#incel discourse

[indizombie]

Some research that was done by Reset Australia showed that 41 per cent of 16- and 17-year-olds were exposed to content that underlines the incel discourse and that could lead to a violent act. This is something that should worry everybody — that young people — through the algorithms that are set through these social media platforms, are viewing and are being exposed to disinformation and misinformation. Anti-Semitic content, far-right content, and incel content ... particularly young white men are being exposed to this content.

Anne Aly, Minister for Early Childhood Education

[fumifooms]

Ok maybe kinda of a weird question you don't have to answer if you don't want to but I've seen some people saying that Chilchuck is canonically misogynistic so, as the Chilchuck especialist, do you have an opinion about that?

Anon you are brave and I love you. Listen if you, person reading this, get peeved or upset when people say Chilchuck might have had not insignificant flaws as a father and husband then probably stop reading here, we will be looking at Chilchuck like a petri dish and defile his pristine allure. Tldr: yes but actually no but really both at the same time aka people & social dynamics are complex and please let your blorbos be flawed. With that said I will be pretty casual and playful if that wasn’t clear already, sorry.

"Aren’t you happy to be in a harem party" "No it’s soul-crushing save me". Toshiro has been drinking his fear women juice since he was young, surrounded by an assassin nanny and her fellow assassin girlies, meanwhile Chilchuck having flashbacks of getting wrung out by his 4 women household…

Waiting on people is something we see he hates doing a couple times throughout canon and extras, here and how he says "it’s not a date" -bless his summer child heart- he frames being slow to get ready as a gendered trait to have? But I can forgive him for this one because honestly the framing of the whole page leans into that, it’s kinda questionable if we’re being highly critical of anything misogynistic or regressive. But it itself is the classic subversive "Women are desirable wallflowers— Wrong! They are a monstrous ruthless force that wears on the mind, body and soul" trope. I don’t fault Kui though I got giggles from it, it makes sense for everyone’s characters, and Kui has never shied from gendered dynamics in her worldbuilding & characters so it’s not like she’ll write as if sex changes nothing and no one has opinions about it.

Alright alright let’s step back from analyzing this page specifically and get back to the question, is Chilchuck canonically misogynistic? It’s a complex question not because we don’t have hints but because it’s a very black and white answer to give and because misogynistic can be very wide or pretty narrow depending on how the term is applied.

What I would say? Yes, he is, in a realistic way that doesn’t automatically make him a piece of shit, though that doesn’t mean it isn’t uncomfortable or harmful. On the spectrum of misogyny he classifies to me as "It’s in the normalized lighthearted way of being a horny uncle who’s a little too loose about it around the dinner table", he’s a solid "He wants to treat women as pieces of meat and jokes about it but in actuality he’s a gentleman and a family careerman who has a job so he don’t really care about that rn".

Going back to Toshiro’s party, Chilchuck being weird about it being full of women doesn’t even happen only once but TWICE. I made a compilation of every time he’s crass, happens less than you might expect but the overall picture it gives throughout reading the manga is pretty straightforward. Repeatedly he’s shown to be dirty-minded and objectify & sexualize women lightheartedly unprompted. They’re a punchline and they’re eye candy and it’s "of COURSE my succubus would be young women, of COURSE women would desire a muscled statue’s [redacted], of COURSE women are sexual beings and of course I am attracted to them".

Dungeon Meshi doesn’t bring up sexuality much and gendered dynamics tend to be more subtle than you’d expect from media in general, so there’s that, but I honestly struggle to think of any character that acts less normal about women existing than him. Like yeah he’s joking but Hien, Benichidori, Inutade and Maizuru were just breathing and doing their jobs. Who else’s misogynistic uhh, that guy working for the shadow governor that licks Cithis’ ear when she’s bound in ropes? The sheer jump from ‘makes demeaning jokes about women’ to ‘assaulter’ between these two, god.

