about religion and sociology. 

Dark Magic is a metaphor for unchecked consumption and capitalism.  1. The theory i’m seeing floating around that got my dander up is that the elves and dragons drained the western half of the continent of magic to keep magic away from humans. I think that, based on what we’ve learned from canon, this is highly unlikely and would be weaker writing than what I think actually happened. Instead, Dark magic was going on for a good solid 800 years (Rise of Elarion is 2000 years before canon) before Sol Regem faced off with Viard (1200 years before canon). The division of Xadia was another 200 years after that. Humans had a solid honking millennium of unchecked dark magic. It is quite likely that the reason the west is entirely devoid of magic, and that humans were banished there, is because they sucked all the magic out of that half themselves. Poor innocent baby humans nothing. They got a taste of power and progress and, like real world humans, let that get WAY out of control.

2. “But Lujanne eats bugs, she’s a hypocrite for saying Claudia can’t squish bugs for pancakes” I want you to go down to your local new-age/witchy bookstore and find yourself an animist that eats meat. You are going to get glared at SO HARD if you whip out the “you think animals have souls but you eat meat!” chestnut. Because here’s the thing.

Eating meat/animal products is an act of life, necessary to sustain the life of someone else. We don’t vilify wolves for eating deer. You gotta eat to live your life, and the human (or, we can assume, bipedal humanoid) diet includes a need for complex protein chains, quite often found in animal meat. 

But the reason that we find cannibalism repulsive in western society is because it’s eating another human, despite the fact that humans are made of meat. It’s eating something that we consider sentient, dignified and possessed of a soul. Of course, the taboo also derives from the fact that you can contract prion disease from consuming human meat, but people in 11th century Normandy didn’t know that.  It is quite likely, especially given what we’ve seen of magical creatures and Ezran’s ability to talk to animals, that elves view non-human/elf creatures as sentient and possessed of a soul. If that’s the case, then OF COURSE they would see dark magic as horrific.

But eating meat is not on the same level because, as we see from the assassins, death is a part of life, and sometimes necessary. I imagine that hunting and taking a creature’s life for food is an act that is done with respect. The creatures are honored or thanked before they’re eaten or turned into leather. Highly ritualized to dignify that creature’s life.  Dark magic doesn’t do that. Dark magic sucks the whole life out, without so much of a how do you do.  It’s treating a person like a thing. It’s sucking all the life and essence out of someone so you can shoot fireballs or make fluffy pancakes. Lets be real - you don’t need to do either of those things, so the creature thus died in vain. 3. “The elves are selfish bastards for hogging all the magic.” I agree. Granted, their attitudes may have cooled in the ensuing centuries. It’s a new dawn, the era of Zubeia. We might see elves getting over their uppity selves and working to help teach humans magic. We might also see the show explore that kind of prejudice as Callum learns more magic. In fact, I hope we do. However, two wrongs dont make a right.  If Japan bombs the absolute fuckshit out of Hawaii, that does not make it okay to flash-fry Nagasaki with a weapon that blights the land and its people for years and years afterward.

To the elves (who are magical creatures and therefore totally usable as spell components), that’s what dark magic is. Suddenly, haha oh fuck, the humans have a fucking NUKE that every elf and dragon in Xadia is vulnerable to.  If a weapon was devised that ONLY a certain portion of the population was affected by, you better bet your sweet bippy that people would panic and make it forbidden and illegal, and severely punish the people who created it. ESPECIALLY if those people were already marginalized. Sucks, don’t it? Doesn’t mean the writing is bad for portraying people having a realistic reaction to something that is harmful to them. The elves aren’t justified in hogging the magic, and I hope future chapters will explore that. But the elves ARE a liiiiiittle bit justified in freaking out. I hold they could’ve come up with a better solution than BANISH HUMANS, but they didn’t. Makes for interesting story conflict, doesn’t it? 4. “Humans NEED dark magic!” / “Calling dark magic a shortcut is dumb” Did they tho? Did they really? Really really? We, modern day humans, don’t NEED smart phones (which rely on several rare earth minerals and are causing untold ecological disaster in areas where they’re miend). We, modern day humans, don’t NEED coal power (which is controlled by coal companies, who keep telling us that we totally do, despite many scientists saying that renewable energy is ready to go whenever). We don’t NEED blackberries from Mexico year-round, or a whole hell of a lot of the things we have come to rely on and consider part of our every day lives. All of these things are unnecessary and shortcuts to progress.

