#if it's not your thing that is totally valid

[wirewitchviolet]

So I was already sitting down to ramble about something, and turns out this post and this big reply under it tie in pretty well, so, here we go.

There are enough bespoke issues trans people justifiably feel very passionate about, and enough different experiences different trans people have that it is damn easy to end up in a huge fight because one person tried to make a nice simple statement for a clueless cis audience, but viewed through another person's lens it reads like some kind of attack. And it certainly never helps that bigots are actively out there constantly trying to co-op messages and sew infighting that any statement no matter how clear and good WILL get weaponized.

Before I get into the above, the go-to example I was planning to use was "you don't have to transition to be trans." There's a ton of ways you can read that which are great and worth echoing. For instance, "hey, if you've worked out that people got your gender wrong, you are trans and can come hang out in the trans clubhouse and ask for advice and all that without proving it through medical intervention."

Or, "hey don't be a weird gatekeeping creep who only recognizes people's gender if they don't jump through a particular medical hoop like taking a particular medication or get a particular surgery, which might not be something they even want due to risks, side effects, or not seeing it as a problem to begin with, and/or might not be something they CAN do anything about, because the typical medical treatment would not work on them for any number of reasons/is prohibitively expensive/too socially dangerous to go forward with in their current situation/is only even done by like a couple dozen specialists in the world who are booked out years in advance and many of whom actively discriminate against all sorts of potential patients."

You can see how it's nice to have a short catchy phrase. BUT it's absolutely a reality that awful bigots these days are going with the wildly bad faith and not even remotely true reading of "it's OK to deny transition-related care to trans people, because they don't actually NEED it!"

And you know, regardless of where you're encountering this phrase, you should always bear in mind those points about being totally valid and welcome in the community without a signed doctor's note, and how it's completely valid to be, oh, a woman who's hung like a horse and proud of it and such women shouldn't be treated like they need to go see someone about that, give people the benefit of the doubt that they're using it in such a sense if there's any chance they are, and at the same time be on the lookout for bad faith creeps misusing it and taking whatever steps are necessary to prevent them from to or about any trans person again unless/until they somehow manage to stop being a hateful piece of garbage and somehow become a decent human being.

Phew. All THAT out of the, way, I take a fair deal of issue with seeing the comment above me saying "the 'not transgender' people in the poster are clearly intersex" because holy hell is that a bad faith reading. All the concerns regarding intersex kids following that jumping off point are super valid and worth mention, of course. Doctors are constantly looking at baby's junk, going "huh, that doesn't look right, lemme do a quick surgery I'm not even necessarily trained in to get this looking more like whichever configuration I personally prefer the aesthetics of here, that probably won't cause any long term memory problems or trauma and there's almost a 50/50 shot I'm guessing right about what this kid'll want things looking like down here in a couple decades!" And that is just incredibly messed up. As is the practice of just throwing, say, testosterone boosters at someone perceived to be a teenage boy who doesn't seem "manly enough" to someone, which is a general queer kid concern, sure.

But none of that is going on in this poster. What's going on is kids getting hit with puberty-related symptoms they do not want (specifically boobs beards and voice changes), clearly stating this, and asking for medical help to make them not happen. If we wanna play Occam's Razor with the kids plainly labelled as "not transgender," boys growing breasts is called gynecomastia and a quick Google search confirms that... it is completely useless as a search engine because it's giving me 20 conflicting reputable-looking sources ranging from 1% to 70% of teenage boys. Facial hair on cis women is also really freaking common, to a point where it being relatively rare if you're white specifically makes it feel more like a racism thing than anything.

The real thing to remember though is that the obvious reason this poster exists is to get people who are completely uneducated on any of this and have been steadily exposed to propaganda from transphobes for their entire lives to the point where they have a hard time imagining trans people as actual human beings to consider the concept of HRT from a clear perspective by taking us out of the equation for a moment and just making them try to empathise with kids dealing with some of the same stuff, and it has to make that point in less time than it takes someone to finish walking past this telephone pole or wherever else someone might place this. And... OK if I'm really honest it's probably still too wordy and reliant on people having SOME idea of what being trans even means, but it's pretty good within those restrictions! Don't overthink it! Really don't project stuff that absolutely is not actually on there onto it! Focus more on actual bigots and doing something about what they're doing than nitpicking people who are doing good effective activism work you'd phrase differently!

