#ppl who aren't tagged can do this as well!!!

[vounoura]

re: my previous complaining I'm just saying, playing as an SD rook it is really weird that nobody has an issue with Rook (or even Neve, who is a mage which in combination to the rest of the world has always translated as magister, and there could've been a really interesting plot point w/ that considering even as a mage Neve has no power in Tevinter bc she's 'just' a Laetan, and Red has even less being a Soporati) being from a place that's routinely demonized by everyone else around them, justified or otherwise. Red faces no roadblocks based on people's preconceptions abt who she is because she's from Tevinter, especially with the Veil Jumpers. You got a little bit of it w/ the First Warden, but that's abt it.

Like is it not strange that the VJs like Strife, Irelin, and Bellara, who are all Dalish and the faction itself is intrinsically tied to Dalish culture, just instantly accept it when someone from Tevinter (and I get they're not really accounting for race, but a Tevene human on top of it) comes to Arlathan claiming to be spearheading the fight against Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain? Not that fantasy racism is good or anything and I get it's the end of the world and there's bigger problems, but Tevinter's always had this evil boogeyman reputation (even if they often deserve it) and 'Vints have routinely in the past been demonized for like. happening to exist while minding their own business (see: Dorian, even Krem a little). Where's that sense that Red can't get anywhere bc she's a Scary Evil Vint? Emmrich faces more blowback for being a necromancer than Red does for being Tevene.

[rotting-creation]

pov: most of the fandom to Uraraka Ochako and Sayaka Maizono

A female character being widely hated is a huge green flag.If my experiences with fandoms and critics have taught me anything,it's that if that's how they react to her,that i'm about to meet the most based fictional girl to ever exist

[synthshenanigans]

hey so remember how I made color palettes based on the TMPH? well all the songs are out now so here's a crap ton of color palettes based on all the Power Hours!! :D

I might use em myself but if anyone else uses them, please tag me in your post!!! I'd love to see what you do with it :D

Also because I'm a nerd & I like explaining things, where I got the names for them are below if anyone curious bout them :}

TMPH:

Page one is more obvious; it just being the song title. The second page is named with Acts like how the first three songs were titled [both in CJs & in the original]. The entire acts all together is named Ego, hence the bottom being named Ego. And then all of the Ego/Acts together spell C.A.N. & as CJ said in the Directors Commentary, it funnily enough matches with his old YouTube channel name "Can of Soup" [or DJ soup I think it is now].

THDPH:

There aren't as many palettes since there wasn't much I could grab from sadly. But the names are more creative at least.

•Pocket Aces- Shutup Your Stupid: "Maybe I'll shoot my shot at one of those handsome faces. Have a couple drinks, make my stance advantageous; play my pair of Pocket Aces"

•Kismet's Call- Evl Ppl: "Our habits and our rituals aren't half as stacked as Kismet's Call"

•Coloring & Additives- Savages: "Savages! Who work with ratios and averages; Governments, establishments, Coloring and Additives"

•Course & Rough- A Drink to Death: "We were nice, but now I'm Coarse and Rough"

•Casa Infierno- Chonny's Inferno: "Perhaps a snack or beverage, on the house, from Casa Infierno"

•Unintentional Impression- Shutup Your Stupid: "He does his best Impression of me, says it came out 'Unintentionally' "

WWPH-

First page is again just the song titles. Page two is lines from some of the songs [Top two are Laplace's Angel & the bottom two are Memento Mori]. And page three is from the lyric "Heaven. Hell. Nirvana. Nothing. No one knows how it ends" from Memento Mori.

CJPH-

First three on page two are just song titles [Push should technically be labeled Don't Take it Personally but I named it wrong & only realized till just now 🙃. But oh well its too late now]. The bottom two are words from The Lie of Black and White.

•Misery: " 'Every moment I wait substantiates my Misery' "

•Melody: "Every person on Earth deserves to sing their Melody"

Page two is all for Push [or what should have been Push but i fucked up lol]. Streamers are colors from the party streamers on him. Makeup is the colors he used for his makeup [as best I can tell]. And Charcoal is for the charcoal soap goop on him. Buuuuut lets pretend it based on the line "My wrist and my heart where you kissed, pulled apart till it burns like Charcoal" from DTiP. Just so I feel less like an idiot.

Maybe ill post what photos I got the colors from if I feel like it. But if anyone's curious on a specific one, you can send an ask or smth & I'll gladly tell you :}

[yonpote]

I feel like people are conflating continuing the joke with invading their privacy… like no one is stalking them or sneaking pictures or bothering their friends and family asking about them we’re just continuing their joke that they set up within our fandom space. Which is exactly as we should be doing imo

yeah exactly. like i think when outsiders dont understand that we are in on the bit that makes some sense, but when it's PHANNIES especially phannies who joined post coming out???? it seems strange.

oh i didnt really explain why this kinda behavior is homophobic as well. (disclaimer: me calling an action homophobic is not the same as me calling an individual homophobic.) a lot of ppl use pj and sophie as a direct comparison straight couple example. pj has only directly called sophie his girlfriend once, and it was in the context reading someone's poorly written article about him lmao. otherwise, its known that they met in uni, have lived together since then, have worked on nearly every kickthepj project together, and generally their on screen energy is really sweet and funny. they also have a cat together and call themselves a family. it's not a stretch to say they're together in the slightest. in fact, it is just natural to assume so.

BUT when dnp who are now publicly out, have been very open about how much they mean to each other, have lived together since dan was in uni, have worked on nearly every project together (even in solo projects the other would help out behind the scenes), have a clear on camera chemistry together, had co-parented a fish, a pigeon, and several houseplants and possibly plan to get a dog or other pet in the future... suddenly it's wrong to assume anything.

i understand the fear that may come from having been in the phandom since when they were closeted and it was much harder to talk about it without seeming like youre aligned with stalkers or ppl who harassed their families or dnp themselves to reveal more information, but thats not the case anymore, and ESPECIALLY if you discovered them post-gay, it's such a flimsy argument to say anyone is breaching privacy in that way.

now there are still some like unspoken basic decency and boundary rules. you probably shouldnt be @'ing them in your smutfics or even your pretty innocent theories about them being super duper in gay love. dnp themselves understand that if they aren't being @ tagged in something, it's probably not meant for them to see, and even acknowledged that in the twitter memes video. but us talking about it in our own spaces, especially on tumblr where they arent on as much but also on twitter BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THEYRE NOT MEANT TO SEE IT, is not the same as being like hey @/danielhowell @/amazingphil do you fuck nasty i gotta know if you fuck nasty. (but even if i were to do that, i feel like its very clearly a joke lmao)

so like just dont worry about it, if you still personally dont like seeing ppl talk abt this stuff regardless, you can mute and block people, you can blacklist tags, you can curate your own experience to fit your needs and you dont need to harass other people into suiting your needs.

