#it's other people being shitty!

[obibail]

"Still not helpful."

[knifearo]

"asexual discourse" is so funny cause dude that's not discourse and it's never been discourse. it's not an argument and it's not a conversation bitches are just yelling at us unprompted and then making up people to get mad at 😭

[frownyalfred]

here friend, I'll help you: when you realize the characterization isn't to your liking, go ahead and do me a favor -- scroll up to the top right of your screen and hit that big red X button. there, problem solved.

also don't bookmark it. I'm so freaking tired of having this conversation.

[shiraishi--kanade]

"It's so embarrassing to admit I only create art for validation" did paleolithic humans not paint for other humans to see. Does a child making their first drawing to show their parents makes it any less valuable. Do gardens arranged for the visitors' eyes make the roses any less beautiful. Do love poems written for one person alone to hear make your heart ache less. You're fine

[afurtivecake]

see now, taskmaster usa never got off the ground for many reasons, but one of them was that american comedians really really seem to hate humiliation-based comedy. it's like putting a bunch of touchy little chihuahuas with height complexes in one show. it's like they all showed up thinking they're on a dick-measuring competition and got confused and uncomfortable once they found out not only does dick-size not matter, but that even if it did matter, it would be smallest and most resembling a teddy bear wins. meanwhile in the uk, bafta-nominated british comedic actors and famous comedians will go on taskmaster and enact an entire humiliation kink scene, rub hot sauce into their eye and pretend to fuck a water cooler and still come away from the show going, "yeah it was a really fun experience."

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[altschmerzes]

seen one too many snide posts about this in the last week or so but did you know that if you don't enjoy scenes in smut establishing consent or checking in then you simply don't have to read them and you don't have to go online and whine about how they're Consent Posturing and Purity Culture and Sanitizing Everything and God Just Kill Me Now. like you can have a preference without making it into a three act morality play, which is ironically what you are accusing other people of doing.

the same goes for like, detailed content warnings on fics. or content warnings at all. you can just skip those. they're not a sign of Purity Culture Gone Too Far or Those Damn Puriteens or whatever. you can dislike things without being an asshole about them or implying they're Taking Away What's Good And Correct About Fic Or Creativity.

[crow-caller]

I've been contacted multiple times now for a scam on this site which is...

If someone contacts You, asking you to buy a commission (with listed reasons too like rent or food)... you need to watch out. All scams are shitty, but this one especially is taking advantage of an inclination to trust people and want to help :/ you should always, of course, verify where your money is going before you send it

Multiple times after posting with the word 'commission' in it, I've had accounts reach out asking if I'm buying any. Once the post in question was me being excited i had a commission in progress— definitely not a rime im likely to be buying another, but the scammer was likely just searching for any use of the word and messaging en masse

The accounts have art on them, but all reblogged or posted in a short time frame, fairly recent, and only a page or two total. This art is stolen, usually from very small artists, making it harder to backtrace. Talking to the person will be quite rushed towards reaching a payment. But there isn't necessarily one obvious script here

I'm just saying.... generally, artists don't reach out from the blue to ask you to commission them. People can work in various styles, but check someone's page. Reverse image search if there's any hackles raised. Legitimate people do have new accounts or no professional profile, and may need money desperately... but there are 100% scammers out there too.

It feels extremely shitty to accuse someone of being a scammer, but if you don't feel you can trust them, you can ALWAYS politely decline and refuse further conversation. "I'm not looking to commission right now, but thank you".

(In slightly similar scam watch, my ancientass never used Fictionpress has been overflowing with a similar but more obvious version of this— someone going "I love your writing!! I'm an artist and would love to make art for your story?". I've received like 10 variations of this script now. They're either wanting money full stop, or hoping to get you to pay for AI slop.)

[cruelplatonic]

my personal headcanon is the vees were unremarkable nobodies when they were alive. i just love it as a thematic throughline for them. they love to let the public of hell speculate on them being famed and acclaimed since before death, but the the truth is they were a d-list failed influencer that got by on cheap controversey and scamming, a broke junkie who burned every shaky bridge he ever had, and a worn-out broadcast production assistant with more rejected auditions and tossed out script pitches than he could count. nobody missed them when they were gone, nobody cared who they were until they were dead.