Honestly it does feel odd to me that he’d be kinda demeaning like that about women even in a workplace setting —Chilchuck the union man out of everyone?— but Kui has spoken man idk, think what you will don’t shoot the messenger. It’s not like he’s weird about Namari? I guess he respects her too much- Wait that sounded wrong. Maybe it’s literally just because she and the other women party members are his direct coworkers, in line with his rule and all? But yeah, even if he canonically had a thing for blondes and pretty young women he has managed to only tease Marcille ceaselessly for fun & entertainment and make her hair extra shiny as his shapeshifter, you get a good behavior star there Chilchuck. He complains on waiting for Marcille to get ready in the barometz chapter but he also does with Laios when he’s late to meet up the party in extras. He constantly pulls on Marcille to get her to safety as if she can’t protect herself but she’s referred to as clumsy a lot so he has that justified reasoning. He constantly berates everyone so no point to make there. He undermines Marcille’s opinions often but it’s because he dislikes mages and elves and idealism. Clearly Chilchuck knows women can be capable and clearly he can have women coworkers (and friends! Again, Namari) without belittling or sexualizing them, clearly he can be normal about women and knows that some of his attitude can be inappropriate. It’s just harmless fun to him, that he keeps for occasional playful banter and taverns and the ‘right’ moods.

And as I mentioned earlier! Chilchuck is also pretty gentlemanly and protective. As always desires vs wants and instinct vs rationality show up as themes. Yes his succubus aka his ideal, the deepest allure he can imagine, is beautiful naked women, but a chapter just before that was the bicorn, all about how faithful and virtuous he is, how his heart’s in the right place. His brain is virtuous but his heart is monkey. My point is that when it counts, aka 90% of the time and when things are serious, we don’t see signs of sexist bias and he treats women well. Often takes on a protector role or at the least takes them seriously, even Benichidori. He doesn’t want to hurt women or thinks they’re insignificant or anything. He’ll give a handkerchief to a woman in need with a slimy face.

Okay okay this is really entering speculation territory but in my own tally, the way he dismissed his wife’s ‘bad mood’ as some meaningless tantrum that he shouldn’t think any more deeply about, him starting out not reaching out to her as a resentful silent treatment, and her getting dissatisfied in the first place enough to leave makes me think he took her for granted and was kinda dismissive of her in general. Marcille’s theorical scenario is hypothetical and factually untrue at least in parts, but if we do follow it, him forgetting he’s out with his wife for once (in the precious counted time he’s home spending time with her) and not paying attention to her all outing, resulting in her being left out of conversations and just an ornament beside him the way she might have felt for a long time as his housewife waiting home for him to come back………

Half-foots seem to be patriarchal. The last section of this essay’s chapter (not by me!) + combing through the half-foot chapter should give you insight on that if you want. It’s in their patronymic, it’s in the way marriage seems very important especially for women, and it’s in the implied gender roles, being a housewife whose life revolves around raising her husband’s kids and taling care of the family home waiting for her husband who’s out working to come back. I think Chilchuck is a bit a result of his environment and upbringing in that way, that most of the misogyny is internalized and subconscious and passive, it’s taking his wife for granted because not only does she trust her, his most precious person he’s known since he was a kid, but because she’s his wife, his woman, conceptually something that’s unwaveringly devoted, something that is very valued and enforced in half-foot communities. Here’s a short post on half-foot family bonds culturally + here’s a post on marriage and half-foots for more. The community aspect of half-foots is very strong, which makes sense especially for how empoverished and discriminated against they are, which does come at the expense of not unlike dwarves (dwarves which half-foots idolize) having more pressure to fit in and have a good reputation to not be cast out and have no support lines. By being scared and needing stability people will often be more conservative, etc etc, though the reverse is also often true, like Chilchuck with his union. But yes Chilchuck seems to have many biases he clings onto, harsh on especially Marcille and Laios, Marcille for her idealism, race and magic meanwhile Laios for his lack of social skills and ‘reckless’ behavior.

He also does the classic "Don’t you dare date my daughter!!", though it’s a bit up in the air because he only gets agitated about coworkers being suitors, not nearly as hostile to the idea when it’s some nameless dwarf. But y’know when a guy assumes every men is as horny and sleazy as they are so they’re like "never trust men"… Chilchuck does embody a lot the tropes of just, the everyday flawed middle aged man. The absentee father and careerman husband who does care despite it all. Disillusioned grumpy old man. Old divorced drunkard joe with a thing for cute young blonde women, as a friend put it.