[11queensupreme11]

LESSONS ON THE INTERNET! VERY IMPORTANT!!!

okay so someone sent me an ask asking how smutty the smut's gonna be once we hit act 2 of arsenic blues because they're a minor and they're uncomfy with that, but i didn't answer it like i normally would cuz they also mentioned some stuff that i don't want to put out on the internet

so first, lemme answer the question: the smut's gonna be super smutty and as i mentioned before in the warnings section (or in the tags if you use ao3) there's gonna be noncon smut as well.

NOW ONTO THE MORE IMPORTANT MATTERS.

the reason i didn't post the ask is cuz they mentioned their real age AND they weren't on anonymous

for everyone who's reading this right now.... PLEASE do not put your age on social media 😭😭😭😭😭 ESPECIALLY if you are a minor. in fact, don't even announce the fact that you're a minor, that is a VERY UNSAFE THING TO DO. literally, don't leave your age anywhere 😭😭😭

i don't even do that, i literally just have 'adult' in my bio (i think you can only see that on pc through my tumblr blog tho). even then, that could be a risk cuz you just shouldn't post any personal info about yourself (your full name, where you work, your age, your school, the city/neighbor you live in, etc.)

i know some of you guys like to put "dni: pedos and predators" or whatever but like... come on guys, real creeps aren't gonna listen to your dni ESPECIALLY if you put your age or the fact that you're a minor somewhere on your bio 💀 they're gonna be like "nice! a dumb kid to target :D" and bam, suddenly you're talking to uwugojosluts123 who's actually Tom Diddlekids, 65, from Ohio or whatever.

please please please you guys, do NOT tell anyone your age. don't put it anywhere on social media, don't go on peoples blogs and ask "is it okay if i read your work? i'm a minor :(" or "do you allow minors to make requests?" STOP IT PLEASE! don't even do it on anon mode, just get into the habit of NEVER doing it plssssssss

i always facepalm whenever i see those asks and worry about the safety of those ppl because omg are schools no longer teaching internet safety?????? 😭😭😭😭😭 it's so bad, not even on tumblr, but i see it on twitter and instagram and tiktok like guys pls STFU OR JUST LIE OR SOMETHING 😭😭😭😭😭

so yes.... STOP TELLING PEOPLE HOW OLD YOU ARE OR WHETHER YOU'RE A MINOR OR NOT!

[sayakxmi]

Saiouma Puella Magi AU, but Kokichi takes Madoka's role and Shuichi takes Homura's.

For one, Kokichi's too naturally distrustful to just hear "I can grant you any wish :)" and not think ok where's the hook. So he just does what no one ever has & essentially interrogates Kyubey, so he knows it all even before he gets to make a contract. So, some of his classmstes are MGs & he won't become one himself BUT he still ends up tagging along to just protect them in his Kokichi ways. (Though I'm entertaining Kokichi lying about being a magical girl, because, well, it's Kokichi).

(I also got a small idea of Gonta being a magical girls and Kokichi originally tagging along him into labyrinths, Gonta also makes him a magic gun from the toy one he had, and at some point witches out & Kokichi manages to kill him with that gun. So he always has that spare Grief Seed on himself, bc it's still his best friend & he can't handle the idea of just giving it away or using it himself (he does anyway in the end).)

Shuichi prolly ends up being a new kid & it isn't like MadoHomu, the ppl who reach him first are Kaede & Kaito, classic. Kokichi's there, too, but he's his usual sus self. He's actually discouraging ppl from making a contract when they find out magic and miracles are real, which absolutely includes Shuichi. He's very vocal abt it, but he won't explain stutf, bc 1) he's a liar, so who'd believe him? and 2) he doesn't want them to witch out upon finding out the truth or, idk, murder everybody Mami-style.

Anyway, fast forward, bad things happen bingo & by the end of the run most charas are dead, there's Walpurgis nachting, and he makes his wish to bring back the ppl who died notably not as magical girls. Contract signed, he fights & fails, rip. I also thought it was similar to how he thought he could end the killing game by himself - he though he could finish Walpurgisnacht by himself, too. And he failed in both times. Whatevs.

Shuichi doesn't actually make his time travel wish for Ouma specifically, he wants to save all his friends. Timelines are messy esp at first bc he either tells then or it backfires or just makes himself look very sus bc he's trying not to tell them. He also realizes why Kokichi hadn't told anybody aby witches at some point, bc, yeah, it messes them a lot, assuming they believe it.

Still, Kokichi ends up one of the few people who are nearly always giving him a chance, not necessarily out of belief, but out of pragmatism - bro can stop time & knows the truth, that's just too useful. So they often work together & Shuichi grows closer to him but still we ain't there yet. But the thing is, Shuichi's time travel still makes Kokichi more & more powerful with each timeline, bc Shuichi usually goes back after Kokichi dies, so the universe figured out this guy's life's important. Anyway, another notable thing is the iconic Homura kills Madoka scene, but it's Saiouma with guest stars of Kaito & Maki. It's Walpy, it's not defeated yet, but the training trio are spent & just kinda accept their fate of turning into witches together. And then, boom, Kokichi appears & steals their Soul Gems for a sec & he's like did u know you can cleanse your Soul Gem with a darkened one? But it's a lie & he quickly tells them so, he just had a spare Grief Seed after cleansing his Soul Gem & he needs them to do some stuff. Shuichi can travel back in time & fix things, and Maki & Kaito are needed to fight Walpy here. He actually questions what happens to the timelines Shuichi leaves behin, and ofc he doesn't know. There's a chance they remain, so Kokichi needs Maki & Kaito to fight Walpy here.