The only - ONLY! - good, necessary thing we’ve seen in canon that dark magic was required for was using the magma titan’s heart for saving people from famine.

A lot of the complaints about sustainable energy and efforts to heal the planet as climate change become increasingly a crisis stem from the fact that doing things RIGHT, in a way that is sustainable and doesn’t strip every last resource out of our home, is that it takes time. It takes SO MUCH TIME to do things properly. Yeah, we can keep going with our coal and our gas-guzzler cars and our fracking and our rare-earth metals... but we ARE going to run out. And then what?  Dark magic is the same principle. Eventually, you’re going to run out of resources. 

5. Where I think the show is going My main beef with those (and there’s a lot of ya, so I’m not intending to single anyone out) who say that the writing is lazy for dark magic bad elfs good is that the show is not over. Wonderstorm is doing their damndest to give us the saga. And they’ve said, out right, that there WILL be books, if nothing else.

You can’t judge a story’s merits when it’s only been half told. Right now, what the show has done is it has shown us the worst and best of the elves (for example, Khessa’s purity test vs Rayla refusing to kill Ez so she doesn’t perpetuate a cycle of violence) and the worst and best of the humans (ex: Viren forcibly turning thousands of people into monsters against their will vs Viren risking his life in order to save thousands of people from famine). The show has done well to demonstrate that there is good and bad in everyone, and it’s the choices you make and the respect you show others’ autonomy that makes you a good or bad person. The dominoes are in place. The saga has only begun. Being mad that Ezran burned an army (that he likely knew from Soren was invulnerable to fire) or that Aanya shot Kasef in the face (when Opeli would have told her that Kasef conspired behind Ezran’s back to usurp the throne, which is AN ACT OF WAR btw) means you aren’t looking at the big picture. There WILL be consequences for those actions in later seasons, mark my words.

I’m sorry if you’re a Viren or Claudia stan, but they have made choices that hurt other people, and it is in no way shape or form Ezran or Callum or Rayla or ANYONE ELSE’S fault that they made the choices they did. Instead of being mad at the show for not portraying your fav as an innocent victim, be glad that you got such a wonderfully complex set of villains who, quite likely, will get a bomb-ass redemption arc. In fact, I’ll bet you anything that Viren’s walk back from the edge has already begun. The dude fucking DIED, and he’s not going to be eager to get in there and get all grabby with the power any time soon. 

That’s what good writing IS - conflict. Tension. People making morally questionable choices. We like it because every day people are hypocrites and morally questionable. You, and I, and everyone we know. Nobody’s perfect and getting cranky and painting the protagonists with the broad villain brush so you can feel good about liking a problematic fave is... some peak tumblr bullshit, tbh.  It’s okay to like characters who aren’t perfect. How fucking boring fiction would be if everyone was perfect.

Now if I can ask my mutuals to please tag their criticisms of the show that go in the vein of “the writing is bad because dark magic is portrayed so negatively/they don’t hold the protags accountable/elves good humans bad” with “TDP critical” I would greatly appreciate it. It’s getting to the degree where things are becoming very not fun and making me cranky.  Thank you, Renee out. 

[terfslying]

I love that you're thoughtful, but the thing that I hate is that you're so obsessed with not falling into some terven thought trap you are not actively engaging in discussion in good faith or evaluating what is being said to you. a lot of these people are people who've been put into similar positions of having not done something wrong, but not catering to people, and get verbally drug through the mud. its not black and white "Us vs them" I'm a trans woman. and I believe we should and can come

pt 2: together as allies in feminism, but I genuinely do not have confidence that we can do that if we see each others as enemies. we're both subjugated under patriarchy, just by different means and different standards. the problem is the constant comparison, and the enmity. you don't have to participate in it, that's my big deal with you. you're so much more quit pigeonholing yourself, and get out of your own ego, quit doing things for approval, learn for yourself. you're more and better than this.         