This is the first time i’ve seen a pro-trans poster in a long time and i hope whoever put it up is having a good day, it made me feel a little less alone.

Hamilton, New Zealand

[maxdibert]

Agree with your last post. I'm so annoyed by people putting Pandora with Regulus, Barty and Evan or Dorcas with the Slytherin gang or idk what else. Like Pandora was Luna's mother, why are they making her to be friends with canon death eaters? Dorcas was killed by Voldemort personally, why are they making her to be so young? Idk it's making me sad that people don't even try to respect the canon story and its characters and expand upon that. Instead they completely butcher it. I understand having fun but these headcanons have completely overshadowed the correct information we have and people now pretend like they have some canon merit.

Pandora is Luna's mother, and that's all we know about her. At what point does she magically end up being the same age as the Marauders? Why turn her into a Rosier? Where did the ridiculous idea come from that she was best friends with Barty Crouch Jr.? Like, hello? She's not Luna's mother; she's just an OC someone made up to fit their narrative, and they justify her existence by saying she’ll eventually become that Pandora. End of story. Like everything they write and do. Their Marauders aren't the real Marauders. That's not James; it's some random guy they invented and slapped his name on, and the same goes for the rest of them. What even is a Dorcas Meadowes? Is that something you can eat? And what's a Marlene McKinnon? Nobody cares—they're not real characters. We don’t care about them, especially if you only include them to hit a lesbian target audience or so the stories aren’t overwhelmingly male-centered and ridiculously problematic because the female presence and relevance don’t even hit the minimum gender quotas from two decades ago, like…

They say "fuck canon," but only to have an excuse to whitewash psychopaths and portray them as twink icons. It makes no sense. I insist: they could create their own lore within the Harry Potter universe. Take all those OCs, remove the canon names of characters they have nothing in common with, give them original and unique names, and create a new category on AO3 for the lore you've created. You wouldn’t be the first to do it, and it’s totally valid. And stop setting the stories in the '70s because all those OCs with canon names act like Gen Z kids—or even Gen Alphas—living in pre-Thatcher Britain, like, what the hell?

The best thing about the First Wizarding War universe years ago was that the CANON was unexplored, and you could create fascinating things. But always based on the CANON. Because no, “fuck canon” doesn’t work, because if you say “fuck canon,” then you're just talking about characters you don’t like. You say you’re a fan of Sirius Black, but you’re not a fan of Sirius Black. You’re a fan of an original fanfic character with traits that have nothing to do with Sirius Black, but you slapped his name on it—why? Sirius Black was the tallest, most handsome, and most masculine and violent of the Marauders in canon. He wasn’t a girly, whiny twink. Rowling spends the ENTIRE saga CONSTANTLY emphasizing how masculine, how macho, how handsome, how masculine, how handsome, and (again) how masculine Sirius Black was. Over and over. The only other character Rowling insists so much on describing physically is Snape, but only to constantly point out how ugly he is and ironically assign him FEMININE traits. Snape, who is canonically unattractive but also canonically not masculine by patriarchal standards, is someone super macho types like Sirius mocked precisely for that.

I think the problem with this fandom is that they want to be the protagonists, the cool kids, the main characters everyone admires. But the reality of the canon is that both the Marauders and the pure-blood Slytherins of the era would have hated, mocked, and marginalized people with the characteristics fans assign to these characters in fandom. That Sirius the fandom adores wouldn’t have lasted half an hour with the real teenage Sirius Black, who would have bullied him immediately for being “weird.” The fandom’s James would have been ridiculed by canon James, who would’ve seen him as a total loser. Fandom Barty? Canon Barty would’ve Crucio’d him to bits. Canon Regulus would’ve paid someone to drown fandom Regulus. And yes, that Severus fandom invented—a sort of rapist or something—would’ve disgusted canon Severus, who didn’t even dare say anything to Lily. But honestly, who’s that fandom Lily? Because canon Lily didn’t know what feminism was and was dying to have a traditional family before 20 with a rich guy who could give her financial stability. Like, seriously, xD.

