#i really don't get that much discourse in my dash and i just know i follow the right people♥

[unladielike]

( i honestly can’t help but laugh whenever i discover an anti has me hardblocked... and these antis spread misinformation about pr/o-shippers too, that it’s just like trash taking itself out.

but honestly, you don’t necessarily have to have problematic ships in order to be a pr/o-shipper - you just have to not condone harassment over ships. and yeah, while i won’t deny most pr/o-shippers in the rpc tend to ship inc/est or minor/adult ships, the fact antis have to resort to spreading misinformation to make them self seem morally superior is so damn hilarious to me.

honestly, i wouldn’t be surprised if people would assume i’m a pr/o-shipper too despite the fact i actually agree with them in/cest and minor/adult ships are gross - i just do not appreciate seeing people witch hunt others or hurl death threats at people consensually writing things they don’t like, regardless of how i might feel about the topics they are writing about, because at the end of the day, real people matter more than fictional lines on paper.

seriously, it costs $0 to just block/unfollow/blacklist and mind your own business. plus, all this moral outrage people have towards supposed ‘p/edophilia’ is performative af. like, if you care about csa victims so much, then why are you exerting so much of your energy on being mad at fictional characters being abused when you could help out actual victims of csa/grooming in real life??

i dunno, man... i just feel like these people need to touch grass or something, because they do more slacktivism than actual writing. i mean, maybe it’s just me, but i personally do not get how you could not be tired, calling out people for shipping crimes or being angry all the time, when all i wanna do when i come back home from work is scream about characters and maybe write self-indulgent shit.

...TO THAT END, I DO NOT HAVE THE SPOONS TO CARE ABOUT WHAT GROSS SHIT OTHER PEOPLE ARE DOING, because it doesn’t concern me. honestly, i wouldn’t say i ‘support’ it, but it’s more like i acknowledge that people are always gonna write weird shit regardless, so i’ll simply ignore it and move on, because for me, it’s not healthy or productive to my mental health, focusing on things i hate. )

[mr-ribbit]

gonna rant again bc im seeing a lot of trans women on my dash having to carry the heavy lifting to argue for their basic respect and a lot of other queer people who want to ??? get mad about that apparently. for the record as usual: im tme, im not speaking for anyone besides myself and my perspectives, but I am trying to reach out to fellow tme people to level with y'all from inside the house.

i thought we all got past the 'calling people gendered terms when theyve asked you to stop' thing in like. 2012. i swear we were allllll on board with not calling women dude anymore, nerfing sir and ma'am, neutralizing collective terms for groups, and all of that was like, during the onceler era. that's how we got off-putting shit like folx into the mix - remember???? why are we here again.

to those who I've seen claiming that they REALLY genuinely don't want to offend anyone, and that theyre trying to understand the dude thing, and they don't want to be seen as transmisogynistic when they aren't: ok. let's talk about it. step one, stop sending that really loaded anon to a trans woman you don't know, and close that in-group hatepost with 100 replies from people name-dropping trans bloggers they don't like. try to open your mind and assume for the duration of this post that I am not cynically trying manipulate thousands of tumblr users into making Bro the next big swear word, but a fellow queer human being who thinks you're all being pretty intentionally obtuse about an upsetting trend in our community

to be clear: this post is about the issue of trans women being called bro, dude, man, etc., particularly in recent tumblr discourse about transmisogyny, and the backlash they face if they get upset about it. this is also maybe moreso about the shitty ass excuses I see tme people make for why they supposedly can't stop doing this.

so let's go through some of the things I've been seeing people say they don't understand, supposedly in earnest, about this issue

"I DIDNT USE DUDE AS A MASCULINE TERM. I CALL EVERYONE BRO. MAN IS A GENDER NEUTRAL TERM"

I'm not actually going to exhaust my list of reasons why dude/bro/man are not strictly neutral, but you should be pretty aware that all words have context. Dude might be seen as neutral in many contexts, sure, but 'woman who is frequently called a man by others' is a situation where the context adds extra meaning to your words, just like calling someone "sweetie" might be neutral in some cases, but if you've got the context of knowing that's your coworker who's half your age, it's a bit less neutral. If you're not capable of reading that context and being tasteful about when you say dude, then you need to at least be ready to respond gracefully when someone asks you to stop. This is the part I'd rather focus on.

"BUT I DIDNT MEAN IT THAT WAY. IM NOT TRANSPHOBIC"

I think you should consider broadening your perspective *beyond* your intention behind the word. people may already understand that you meant the word neutrally and therefore didn't have transmisogynistic intent, but that's not really the entire scope of what people are saying. if that's your only concern, you're just trying to clear your record, not actually listen to what they're saying.

there are lots of words people don't enjoy being called, and in most cases, when they say 'pls don't call me that', people respect that and move on. even if the word isn't a slur, if it hurts someone's feelings, we all as a society have agreed that it's pretty shitty to keep calling them that. if your friend asked you not to call them 'buddy' anymore because their dead grandparent called them that, or something equivalently personal, you'd probably respect that instead of telling them 'but I call everyone buddy!!' right? even if you didn't really understand why it bothered them so much?

there is a prominent tendency for trans women to be denied this privilege, and when they ask not to be called dude or bro, people don't seem to respect this request as much as they would in other situations. when I accidentally use a gendered word and someone tells me they don't like it, I try to respond with something like "my bad, I didn't mean it as misgendering but I can see you were still bothered by it, so I'll try not to keep saying it. sorry!" and most people are willing to accept that. when trans women ask people this favor, a lot of people get VERY defensive, and treat the request as inane or unfair, instead of just apologizing and moving on. this is why people are upset when this happens, and it's why people are calling your actions transmisogynistic

also like you might not be doing this, but a lot of people DO use dude and bro in an intentionally gendered way to make trans women uncomfortable. it's a power play bigots use to talk down to them or otherwise maliciously harass them. do you know what arguments they use to defend that behavior when called out on it? 'oh I call everyone that' 'dude is gender neutral calm down' 'dont overreact its just a word'. by acting like this, youre all just giving credence to those same arguments.

