#idk I'm still seeing so much discourse about how they're the same person

[3416]

the thing is, i wouldn't be nearly as bothered about mitch not being on the top line if it wasn't being treated as some kind of proof that he's never been good enough to play there and that it hurts the team or drags auston down when he does. i don't care about domi ultimately, he's an effective player (when he's not taking boneheaded penalties) and obviously it helps to spread out our best guys to make each line that little bit harder to play against by forcing the other team to decide how to matchup. whatever. i don't agree with keefe's choices there but i get the intent.

what i do care about is one of the best players this franchise has ever seen being treated like some kind of anchor holding the team (and auston specifically) back from achieving greatness and using domi's success with auston (BECAUSE of auston tyvm) to paint him as some selfish jealous (genuinely wtf @ this fanfiction in particular coming from an actual media guy) brat pouting over being ~demoted~ when he's never not done what has been asked of him (which is literally fucking everything) and has always been fully on board any time he's been paired with johnny!! or anyone else!! like these are all mitch's guys!!! he loves them and this team /so much/!!!! like i genuinely can't imagine the list of things he loves more than being a leaf is very long

i'm just so tired of so many (non-tumblr) fanspaces being dominated by people who have made an entire personality out of treating him like one of the worst things that's ever happened to the leafs (and, again, auston specifically) because idk they hate his dumb dad (welcome to the club weirdos!!!) and/or can't "forgive" him for his contract. even the critique of him in the playoffs is overblown in comparison to the rest of the team and the goalposts for what it means to be a ~playoff performer~ always seem to find a way to shift as needed to single him out as some kind of unique failure among the group which.. rme for all time

anyway sorry for venting lmao it's just such a bummer but WHATEVER here's to mitchell daniel marner having the best damn playoffs of his damn life!!!!!!!! go leafs go

ohhh anon. so many things i can (and will) say here, but you and i are totally on the same wavelength, lol. that's what has made this stretch so much worse imo... auston on a hot streak with two mid guys and workable chemistry (for now) all around, and we try spreading out the "offense" but actually... for the leafs... i think spreading the offense is less what we're doing w 1634 and more... shifting defensive responsibility off of our 'top' line and giving them easier matchups by putting the tougher ones with the mcmann-jt-marner line bc mitch is there now to take on some more defensive responsibility that isn't doable by players like willy/whoever else plays rw there. (which annoys me in it's own way bc it makes the 'top' line look more impressive stat wise while not even dealing with the most dangerous 'top' line on the other team, lol but.. it's still gonna require auston to be On Top of it all the time bc he's by himself defensively.. only reason it annoys me is the discourse afterward too like anyway). mitch and auston are our best all around players by quite a bit, lol, so i get WHY splitting them up works well too, but when people get mad that they're together so much... when they've proven to work better and be more dangerous year after year as a duo... i mean, peoples anger should be at the rest of the lineup that sometimes doesn't pull their own weight in that regard, lol. i get the experiment we're running rn. i'm not confident it will work, but we will see. i don't care if it does or doesn't... doesn't change the fact that ultimately, i know they want to play together the most and that hasn't changed bc of some randos that came in this year so. i genuinely think auston requests to play with mitch often after not being allowed to for a couple years, and this year he's sucking it up for the playoffs and trying something different for the sake of the team.

as for the way a lot of people treat mitch as expendable... it's so frustrating to me too... just the double standards abt him vs anyone else are insane. even tonight, seeing people lose their fucking minds over max reposting a fan's hype video without credit and assuming he made it (?? lol) and drooling all over themselves about how he "has the passion", but like... mitch had a video made last year and people were telling him to get off social media and perform better in the playoffs in the exact same spaces like. if he even comes on social media near the playoffs, it's always just hateful. honestly.... so many leaf fans don't deserve him and don't deserve to see a cup in their entire lifetimes either, lol. it makes my relationship with this team so much more complicated to have such a hate for the fanbase like that. like . this year, i just care so much less about the team as a whole too. i'm less connected to the overall results, lmao. i love the leafs and want my guys specifically to be able to win the cup in their lifetime more than anything, but i realllyyy don't care about some of these ppl on our team and i hate how the worst fans in this fanbase feel so vindicated over the dumbest ugliest shit. like i'd give anything to not have to see braindead opinions for a single day. as much as i'm rooting for them, if this isn't the year... well. we move, lol. i wouldn't die! (which is exactly why they'll prob do it this year lol) i'll feel competitive while watching the playoffs, esp vs the bruins, but like... whatever happens happens man. my men will be coming back and i hope some other ones won't, regardless of playoff results. sometimes it's even less about the player himself and more about the idiots attached.

all i literally care about this year is mitch's performance since we're going into a contract year for him. nothing he could possibly do would get people off his back but that, and somehow his points never seem to matter in the playoffs bc they're in games we're already winning ?? but yeah. the willy is our best playoff performer narrative makes me fucking laugh man........ like people will lower their standards and move their goalposts and do ANYTHING to make it seem like mitch is cancerous and the reason we keep losing and everyone else steps up when he doesn't and it's just a fucking lie. morgan is the only one with visible elevation in the playoffs imo, and . idk. maybe the way the team's structured rn and shifting players to different lines will work. maybe it won't. we won a round not doing it last year, so it's not like that's THE make or break thing and we haven't even seen this lineup play a single meaningful game in the last month fnlkdsjf or a singular playoff game so. it's all a LOT of big talk. at the end of the day.. if the leafs ever make it to the cup.. itll be 1634 passing it to each other and their names next to each other and that's all i want for them, honestly. leafs duo of all time regardless of the dumbasses the 23-24 season has emboldened.

[who-is-page]

hi im not here to start anything i just need to get this out but im some unpopular blog idk. ive had a burning question bc of some discourse. is it ableist to not want to interact with doubles from a traumagenic system? people called us toxic and guilt tripping for saying we feel like it is and like its watering them down to just their source not an actual unique person, but they didnt really explain how its not besides 'it makes me uncomfy and im allowed to have boundaries'

but then those same people would probably call our headmates who dislike humanity for legit trauma reasons stupid and toxic and tell them they need to work on it but not tell us how besides 'spend time around kind people' but we dont really have any that they can do that with

idk it just seems really hypocritical. why can they pretend and entire person doesnt even exist for something out of their control bc theyre uncomfy but having trauma that you dont know how to fix is so wrong and makes you horrible

and would it be okay to just say 'systems dni you make me uncomfortable' ?

(cont.) its okay if you dont want to post that i could see the discourse nightmare but mostly i guess i just needed to get it out somewhere, thank you

--------

So, if I'm reading this right, you feel that it's ableist for someone to ask for doubles who are traumagenic fictives to not interact with them. And you feel it's hypocritical for someone to have those boundaries when that same person would likely criticize the misanthropy present in your own system due to past trauma.

There's a lot of levels to this anon, I'm not going to lie to you.

The other person is right in that they're allowed to dictate their own boundaries as they see fit, and that they don't owe people explanations for it. If they're uncomfortable with traumagenic fictive doubles and don't wish to interact with them, that doesn't make them ableist. Their reasonings behind that feeling could, theoretically, contain some ideas that are invalidating to others or similar, but that's a separate entity from just having the boundaries by themselves. And you also have no way of knowing those reasonings (if they have even taken the steps to consciously dissect why they feel the way they do) since they haven't told you. You can't really draw any substantial conclusions about this--including whether or not the thought process behind this person's boundaries is ableist--and it's also arguably not your place to if this is about some random stranger, anyways.