I’m sorry, but your OCs wouldn’t last half an hour in '70s Hogwarts because both sides would tear them to pieces. And in the end, all the “fuck canon” rhetoric is just a way to deny that they need to project themselves as protagonists, but they know they never would be in the Marauders’ lore because, in that context, they’d end up as bad or worse than Snape. And that’s precisely why they hate Snape so much—because that character constantly reminds them that, in fact, the Marauders were bullies. And they were bullies to those who didn’t have the looks, social class, appearance, or clothes deemed acceptable. Snape is actually the closest thing to themselves that fans of the Marauders will ever find, and that reminds them that in that universe, they would’ve been the nerds, losers, and outcasts of the class.

I’m sorry for being so harsh, but it’s true. They’ve invented characters in their own image, slapped canon names on them to feel important and central, but the reality is that the actual canon characters would’ve bullied them so much they’d have ended up the same or worse than Snape.

[allylikethecat]

Get excited! I actually finished another oneshot for tomorrow...

[frownyalfred]

Things you might not realize are affecting your ao3 readership:

Putting unrelated fics into one compilation instead of series or collections

Not tagging your fics/“haha I’m so bad at tagging!”

Tagging all of the ships in a fandom instead of the relevant ones to the story

“This is my first fic ever”/ “I’m really not a good writer” / “sorry if this is crap”

Summaries that say “sorry don’t think I will update much” or “might be abandoned idk”

Tagging “r@pe” or “unaliving” etc instead of the actual tag so people can filter/exclude

NOT tagging major, relevant tags or kinks without using the “creator chose not to use archive warnings” option

Telling people how bad your writing is and how you hate it so much and how they shouldn’t even be reading your fic (self deprecation)

Weird punctuation: not starting new quotes or descriptions on a new line, and/or putting extremely long blocks of text on the page without a break

[satyrradio]

ngl it is very disheartening when I see a positive post from a queer Christian, go into the notes, and just see other queer folks shitting on the OP for being a queer Christian. You aren't making the world any better, you're just being an asshole.

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

I think I've gotten to the point where I'm just gonna not interact with or even block blogs that post v/3 fan art while aggressively and needlessly harping on it in the caption

[eyelinerpal]

I gotta talk about this more because I'm seeing even more posts about how "The Substance is sexist it reinforces that older women are disposable" or "The Substance is sexualizing women it's just the male gaze" and like we don't all have to have the same takeaway from a movie things aren't totally black and white and the movie wasn't perfect but it's just like... did you watch Breaking Bad and think the message was "selling meth is cool"?

Depicting something =/= endorsing it. Society *does* view older women as disposable, and The Substance showed that reality and then showed the harm it causes. Elizabeth seemed fine with herself until her gross chews-with-his-mouth-open male boss tells her she's too old and needs to be replaced by someone younger and more "perfect" and then she's so obsessed with obtaining that she literally let's it kill her and it's *still* not enough.

Like we do not all need to have the same view of the movie, we don't all need to think it's feminist, there are a lot of different angles and ways to view something. But the fact that media literacy is at a point where a movie that simply *shows* older women being discarded, or women killing themselves in a futile attempt to be "enough" by society's standards is critized because having those things on screen must mean the movie is agreeing with them is...frankly kind of scary actually.

Yeah you might feel like the sexualized visuals of Sue were overdone, that's a valid way to feel, that kind of thing can evoke different reactions in different people. But personally those scenes felt uncomfortable. They were so over produced and over the top and mixed in between scenes of just gross yucky stuff it felt so...fake. and yeah she was objectified, the point was she wasn't seen/treated as a person just an object.

I just really think we need to move way way past the idea that feminist media is only "#GirlPower" and the only way to have a feminist lense is for the story to be "woman pushes back against beauty standards and sexism because she knows better." These systems exist in society and many many girls and women are indoctrinated into them. Analyzing them is also feminist. Showing them as the evil monstrous things they are is also feminist. Movies do not need to have a clear villain to have a message. There is no single villain in sexism. It's not one studio head, it's not even "men" in general. Women can and do uphold these misogynistic structures as well! Often, like Elizabeth, even at their own detriment.

People are certainly free to have differing views and not everyone has to like the things I like but I really think those kinds of reviews and complaints are so so shallow and frankly feminism will get us nowhere if we can't go beyond the surface of "this movie showed sexism its sexist" or "Men bad women good."