"WELL THEY SHOULDNT GET SO MAD AT ME WHEN I DIDNT MEAN ANY HARM"

they can get as mad as they want!! also, are you sure they're 'mad'? or are they just expressing their feelings about a negative topic to you, and it makes you feel bad, so you have to make them out to be unreasonably emotional? how do you think they should have phrased 'dont call me that' to better spare *your* feelings?

also like, in most cases, these women do not knowww you. if your main response to someone saying you disrespected them is to say "I didnt mean it that way, I meant it in a friendly neutral way", well that's NOT YOUR FRIEND! she has no idea what your opinions are or what you think of her!!! she has no reason to assume you only upset her in a friendly way and not a bad unfriendly way! but she did get upset, and she did the one thing she can do which is *tell you what upset her* and your response is to say "well actually you shouldn't be upset at all"??????

and another thing:

it's not just the issue of using the word 'dude', it's because you're coming off extremely dismissive of women who have asked you to stop doing something that harms them, and because your argument is basically that they just shouldn't be so bothered by it. or that they're stupid, irrational, or otherwise crazy for telling you that it bothered them at all, just because you Technically used a gender neutral word according to Your Rules. be honest, does that seem fair? If people were calling you something that bothered you enough to ask them to stop, and they responded like this, how would it make you feel?

focusing solely on your intent and what the words mean when you use them is the same thing as saying "just get over it". no woman should need to Prove to you that 'dude' is gendered for you to care about what she's saying. the fact that you're asking people to do that sucks and makes you look bad, which is why people are arguing with you and calling you a misogynist.

especially those of you who are only doing this with trans women who are actively arguing with. you're wielding misgendering as a cudgel and we can all see it, grow up please.

[bcolfanfic]

not to be a freak but you're one of the couple people i've seen vaguely mention clegan and watersports...going to be really brave and ask if you have more thoughts you'd be willing to share. on the topic.

oh godidduid. the reason ive never elaborated on this is bc im so paranoid a hater from my main blog is gonna lurk me on here and see it and try to start "this girl is a FREAK!!!" discourse over it lmfaogjjgfk. i've been hoping someone else would post headcanons or something and i could just hang out in the replies. but. i will take the fall. putting it below a read more line so people aren't smacked in the face with piss stuff on their dash if they don't want to be.

godddd. the thoughts that have been rolling around in my head for like...months on this topic.

i saw someone the other day post abt gale being the one that wakes up in a cold sweat thinking abt it and yeah i fuck with that.

darling baby gale that's never touched a man before bucky thinking about watching him piss himself and not being able to sleep until he gets off into his hand to the mental image <3

is too pussy to bring it up but. in a moment of divine intervention they're getting hot and heavy one night and before bucky has his pants off he kinda stops gale says he has to pee and he'll be right back.

and gale is SO brave seizes the moment and grabs his arm all flushed and frantic like no no its okay (: its okay (:

bucky was. not expecting that but he's sooo turned on. gets that signature wild bucky grin on his face all okay doll (: whatever you want (:

doesn't take his pants off and they keep making out and grinding on each other half stripped and the longer it goes on obv the more john. really has to go.

starts getting kinda breathless telling gale he doesn't know how much longer he can hold it and gale is on another. astral plane lmao has never been so sex drunk crazed in his life.

grabs his hips grabs his ass to keep him grinding on him whining and begging. tellin him its okay pleasepleaseplease, good boy bucky its okay, c'mon c'mon

and then bucky pisses himself all flushed and whiny still grinding on him while he's going and getting gale wet too when it soaks through and gale busts his pants <3

and eggs john on to finish too calling him a good boy watching him grind in his own piss face scrunched up groaning into gale's neck when he finishes and makes an even bigger mess of himself.

[anantaru]

You think rape is funny? Maybe once you fucking experience it you won’t. Fucking cunt.

hello. so I'll just jump right into this. tw. discourse tw. mentioning r*pe.

@saetoru made this claim about me:

saetoru, could you add proof at least? i can not remember a time where i would repost a joke like that so i'd love for you to show me proof please, this is all I'm asking.

also how was it on your dash, on your own dash and @dottores dash, when you have never followed me? + but maybe it was the for you feature that was the same for the both of you.

accusing someone without proof is not okay, again, i can not remember doing this so if you have a screenshot add it so i can remember and apologize, but i can't do anything because i don't remember saying a joke with SA in mind.

before that i just want to mention: i don't think r*pe is funny, i'm not a dark content blog either so i do not really reblog dark content things because i'm sure most of my readers don't want that + I'm just not into that as well. the only joke i was "called out" for once is when i used a "i want xyz character to smack their laptop on my face or tits" which i got from an andrew garfield interview where he read his thirst tweets out loud, at that time i just deleted it because it's alright.

dottores, your mutuals, two of them to be exact, have sent me multiple of your personal blog hate posts about me and not once, have you made one where you talked about me saying an SA joke. you have only claimed that i am a cunt and that i am a gatekeeping bitch hence why i believed this must be the reason why you would suddenly hate me despite the fact we never interacted.

now, I want to address this next, this is from @dottores post which when i got it sent to me, i would've wished she just tagged me right away and said it with her chest, more so not let saetoru talk about her experience but just handle this with me.

^ this is cat @dottores saying i got it wrong.

^ this is why i believed she meant it just like i said it, why do you go through blogs that grow really fast's notes in the first place? where do you take the right to police other blogs like that when i'm sure your blogs aren't empty of blank blogs either. it is hard to get rid of all of them but i'm sure we all try at least, we don't need you to make us feel bad or come off as belittling, if you have found out a way to get rid of every blank blog, do enlighten us please.

+ at that time of this reblog icks?? post that saetoru added, my blog was blowing up so when a moot of mine (which was also theirs at a time) saw this, they had sent it to me.