The misanthropy thing is also tricky. Your systemmates are allowed to have their boundaries and their own personal feelings about humanity, regardless of what the origins of the feelings are. However, unlike with the other person where we don't know anything beyond that they're generally uncomfortable with traumagenic fictive doubles, you specify that your systemmates actively dislike an entire species that they have no choice but to interact with. Which makes things a lot more complicated. Dislike and discomfort are two separate emotions. It's not "stupid" or "toxic" that those feelings exist in your system, but it is probably something you all should work on, both for yourselves and others. You're going to be living around humans for the rest of your lives, and even when you're actively working to mask your dislike of someone it can still come across unconsciously very easily. It's not hypocritical for someone to view misanthropy as different from a much more niche online boundary, because in a lot of ways they're situationally very different, but it's also not fair for someone to try and call you amoral for it when you're still figuring out how to work on it, either.

One of our systemmates had pretty severe misanthropy that they struggled with. Some of what helped them was finding things that they actively loved that humans did or made, and building up from there. Every time they had an automatic misanthropic thought, they stopped, examined it, took a deep breath, and actively acknowledged that what they had thought was not fair nor true about all humans. Eventually, after many years, they did reach a point where they had a separate friend group from my own, made up entirely of non-alterhumans, which was also helpful. But that was a ways down the road.

Because dismantling these thought processes is different for everyone, YMMV. It's not always as simple as surrounding yourselves with positive and kind folks, and it really comes down to what your systemmates individually have to sit down and work through. Identifying what thought patterns they have going on, and working to tame the irrational and unfair ones. Your system isn't "horrible" because they haven't been sure where to start tackling this.

Regarding if it's okay for someone to ask systems to not interact with them because systems make them uncomfortable; like I said earlier, people are allowed to dictate their boundaries as they see fit. That's not on me nor you to try and control, nor to pass a blanket judgement on.

(And don't worry about the discourse factor. This blog was originally known as a discourse blog like a decade ago, and it always blows me away when I realize people have forgotten that, haha.)

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Jaiden from The DSCP, A 17776 Roleplay vs Rose Quartz from Steven Universe

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Jaiden:

HATE: - "OKAY SO. This is Jaiden. In a world thousands of years in the future where humans are immortal and spacecraft are beginning to wake up and become people on their own, Jaiden decides *she* wants to be the catalyst to wake one of them up. For years and years she tries and fails, until she finds CHIPsat, quietly shut down a while ago rather than decommissioned and.. well. taken out of the sky. CHIPsat isn't her first attempt at this, but they're her first *successful* one. She asks the newly-awakened satellite one thing: "Hey little buddy. How are you holding up?" The two are close friends for awhile, and I'm not about to spill ALL the details about EVERYTHING she did but let's just say: in a world where machines are literally people, hacking is NOT the most ethical skill ever. Jaiden's a BITCH nobody likes you jaiden (rusty if youre seeing this dont worry shes a VERY cool character. i just also want to crush her like a bug. hope this helps) also here's the image rusty used for the dani profile: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/783126743191519252/785258702188970014/unknown.png or the image rusty used for the jaiden profile: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/783126743191519252/914301198994116619/1306309_f0CiRxGx-1.png"

Rose Quartz:

LOVE: - "She was the example in the intro post I'm so proud of her. <3 I saw this bracket and I was immediately like "rose quartz my favorite character rose quartz" and lo and behold I was Correct. "UwU space mom victim" is a little simplistic, she has the range. She haunts the narrative. She taught me how hiding yourself because you're afraid that people won't like who you really are leads to continued self-resentment and avoidance. Loving her teaches me that even if you did do something completely irredeemable, even if you did do something worthy of all that hate you hold for yourself, people can still see the entire you and decide to love you anyway. I think even the other diamonds are better-regarded than her, which... incredible pr stunt from them tbh. I don't dislike the other diamonds but come on they made no independent effort to change w/o Steven—there's literally no question in the "who's the better person" department. Of course the "who's the better character" department will always be incredibly subjective but she is so complex, and multi-facteted, she screws up so so much and yet somehow her biggest mistake of all might be her own self-degrading. "What an incredible power... the ability to grow up," said with such longing. Girl look at Jungle Moon, you really think you're still the same gem? You grew so much and you never saw it. She's so selfish and selfless and self-destructive all at the same time and it's captivating. I want to put her in a jar and study her like a bug." - "did she do a lot wrong? yes. do i think she had good intentions at heart but just majorly fucked it up? also yes" - "she has so much depth oh my god" - "look idk I just want to make sure she gets submitted to the bracket because you’re so right that she belongs here" - "Rose gets a lot of shit because we saw her character arc in reverse. The situation is very messy but it’s also very nuanced, and regardless on how the discourse hammer judges her, I will always love her." HATE: - "Yeah" - "Anti : I'm not one her biggest hater but I can't forgive her for what she did to Pearl, and the other crystal gems. I've read some interesting defenses of the character but I can't get past all the lying, leaving and (accidental) abusing." BOTH: - "Is there a proper way to say that I loved her for a while in the show, but the showrunners kept piling blame onto her with less and less justifiable and more and more abuse of power things (without including counterbalancing reminders of how much she loved the planet and helping people) and so I kind of. Love early Rose Quartz, the complicated war leader with a messy past that she's escaping from, but hate Pink Diamond?"

[candyskiez]

Steven Universe! And She-ra

Fair warning, I haven't watched either of these in a long time

For SU:

Favorite female character: Pearl. I love her so much. Her grief is just so damn realistic and I really like how they went about developing her. A big strength of the show to me is how even the characters who are meant to be undeniably very good people still do awful shit sometimes. Pearls a big example of this. She's so human and the whole sardonyx plot is what made me start liking her and she only became a better character as the show went on. She's just so good man and I really like that her arc isn't about finding another lover or anything. Maybe she gets another in the future but idk. I'm glad they didn't include it in the show? It's nice to see her be able to heal and be single at the same time. Yknow?

Favorite male character: Steven! Another huge selling point of the show for me was the show exploring how common cartoon things would shape a characters mental health and development. Steven feels exactly how a real person in that situation would realistically develop and it's very interesting to me. I want to study him under a microscope.

Favorite season: Season three! Idk a lot of my favorite episodes are from there. Definitely a highlight of the show for me.

Favorite episode: A Single Pale Rose. Sorry. Other favorites are alone at sea, back to the kindergarten, volleyball, Mr Greg, Friend Ship, now we're only falling apart, Log Date, and monster reunion.

Favorite ship: Pearlrose, by far. Only ship I got properly invested in from this show. They're just so interesting and messy and complicated. Their situation was so fucked up and kind of doomed them to be on unhealthy footing with each other but they tried so damn hard and maybe if they'd just had more time, maybe if Rose had just chosen to live, maybe they could've fixed it!!! Aaaaagh!!! It drives me insane, man.

Character I'd die defending: Rose. What can I say that hasn't been said already man

Character I just can't sympathize with: I'm not poking the discourse bears

A character I grew to love: Amethyst but honestly most of the cast. The vast majority of the cast started out pretty unlikable and then just grow on you.

Anti op: Bellow diamond. I just don't like it, nothing personal.

She ra:

Favorite female character: Adora!!! I love her!!!! She's so much more interesting than people give her credit for. I will always wish we got more episodes centered around what her time in the horde was like + her own personal experiences with shadow weaver, as well as more of her feelings on the big split, because what we got was so interesting ad aarvhhhhh.

Favorite male character: Bow. He is underrated (partly due to wasted potential.) He was so interesting in season four and man. Man. I wish we got more episodes with him? Man we couldve had it alllll. The world if Bow had an episode focused on him. I wanna know more about him! Arrghfhhfhfhf.

Favorite season: Season four, hands down. It's a really really good season. I don't think I dislike a single episode from it they're all bangers. Also protocol is underrated. The insight we get into Light Hope and the horde trio was so good and added so much to the show and Glimmers arc in it was top tier idc what yall say. Also YAY BOW DEPTH!!!! I loved him being bitter and messy and burnt out!!!! I loved the guy who fixes everything not being able to fix it and being hit with it because he is the only one trying! He wants everything to be okay and nobody else wants that! Everyone else just wants to be right! And nobody wonders how bows doing! Idk bow really gets to shine in that season I loved it.