And like, it may also just not be your type of movie! That's totally fine, and does not mean you need to think it's harmful. It's a psychological body horror, that will never appeal to everyone.

Anyway

why is it that movies directed by women about beauty standards and/or the state of being valued as a woman only for your looks/appearances are ALWAYS criticized for “not being feminist enough” (ex. barbie, etc.)

[mrs-theirin]

i'm thinking about it so you're gonna have to deal with it but like twc's narrative push to have a good relationship with rebecca is just not what should be present in an interactive fiction. if you are giving the player a choice you should not have the book itself trying to convince you that your choice is wrong, otherwise what is the point of choosing.

for example, mind blind does a much better job of a CHARACTER trying to sway you rather than the AUTHOR. nick is sad you have a poor relationship with your parent(s) because they're his parent(s) too and he wants a happy family. he understands your anger and fear and while he tries to convince you to forgive, he absolutely accepts if you say no, because he's your loving brother and doesn't want to push it, but wants what's best for you

twc's entire series (idk about book 3, i haven't played) is trying to convince you to forgive rebecca. not just with characters, but with the narrative itself. the book is constantly frowning at you for choosing a negative route with rebecca. meanwhile, again, with mind blind, nick, john, and hope all WANT you to have a good relationship with them, but there's no narrative push to forgive john or hope or both

i just think in a game literally all about choices, there shouldn't be outside pressure to make a specific choice

[thegreatyin]

How did you manage to handle not one, but FOUR separate accounts in fl? I recently made the account for my HD little guy but having to do the tutorial again just seems miserable

there's... weirdly several answers to that question, actually??

a HUGE part of it is due to the way FL is structured. the 10-minute action timer is a core part of the game on a fundamental level, and the fact that i can very easily run out of stuff to do on one character and thus have an excuse to quickly and easily swap to another is just... convenient? satisfying? i'm not entirely sure how to explain it. the fact that i can make progress even while i am fundamentally simultaneously Not Making Progress is like pure dopamine for my freak insane awful little brain. there's just something really pleasing about spending all of my actions pursuing The Goal Of The Day™ on one account before casually swapping to another and doing the same without feeling like i'm wasting time or acting to the first account's explicit detriment. the downtime helps! the recharge time helps! the structure really really works!!

i'm technically only actively playing three, maybe two accounts minimum. the only reason the fourth (the one that'll be my future BaL playthrough) currently exists at all is so i can get his earlygame completely out of the way now and not have to waste time running through it all later, when what i actually want to do is play the ambition i've made myself wait a full year to play. and also getting free goodies as seasonal stuff happens,, something something surprise tools to help us later. the only two accounts i'd say i'm really "actively playing" at the moment are caeru and lark- and of the two, lark takes the most priority, since his ambition is the one i'm currently pursuing in earnest. for a couple months now- despite being My Main FL Character- the scoundrel has actually been pretty inactive on a gameplay front outside of the occasional progression in TLC and discordance content. purely by virtue of having Very little left to do outside of Very long-term grinds and vanities. they're in their "now what?" "now you can start playing the game" era. they've graduated to previous protagonist background cameo in a sequel anime series. they're like the yin FLPC equivalent of red at the top of mount silver. they're Literally just vibing rn. i only keep posting about them regardless because i'm insane and i will never ever ever ever ever let that bat go. but yeah, big TLDR, outside of doing the bare minimum to keep making waves/notability up every week, i'm not actually spending that much time on accounts i'm not currently actively interested in playing. and that accounts for way more gaming spoons than you might think.