"creators that grow really fast" and nowhere has she mentioned she only went through only her own moots notes, aside from that apologies but i still find this weird, i don't think you should invest so much time in other people's blog but this is my opinion.

this is the next thing she said:

i don't know if dottores meant me there but i have never once harassed you nor sent you hate anywhere, again you cannot just accuse me of stuff like that when you have also never reached out to me. The things i claimed about you guys in your callout, i have text messages of the person (your moot) who sent it to me.

but back again, the only thing i did do was block dottores on tumblr and then later ao3 when i saw you in tags, which you made fun of me for later:

also i got this ask that time:

"who blocks on ao3?" i do, ao3 is the platform i use the most so why is it funny when i use the block button? + i just like to point something out here, "they must've clicked to read and realize it was me" you can think that if you want i don't mind, but let me ask you this: i have seen you in tags hence why i was able to block you, but how did you notice i did? you can't see me in tags so surely you didnt click on my work, so you must've searched up my user for whatever reason?

and i know this is about me because she added the "this person called me chronically online" i couldn't find the post but what she was talking about is me calling other writers who reblogged that one "ick post" with not needed things such as "when writers cant characterize a character" or "when they only write headcanons", i have plenty of screenshots of that post but since i don't want to use up all my space here, i don't see why i should show their reblogs from this.

there were plenty of people like that, which reblogged horrible things there so i called everyone under that post chronically online, not just you dottores.

yeah :) like people making fun of someone for blocking them for their own comfort. i just don't want to see you, that's all, but i have never send you hate asks nor harassed you, the only thing i did was block the blogs your own mutuals exposed to me.

next:

^ this is after i felt bad for you after the callout.

this is coming from your own mutuals, i have never alone claimed you guys are jealous of me nor is there anything to be jealous about. i am just a blog, this here is not being popular, no one knows who i am and i do not need to pride myself in having a big blog on tumblr.com, and my readers know that. we are all the same here.

next:

i didn't mean you here saetoru but i understand that it sounded that way, the phrasing was a little off, for that i apologise that i made you upset with this, english is not my first language, i'm french, and when it comes to this callout post i was so fed up with it that i just posted it without looking for grammar mistakes etc. + this is about one of your friends who deleted their personal the second i announced i got their user, that was something with kaeya, when they sent me a hate ask. i won't expose it here but that person was also the one who blacklisted a friend of mine for liking itto.

i think there is a lot more but i will stop it there, this could've ended differently and i'm sad that it ended this way. I wish you all the best and i mean it, i hope we all can learn from this and move on, write on tumblr for our favorite characters because it's fun and stay away from drama. If you made it this far thank you 💓 — yoru

[laylajeffany]

Heya !

Was wondering if you saw those screenshots of the novelization of Wednesday season 1 , and if you had any thought on it ? The internal pov of Wednesday is pretty funny, especially regarding Enid. ^^

At first, I thought it was going to be queerbaiting, but then I looked up the author Tehlor Kay Mejia and saw they're queer and a successful YA writer with lgbt romances in their work. =w=

And also, welcome back and thank you for continuing sharing your wenclair writing ! 💙

I have seen some screenshots of the novel floating around, yes!

I like the addition of more of Wednesday's thoughts, and of course I enjoy how she is leaning into her curiosity over her relationship with Enid (not even romantically just in general). I think her reasons for attempting to be with boys were pretty in-line with what I wrote in the Chaos universe and the Black Menag, so I appreciate that part of the perspective as well as it's how I view her relationships with Xavier and Tyler.

I've seen some discourse on my dash that it's OOC and a bastardization of canon, some that it's a "Wenclair-coded" and Netflix approved sign of endgame. I don't think either of those things are true, lol. I think that if it's written from Wednesday's first person POV, the author's job is to incorporate her personal thoughts into the actions we see playing out on screen as she only really narrates at the beginning and end of episodes. I also think that based on what I know about novelizations (I've read quite a few over my two decades in fandoms), they were probably given the scripts. We know that there were on-set changes made to the scripts, and that since the book was written seemingly well-after season one came out, the author likely did pull from Jenna's interviews that she felt the love triangle was the actual bastardization of Wednesday's character and went out of their way to make sure that Wednesday wasn't actually obsessed with boys but using them for her own ends, lol. I won't buy/read the whole book because I don't generally enjoy reading fiction and when I do, I am the absolute most triggered by reading in first person active voice. I cannot tell you what comes over me when I have attempted to do so, it's like a frickin' trauma response for me. Nothing will make me put a book away faster than cracking it and finding first person active voice, lol.

Thank you so much for the warm welcome back! It's been a journey to get back to it, but I'm glad that I am writing again. I should have chapter five of KiGS out Saturday and chapter two of Remember Death on Sunday! Thank you so much for all the love!

[gayferrari]

it’s interesting that the discourse is recent! i guess i’m just confused as to why so much hate is coming from charles fans, especially when he seems to be friends with alex? some of the people i follow have even gone so far as to call him racist. i’m just at a loss and i don’t want to unintentionally put my support behind someone shitty, but alex really doesn’t seem like he deserves the vitriol

anon, I'm at a total loss here! the only thing I can think of re: discourse among Charles fan about Alex that includes the word racism is. Alexandra as in Charles's girlfriend who allegedly liked tweets about some controversial (?) French immigration law (?) when she was like. fifteen or sisxteen. and that emerged after they started dating and many fans were quick to jump in on “I cannot BELIEVE Charles is dating a racist” That's all I've got

(mind u I think most if not all white guys on the grid are at the very least unselfconsiously racist in the way rich white privileged Europeans are casually racist unless they actively work on unlearning it. I think it's a good thing to keep in mind. I also think using racism as a gotha bc your fave is dating a girl who's not you and all you could find is a twitter like from 2016 is iffy as fuck and obviously not motivated by antiracism lol)

anyway that's all I know and I truly don't want to know more. although if u want to dig I think those #f1wagrecepits gossip account on insta have details. I'm just really uninterested in wading in that particular cesspit after blocking like 3 pages last week bc the algorithm kept showing me stuff lol.

about Alex (Albon) I agree with this post that there's been an uptick of dislike for him and I think some of the glee I've seen (mostly on places that aren't tumblr) makes me wary in the same way people calling Yuki “Honda's guy” or acting like Guanyu is the first just-decent driver to get on the grid thanks to a sponsor make me wary. But I haven't seen anything else. ngl, though, I do like Alex quite a bit and my dash reflects that + I never go into the main tag so there could be soo much hate I'm blissfully unaware off.

