#i mean those ones are both racist and misogynistic but you get my point

[unforth]

I keep seeing posts comparing this to 2004 or other past election losses and how this feels the same or similar to those past times.

As another Old who voted in 2004 (and I missed voting in 2000 by a month and was furious about it) I really can't even put into words how vehemently I disagree.

In 2008, I remember very earnestly sitting down with some friends and saying that if somehow McCain beat Obama, I'd have to join the fucking revolution, because I couldn't believe that this country would elect a Republican AGAIN after the previous 8 years of bullshit. I look back now and think how incredibly naive I was, but I also look back now and think, damn, why aren't I 25 NOW? I can't join the revolution now, I'm 41 and I own a house and have two young children and one old parent depending on me.

Because honestly, truly, as someone who has been studying American history since I was 7, as a Civil War buff with expertise on the years before the Civil War, as someone who has at least some memories of every election since 1988... guys, this isn't the same as 2004. I was furious then. Swift Boat bullshit I swear to fucking dog. And I was and still am fairly convinced that the 2000 election was deliberately stolen. But also I still had every reason then to believe in the rule of law.

In 2004, I still believed term limits would be respected.

In 2004, I still believed a person who wasn't elected would demure gracefully to the winner.

In 2004, I still trusted the courts.

In 2004, I still believed that we'd made progress on bigotry.

I could go on, and to be clear, my point isn't "I thought these institutions were ~good~" in literally any objective sense. Y'all are cynical but my generation was raised by, surrounded by, Vietnam vets and trust me, there was no way to be a kid, seeing what the 70s did to this country, and not come out as cynical and furious as the best of um. (My grandfather was a World War 2 vet, as were his close friends. My father and both his brothers are Vietnam vets, tho my dad didn't go overseas.) But I did believe that even corrupt institutions, even broken racist systems, even fucking Republicans, would follow basic norms of democracy. They said they believed in the constitution and I believed them. I believed that, like Nixon, truly getting caught doing something insane would at least force a mea culpa and turn public opinion. I believed...

Well, I guess it doesn't matter.

Because I no longer believe any of that.

I have watched the guard rails disappear over my lifetime. I have watched the party who once spent 2 years pursuing a guy over a BJ in the oval office elect a convicted rapist. I have watched and at times I've participated and I've voted and I've organized and I've protested and I've read the news more days than not and I've lived and I've grown and I've learned.

I have been an adult, legally, for almost 24 years now.

Guys... there are no norms remaining on the far right. The guard rails are gone. The Fascists control the White House, the senate, the Supreme Court, and things aren't looking promising for the House.

The bus has no brakes anymore. They think they have a mandate - and I can't blame them, as horrifying as this mandate is, because if things had gone the other way and Harris had gotten these results I'd also think it was a mandate.

Please sit with what this means: Trump and the Republican party said, "hand us the reins and we'll make everyone you hate hurt," and more than half the people who bothered to vote said "sure buddy, here goes." We don't have a usurper this time. This is the country that the majority of Americans said they wanted. Whether they come to regret that or not, they saw open Fascism and went "oh yes, count me in." And it wasn't because of the electoral college this time. It was because this country is so bigoted and misogynistic that they'd rather have this than a woman of color in the office.

I'm sick of "well she didn't run a good campaign." (Lie.) I'm sick of, "well we didn't get a primary." (Who cares?) I'm *extremely* sick of "well, Palestine." (Yes! Democrats actions have made the suffering there so much worse! It fucking sucks! You know what's about to suck so much worse?)

15 million people who showed up for Joe Biden couldn't be fussed to place a vote for Kamala Harris. Whatever their reason for not voting, we all knew the outcome if she lost. And seeing open fascism didn't fire them up enough to make the effort, and that's fucking pathetic. The consequences of the worst happening mattered so little to them that they couldn't be fucking bothered to make the minimum effort to stop it, and now millions of people will suffer as a result.

Because here we are: the huge swathe of the country who wanted a strongman now have one.

Look, I don't know what happens next. But I do know, and remember keenly: after 2016, Trump did, or at least tried to do, most of the things he said he'd do. When he was stopped, it was often because of career government employees: judges, bureaucrats, etc. And this time, he's said he's going to purge those people. I don't know if he'll succeed, but I certainly believe he'll try.

This is not 2004 again.

This is 2024. The Republicans have ripped the mask to shreds, shredded apart the book of political norms, and empowered hate, and they've been handed a governmental mandate for stamped "have at with our blessing!" in exchange.

And now they'll use that mandate to make everyone they hate suffer: people of color, queer people, trans people, immigrants, non-Christians.

Don't assume the worst can't happen. I am a Jew, and I have a photo album full of black and white photos of dead people that constantly reminds me: the worst has happened and it can happen again.

Do not despair. Despair is enervating. Be furious. As we should be. These douche bags are repulsive. Be prepared to fight. Be prepared to flee. Be prepared to defend. Don't assume you simply can't do something. There's always something to do, and even the smallest act of defiance can help. There's never any knowing until after which acts of resistance will end up galvanizing the good and just out of their apathy. But that apathy is the enemy.

Because none of this is normal. None of this is "just like when..." Please stop saying it is.

And before anyone screams "privilege" at me, yes, I am in many ways. I'm white. I have access to some generational money even tho my own family lives paycheck to paycheck - we won't be rich but have enough of a support network to be comfortable. I live in a blue area of a blue state. But I'm also a woman (legally speaking, at least) married to another woman - since before Oberkfell, and yes I remember exactly what steps we had planned any time we wanted to leave our state. My wife has physical disabilities. We have two children. Both are biracial (half black). One is trans. We are caring for an elderly parent. I am Jewish and as my kids' birth parent, so are they. I own a publishing company that publishes the exact kinds of queer and kinky lit these people intend to ban. We tick so many boxes of what these people hate.

I know ya'll are scared. Trust me, I'm terrified. But fear is paralyzing. And that won't help. Whatever happens, don't lie down and take this shit.

When Gore lost I was one month shy of my 18th birthday and already in college. I have been fighting my entire adult life, and I'm exhausted. I'm much less able to fight now, much more tied down with responsibilities. But the fight isn't over. I'm checking our passports. I'm packing a go bag. I've convinced one vulnerable friend to move here and I have another who wants to and we're figuring out how to make that happen. I'm protecting who I can, starting with putting on my mask first. I don't know what will happen but if in the end all I can do is uproot my entire life to protect my children then I am preparing to do so. I can at least save them if no one else.

None of this is normal.

And I'm not sure, after Trump's in office, that anything will ever be normal again in the US. At least not the old normal. And there are ways that's a good thing, so many ways that the old normal sucked for so many people, and I'm optimistic that there's a bright future ahead, but man it looks far away right now. I don't want to go back to the old normal, and I want to be part of establishing a kinder, more just, more equal new normal, but we're a long way from there.

Whatever happens, we must endure. We must survive. We must support each other. We must find our allies and be prepared to compromise with them. Don't try to save everyone. You'll fail. Help even one person and you can change the world. Everyone things they can't do everything and so do nothing. That's insane. Do a single thing and it will be better than nothing. One phone call. One letter. One act of defiance. Very few people get the opportunity to grand gestures that matter, and the rest of us will die waiting for that moment. But the secret is that what makes those moments - the time when one person is in the right place at the right time for their action to matter - is built on millions of small moments by millions of people doing what little they can to make things slightly better. Think of every iconic photograph of a Sole Resistor you know of and think about every single tiny thing that had to happen for that moment to occur. Most of us will never me that one person, but that one person is a myth anyway. Countless tiny unseen moments create those myths. Doing literally anything is better than doing nothing.

And tooth and nail, quietly and loudly, in our homes and our towns and cities, during protests or when they come for our neighbors, we must fight.