i have a virtually lifelong history of playing MMOs, especially and specifically world of warcraft. i was born in the endless grind for useless video game pixel vanities and/or bragging rights. molded by it. you all have merely adapted to doing the same piece of content a pointlessly excessive amount of times for literally no reason besides whimsy and folly. me? i've done my time. i've served my sentence. i've spent weeks doing the original burning crusade netherwing dailies. i've devoted days to running praetorium over and over and over again, back-to-back, nonstop, long before square enix cut it in half and made it NOT take at minimum an hour and a half per run. i've perfected my silverwastes + auric basin goldfarming strategies. i've (almost) crafted dragonwrath tarecgosa's rest. i've killed the sha of anger so many times its dying scream of agony is embedded into the very fabric of my being. ""only"" doing making your name content four times over? that is nothing to me. it means nothing to me. it is so infinitesimal i can do the persuasive seduction quests in my sleep. it's not a matter of handling misery, or having the capacity, or even sighing as i remember the brass embassy raid segment of the watchful questline seriously i don't know why i keep forgetting that exists or what even is my problem with it i just am so consistently mildly inconvenienced by it and its highly specific resource requirements and it is the worst thing ever. maybe i'm just so used to the scoundrel's near-infinite money and troves of disposable items that i've completely forgotten what being poor is like. despite having done that step 3 fucking times now. ahem. anyway. i have transcended the feeble mortal bindings of my resistant-to-grinding flesh and ascended to a higher plane of enlightenment, they may call me insane but they will be the ones left laughing when they see what that "insanity" has wrought, i've usurped them, i've usurped them all-

hacks and coughs and awkwardly clears my throat. i mean. uh. um. Ahem.

the empress' court artistry + tales of the university nerfs helped too.

[wildfairies]

“if you were really creating for yourself you wouldn’t be posting on tumblr” …????????????? idk about you but my blog is my little mermaid grotto of treasures. this is my collection of cute posts funny posts pretty posts fun posts shitposts my own posts. look at this stuff isn’t it neat.

[beanthebugboi]

Huh, interesting. I think that might be our individual experiences then.. when I think of spokespeople for the trans community, my first thought is actually a trans man- an author/youtuber/activist named Jamie Raines. Generally I'd say that within the community, representation is pretty balanced. But for people outside the trans community, I can absolutely see how some voices would get more attention than others, depending on the issue at hand.

As for the bathroom conversation, I believe that trying to bar trans women from women's bathrooms creates more problems than it solves. The issue of cis men pretending to be trans women for access to women's spaces is almost nonexistent, while enforcing the birth-sex bathroom rule can lead to forced inspections (creepy and intrusive), people calling the police even on cis women who look more "masculine" (pushes beauty standards), and forcing trans men- including fully transitioned ones who could easily pass as cis men- into the women's bathroom (uncomfortable for everyone and completely defeats the purpose).

I find the 4b movement really interesting because from what I've seen it's very separatism-focused, which I don't think will lead to equality in the long run, but I also recognize that I have the privilege of living in a relatively safe area and I'm glad women who don't have as much safety are creating movements to protect themselves. However, the issue is that trans women- who are also victims of violence, check out this study for some stats- are generally excluded, putting them at higher risk.

Just to be clear: I do not expect you to be attracted to trans women :) Having a sexual preference is totally valid, and it is definitely unfair when people treat that as transphobia. The problem is when people push the idea that lesbians who are attracted to trans women aren't valid- that pushes both the idea that trans women aren't women and the "gold star lesbian" ideology.

I 100% agree with your last point, that's really well said! We should absolutely be able to discuss things from a biological standpoint without using it to contradict/invalidate identity, I think you and I just have different approaches to that :)

Tysm for your reply, it gave me a lot to think about! I put some resources under the cut

This article includes the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria (being trans is, thankfully, no longer considered a mental illness. This diagnosis just helps people access the resources and care they need)

This study (full text here) focuses on structural differences in the brain. In short, trans people do have distinct "sex-atypical" phenotypes, but there are a few more points in the Discussion section that you might find interesting

For info about mental health, I'd recommend checking out the sources I linked in the last reply of this post, which basically just sums up how trans-related mental health issues are primarily caused by external factors, and gender-affirming care + societal acceptance are proven to help.

I'll let you know if I think of anything else :D I can also try to explain my own experience with being genderfluid, if you'd like to hear some firsthand perspectives /nf

my thing w trans people is i really don’t care what they do with their bodies, gender, pronouns wtv. that’s ur business.

i only really care when males attempt to insert themselves into females’ business. you are not a biological female and will never experience what it is like to like your entire life as one. and the problem is so many trans women (at least from what i’ve seen) are afraid to just… admit that?? you are, biologically, a male, accept it and move along.

and i also dont like how trans women are like the spokespeople for the community?? no offense but it’s literally males dominating over females’ voices

i don’t care what one does with their identity. personally, i’ve been trying to look into the psychology of being transgender to understand it a bit better. but like at the end of the day, your biology still plays a huge part, no??

hopefully others give some insight cuz i’m interested in hearing other takes. this is definitely a conversation i do not mind having.