[smalltestaccount]

okay i think ive come to the conclusion that i dont really fit in with most other trans women, like personality wise, and thats okay. Like i think recently a lot of trans women, not just on tumblr, have been making me think i have to be kinky and bizarre or something, be blasé about transitioning or gender roles, or even just like be okay with some borderline harassing behavior. Its okay if that is you (except the harassing behavior some of yall need to work on that), but like thats not really me. Acting this way just makes me feel bad. Just ignoring that Im a total straightedge, that im like a 1 on the Kinsey scale now. Ever since i was like 11 my biggest desire is just like being a normal cis girl. I always am happiest embracing basic American femininity, and i only just re-realized this after after it helped me get out of a depressive episode (along with antidepressants and an increased estrogen dose). I don't care if im "enforcing gender roles", because i fucking love female gender roles (in modern American culture) cause they make me feel like not-a-piece-of-shit. Also i don't strictly adhere to many anyways. And i just don't think terfs would have any issues with cis girls who love the color pink, flowers, being boy crazy, and dreaming about being a mother. So like why should I feel like its wrong to like that stuff? I don't think there is anything wrong with it. And you know if you don't have that relationship with gender that is fine, you need to do what makes you happy, that's why feminism exists. I'm just saying I don't want to pretend like my personality is something that really just makes me uncomfortable.

I dont like when people here imply being a trans woman entails being sexual cause like i just want to be normal and that stereotype is harmful, especially to transgender children who are really likley to be targeted for some kind of sexual abuse because theyre trans and being trans is already sexualized more than it needs to be. Adults can navigate that to some extent, but not kids; I couldnt really navigate that when i started transitioning in middle school and im lucky it only stayed online. Trying to even somewhat fit in with tumblrs idea of trans women has made me encounter tranny porn on my dash and whenever i post images of myself I'm followed by gross accounts that just reblog that stuff . A lot of trans women don't hate it, because sex work is very much as part of the trans community. But honestly, seeing trans women be treated in those ways just makes me feel bad for the actresses and sick about myself and very dysphoric.

Im not saying that you cant express kinkiness and hyper-sexuality, because I dont want to dictate how you act any more than i want you to be dictated on how I act. But I also want to encourage thoughfulness in what you say. Saying you, yourself, is kinky and weird, is not that same as saying trans *girls* are kinky and weird. In the same way I'm not going to reblog tradwife content, I don't think its productive to make an "all tgirls be kinky" post. You shouldn't try to paint that image of other trans women.

As its the first day of june I'll just tie it up by saying that not all trans people fit into one personality and if you want to show support its best not to suggest trans women all act a certain way, and please don't think talking about "gock" is a good way to show support. This isn't a "kink at pride" discourse post in the very slightest cause I don't, and never have, given any shits about that, cause I've never been to pride. This is just me talking about how I fit into the trans community.

Im Alexa and I'm going to reblog and post shit i like, not what other people like or expect. That Includes not doing tummy tuesday cause i really only briefly did it out of fomo and peer pressure. And please don't say things about me that you wouldnt say about other women

[edennill]

If Tolkien characters had Tumblr blogs part 2:

part 1

Finduilas:

url: waitingtothewind

pfp: drawing of a fictional crush in pastel colours (babygirl fulfills her royal duty to exercise patronage over artists by comissioning reams of fanart lol)

bio: ✧˖･* princess finduilas of nargothrond :) ✧˖･* 47 ✧˖･* poetry appreciator ✧˖･* romantic at heart ✧˖･* girl of many fandoms ✧˖･* favourite animal: doggos ✧˖･* favourite food: strawberry juice ✧˖･* and if I had a voice that could make mountains melt I would walk over stars just to see how it felt ✧˖･*

title: ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

has a very pink custom theme with a fancy font. runs a fandom/aesthetic blog and stays clear of discourse. writes really good meta that is quite popular and poems that get notes in the single digits. doesn't really know how to deal with anon hate. participates in every tag game she comes across.

Maeglin:

url: keeps changing it between @molelol and @twilitdark because he likes small animals, but wants to sound edgy.

pfp: keeps changing it between a baby mole and the kind of very dark photo where you can't really see what it's supposed to be.

bio: M / not a minor

title: the dark under the trees

guards his personal info incredibly closely (a good practice, but how much of it is due to his father having been so controlling that he learned secrecy early on is up for discussion). rarely posts, mostly reblogs photos and shitposts. vaguely vents about his idril/tuor/gondolin/treason problems. when he gets into discussions with people he can be uncomfortably fierce, has sent anon hate on occasion.

Celebrimbor:

url: craftingsilver

pfp: red eight pointed star (default variation, not technically fëanorian) on yellow background

bio: older/younger than you think | look I've seen the Trees that's enough | Noldorin jewelsmith | male

title: time and soul, wrought and tempered

mostly posts and reblogs crafting tiktoks and tips, sometimes adds a dash of science, philosophy or something personal. has made a resolution to filter out any posts pertaining to his family on his dashboard and keeps to it almost till the end. shows a strong sense of humour and has gathered quite a following.

Idril:

url: celebrin-does-things

pfp: blurred photo of her with her back to the camera

bio: 500s - architect, wife and mother - everyone is welcome

title: "ammë, there's winter in my boots"

started off as a miscellaneous blog, but shifted to being mostly about Eärendil's shenanigans. she vaguely vents about maeglin/gondolin/cousin's treason sometimes, but still comes off as way more laid back than irl. hardly used her tumblr before her son was born and still treats it mostly as a place to document things he has said + a way to talk with like three treasured mutuals. the architect part in bio is mostly a ruse because she has only ever completed one or two projects but can hardly reveal she's a princess, can she? (before the fall of nargothrond if she got on tumblr it was to nag Finduilas to remove her personal info from bio hah)

@eri-pl, this is in part because you asked (a while ago, sorry), though I'm afraid I don't have much to say about all your suggestions. I prefer not to get into Sauron's headspace actually, but the idea of him having access to social media is horrifying lol. And Pharazon has all the worst characteristics of Reddit atheists, non-ironic modern white supremacists and racist trolls rolled into one with the added horror of the new unsavoury state cult. Míriel is not allowed a sim card🙁😬

also I'm just now realising I tagged a compatriot in something I wrote at 3 am so if you have time stamps on you now know my messed up sleep schedule and if you don't I've just told you lol but never mind.