[jesncin]

Musings on fandom racebends and canon characters of color

It's so fascinating how Tana Moon initially accidentally subverted the "disposable poc love interest" trope. She's propped up to be the endgame love interest that Superboy "earns" by learning to grow up and be responsible. As far as half-assed love triangles go, the one between Superboy, Roxy and Tana heavily favors Superboy being committed to Tana to the point of barely reciprocating Roxy's feelings for him. Yeah of course it's a creepy relationship -but as we've discussed before- the writer doesn't see anything wrong with their age gap. It's a fetishistic, racist and misogynistic fantasy where a teen boy can be cool enough to catch the fancy of a sexy dark skinned woman. At the end of the day, Kesel wanted you to like Tana.

But -because of his own biases- Kesel never fleshes out Tana the way Roxy and Knockout (white women btw) get to be explored. I think Kesel assumed Tana being a sexy lamp was enough to hold the interest of young boys reading. And then when Superboy needed a status quo shift that moved him away from his Hawai'i cast system to that of CADMUS, suddenly Tana just... metatexually fulfilled the disposable brown girl trope. Now Superboy has his eyes on a new quirky blonde white girl at work. Tana comes back to die, so both Superboy and the readership move on.

Looking at the way Tana is treated in fandom; how she's made disposable and barred from transformative re-imagining, how when she is included she's treated as this obstacle to overcome before Kon can enter his real, fulfilling relationships with white partners,,, it's like fandom reinforces the disposable brown girl trope inherit in the bias of canon.

And man, does it gets weird when Kon himself is re-imagined as a person of color. I've talked before about how especially in fandom spaces, it's totally fine to racebend a canonically white character if you see something in that worth exploring. I save my big boy critic pants for canon rather than going after spaces of play. BUT when a character's original solo text is inseparable from racism, I have to wonder what we're saying when we give more humanity to re-imagining a white character (who are often afforded more dimension) as POC over the existing (usually underdeveloped) POC characters.

I've seen this "people care more about racebending white characters than already existing canon poc characters" discourse before and I totally get where it's coming from. Many people are more interested in re-imagining Superman as a man of color instead of getting into a character like Steel or Icon (who have their identity more purposely written into their stories), but that doesn't mean those POC!Superman re-imaginings don't have merit either! But at the same time, a canon character like Kong Kenan fulfills the "Superman legacy character with attitude" role way better than Kon ever did, but he doesn't command the same fandom as a man of color.

I guess what I'm heading towards in this ramble is that I wish there was a balance. If you're compelled into appropriating a canonically white character to be more like you or because there's a story to tell, go for it! But I think it's important to be aware of the ways we reinforce canon's bigotry by only giving our creativity to a certain type of character. Like yes, fandom likes making Kon brown, but do they do anything to dismantle or interrogate the racism inherit in his run? Or have we fed back into the racist misogyny of canon by validating the dynamic still in place? Does Kon now just get to dump and dispose of a woman of color while being brown himself as he does it?

[boycarofchilladelphia]

My friend, I can promise you the mormon church is far closer to most hate groups than it is to any standard religion. Both its formation and current rhetoric rely on the control of its members both in thought and action. The doctrine is based on the racist notion that it is the true history of the First Nations peoples of America and asserts that they were actually Jews escaping Jerusalem, a claim that only exists within the Book of Mormon and is refuted by dna evidence and ethnographic studies. The original text of the book of mormon (before the many rewrites) wrote that people would become white and delightsome (meaning of lighter skin) and that only those with white skin would be allowed into heaven. There have been passages describing the Nephites as white and Lamenites as darker skinned as they were blackened by the mark of cain. There are people who have been told that same thing and tried to pray away their dark skin. The entire rhetoric of the mormon church relies on people believing they are better than everyone else, that they alone know the secret truths that will get them into the celestial kingdom and become gods, that they alone look upon a world of filth and decay praying for the day that judgement finally dawns, that they alone know the true history of the native peoples of the Americas because they have simply "forgotten" the truth as they purged the only true believers from the land. You DO believe in a religion that thinks themselves higher than the world with sacred knowledge based on a lie of supposed great and lost people you are uniquely descended from. You play into this by ranking the supposed accuracy of claims against your church without even knowing the real history and formation of its conception. You uphold this same attitude as if other just are misinformed or just stupid while talking down to them like they're a child. You uphold this bastard churches ideals with your own hubris thinking its kindness. There is a reason as to why people view this church as a cult at best and breeding ground for fascist at worst. There is a reason why there was a cosplayer of Captain Moroni at the January Sixth Insurrection.

I know this will fall on deaf ears, I know that I shouldn't write this for my own mental health, but I also know what the mormon church did to me and many of my friends. I can't just let this slide. I owe it to myself to tell you what I wish someone would've told me. This church is nothing but a deeply racist, misogynist mess based in a fascist dream. I hope you will one day understand and find a better path. I would wish for nothing more than for you to read this out and internalize but I know better. I can only hope this softens your heart. I wish the best for you and your future, but not for your church. I hope one day you will take this for the olive branch that it is for your own sake.

Have a good life.

Before I dive into this ask, I gotta say, I was beginning to worry that I would never get anon hate on this site. Bless you for taking the time to brighten my day a little.

Anyway, in all seriousness, it's obvious that you and your friends have been deeply hurt by the Church. I can't apologize for the Church, but I can say that I'm personally so sorry that happened to you and your friends. I can only imagine how hard your life must have been to get to this point, and it says volumes about you that you're willing to try and prevent that harm in a stranger's life. I admire that dedication to kindness and truth, so thank you, truly, for the kind intentions you have.

There's a lot here, so I probably won't address it all piece by piece, but I'll mostly say that you're not wrong. I think my biggest clarification I would make here is that the doctrine is not "based" on the Book of Mormon (in all of its imperfections) at all; it's based on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and his Gospel and the desire for our Heavenly Father to have us all back in His loving arms.

But I promise I'm not cherry-picking one detail in order to throw out your entire argument! The modern Church, in many ways, does rely on control of thought and action of its members. Do they usually do it in the name of inspiration from God? Yup. Does that make it any better? Well, depends on whether you believe in that inspiration or not, but I digress. Moving on: the Book of Mormon being both subtly and bluntly racist, even with some of the kindest readings I've seen? Yeah, friend, I know. Its historicity being unsupported by literally all the current scholarly data we have? Yeah, I know that too. The Church actively teaching false racist lies for MANY years, and even today failing to altogether purge them from their members' teachings and hearts? I know about that, too. And yes, there are significant problems with the Church's attitude towards, history of, and rhetoric about native peoples; I'm not denying that. And we're not even gonna start into the mistreatment, mischaracterization, and downright falsities the Church holds onto when it comes to the LGBTQ+ communities; let's just say I am painfully aware, though I would never wish to be unaware of any of the truths you've mentioned.

Long story short, I'm not denying the very obvious problems that have arisen, and continue to arise, from the failures of men (and while I use that term for mankind, let's be honest; it's usually white men anyway) to teach accurately and correctly the doctrine of Christ. My own testimony is not based in blind submission, nor is it a parroting of rhetoric that I have heard. I have struggled with pretty much every single thing you've mentioned or alluded to on this list, and yet I managed, by the literal Grace of God, to come out on the other side with my faith intact; I do not reject the Church for its imperfections, but I refuse to ignore them as well. My faith does not mean I agree with the Church without reservation. My faith does not mean I obey without question. My faith does not mean that I accept, condone, or apologize for the sins of centuries of Christians regarding the role of faith in their lives. All it means is that I have received a witness through the Holy Spirit that, at least for now, this is the place I need to be. That's not based on physical evidence, a rewriting of ugly history/teachings(past and present), or any sort of dedication to imperfect people.

I'm sorry my ranking felt like I was dismissing your concerns or talking down to you; I never meant for either of this things to be true. It was meant to be a playful discussion more than a full refutation of misinformation, but it sounds like I may have failed in both goals simultaneously, and I take full responsibility for the hurt that it caused you.

That's pretty much everything I feel like I need to say in response to your ask, and I apologize again if my somewhat flippant intro put you off; one of my many flaws is that I try and inject levity into many serious situations. But, if you're interested in some critical thinking exercises, I will gladly hit you with a few thought questions:

If we believe in being better than everyone else because of our temple covenants, as you alluded to, why would we have those temple covenants as the goal for every person from all of history? Why would we actively bring others to the temple, both living and dead, in order to have those ordenances performed for as many of our brothers, sisters, and any others that have ever existed*?