Kaimaki leave, and Shuichi finally looks at Kokichi & realizes sth is Wrong. Kokichi struggles to hide how he's trembling & grimacing, and it's Kokichi, so obviously it must be extremely bad. Shuichi dreadfully realizes something worse, and he weakly asks Kokichi why aren't his wounds healing. And Kokichi just falls, laughing weakly, and Shuichi catches him & searches for his Soul Gem and, God, he knew it. It's nearly completely black. Kokichi laughs & admits he lied abt having two Grief Seeds, he only had one he never wanted to use. But they'll have the second one soon, so no need to worry. He asks Shuichi to maybe destroy his witch form as it's hatching, so he'll have the Grief Seed without any fighting… and he admits that he hates fighting, he hates this magical world and all its violence. He says that Kaito was right in calling him a coward, even here he just can't handle the idea of fighting any longer, he's so sorry. And Shuichi tells him he ISN'T a coward. He was scared, but he always followed everybody, trying to help, and when push came to shove he would always make a contract for the benefit of others rather than himself. He's a lot of things, but a coward isn't one. Kokichi actually tears up hearing that, and Shuichi promises he won't let him fight ever again, and especially he won't let him turn into a witch and hurt anybody, because he knows it's the last thing he's ever wanted. Even now he only accepts turning into a witch to help them fight to keep others safe. So Shuichi won't let him. Kokichi probably apologizes and thanks him and then he dies.

Keeping Kokichi from fighting starts off as a side quest that gains importance with time, bc it's something Shuichi won't compromise on (ah, trauma), which leads him to occassionally neglect others a bit, which makes them more likely to get hurt & ironically Kokichi more likely to make a contract, especially since he gets more powerful & Kyubey is more interested in him with each timeline. And that also makes him witch out super quick. Shuichi's paying more attention to him & over time grows resentful of others for how they're treating him. To Shuichi it's no question that Kokichi cares & is just doing his best to help, but nobody realizes that.

But the biggest obstacle in keeping Kokichi from fighting is actually Kokichi himself, bc he's too smart and nosy, lmao. Even if he knows nothing, he will find out quickly. Doesn't help that Kyubey wants him to make a contract.

Also, obviously Kaito is Sayaka-coded and Maki could be Kyouko-coded, so that's a thing, BUT it's usually Maki that witches out. Kaito is usually pretty close, but Kokichi intervenes & he survives, but Maki later cracks on her own (and since in the new timeline Kokichi isn't there, Kaito's the one to die, so he's still the secretary). So it's Kaito who gets the dramatic sacrifice. I imagine he genuinely hoped you could bring somebody back if you tried Very Hard & Kokichi called him a moron bc obviously it's not possible. If it was there'd be far less witches that there are. But it's Kaito, he doesn't listen to reason. So, Kokichi follows him to the labyrinth. At first Kaito's mad cuz what if Kokichi being there ruins the plan? Maki hates his guts! But eventually he gets hit pretty hard, and Kokichi is near immediately by his side, trying to help him get up, which kinda makes Kaito short circuit a little bc wait Kokichi's trying to help? But witch!Maki attacks them & Kokichi pushes Kaito away & gets caught himself (and choked until unconsciousness, naturally). Anyway, Kaito gets him away, Shuichi catches Kokichi & Kaito makes up his mind about going down with Maki & asks Shuichi to tell Kokichi that he's sorry. He doesn't get him, but he got hurt trying to protect him, so he'll believe in that if nothing else. F.

As for The WishTM, in the last timeline Shuichi lashes out at Kokichi for his willingness to just become part of the system. In no timeline has his wish actually helped, it did NOTHINHG, which OUCH but it also makes Kokichi think out of the box more & he becomes the Law of Cycles. And Shuichi realizes what is happening & freaks out bc Kokichi's doing it bc of what he told him & like Homura they end up having a momentTM in space & Shuichi remembers. He feels a lot of guilt even tho he also questions whether anything was real, but if it was, he pushed somebody he far too realized he loved into erasing himself from existence.

[nark-my-words]

this is very angry, but i really just want to yell somewhere outside of just the narcolepsy tags bc yknow I'm physically disabled!!! it sucks!!!!

another issue with narcolepsy!!! is that the media and mainstream depictions of it are so fucking insultingly simple and do NOTHING to represent the devastation it can cause and how physically disabling it is.

Sleep is something fundamental to health. if your sleep is disordered and impaired and you aren't getting enough good restorative sleep, you are going to suffer long term health impacts and horrible quality of life. you have to be a fucking ambassador with an encyclopedic knowledge of how it's not the funny "fall asleep when emotional disorder" (that's called cataplexy and it isn't falling asleep, it's muscle weakness and a loss of muscle control. it's also only in type 1 narcolepsy) or the "falls asleep anywhere and you're refreshed :) disorder" (for many people, it's not being "refreshed", it's just Not Being As Tired and it doesn't last very long) or the simple "it means you're sleepy all the time"

it's often severe sleep cycle disturbances during both night AND day and feeling tired all. the. time. because your brain can't properly regulate sleep cycles so you can't get enough deep sleep. ever.

imagine never getting enough sleep fucking ever. It doesn't matter how MUCH you sleep, because your brain can't moderate your sleep cycles properly and you can't go into the stages of sleep that your brain and body need. imagine the impact that would have on your brain and body. imagine your own brain literally not physically fucking working right. imagine the full body, unrelenting fatigue.

it's a severe neurological and neuroimmune (at least N1 usually is neuroautoimmune) disorder and it's actually severely underdiagnosed because not enough people have access to the specific kind of sleep studies they (insurance companies tbh) require to diagnosis it

when are people going to realize we are fucking suffering and stop overwhelmingly handwaving or treating narcolepsy like a punchline or funny quirk?

everyone who thinks it's cute or quirky actively contributes to how horribly we are treated and how little we are taken seriously unless we sit there with essays that spoonfeed how critical proper sleep cycling is to longterm health and quality of life.

even then, why should anyone care about us physically? all that matters is that we're considered productive under capitalism. doesn't matter what severe health issues you continue to stack up

stimulants and wakefulness promoting agents are the first line treatment and they do fucking NOTHING to tackle the sleep cycle issues at night. in fact, they often make insomnia even worse. nobody gives a shit about narcoleptics' physical health as long as they're capable of being productive and "awake" and it's utterly repulsive.