[writingpuddle]

thats why it frustrates me when ppl shit on the upperclassmen for calling Andrew a monster. they're wrong, yes. it's dehumanising, yes. but you know what else? violence is dehumanising. drugging people is dehumanising. provoking someone's addiction is dehumanising. "they don't treat him with basic dignity." okay, you show me all the times Andrew treated them with dignity, and I'll show you the exact same amount of times they treated him with dignity.

im with you there anon but im also sort of revelling in this moment, because i know @blogaboutyafavbirdboys has received asks implying that this debate has triggered some responses elsewhere on tumblr and i just want to say thanks to everyone i follow for being chill and not putting all that discourse on my dash. its so easy to go full blorbo-protection mode when someone says something negative about your fave (lord knows i am protective enough about neil) but with a book as morally messy as aftg im glad most people i follow are happy to actually discuss different characters shit-headedness instead of getting defensive.

because youre exactly right! its dehumanizing to call someone a monster. its also massively more dehumanizing to rob them of their bodily autonomy by drugging and interrogating them. there is actually a sliding scale of badness here and andrew is not on the right side of it. when kevin was around you can half-justify it by saying he was under threat from a mafia prince, but he drugged dan back when it was just the cousins, no kevin in sight--ie. the stakes were much lower. his trauma taught him to hit first and hit hardest so that nobody could ever hurt him again. it was a trauma response. it was also a shitty response.

expecting the foxes to respond with total magnanimity and understanding of andrews trauma responses when they are directly hurting them but not expecting andrew to even scale his behaviour to the actual threat posed is a weird double standard to hold. there is a difference between being rude and physically hurting people. even if the other foxes were saints (which i am not pretending they were), they would probably not have been pal-ing it up with him after how he treated them. (he also had no interest in spending time with them, so they wouldnt really have been able to anyway, but thats beside the point).

it would be nice if the upperclassmen apologized to andrew for the way they talked about him. but it would also be nice if he apologized to them for drugging/threatening/punching them. and its sometimes odd to me when people get overly fixated on the first without acknowledging the fact that the second is...probably not going to happen at all. the upperclassmen wont get an apology out of andrew. he doesnt believe in regret, and neil didnt get (or expect!) an apology for getting drugged himself. and andrew cares a hell of a lot more about neil than he does about the upperclassmen.

also. it would be a pretty boring story if they all responded by sweetly asking him if he wanted to talk about his feelings. so. upperclassmen are allowed to be kind of rude. as a treat.

[saurongorthaur9]

I just wanted to say thank you for keeping your discourse and opinions about "the kiss" respectable and reasoned. It never bothered me and I've come around to even interpreting it in a way that I like (and I'm a die hard Saurondriel shipper), but I still like reading your posts because you break down rational arguments and haven't written anything that felt like an attack on those who disagree. And you still have positivity for other aspects of the show. I was also disappointed (and felt betrayed) by some scenes this season but this is what I love about fandom: sharing ideas and reactions and ships without ever making it some contest. Anyway, thank you for being a bright spot on my dash, even when breaking down some critical opinions on the show. I devour all of it.

Aw thanks, I really appreciate it <3 I've felt bad for focusing on the negative, when this is a show that already gets so much hate from so many different directions, so I'm glad my posts on the topic came across as respectful to other fans with differing opinions and that my own arguments for how I felt were coherent. I really truly love the show, or the vast majority of it anyway, which is part of why I get so passionate about it. I don't want to see the show shoot itself in the foot when it's already fighting an uphill battle against all the haters.

I will admit that I've cooled down a bit over the kiss. I still haven't re-watched that particular scene, but I've read some very thoughtful analyses from a variety of fans over the last several days. And while I still don't like the scene, I still think it was unnecessary in the larger scale, and I still think the music, lighting, and general framing of the moment were very questionable with a supposedly "platonic" moment, I'm willing to see that some fans did get meaning from it beyond shock value.

I'm cautiously optimistic about the finale Thursday, but even if it falls flatter than I hope, this season has given us some breathtaking scenes, moments, acting, music, and everything else that I know I'll treasure forever.

I'd also appreciate hearing your interpretation of the kiss that is working for you, if you care to share it.

[metanarrates]

honestly how are you so smart? How do I become smart? My entire life I was put in the gifted classes and I really think it made me think I was smarter than I am. I'm "intelligent", sure. But I'm also really dumb and it's a huge sore point for me :( I'm always falling victim to believing anyone who sounds the most convincing and I never have my own opinion. It's like those discourse posts where I'll have whiplash reading them thinking "OK this is the most morally correct stance on the matter got it!" And then there'll be a new response and I'll go "OK scratch that! This is what I should believe and parrot back!". I'm really worried that I don't have any firm stances on anything and I'm a sheep who just follows the most ""correct"" sounding take. Sorry to dump this on you, I'd just like to hear your thoughts on it!

that sort of thing is more common than you think, anon. lots of people have trouble not following a herd mentality. it's scary to go against the grain! and i do think the educational system can reinforce that in certain people, since having the "correct" thought as determined by educators is prioritized more than a student having their own independent opinions.

my advice is to start small. if you see a post on your dash talking about a certain topic, really take a moment to step back. does this argument seem convincing? does it seem accurate? if so, why? do you have all the information? if you don't know enough about a topic to formulate your own opinion, maybe you should do some research!

and im not saying you should by default disagree with everything you see. that creates its own host of problems. I'm saying that whether you agree OR disagree with something, you should take a step back and evaluate why. can you explain your own opinions to others outside of "people I want to agree with have this opinion?"

it's also perfectly fine to not have an opinion on certain topics. if you don't know very much about something, there's no shame in waiting to form an opinion until you have more information. don't be afraid to ask questions. don't be afraid to investigate the trustworthiness of sources!

but if all that is overwhelming, and stepping in discourse sounds scary, you can even try this with fiction you read or watch. (im primary a media analysis blog, so i really do think fiction is a great practice ground to practice your analytical skills.) how does this story make me feel? can I identify why it does that? do I like this character? why? can I pick up on any subtext here? can I identify any literary devices the author is using? small questions like that.

in my opinion, a lot of my seeming intelligence comes from my ability to know and explain myself. I spend a lot of time reflecting on why I hold certain opinions, and seeking out further information when I don't understand something. you're probably here because you like my opinions on media analysis - those opinions are formed by not only reading and watching a wide range of things, but by seeking out different lens of analysis, and yes, seeing what other people have to say, and evaluating whether or not I think their opinions are well-supported. I try my best to expose myself to a lot of different types of thought. and I try my best to understand my own mental mechanisms, and to challenge them when necessary. I do think that's crucial to being an independent thinker.

