#i'm saying you sometimes argue with people and accuse them of doing the things they're against and think youse do

[mishkakagehishka]

"Block people you disagree with" is all fine and well but actually my hobbies include reading folks i disagree with's posts like the morning news so if i block too many accounts i'll have nothing to read

[spectrumgarden]

Becaise I'm tired of seeing this happen to other bloggers & also frequently myself:

If someone talks about being unable to do something without assistance due to a disability, and how that influences their life, how that dependency on others is scary and can be exploited etc. And your only response is "I experience this except I end up doing the thing by myself because no one helps me". and then they tell you "hey, you deserve to get support for this when you need it. but this is actually not the same as my experience because if i do not get help i absolutely can not get it done by myself. Like I'm fully unable to do this." And your response is to get mad / accuse them of trying to be "divisive" / telling them they're dismissing your struggles / blaming them for your feelings about this response essentially / calling them ableist for literally just pointing out the fact that there is a difference between these situations / etc, then you are the problem.

Just for a minute try to imagine what it's like. That you can not do something without assistance. Let's say you absolutely can not drive a car even if your life depended on it. You completely rely on being driven around. You can not do anything that requites a car without another person being physically there the entire time and holding the steering wheel. And tons of people see you talk about that and join in with "yeah I also can't drive in theory, but I still do it because I have to because my life depends on it". That does not feel good. That is a constant reminder that hey! Other people can totally do this even though its hard! If your support vanishes you can not do this thing your life depends on no matter how hard you try! The voices of people who actually experience the same thing as you get drowned out in the flood of these "I totally get it"s from people who do in fact, not totally get it. Because In reality, one of you is sitting behind a wheel and the other isnt and Never Will.

Acknowledging differences is not the enemy. We are not arguing about emotions here. We are literally begging people to see that two physical realities are different. And no matter how often we say that you still deserve support and that we acknowledge that things are hard and exhausting for you and sometimes even dangerous, that isnt enough for you? Every time I try to get one of these people to see reason I tell them: I know this is hard for you. I know this is exhausting for you. I acknowledge your reality. But that's not what they want to hear. So, what more do you want? For me to lay down and say "yeah actually we experience totally the same things" and then watch as the healthcare system out to save every penny tries to dismantle my support system because well, if I try really hard I'll probably get it done myself?

[docholligay]

What western novels do you recommend? I don’t think I’ve ever read one and was hoping to give it a try!

I LOVE Westerns. I love them even when they aren't particularly good. Whenever people accuse me of hating genre fiction, I'm like, "I think my collection of Westerns begs to differ. I just have DIFFERENT bad taste." (My collection of horror books too)

OKAY SO, MUCH OF THIS DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU'D LIKE TO FIND IN A WESTERN NOVEL.

Perhaps the best Western Novel ever written: Lovesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry.

It's not just me that would say this of Lonesome Dove, I think you can find this on lists of the world's greatest Westerns, it's fairly largely acknowledged as a great American Novel, many books have TRIED to be Lonesome Dove and are not. This book was one of the things Jill and I talked for HOURS about on our first date. We almost mutually changed our last names to McCrae instead of her taking Holligay. She walked down the aisle to the theme from the miniseries.

To MASSIVELY OVERSIMPLIFY, this is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana. But it's about relationships, and dedication, and doing everything right and losing anyhow, sometimes. It's about finding connections. It's about dreams and failures. It contains one of the greatest versions of "the grumpy one is soft for the sunshine one" in platonic form. Also the idea that a friend, who is never anything romantic, can be the love of your life.

A fun revival Western: The Shootist by Glendon Swartout

I actually just reread this! So in the 80s and 90s, Westerns became 'grittier' sort of like comic book movies did in the 00s. This is not an altogether bad thing, and it certainly wasn't all the way to 'gritty' until we get to, movie wise, things like 3:10 to Yuma, which actually is incredible. ANYWAY, so The Shootist breaks from a lot of the molds of 60 and 70s Westerns (upstanding law officer, gang of mustache twirling villains, etc) and is about the last great shootist--what a gunfighter would have been actually called in the 1800s--who is dying of cancer.

I know that does not make it sound fun, but it is, actually, and it is an easy read. Lots of fun Western colloquialisms and there IS depth there if you want to go looking for it, but it's totally extraneous to the enjoyment of the book and also might be half made up in my head.

A great classic Western: Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey

Riders of the Purple Sage is actually responsible for helping form a lot of what we understand as being the Western genre today. This puppy has it all: Gunfights, cattle rustling, the moral code of one's own pride, falling in love with a lonely little woman hell bent to make it on her own.

There are so many things in this novel that will come to define the genre, but because it is a little pre-genre, at least in a strong and stratified way that separates itself from the dimestore novels, it's not as formulaic as you might expect and borrows heavily from early 1900s literature wrought large.

A WESTERN Western: Literally anything by Louis L'amour

Am I here to defend Louis L'amour? No I am not. Do I love Louis L'Amour? Yes absolutely. I am not even so much suggesting that you actually read a L'amour book because I think you really have to love the genre to get into them, but boy are they GENRE. Love them. There's like 5 or 6 plotlines between them. I read them in the tub all the time. I don't even count them toward my books read they are such popcorn. Delightful. I gave them away as favors at my wedding.

A modern Western: All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

Now we're getting into the weeds a bit because there are some people who would argue that a lot of what modern Western literary fiction is, isn't really "Westerns" and I know what they're saying but I don't think I agree. There can be great novels of any genre that break genre, and I think this is just one of those. It has all the hallmarks of a Western.

Anyway, anyone who tells you The Road is Cormac McCarthy's best novel is out of their fucking minds and also probably very boring and controversially either doesn't read much or doesn't read much serious stuff. All of McCarthy's border novels are better than The Road, All the Pretty Horses just happens to be my favorite.

A Western that is probably more fairly slotted into Historical Fiction: Doc: A Novel, by Mary Doria Russell.