We know Kui subverses tropes a lot, I definitely think Kui leans into these if nothing else for the bit. He’s tropes of the strict family Father, man doing inappropriate jokes around a beer with his drinking buddies, working man exhausted and frustrated by his job, midlife crisis. Also because of how he acts with Marcille, I always say he’s the boy on the playground pulling on the pigtails of his girl friend bc he thinks it’s funny. Because he thinks she’s pretty.

So point blank, Chilchuck respects women as individuals but he can get a little lost in the sauce when thinking about women in general and jumps to sexualizing them in ways that can be objectifying and dismissive. Casual lowkey misogyny for the bit that may or may not slip into non-jokes as well sometimes when it comes to seeing women as something inherently to defend or take for granted, though he’s well-meaning. He engages in gender roles of "men should be strong and burly" and "daughters should listen to their fathers’ opinion before dating a guy". A guy engaging in patriarchy without thinking much of it y’know, more or less passive and unaware. He’s good in economic and human rights issues but would not win the political correctness medal (though he does care about optics and is very conscious of appearing as upstanding and innocent with the elves or Toshiro’s and Kabru’s parties to avoid getting thrown in jail. Overcompensating for half-foot criminal reputations etc etc. Post on that here).

Do I believe Chilchuck would march for women’s rights? Yes. Do I believe he would make ‘ye old ball and chain’ and ‘my wife’ and ‘ah women’ jokes? Yes. Do I believe he would punch anyone making one such jokes about his wife or daughters? Yes.

I was pretty flippant bc honestly Chilchuck the Sleazy Horny Old Man is hilarious to me but yes hopefully the post was decent. "How could I be sexist? I love bitches"

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

really? because let me remind you that catra never treated adora as a peer or a partner. she constantly belittled adora, she was jealous of adora, she was insanely possessive of adora. how can you expect someone to treat you a certain way if you don't treat them the same way?

if i said “i wish people were kind to me” while treating everyone around me like shit, i would be a hypocrite. and that's what catra is too. not that this is explicitly mentioned in canon, but catra expects a lot out of adora while continuously hurting adora.

she expects adora to keep their promise, but catra herself never bothered to keep it. in fact, the only time she even mentions wanting to keep her side of the promise is IN THE FINALE. towards the very end, where adora was basically dying!! and that's after catra abandoned adora because adora didn't give her the assurance that she expected.

not to mention, catra is the one who kept feeding into adora's hero complex and her guilt, by calling adora a failure and constantly keeping her responsible for not being able to protect the people she loved.

so yeah. another post victim-blaming adora for what happened and acting like catra's actions were justified.

[pinkypastal]

Hsr fans try not to call every female character that ever gets screen time waifu bait challenge

[azuremist]

Whyyyyy are we making it normaaaal to be transphobic to transmaaaascs

[demonic-shadowlucifer]

im already tired of the 'man vs bear' debate. it went from actually meaningful discussion about sexual assault and how men need to do better to just purposefully ragebaiting incels and nothing of actual value. and that's not even getting into the fact that the discourse only focuses on survivors who are cis women, and less focus on trans survivors, enby survivors (and even male survivors for that matter). hell, transphobes have already started to invade the conversation. we need less rhetorical questions about abuse, and more actual uplifting of survivors and actual education about abuse (for all genders for that matter!)

the man vs bear topic has done nothing to help survivors, and i will die on this hill.

[ambelle]

Still laughing at ppl trying to age shame you in the Titans fandom because you told them stop trash talking Anna/Kory's looks as fans of her.

It was genuinely funny.

1.The show was rated M and on HBO...not the Disney Chanel

2. I was also the same age as the 2 leads so like...they wanted to see elderly people fucking? Is that it? Weird flex.

3. Yes the vocal minority were college students chronically online and using fictional black women as self-inserts for their swirl fetishes but they never really mattered outside of their echo chamber. No one cared what they thought about anything.

You will still never catch me mocking a BW's looks after she was a victim of online harassment. And for my tumblr haters you'll also never catch me deciding a BW character has no worth if she's not fucking a WM.

I hope these ppl finally got dicked down by a white man though.