(This all also applies a lot to idiopathic hypersonmnia, too, which shares a lot of overlap w narcolepsy type 2)

also ppl w [insert mental illness or neurodevelopmental disorder here] who want to compare it to a neurological sleep disorder: don't you even fucking Start. you know full well I'm talking about different things.

[stregoniconiconii]

maybe it's because i've been working on my own transfem stevie fic for ages now and so i have my own very specific headcanons, but going through the tag is truly . it's not the greatest experience. for me. there are surface level reasons for this and also far more insidious reasons.

like there is the matter of me not really shipping steddie or harringrove. this is surface level. i just don't like either of their characters and i find the fans of the ships and those characters annoying. this is life in fandom. it means that most of the time, if i want to read a fic about stevie, i must also suffer reading about eddie or billy, neither of whom i care about. again, such is life. it's fine. ship what you want.

but. but. i do not like how transfem stevie gets written a lot of the time either. whether it's in posts or fics. there's a lot of ideas ppl spout that they have not actually examined. many of which feature transphobia/transmisogyny. and i have to see them. and it sucks.

bc. like. why do so many ppl write stevie's bf du jour as gay. like this is often specified. eddie is a gay man who has just found out that his boyfriend wants to be a woman. wow how does eddie feel about that? i dont care. thats what a lot of fics are about tho. yay. eddie isn't even gay, its just a popular headcanon. altho some ppl believe in it so much they've convinced themselves there are hints of it in canon. there isn't. there are some ppl out there who do feel at odds with transfem stevie and eddie dating bc they believe so strongly in gay eddie. which is fine. eddie can be bi. or straight. i think a bi realisation is fun and i think its even more fun when the bi realisation happens in reverse to what is expected. but there are a number of works out there that still insist on eddie calling himself gay. when he has a trans wife. and i do not like that. it feels invalidating to stevie's identity as a trans woman. it's also. it's not about stevie. it's about how her boyfriend feels about his partner transitioning. most of the time.

i also do not like so many ppl feeling the need to explain why stevie and robin aren't dating in this au. like. there's a few reasons why so many of those posts rub me the wrong way. there's some that are obvious. i distinctly remember a post that posited a PANSEXUAL robin and stevie attempting to have casual sex. first off. there's zero need to specify a pansexual robin. it can just be regular old lesbian robin bc lesbians are attracted to women and. forgive me stating the obvious here but. trans women are women.

that's just one post. but there are MANY that state that robin and stevie do not and will never date bc it is "disgusting". that is often the word used. disgusting. it's meant to be funny perhaps? some joke about stevie and robin being sisters and incest is gross. okay. well they aren't sisters. personal headcanon time but i dont think they see themselves as siblings, canonverse or otherwise. i think they're just friends. and i dont like seeing all these posts saying that kissing, having sex with, or dating a trans woman is "disgusting". it upsets me. more than once ive seen robin being upset with/at?? stevie for being attractive to her and still somehow unavailable to her. bc ? she knows that she does some gross/embarrassing thing? they know each other too well? so they can obviously never date. which is. honestly it's just confusing. do you think couples dont know the other farts? that they don't know each other? but again the image invoked is that being with a trans woman would be gross or embarrassing. that's not a fun thing to hear about.

sometimes the reason given is that they've known each other too long. they spent so much time only thinking of each other as friends that it's weird to think about the other in a romantic light. okay that can happen. but again this is usually accompanied with robin being like. kinda mad at stevie for being hot as a woman. so she's attracted to her? but not bc she knows her gross habits too well. but maybe if she had met her now, and not before she transitioned, then they may have gotten together. so the fact that robin knew her as a man is putting her off dating her? wow. that has some implications. i've seen many reasons as to why stevie and robin can't date, except really the most important one: that they don't want to. they're happier just being friends. it never occurred to them to start dating each other bc they're happy with the way they're relationship is. but that rarely comes up. the fact that it would be gross comes up far more often.

you don't have to write about stevie and robin dating. or having sex. or being anything other than friends if you just want them to be friends. seeing this same idea repeated over and over again, that it would be gross for them to be together, just makes it feel like you are overcompensating. like maybe you do believe they could date and be very happy, which actually would be fine. it's a niche au and has very little to do with canon so i don't think it means that you secretly want stobin to date in canon. but honestly? the way ppl speak against stobin dating in this sort of au implies that they are still primarily thinking of canon steve. in a transfem stevie au. which i think colours the way they talk about stevie's relationships, not just with robin but also with other characters. i think they are thinking of canon steve pretending to be a trans woman. which is. well, do i need to say it?

i also can't believe i need to say this but ppl who want to ship a lesbian and a man together will just do that. they already don't care. why would they jump through those hoops of genderbending a male character when they could just write what they want to write? no one is stopping them. you can post whatever you want on ao3, for better or worse, and if you actually delved into the tag you would see that the way transfem (or even cisfem) stobin is written is very different from canon stobin. there are completely different kinks going on. it's as asinine as believing that men will dress up as women to attack women in bathrooms, imo. like. they don't need to do all that, they can just attack women in bathrooms. and they often do. that thought might be too harsh but i do believe it's the same sort of sentiment.

i think that's sort of the crux of my issue with a lot of transfem stevie content. the idea of canon steve is too forefront in her creation. she is a woman but still male enough to date a gay man and also still male enough to not date a lesbian. and it's not about her. it's not about stevie. it's upsetting. i don't like it. i think transfem stevie deserves better.