This book made me stop writing my Doc Holliday historical novel because I can't do a better job than this.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I have a really hard time on Tumblr sometimes and I have this issue with a lot of people and places so it's hardly tumblr specific, but it's also really hard to describe/convey to others. Let me try to scaffold it out

I spent my entire childhood being called an anxious person, and being forced to keep my anxiety internal, and this is overall really bad for me

The one useful tool I was ever given for BOTH reducing externally visible distress AND total distress is to pair anxious/distressing and "strengths based" thoughts. Whenever I say or think something related to distress, I take a moment to reframe the thought into a pair of thoughts - one non-judgemental observation of the need speaking through my distress/how I might meet it, and one non-judgemental acknowledgement of my feelings. It's energy intensive, and it takes a while to learn how to do it in a way that is clarifying rather than erasive. But it genuinely always makes me feel like I have a better handle on things, like I'm less inclined to spiral or end up with a disrupted mood or function, and also now consistently get **the opposite** commentary about being a very positive person who's good at conveying and opening up that positivity for others (at least in my professional life)

There are some people who take my doing this as an invitation to argue with me about why, actually, the distressing stuff IS VALID AND RIGHT AS A FRAMEWORK rather than understanding why I might be shifting away from it. You'd think this would happen most when I talk to other people and "reframe" something they've said, but actually this happens the most often after I have just finished expressing my own thoughts about a thing and someone seems to decide that "framed in a functional way" is equivalent to "hasn't thought enough about the problem areas" and start going off about all the "bad" or "hard" or whatever parts of a thing.

I cannot argue BACK with these people when they do this, because arguing back is dragging me back into a headspace that directly contributes to my suicidality, however side-stepping the issue by CONTINUING to insist on framing things the way I do often leads to them REPEATING their points in different ways in an attempt to "convince" me or "correct my misunderstanding" and I kinda have to be like. Not a misunderstanding. I know what you said and am simply not sharing that space with you. Why is it so uncomfortable for you that we are on different pages about this thing that you feel the need to force me into a distressing place for me rather than move on now that we've both shared our thoughts on the matter?

I can only spend so much of my time around a person rigidly reinforcing my own protective cognitions before I just. I can't talk to them anymore. I need to leave and do other things in other spaces with people who can talk to me about things from the same strengths-based perspective for a while

A lot of people use this to accuse me of spending time in echo chambers because they LITERALLY CANNOT FATHOM a space in which one can be critical of a thing without explicitly being "negative" about it, and assume that if everyone in a space is coming from a strengths based perspective that they're all uncritical fans or at least don't criticise in that space. This is just an objectively untrue assumption and I actually vastly prefer the constructive criticism of things within those strengths-based spaces

You can't ask people to stop doing this, or make them believe (if they don't already) the impact this might be having on your mental health, and if you try, people take it VERY personally and will start being MORE "negative" about EVERYTHING they say without even realizing it (saying "positive" things about one thing directly by "pulling down" something else, using satirical praise language like "fuck you" or "i can't stand it I'm going to die" or etc to refer to things they are happy with/enjoying/liking/etc, pivoting off your "positives" with immediate "negatives", etc) which makes the dynamic more intensive to cope with for me. Even when I try to convey this stuff to someone or point out examples, it quickly worsens the issue to the point that it's literally better for me to stop doing so and go back to quietly exiting when I'm overwhelmed.

A lot of people, when all this is discussed for them, will say something to the effect of "this is how I enjoy things I love!" And I get that. I do. But why? Why is the only way you are able to enjoy a thing by putting it or something else down? If it were ONE OF THE WAYS you enjoyed things, I'd 100% get that, and have no issue with it! I do wish that it was more common for groups of people to just enjoy things "unironically" tho, because it's a space I have a much easier time existing comfortably in, and those spaces being hard to find and maintain is part of why I struggle to socialize much. It's hard for me (literally, in terms of asking more effort of me, and emotionally in terms of the impact it has on my mood) to be around people whose only access to enjoyment is to insult, belittle, or point out the problems in something. It makes me sad not to spend as much time as I'd like to with people I like because of this incompatibility, and it makes me frustrated that I have never found a way of sharing with others what is happening in this dynamic in a way that has any concrete impact on the outcome. I have sort of learned to just NOT share it with others and instead do all the heavy listing of navigating the issue on other people's behalf and taking breaks when I can no longer do that so that I can keep relationships or spaces or conversations that are important to me.

Tumblr is, to put it mildly, almost nothing but this dynamic. So despite being a system I am most suited to in terms of posting options, conversation topics, access formats, etc, Tumblr is a space I feel best taking regular breaks from.

Tumblr is far from the epitome of this in my life. But it's a space where I see the most. I want to say etiquette? Social "respect" indicators? Built around this kind of behavior/framework. Like. Tumblr is a space of differing social contexts, but a lot of the connected ones across subcultures on the platform are informed by this framework because it is non-ideological and so gets conveyed as a more universalizably etiquette system I think. So there's a lot of like. Expectations of how you interact with others here that default this framework (for very functional reasons I think lol, i just don't know that it was done on purpose rather than sort of stumbled into?) are really normalized in a way that is especially risky for me given how much work I have to put into resisting this framework on a personal level

I often feel very lonely, because I have found a degree of distance that gets built into my dynamics with people. Throughout my life, there have been people who put me up on a pedastal, and people who set me far below them in capacity and cannot fathom my functionality, and of course people who manage both at once in different areas. But it's been hard to build and maintain relationships where I trust I am seen specifically as a peer and where this anxiety/complaint oriented framework is not one of the dominant cultural forces in play socially.

There are gaps in all this still in my brain, but. I dunno, I get tired sometimes. I wish I had a space in my life where I felt fully seen and where I could just sort of sit and build something up with someone for a while.

[ikamigami]

I really think that EC got angry that someone send that stupid doc that mentions us..

Cause they said that they didn't want to get involved way before..

And yet a certain group of people just really can't listen can they?

I'm trying to be positive.. though victims have every right to not trust VAs at all.. they are the victims after all.. they can feel uncomfortable with anyone because this is really understandable considering what happened to them..

But I think that VAs didn't do that on purpose.. it's all that certain group's fault.. or that's what I think.. cause they had to send that bullshitic doc.. sigh

Either they're dumb or someone is trying to manipulate things.. I won't be speculating who cause I don't want to accuse someone who is actually innocent.. someone being rude doesn't immediately mean that they're doing something bad.. sometimes people make mistakes..

But I don't trust some of the folks in that group called big blogs.. for personal reasons and from what I've read..

I'm cutting VAs some slack cause they're really stressed out from doing their job (or jobs) and also because of that still recent drama with laes' termination.. many things happened..

Another thing is that I don't really care what people ship cause like I said many times people liking problematic things in fiction doesn't mean that they're bad in real life.. or that they support bad things.. it's really that simple..

Though I'd love if there was more discourse about familial bond and friendship in sams fandom.. because sadly too many people focus on.. I won't even end the sentence.. if you enjoy it feel free to do it.. but don't be a jerk simply because someone doesn't like the thing you like..

It goes both ways.. people are allowed to talk about things they don't like or about things that upset them or simply disgust them.. and many people just despise incest and that's fine..