Favorite episode: Fractures. It's a really, really good episode. But im torn between that and princess scorpia? They're both just so so good man.

Favorite ship: Do you even have to ask (catradora. It's catradora.)

Character I'd die defending: Glimmer. Yall don't know her like I do. Also Adora. I would defend her in court.

Character I can't sympathize with: Once again, I am not poking the discourse bears.

A character I grew to love: Scorpia. She's one of my favorites, unexpectedly. If I actually dissected why I love her I'd be airing out my deepest emotional traumas publicly.

Anti otp: Glimmadora out of nothing but pure spite. I have no problem with the ship itself but the discourse got so bad that everytime I see it I die a little. Like it's a good ship! But the fucking discourse man. Terrifying.

[myopicry]

Ty again for responding to my question! This ask is less of a question and more of a mini ramble/vent of my own, idk if you'll find this interesting, pls don't feel obliged to answer this, if not I'll be back with more interesting stuff sooner or later. (disclaimer: im unsure of what terminology to use when) I don't consider myself as a radfem or GC, but in my past month or so of consistent lurking i'd say i've adopted some of the perspectives and opinions, whilst still being supportive of trans ppl and wanting feminism to result in equality between the sexes (i personally believe that this equality and the liberation of women aren't mutually exclusive but that's a different can of worms, also not saying that radfems and GCs can't also be those things). So it kind of shocks me when I at times return to more trans positive/inclusive (?) spaces and see how they talk about TERFs or just radfems in general. I'm skipping the part about how I don't see their arguments in the same light anymore, and more focusing on how they talk about those groups (while most of the time seemingly not having properly looked into them). Like, I have my fair share of criticisms for those 2 communities as an outsider looking in, but they're a lot more constructive and not as "automatic, knee-jerk reaction"-ish than what I've seen from TRAs(?). Furthermore, although I don't think radfems and GCs are necessarily always the nicest to trans ppl or even other qu**r groups, I've seen them being willing to engage in civil debates, clarifying that they don't wish harm on the opposite side/expressing some sympathy to at least a part of the opposite side, denouncing the issues within their own communities, encouraging each other to participate in more "tangible" activism (ex: volunteering at women's shelters), etc more commonly and on a more regular basis than TRAs (?) (not sure what terminology to use lol sorry).

What's even more surprising is that I feel like I can have a civil conversation with most, if not all, of my trans friends without it absolutely obliterating our friendship and mutual respect for each other and even ending up agreeing on some things, so it's odd to see such hostility towards even just *engaging with an opposing belief* and *asking more direct questions* online. Maybe it's more prevalent there than irl? Anyway, if you read this entire thing, thanks and I hope you found it entertaining at the very least x) 'till next time! ~🪼

hey I would be a hypocrite to not enjoy listening to other people ramble considering how much of it I do myself lmao

but also, I genuinely really enjoyed reading this! I totally agree with the sentiment. I did find it super interesting myself in my lurking journeys when the characterization of "terfs" was always built around word of mouth information, the worst faith interpretations of any radfem point, and constant reiteration of how they're irredeemable traditionalists who were completely not worth listening to and directly supporting hategroups (which. is pretty hyperbolic especially if you're addressing radblr lmao).

where as radfems always characterized "tras" directly with screenshots, literally listening to them and displaying them as they are. and yeah, even in radfem spaces where there can be varying disagreements, there is still some level of discussion or debate where you can trace back the discourse and see why they disagree. then, in contrast, when I lurk through broader lgbtq discourse,it's always full of calling people whatever-phobic and just never trying to understand the actual reasons behind any arguments. or it's people over-intellectualizing to the point of nonsense, then still turning around and straw-manning their opponent regardless.

and honestly, it probably is an online thing. the demographic of people online in these communities are just getting younger and everyone is getting more personal too. your identity and digital reputation are now "at stake" in the spaces you frequent, and all your friendships have become your "mutuals" who are an extension of your online personhood and credibility, so you MUST curate your space and your relationships to be unproblematic and aligned with popular opinion as to not be ostracized from these spaces and make yourself look bad.

In real life, people strive to care less what others think of them, and thus can entertain disagreement and nuance while not feeling threatened. online, people are quite literally incentivized to care what others think of them because what's the point of going online otherwise (yknow, if you disregard learning more about different perspectives and using the breadth of the world wide web to learn new things and deepen your understanding). ok, before I start ranting like a boomer comic strip on the "evils of social media" and how the youth are using the internet badly, I'll cut myself off :p

really really well written insights though anon! literally it is always a great time for me when I log on to this website and see you hanging out in the inbox! thank you, and I hope to see you soon !! ヾ(＾∇＾)

[2af-afterdark]

I'm in the VERY VERY vocal minority about this but tbh I'm kinda glad that the angel units are behind paywals. Bc their stories are really dicey and I am NOT strong enough for the discourse that would come out of that. Like, I understand this whole ordeal was handled terribly but I'm just trying to look for silver linings at this point.

Also I doubt pb will learn their lesson. They got their money already and this announcement was just salt in the wound. I wasn't surprised that the angel units wouldn't be added to the main gacha. Plus they only seem to work well with other angel units so putting them in the main gacha would dilute it further. Though I guess since a lot of people are saying they're Uninstalling so maybe they'll see it plus their emails are probably getting blown up.

All in all. It's disappointing but unsurprising. I at least wished they'd just given us S rank Gabe as part of the challenge since he's technically in the game. But as soon as I saw that it was L rank I knew they wouldn't give it out for free.

Sorry for rambling. I'm just holding out for the main story at this point.

Okaay so, maybe I'm not communicating this well but... having limited time cards is not the issue for me. The issue is how trash PB's communication is and how predatory and money-hungry they are being. They should have said in the announcements that the angels would be limited time and not added to the pool. I get certain cards being only for a limited time (that's what most gacha do). The issue was that they said nothing until later, which establishes that they can and will change the rules whenever they feel like it without warning. It doesn't have to do with if the units are good or bad. They could literally be the worst units in the game and I would still be upset because of what they are communicating to the players; that we are not worth keeping informed.

I admit that I am not happy they are paywalled, but that's because I'm never happy when cards (a huge bulk of the gameplay for a gacha) are completely paywalled. I find it gross and predatory. Also, it may sound heartless of me, but this game has so many problematic elements that if people get spicy over the content with the angels... I don't know what to say? The game is very open about what it is. It has many dub/noncon elements, intense kinks (two of them are literally decapitation and necrophilia), violence, etc. If the angels are the thing that starts the discourse, I will have to wonder who ignored all the other similar shit without saying something. If the cards are going to start discourse, they will do that regardless of the paywall. But, again, idk why they would when anyone walking into this game should already be aware of what it is.

And, no, I don't expect them to learn their lesson. The only way they would learn anything is if it hits them in the paycheck. The fact that people pay for Solomon Seals continues to encourage PB to use Solomon Seals to earn money. Unless the whales stop spending money on these practices, PB will keep using them (they why I don't, even though i am one person and my resolve means little in the grand scheme). Unless the sudden evacuation of players are whales (who seem to be the only ones PB cares about at this point), I doubt the company will notice.

Gabriel though, does genuinely upset me. Like I said in a previous response, battle pass systems like this tend to have free rewards and paid rewards. The rewards are usually the same but the free path gives out the main reward much later (think earning the card at level 200 for a free path versus earning it at level 120 for the paid path). This is usually fine because, though difficult, both paid and free players can earn the final reward. It's a small way of rewarding players for, you know, playing the game. This is especially true because battle passes require frequent log-ins and active participation. But Gabriel, the ultimate reward for the battle pass, can only be acquired after doing all that work plus spending $60. I find that gross.