If the Church is more of a hate group than "standard religions", why did the scriptural Jesus Christ never preach that hate? Could it be that the Church is a product of imperfection, racism, and misogyny folded together throughout the years, and that even in spite of those glaring problems, 17 million people globally have, at one time or another found a measure of peace and belonging in Christ's teachings from that very Church? That isn't to say that we should accept the Church without judgement; we can do so much better than just 17 million people, especially as soon as we shirk these dangerous ideals taught by the mouths of imperfect men.

Is it possible for good and evil to co-exist in a church, especially this Church? Is it possible that a perfect God can create an imperfect Church? We could go back and forth on relative good done versus relative evil, but that's more a matter of opinion than it is data. But is it at all possible that there are no simple, black-or-white answers? Might I gently suggest that you're falling victim to the same binary good-or-bad thinking that the Church taught you, just now on the side of "the Church is all bad and therefore cannot do good"?

None of these questions are here to say you're wrong; I cannot ultimately make that judgement because I don't know what the Spirit has or hasn't witnessed to you. It could be that you feel the Spirit has told you to completely abandon the Church because of all of its flaws; that's okay. It could be that you deny the very existence of the Spirit and think that I'm fooling myself into staying in a cult; that's okay, too. But you cannot outright deny the witness I have received based on your own witness, perception, or opinion. And generalizing that opinion/perception/witness to claim that I ignore the Church's faults or somehow am an apologetic for them or even that I'm ignorant of them? Well, that's an assumption you made based on your own reasoning, experiences, and thoughts; I can assure you that I have come face to face with many horrors and misdeeds attributed to and caused by the Church, including harmful doctrines and attitudes in my own life and behavior, and frankly I don't expect that I've encountered them all. And yet, for now, I believe.

*: Yeah, there's a very legitimate argument to be made that the temple doesn't let LGBTQ+ people access the same blessings as non-LGBTQ+ members; I totally agree that is a problem that NEEDS to be fixed for us to have any sort of claim of being followers of Christ at the judgement. I am speaking in idealized terms here, for sure, and I recognize that.

[maxdibert]

the "x character is widely agreed to be z ethnicity" is so funny. well, I don't agree. So what now? I personally hate the hc of Mulciber being black (the one thing we know about him is that he was good at the Imperius curse and attacked a girl...? uhhh sounds about white, thanks). that's the problem with a fanon. No one is ever going to believe the exact same made stuff that you do, live with it, guys

also, it's just blatantly clear whenever you're just making up ethnicity HCs to "spice up" your story or gain points for being progressive without having to put in the work or do any research. James Potter is desi in half these fics and it rarely means anything for him, his family or how he sees the world - being a different ethnicity apparently just means having foreign terms of endearment and eating food that's a lil different to these people

I also find it incredibly problematic that, to them, the only social issue worth calling out is racism. I mean, they’ve spent an entire day making misogynistic comments and insults, verbally attacking people, falsely accusing someone of a serious crime, justifying abuse and bullying, justifying classism. Oh… but that’s fine, those are "minor" issues. I don’t think they understand that not all of us live in the United States and that race isn’t always the central issue everywhere. Social problems vary widely from one cultural context to another, and different communities prioritize different struggles. Honestly, I’m horrified by how classist these people are, or by the number of misogynistic expressions and comments they constantly use, and yet they go out of their way to justify and legitimize that way of speaking and thinking. They literally justify it. And then they have the audacity to come here and call other people racist just because someone doesn’t have the same headcanon for a character as they do? Do they not see how incredibly cynical, hypocritical, and insulting that is?

This girl @Vulcajes even had the absolute nerve to once tell me that she wasn’t privileged because both of her parents are teachers. I mean, if both of your parents are teachers, you are absolutely privileged, for fuck’s sake. Your parents both went to university and have decent jobs, what the hell are you talking about? And then, of course, she gets scandalized over what? The fact that back in my day a character was commonly headcanoned as white and that’s the image I have? Clearly this girl and her friends -all of whom go around acting like social justice warriors- are just a bunch of clueless people who need to tell themselves that headcanoning characters as queer or non-white is some kind of blow against J.K. Rowling because they can’t cope with the cognitive dissonance of being in a fandom created by an author they supposedly hate. But that doesn’t justify being awful human beings, no matter how old they are. And it definitely doesn’t justify committing acts of defamation.

[idiotsinkdaisies]

(longer post) once again over analyzing network tv shows trying to recreate the high i felt when S8x06 "Confessions" first aired - the one scene that I never liked was the Josh Glee speech, but now looking back I have thoughts about the why/who of it all:

Josh comes in and the first few lines of dialogue are him saying "right, you're with Tommy. Unless there's another boy?" and Maddie replies with "There's another woman."

reading in, this is on the nose about bucktommy as a relationship not just being between buck and tommy!! There is a third person in that relationship - and this scene frames that third person as being Abby Clark.

(Third person as a disruption/source of conflict, not in a poly way.)

Regardless of how you feel about Abby, she was Buck's first real adult relationship and made him realize what he wants within one - he learned how to "step into the circle" and meet his partners where they are at with her - it was Abby and Patrica in S1, and Eddie and Chris in S2 onward.

he never steps into the circle with Tommy because that relationship never developed emotional depth

(IMO) Buck realizes that Tommy left Abby in a way that mirrors how she leaves him - a serious partner coming to terms with the fact that they have to leave you to find themself/do what is right for them. He's both emphasizing with Abby for being left, and realizing Tommy hurt her in a way that she hurt him. Buck jumps to a logical conclusion, very much an if A=B and B=C does A=C? Could Tommy hurt him?

Abby is less a third person in bucktommy and more so haunting the narrative with great hair, a well traveled passport, and her annotated copy of eat pray love.

Still, she's talked about and discussed a few times that episode (introduced during the bucktommy date as a conflict, at dispatch, then during the breakup scene.) So explicitly - is she why they break up? no... but is it a part of it... yes (?)

Is she the third person?

Bucktommy always had a third person!! And It is not Abby Clark!!

buck bothered and bewildered was like look! he's so jealous eddie has a new friend. and then 9-1-1 goes um actually he's jealous of the new friend :) obviously :)

even tommy replies to "I wanted your attention" with "my attention?" just for buck to go "I guess so."

buck lurks in the diaz home but eddie lurks in buck's relationships... who is the real #obsessive...

They never explicitly said that eddie diaz is the reason bucktommy struggles/falls flat as a relationship.. but there were signs for those with eyes to see ("bring eddie" "really?" "and die")

Back to the Josh scene - we get into this part I like a lot, which is what is right before he goes into the Glee bit:

It was scarier, more confusing, and not half as accepting. And so sometimes we did things to protect ourselves, things that we might not be proud of, that now look less noble.

The Glee part is.. a choice.. and as someone who watched Glee and would attribute Santana as part of my lesbian awakening and being amazed that they were allowed to have LGBT characters on screen.. I should have fully emphasized with Tommy. At face value it's a scene to make Tommy more relatable/empathetic/forgivable. Unfortunately for Tommy, i think he's at best uninteresting and at worst racist/misogynistic and the scene really didn't do anything to change my opinion for better or for worse.

So then there's a choice that was made - why have Josh give a speech about repression and the struggles queer characters have to Buck in the same episode where he breaks up with the boyfriend in question?

Buck (seemingly) is not going to have any internalized homophobia plot lines, so it is a good theme to introduce! Just because Buck had an "easy" sexuality realization where his queerness is not a point of angst, that does not mean other characters are going to have a simple one.