- - - - - - - - -

you're so obsessed with not falling into some terven thought trap you are not actively engaging in discussion in good faith or evaluating what is being said to you

Sorry I wasn’t aware you were a mind reader? In all seriousness, though, there’s nothing I can do to prove that I am engaging in good faith / evaluating. I believe I am, and I believe I probably know myself better than anons know me on my discourse tumblr. I can fully accept that you might not feel like I’ve fairly evaluated something you’ve said, or seen others say that you agree with - if you’d like to try again for something like that, askbox & DM are open.

a lot of these people are people who've been put into similar positions of having not done something wrong, but not catering to people, and get verbally drug through the mud. its not black and white "Us vs them"

Not entirely sure what you’re trying to say here. I think I’ve said about 15 times by now that a) I’m not a victim of bullying in this situation, although some people have been rude and b) I fully acknowledge and respect that this is based on genuine criticisms. So what’s the “us vs them” you’re referring to, if not that?

the problem is the constant comparison, and the enmity. you don't have to participate in it, that's my big deal with you.

Now you’ve completely and utterly lost me. What comparison / enmity?

you're so much more quit pigeonholing yourself, and get out of your own ego, quit doing things for approval, learn for yourself. you're more and better than this.

What pigeonhole lol??

I’ve also said about 20 times that I’m not here for approval, my support of trans people’s issues does not rely on them being nice or applauding me for my effort, and I’ve literally posted the results of probably over 100 hours of research of my own on this blog in the last 2 years.

I can’t work out really where you’re coming from but it seems to me you’re got a case of the ole actor-observer bias. If you want to come back and correct me, feel free.

[snowstories]

2 3 4 and 7 for ur meme >:3 let the salt come forth

2: Most amatonormative ship?

UHHHHH of all time??? or just in FMA??? oh shit should’ve probably thought this one through before making the ask meme lmao

okay so I’ll do in FMA first because it’s the easiest and uh. that’d be alm/ei. there’s literally no reason for either al or mei to have a love interest, its clearly used as a gag in canon, it was pretty much 100% onesided in canon, but for some godforsaken reason the fandom just?? loves it???? and considers it canon that they’d get married later in life?????? I mean I’m not gonna say that Arakawa wouldn’t agree with that but. she and everyone else is would be wrong. Al is aro and Mei is lithro and they try a relationship post canon but it doesn’t work out bc they’re arospec babe so they decide to be good friends instead and its a relief for everyone involved and that’s the truth.

Of all time…. that’s tough. I’m gonna go with Ca/leo (calypso/leo from the heroes of olympus franchise) even though I’m sure there’s worse things out there because I remember being FUCKED UP MAD when good ol’ uncle rick decided to pair off literally the only character from the original series that didn’t get a love interest because that was LITERALLY HER ENTIRE POINT and then decided to pair of leo because amatonormativity I guess AND THEN decided that they wouldn’t actually work as a couple so he just fucking. changed calypso’s entire personality. and I don’t mind that change much bc I like her better in HOO but YOU CAN’T JUST CHANGE CHARACTERS YOUR NOT HAPPY WITH RICK ESPECIALLY NOT FOR A ROMANCE THATS NOT HOW IT WORKS. anyway im still salty about HOO can you tell.

3. Most amatonormative ship fic trope?

*slams my fist on table* HANAHAKI DISEASE. yes I know that the aro community as a whole is really Done with soulmates and I totally understand and respect that (even if my own feelings are a lot more complicated) bc they’re amatonormative as heckie and much more widespread but like. the entire concept of hanahaki disease is ‘if someone doesn’t love you back you will get TERMINALLY ILL” and I mean??? who the fuck???? thought this was cute????? seriously what the fuck.

4. What popular ship has the least chemistry?

Well I already used alm/ei so and I’m disqualifying ro/yed on grounds of wanting to make this fun so…. pissing people off lets go with edw/in. it sucks. its bad for winry’s character development and completely superfluous to the story. we gain absolutely nothing by having ed and winry be romantically involved. they work way better and are way cuter as friends, and we would lose no story beats whatsoever except for the proposal at the end which was awkward as fuck in my opinion. like if your ship contains canon dialogue like “were his shoulders always so broad” (or something either way it was winry busing about Ed’s shoulders which…. is that a thing? that I missed?) and “wait at home and bake me an apple pie” (again, something among those lines), that’s…. not great chemistry. sorry you guys i just don’t see it. 