[trashmancer]

writers who intentionally leave major emotional beats of their stories "to the imagination" are cowards! COWARDS! commit to your story!

[thesoulsofthedarned]

So I finished the Rimet Cup Event

It was really good! I enjoyed the event story a lot, mostly because of the characters and how they moved the plot along. Nothing felt boring or dragged out longer than it should, plus the character interactions were funny and wholesome.

Melania was a queen, I thought she was cool at first but seeing her in action was amazing. I also liked her dynamic with Ms. Acey, and her plan to steal the Rimet Cup was interesting to watch unfold. Pickles was cool too, though what really got me invested was his relationship with Charlton. Regulus and Mr. APPle’s side plot was funny, I’m glad I got to see more of them.

The character who really stole the show for me was Diggers. I already liked him because prior to this event I thought he was a typical chill hippie dude that was just a little in over his head. Then I found out that apparently people hated this guy because it turned out he was lowkey a terrorist??? Bro was stealing documents, disrupting the peace, drugged a whole BLOCK of people to throw an improvised block party, and apparently in a scene I haven’t seen yet, kidnapped Pickles because he got more attention than him?!

I thought my opinion on him would shift watching these events unfold but no, I love him all the same. He’s just this chaotic, silly lil dude who wants to spread peace (by doing it in the worst way possible)! This man was honestly hilarious, and the fact that he may or may not have joined the Manus Vindictae in 1.4 is just insane to me. Bro really thought the best way to spread peace and love was to join a literal terrorist cult, that’s actually hilarious.

TL;DR: event rerun was great, Diggers was the best character, I love him 🥰

[hua-mo-jin-is-a-cutie]

this is the only social media website where I feel like I can talk about this without getting hated by teenagers with no media literacy, but I watched (pirated) Hazbin Hotel. And while I'm still very critical of Viv herself and the decisions she's made about her staff and her public statements and her past actions, some of which are very gross, for what it's worth, I think Hazbin is alright.

There are things I'd do differently sure, but it's like... aggressively average. The music is hit or miss, with mostly catchy tunes accompanied by lyrics that often made me cringe a little by how they already feel like outdated references to current slang. I also really don't enjoy when they have a big musical number come out of nowhere and have other characters acknowledge that they're singing. It really takes away from the musical numbers themselves. it's like musical writing 101 to NOT do that.

I know this is something people tend to criticize, but I'll be honest I like most of the character designs. They have fairly distinct silhouettes and it's kinda what drew me in enough to watch it in the first place. I'm particularly fond of Nifty. I do think some of them are a bit too complex, too busy to be super appealing, and must be hell to animate. I also think there's not really much cohesion in character designs of the world other than color, and even that's a stretch. I wish we'd at least been given some sort of reason in the show that some demons are furries and others aren't.

The animation is pretty nice, though the camera movement tends to make it a bit hard for my eyes to focus when there's a lot going on.

I've seen a lot of people complain about the pacing and while I agree that things are moving too fast, that we need time to get to know these characters and this world and earn these, what are supposed to be, hard hitting moments. I also acknowledge that I like fast pacing. I want it to slow down, but not astronomically, just a smidge.

I'd say the writing is also hit or miss. Sometimes it's got me fairly entertained, but other times it's making me uncomfortable and not on purpose. Again, slang that will quickly become or already is irrelevant is a major issue for me.

Contrary to what I've seen many people saying, I actually thought episode 4 was handled decently enough. Honestly the pacing is really the only thing holding it back for me. It doesn't feel like it's glorifying or romanticizing sexual abuse or domestic violence. It frames Valentino as the abuser he is when it's most important, even when he is a bumbling idiot in other scenes. Scenes of abuse between angel and Val are taken seriously enough. I wasn't a huge fan of the song Poison, but I also don't think it's romanticizing SA. I mean it literally ends with Angel sobbing on the floor so... I dunno how anyone came to that conclusion. There are times when the show jokes about sexual assault which I do think is distasteful and is one of my gripes with the writing overall, however when it comes to the topic of angel and val, it's handled well enough.