I'm laughing at folks who try to do mental gymnastics when they argue that solarnexus (previous solarmoon) isn't incest lol y'all ridiculous but it's your circus so whatever.. incest in fiction isn't illegal as long as it doesn't involve minors obviously...

But people are allowed to be disgusted by that and that's it.. end of a story..

At the end I say that I think that gore anons are someone(s) from this fandom.. ofc they're not good fans cause fans shouldn't act like that.. but I think that trying to deny that they're among us (sus lol sorry) is just naive to say the least..

[ladyluscinia]

Oh so they're doubling down on saying that enjoying a character they don't like and being defensive (and, admittedly, a bit petty) in what's effectively a Flame War is a red flag for demonstrating cult-like fandom behavior, while clarifying that no one is actually calling Izzy fans a cult. Yet. Just saying we need to nip this in the bud, you know?

(This being... what exactly? Arguing about S2 predictions on tumblr? Vaguing people? - Hi! 🫡 Having "bad" takes that may or may not be problematic? Bitching about tagged character crit / hate about your fave, sometimes on the posts in question? Dedicating blogs to wank? Welcome to every-fandom-ever-including-BlackBonnet, I guess.)

Not a new accusation, but since people are once again making ominous statements about the "concerning" potential of a Snapewives situation... maybe we should pass around a reminder of who, exactly, they're referencing?

The Snapewives (Fanlore Link, Reddit Synopsis) were an extremely small niche forum in a really huge fandom that are pretty much only known for infamous levels of cringe that got them mocked relentlessly when discovered by Fan Wank. We are talking a tiny subsection of a subsection of a subsection of the massive HP fandom that got really earnest with their self-insert fanfic / roleplaying (and really didn't like the canon ending of Snape's arc). There's actually a really interesting paper on analyzing "Snapism" as a religion that alludes to their particular issues with Christian faith and erotic fantasies, and can kinda sketch in how they might have gotten to where they did. It's weird, no doubt, but honestly sounds pretty harmless?

Like, I'm not sure if we're using the BITE model that they would even count as a real cult - "Snape" seems very controlling and makes them do things (cook specific dinners, stop biting nails, go on diets, etc.) but, like, there's no cult leader being "Snape". These are all self-assigned "tasks" via "channeling" (which is again weird but not super unique - read the paper) and then the women themselves disagree on things and could just come across as a really intense roleplaying forum having disputes over ratings for self-insert fic, among other things.

The situation is different when there's an obvious cult leader - see the extensive documented history of Andy "thanfiction" compiled here. Trigger warnings for sexual assault, abuse, manipulation... all the stuff you expect from cults. And really getting into reading the supplementary info will take you many hours, btw.

Anyway... having looked extensively at our "fandom cult" examples, I don't think I'm remotely "concerned" that we're veering toward cult behavior. Or Snapewives behavior. The Izzy section of fandom - and, for that matter, the Izzy Anti section of fandom - haven't really done anything that hasn't been done in countless flame wars before? Like we as a collective haven't even gotten to the levels of targeted character hate that I can glimpse by searching "Teen Wolf" right now, and frankly OFMD still isn't big enough to dream of replicating 2010s fandom's biggest hits. There's some cutting edge weaponization of social justice that's a more modern development, but that's still fundamentally just fighting about the fiction. Even the one doxxing incident is unfortunately not unique.

Sheesh, "Izzy Canyon" isn't even demonstrating a unified meta or consistent S2 desires / shipping preferences / etc. We're just better at not being dicks about it by necessity?

[max1461]

Suppose you are in elementary school, and it's a holiday or something, so some of the parents have brought cookies. And the teacher says "Ok kids, we're gonna give out the cookies in order of grade level. So the first graders get to grab some cookies first, and then the second graders get their chance, and so on". And you're a sixth grader, and by the time it gets to you, you're not sure if there will be enough cookies left. Does this seem a little unfair? Idk, maybe, it depends on if you believe the teachers' reasoning for letting the little kids pick first. Maybe that makes sense as a thing to do. But maybe it is unfair, I don't know. Even if it is, do you think it would be reasonable to accuse your teacher of being homicidal for this? Do you think it would be reasonable to say "you're trying to starve me, and all the other sixth graders!" No, I do not think it would be reasonable.

Suppose now that you're at a boarding school, and all the food is distributed this way. It's always youngest kids first, and there's never enough when it's finally the sixth graders' turn to eat. Now do you think the accusation that they are starving you is fair? I mean, maybe they're not trying to, but that's kind of the upshot of their policy. Your complaint makes a lot more sense.

So here's the deal. Life is full of systems that are not totally indifferent to your identity. I don't mean "identity" in the buzzword sense here, though that is a subset of what I'm talking about. I just mean: sometimes things are given to the little kids first! Sometimes things are given to the big kids first! These kinds of systems exist. They're all over they place and they run in every direction. This is a reality of the present world, at the very least, whether or not you believe it would exist in an ideal world.

But people will very often conflate the first sort of identity-sensitive system with the second, and this can lead to absurd conclusions. There are a lot of people who act as if, should an identity-sensitive system exist at all, it is necessarily of the second kind. But this is just straightforwardly untrue: sometimes you're just fighting over who gets some cookies first, and sometimes you're fighting over who gets to eat at all. There is no abstract theoretical way to determine which is which, you actually have to analyze the material situation at hand and come to some particular conclusion in each case. And of course there is a wide range of intermediate examples.

Anyway, conflating all identity-sensitive systems with the life-or-death kind leads to some really bad political analysis. I personally tend to favor universalist, identity-invariant policies on a political level, for a number of reasons. But I don't think identity-sensitive policies are evil; different sorts of people have different needs, and recognizing this in your policy might be an immanently sensible thing to do. If I'm arguing with someone who favors some identity-sensitive policy where I favor a universalist one, there is simply no need for me to accuse them of trying to starve me unless they are actually trying to starve me. Which they might be! I don't know! It depends on the specific policy! But you can't jump straight from "this policy is identity-sensitive" to "this policy is genocidal", that's a straightforwardly absurd conclusion.

This post is mainly about the way right-wingers respond to Affirmative Action, but I'm sure it's applicable to discourse all over the political spectrum as well.

[intern-seraph]

Hey, sorry if this is a weird question but. I was wondering if you knew of any blogs specifically for responding to/arguing against leftist antisemitism? I want to be a good ally to Jewish people, but also I Am Not Immune To Propaganda and sometimes I just don't quite notice the implications, you know?