[orions-aether]

I've been watching transplanar every time I feel overcome with despair about being trans (right now mostly in respect to the uk supreme court ruling last week, though it is a feeling I get a lot unfortunately) and like it's working but at what cost

[so-you-melted-22]

Honestly, I forget how little representation there is for ace and aro people every year, until pride month rolls around.

There are all these posts going around recommending queer movies and books and tv shows and comics and what not and it covers most identities and has a wide variety of different stories, but if there is anything with aces or aros included it’s always the same three shows. It’s kinda sad and annoying.

Most (of the few) depictions of asexual and/or aromantic characters are in tv shows aimed at highschoolers, which isn’t wrong, but once you’ve graduated it stops being particularly relatable. I wish I had some extensive history of aro-ace film and literature where I could pick and choose based on my mood and personal preferences. Instead I have to scavenge the internet high and low for something that might possibly have characters that are like me. Wether or not the rest of the plot seems enticing to me be damned.

[lyxchen]

Squid Game season 3 spoilers

People are really like "Squid Game did this bad, them portraying this thing how they did in the show means the writer is bigoted" when that's literally on purpose??? Hwang Dong-hyuk isn't "misogynistic and you can see it in his writing", he writes characters in a world that is misogynistic. Sang-woo didn't say that he doesn't want women in his team because Hwang Dong-hyuk hates women. He said that because Sang-woo grew up in a misogynistic world and adopted those worldviews. That's also proven because all of Squid Game's female characters are strong characters with determination and motivations and a personality that doesn't fall into the useless woman that needs to be saved trope. In fact. Jun-hee specifically doesn't want to be saved at all! Myung-gi tries to team up with her and help her so many times and most of those times she rejects him. How is that misogynistic writing? You can't tell me the woman who killed her abuser or the woman who fled a very controlling country to save herself and her brother or the trans woman who is so strong and competent or the religious woman who is able to easily build a following is misogynistic writing. They die sooner than a lot of the men because a lot of the Men in this show don't care about women. That's not misogynistic writing, that is writing that correctly portrays the misogyny of our everyday world. If you can't differentiate between the two then I don't know either

Also because some people say female characters or specifically Jun-hee are just plot devices: Every character in a story is a plot device. Every character serves a purpose for the story, that's actually really important for a story because why else would a character be there if they are completely useless to the story? The thing is though that a character that is a plot device turns into a character that is an actual person when you give them a personality and characteristics outside of their purpose for the plot. And every character in Squid Game has that!!

(That is also what I mean when I say that Squid Game portrays a realistic world)

[navree]

"rhaenys could have ended the war by dracarysing all the greens right there" yes because a distant relation to the throne deciding to barbecue an anointed and publicly positively hailed king and his entire family who is well loved within the city and in multiple other parts of the country for the sake of the succession of a far-away princess no one was ever on board with who hasn't been seen by the populace in literal years, her psycho husband, her three obvious bastards, and two toddlers from the psycho husband would go over super well with westeros and especially in king's landing where scores of the still-cheering population were killed for no reason by that same dragon who would do the barbecuing, because when targaryens act unilaterally without thinking of how the people would react there's never any problem, which is why the storming of the dragonpit and robert's rebellion were actually just collective delusions dreamed up by readers who hate rhaenyra and not key parts of the story and house targaryen's history that directly contributed to their demise and are intrinsic to the plot

truly team black stans are made up of only the most genius and media literate amongst us

[eelclaw]

stupid fucking bastard. i am not coping with the leaks

[hindahoney]

Wild and revolutionary concept: maybe don't treat converts like trash just because they're converts? And also don't ask someone if they're a convert in a public setting?

[uncanny-tranny]

At some point, I think people have to contend with the fact that misgendering isn't a completely a universally agreed upon concept in the specific sense that misgendering can be very personal.

What may be misgendering to you will not be to other trans people - even if they have the same gender as you. You may be misgendered if somebody used the wrong label to describe you (e.g., somebody calling you "girl," even if it is slang), but that does not mean that that will apply to everybody.

It's important to recognize this because so often, people will say things like, "you can't use this label/phrase/term for any trans person who is a [gender]! And if any trans person who is a [gender] uses those labels/phrases/terms, they're wrong and bad!" and that is simply too broad a generalization.

It's fine to be uncomfortable with certain things like this. It is fine if you don't want to be misgendered, and indeed, I share in that sentiment. However, that does not mean that your comforts and discomforts apply to all trans people or all trans people who share your gender. There's a difference in that, I think.