[johaerys-writes]

Kind of a random ask but okay. I noticed you have a lot of mutuals and my question is do you have any tips on how to socialize in the fandom here? Like I have people that I would love to interact with, but Idk how. Idk if this has happened to you

Hi anon!! I totally get where you're coming from. I never really thought too much about it and I don't know if I have a specific method, but here's what I would do, if I were you:

Don't be afraid to talk and reach out to people. It doesn't have to be sliding in their DMs, which I understand can be awkward if you don't know the person, but routinely commenting on their posts, their fanfic, their art, or reblogging their posts with nice and enthusiastic comments is a great way to make friends! I don't always have the time or the spoons to do that unfortunately, but I try to do it as much as I can. I really appreciate all the creators in fandom and I try to show that.

If you're a creator (but even if you aren't) don't be shy about posting your work and maybe tagging people in WIP memes or tag games or something like that. Not everyone responds, but I feel like tagging ppl sometimes opens the door for more communication, and if they tag you back you can just keep the conversation going.

When you see people reblog a prompt list or ask game, send them asks!!! Please, just send them an ask!!! This is actually a pet peeve of mine tbh, people reblogging an ask list or ask game from someone who obviously wants to get asks lol (why else would they rb it) without sending an ask first. I feel like it's basic fandom etiquette, but it's also a really nice gesture even if you don't know the person that well. Showing that you actively care about what someone has to say is the first step into getting to know them, I think, and it's also just very nice to be included.

Getting into a fandom discord or group chat isn't always easy or intuitive, but if you do find yourself in one, don't be afraid to talk!! I may or may not be suffering from "can't shut the hell up disease" LOL but I'll take any opportunity to talk about my faves that I can get 😅 It may feel like you don't have much to say at first, but sometimes just reacting to what others say and being generally nice and positive can be a good first step.

It can be tempting to lurk around and only look at what others say or post, or to read fics without leaving a comment, or to like art but not reblog it, but it does nothing for helping you meet people. Imo this is actually really pervasive and not good for fandom overall. To each their own, of course, I'm not going to tell anyone how they should engage in fandom, but my best and most lasting friendships were made because we started reading each other's fics for example, or complimenting each other's art, or they reached out to me because this or that meme made them think of me, or we tag each other in games and stuff, or we took part in fandom exchanges, etc etc. It might be hard at first if this isn't something that comes naturally to you, but I do think it's worth it if you want to be part of a community. And, like any community, fandom requires give-and-take to thrive.

TLDR: sometimes seeing ppl in an established fandom interact with each other and having friends can be nerve-wracking and you don't know where to start, but honestly fandom is all about engagement. Basically, talk to people! Compliment their art or their fic! Tag them in games! Send them asks! Be kind! That’s it 😊

[yutaholic]

Thank you for even making that post because I honestly feel like I’m going to explode!! Championing every issue is EXHAUSTING. I have such empathy fatigue. Bombardment of “rules”, behavioral guidelines, services, companies, networks + food brands & PEOPLE to boycott ALL THE TIME. Fandom is space many of us come to unplug from reality…it’s certainly my hyperfixation & ppl be like “well then get another one because you shouldn’t support–” IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT. Fuck. I can’t take it anymore. Calls to action being in EVERY single place have weakened my mental state even more than it was before which was already on “pending disability” level of severe & now I’m just. burned t-absolute-f out….at everything!! I can literally FEEL myself unraveling. Kpop stans & their toxic activism can go to hell. They’re so worried about making sure to condemn others for “not doing enough” or being bad people, that they don’t even realize their actions are making them into bad people. This shit takes a toll on mental health, there is science behind this, it is real and what happens to human beings when inundated with constant terrible news, and it’s not just being ~too privileged to care~ but these performative mfs have no concept of blacklisting anymore and just want to assume the absolute worst about someone, call them names & wish harm on folks who are at the end of their ropes! It’s maddening! So even if compassion fatigue isn’t why you didn’t go out of your way to Denounce and Drag™️ him (bc you totally have the right to simply not want to do that on a fanfic blog!) I’m just glad someone else stated that this is supposed to be an ESCAPE. fuck.

Baby, burnout will fuck you up. Don't do that to yourself. Take the time you need and recoup. Life is a constant war and you can afford to lose a battle here and there to focus on your own health and well-being. Getting yourself back into a good place mentally will be a huge win. We both know the ppl obsessed with performative activism aren't doing anything from a place of compassion. The real ones are out there making change, not sending people death threats online from the comfort and safety of their mommy's basement.

When I posted the pic of NCT Dream and Big Time Rush, I wrote in the tags how BTR was something my sister and I loved and bonded over. We watched the show even though it was obviously a kids show and we were both adults. It was just something that gave us joy. My sister passed away years ago and anything BTR-related will make me teary because I think about how much we laughed together over it.

So the first thing I get are messages over how problematic BTR is, that I should delete the post or I'm pro-genocide if I don't dislike them. Ngl that made me so upset because I got a bunch of faceless people trying to taint some precious memories of me and my sister. If they came at me trying to educate me on things I didn't know that would be different, but it's straight to judgment and hatred toward me over something I posted that was totally innocent.

Meanwhile I get criticized for posting about a kpop group instead of reblogging every call to action post. I donate my money to these causes, but I don't post about it because I don't need my ass kissed for doing what I know to be right. I am 1000% sure the anons in my inbox that try to police me have never given a dime to anything, but are policing people's blogs for not reblogging posts or talking about it more.

I feel bad that I haven't been very active on here this year so I try to come on when I have some free time to interact with you guys. I make a silly post about Doyoung and get anons tearing into me for it like I'm his social media manager. Okay so because the world is going to shit we aren't allowed to enjoy anything?? Can't make jokes about anything. Can't show support for anything. Just wrong on every fucking count.

Believe me I am so goddamn aware of how lucky I am that I can sit here and say I'm very privileged that I live comfortably in the life I have. I know what's going on in the world and I do my part to help where I can, but I also have to keep functioning. I don't want every minute of my life to be seeped in anger, I did that for a long time and it not only eats away at you, it makes you ineffective in actually changing the things making you angry in the first place.

This was just supposed to be a blog where I posted my stories. One of the few places I could go and not constantly be reminded of how fucked up the world is. I've always said that people who told me reading a fic of mine made their day a little better or helped them escape for a bit were always my favorite. That was what I came here for and I loved being able to share the tiniest moments of peace and quiet with others through stories with guaranteed happy endings.