There's been a few posts going around recently, where there's screenshots with the water filter, and someone responding to them like "yeah this is actually pretty fucked up for x and y reasons". Those have been really helpful because, while some of them are much more obviously antisemitic, some of them I'm not sure I would've noticed, and now I'm a bit better educated. That's the kind of thing I'm looking for.

Again, sorry if this is a weird question, and I hope you have a good day!

none that i'd recommend tbh? i feel like laser focusing on something can get to the point of seeing it everywhere, and there's also a risk of becoming reactionary abt it if that makes sense. the blogs i do rec are mainly other jews' blogs, especially the ones you've prob seen me rb from.

my main rec for recognizing leftist antisemitism is familiarizing yourself with antisemitic tropes. some of the most common ones you'll see:

Blood libel: Originated in medieval Christian Europe, spread throughout Afroeurasia and persists today. The accusation that Jews kidnap gentile (Orig. Christian) children to do nefarious things (Orig. and still relatively commonly "blood rituals" or "taking their blood to use in making Matzah") with. You'll see this often alongside "Jews rule the world" antisemitism.

Jews rule the world/Zionist-occupied government/Evil Cabals: What it says on the tin. If you see some shit about how "Oh isn't it SUSPICIOUS how many billionaires/millionaires/rich people are Jewish?" or "The ZIONIST-CONTROLLED MEDIA is suppressing this!", that's a variant on this canard.

Khazar theory: Antisemitic pseudoscientific theory that Ashkenazi Jews aren't ackshually descended from the Judeans who were forcibly exiled from our homeland, but instead descended from Turkic Khazars who converted to Judaism. Easily disproven by actual genetic studies that show that uh yeah all ethnically Jewish folks, Ashkies included, are descended from common ancestors that originated in the Levant. Also Yiddish is derived from, y'know, not Turkic languages. There are definitely Khazar Jews, but they make up a small number of an already small population. Variants you'll probably see of this are basically anything saying that Ashkies are somehow less Jewish than other Jews, that we're all White People (Jewish connection to Whiteness is Complicated) who have no connection to the Levant, How Could Ashkenazim Be From There When Some Of Them Are BLONDE?, etc. Shit like that.

stalin shit: a lot of modern leftist antisemitism has its roots in soviet antisemitism, which used "zionist" as another word for "jew" in order to pretend to not be antisemitic. people still do that today. if you see a post where "zionist" can be replaced with "jew" and it reads word-for-word like a classic antisemitic trope, well, you know. don't trust anyone who stans stalin (or modern russia to be honest. tankies (derogatory)).

this is non-exhaustive ofc. here are also blogs i recommend blocking asap (with / in their names to inhibit name-searching); they're all in the same far-left antisemitic atrocity apologist circle (i.e. assad stans, putin stans, holodomor deniers, uyghur oppression deniers, CCP stans, houthi stans, etc):

her/ita/gep/osts (north korea stan, which is fucking insane. beloved tumblr funnyman who implicitly blames jews for the actions of the israeli govt in multiple gross posts and has targeted multiple jewish bloggers, prompting mass harassment)

ko/ms/om/ol/ka (nasty character all around. claimed she was banned for being pro-palestine, it's actually prob because she's been reported before for being a fucking racist antisemitic freak lmao)

tx/tt/le/ta/le (ew)

bre/nda/nic/us (happily antisemitic. homophobic too, as a treat i guess)

blo/g/lik/ea/ne/gyp/tian (egyptian nationalist. don't ask her what happened to cairo's jews. makes nasty posts that outright state that jews should feel guilty for current events ON JEWISH HOLIDAYS.)

whe/nma/gic/fil/led/the/air (infamously antisemitic. block.)

a-si/ent-/ecli/pse ("Happy Holocaust Memorial Day")

ara/bia/n-k/nig/ht (extremely and openly antisemitic kid. just, like, don't engage)

nat/ive/ne/ws (tweet screenshots aren't news. loooooves spreading disinfo and misinfo)

ap/as-/95 (part of the tankie committee)

les/bia/nch/emi/cal/pla/nt (i think she's a jew but she's, like, the tankie tumblr pet jew istg. she's also an asshole. girl they will gladly turn you over once you outlive your usefulness 😬)

other advice: anyone who claims to be "anti-zionist NOT antisemitic" who only ever fixates on jews and jewish orgs instead of the christian zionists who vastly outnumber the entire jewish population is lying, they're antisemitic (whether they realize it or not). houthi stans generally are stupid jew-haters who would rather support the ethnic cleansing, racism, misogyny, antisemitism, and chattel slavery party than possibly say that Someone Who Rejects The Enemy(tm) is, yknow, not morally pure. people who are abnormal about ashkenazim are generally abnormal about non-ashkies, too, but in a different and still nasty way. if someone claims that "everything was fine before the Zionists(tm) attacked", they are wrong. do some research on the history of jewish life in the region and it's very clearly wrong. if someone says that they're tired of jews and jewish feelings and jewish safety being a focus, they probably don't feel particularly kind things about us in general. fact-check claims. screenshots aren't news. people who are okay with widespread civilian death/suffering in one direction probably only desire vengeance more than anything else, which does nothing for anyone and is a net loss. anyone baying for blood is suspect, anyone without a concrete solution/plan beyond "burn it down" is not going to do much constructive work in terms of delivering justice.

[unchataparis]

I gotta say, one of my most hated salt trope is when Gabriel or Audrey prefer Marinette over Adrien and Chloé. They see Marinette as the better child/the more talented/the more deserving and the entire fic's plot revolve around Adrien/Chloé's realisation and concluding devastation over that fact. :/

Salt has a questionable status in this fandom, as it does in most fandoms, but as I've come to unpleasantly realise, most people who are writing salt are, in fact, not twelve or thirteen year olds but full grown adult with jobs, career, even children of their own.

Sometimes, I see posts that are so overwhelmingly filled with hatred for certain characters, it's shocking to realise that you guys aren't being ironic, you're being for real. Your opinion is yours to have, and all of your emotions and feelings are valid. It's always good to be passionate rather than bland. I'm sure that if we were to meet on the streets, no one would be this zealous over their opinion of a children's cartoon show. But I feel like some of you are so sucked into this imaginary, badly-written, fan service-orientated world, you've forgotten your common sense and dedicated effort that this show does not deserve into defending your favourite, mistreated characters.

This show isn't well-written. It has questionable plots and characters. Thomas Astruc is a dubious man. These are all facts that no one is arguing against. But even with all these truths in the air, it still doesn't justify the sheer amount of unregulated hatred reserved for certain characters.