I'm a whale. I do spend money on this game, but I am careful about how I spend that money. I pay for the daily log-in bonuses (the extra AP and keys). I have bought several event packs. I own every sticker pack. Basically, the only thing I don't do is pay for Solomon Seals. I simply want PB to not alienate a huge chunk of the players just because they can't, won't, or don't want to shell out money. It's about the principle of the matter to me.

As for S-rank Gabriel... He's okay. He's a good unit in battle, but he comes with no intimacy (so no comic, info, etc). Also, my guess is that they wouldn't add him to the general pool afterward either. After all, Minhyeok wasn't added after he left. Plus, my guess is they don't want to do that since they plan to release more packs, including those that sell Gabriel. Less incentive to buy his pack if you can just earn him in the general pool.

[sokkastyles]

The Azula stans are going to be fucking unbearable when the "Azula in the Spirit Temple" comic comes out, since it hints at her redemption which automatically means she never did anything wrong. I don't consider the comics canon because they are so bad and OOC, but the stans will be rubbing it in everyone's face forever. They aren't going to do it well, considering it took Zuko 3 seasons to change and all Azula gets is a comic series to deal with her far worse crimes. One of the Azula stans, the one you were arguing with on that long ass post also says they are involved with it or something like that, so idk what sorta writing this comic is going to have. Probably gonna have Zuko abusing Azula or whatever, since they seem very happy in their last reblog of that post lol. I almost hope she doesn't change just to spite the stans. If they make Ursa, Iroh and Zuko out to be bad people I will be done.

I actually would like to see an Azula redemption, and part of me does want to see what the writers come up with because I do think that connecting Azula to the spirit world is the way to go there, but I agree that it won't be done well. I foresee a few different scenarios happening:

Azula gets a redemption but it's not good enough for these stans because it's an ACTUAL redemption where Azula has to actually face and admit her crimes and stop behaving abusively, and her stans don't want that and will claim it's not a REAL redemption. I mean, the series has been hinting at it for a while and the stans are still up in arms about how the writers hate her and want nothing but to abuse her. "The Search" does a lot to make her a sympathetic villain but her stans act like Gene Yang is the devil for it. It's still not good writing but it's obvious that the writers want her to be sympathetic to the reader.

The writers try to cater to Azula's fanbase and do a half-assed redemption, which may or may not be accepted. I mean, witness the pushback in recent years to the likes of Kylo Ren or Catra because their redemptions didn't have near the thought put into them that Zuko's did. Either the stans will eat it up or they'll use it to fuel their vendetta because what Azula gets won't be as good as what Zuko got and they will HATE that.

The problem is that bad redemption arcs, if not done carefully, run the risk of running into the same kind of victim blaming that these stans spout on a constant basis. Even if the writing doesn't make Zuko/Iroh out to be bad, there's the inherent implication, that already exists because we see it already in the discourse, that they're horrible for not sacrificing themselves for Azula and putting up with her constant abuse. What Ehasz described, the scenario where Zuko serves as Azula's long-suffering Iroh, is a nice thought, but it carries the implication that this is the virtuous way for an abuse victim to respond to their abuse. I find it hard to believe that Ehasz would even write that, no matter what statements he makes on twitter fifteen years after he had any involvement with the show, because when he was actually writing the show, even redeemed Zuko never became a doormat who only lives for Aang and the others. See also the constant discourse about how he's horrible for disagreeing with Aang or getting mad at Sokka for poking him with a stick.

See also the amount of crap that Zuko puts up with from Azula in the Search, but you know how the discourse around that goes. It's not enough because these stans WANT to see her as the ultimate victim, so any kindness offered to Azula can be twisted into actually another way that she's a victim.

I very much doubt that that person is involved at all with the comic. I've also seen them claim that they voiced Azula in some promotional materials, which I also doubt. They seem like the kind of person who naturally vacillates towards characters like Azula because they fuel their sense of grandiosity and victimization. I wouldn't believe anything they say. I'm still not sure they're not a troll trying to parody Azula stan accounts.

[heretherebedork]

Random Midnight Museum thought: Maybe it's just because I'm ace, but TBH I've never needed any romance (straight, gay, or otherwise) to have any 'physical' confirmation onscreen or on-page for it to still obviously be canon romance. For example, I've read so many of those old plot-heavy light-BL mangas where the leads not only never had a bed scene but some never even kissed, yet they were obviously still life partners in-story, and that was plenty fine enough for me. Or even elements like romances (of any persuasion) in some other plot-heavy stuff where, say, one character ends up sacrificing themself for the other a short while after mutually confessing or something, like okay sure they may have never gotten a chance to consummate the relationship or whatnot, but they were obviously still in love, and would obviously have been partners, you know? So to me all of that still counts as romance. I mean, don't get me wrong, I also do still enjoy seeing characters in fiction getting good and kissed/etc. (if they want to) just as much as the next person, haha. I'm just saying that if Museum does continue to go the no-kissing/etc.-onscreen route all the way through the ending, that wouldn't necessarily mean that the characters aren't still canon romantic partners in-story (and not just in all of our head-canons, which I fully admit I've been deep in right from the start right along with you, and am never gonna let die no matter what the narrative ends up saying, haha). Anyway. TL;DR: Maybe I'm just old and remember the time when high-heat (or really ANY heat) content wasn't as prevalent as we have now (plus, you know: ace), but like, just because there's no kissing/sexual stuff onscreen doesn't necessarily mean they're not still an actual couple? IDK, I just felt like adding that to all the discourse I've been seeing about this show in general, haha. 🤷‍♀️

Okay, as another ace (and, for that matter, mostly aro) person... this is an interesting ask that also goes a lot into how queer relationships are shown and characterized and what makes a relationship a life partner/romantic relationship and what that means and there are so many more qualified people to discuss this than me...

But I'm watching Midnight Musem and I watch a lot of BL and I have my own little subset of knowledge so let's try this... And if I fuck up, I'm doing my best.

The main issue here boils down to is... what makes a romance and what are looking for in a romance?

Like, when I talk about not expecting anything queer in Midnight Museum I am calling back to the days of my youth when any queerness in a mainstream show was in your imagination. I am calling back to the days when I called myself a slasher and I wrote all kinds of queer relationships into stories that were never, ever going to do that.

And that is what I expect from Midnight Museum.

But what I see here is a high correlation in your ask between high heat and confirmed romance and those are two very separate and very different issues that cannot be addressed in the same breath.

I have zero high heat thoughts about Midnight Museum. Even if they do make it queer and even if they do have romance it will not be high heat. It will be, most likely, a confession and a maybe maybe maybe kiss. Maybe. And that if it's confirmed queer in the show which I am very much not saying is going to happen.

And putting 'confirmed queer romance' and 'high heat' on the same level of importance is... something I'm not comfortable with, honestly.

When I say that I think KhathaDome isn't going to be canon or happen in the show, I don't mean 'they're not gonna fuck but the show will say they're in a relationship'. I mean 'the show is never going to mention or imply them to be in any form of romantic relationship'.

Yes, in the past, I have read and watched and enjoyed and loved many queer ships that were not canonically queer. No hesitation. I still do. I am planning to enjoy Midnight Museum, after all!

But your ask seems to imply that just the idea of them living together is enough to imply a relationship and that's just... not true, honestly. If the show implies they share a bed on the regular despite not needing to and live together and share a life or has a love confession? That'd be a confirmed queer relationship and then Midnight Museum would have given us the relationship as something that happened in the show, canonically.

I am struggling with this because, as someone who doesn't care about high heat at all and mostly ignores it even in shows I enjoy, I still find the idea that queer relationships can be just sort of vaguely implied in 2023 and still be considered enough.