(we do see this with Micheal in S1 specifically - but if this is truly introducing a theme - it's a little late for it to be related to him)

Is there another character on 9-1-1 that might have battle scars related to sexuality, might have seen a scary confusing world that is not accepting and done things they're not proud of... who might have married a woman and lived as a heterosexual man for years...

in summary: it feels clumsy because they're talking about a "third person" haunting the bucktommy relationship and they have the wrong third person!! they talk about repression influencing a character's choices and they have the wrong character!!

will josh's speech be referenced/re-quoted in reference to Eddie i can only wonder ...

is this intentional or am i reading too far into things?? anyways.

[narrative-of-it-all]

I love the show and the gems of meta analysis I found on twt and here so much, but I can't seem to warm up to some very popular opinions and reactions on here. or rather holding opinions that I will immediately get cancelled over when I engage in the fandom. Like you all scare me. But I have to get it out there.

One of those opinions is that people make Tommy out to be this supervillain, yet he's just some random guy who was unlikable at best in the past, who's there to further buck's plot (and fly a helicopter once in a blue moon). Apart from the racist and misogynistic past, what makes him so much worse than any of Buck's other love interests? I'm not brushing off how non-redeemed he is, the writers could have done a lot more. Just.. I don't really get the dogpiling and hate for the current Tommy. That's just a piece of cardboard, blank slate. But what makes me sick to my stomach is when people are calling the actor's appearance abhorrent and mean it, that's just bullying. Some reactions to Buck and Tommy making out could count as downright homophobic when taken out of context. I know y'all have been fighting with braindead bt shippers but why does that need to have an effect on how you view the show? The hate is not warranted imo, and I genuinely wonder how people would have reacted to a more likable man in a relationship with Buck (whose actors have more chemistry than ostark and lfjr lmao).

Which brings me to another point, I don't understand the purity culture in this fandom regarding Buck & Eddie sleeping with other people, especially men, as if that will somehow 'stain' them when they finally get together. This applies to both characters, let them continue their trail of exploration and mildly fucked up relationships, as they already have on the show. I am fully on team 'let-buck-fuck' and honestly would enjoy him exploring his queerness through sex. ffs, that's a man who enjoys sex a lot, why would you want him to go celibate for the guy who moved away for what looks like to be months, and especially when he can't even conceptualize fully what he feels for Eddie. Let that man date a little. And for Eddie, fuck yeah, let him explore all that stuff with his realization arc. Just because they realize their queerness doesn't have to mean they realize yet what they are to each other (and won't at the same time), and it's logical for their characterization to go out and date people. Especially Eddie, who has repressed stuff for so long. In Buck's words, you don't have to have feelings for everyone you sleep with. Sometimes you just want to fuck around and find out, experience some queer joy.

This also intersects with how people interact with bts and interviews before the episodes come out. Sometimes it feels almost as if this information weighs more than the actual episode itself. There's a lot of insecurity if Buddie is endgame, I wish I could take that feeling away for you somehow, but who will listen to the rookie who joined like 4 weeks ago anyways. It's just out of the question that they won't make it canon, of course they will. The show speaks for itself, trust it! There's no need to catastrophize because an actor or writer has said something that contradicts future Buddie. What are they supposed to say? Should they spoil their surprise? Of course Ryan Guzman will tell you his character is straight, because that's the current text of the show! Sometimes I get the feeling that people are more concerned with getting confirmations and affirmations instead of caring about what a character on screen goes through. I can't fully articulate it, but I trust that the writers love all their characters and want to give them a compelling storyline.

[magpod-confessions]

(loosely responding to a confession i saw a while back, but just a lot of stuff in general)

i don't like how the fandom is so quick to slap labels like 'sexist, racist, misogynistic, etc' onto anyone who dislikes a certain character. i know these things are very much an issue, especially in fandom culture, but it's really anoying when people will just throw those labels around just because people dislike a character that happens to be a woman of colour. because 1. people are allowed to just dislike characters 2. people can have perfectly good reasons for disliking minority characters that have nothing to do with them being part of a minority group

specifically i want to talk about preferring michael distortion over helen distortion. obviously michael is widely depicted as a white man, while helen is widely depicted as a black woman so it's easy to look at the general favouritism towards michael and shout racism and misogyny. but that doesn't account the numerous reasons people could have to prefer michael over helen that have absolutely nothing to do with helen being black or being a woman. So, I present several such reasons:

(now, to the people that are going to say "why are you comparing them?? they are different characters and you should treat them like it" first of all, why have you read this far. second of all, that does not apply here. these are not two seperate characters. these are two different interations/personas/whatever of the same being. comparison should be expected if not encouraged)

michael is more interesting than helen. becuase michael is the distortion when jon and the viewer know very little about the distortion and the fears, he gets to be more cryptic, he can hint at things and and be all mysterious and vague about the nature of himself and the world. helen on the other hand is the distortion when we have a much better idea of the distortions nature and the fears and how they work. thus, she has less opportunity to be cryptic and vague and mysterious, which , in my opinion, is one of michael's best qualities-and what makes him so loved by the fandom. helen attempts to be weird and cryptic like michael, but it's just very repetitive and boring because we already know how everything works and there is very little she can hide from us

michael is a more 'iconic' character. this basically comes down to, he's more quotable. he has his whole trademark laugh and all his great quotes "i am not a who archivist i am a what" "how would a melody decribe itself when asked" "does your hand in any way own your stomach" "there has never been a door there archivist your mind plays tricks on you" i could go on. i'm sure helen has some great lines as well but i don't know any off the top of my head, which honestly proves my point a little. anyway, helen doesn't have all that. probably becuase the writers didn't want her to feel too similar to michael but yeah. this reason is a bit basic but it's still true

michael is made to seem more important. I just want to clarify, what i mean here when i say a character is more importamt here, is that the podcast makes this character seem more important. they both had their effect on the storyline, but the show definitely makes one of them seem more important and influential (this reason encompasses a lot of things so i'm sorry if it gets a bit ramble-y) this kinda ties in with the michael being more mysterious thing. micheal is treated as this mysterious unknown character, a potential threat, an antagonist at some points. Michael affects the characters quite a lot, and jon specifically seems to dwell on him a lot. So despite having a lot less screentime than helen, he's built up to be quite an important figure. Helen is not treated as important by the show in the same way. by the time she comes along, the whole mystery and drama of the distortion has already happened, so she isn't that important. she becomes a little irrelevant to the plot, occaisionally popping in to bother jon. and that's what she's really framed as —an annoyance, a bit of a nuisance, but not that important or influential. especially in season 5, she becomes almost a comedic relief character. mag 187 is the exception to this, where she is very important for about one episode before being almost immediately forgotten about. her effect on the characters is made to seem important only in retrospect. michael remains relevant even after his 'death' because he plays an important role in jon's struggle with his humanity and his conflict over gertrude's morals. even though michael has very little screentime compared to helen, every bit of it is made to feel relevant and important to the overall plot. I AM NOT SAYING MICHAEL IS ACTUALLY MORE IMPORTANT THAN HELEN. YOU CAN LOOK AT HELEN'S EFFECT ON THE PLOT AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE. I AM SAYING THE PODCAST ITSELF CLEARLY MAKES MICHAEL SEEM MORE IMPORTANT. sorry i just want to be super clear on that

michael has a more tragic/serious backstory. we all know what i mean here. michael shelley being manipulated and decieved and betrayed and kept in the dark, to become a monster that's whole purpose was to do those same things to countless innocents—there's so much that can be drawn from that and it's so poetic and interesting. it's also relevant to the overarching plot of the podcast like i said before. and like i mentioned before, helen is treated as a more funny character, not as serious or tragic as michael. don't get me wrong, there is tragedy in her becoming but it is not explored in the podcast canon. you can definitely talk about the srious stuff of helen's character but it isn't as grounded in canon if you do. also michael's death seems more tragic because michael shelley was framed as super innocent and undeserving of his fate while helen richardson was canonically kind of an asshole (not saying she deserved it either of course)

helen replaced michael. this relates to what i said at the start of this list—helen is going to be compared to michael as she is literally his replacement. for one, that does set michael fans against her slightly already because she's complicit in his 'death' a tiny bit. but the real problem is, she's expected to live up to michael—while also being different enough that it doesn't feel like the same character—which i personally don't feel that she does. i think i'd like her better if she was her own character and hadn't replaced michael, and i think that's a big reason that many people that prefer michael don't like her as much. it's also a valid reason to dislike a character. also, this has absolutely nothing to do with her being a woman of colour in fanon. if she was another white boy i'd still probably dislike her when she didn't live up to michael standards.