I'm speaking to the 'I live for salt' girlies who churns out Marinette Deserves Better wips on the daily. The people who are swearing at each other on the Internet over whether or not Chloé is a good person and deserves to be redeemed. I'm talking about those who accuse Lovesquare shippers of enabling toxic relationship and misogyny.

What are you talking about?

I don't think any of you truly believe that Miraculous is bad for children or that it's upholding the patriarchy, you're simply grasping onto whimsical straws of social justice in order to advance your own egocentric agenda.

Fandoms are meant to be a safe place to discuss your interests and find like-minded friends who aren't available in your local area. Not a feedback loop of aggrandising, disproportionate speculation.

If you hate the show so much, you're not even watching it anymore and following other people's social media AUs instead – nothing wrong with that, but you do realise that means you have no idea what you're talking about, right? If the show is so terrible and you don't even care about XXX or YYY, why not just leave? Place your time and effort into something that wouldn't make you so angry and dissatisfied?

I've been watching Miraculous for about six years now, and this show has a lot of impact on my artistic and internal psyche and it means a lot to me and I can see both the good and the faults in it. But at the end of the day, the characters of Miraculous are literally just characters. They're not real, they don't have opinions of their own, and they do what they do at the behest of the people writing them. You can't let yourself be consumed by their fictional plights.

Take this statement with a grain of salt and know that there is fluctuations to the fact of it, there are always exceptions, but: fandom arguments are ultimately pointless. There's better, more worthwhile things to do. There's always going to be annoying, infuriating people, you don't want to add yourself to the mix. Think about it, what's your endgame? That everyone will apologise to you and admit that you were right and follow all your opinions? That the writers of the show will change the story and rewrite everything according to your suggestions and 'corrections'? You're bitterly giving all your energy to something that will never reward you.

[shitty-davesprite-daily]

Davesprite, I bet there are enough unique anons in this askbox to make a unique Sburb session. As a result, I've decided to jokingly try classpecting the most prominent anons in order of appearance based on stuff that's happened on this blog because why the fuck not.

(This is gonna go horribly, but I tried.)

Flamingo Anon

Maid of Heart

Reason: As far as I know, they were the first identifiable anon to show up on this blog. And they did that mostly for their own benefit, such as to spread the passion that they have for birds and ornithology. Personality-wise though, I'd say Heir of Heart is more accurate.

ScAnon (a.k.a., me)

Sylph of Time

Reason: First of all, I seem to care a lot about things like the past through the questions I ask and keeping things moving by sometimes acting as the voice of reason when shit goes down. Second of all, I have my own ideas of the past and future that I enjoy discussing (as seen by some of the asks I've sent). There's also a tendency among Sylphs to meddle with stuff, which I think I have. I feel like those are good enough reasons for me to be a Sylph of Time, even if they're shallow.

Pawnon

Witch of Void

Reason: This is confirmed on their own blog, so there's no reason to argue about it. And as far as I've seen from them, it checks out.

Tophat Anon

Page of Mind

Reason: This one was hard to take a crack at. For one thing, their typing style is based off of mine, especially with how names and pronouns get coloured. As far as I know, it's typical for Pages to try to mimic the people they admire, especially in the hopes that it can convince others to help them and listen to them to compensate for and be given the Aspect that they lack. (I'm not sure if that's the reason why they chose to type similarly to me, but that's my guess.) In the case of the Tophat Anon, they seem to lack Mind and may try to act as if they have a lot of it (also typical Page behaviour), especially by trying to act as a voice of reason (only for that to sometimes backfire, such as the case of the 'No homo' shirt) and by asking questions about the circumstances (which is not a bad thing. It can be helpful for anyone who stumbles across this place while Davesprite's got his ass in the middle of something, like being accused of being gay).

Explosion Anon

Bard of Space

Reason: One could say that all the explosions they cause literally destroy space (and that's not counting the other shit they've done). However, it is through what they do that they create the conditions to get things to happen, such as the Grimdarc and all the explosion shenanigans. (That's as far as I know. Please feel free to correct me on this.) They are figuratively helping leave Time in their wake for everyone else to deal with in the form of events and suffering through said events. Also, they seem to have a penchant for chaos, which seems to be typical for Bards personality-wise.

So there we go. What do you think of all this stuff I thought of out of boredom?

- ScAnon

TG: ...

TG: goddamn

TG: i dont even know what to say this shit is just straight up impressive

TG: i know like fuck all about classes and aspects and shit but this all seems vaguely right?

TG: nice work man

[tirsynni]

it is not “ageism” because people find older qualities like gray hair and wrinkles attractive and this certainly has nothing to do with “purity culture” oh my g-d go back into your proshipping circle and leave us alone stop misusing terms and stay out of main tags

I would like to thank this anon for being an amazing example of why I am so frustrated with modern fandom:

"It's not ageism. I want to have them look older for my personal kinks/fetishes/whatever. Get out of our spaces, proshipper."

Hell, if you want to do that, go for it! Write whatever you want. I'm pro-self-indulgence with fics. Just don't do that bullshit where you argue that of course it should somehow magically be canon that they look that way, that of course someone in that age range will have gray hair and wrinkles, whatever. And for fuck's sake, get off anon if you're so confident in your beliefs. Yeesh. I feel like I need a broom and to yell at you to get off my lawn.

Referencing purity culture when you have no idea what it actually means? People like anon don't realize that they fell into a popular trap: they're taught specific trigger phrases so they have a strong, violent response to them, equating the people connected to those trigger phrases with IRL evil acts. They support right-wing, Conservative ideals because they're packaged to target people like anon. Years ago, it was "Do this or the terrorists win." Right now, it's accusing all opponents of being a pedophile. Kneejerk response: they're evil and are obviously pro-pedophilia. Yes. If you use the word "proshipper," you're a card-carrying member of purity culture, complete with the defensive response to all possible trigger phrases.

This is how Trump and his minions won over so many people. This is how the Russian bots won over so many people on tumblr and Facebook and Twitter. They learn the language or sometimes create the language -- in this case, proship -- and as such are able to manipulate people from diverse backgrounds to agree to attack the same exact people and enforce the same exact right-wing, fascist bullshit. "If these people do this, they obviously promote pedophilia and probably are parties to evil acts. Feel open to attack them. You are fighting evil." This people do not research or use the time to use critical thinking: after all, if they question it or even consider defending these evil people, are they evil, too?

These are the same people who end up convinced that some other minority group is evil -- like trans people - and are confident that their group is safe because their group is Good. We went from "don't like, don't read" to anons bitching about "proshipping." Don't worry: soon, your group will be evil, too.