I'm interested in seeing where the plot goes with how episode 6 ended even with it's flaws. It's going in an interesting direction so far and I think the music of that episode was pretty good, calling back to the first episode's song with Adam in a clever way.

So overall I'd give Hazbin like a 6/10. It's fine, but it's got flaws. I'd like to see the kinks ironed out in season 2 and have Viv acknowledge some of her mistakes or at least take criticism well for once.

Anyway, stan Nifty, she's best girl.

[fairyhaos]

about the whole children on the internet thing…

i joined twitter when i was 12 (i obviously lied abt my age) and i talked with people who were double my age. at the time i thought it was normal and i felt cool for having older friends, but looking back on it now, it couldve been a really traumatizing experience. i’m grateful that all the older people i met online were kind people but i could’ve been less fortunate and met someone who was a pdf or anything else that’s remotely disgusting and illegal

i’m a huge advocate for kids staying off the internet for as long as they can. our generation was a bit different because it wasn’t everyone who was given unlimited access to the internet—it was a handful of people since the internet was still developing and growing at a rapid pace. (i’m also 20)

it’s different now though, with this current generation. 10 year olds are making tiktok’s during lunch breaks and filming youtube vlogs and no one bats an eye. there are second graders on social media and no one seems to care. i think it’s one thing for a child to be interacting with strangers online who are significantly older, but it’s another thing for children being online because they are making the conscious choice to be online rather having physical, irl interactions.

and anon, i completely understand your pov as well. i struggled to make friends and found solace with the people i met online, especially during covid, and i understand there are other people who are in similar situations. however, i think i can confidently say that that’s not the case for the majority of today’s children. they actively choose and decide to not make real friends because the internet “seems more fun”. they’re at an age where having real and genuine social interactions and relationships are supposed to help develop and assist their cognitive development, but if they continue to interact with people through a screen, it can stunt that.

IM SO SORRY THE RANT GOT SO LONG

to be completely honest, i was too terrified to join online spaces until i was like. 15 bc the ideas of "stranger danger" and "no one is who they say they are online" were drilled into my head so hard that i didn't touch social media until that age.

stories of lying old men or stalkers sound so surreal when you don't experience it yourself, but it really is a very real and very scary thing, which is why i agree w u anon ab advocating for young people to stay offline as much as possible until they are a) mature enough to make decisions or b) have people they know first online.

and yes you're so right that the internet has changed so much. like, even when i was young i was experiencing exactly what you did, but now... everyone has an online presence. the openness is terrifying and so uncomfortable for me bc i hate that it's becoming normalised, like you said, and literal pre-teens are talking to, well, adults. online. without having ever met them in person. not only is that so dangerous, it also gives them a warped idea of the world, having only experienced it thru a screen and thru other people's opinions. which will never make up for a real, personal experience of the world.

of course, you can't control what people do, but all i say is that they do NOT talk to me. if i can maybe encourage young teens to find someone irl to talk to (instead of choosing to interact with adults on the internet), then maybe ill feel a little bit better. being chronically online is NOT cool, and never will be.

[aforgottenthing-in-space]

Ok so. Miles Edgeworth is trans. Gregory was definitely a trans affirming father so when Miles told him he was like “sure son. What name do you want to go by?”

And so all Manfred von Karma knew was that Gregory Edgeworth had a son. When he gains custody of Miles, he just. Does not realize that the kid he’s now in charge of is a trans boy. (Maybe Miles already had a name change. Idk. Somehow legal name wise, von Karma just. Does Not realize.)

So Miles grows up being raised as a boy and von Karma just. Doesn’t realize. Until puberty begins.

And he notices something, that Miles isn’t experiencing puberty the way he would have expected and he’s like hmmm. I am not sure what is happening.

And then like preteen Miles, incredibly nervous, comes to him and he’s like, “excuse me, Mr. von Karma, sir, but would I be able to start puberty blockers please?”

And von Karma’s just like “WHAT!”

He’s so caught off guard and so used to thinking of Miles as “Gregory Edgeworth’s pathetic son” that he just… kinda lets Miles medically transition bc he’s so caught off guard by the realization.

And for his entire life, Miles is like. Unable to wrap his head around von Karma being surprisingly trans accepting???