that's all i can be bothered to write, i think i had more ideas but i forgot sorry lol. anyway, notice how none of those reasons had anything at all to do with helen being a woman or often being depicted as black? if michael had been a woman of colour and helen had been a white man instead, these reasons would still apply

anyway i spent so long on this i thought of a couple reasons someone might preferhelen because i still love her and i don't want to make it seem like i dislike her. i don't. i just prefer michael but helen is still definitely top5 tma characters for me for sure.

we get to see the distortion adapt to it's new identity as helen which is super cool (i do not understand why no one talks about this.like hello????? it's so interesting?)

sometimes it's nice to have a more funny character, especially the juxtaposition between the more dark stuff of the podcast and lighthearted moments between helen martin and jon in season 5

i like her more subtle manipulations and the whole 'fake friend' thing. i thought that was a really interesting concept and a good way of bringing something new to the distortion

anyway, i know that white-twink-favouritism is an issue within the tma fandom (and dare i say tumblr as a whole) but let's remember than not everyone who likes or dislikes certain characters or prefers one character over another does so because they are sexist or racist. there are so many different reasons for someone to dislike or like characters that have notihing to do with race or gender.

i notice this debate particularly with michael and helen and i agree there could certainly be an element of sexism and a bit of racism too (not racism so much because she is not canonically black it's just a fanon thing so racist people probably just see her as white idk) but i think most people have genuine reasons like these to prefer michael and should not be called sexist or racist for having preferences.

🗣️ if i remember right mod i know you prefer helen so disagree with me if you wish. I'M NOT SAYING MICHAEL IS OBJECTIVELY BETTER THAN HELEN I'M POINTING OUT REASONS THAT A LOT OF PEOPLE PREFER HIM. i'm not really here to debate whether michael or helen is 'better' i just wanted to point out something that annoys me a bit

oh my god you are so right anon. at the end of it all both distortions are just. the distortion. michael was more impactful to the actual story as a whole, being one of gertrude's assistants, but helen is also super important in jons journey into avatarhood. both of them affected how jon sees himself through this ( him seeing himself as a monster definitely is also from the distortion ) in their own ways , and while helen is more of comedic relief , she still is new. she's fresh. she is a blank slate for the distortion after having been michael for so long and that is so interesting , especially with how she feels at the very start after merging. - deceit

Agree agree agree. I love helen sm and I find her incredibly interesting (and well the disortion in general) and I do prefer her over Michael personally (partly bc im gay as hell), but I definitely understand why ppl love Michael sm. And yea I dont think ppl should be called sexism or racist over liking a character. Like theres a big difference between liking a character for genuine reasons and liking them bc you have a bias. Idk yea - Rosette

[thesunfyre4446]

OMG I cannot take this anymore, I’m so tired of expressing my opinions on team black and getting backlash for it. TB supporters need to learn to not be so aggressive when it comes to defending their “Innocent” team. I’m not a green supporter either but I find myself sympathising more with those characters because I feel like they have reasons as to why they are what they are.

When I’m watching the show, I find myself disliking Rhaenyra. She constantly complains about being a female but yet she never does a thing to support her cause. In the books, I’ve heard she disinherits Lady Rosby and Lady Stokesworth on account of their genders and gives everything to their younger brothers. I did read the passage on which it says this and it was said that both girls were never named heir but they were the firstborn and is it not Rhaenyra’s movement to show that women can rule?

Back to her not doing anything about it, she does things, not a lot but the stuff she does do is extremely damaging to her image yet she still acts on them impulsively; Going to the street of silk with Daemon which leads to her marriage with laenor WHICH leads to her bastard children. Had she just not gone and not interacted with Daemon, she could have picked what man she got to marry, it didn’t necessarily have to be love but she could of picked one that could perform their duty and she could be friendly with. She could have done this because her father was allowing her to pick which was rare in those days and just further proves that Visery’s would ignore the customs for her.

I truly do agree with Viserys when he mentions that Jeaharys would have disinherited her and I don’t think Rhaenyra realises how lucky she is to have him as a father. She abandoned him for 6 years, knowing he was dying of an illness and only comes back to beg him to get out his bed and put himself in pain to defend her which he does because he loves her. Adding onto this, Rhaenyra expects to come back to kings landing and everyone to just follow her just because she was named heir, she didn’t stay there to prove her worth or anything. She left it for the greens to manipulate and take over and she is mad that she has no allies there when she’s the one the went into hiding. She’s been named heir for around 20 years at this point, most of the men that swore to her are dead and like they said in the show, most of those oaths are stale now.

The greens are definitely more politically savvy than the blacks which is how they gained so much support, had Rhaenyra stayed in the court and worked on making allies and proving her worth to the realm then maybe the Dance wouldn’t have started. Her hiding away in dragon stone also definitely helped the greens to take the throne because had she been in kings landing then she could have known straight away that her father was dead and the greens would have had a harder time getting the throne, but she left it open for the taking and gets mad when it is taken.

Forgive me for all this, I’m just so incredibly annoyed right now.

i completely agree with you, anon. some TB stans are just impossible to talk too. i usually love it when people with different opinions that mine leave comments on my posts, but i've gotten soooo many disgusting and disturbing messages calling me names, being racist, being incredible misogynistic towards alicent and just being very weird and aggressive.

idk it's very weird how personally TB stans take the criticism towards rhaenyra and daemyra. i mean, daemon gr00med and choked her - a lot of people are obvs NOT going to support this couple and find it very problematic.

i'm not a huge rhaenyra fan too . her character is kinda boring for me, she's giving me an overprivileged-rich-soccer-mom vibes. and yeah she def was not politically savvy (part of the reason i dislike her lol) and made a lot of mistakes. i think that rhaenyra is def a product of viserys's bad parenting skills. he never prepared her to rule, always justified and defended her mistakes (i mean, how are you going to grow as a person when your daddy defends everything you do no matter what?) and he gave her a false sense of security.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Andrew Reiner

Published: Oct 19, 2023

In Adam Sandler’s new film “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah,” 13-year-old Andy is a villain who mutters coded bro-speak, kisses the lead character in the synagogue’s holiest spot, pranks his wheelchair-bound grandmother, and is oblivious to other people’s suffering. Andy is narcissistic and menacing, and what makes his portrayal all the more disturbing is that he’s also a common trope in popular culture.

Men and boys are often portrayed as bumbling, blustering, narcissistic, and incompetent at best — predatory and toxic at worst. For everyone’s sake, we need a new, more nuanced way to talk about and to boys and men.

The prevailing notion is that the males among us are doing just fine, thanks. Influencers like Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist and alleged rapist and human trafficker who preaches that women are a man’s property, are sufficient proof for many that men are toxic and abuse their power. The constant attention they command, though, obscures a different reality. For all of the seeming advantages that boys and young men enjoy, they are floundering.

Boys lag behind girls in school achievement and are falling through the cracks even when they get to college. They are less likely to attend graduate school and earn degrees in law and medicine. Young men are also less likely to enter the workforce after high school, a trend that continues into their 20s, 30s, and 40s — even if they have a college degree.

And while rates of depression, chronic stress, and anxiety are higher in women and girls, men and boys are not far behind. Those between the ages of 15 and 24 have the highest suicide rate. They also abuse alcohol and opioids more than any demographic does, and they lead loneliness epidemics around the world where individualism prevails.

For all of these data points, the focus of conversations about boys and men is often on their potential for bad behavior. And this influences the way some people talk to them.

Social media has long been rife with memes that tell us that boys could be rapists and sexual predators. Some parents even project bad intentions and behaviors onto their own sons, as one mother whose takeaway from meeting her teen son’s clingy, mostly silent girlfriend for the first time was to worry that her son must be “abusive” and “stifling.”