We've entered the latest age of cults. Experts warned us about it a decade or so ago, that the economic and cultural instability was very similar to what led to the rise of cults several decades ago. Think the Age of Charles Manson. Same thing, except now we aren't seeing cults in the form of communes in the woods. We're seeing them in online communities, in the form of Trumpers, QAnons, antivaxxers, TERFs, crunchy moms, etc. We're seeing a rise in the group mindthink which suppresses critical thought and individual opinions. "We are Good. They are Bad. If you question it, you're Bad, too."

"Leave us alone," says anon. "My actions are good. Go away, proshipper."

I'm posting this anon as an example. The rest I'm just blocking and deleting. Seriously, this shit is tiring. It's bad enough that I have to deal with this bullshit every time I turn on the news about the latest book ban or anti-abortion laws or -- hey! -- pushes to legally murder women who obtain abortions. I don't need that shit in my inbox, too.

[murderedbyhomework]

Xavier Thorpe=Wasted Potential

Honestly, I think he's a bit over hated, and of course, canon kind of did him dirty too. So here's a list of things I wish they'd elaborated on about him.

Xavier and Bianca

He gets a lot of hate for some scenes, and yeah, I will say, the siren song comment at the dance was asshole behavior, even if it was the throwaway kind of comment you don't really mean to say, which is how I interpret that scene. I'm not saying he's completely devoid of blame in that scene, but Bianca does not let him get away with it. She doesn't take his shit, and later asks him to apologize, which he does sincerely. And yeah, they sometimes act like bitter exes, but honestly I think their kind of edging to a friendship relationship is probably one of the healthier ones in the show. Yes, both of them have messed up, but they do own up to it. And if someone hates on him for breaking up with her, they're teenagers. Teenage love doesn't work out most of the time, and Bianca herself admits to using her siren song on him once. I wish they'd elaborated on that incident, but given that she admits it herself, I personally think it was valid for them to break up. Honestly, Bianca is depicted as a competitive girl with a mean streak and control issues, something that partially resulted from her upbringing, and I think she would benefit from therapy more than and actual romantic relationship. To be frank, Bianca and Xavier work best as friends, and in the show I think they're slowly edging towards a healthy friendship. Both parties are not completely blameless, but they do own up and apologize for it, so I don't think they deserve hate for that?

Xavier and Wednesday

Honestly this is really complicated for me. On one hand, Xavier crushing on a girl who once saved his life as a kid is like totally normal. Like I see people hating on him for not being 'dark' enough for Wednesday? Well cool that you don't ship them but why blame him for that? I do think some people think he's annoying and boring, but he's a teen. With a crush, and he's depicted from Wednesday's perspective. Honestly, in his scenes with Wednesday, I think the writers were trying to sell a romance too hard, which resulted in him being weird. And yeah part of that is just crush behavior. Honestly, he doesn't take too much shit from Wednesday, which is good, and I hope they can be friends and remain friends in s2. I think some people hate on him for being mad at Wednesday for asking him to the dance on false pretenses, but like, she did invade his private space. And before anyone says he should've expected that from her, would it really have gone down well if he saw her near his shed and immediately accused her of snooping? I don't think so. He was acting like a normal human with a crush, and of course he'd be hurt when someone asks him to a dance to cover up their invasion on his privacy. I think everyone would be mad if someone did that to them, crush or not. And why are we hating on him for having a crush again? Like I myself don't ship Wavier here. Another scene I think people hate on him unnecessarily on is his argument with Bianca. It's framed by the show writers like he's arguing with his ex and suddenly his ex gets jealous of his new crush, but I could've sworn they were literally just arguing about their relationship. Like Bianca was literally the one to bring up Wednesday and the she's not the girl of your dreams comment was quite out of the blue, something Percy Hynes White shows quite well, because Xavier looks really confused at the sudden comment too.

Xavier and Tyler's beef with each other

Okay this is more what I wish they could show in s2. But also, I don't think their rivalry is actually that much jealousy of each other's relationship with Wednesday? In the show, Xavier is shown to be untrusting and bitter towards Tyler, and it's a bit weird and played of as jealousy, but we actually find a valid reason, and it's called Tyler and his friends ruined his mural and assaulted him a year ago. I think anyone would be quite angry at that. So yeah his stay away from Tyler comments may seem like jealousy and kinda weird from Wednesday's perspective, but when you think about it, he's just concerned that Tyler is prejudiced against outcasts, as per his own painful experience. Even then he actually didn't make Tyler's life as hard as he could have, something even Tyler admits to. So like, his anger at Tyler? Was pretty justified, rooted in reason, and explainable.

Him and just his backstory in general

For someone who's supposed to be a main love interest, he doesn't really get an arc. For example, in the parent's day arc, Enid's argument with her mom ends in her standing up for herself and hugging her father who's proud of her. Queen behavior, we love her for that. Bianca doesn't exactly get a resolution here, but something progresses, threads for s2 are laid, and she starts to try help people like Lucas to stay away from her mom. Character development and plot, cool. We learn something about her. But Xavier? His dad doesn't come, and that's all we know. They bring that up and just never do anything with it. In episode 7, we learn that his father has him go to therapy in secret so he doesn't cause trouble. Terrible parenting, but except for it being a plot device to implicate him, it doesn't go anywhere. He's a main character of sorts, and all we know about him is that he secretly goes to therapy, his father is implied to not care about him much, and that he canonically has mental health issues. That's it. And yeah, I get it, the show is from Wednesday's point of view, that's why we don't know much about him. But we do get something from Bianca and Enid and tentatively Tyler, so why not him? I hope that in s2, we could maybe learn why he goes to therapy in the first place, and his backstory. Like his dad obviously only cares about publicity, so what could possibly prompt him to send Xavier to therapy and risk having people find out his son has mental health problems? Like what did Xavier do to actually make his dad send him to therapy?

Okay so this got long, but I have a lot of feelings. Maybe I'll elaborate on my own headcanons, but for now, this is it. I hope Xavier gets over his crush in s2, and actually has his backstory explored like you'd assume a relatively main character would be.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

i find conversations around palestine hard to navigate because often people will say that showing support for the people of palestine is anti-semitic and use really inflammatory language and then its difficult to move on from, do you have any advice?

I have thoughts and I hope they are useful. There is an underlying logic to what I'm suggesting - that I think might be useful to make explicit - because it's transferable to other situations. First of all figure out what your political purpose is - and then acknowledge that some of the things you are trying to do are hard and will take effort and you can't rely on your automatic instincts.