7. Which ship discourse is the funniest?

*pulls out my time in the VLD fandom* LET ME TELL YOU A THING

(under the cut because this shit is too fucking long)

okay so for the most part the VLD fandom wasn’t actually…. that bad. I mean it was childish and volatile as fuck and everyone was really hostile to each other don’t get me wrong, but honestly, it’s not the worst fandom experience I’ve ever had, and once I managed to carve out a little niche for myself it was pretty enjoyable (also a lot of the fans were autistic which. neat). 

but there was one event in that fandom that just fucking. killed me. and I’m still not over it. 

so once every three months or so (on average, sometimes it’d happen multiple times a month and sometimes it’d say quiet for months on end) we had some Major Bullshit happen that got on top of the regular ship wars. sometimes it was something a cast member (Pidge’s voice actress, usually) had said or reblogged, sometimes it was new age ‘confirmation’ that just added wood to the fire of the regular discourse, sometimes it was a new Hot Take™ on the show that everyone loved for a while until someone inevitably pointed out that it was ooc/problematic/etc. and then everyone hated it, etc. etc. pretty standard volatile fandom stuff, all things considered, with the vast majority of the discourse having valid points but being taken way out of proportion because of the sheer size of the fandom.

the shaladin discourse is definitely a good example of that. the main point of the anti side in that discourse is ‘hey don’t ship shiro with the other paladins he is an adult and they are teenagers’ and the point of the anti anti side is ‘don’t tell me what to do you pearl clutching purists’ which. i mean im clearly biased here. but the discourse was blown so far out of proportion, primarily because, again, this fandom is too fucking big, but also because a lot of people involved in the discourse were kids themselves. you basically had a bunch of 14/15-year-olds who by and large haven’t quite mastered critical thinking yet yelling at each other in debates that got very emotional very easily. (not saying this to be condescending, lord knows we should all be happy that I wasn’t into fandom when I was fifteen or I would’ve 100% been the person going ‘well actually it’s called ephebophilia get your terms right’ so we all dodged a bullet there. but im just saying that, historically, young teenagers don’t have the best trackrecord for rational, calm discussions, and it really showed.)

so, why am I taking the time to tell you all of this? so that you have proper context to how stupidly ridiculous this discourse was on a regular basis. many (most) of the people in this fandom seemed to totally forget that, while telling people not to ship pedophilia or stuff like that is generally pretty important, it’s ultimately still fandom bullshit and doesn’t really, actually matter that much in the grand scheme of things. it very quickly became a very strong ‘us vs. them’ mentality on both sides that resulted in actually pretty seriously toxic behaviour like death threats (although the anti side definitely had more of a tendency to go witch hunting after people, shaladins were absolutely not exempt from Bullshit, as you’ll see below). like i shit you not we were all genuinely waiting for the time someone would get stabbed irl over it or something, it was so tense.

and at some point, at what I consider the height of this stupid discourse, came Operation Shalanonymous.

I might be getting the name wrong, but they genuinely called it something like that, with a serious graphic behind it. I shit you not. This whole thing was so, so surreal.

Operation Shalanonymous was literally a spyop. A 15-year-old shaladin (and maybe some others, I don’t remember) who at the time went by the url ‘theblackguardianofsheith’ or something similar (they deleted, to my knowledge, and I hope they’re living their best life) pretended to be an anti and went ‘undercover’ in an anti discord server, with the purpose of ‘exposing’ the antis for what they really were. they gathered a bunch of screenshots and such, and then released them all as ‘damning evidence’ onto Tumblr, claiming that they showed evidence of sexual harrassment and hypocrisy, among other things. 

I can’t remember all of the accusations, but some were pretty serious, so I took the time to go through the screenshots and found… very little. there were some distasteful remarks here and there in the form of ‘i wanna kill [insert shaladin]’ that the mods shouldn’t have let slide, and a childish, kinda sexualizing derogatory nickname for the shaladin in question in the form of ‘hunty’, but those two things were really the worst of it. yes, this behaviour was bad and the mods shouldn’t have let it slide or participated in it, but all in all? not worth an entire spyop. if anything, what I found much more damning was that the shaladin (who, as a reminder, was 15 as well) had written a couple of little notes on the screenshots drawing attention to some particular messages of a then 13-year-old anti who said they had a crush on shiro. the notes themselves would’ve been nothing more than childish IF that same 13-year-old hadn’t just come out of a massive dogpiling attack where they were repeatedly misgendered and accused of wanting to have sex with adults themself despite them being a csa survivor. so attempting to throw back to that discourse to ‘prove’ some kind of hypocrisy was distasteful at best and honestly, it did not make them look very good.