“I am convinced this relationship is extremely toxic,” the mother wrote to Slate’s Care and Feeding column. “Maybe even abusive, and I want my son to clean up, both for his sake and for any woman he might date now or in the future.”

While this mother’s reaction is extreme, it speaks to a counterproductive mindset among some parents. Author Heidi Julavits wrote that her husband warned their young pre-teen son — by Julavits’s account a kind, thoughtful boy — that if he or Julavits overheard him “making misogynistic or homophobic or transphobic or racist or in any other way offensive comments, even if he doesn’t know what they mean, he will be banned from [playing video games] for a week.”

I have a son, and I’m completely on board with raising boys who are not misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, or racists. But there’s something accusatory about how some parents talk to their boys about these issues. Such an approach reduces all of cisgender heterosexual masculinity to an identity that by its nature is toxic and wired for violence. We have created a culture in which our boys are guilty until proven innocent.

And boys know it. Nico was in the seventh grade when I interviewed him in 2018 for a book project. He told me it hurt him to hear teachers criticize masculinity as “toxic” and to see girls wear T-shirts that read “The Future is Female” or “Girls Rule, Boys Drool.” At 13, Nico said he sometimes felt like “a stranger” in the school he had attended since first grade. “Where do I fit into a future that’s female?” he asked.

His question speaks to the confusion, fear, and, sometimes, resentment, that many boys and young men feel when faced with blanket criticism of their gender. After seeing a Peter Pan play revamped with empowering messages for girls but riddled with denigrating stereotypes about boys, my then 8-year-old son turned to me as the house lights came up. “Why were boys made out so awful in the play?” he asked. A 60-something woman in front of us turned to face him and said, “It’s true, though, isn’t it?”

Why must empowering messages for girls and young women come at the expense of boys and young men? Is it any wonder that some of them find their way to the online manosphere’s darkest alleys, home to incel chat rooms and those who think Andrew Tate is a hero?

Instead of shaming boys and men for what might lurk in the worst of their nature, we need to speak with them with compassion and curiosity — and with the right amount of commiseration and context. I call these the Four C’s, and I use them in small group work at boys’ high schools. When boys feel safe and heard, they will express their confusion about being affectionate with girls they date. “It’s really hard to know how to be around girls,” one high school junior told me. “They can touch us or kiss us, but I’m scared I’ll be called out for sexual assault if I reach for her hand or put my arm around her.”

Many boys are scared and confused, and they need guidance and validation. “I hear you,” I said to the high school junior. I commiserated. “I can imagine how terrifying all of this must feel.” I spoke to the context: There is a power differential between the sexes, making girls more physically vulnerable, and it’s important to keep that in mind. I looked around the room and got curious. “Can anyone else identify with this fear and frustration?” I asked. Some hands shot up.

Boys want to talk, and they deserve to be heard. We just have to ask the right questions and create a safe space for the conversation to begin.

[ Via: https://archive.today/H6CeI ]

[charmedreincarnation]

https://www.tumblr.com/charmedreincarnation/735781939655622656/httpswwwtumblrcomcharmedreincarnation7357809

I don't think you have to stray too far to get to the wrong parts in reddit. It's filled with borderline predators who say disgusting things and justify themselves "cus shes 18". They act like such hornyfucks..just go to oldschoolcool or r/pics wherever theres a picture of a skinny girl/woman they have to act like creeps or rip any woman who doesn't fit the beauty standard to shreds. i know the general narrative is that women are bitchy and insecure jealous and all men are so lighthearted humorous and fun but then you see most of their comments and you understand why women had to struggle with their rights so much in the past and also in the present. They can be so nasty,mean, vile and just downright vulgar

girl I hate men (not my anons ofc but ykwim)you don’t have to tell me twice. I especially hate the basement dwellers on Reddit. Honestly with the internet, freaks can come together and be even more annoying vile freaks together lol. Plus Reddit is one large echo chamber depending on where you are depends which type you get. I suggest keeping it cute. Im barely on there and stay along the informational and spiritual aspects of Reddit. Just general advice though… as someone who used to mindlessly scroll and find and argue with idiots, incels, misogynistic barnacle heads, racists, etc.I promise you there is no point arguing with souless buttfucks lol. Most of their lives suck and that’s the the reason they can be so chronically online and stupid with no repercussions.

What you feed your mind is so important and also creates your perception. I’m not even talking about the law of assumption rn but yes that too but in general. Spend too much time around that stuff and you’ll find yourself being very nihilistic and violent. And because of your algorithm the more your angirly click, the more you see it, and the more people you think are like that! When I come across that stuff now I’m lowkey shocked because to me those people can’t engage or interact with me because I choose to not be aware of them. But then I recently downloaded instagram and omg both the men and women are misogynistic bitter losers, so I have to stop being aware of them as well which is hard bc it’s everywhere 💀 but in reality I don’t see or experience any of that sort of stuff in the real world, so let them have the internet it’s not real anyways.

[splatcat64]

i had a really long convo with my friends about this but it really seriously feels like ppl get rhys and fionas characterization switched up HARD. this is bc of the u choose the path thing but also a heavy hand in the misogyny and racism (and general way ppl tend to approach pandorans due to being effected by how jack talked about them . LOL) fiona is such a sweetheart whos working her hardest to protect the people she loves + imo shes the one who helped vaughn grow into someone who adores pandora as well. it makes me blow up. i have a few songs that have been making me go nuts about her . hai i got excited sorry

NOOO DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR GETTING EXCITED I totally get it my god,,, this blog is becoming so tales centric I’m sorry not sorry here we go. If you haven’t seen tales and want to be mindful of light spoilers. ⚠️

This has been talked about on my side a bit but I tooootally agree, Both of their characterization gets switched up BAD and it’s absolutely insane, both Fiona and Rhys are good people, but flawed. Flawed, but good people, and it gets constantly jumbled around in the fandom. I feel like a lot of people have a really hard time grasping that “choose ur own adventure” protags still have a core personality set, especially telltale. I always use Lee TWGD as an example, because sure you can portray him as either very very confrontational, or more soft spoken and sweet, but in the end of th edgy he still killed someone. In the end of the day he still ALWAYS cares about Clem. It’s not any different for those two idiots, they still have their respective arcs and the such.

I feel like Fiona gets a lot of shit specifically BECAUSE she’s snarky and she. speaks her mind. And god forbid a POC/Black coded woman do ANYTHING. Jack really messed up ppls views on Pandorans but the look into Sasha and Fi’s life is literally just more, HEY, they’re people!! Maybe don’t listen to the GENOCIDAAAAL [big arrows pointing to the word] MANIAC. It’s thrown right at your face. People take wtv the fuck Jack says way to seriously when he lies. So much. All the time. And I don’t get why no one takes it with a pile of salt constantly. When really she does just have a heart of gold, most of her being mean is literally just playful banter like hello. Sasha’s meaner than her by a mile but Fi still gets slaaandered for it. And even tho Sasha does have her really mean moments I will defend her to the grave with strangers bcus “hating her” without a valid reason gets veeerry racy really quick and as a black person it really does rub me the wrong way sometimes. So much mischaracterization everywhere. It’s a weird mix of a patriarchal, misogynistic, racist deal with EVERY character in The Group and I’m just… how do you manage to mischaracterize everybody from a game that’s all story.

And the point I made in a post somewhere about how Rhys is written differently than a LOT of men in borderlands and ppl have ran with it and decided hey this guy actually sucks. Or hey haha this guy can’t do anything. He’s completely out of his element on Pandora, of course he’s stumbling somewhat but bro is brave as hell for that shit. He’s a completely capable dude, yes he cares about Fiona and Sasha and Vaughn. Yes they care about him. I feel like people also get it twisted because of Fiona and Rhys in the intros, but people gotta remember that they’re acting like that because the game was episodic and we weren’t rlly allowed to know that they’re super buddy buddy. That’s one gripe I have w the game is that they made Fiona seem like she HATED his ass in some of the future settings in the beginning of episodes and people took it way too literally. Please I beg they’re besties,,, you’ve never boxed with a bestie before??? Either way it’s obvious that it’s blown out of proportion especially after Rhys’ whole arc concludes. You’re supposed to be like oooh he’s like that cause we couldn’t know. You look at Fi and you’re supposed to like daaamn she really cares about him/them they were all just split apart after extremely traumatic events. [I’m gonna stop here with this point cause it’s starting to be a run on but people do not talk enough about how traumatic both Helios’ crash, the wreck, and Gortys’ first fight was for all of them.]