I'm frustrated because I have 4 drafts ready to go next year. I got the story posts done and made all the headers. But I don't want to post them. I have no problem admitting I'm selfish and spiteful. Even though I can turn off anon, I can't block these miserable people and I don't want them reading my stuff. They don't get to consume my content and then tell me to off myself right after.

A massive fuck you to those of you that ruined this blog for me.

[autogyne-redacted]

tbh, your recent post about transandrophobia synthesizes my thoughts about it very well, and im surprised you're getting backlash. the only additions i would make is that the gender/sex binary in the west was originally very explicitly a white supremacist creation, even down to the categories of male/female, and lionizing any aspect of that tends to get really racist really fast no matter how feminist or well intentioned. i guess you'd call me a trandandrobro bc i hang out in the tag and sometimes use the word for specific things (like when the lab threw out my cervical cancer test cells bc the cup was labelled M) but, i genuinely don't disagree with a single one of your points. i've been getting uncomfortable with the increasingly reactionary nature of the conversation on transandrophobia and i appreciate your take a lot.

Rambling about transandrophobia

Tbh It's been really surprising to see transandrophobia types interacting with that post all around.

And mostly it boils down to me having had windows into transandrophobia discourse that makes it seem bad*. And other ppl treating these aspects as exceptions to a discourse they see as basically good.

And I recognize that in part this is just how polarized internet discourses work. Like, if my windows into transandrophobia are largely when something egregious gets said and passed around in my circles, that's gonna give a way different impression then if ppl are part of the discourse and curating a slice they agree with.

And the consistent overall harassment of any attempt to talk about transmisogyny and constant bad faith engagements (eg attacks on agab and cagab language, cafab attempts to ID as trans women and as direct targets of transmisogyny) mean few of us are still in a position to assume good faith with internet strangers we run into who identify with a discourse that very much seems to have a massive transmisogyny problem.

.

My slightly more extended position on transandrophobia, since I've been thinking about it the past few days is:

1) I'm broadly supportive of ppl talking about their experiences and trying to find common ground even around shared ~privilege~, so long as it's done with a commitment to broader, collective liberation. (Eg cis men getting together from a feminist perspective to talk about patriarchy = good, cis men doing so with no specific opposition to normative masculinity = fashy).

2) the general attitude I've seen from transandrophobia world is to say: this has nothing to do with anyone other than trans mascs ppl other than trans mascs aren't welcome as part of this discourse: it's by us for us. Intentionally creating an insulated discourse especially around a point of (partial) privilege has a terrible track record. But regardless of relative positionality insulated discourses are just going to be more limited. They can create theory that's empowering for the creator group but it's probably not gonna get much mileage beyond and it's easy for it to be actively harmful.

3) I've thought for ages that trans masc experience seems ~under theorized~ and that transphobia is rly under theorized too. And it'd be really cool to see this addressed in a way that isn't rife with transmisogyny. It does seem like transandrophobia discourse is addressing a real hole, it's just doing in a way that rly sketches me out.

4) really I think gender discourse overall is just not in a great place rn. It was 1990 when Judith Butler questioned whether it makes sense for women to be the sole/primary subject of feminism, and we had major interventions that I'd say reached a peak in the early to mid 2010's (criticisms of white feminism, of cis feminism, intersectionality becoming a dominant framework).

There's a strong tendency to say that we're basically in a post gender world, or that race is just a more fundamental framework (which I strongly disagree with)** and I do think we really need a rebuilt gender theory that has teeth to it. Trying to build theory around transmisogyny I've found it necessary to do a lot of general theory building around gender. How normative masculinity and femininity work, how gender is policed. I don't think we're gonna be able to make a clean break from identity politics until we can have a strong theory framework that lets us talk about this shit from outside identity politics.

5) this is v rambly but I'm inclined to engage with transandrophobia discourse a little more than lots of my circles in part because I really want there to be more good theory building going on around gender, from different positions and across positions. One day, maybe.

*full of transmisogyny/denials of transmisogyny, trans masc exceptionalism and a failure to recognize and be in solidarity around shared issues with trans fems and cis men.

**getting back to the part of your ask about the history of gender and white supremacy, there's a huge entanglement between gender and race, gender and civilization. Normative gender differentiation has been a classic way the civilized set themselves apart from those they deem savage.

Broad claims like the one you make in your ask anon get messy tho. Like, a largely binary model of gender is older than history but you can also talk about the modern binary having really only come about over the past couple centuries (and obviously it's heavily contested and changing rn). Similarly you could say the modern concept of whiteness came about through the trans Atlantic slave trade (and then has been constantly shifting and getting redefined ever since) but there's obviously much older histories it's building off of.

I'm realizing now that maybe you meant the binary divide between sex vs gender as opposed to the male vs female binary but I can't tell which. Either way, my position here is mostly that it's really really messy to make big historical claims. It's such a high level view you can tell a lot of different stories with the available historical evidence. Ideas about gender and race have a heavily entangled history tho and it's certainly gonna go poorly if you treat either as natural.

[ninicaise]

I love your posts so much! I’m curious, what do u think would be Laurent and Damen’s thoughts on open relationships, do u think it’s something they would try?

interesting question. i've made it into a joke already in this post and also there are these fantastic tags from @/not-a-coral-snake and it's the best thing ever so true so funny so them.

it's quite evident laurent has no interest in being with anyone other than damen. furthermore we don't see damen being interested in anyone ever again after he has a night with laurent + it makes both of them very jealous when they see or think about the other with someone else. so at least in the universe they're in i doubt they'd be genuinely interested in that kind of relationship. know that if they ever tried it they'd be miserable, and in an easy happy peaceful world they wouldn't even think about it.

unfortunately these people do not live in an easy happy peaceful world. it's inevitable that they at least discuss the possibility. however the only way i could see them having an open relationship agreement is through some sort of misunderstanding of each other's needs.