If Midnight Museum gets to the same level of queer that Good Omens, I will be ecstatic. Because no, queerness is not 'just' about sex or making out or high heat. But it is about being queer and being in a relationship.

But I don't expect that here. At all. I expect the show to go on its merry way teasing us with hints of something but making sure that it always stays friendship in the show because that's what they're doing. Am I certain? No. Who knows? I don't know, I can't predict that stuff.

But the idea that the dichotomy is high heat versus low heat in this scenario is a false one. This about queer versus not queer and this is about a relationship versus a friendship. Implying a life partnership that they choose in each other is one thing and that would be welcome but that is not a guarantee and that is not what most of us are hoping for.

I do think that a kiss is important to many aspects of making a romantic relationship (I know @absolutebl holds to that strongly and I do agree with them) but I would be happy if this show even implied any kind of relationship...

Anyway.

This went on forever, I did my best to express this but what I'm really trying to say is that no one is implying that they're not going to be close and in each other's lives when we say it's not going to be a queer show, we're saying that the show itself is not going to embrace their relationship as a romantic one regardless of the heat level.

But I think the real answer is... no. It's not enough anymore to just vaguely imply that maybe they're in relationship but one that never involves kisses or saying the word or speaking of their love. It's not enough. The world is moving past that.

[ca-suffit]

same anon… thank you for your response, i take your point and don’t rly disagree with what you’re saying… the nuclear family analogy is definitely there and i think bc of the time period they were somewhat boxed into this heteronormative dynamic but i still see shades of like a mother/daughter dynamic with lestat and claudia (he “made” her for example, baby traps louis in the book which is seen as a more feminine thing, kind of gives strict helicopter mom to louis’ more “chill dad” vibe) and i don’t see why those interpretations can’t coexist and why that reading automatically “masculinises” louis. there is definitely an issue w this fandom hypermasculinising louis/black men and i would definitely never consider louis to be “the man” in the relationship or whatever. it’s the same with top/bottom discourse when in reality i don’t think it’s that binary. but tbh what i mostly don’t like is when people get into the territory of “lestat weaponises femininity” or arguments that his feminine traits are inauthentic/a facade to conceal his real self being a patriarchal abuser. it feels very terfy and icky considering his misogyny/toxic masculinity is learned but his queerness/femininity is genuine

(context)

I'm glad I didn't scare u off! so much of this fandom (and prbly in general) ppl leave if there's any disagreement in opinions. they only want an echo chamber. it's pointless. idgi. anyway tho.

I kind of got lost whether ur talking about the show or book at a point. between them all tho, I do agree there's multiple interpretations in ways, especially if ur going across *all* of the versions. if it wasn't so antiblack here, we could prbly more easily talk about a lot of things more openly. when ppl shut down one discussion then it puts everyone on edge and we can't talk about much of *anything* else bcuz we aren't even addressing the main thing yet. a lot of this show's fandom issues are that white gays takeover every conversation and aren't interested in hearing about any racial aspects at all, even tho the main character of the show is a BLACK gay man. all ppl want to talk about is lestat and how louis should just listen to him and stop being so "mean" and on and on. it's prbly gonna be insufferable for S3 but I'm trying to avoid thinking about that lol.

"what i mostly don’t like is when people get into the territory of “lestat weaponises femininity” or arguments that his feminine traits are inauthentic/a facade to conceal his real self being a patriarchal abuser. it feels very terfy and icky considering his misogyny/toxic masculinity is learned but his queerness/femininity is genuine"

what the fuck?? well, I do know this fandom has sides to it that are v "phobic" to all of the LGBT community. tbh anne rice's writing about gay men isn't as progressive as ppl think either, so it's rly not surprising some of her fans are fucked up about it. I forget a lot that she wasn't a huge conservative bcuz her writing makes her sound like one sometimes.

but anyway. ppl need to learn all the ways that literally everyone can be a shitty person and for what reasons too. there's rampant abuse and racism in the LGBT community too, from any identity. there's no way to spot an abuser and say "these are the traits of an abuser and these are traits of a victim." lestat is never shown using any of this stuff to avoid accountability for his harmful shit...or weaponizing it?? I haven't seen these posts so idk what exactly they're saying, but based on what u wrote. tbh, as u said, it sounds like ppl just wanted a way to be homophobic and/or transphobic in a dog whistle way. this fandom *loves* doing that shit.

[bluegekk0]

bit of a ramble incoming, feel free to ignore. i'll put it under a read more thing in case it gets long

i think i've reached a point where i made such a specific image of the au characters in my head that i can't enjoy them outside of it anymore. like, it's really hard for me to separate the two, if i hear "grimm" i think of the au grimm, it's hard to think of him outside of the au context. idk if i'm making sense

but weirdly enough i'm kind of glad that's the case? i can definitely feel my interest in the game and especially fan content slipping away, and i would've likely moved on to something else by now. but i love the au, i love it so much, i still think about it daily and all of the lore and personalities i made for these characters keeps me going

i guess feeling uncomfortable with some ships or headcanons because of how strongly i associate the characters with my versions is something i just have to live with. usually it's not bad, it's quite easy to ignore it since i don't specifically go looking for hk fanart and fanfics these days. i guess what bothers me the most is when people leave that kinda stuff under my art. y'know the usual pk discourse and jokes kind of comments especially. it's unavoidable, and i can't blame people for not knowing all of the lore of my au, but i think that's the most irritating and upsetting part of all of this. it's the reason why i stopped posting as much art in some spaces, all the jokes about pk killing children real get old, and a bit upsetting whenever they're targeted at fpk (since the whole thing is so much more nuanced in the au)

in some ways i also feel like i alienated myself a little. i'm so deep in the grimm x fpk rabbit hole that i don't have much in common with people who stick to wyrmroot. hell, the way i wrote wl in the au kind of makes me dislike her (as a person, that is. i still think she's a cool character, i just made her a bit of a shitty person since i kinda like her as the more unpleasant of the two. the cold and uncaring tree being), and i feel like a lot of those people wouldn't like what i've done with it. same goes for hornet and all the headcanons and interpretations where she hates her father. i see where those come from, but i kind of feel like an outlier with how i portray her in the au. and of course there's fpk himself. i don't have to tell you how much he differs from your usual pk interpretations. but he means so much to me that i genuinely can't see him any other way

that being said, i love the au too much to stop because of any of this, and the fact that there are people who enjoy it gives me another reason to keep going. it's my comfort au, and i'm so, so glad i can share that feeling with you all, and reveal more about it as i write it. i've never been so invested in anything before, not to this extent, so it makes me so happy that there is an audience that supports it. i love you guys so much, you have no idea. i can't thank you enough

honestly i don't know what point i'm trying to make here. i just wanted to put it into words, i suppose. i may have already mentioned some of this before, but it's still constantly on my mind and i wanted to get it out of my system. but again, thank you guys for still being here. it means so much to me

[mermaidsirennikita]

to add to the Princess conversation, it wouldn't be common to find narratives where the hero fucks other women so openly in front of the heroine in a modern HR and if it was written ppl would lose their shit in the reviews lol I thought it was really refreshing the way it is written in Princess even though I don't even like the scenario personally it just felt interesting to read bc I knew I wouldn't find now like the author truly wrote freely

Oh for sure. If we're thinking about the same scene, I personally have no issue with it because a) I kind of love that shit in books I'm not even gonna lie b) it was before Darius and Serafina got together c) he had noooo concept that they would ever be ABLE to be together. And I think Darius's relationship with sex and trauma, which (I'm almost done with the book) is similar to Lazar's but not quite the same, informs why that scene happened. His sense of self worth is... not great.