I’ve talked extensively with a friend about this too but Tales had a looot of budget issues during its making cause of Telltale nuking itself, and the game was meant to have more time. ALL of them were!!! I always think about maybe if they all got more time they’d be treated this way less. But yknow,, whatever I guess.

AND THE VAUGHN THING UR SO CORRECT GOD. I think she really help him crawl out of his shell for a lack of a better term, both the sisters tbh I feel like they’re a very rare and cute friendship pairing and I need to see more of Sasha daring him to do shit like in the Chimera dome. They all care sooo deeply for each other and people even manage to miss that like god. One of Rhys’ core traits if you don’t make him abysmally evil is loyalty. LOYALTY. Fiona hasn’t had many, hell if any friends since tales started, She is SUCH a caring person of course she’s gonna ride or die for her friends. Like that one scene on Helios where Rhys can ask her not to leave, And she’s like “If I wanted to leave, I would’ve done it a looong time ago.” There’s so many points in the game I could,d bring up that show how great all of them are, Fiona, after knowing him for not too long at all, tries to convince Vaughn to be brave, and that he can survive Bossanova’s race. Yes, she had to do that so they wouldn’t die, but she went out of her way to say it in a way that was reassuring enough. That’s sweet. If she didn’t care about them she wouldn’t have played cards on the roof with Rhys, or play bunkers and badasses with the boys, or I don’t know, let them LIVE IN WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY HER HOUSE FOR A YEAR. /ref ep.3 of tales. I’m being dramatic, of course there are factors that didn’t let her kick them out. But, my point stands.

That wasn’t meaaan that was playful reassurance, she’s telling him she’s THERE FOR HIM. They all care sooosososo much. If none of the, cared about each other, any “betrayal” wouldn’t mean that much. People get hurt like that because of their bonds and yes, YES I’m being opinionated but they’re like the found family ever, god. Fiona is fucking amazing and she wouldn’t put up with anyone if she didn’t either have to, or care, and after a certain point it’s very obvious that it’s not the first one.

TLDR; Tales is great, stan Fiona, stan Rhys, Stan Sasha and Vaughn,,, my glorious queens and kings. Forgive any typos or grammar I wrote this on a passionate whim,

[yibeshistardom]

I feel like I have to address something about me and what I say, since I seriously have no filter and really hate when people start random stupid shit with me like I’m not gonna argue back.

Warning for me cursing btw.

I’m a twitter user, so that means I start discussion or conversation depending on the topic. I let others describe their opinion before I judge, and if I don’t and agree with you it’s a win-win for us both. But if it’s some weird misogynistic racist sexist type situation expect me to block, report, mute, and take all types of safety measures so that I can distance myself from that disgusting energy and behavior. I used big words throughout those sentences so that’s how you can tell I’m serious, or how some would say “DeadAss.” Quotation’s, or quotas are my favorite thing to use because they help me better express and explain the situation I could be in so people don’t start assuming shit about me. -1

I also enjoy writing essays and paragraphs as to whatever the topic is about, because it helps me as a person who has undiagnosed anger issues and a loud yelling voice to calm down. Another thing is music helps me with my mind so it can focus on plenty of things. For example, I’m listening to music right now and it helps me focus on what I’m writing/typing. For another thing, since there will be plenty, I am not one to support people who think women are sluts or men are useless. That shits annoying, and I hate the fact we have people in this world who think one gender is better than the other. Because if we really thought that then there would be a war going on between millions of people on which gender is better, and objectively, neither is. Both sides have done all types of retarded stuff because they think it’s “to prove a point.” Or some shit like that. -2

Anyways, I think that’s all I need to say. Basically places like twitter and tumblr are journals for me so I can get these thoughts out of my head so I don’t overstimulate myself thinking about them.

I think politics and anything government related is stupid and has nothing to do with me.

[taleswove]

rules.

ACTIVITY :  roleplaying is a hobby and i have a regular 7-4 job throughout the week, so please do not expect me to be here 24/7. my activity is almost always spotty so i very much operate on an “i’ll be and write here when i can” mindset when it comes to roleplaying. the sideblogs may not always be the only ones i run, so i try to split what free time i have between here and my other muses.

MUTUALS ONLY :  pretty self - explanatory. if we are not following each other, then we will not be writing with each other either. sometimes it takes me a while to check on new followers, so give me at least 3 days to follow you back.

if we were mutuals once upon a time and aren’t any more, please try not to take it to heart. a lot of things have changed over here along with myself and i’m just trying to enjoy writing here better.

FOLLOWING / UNFOLLOWING :  if you’re taking the time to go through a rules page then you already know the usual things any decent person would put in here — no misogynists, no queerphobes, no terfs/transphobes, no racists, no radfems. and as plainly stated in my pinned, no goddamn zionists. in general, just don’t be a horrible person and we’ll be fine.

i will not follow anyone who purposely misgenders phoebe campbell and/or emma d'arcy. both phoebe and emma are non-binary and use they/them.

dead dove, do not eat — to be honest, i don’t care much for how you choose to write the consanguineous relationships between the targaryens. those relationships are important to the story whether you like it or not. i think we’re all adults here or at the very least aren’t immature enough to believe that muns who do write it romantically would actually support incest in the real world. it’s fine if you personally don’t like it, but you’re getting blocked if you’re gonna be an asshole and start a witch hunt or a million vague posts over it.

i don’t mind call out posts when they’re absolutely necessary (i.e. scammers, which this fandom has had) however, if it’s a ‘block and move on’ situation, then you should be doing that instead of blocking and going on and on. i can wave off a post or two on occasion cause i get just being so pissed off, but it really gets to a point. i hate a hypocrite.

on the topic of hypocrites, if i notice you breaking ties with someone who got called out for something - on a genuinely problematic case or otherwise - but you’re interacting with another person i see also guilty of some shit, it’s gonna be very hard for me to take you seriously. and at some point you’re getting blocked.

DUPLICATES : 

i will not write with duplicates of my non-sideblog muses. please check my pinned post to see which muses this applies to.

ladiesongs: as of the moment, i am not opposed to interacting with any duplicates of the muses on my multi-muse.

virtueheld: i'm fine with alicent duplicates, even with show-based alicents.

wintheiress: since i'm still building her up, i will not write with other iterations of sansa i stark.

PORTRAYAL :

ladiesongs: all muses are book- and headcanon-based. most of them have not been written into the shows or have been but were there very briefly, so i stick mainly to grrm's writings. more specifics here.

virtueheld: alicent is strictly book- and headcanon-based. i am willing to write with show-based muses so please check her separate pinned post to see her condensed timeline, however they way they've written her overall in the show isn't canon to me.

wintheiress: everything about sansa aside from the basics (lineage, husband, etc) was made by me. please do not steal or "take inspiration" from it.

WRITING :  i am slow at replying im- and thread - wise for various reasons, but just because i take long doesn’t mean i don’t want to write with you! life just gets in the way and i think we can all understand that. i do tend to drop threads and delete memes from my inbox if i feel like they’ve been there for too long, but i’m always up for starting new things.

SHIPPING :  plotting and chemistry is key ! unless stated otherwise on their respective blogs, i do acknowledge a muse's canon marriage/romantic relations, but i won't push these on you if you're writing their spouse/lover and feel otherwise.

ladiesongs: sabitha is a lesbian. please do not attempt to make me ship her with a man. all other muses are bisexual.

virtueheld: although she’s very set on people following their marital vows and duties, i am open to plotting out ships with her during (and after) her marriage to viserys. i do ships mainly based on chemistry and plotting. alicent is a demisecual, very closeted bisexual.

wintheiress: her marriage is an important part of her characterization so for the most part, i will be writing sansa as a married woman. this does not, however, mean i'm not willing to ship her with other muses.