so yeah. as you can imagine, the discord members and mods took that very well, and just. for a while, Operation Shalanonymous was this actual Thing, where shaladins were crying that the antis were finally exposed and the antis were accusing the spying shaladin of sending graphic rape porn into the chat to shock users, which the 15-year-old shaladin refuted by saying that they were attempting to get them to do something about it (apparently they were trying to get it taken down or something, but I genuinely have no clue why they thought the antis could help with that, but then again, this whole situation was so far-fetched and there was little evidence provided that this was actually ‘graphic rape porn meant to scar csa survivors’, like the antis claimed either, so like. i don’t fucking know), and accusations went back and forth for a while. it was a mess.

and this, this right fucking here, is hands down the most childish, most distasteful, most useless ship discourse that I’ve ever encountered. not only did someone actually take the time and energy to pretend to be an anti for quite some time in order to ‘spy’ on antis, they also decided to, in all seriousness, release the screenshots under the actual fucking name ‘Operation Shalanonymous’, dropping them like they were the fucking panema papers. like guys??? you know this is the fucking voltron fandom, not goddamn wikileaks, right???? these are not state secrets you’re releasing. they’re screenshots from a fandom chat. it. doesn’t. matter. that. much.

there were some genuinely horrifying things that went down during this whole debacle, and I probably shouldn’t find it as funny as I do, since this really was a prime example of how toxic people can get when they think they’re in the right, especially when the person in question is a teenager (who, again, don’t have the best track record for emotional regulation and foresight). but I just fucking can’t take this shit serious. you gotta remember that a 15-year-old was mostly heading this thing, and it really shows; the whole entire set-up and pay-off was just overwhelmingly childish, and it makes me so, so glad that I wasn’t into fandom at that age, because who knows what shit I would’ve pulled. and I just can’t stop imagining what everyone involved will think of this shit when they’re in their twenties or thirties. because god. ship discourse does not matter this much, guys. it really, really doesn’t, and this whole debacle was nothing but an embarrassment for everyone involved. 

so anyway that was hands down the most ridiculous ship discourse I’ve ever witnessed, thanks for coming to my history lesson.

[captainharunanase]

Do you um hate all klance shippers?? I am a humble klance shipper who likes sheith and makoharu a lot, and I would like to follow you! Aah I am sorry, I am new to the fandom and tumblr in general.

Oh no I don’t hate the good KL shippers. Most of my mutuals (once vld started) converted into KL blogs and I don’t hate them ‘cause they are such sweet lovelies! I’d totally rec you some blogs if you’re interested!

But I do hate Klantis. So long as you’re not an anti shipper then you’re fine in my book. (the word Klantis is pretty much antis who are also extreme KL and/or L@nce stans who bully and send hate to non-KL shippers)

And I actually call the good KL shippers “LK or L@ith shippers” so I don’t confuse people when I tag or say vague stuff like “ugh look at those rabid kl shippers being salty again” when discussing anti behavior or particular BNF klantis.

I always tag all my posts (if you feel I’m missing tags let me know!) and any vents/rants (like my hate for the Ble@ch Ending and a few other notp ships) but no I don’t go after people based on what they ship. I’m old school and have always been an advocater for all ships regardless if I ship them or not. I truly will always defend my notps and otps and ships in general because shippers are always 100% within their right to ship whatever they want even if I or others disagree–just like how I expect the same treatment if you or others disagree with my ships.

I do occasionally reblog discourse posts about antis and I will, at times, comment on those posts against antis from time to time but no I don’t blatantly hate LK shippers or want to hurt any of ya’ll on your side. I will never stoop to anti level nor do I ever want your ship and shippers to be hurt by them either.

Like most notp shippers, like myself when it comes to KL, I don’t like to see it; look at it; read it; or even create anything for it and honestly half the time I don’t even like discussing it because most debates about ships turn sour and ugly quick so I’ve come to not wish to engage in any talk about KL either just for my own peace of mind.