I am sorry if this comes across as a lot. this stuff is overwhelming! you don't have to take all my advice at once. if you can pick even one suggestion from this post, and make an honest effort to try it, you'll start getting better at confronting your fear of being wrong, or the odd one out. over time, it will get easier for you to understand yourself as an independent person.

[ariaste]

Hello hello! If it’s all right with you, I would like to vent for a moment: Back in the day, I used to be really into BBC Sherlock. I know it was bad, but it was “Be Gay (solve) Crimes” and I couldn’t resit. One of my favorite parts of the fandom was reading fan metas. I enjoyed reading your ridiculously long meta! I am not very clever and I enjoy reading people noticing things that I can’t. It’s fun watching people passionately pick up clues and put them together.

I don’t think I’m the only one getting superwholock flashbacks lately. Sherlock also tried an unreliable narrator in S4 and it was an absolute shit show. People thought thought the finale was fake, it was so bad. TBH, the entire show was a dumpster fire that thought it was more clever than it was. Moffat was a good writer for single episodes for DW, but a garbage show runner. And they called us crazy for picking up what they were putting down.

But Good Omens gives me a spark of hope. It is unashamedly queer, fun, drinks its respecting women juice, and, unlike moffatiss, I think Neil and the crew may actually be clever enough to pull something big off. I adore the Discworld series and Sir Terry, and I have faith Neil will to do right by him.

Good Omens is restoring my faith in nerdy queer fiction and reminding me why I love fandom so much. Please keep up the crackhead theories. I love them 💕

Thank you, that's very kind!

(Ended up writing a very long reply about the response to my essay and also about queerness in media. Idk why i am writing such long posts these days SORRY LOL. Anyway I'm putting it all beneath the cut so I can tag it without clogging people's dash or the tag pages)

It does make me sigh a little when I see people scornfully comparing my long essay to The Johnlock Conspiracy or saying that they're having Sherlock flashbacks, because the both the contexts of the shows and the methodology of the theorizing are VERY different. To my mind, a more direct comparison of methodology would be the Gravity Falls fandom's "Stan Has A Secret Twin" theory. Writers and showrunners DO like being sneaky and clever from time to time, and many of them are much better at it than Moffat is.

But whether or not my theory is right or not is... kind of irrelevant to me? I wasn't out to force anyone to agree with me, AND writing it was a really fun way to spend a weekend, AND I'm proud of the work I did and the story I told, AND it felt good to have a satisfying workout at the Brain Gym. So even if I'm proven utterly and completely wrong, I won't feel like I wasted my time. :)

Good Omens is a great show, and I am SO HAPPY to see it (and other shows!) embracing queerness, sharing the fans' enthusiasm for the story, and honoring and respecting the fans' love rather than punishing them for it. As more and more time goes on, I think we're going to see more and more shows like that, because some of the people who grew up reading tumblr discourse are going to be showrunners themselves one day, and they'll have learned serious lessons about what it feels like when the audience is met with love rather than disgust and disdain. In fact, we're ALREADY seeing more shows like that than we had 10 years ago! There is so much canonical queerness on-screen these days that the me of 10-15 years ago is ASTONISHED and feels wealthy beyond counting. Of course, there is so much further to go, but man... when i was a kid, we had to walk uphill in the snow both ways just to see two dudes making sustained emotional eye contact, and we were grateful for it. (Jokes but also.... kind of real tho)

We've seen the exact same thing happen in scifi/fantasy publishing in the last seven or eight years, too! (Went off on a long tangent about Queerness In Media from an insider perspective, continuing below a cut so I don't clutter everyone's dash)

Even as recently as 2013--ten years ago--you might not have even been able to get your book published if it was openly gay. Hell, you might not have been able to get an agent to represent it, even. It would have been labeled "unmarketable" and passed over; if it DID get published, the queerness would have been camouflaged and downplayed and hidden in the marketing as much as possible--you wouldn't have known by looking at the cover that it was queer, you wouldn't have been able to tell by reading the back cover that it was queer. In literally 2016, seven years ago, a few months before I got my first book deal, I remember having a conversation with a friend and being very very worried that if I wrote books as queer as I wanted them to be, I would be "pigeonholed" as "ONLY writing Gay Books", that I would be passed over for any of the publisher's marketing budget and publicity efforts, that I would be sidelined and ignored... In 2016, I thought I was facing a choice of writing stories with more "mainstream appeal" OR writing the books I wanted to write and potentially undermining the rest of my career.

That didn't happen, thankfully, because in the next couple years there was this incredible explosion of queer scifi/fantasy. You see, ten to fifteen years ago, a truly stunning percentage of my colleagues -- writers, editors, publicists -- were writing and reading fanfic, and they carried their tastes and story-hungers with them as they grew up and got Real Adult Jobs at publishing companies. And suddenly, as if out of nowhere, a lot of us came of age all at once and there was this absolutely enormous wave of queer SFF that in my opinion has brought us into a new golden age of the genre: The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, The Chorus of Dragons series by Jenn Lyons, She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan, Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, The Tensorate series by Neon Yang, Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders, the Birdverse books by RB Lemberg, The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickenson, The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, Reforged by Seth Haddon, The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson, Ocean's Echo by Everina Maxwell, The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin -- and these only the ones I could remember off the top of my head in 30 seconds, and I have a flavor of ADHD that makes my brain go blank when people ask me to think of specific examples of things! It is harder for me to think of a SFF book published in the last 7 years that ISN'T queer.