there's the fact that at least akielos is a culture in which people and esp nobles are expected to have multiple lovers/a harem. laurent goes above and beyond and a bit too much when trying to compensate for something he did (trying to die for damen for example) and i think for a certain period of time he would be respectful of akielon culture to the point of being too much. forcing damen's own culture onto damen himself, kind of thing.

it's likely damen has had open relationships in the past (jokaste anyone). he knows how they work, he grew up knowing it to be a natural thing, he knows that as king he is expected to have a variety of lovers. and likely in any other circumstance he would. he just isn't interested unless laurent is involved. damen hates the idea tbh but he will give laurent what he wants bc he thinks well. maybe laurent wants to explore his sexuality a little more with more people who aren't damen after years of repressing it (he doesn't) and if he is insisting so much then he must have a good reason (objectively he doesn't).

plus, and i think this one is the most likely, laurent knows he's not exactly an easy lover. ppl overestimate the amount of both self-respect and self-confidence laurent has wayyy to often. laurent is canonically insecure about anything sex related and a future-oriented control freak, so he'd try to have control over any affair damen might have if at some point laurent stops being enough by ensuring he will be able to claim that he knew all along, that laurent was the one who allowed it, laurent was in control the whole time. kind of like with th i know who you are damianos thing. i've known all along. i know you'll get tired of how complicated i am eventually i know everything i am prepared for every possible outcome you can't catch me chaos of this world etc etc.

it's not that he can tolerate the idea of damen being w other ppl, it's just that he thinks he has to tolerate it bc 1) he doesn't deserve a say 2) the alternative (damen getting tired, feeling trapped and leaving altogether) is way worse 3) he thinks it will happen eventually anyway and this is the only way he can remain dignified. or so he thinks. lol. this mindset is of course unhealthy. so he should work on that.

[zenigatakeibu]

SENSE AND OTHER SPECIFIC HEADCANONS.

tagged by: @foolshoujo ^_^ this is so late BUT TYYYY tagging: @espectres, @mielmoto, @brawlligator, @sosordid, & anyone else interested! i'm not too sure who all has done this one yet

WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE SMELL LIKE ? i'll be honest i am SO bad at describing/imagining what a character might smell like but ppl bring up zeni's aftershave in canon a lot, and imo warm bergamot/leather scents suit him really well. but here's what my friend said and baaasically i agree: "i think inspector zeni would be more like the strangers one (a cologne w notes of roasted coffee, whiskey, and suede) but maybe now that im thinking of food-y scents the chili pepper notes could work for him. like, roasted/popped corn, chili pepper and toasted sesame. i think it would be very tasty like the lapsang souchong smoky-tea scent, yuzu and a mild aquatic to give the impression of a soap he used or a cologne he sprayed before going out, with a rich peppery spice and the roasted grains for added warmth. just a bit of skin musk too. like if u were sitting in a restaurant with him after work you can smell pretty much his whole day on him. i dont think he would carry a strong synthetic smoke scent like you get with actual cigarette smoke i think there's a lot of other notes going on that give more of a masked, faint smoke scent hence why lapsang tea would be two-for-one in terms of green tea and smoky notes."

WHAT DO YOUR MUSE’S HANDS FEEL LIKE ? zenigata's hands are hairy and naturally soft but well-worn, calloused and scarred from almost three straight decades of fieldwork. they tend to run warm like the rest of him. he has an iron grip; his hands are INCREDIBLY strong, and his fingers are thick with blunt nails.

WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE USUALLY EAT IN A DAY ? depends on the day... zenigata has a HUGE appetite and is usually hungry enough to eat something at any given moment, but he has learned to curb it given the fact he gets stranded places... a lot. he isn't a picky eater whatsoever, aside from disliking overly sweet foods like desserts. if he's actively working on a lup heist he doesn't have much more than a few coffees and maaaybe a cup of microwave ramen/some gas station snacks. because his schedule is so busy, home cooked meals aren't something he's fortunate enough to have. instead, he gets a lot of street food, takeout, snacks, etc, anything that's easy to eat on the go. is this healthy? not at all. is it practical? maybe.. if u squint and tilt ur head. is he going to stop doing it anytime soon? well. no.

DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE A GOOD SINGING VOICE ? surprisingly, yes! there isn't any "canon" basis for this one, only that his voice actor sings professionally ^_^ and i think it'd be cute if zeni could too hehe. this song is my favorite by him! it sounds pretty close to how i imagine zeni's singing voice: deep, steady, and passionate.

DOES YOUR MUSE HAVE ANY BAD HABITS OR NERVOUS TICKS ? nervous ticks, no. bad habits, yes. zenigata is a stress smoker*, and when his depression is particularly bad, he tends to drink himself half to death. he also overlooks his own health a LOT and it doesn't help that hospitals make him nervous. though he hasn't had a heart attack yet (<-lol.), he does have a history of panic/anxiety attacks, one of which was so bad he needed to be hospitalized. these were more prevalent during his early years on the lupin case, he has since reigned them in considerably but under the right conditions the threat is of course always there.

*he tries not to smoke in public, and NEVER smokes around anyone 21 years old or younger.

WHAT DOES YOUR MUSE USUALLY LOOK LIKE / WEAR ? business wear is the name of the game. zenigata is very very VERY rarely seen out of his trenchcoat, even in the summer. under his coat is a charcoal-black suit, white button-up, dark red tie, and a tank top undershirt. despite how active he is, he wears black dress shoes (which are a bit scuffed if you look closely enough) and sock garters. on his wrist is a fairly inexpensive leather-banded watch. his fashion sense is very practical, if not erring on the side of bland. even what he considers "casual wear" is dress pants and a button-up. in general he prefers neutral and warm colors: browns, blacks, tans, oranges, reds, whites (smthn along the lines of his part 1 or cagliostro palettes).

IS YOUR MUSE AFFECTIONATE ? HOW SO ? yes... zeni may as well be a 6'5" teddy bear, but physical affection is reserved for a select few and he isn't usually the one to initiate it. that said, he has a habit of being very casually physical with lupin (there's literally an ep in part 4 where they're putting their hands in each other's mouths like it's smthn they do all the time... 🤨🏳️‍🌈). aside from lup though he's good at respecting people's physical boundaries so it's hard to say... casual affection is pretty common for him when it comes to romantic partners, like brushing a hand against your back while he passes by.