MAINS / EXCLUSIVES :  i may have my mains but i don’t do exclusives. i could do verse exclusives and maybe even ship exclusives if we talked about it, but i don’t generally do the “i only follow and write with x person’s version of this muse,” so please don’t ask me. the maximum amount of muse duplicates i’ll have listed as a main is three.

NSFW :  i am of age and while i don’t really write smut, i'm sort of open to it. most likely not as threads and just as memes sent in to me or memes i’ll be sending in to others. that being said, however, none of that is happening in threads with underage muses. other possibly triggering topics will be tagged accordingly as ‘trigger tw’ (i.e. eating disorder tw).

MISCELLANEOUS :  basically other important points that i can’t file under a specific category lol

do not follow me if you use any known abusers as a faceclaim (i.e. johnny depp, jonathan majors, shia labeouf, brad pitt - yes i do believe they hit the women who’ve brought cases against them and that they’re just shitty people in general, domestic abuse “aside.” please actually take the time to look into those cases beyond viral tiktoks and misogynistic fanbases) and/or any actors known to hold rancid views as a faceclaim. no exceptions.

the above being said, do not follow me if you have the women those men abused in your faceclaim dni list. i’d side-eye you less if you have both parties banned instead.

do not follow me if you are a solo muse blog for any character from the following fandoms: harry potter, the last of us, sarah j. maas books, fourth wing/rebecca yarros books, stranger things. i might make an exception if they’re on a multi-muse, but if they’re the majority and/or heavily featured on it, i will not be following.

i don’t usually interact with ‘like to stay mutuals’ posts - unless i break the mutual myself, i am very much interested in remaining mutuals with you.

if i block or softblock you, it is what it is. just accept it and move on.

i am not affiliated with any of the actors used, hbo max, george r.r. martin, or the asoiaf franchise in any way or form.

[thebreakfastgenie]

You spent this entire response talking about how, unfortunately, I wouldn't read it, and surely I would block you, and then at the end you basically asked me not to respond. Lol.

Unfortunately for you, I have never blocked a blog that wasn't a bot and my adderall is kicking in, so I read every word.

The reason my first response to you was so long is that I wasn't entirely sure exactly what point you were making, so I was trying to cover all my bases. I wasn't trying to put words in your mouth. In this second comment you've more clearly focused on the argument that TERFs use man-hating to cover for legitimate bigotry. Unfortunately, that argument is nonsense. None of the examples you gave are using man-hating as a cover for anything, at least not successfully. The bigotry in those examples is not subtle. If someone can't recognize racism or transphobia in rhetoric like that their problem is that they're not very aware of bigotry and just not very bright. I can't identify the exact logical relationship, if there is one, but this argument bears some odd resemblance to the point women often make, that people on the left often use complaints about cisness or whiteness or wealth as covers for their misogyny. But women don't ask people not to complain about cisness or whiteness or wealth, just to stop singling out women and being misogynistic. In this case your argument still leaves women out in the cold. Everyone else can complain about their oppressors, but women can't, because someone somewhere might use man-hating as a justification for something else.

At a certain point, hypothetical statements are meaningless without context. If a woman makes a post about misogyny and singles out Indian men, it might because she's racist or it might be because she lives in India. The words that are used may be very similar (although the first one is more likely to include some slurs) but the meaning is very different. One of the problems with social media is that posts are often seen without their original context. There is a long history of women of color being pressured to stay silent about misogyny within their own communities using the reasoning that the community must be united and any negativity will give ammo to racists. This puts women of color in a really difficult situation. It also serves to prevent them from forming solidarity with other women. The way forward is just to make an effort to recognize all forms of bigotry, misogyny included, when they come up. To make an effort to tell the difference between a good faith attempt to address one issue that's fallen prey to unconscious bias or systemic bigotry and a bad faith argument that's one issue as an excuse for another kind of bigotry. To be willing to both say and hear good faith criticism in the first scenario, to reform arguments without the bias instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Man-hating is not a good proxy for other kinds of bigotry.

I have no idea what the transmascs bomb post is. In general, a post that singles out transmascs is probably not okay, because the relevant part is that they are trans, and being cruel to trans people is... wait for it... transphobic. In some situations, the point about intracommunity man-hating applies. Trans women may complain about trans men just as any other group of marginalized women may complain about the men in their own community. To some extent it's probably reasonable to say certain things should not be posted publicly where cis people can get ahold of them without sufficient context, but that's an intracommunity issue that I'm honestly not qualified to speak on, because I'm cis. I only bring it up because I've dealt with analogous intracommunity in some communities I am a member of; it's a fairly universal concern but the particulars here are outside my lane.

You focused a lot on whether or not TERFs like men, which was really tangential to the actual point of this post. "TERFs like men actually" was referring to their eagerness to form relationships with right wing cis men to gain political power. Also, before it finally got taken down, a decent number of the posts on the TERF subreddit were from cis men claiming to be radical feminist allies who the TERFs gleefully and hypocritically pointed to as "one of the good ones" while they bonded over hating trans women. TERFs live in the same society as everyone else (unfortunately) and in a society as patriarchal as ours, few people really hate men as much as they think they do. A similar phenomenon exists with other marginalized groups. Unconscious bias cuts both ways; not just unconscious bias against a marginalized group, but unconscious bias towards a powerful group.

Using man-hating as a shield for bigotry doesn't make a lot of sense because man-hating isn't socially accepted just about anywhere. It always gets pushback. Ask any woman who's made a negative general statement about men. And TERFs spend a lot of time with the far right, where hating men is certainly not acceptable. I don't know where you live, but on the anglophone internet man-hating is not generally accepted. And even when you do hear "I hate men," the power dynamics of patriarchy are such that it's just not a real problem.

Trans-exclusionary radical feminism is essentially a subtype of transphobia that uses an interpretation of radical feminist theory as a justification for transphobia, rather than religion or plainly homophobic rhetoric about sexual deviance (though versions of this argument surface in TERF rhetoric as well and there's a great deal of convergence with the social conservative version). Quite often in hate movements like that, the ideology is a post-hoc justification for the bigotry. So the logic of men oppress women -> trans women are men -> trans women are bad because they oppress [cis] women may be what TERFs say but it's often not an honest representation of their thought process. Both TERFs and garden-variety transphobes (who openly revere men) hate trans women for being, according to them, men who pretend to be women. TERFs will even say, disingenuously of course, that it would be fine if trans women would only live as gender non-conforming gay men. It's transness that transphobes despise, the act of existing while trans.

#Also one of your followers left hate in my DMs#not even an ask!#not even an anon#get braver followers.

I know my closing paragraph was a bit of a non sequitur. I am making an effort to end walls of text with something actionable, and since you'd brought up trans men I thought it might be worthwhile to end by talking about the issues they face and acknowledging the intersections they're dealing with in the current political situation where I live. I'm also really feeling the weight of the incoming far right government in my country so any time I end up in ~discourse~ with other progressives I feel the urge to remind both of us as well as anyone else who reads the post who the real enemy is. I'm caught between my ADHD and inability to let anything go compelling me to respond to comments on my posts and my feeling that fighting each other is a waste of time when the threat of the far right looms. Ending that way was my compromise for myself.

My followers are their own people with agency. I do not control them. I also don't choose who they are because I don't block or softblock and quite honestly there are enough of them that I don't have time to screen them, even if wanted to. Speaking to you in a DM with their URL attached doesn't sound cowardly. You can still publish screenshots of the conversation if you choose, choosing DM over ask just means they don't intend to confront you publicly. Nothing about how I run my blog has ever encouraged anyone to send hate in any form. It sounds like they were responding--however inappropriately--to your post. This really has nothing to do with me, my blog was just the vehicle by which they saw it.

Something I want this website specifically to reflect on! Are you mad at women for talking about men the same way you talk about cishets or neurotypicals? Why?