And then almost exactly a year ago, my book A Taste of Gold and Iron came out with THIS COVER:

Which. Is not so much a step forward in openly queer SFF as it is a fucking gauntlet thrown down in challenge. I cannot impress upon you strongly enough how much I would not have gotten this cover 10 years ago, and that's if the book was even accepted for publication in the first place. This cover SCREAMS gay fantasy romance. There is no attempt to hide it or camouflage it. It is advertising exactly what it is, right up front.

I got the absolute privilege and honor of having this cover--and I do consider it an incredible honor--because of the work that all my colleagues put in with their own work. Each queer book that got published wedged the door a little wider for the next one, and then a little wider still for the next one, until finally someone could get their foot in the door and squeeze across the threshold, which opened it a little wider again. So when I look at this image, I don't just see a beautiful cover that I am delighted to have on my books--I see an entire history of slow, steady progress by so many incredible writers who risked damaging their careers just to drag us to a point where a book as gay as this one could get a cover as gay as that one and STILL get the full and enthusiastic support of both the publisher and the audience. And the most incredible honor and the most humbling privilege out of all of this is the fact that the success of this book meant that the door was wedged open another little bit, that I got to contribute in this small way to the efforts of everyone who came before me, so that ones who come after us will find the door flung wide -- or that there's no door left at all to block the way, because we've collectively torn it down.

So yes, @eyona, I think that having your faith restored little by little is a very good thing, and I am delighted that Good Omens is doing that for all of us. And what's even better is that even if Good Omens doesn't play out exactly how we want it to, that's... kind of okay? Because there is always the next one, and at the very very least, Good Omens is wedging the door open further so that the next one can have an easier time of it. We don't have to walk uphill in the snow both ways just to get a moment of emotionally charged eye contact anymore. We don't have to starve anymore, not like we used to back in the bad old days. And that alone is a wonderful thing. :D

[saintqueer]

I'm sorry you got harassed again just from a simple post with a (imo pretty valid) opinion. If that person is the same that answered your post by reblogging and repplying on their blog with unnecessary hate (apparently queer but a solo louie) then it's the one I just blocked. I love to currate my experience in this fandom. Anyway I just wanted to say, I used to love your posts in this fandom! I lost track of your blog and thought you'd disappeard. I'm glad to see you're still on Tumblr and enjoying other fandoms. I'm well aware of how toxic this fandom can get (between the hets, the solos often queer themselves but hating on queer larries and more, to many groups to count tbh, louis' attitude on social media ect), especially when you dare to voice an opinion, which I'm mostly don't lol. I'm staying for the art, the fics, the great memes and ofc the music and the people. You're "y'all" made me think 'I Hope she still got good times and friends out if it. I made some great friends in the larries bunch myself. Anyway sorry for the rant, I lost track of what was my point here. Just was happy to see you pop on my dash through a mutual and wanted to say so I guess?? So once again thank you for the fun times I had reading your posts back in the days; have a great time out here, enjoying your favs fandoms, you do you! Sending love xx

so i was trying to avoid posting any anons regarding prev fandom discourse but i opened this one and read it through and it was just so amazing i had to respond, not just in tags 🥹🥹

of course, it's lovely to hear that you liked my posts on fandom back in the day etc but what really got me was when you wanted to make sure i still got good times and friends out of it, that nearly made me cry

because YEAH I FUCKING DID 🥺😩🥺🥹🥲

blue ( @wastelandbabyblue ) is literally one of the coolest people i've ever known while also being one of the kindest and funniest. id literally kill to meet her one day in person. i still keep up with brenda and several others i met in her og discord, some of which are the only remaining 1d fandom blogs i still follow here - they are so kind and funny and i still talk to them occasionally in a fandom discord i stayed in because i didn't want to lose touch with them.

and 🥹🥹🥹

i met 8 of who i would consider my closest friends in the whole world through fandom. through the most insane wild and unruly fandom discord drama, i literally located my found family: wedo, nino, iza, katja, olia, hanis, chloe, and su

we talk everyday still even though we live all over the world and we talk about nearly everything except fandom nowadays and they've helped me survive living day to day through some of the worst moments of my life. i don't know what i'd do if i didn't have them in my life

last night, i had a bit of a shame spiral thinking about all the time energy money i devoted to the 1d fandom. i felt embarrassed for being so loud about something that ended in so much disappointment. it wasn't fun and i know it was probably triggered by being involved in some discussions i hadn't been in so long

so when i opened this ask, anon, it reminded me so much that whatever was lost from that time, so much more was gained. the embarrassment of remembering dancing around like a fool with a rainbow flag for someone who couldn't even say something as simple as "look at all those colors" pales in comparison to the lifelong friendship i gained with these 8 beautiful women all across the globe

nothing will ever compare to the people i met and the way they feel closer to family than any of my blood ever felt

i'm glad that you found so much goodness as well and thank you for reminding me that it was all worth it for what i got

[tanadrin]

That is correct, I didn't think the Mosaic law would be a practical way of running a society but that's what my client wanted so that's what I wrore

I don't really get the joke here, so I'm just going to take an opportunity to add another fact I found pretty interesting:

It was common in the Ancient Near East to create codes of law for display purposes (and outside it--cf. the Twelve Tables). This wasn't so much so that the common person could know and understand the law, because literacy rates were pretty low, but served a similar function as monumental architecture, to display the power of the ruler and at least notionally their justice. But in practice, the law as it actually functioned could be pretty different from the law as these monuments proclaimed it.

I think it's interesting to consider the law-as-a-symbol. There was some incidental discourse crossing my dash recently about whether "law" as a general concept protects the weak from the strong, or whether it legitimates the rule of the elites. And I think the answer is that is obviously does neither: that a society has a system of law tells you nothing about how that system functions, and you have to dig into the nitty-gritty details to determine whether the society has "rule of law" (which is good) or "rule by law" (which is bad). The former is, hopefully, a system where the law binds everybody, attempts to be fair, and there is at least some effort to enforce it equally; the latter is where law is a justification for a system power that makes no pretense at that sort of thing.