I should also say that I'm white and not Jewish and live in New Zealand. This advice is for someone who is also personally distant from Palestine in those ways - and may not be useful for you if you are in a very different situation.

The first step is to not be anti-semitic. This may mean you need to learn more about anti-semitism than you already know. You can't rely on thinking "I am not anti-semitic in my heart and therefore I can't be anti-semitic". Our culture has a lot of anti-semitic tropes that you may have learned without understanding. Do the work of unlearning anti-semitism. The best place to learn about is from Jewish people involved in Palestinian, but if you don't have access. Don't dismiss the possibility that you might be anti-semitic - take it seriously - but know enough that you can easily identify accusations of anti-semitism that you disagree with politically, or that aren't made in good faith.

I think it's worth understanding that not being anti-semitic is important not just morally or in an abstract sense, but that anti-semitism does active harm to the political project of building a Palestine solidarity movement in New Zealand (or anywhere else I've lived) I've always found this piece by Naomi Klein a touchstone

Then I think it's important to start with why you might want to talk about Palestine. I think understanding the political purpose of what you are trying to do. Sometimes the point will be to organise - but in that case you're probably not starting from scratch (organising rarely begins with an argument). But in the type of situation you are talking about - a place where there is hostility - I think the purpose is to legitimise Palestinian solidarity.

Huge resources and power are put into delegitimising Palestianian solidarity - it's always true and has become more clear than ever. Equating Palestinian solidarity with anti-semitism is a significant part of that.

The only way to fight this is to actively promote Palestinian Solidarity without anti-semitism - particularly in spaces where there is hostility and inflammatory. You won't necessarily win the argument - you're not going to undo everyone else's beliefs by the power of your argument. But what you can do is take a small step to insist on the legitimacy of Palestinian solidarity in the space you are in.

If people call you antisemitic for showing solidarity with Palestine and you disagree with them politically or think they're not made in good faith - it is absolutely crucial that you do not get distracted by that. Your purpose is to fight efforts to delegitimise Palestine - not to win arguments about what is anti-semitic and what isn't. The importance of not engaging may be counter-intuitive - they are arguing that solidarity with Palestinian liberation is delegitimate because it's anti-semitic - if you prove that they're wrong then aren't you legitimising solidarity with Palestine?

But in reality you're not - because you don't win arguments. Instead they are taking you away from your goal of showing that you think solidarity with Palestine is legitimate to arguing over whether or not solidarity with Palestine is legitimate - which is a much weaker position.

That sounds easy, but of course it's not. It can be very distressing to have someone call you anti-semitic - when you think that you're not and you believe that anti-semitism is wrong. And what solidarity demands in this moment is that you deprioritise that distress and do not act on it in a political way (although you can and should process it personally in non-political spaces way away from all of this).

If non-Jewish non-Palestinian people who were intending to offer solidarity go into a reactive space when they're accused of anti-semitism - and prioritise their feelings about being called anti-semitism - over the solidarity they were giving they can do incredible harm.

It's a horrific to watch genocide and to be so powerless, but it's all the more reason to focus on what you can do. Show your solidarity, don't get distracted from showing your solidarity.

[donnerpartyofone]

I used to think I couldn't be autistic because I don't "take everything literally", but I think I realized that I'm taking that exact phrase too literally. Because like I just cannot have this type of argument that a lot of people seem to find very natural where, instead of saying exactly what they want or exactly how they feel, they just keep moving the goal posts of whatever the fuck they're driving at. They'll describe something as unsatisfying, and I'll repeat back (because that's how you agree on common fucking terms) "OK so X is unsatisfying," and they'll go "No no it's totally satisfying, I just don't understand it," and I'll say "OK so it's confusing and we have to clarify it" and they'll go "No no I totally understand it, I'm just not sure if we need it" and I'll say "OK so we need something more purposeful" and they'll go "No way I totally get the point of it, I just think it could be more interesting," and I'll say "OK SO IT'S BORING AND WE NEED SOMETHING MORE STIMULATING" and they'll just keep conveniently redefining common words and phrases, and insisting they have a problem without admitting that it's a problem or saying what the problem is until I've gone through the entire fucking thesaurus with the person just trying to get them to agree to the basic terms of engagement. And like I'm starting to realize that a more normal person realizes when someone is being coy or passive aggressive or is just purely looking for a fight because they enjoy it. But my brain doesn't do that, I'm sucked into this game they're playing and I'm desperately trying to keep up with the rules because I believe I have to, or it feels like something even more urgent, like a traffic situation where misunderstanding the rules is deadly, and I just cannot zoom out and realize that the person is just being difficult for whatever reason. I just take it for granted that there MUST BE some logical motivation behind the argument and I am OBLIGATED to figure out what it is and I WILL achieve clarity by agreeing to the terms of engagement that this person is setting out even though I cannot understand them and they will continue to refuse to help me understand them. Because of this I've been accused of being rigid or nitpicky or, ya know, too literal, many many times in my life, and I think sometimes it comes off as an ego thing like I'm trying to beat someone in a fight or I'm just being hostile for no reason but like. That's not it. At all. I'm just DESPERATELY TRYING TO UNDERSTAND what people are saying to me and I just DESPERATELY WANT THINGS TO MAKE SENSE. It's not even about me trying to "get my way", whatever that is, it's usually about me trying to figure out what is going to satisfy the other person in the most direct way that I can so the argument can be over, and I have no detection mechanism for when someone is just prolonging an argument because they love to argue in and of itself, or when someone is just trying to manipulate me into drawing their conclusions for them so they can deny responsibility for the consequences, or when someone is frankly just trying to make me look stupid because they enjoy hurting my feelings.

[misshorrorotaku]

You said "No they don't. Men get lynched just on an accusation of rape, and you expect ANYONE to believe they "get away with it"? Please."

Look up how many rapists are convicted on google. Different sources will have different numbers, but plenty of men get away with that shit. Women too of course, but your arguing men don't get away with it. Brock turner was guilty clear as day and only got 6 months, so there absolutely is a reason for women to be pissed about this issue.

You also argued false accusations are worse than rape, but plenty of church leaders, starts, politicians kept careers, but all victims have trauma, cmon now.

How many are convicted is irrelevant. You don't have to be convicted to not get away with something.

Regardless of lack of conviction, unless a man is rich and powerful, he will have his life ruined by the accusation. Even if he's proven innocent in court.

So no, men do not get away with raping women. They don't even get away with being proven innocent of raping a woman. There are consequences. Just because they aren't what you want them to be does not mean they get away with it.