And that's the kind of thing you would honestly not see as effectively if we didn't get a look into his sexual relationships with other women. And it's not at length, we don't have these long scenes, but we see that he's slutty and it hurts Serafina's feelings because even though there's no chance that they can be together and she's in fact engaged to another man, she still loves him and knows he knows she loves him and so on. BUT! Later on, when you're in his POV, you suddenly realize "Oh, it actually wasn't this fun and sexy time for Darius, he has a LOT of issues" (many of them related to his mom, SHOCKER the breastfeeding hero has mommy issues).

I often see readers say "well I could have gotten that without that scene" COULD YOU THO. Because to me, a real issue in the romance reading discourse about What is Good and What is Bad in romance is that people only read what they specifically KNOW they're good with. They never even try something else.

And that's fine. You can do that. But if you are ONLY going to try what you know for sure isn't going to push your boundaries in any sense, then I personally don't want to hear about what you think the genre shouldn't do. I'm not talking about people reading shit that triggers them. I'm not talking about saying, "Well, I don't really love a book where the hero has sex with a woman before the heroine on the page, but everyone says this is amazing and otherwise it sounds like my shit, so I'm going to try it".

I have recommended books to people that they get so excited about, and when I mention one thing that is not triggering but is simply not to their taste, they will just go "oh never mind". And again, that is FINE. But if all you're reading is books that don't do it, I don't think you can tell me that it never works and that it doesn't belong in the genre. Which some people absolutely do. "No cheating in romance" okay but you also won't try this book by your #1 favorite author that has all the other tropes you love that all your book friends endorse because it has cheating in it.

I don't think I'd care as much, but because romance has SO much discourse about What is Right and What is Wrong at the moment, I do think it's pushing a lot of authors to be safer. If you're constantly being bombarded with takes that say "I WILL NEVER READ THIS BC X" or whatever, and all you wanna do is sell a book in a very competitive, commercial market... idk.

And I actually think the market is much more curious and open to exploring than a lot of vocal online people would make you think, lol; because the online audience is very rarely truly representative of the average audience. Like, the average person who loves Ali Hazelwood isn't watching a million booktok takes about how her book had This Thing so you shouldn't read it. They just one-click her books because they love Ali. The GENRE may influence them more than the takes--I'm thinking of my friend who ADORES Ali but hasn't read Bride because she's reluctant to try PNR (booooo).

However, the prevalence of social media makes these things seem bigger. When Gaelen wrote Princess, she went off with her "Serafina sees Darius fucking another woman before they get together" shit, and her virgin lactation shit, and Serafina being a very spoiled brat who is beautiful and knows it and uses her beauty, and Darius having the self worth of a broken twig...

She didn't have all the takes and the admittedly dramatically transformed market on her mind. And conversely, because there was more of a divide between the reader and the author, the readers often did try shit that wasn't really their thing. Sometimes they liked it; sometimes they didn't. You weren't sitting there thinking about a billion tropes, tbh. You saw a hot cover and read the back copy and took it home. Or, you saw the author's name and went "I love Nora Roberts" and went out on a limb and tried her vampire books even though you'd only read her contemporaries. And maybe you liked it and read the other two books in the trilogy, and maybe you didn't.

I think it's kind of a snake eating its own tail thing, where the market has become so responsive to the loudest readers (by no means all readers... readers of color and LGBT+ readers and disabled readers who ask for rep and often don't get it comes to mind) that it moves incredibly quickly, and authors are just throwing shit at the wall trying to build an audience, and the quickest way to do that is by throwing the shit that the wall SCREAMS it wants and not throwing the shit that the wall SCREAMS is bad. Even if that's what YOU as an author like. And often, I gotta say, especially in the early parts of an author's career, I think that the best results will come from the author saying "fuck it, I'm gonna write what I would want to read".

Unfortunately, I don't think that's really as much the philosophy anymore. Writing to market has always been a part of romance and will always be a part of every commercial genre (I mean, look at how historicals have become sooo Regency- and Victorian-centric--that happened before social media took over the book spaces), but it has become a bit more confined, imo.

So that is something I've discovered I really love about reading older books. You can tell this person was like "fuck it, I wanna write this shit".

[bythenineshards]

Omg what was up with that Feysand stan on ur post????? ITS JUST A THEORY. (Not to mention a MUCH better pairing) and lol if Feysand was always endgame why in the fck does Rhysie SA Feyre??? Did Sjm do that to build sexual tension (cause Feyre says in Acomaf she had "wanted him even then") AND THAT'S INFINITELY WORSE!!

Lmao they tried to fire up on one of my posts too and I immediately blocked them. Seen them one too many times fighting about posts that's none of their business. Like life is so empty u need to fight with strangers on the internet to feel something. I am literally so mad not them saying Tamlin Apologists deserve to be bullied?!?!? For liking a fictional character????!!

I took personal offence to that

Ha! See! I told you I would respond today. I totally didn't get sucked into Skyrim and my writing and nearly forgot.

Idk what their problem was. They blocked me like the first week I was on here so I didn't think much of them. I knew about them because there would be discourse on posts and an invisible opponent. So I guess they unblocked me to stir shit and idk, get more traffic to their blog? They rebranded with a name that is clearly meant to draw in Antis of Feysand. I think they're like 15 and so I guess they're in their "I'm edgy look at me phase" where they want to pick fights because they think they're always right and special. I'm so glad I didn't grow up with my cringe behavior on the internet.This is why we don't sell erotica or "dark romance" to children. They can't handle speculation or discussions. I bet they cry over Marvel's What If... series because it's not Canon. Like... the post that had them all fired up was speculation about something we have receipts for. And a lot of people liked the idea. All they do is make the books look worse.

And the way they talk about Feyre vs. Nesta is like they think they're written by two different people. This isn't Harry Potter (fuck you Rowling) vs. Twilight (fuck you Meyers). I don't think Feyre gets a free pass to transform into a person of another race just cuz Nesta and Gwyn modelled their stuff after the Valkyries. I think both are bad and icky because the same author wrote both and clearly doesn't see how offensive that could be. I do, however, think that there's a difference between what Feyre did and the Blood Rite. Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie were kidnapped and forced into the Blood Rite. They didn't actually choose to.

Side note though: Valkyries are from Norse mythology. It does chap me that she couldn't use a mythology or create something new for her Illyrians to flesh out their culture. She just used a primarily white culture for her non-white character's culture.

Sorry to rant about that. It just irked me.

I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would ship Feysand the way it's written in Canon. I can with 100% confidence say I've never written a romance that involved anyone SAing anyone. Hell, I don't feature SA at all really. I don't want it in my fantasy. I want people to find peace and love in my books. Men have written enough SA in fantasy, it doesn't need any from me.

But like... if you look at their posts, the reason I don't like Feyre is because I wanted "my fav" to end up with Rhys. They can't fathom that I don't like Rhys at all. I don't like any of her men. They don't appeal to me at all. The only one I might’ve had any inkling of interest in is Kallias but I'm sure if we spent more than a handful of pages with him, I'd hate him too. I think she'd eventually change all of them regardless of appearance to something shallow and toxic.The Bat Boys specifically are boring to me. Their designs suck, their personalities suck and the way they treat their women sucks. Nothing I see in her books is what I would classify as love. Her books aren't about love. They're about sex with hot dudes. But you know what? Other books do romance, love and even just sex better.

I'm glad you blocked them. Just know, they still spy on us.

Thank you for your ask. I hope you're doing well.

[fishboneart]

Fishbone #005

They weren't kidding, that history can rhyme

Only 9 layers and 5 source images this time. Things don't always have to be a federal fucking issue.

With how much ai art wank discourse is rooted in purity politics, especially but not exclusively on tumblr, I was amused by the mental image of slipping into a hazmat suit before venturing into the dangerous and repulsive wasteland of ai art to retrieve alien salvage like the stalkers in Roadside Picnic. It doesn't feel like that, it feels like being a grabby little corvid in the shiny trinket factory, but I still enjoyed the concept.