Love, Grandma

[deathbirby]

Me: Hmm, it's 3H's 5 year anniversary. I know some will say 3H's legacy is the discourse, but surely people will be celebrating the game and making some awesome excellent fanart and tributes and not "debating" online and sealioning about who's right in a "morally grey" game right? Sees that some twitter/x dipshit stir up discourse about Rhea being the "true" villain and how Edelgard is totally right (source: trust me bro) and people arguing against that turning into an ugly political back and forth. Me: Welp, happy 5 year anniversary 3H. Okay more seriously, there have been some great fanart and tributes from the VA along with people celebrating. But good god, Edelstans just couldn't help themselves from trying to make this another "Here's why my fave is right version infinity and why anyone who disagrees with me is a right wing fascist p*dophile" wankathon. Schrodinger's illusion of choice is real.

It's really sad how that's just 3H's legacy now. Endless discourse. Bring up Edelgard? Discourse. Bring up Dimitri? Discourse. Bring up Claude? Discourse. Bring up Rhea? Discourse.

Why can't people just enjoy the game and its characters instead of making everything a political debate or a cop tier list??

[michiruze]

[Edited 240703]

Many people have said that the best way to avoid dudebros and incels in fandom is to not interact once they make bigoted jokes, but however, there is an easier, surefire way to detect dudebros and incels, especially anime and manga, without having to interact with them:

Never trust people who are disgusted by Shoujo.

Never trust anyone who expresses disgust towards media catered to women (and marginalized genders), be it Shoujo, Otome games, and more.

It is a misogyny litmus test, but hating Shoujo can reveal a lot about a person, it is most likely a sign of homophobia, queerphobia, transphobia, and bigotry.

Let me explain,

Recently, bigoted dudebros and incels from all over the world has been more millitant on their bigotry online due to.....more media being catered for women. Hiding behind their hentai and fanservice girl profile pictures, they were upset as hell, spitting out angry 'thinkpieces' on 'the double standards feminists has on media with fanservice' --- solely for the fact that there are media where male characters are treated like female characters in media that dudebros enjoy.

You might be asking, "How does hating hetero romance manga mean that someone might be misogynistic, queerphobic, and transphobic? They hate hetero romance, it's nothing weird. A lot of people just can't stand heterosexual stories."

Simple. The answer is that they simply hate women. It's not 'heterophobia', it's misogyny. They hate stuff made for women.

Here's a bitter truth about men who hates Shoujo:

The way dudebros describe male characters in Shoujo and Joseimuke media also veers to homophobia and transphobia, calling them 'gay' or misgendering them, all because of these characters not adhering to their standards of masculinity.

They also carry these views to women (and marginalized genders) who enjoy them with slut-shaming to boot, solely for the fact that they see and treat male characters the same way that dudebros see and treat female characters.

When dudebros sees women and marginalized genders getting attracted to male characters, they see it as a threat, as a reflection on how they would treat real men (ignoring that there are sapphic, ace, and aro shoujo enjoyers!), as if they weren't already treating real women like shit the same way they do it to female characters.

When dudebros hate on 'hetero romance Shoujo', they do not like the fact that what women consider to be 'ideal relationship' is different than their ideal relationship (Dudebros always ignore the fact that Shoujo readers aren't necessarily wanting real relationships to be 'just like in Shoujo', and again, will always ignore the existence of queer Shoujo readers. They assume all Shoujo readers are 'straight women').

They do not like how women are attracted to men who aren't them, they do not like how women who are attracted to men are 'seeking these <insert homophobic slur here> men' who they do not see as 'ideal men'.

"But I don't like Shoujo! I just don't like it, not in the misogynistic way incels do!"

This isn't a call for anyone to 'go like Shoujo now' --- disliking Shoujo is fair, it is not a bad thing to dislike it. You don't have to like it, Shoujo is not for everyone after all. Romance and shipping is not for everyone after all (even though there are Shoujo media with no romance).

Just stay in your lane and stay away from Shoujo-positive spaces, don't be assholes to people who like Shoujo.

But feeling disgust over media made for women (and queer people) and being assholes towards people who enjoy it is not a good behaviour.