However, if anyone (like you Anon-san) or anybody really that likes to discuss KL and SK (and many many other great ships) civilly with me–I’d have no problem whatsoever! I always love debating and just plain ol’ discussing what makes me or you or others like or dislike ships in general and it’s a great learning experience to see how shippers ship their ships and all that jazz.

I’m a sucker for connecting with people and trying my best to accommodate to my needs as well as respecting other people’s needs too–I’m wayyy too old to start changing that part of me so I hope that’s not a bad trait to have? ^w^

Anyhoo, let me just wrap this up before I go on a long tangent as to why KL bothers me and blah blah you’re not here for that lol

I don’t mind if you follow me! Heck I might follow you back too since you and I share other ships as well! (SK and MH FOR THE WIN!) I tend to follow LK shippers if they tag their LK posts so my blacklist can filter it out ‘cause, like I said, seeing that ship (after all the anti discourse and petty hate in my asks and posts and so on) now reminds me of antis and I just don’t want to see it so I can avoid feeling bothered if ya get me. ^^;

Sorry if this is long? I just don’t want you to feel pressured to follow me! But I also just wanted you to know I’m just a plain ol’ notp shipper and not an anti myself. But you do what makes you happy and that’ll be enough for me too!

My persona is pretty much like the silly Captain Haru imagination from Free!!! if you were wondering why I call myself that lol

[telltalebatman]

feel free to do all salt asks u like i love ur rumblings

oh hell yes.

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?*frostiron, like................ why. also cullen/alistair.

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?*spideypool

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?it most definitely happened, but at some point i only started to unfollow people over opinions related to actual problems, like whitewashing or homophobia and so on. so i’m still in mutuals with someone who hates deadpool (cheers nicole, this one’s to you), but i definitely blocked someone who was spouting bullshit about sera and dorian.

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?*as for today i think my biggest notps are cobblevale and oswald/bruce? i can’t say i saw any actual cobblevale content at all, but oswald/bruce is quite popular. i don’t like it. i don’t think it’s going to work, considering all the resentment on oswald’s side.

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*pharmercy lmao

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?*not really

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?*lucifer from wicdiv

Have you received anon hate? What about?*the good ol’ days of the enjonine discourse sure as hell were fucking weird.

Most disliked character(s)? Why?heather chandler because bullying, lucifer because transphobia + everything in the xmas special, tony stark because i’m tired and admiral hux because fuck nazis and fuck space nazis.

Most disliked arc? Why?i have very strong negative opinions on the enemy within, also i think the current sw trilogy is mostly garbage.

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?woden! and i absolutely understand people who hate him. he’s a reprehensible person - and i hate him as a person, but love him as a character. he’s so mesmerizingly awful! you open every issue thinking OH, WHAT BAD THING WILL WODEN DO THIS TIME? and every time he somehow surpasses all your expectations. what a man.

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?I LIKE THE PREQUELS..............

Unpopular opinion about XXX character?at this point i don’t think i have unpopular opinions about any characters at all, god

Unpopular opinion about your fandom?it’s kind of shallow. good luck figuring out which fandom i mean.

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?you know, now i wonder what would oswald look like in an actual manga. do you think he’d be a dark and rugged bishounen?

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?so about this entire vicki vale plotline-

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…instead of the joker in the enemy within i wish literally anyone else was there. 

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased?in denial? no, not at all. biased? maybe - but it’s not automatically a bad thing. reylo is popular, and i’m biased against it - because i’m biased against ships based on abuse. i’m not saying fiction should stop depicting abusive relationships, but it’s important to recognize them as what they are - abusive. and until this happens... i’m going to be biased.

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?the massive amounts of lucifer content

What is the purest ship in the fandom?baphonysus

What are your thoughts on crack ships?i’ve got nothing against them, as long as they respect the sexual orientation stuff!

Popular character you hate?lucifer, solas, tony stark, han solo

Unpopular character you love?i really like woden!! and also sigi dijkstra.

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not?things i’m currently most into are wicdiv and telltale batman, and i would! those are Good and i’d like to have more people to yell with.

How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?telltale batman: an alt ending - vicki vale gets therapy and oswald and bruce make amends. they don’t become friends again, but at least they tolerate each other. there’s community service involved. and harvey ALSO gets therapy. lots and lots of therapy.

Most shippable character?laura wilson!

Least shippable character?tony stark lmao