The rest of the image is about art as alchemical process and I'm not going to explain it.

I've been observing for some time that the objections to ai art are indistinguishable from the objections to photoshop ~20-25 years ago (including the one about "it's different this time bro trust me") so I want to look at some of them a bit closer.

It's not real art

Stop getting your talking points from fascists.

But-

I don't care how you justify it, it's a fascist talking point. Stop.

It's stealing

At risk of resurrecting stupid bullshit I was already bored with 20 years ago, I honestly think there's a better case for this regarding PS than machine learning. PS artists actually do use elements from existing images, lots of them (ideally with permission/license). However, consensus opinion has long since concurred that PS artists substantially transform and recontextualise those elements and the result is an original creation, same as physical collage.

As I've come to understand it, ML doesn't use elements from existing images, just mathematical descriptions of image attributes. It doesn't incorporate images on any level, or even pieces of images, so I'm left wondering what's being stolen here? I'm not being shitty I genuinely can't see anymore what is stolen when ML simply does not use any part of any existing image to generate an image.

There's no skill/creativity involved

The first time I ever used adobe photoshop (I've long since switched to GIMP, change the name, FOSS 5evar, etc.) I spent about fifteen minutes excitedly stacking filters on a picture of a butterfly, before the person showing me how it worked dismissively explained that filters don't make art.

Elements and principles of design are learned skills. They're taught at art school because they're not innate and they're important as hell. I often feel like people are tacitly arguing all that stuff's just padding--and if you're staunchly anti-ai-art I promise that's not an argument you want to make, it will backfire spectacularly on you.

And yeah, I think everyone still agrees that just piling filters on a photo isn't very creative and takes no particular skill. I doubt anyone thinks instagram filters take a good photo for you. I think (or hope) that we all understand now that complex image editing and manipulation does in fact take skill and creativity.

I can't help but wonder how much of the vapid trash we're seeing in the explosion of ai art is the equivalent of the 2000s explosion of shitty filtered photos.

The computer does it for you

There's so much more to PS art than filters, and the computer emphatically does not do any of that stuff for you. It doesn't do composition or colour theory or concepts or art history for you. It just does what you tell it to, you still have to make the art good. Fishbone #001 involved manually isolating dozens of fucked up hands from ML images, and I complained about it the entire time and the computer didn't even get me a cup of tea.

A lot of people used to actually genuinely believe that photoshop was a magical plagiarism machine that you stuck stolen art in and it automatically made perfect composites for you. Probably some people still do, it's a big world. But it never was true, no matter how hard they believed it.

Is there more to ML image generation? Idk I'd have to try it to find out for sure and I'm very tired. But the more I learn about it the more I think there could be. The frequency with which I see very elaborate and specific prompts with garbled and all-but-irrelevant images does at least suggest that the magical ease of making ai art has been somewhat oversold.

Using it in any way is cheating/cheapens your art

I think the cheating idea mostly came from the photography community, who thought PS was a shortcut to better photos for undisciplined talentless hacks who couldn't be bothered to learn to take a good photo. The irony. But for me, since I wasn't using it to improve photos, this was such a weird take. Cheating at what? At photoshop art? I'm cheating at photoshop by... using photoshop?

And the idea that using PS at any stage in your process irredeemably sullies your art is just stupid on its face. It's not radioactive. It's not a PFAS. Sin isn't real. Santa isn't putting you on the naughty list for photoshopping. The Galactic Council of Artistic Integrity aren't checking for pixels.

Needless to say, since 100% of the source images I use in this project are ML generated, I also think it's a bit of a silly objection to ML image generation.

It has no soul

I am not and have never been christian. I do not and will never care what your imaginary friend thinks about art.

Also, this is a repackaged fascist talking point. I told you to stop that.

It sucks

Most of everything sucks, what's your point?

People are going to lose their jobs

Unfortunately this one had some connection to reality. By about 2010 there were almost no painted book covers, and painters who'd made their living from them were forced to adopt PS or find a different job. It wasn't just book covers of course, commercial artists across the board felt the pinch of automation. That's not exactly PS's fault, the parasitic owning class will simply take any opportunity to fuck over a worker for half a buck, and PS art is generally cheaper because it's generally faster to make.

I actually have some questions about how this will play out with ML though. Currently, yes, it's looking very much like in ten years there won't be any PS book covers any more, but I think the parasitic owning class are going to quickly remember they don't actually want art that they can't hold copyright over, and human artists will remain necessary. No one wants a logo they can't trademark. No one wants commercial art if they can't control the licensing. I don't even think it'll take a wholeass test case, just a few things like selfpub novels using the same cover image as a major release or folks using pure ML images from the big stock sellers without paying, and as soon as they realise they can't sue anyone about it they'll come crawling back, cap in hand, to hire you back as a contractor at an insultingly low rate.

People will lose their jobs or find their billable hours severely cut, but, unfortunately, as the brave Luddites showed us, you can't stop automation by fighting the machine, no matter how noble your motives. You need to actually change society somewhat.

But I think this should be enough of a concern without having to also make shit up. You can just object to ML on the basis of tangible harms it will be used to inflict on individuals and society. That's plenty to be mad about, you don't need to put lipstick on it.

It's different this time bro trust me bro

Plenty of people sincerely believed that rise of PS was fully automated skill-free art theft and the sky was falling, and pointing out that all the same things were said about the invention of everything from the photocopier to home video to the printing press to the camera didn't even slow them down because this time it's different, this time it really is that bad. It wasn't.

And I honestly don't know anymore if it is.

[lunar-years]

I see we do salty takes today, I want to participate! The shippers made me dislike r/k, bc they are absolutely vile to others. Sorry why are you being casually homophobic bc someone enjoys another ship. It irks me with r/j and I hated it with jack/k. Especially bc they started that shit before we knew anything about their relationship. I also think the break up was a good decision, I initially wanted them to get back together, but after watching them both not really bettering themselves (+crazy takes) I think maybe they're just incompatible. You can love someone and still not want the same things in life, or have your needs met by them

oooh please do participate yes!! to be frank I carefully curate my tumblr experience so I only see what I wanna see and I never ever go into the tags because I'm afraid of what I may find. However, I do see that shit on twitter (where I lurk but do not partake in fandom stuff) and some of it has been...alarming to say the least. As another anon said, i think since the finale especially certain people have really taken something as inconsequential as their ship not being canon as blanket permission to flat out bully and insult the creators & writers of the show as well as other people in the fandom.

Not to preachy-preach at y'all but for a show centered around kindness and learning how to be better for one another as human beings... some of you... well...

Anyway it sucks when people being mean tarnishes your enjoyment of a ship or even a non-ship related thing so!! I'm sorry and you are so valid for your opinion! Personally I love roy/keeley, but these days it's pretty exclusively in a royjamiekeeley context. Mostly because I think they're both inextricably intertwined with Jamie Tartt iykyk, but I won't deny the crazy r/k takes have also played a role.