And I think rule by law is a very common state of affairs, especially pre-French Revolution! I might be generous and say pre-Enlightenment at best. Because before you have an ideological starting point of "ok, everybody should be equal before the law and the law should be impartially enforced," one-off privileges, aristocracies, and random exemptions from various rights and duties are pretty normal, and one of the major functions of law is to codify these inequities to make sure the king or his judiciary respects them. There is a reason one of the big components of revolutionary projects historically has been administrative reform, because in redrawing internal boundaries and revising old law codes, you can do away with these inequities and legally enshrined hierarchies.

And that pattern of inequity, of legally enshrined hierarchy, is of course thoroughly present in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. As Dan McClellan points out, agency in these codes flows downhill and it flattens everything in its path. The agency of men erases that of women: the law treats what happens if a man violates the property rights of another man over the women under his dominion (his daughters or wives), but the agency of the women ("consent" in modern parlance) simply makes no difference to the law. The only place women's sexual agency shows up in the law is in the one situation where a woman is interacting with a creature lesser than her, i.e., if she lies with an animal.

Even in the European Middle Ages I think there were real disjuncts between the worldview of the people using these law codes for devotional purposes and the worldview of their authors. In the modern era, of course, those disjuncts are yawning chasms, and as a result you get some really weak apologetic attempts to try to reconcile modern ethics with (again, impractical, unworkable, entirely theoretical) Iron Age legal theory. But there are lots of places in the Bible--both in the law codes and in the narrative portions--where I think the disjunct is so great that the aftercomers can't really make heads or tails of the worldviews of their predecessors. This is where the apologists (and before them, the commentaries of the Talmud) often have to invent major details out of whole cloth to try to turn the situation into one that makes sense to them. It would be better, and easier to construct a more consistent system of ethics, to just jettison the bits that clearly aren't applicable to the concerns of your community--but then of course once you admit that what parts of your scripture you do and don't accept are contingent on their relevance to your community, it is no longer the timeless and authoritative book from God, and it ceases to be a useful way of structuring power.

And as with codes of law, holy writ is (among other things) about structuring power! Otherwise all religion would approximately resemble Unitarian Universalism, an honest, gentle, thoughtful faith that is approximately irrelevant.

[comparativelysuperlative]

Saw some of the Interminable Leather Discourse on my dash. Has anyone ever done an authoritative estimate of how bad it is or isn't?

They don't raise and kill animals specifically for leather. The hide is 4-10% of the monetary value of animals raised and killed for meat.

(10% according a rando on the leatherworking Reddit; 4% according to The Leather Lobby Incorporated's page on We Swear We're Not Evil, You Guys, citing a source that does not seem to say that. I'm just going to call it 5% for the round number.)

Approximately 55 square feet of leather per cow.

The lobbyists up there said it was 69% cows; the rest is sheep+goats+pigs, with pigs being the next biggest. Make it ~42.6 square feet per dead animal; the true number will be a bit smaller because they're not all pigs.

(Apparently if you buy Chinese leather and aren't careful about your sources they sometimes sell leather made from cat or dog skin and lie about it. I assume leather-wearers are not okay with this, but would be interested to find out why. Like, I know my reason, but it's probably not the same one.)

40 square feet for a small men's jacket. More for large, less for women.

A typical leather jacket kills about 1/20th of an animal, in the same ballpark as eating 100 (beef) burgers, or about half of a (chicken) burger.

Animals killed by faux leather:

Literally none?

If every plastic jacket you ever buy ends up in a landfill, that's like...one really big trash bag? A few square feet of area that didn't have much of anything living on it anyway?

Not trying to be sarcastic here; I just genuinely don't see how this hurts or kills much of anything.

Making plastic can't possibly be good for the environment, but it's definitely less bad than growing a one-twentieth-ass cow.

Final opinion on the Discourse:

Depending on how much meat you eat and how long you wear your clothes for, wearing leather is probably less bad than eating beef but around that ballpark.

It is way less bad than eating chicken.

As always, someone who eats as many cows as they want and no other animals has accomplished most of the good things about being vegan with barely any effort. This stays true if they also wear leather.

Arguing about leather is like arguing about the difference between mostly-vegetarian and actually-vegetarian.

I was hoping it'd be a small enough difference that I could say whatever, it's a rounding error, I'm gonna go buy leather now. It wasn't; this is a real difference.

But it is small enough that if you want to wear a leather without people yelling at you, you can skip buying chicken for three weeks and link the activists here so they get mad at me instead of you.

You know, if Internet arguments sound like a fun use of your time.

[twopoppies]

https://www.tumblr.com/twopoppies/726931328990412800/you-know-its-funny-because-o-was-so-fussy-and?source=share

I'll disagree with the anon that nobody is caring. I think what happens is your view of how much traction something gets is based on your personal dash on whatever social media you use and if I was on larrie tumblr and twitter only I'd think the same thing but that's really because there's nothing for us to say. Taylor is honestly unproblematic, there's nothing going on, what's there to talk about. Anon might be too used to holivia which was like watching a car crash so the talk was constant because every day we were like this wasn't on our bingo card... But since leaving larrie twitter, I don't interact with it (I couldn't stand the stupidity of their discourses) but I interact with Harry content so I have a more broad Harry fandom on my dash, and also from tik tok, I can tell you gf harries are eating it up. A huge number of them is watching her films and buying tickets for the play. They're very happy because she's "relatable" for them and proof that they're "his type" (I legit saw a video of a girl saying this). So the engagement is there. I think they're just going lowkey with the paps right now bc holivia was so overpapped that the gp started questioning the legitimacy if it. The fans are doing a good enough job for now.

I do think they’re back to doing things the way they did with Camille, for example. Which we all should be really grateful for. Olivia was so narcissistic and so intent on making herself the main character that it was incredibly obvious that the relationship wasn’t real and Harry came out of that ordeal looking like an idiot. So people who want to believe that Harry actually dates women, and that they could be “his type“, will love the way this one is going. They see this as “low-key“. And if it’s low-key, then it must be real. 🙄 Honestly, I truly don’t care. As long as he isn’t miserable, then they’re both getting their apparently much-needed PR and she’s not getting shoved in our faces. It’ll be over when it’s over, and life goes on.