And being pissed about the issue and claiming men "get away with raping women" are two different things. You can be mad the law doesn't punish rapists harshly enough (hell, it rarely punishes female rapists at all, let alone enough, so men have even more reason to be upset about that than women do) without trying to insist male rapists just get away with it. They demonstratably don't. If ANY rapists "get away with it" it's female rapists. Most of the world doesn't even legally define rape in a way that lets women be guilty of the crime, and women being falsely accused does not result in the same shit as when men are. People are far more likely to believe the woman didn't actually rape than they are to believe a man didn't, even when there's overwhelming proof he didn't do it.

And considering false accusations result in ruined lives and sometimes even straight up murder, yes, yes they are more important to care about than physical harm even if that harm results in trauma. Your trauma is not comparable to someone fucking dying, or having their life completely ruined over something they didn't even do.

And to answer a question in your other ask, at least I assume it's yours cuz it's phrased pretty much the same:

I was accused of being a pedophile online. I am also a trans woman, who had countless people see and acknowledge the accusation was false. I even had all my "victims" come forth saying the accusation was false. Regardless of this, I lost a few online friends because of the accusation, and despite it being proven false it is STILL spread around like it's true. The people spreading sometimes even refuse to admit they're wrong even when given proof it didn't happen.

It was purely an online accusation, so it's not the same as what men go through with accusations of rape irl, but that alone is a demonstration of how these accusations never fucking go away. If this was an accusation irl, I'd likely have been hurt or killed even with proof I didn't do anything. Triply so because I'm trans.

[teddybasmanov]

Sometimes I feel the need to confess my cringeness to the world so I hope you know that my unwritten canon-non-compliant fic about Commissar Elrick ends with a scene in which he and the listener argue about politics and accidentally wake their child up.

If you want to know how I - a person deathly allergic to baby fics - ended up thinking that, there are details (headcanons?) under the cut.

It's a bit more than a thousand (1000! That's not the fic, that's me saying what I would write, if I could) words long and there's also one pregnancy mention in passing.

Anyway canon non-compliance is mostly in the listener's backstory, because I'm stupid and I found out that the elven playlist is a continuos story with one listener and not two separate ones, so I kind of assumed that This listener's story starts with the inquisitor's interrogation and whatever was before is up to me. Well, what was before? Let's see.

This is going to be unrealistic and purely for the convenience of the furtherer story (when will I stop trying to make excuses for myself and actually write what I want? probably never). The listener was a servant/slave of an eccentric elven noble - they thought it would be amusing to keep a human around teach them things, maybe make them sort of a secretary but also most probably 'fool around' with them. The rest of the stuff doesn't like them, because they think the listener is 'master's favourite' and get preferences without working hard, so while they're not working they're probably hiding in the library and read whatever they can get their hands on (cue: a lot of political theory, including, probably, books banned by the elven imperium).

They get taken in for questioning with the inquisitor because they're in the wrong place at the wrong time (if I recall correctly they're accused of blowing something up) and/or because their master is out of governmental favour. Then three interrogations happen - inquisitor, copper (whom they didn't believe, by the way, and when he tried to play them the whole 'I'm letting you go, be my friend' thing - they totally shot him the moment he handed them the gun - it was just unloaded), commissar - and the commissar offers to actually let them go wherever they want. Well, they drop to their knees at his feet and beg him not to make them go, tell him they can do anything - cook, clean, do the paperwork he hates so much - anything, just don't make them go, because they have nowhere to go and they want to be useful. Here comes one of my favourite tropes - "has been used their whole life" person meets "I just to be nice and help you" person.

So Elrick and his 'boys' take care of their new human friend as best they can (I like to think that Elrick and the listener share the inquisitor's bedroom - not out of romance but out of utility) and the listener in turn takes care of them - and takes on most of paperwork and when the superiors start receiving those papers they notice that the reports suddenly become more orthographically and grammatically correct, more eloquent - hell, the handwriting changes. So, when Elrick's unit (? whatever sized part of the military he's working with) is back with the main forces, those superiors inquire what happened and after some awkward questions they're met with a human with serious eyes and a uniform greatcoat way too big for them. This is when they get noticed and start slowly moving up the ranks, so to speak.

They probably start working with some higher officials, start speaking their mind (remember - they're somewhat educated), probably as a human they might get assigned to the People's Commissariat of Nationalities (the thing Elrick mentions, even he calls it the wrong word), productively work there, move to the capital (or at least a big city). Elrick, considering he's also not the last person gets transferred there too and they don't lose contact. Considering the story is set in a mix of The Great October Socialistic Revolution and the ending of World War II people are getting married fast - because they don't know what's going to happen next and there's that wave of altogether change (and dare I say happiness, if we take the Victory), people in the military especially, so they do too.

When they settle down in the city considering they're a decently ranked officer and a government worker they have comparatively good living arrangements - again considering the timing a separate apartment is unlikely - I'd bet two good rooms in a communal apartment (which for two and even three people is still a lot). The child happens naturally and I don't care if it's fpreg, mpreg or adoption (considering the amount of orphans after the revolution and the war) it doesn't really matter, but I like to think it's half-elven, half-human.

Considering the listener's background they take their work really seriously and probably stay at work late often and don't have much free time, so they and Elrick rely a lot of social services for taking care of the child (like child care), which Elrick is not too happy about, so one late evening when they're having supper he tries to talk to them about it and maybe even slightly guilt them for not spending enough time with their baby, so they whisper argue in one room, while the subject of their disagreement sleeps in the other:

Elrick: Do you care more for your work or your own child? The listener: I care more for our new developing state. Elrick, almost furiously: What? Is the state going to care for them?! The listener, calmly and seriously: Yes, for them and for many other children who are much less lucky. Elrick: *angrily drops his spoon on the plate*

The sudden loud clink wakes up the baby and it starts crying in the other room, the listener shoots Elrick an unreadable glare, while getting up from the table and leaves the room, closing the door behind them. Elrick drops his head on hands and tiredly rubs his eyes, hearing his partner's shushes in their human tongue he doesn't understand. Soon the crying stops but they don't return, so he goes to check on them and faces a heart-squeezing scene - his spouse, still in their work clothes, sitting on the floor by the crib with the baby on their chest, both of them asleep. He has half the heart to just join them there, but the voice of reason wins and he very carefully picks up them both to put them in the bed together, where after dealing with the dishes and ditching everyone's shoes he does join them after all. He's going to get a tongue lashing from his partner for not waking them up, but that's tomorrow.

Flashback to the first few days they spent together when he would find them asleep at the desk and carry them to the bed and they would wake up huddling for warmth because the electricity has been long gone and they don't have enough firewood.