At this point and climate, Shoujo hate often means "Women are not allowed to have things made for them, because it will turn them into delusional sluts who will threaten real masculinity. Women will be so poisoned by Shoujo that they will become man-hating sexuality-collecting gender-queers who will not bend to real men."

And it happens all too often. It is no longer cringe culture, but outright hate.

That is why Shoujo hate is gateway to bigotry.

[letoscrawls]

If you hated Yord and Jecki you will die and go to hell

[swagging-back-to]

tumblr is no different than any other misogynistic propaganda driven social media platform. it really isnt.

btw the exact same thing happens with anti kink tags vs violent fetishism tags that are Still allowed up.

wanna explain why this is? @staff

[chattegeorgiana]

I'm sorry but why do u narusaku's like to shit on Sakura choosing Sasuke over Naruto's ass? It's as if you're like those haters who make fun of her for choosing the guy who almost killed her. And it makes you seem like you hate her.

This is such a layered response and I don't feel like getting into it tbh. I've done it over the years and I'm tired of it honestly.

But read this part you wrote yourself & think why some people have an issue with Sakura choosing Sasuke (NaruSaku or not, cuz some of us would actually preferred her to be single if anything):

It's as if you're like those haters who make fun of her for choosing the guy who almost killed her. It's as if you're like those haters who make fun of her for choosing the guy who almost killed her. It's as if you're like those haters who make fun of her for choosing the guy who almost killed her.

People are allowed to dislike something. You are allowed to like something else.

What do you care about what others say? Do their preferences dictate yours? If that's so, oooh boy, I got some news for ya...

[whereserpentswalk]

Its amazing how many times the internet has created incels from first principles. Like that exact ideology has popped up independently in so many disparate parts of the online world. But I guess that's just what happens when people conclude that it's an injustice that they're single.

[qqchurch]

I peek at an old discord server I'm on every now and then to see what chud-leaning gamers think about certain games and I'm dripfed some news on the gacha they're playing without much context

there's a bit around last week where they're kind of having an old laugh over the EN VAs of a game they're playing all leaving "over the fanservice" in that "look at all these fragile snowflakes haha" kind of vibes and I instantly thought something was up about that news but didn't want to bother digging into it since it seemed like an annoying rabbithole I didn't want to get into

flashforward to now after I see a twitter post with a bunch of articles over incels throwing tantrums in games until the devs cave and do what they want and remove all the men in it because their precious waifus can't breath the same pixelated air as those guys except for them (as the MC)

and I see the same game those guys in that discord server was talking about not only removing all the male characters (even the NPCs???) but rewriting all the playable female characters to have no friendship or relationship lines with each other to remove any ambiguity that the only person they like is the MC (and thus the incels)

god, I remember just shaking my head over the GFL2 cuckolding """incident""" but I didn't think it's getting even worse...

and if you ask these same guys why they aren't boycotting stuff like AK/Genshin because those have the same guys they're so threatened over, they just move the goalposts and say X or Y game is fine due to so and so when they melted down over the same thing in others...

I fucking hate it here, man 😭😭😭

(at the very least, these guys self gatekeep out of mixed gender games because of this, even if I'm annoyed by the existence of another subset of players, but at least they're not this rabidly misogynistic)

[lwieserce]

why is gi twitter lately obsessed with discussions on whether what hoyo does with their ships is queercoding under censorship or queerbait

[your-actual-therapist]

tumblr legalese (or, why it's safer to keep an emotional support dark lord around for emergencies)

sometimes i feel like i have to add legal disclaimers to the things i write on the internet, like those "may experience sudden diarrhea or pet death" disclaimers they have at the end of drug ads. mine would read, "not responsible for not anticipating all the ways you'll deliberately misinterpret and fuck up my advice, thus proving me a villain."

i feel this way because people are so good at playing that weird game where they take something you wrote and put it in the worst possible context to make you sound like an irredeemably terrible person.

feel a mote of self-esteem? only narcissists feel that way, and narcissists have abused me, and therefore you're abusing me now.

eat when you're hungry? some people can't eat and have to be tube-fed. your privilege is showing.

self-compassion? what if there's a bear near you? how can someone have self-compassion when they're being attacked by BEARS. priorities. smh.