... If we want to be really spicy (and I say this in the least generalized way possible because there are AWESOME PEOPLE in all corners of this fandom 1000%)...I will say i find it...interesting...that royjamie exclusive shippers are by and large still so welcoming and nice to ot3 fans even when they don't personally care for the ship whereas roy/keeley shippers are much more likely to act like ot3 enjoyers are personally making threats against their families and blazing their crops or something idk like....hmm! I wonder why that might be! you need to calm down methinks 💖 jamiekeeley shippers barely count in this discourse because there are like five of us in total

[juniperhillpatient]

hey rose, it's heathers anon! been a while! hope you're having a good new year! have you seen the new mean girls?

just wanted to say i saw the post you just made and i wanted to share something that happened last night that really upset me (if that's ok)

remember how i ship janica (janis x veronica) and i realized i really liked shipcest? last night on ao3 two separate people, one after another, made me feel really bad about shipping them (in general), and considering i thought it was a party of one over here it really put me in a bad place.

the first one was a rated g fic with a tag that said "not a ship" and it's like? they didn't tag any relationships in it. romantic OR platonic. so yeah? of course it's not a ship here? no one was thinking that? literally no one? i click on it because it had some things that interested me anyway and the first thing i see is this:

!!!!!!!!NOT A SHIP!!!!!!!! if you ship this please back about 900,000 feet away from me Janis and Veronica are way too far apart in age for any canon ages to work because Veronica is about thirty years older than Janis at any given time so for this story Veronica: 19 Janis: 5

considering they also fucked with the ages for their story to work idk what they're trying to say here. also they made them cousins for some reason.

so that annoyed me and i was ready to write spite fic. but then i decided just close it and quit. but then i was like, no. so i'm writing spite fic.

the other was from a person i already don't like that much on another platform but i stumbled upon their ao3 anyway because i recognized the name. theirs IS a shipfic and i was like oh!! oh okay!!

and then the first thing i see when i opened theirs was this:

Welcome to the second Veranis fic on Ao3 that isn’t a fetish story! No offense to the fetishists, of course, but their work isn’t accessible to most people. [...] This crossover ship used to be my thing, so to speak; in fact, Veranis was my username on every platform for years because of it.

and it's like... there's only 9 fics tagged with this ship. including theirs, 5 are rated t. and the other 3 are m. 7 of those were written by a friend of mine for me. for the longest time the only one was an e-rated work.......... what the fuck are you talking about???

also i think my shipname is better. and i can write better than both of them. idk, i'm just... this ship is already so small, i thought i found more people to get excited about it with even if it's a) with someone i'm not very fond of, and b) without (imo) one of the more interesting aspects of their relationship. instead i feel more alone than ever and it just sucks.

sorry to be a debby downer. hope you're having better luck in your fandoms than i am <3

I find it very strange there are antis for such a small ship let alone that it’s because of age gap discourse when both characters are teenagers in their canon media. ? Also that there seems to be incest discourse when they… aren’t even from the same media let alone related? I mean you can write them as related of course but still…. Idk it’s such an odd, niche thing to try & police people over!

You did the right thing muting them like you mentioned in your other ask. I’d just try to avoid these specific people as annoying as it is to do in a small fandom. Anyway, keep creating the stuff you wanna create & don’t let the haters get you down!

I know you did not ask for advice per se but I would advise against writing spite fic. It’s my opinion that putting that much energy into this kind of discourse sucks the fun out of what’s supposed to be a creative outlet. If you wanna write a fic about Janis & Veronica do it out of love for the characters & your vision for the ship!

I have not seen the new Mean Girls but it seems really cool. My sister who also loves Mean Girls & musicals saw it & really liked it & I like Reneé Rap so I have high hopes 😊

[abyssal-werewolf]

I understand your frustration, but I can't help but feel like - and I don't mean this in a judgy way, just as neutral feedback - you're a bit too salty about this?? I'm not trying to start a fight or sound snappy or whatever, but it's just...

okay, let's start here: a huge part of the community are children, yes. that means most of the actual lifestyle-ish advice will be targeted towards folk still in school or just barely out of it. a 16 year old high schooler can't really give you advice on how to deal with your job (sorry, this sentence sounds kinda snappy but I can't seem to word it any better). I'm 22 and currently in university, living on my own with my boyfriend, we have to pay bills, manage the apartment, etc - advice for how to deal with shifts in school isn't helpful for me either and yeah, that kinda sucks, but those kids CAN'T give me advice on anything else lmao. also, from the POV of a teenager, anyone over Idk 25 (or even younger maybe) probably seems like a Real Adult and basically ancient. So naturally, those "old otherkin" are treated as community elders in a way, which makes sense because you very very rarely find nonhumans over 30 here on tumblr. doesn't mean they don't exist obviously, but they're probably on other websites and in forums. what I mean is (again, in a neutral way): if you feel weird in a community this young, maybe tumblr just isn't the right place for you. it's natural for generations to kind of, chill in seperate places because The Vibes of older and younger people are just different from each other. So, they will each find their own places and if you feel like the community here is too young for you, that's okay! but that doesn't mean the community is bad or "internet poisoned" - it's just not what you vibe with. what I'm mainly trying to say, is: I understand your disappointment, I really do, but instead of dwelling on this and seemingly forcing yourself to try and participate in a community that doesn't feel good to you, maybe you should try to focus your energy on finding places that DO feel nice and fitting.

on the definition of otherhearted: to my knowledge, the distinction is pretty clear. otherkin = identify as vs. otherhearted = identify with. I AM a werewolf but I see myself IN ravens. and about the whole "everyone had to figure it out for themselves" - yeah. that's the thing with identity after all. definitions and words can help to find ways to express what you feel, but you have to find out what you feel on your own. that does suck sometimes, true, but you saying you could learn more about yourself from a meet-up with other nonhumans than you could from reading essays just points this out. essays can give you words and insight in other's experiences but only you and your feelings can tell you what you are any which words might describe you. the same goes for coping mechanisms, what might work for others might not work for you. you can look for helpful tips online, but in the end you have to figure out how to deal with your urges at your workplace. I'm sorry, maybe I'm reading too much into your post, but that part of it just seems like you expect others to give you a definite guide on how to deal with your specific situation...

Lastly, I have to admit that I maybe took your post a tiny bit personal?? as in, I didn't feel attacked (that would be fucking pathetic anyway lmao) but I felt called to comment on it in a hopefully constructive way. Idk, something just doesn't sit entirely right with me when you call a panel someone put work into "useless garbage", just because it wasn't helpful to you personally. Also, I agree that a lot of discourse is pointless, but certainly not all of it - and you don't have to participate in it of course, but you just seem a little judgy towards people who do (and basically same thing with the comment on the "you're valid"-stuff, a huge chunk of it is annoying and useless, true, but just generally calling it stupid is... meh)

anyway, Idk if I will regret my long-ass comment or not, but to end this: I don't want to start a fight, nor do I have anything against you personally (I don't know you after all lol), nor am I angry or whatever. I just wanted to offer you a sort of different perspective ok things and also just, feedback. hopefully no bad blood after this and good day/night from your probably not-so-local werewolf ^^

Sorry for being so inactive lately... been busy irl, and have been meaning to post here more often, but also, like... I always feel a bit shy approaching the 'kin communities on here because it kind of feels like everyone is sort of... "internet poisoned"? For lack of a possibly-better word. A lot of folks here on tumblr in the 'kin and alterhuman communities are children, and a lot of more prominent community figures treated like "elders" are only about my age or younger, and it feels really strange, to be honest. There's a lot of discussion of feelings and terminology, but very little "lifestyle"? It's like there's a universal expectation for everyone to just figure everything out on their own; you get some definitions here and there yeah, but the amount of variance says much more loudly "just figure out what it all means on your own, pal". ex. Not only can no one actually explain what "otherhearted" actually means sans relation to otherkin, but it feels like I never see anyone talk about dealing with what one could call "kin feels" in the workplace, when unable to acquire your habitat, etc... Othercon is online-only, and while I'm pretty sure I'd be unable to attend an in-person event, part of me has a hard time feeling like everyone is really taking it all seriously and is really unafraid of being "cringe" when obviously it's so much easier to act like you're so confident online. I kinda feel like meeting some wolfkin stereotypes in a park for snacks and doing a group howl would do more for me than years of reading essays on tumblr ever has.

I dunno, I tried watching a recording of an Othercon panel I felt would be relevant and useful to me once, and was floored at just how... utterly useless it was. Despite its promising title, it was just shallow "you're valid" garbage and internet discourse... Makes me feel severely alienated, to be honest.