trans women are beautiful? AM I, A CISGENDER PERSON WITH A SKIN AS THIN AS WET TOILET PAPER, NOT BEAUTIFUL?!?!

and as you can imagine i'm like:

i'm not relating any of this to "cancel culture" or "snowflakeism" or whatever other buzzword fascists are using to characterize actual harm as valid opinion. i think the truth is weirder.

rules, fear, and extremes

the expectations tumblr-adjacent people have for themselves and others are extreme. they are extreme in the sense that they have taken sensible statements like "be aware of others' feelings" or "remember that not everyone shares your experiences" and turned these reasonable views into unrecognizable, rigid, toxically exaggerated rules.

as a therapist, i have noticed that this tends to happen to people who have done a lot of therapy or self-reflection and continue to struggle with uncertainty. the therapist or self-help book says "have boundaries" or "take responsibility" and they're like, "i like this concept, but i don't want to make any judgment calls about it. my judgment could be wrong. being wrong would be catastrophic. i need solid, unambiguous rules for every situation."

so they morph that advice into something ridiculous. "have boundaries" becomes "have indiscriminately rigid boundaries," and "take responsibility" becomes "take responsibility for everything that results from your behavior, even stuff that you couldn't have anticipated." the only 100% safe situation, if you're not okay making mistakes and being wrong, is one where the rules are inflexible and taken to their logical extreme.

want to write a fanfic featuring a romantic relationship between two characters who are teenagers? you're an evil pedophile.

you think some foods have different nutritional properties than other foods and that people need more than just cheez-its and coffee for their bodies to work? obviously you're a diet fiend and encouraging anorexia.

you're neurodivergent and you're not always 100% jazzed about the challenges your neurodivergence brings to your life? ableist.

cosmic uncertainty and the allure of safety

these "rules" may sound silly, but they're also safe. without rigid rules, you're forced to take risks. you have to use your brain and assess the situation, and you could be wrong. you may then have to admit to other people that you were wrong and engage with them to learn to do better. you may not ever know whether you made the right call.

on a cosmic level, that gets scary.

because what if you can't ever know whether you're doing the right thing? what if you're going to be uncertain about the important things in your life forever? what if it's not possible to be certain? what if your perceptions and judgments are fallible? what if you're alone in your brain and no one can ever reach in there and be like, "that's what you meant"?

behind every inflexible rule is a deep well of fear. you see it in incel communities, where they've spilled millions of gallons of E-Ink© trying to make sense of their world by explaining sexual success by millimeters of difference in eye position. you see it in dogmatic expressions of religion, which can't allow for human fallibility or subtle shades of gray because if they did, their followers would have to risk being uncertain about something. you see it in those baffling self-help articles that turn self-evident statements like "be mindful of your time and energy" into dramatic extremes like "it's always okay to cancel on people at the last minute 'cause, y'know, self-care!"

enter the villain

so—back to tumblr legalese. my hunch is that it feels satisfying to call someone out based on a rule you believe in, even if that rule is profoundly weird and doesn't take human nuances into account. it's satisfying because it allows you to have a villain.

villains are simple. you don't have to think about whether darth vader or nurse ratched are bad people, and you don't have to waste time untangling your own motives for opposing them. there is no moral ambivalence or cosmic uncertainty. you don't even have to defeat a villain to feel good. it's enough just to know you're fighting the good fight, and that as long as you do that, your life is not meaningless. maybe you haven't defeated the villain, but you know what you have defeated? anxiety.

without a villain, you're left to your own fragile human abilities. what's scarier than pennywise? meaninglessness. uncertainty. being alone in your own brain.

i will leave you with the words of the existential psychotherapist ernest becker, who summed it up in one of my favorite books, the denial of death, much better than my terribly congested, snot-filled self can right now:

Beyond ourselves we sense chaos. We can’t really do much about this unbelievable power, except for one thing: we can endow certain persons with it. The child takes natural awe and terror and focuses them on individual beings, which allows him to find the power and the horror all in one place instead of diffused throughout a chaotic universe. Mirabile! The transference object, being endowed with the transcendent powers of the universe, now has in himself the power to control, order, and combat them.