WHAT POSITION DOES YOUR MUSE SLEEP IN ? this one also depends... someone as perpetually exhausted as zenigata is a master at sleeping anytime, anywhere. when in bed though, he's either splayed out on his back or stomach; he isn't much of a side sleeper unless someone happens to be laying with him. sometimes he'll fall asleep hugging a pillow. when he's sleeping upright, like in a chair or against a wall, his arms are usually crossed over his chest and his head is bowed/his fedora tipped down over his face.

COULD YOU HEAR YOUR MUSE IN THE HALLWAY FROM ANOTHER ROOM ? stealth is NOT zenigata's strong suit. you could hear him from the other side of the city. he is L-O-U-D, LOUD, especially when he's angry. stomping feet, booming voice, the works. he doesn't try to be loud on purpose, but he's a big guy so he can't always help it.

[baph0meat]

out of general curiosity:

bonus points if u put ur fave thing to make in the tags!! also like i said this is about CURIOSITY, if you taint my notifs with a bunch of smug sneering at ppl who aren't as confident in the kitchen/saying shit like 'omg how do this many ppl not know how to cook' i will bite you to death

[entropy-sea-system]

OK OK impromptu rant but I need to get this out there as I still feel somewhat connected to the aro community-

I have been watching the tags, I've been talking the people in my local a-spec community and I think it amazes me just how incredible the relationships put forth by aro and aces are, while the communities just don't reflect any of it.

I've stopped identifying with the aroallo label because there was no sense of community associated with it. The a-spec spaces are made for aces only and the ace stuff in them is abhorrent. I am tired of people passing it off as repulsion, while still seeing people saying "hookers" are disgusting in a-spec tags. I'm tired of people saying PDA is bad. I'm tired of people acting like aros and aces can only be clueless cinnamon rolls. I'm tired of people being so so so stuck in their own perspective of the world they act like people in romantic relationships can't be happy. So on and so forth.

The concepts we have are passionating. They're the coolest ones I've been exposed to in queer communities. However, nobody thinks about them. Nobody speak about them. All we have is endless messages about how the world is so so confusing or hatred directed at sex and romance. I get that but I wish we went even a tiny bit past that really. It's a community filled with adults that feels so immature and I honestly think there is some sort of self infantilization going on. I don't like that I don't have symbols that aren't associated with uwu smol bean dragon lover stuff. It makes me sick and is why I don't identify with it anymore but it's genuinely sad to see because technically that's still the people who will relate to me the most.

It feels like people are always desperate to understand how the norm works and how they can best align with it instead of fully experiencing their identity. And that's an understandable thing to do but the community is just that with sex and romance negativity sprinkled on top of it.

I wish they were angrier. I wish they were more introspective. I wish they thought about breaking the norms more instead of headcannoning every female character without a love interest as aroace and talking about how gross sex is. I wish I felt like I can connect with the people who are supposed to be at least partly like me.

Anyway you're cool and I hope you're doing well! Sorry to drop all of this onto you but yeah I trust you with my ranty feels about the community.

We didn't really expect this ask but thank you for sending it!!

There are a lot of issues with the aspec community, especially online, (we have no experience with irl ones yet). And what you described here explains the issues with it quite well.

I feel like most of the aspec community ends up catering to mainly aces, and to a lesser extent aros, and slightly to apls, while other atertiary is hardly discussed (and agender ppl often just lump w gender stuff instead even though its aspec). I think the community is also rather divided, personally.

We're in some discord servers w mostly other apls and aros/run by other apl aros (often also romo aro) and they tend to overall be normal about aspec identities without being negative about attractions or actions or gatekeeping aspec labels. Currently we logged off discord a bit but we have in the past been in aro spaces that had many of the issues you mention , and still come across people being that way on tumblr.

I think there is a problem where some aros think that calling romance inherently toxic is somehow "activism" and deny that romance negativity exists, then claim that they "don't have to consider every culture ever" when people state that some cultures are romance negative and do harm people for engaging in romance.

They seem to think its "punching up" and some alloaros in particular try to justify it by acting like the united states is the only country that matters and citing sex negativity as a reason for romance negativity "not existing". When aces do this about sex its harmful, but thats not supposed to be a reason to deny that being romance negative is toxic and harmful to others even if their country doesn't persecute people for engaging in romance.

I also personally see a some aros hesitant to id with ace or acespec terms that technically fit them because of how bad the ace community has been about sex and anyone who isn't ace, as well as aces and aros generally forgetting about atertiary ppl. Some of them prefer terms like lightspec or such or allospec partly because of that.

It's understandable that some people feel a disconnect from labels like aro and ace as a result of how the communities tend to be tbh. I've had moments when I didn't want to id as aro because of this, and I consider myself both aro and alloro due to my arospec orientation.

Also being tertiary repulsed and being repulsed by sex repulsion (it just happens to repulse me a lot to read about even if not stated in a sex negative way), makes it a bit hard to be around other aspecs. I feel really disgusted and triggered when other aros talk about squishes and qprs and friendships, even if I think they should be able to talk about that. Which makes it hard to be around some other aros.

I also get what you mean about people trying to align with the existing norm. I'm seeing a rise in people maligning labels they don't understand and this attitude of "the only kind of weird thats fine is the kind of weird I am", which the aspec community has certainly not been immune to either.

I feel like for some reason most aspecs I see online, especially aros, are minors? Maybe because the aromantic label only really caught on after 2005 iirc so older people less likely to have heard of it? Im not a huge fan of how aspec tends to be infantilised either. I find issues with how some of the aro symbols are very derivative of ace symbols because we are not some extension of ace we're our own community. I can also see how ppl may find it too infantilising to have symbols like frogs and griffons etc.

Also yeah what is with people doing that about characters who are women or girls and express that they don't want to get married??? Or even just don't have a love interest. I understand if aroaces want more headcanoned rep or non-aspecs I guess idk want to fill some headcanon diversity quota without actually supporting aspecs but.

Not wanting marriage or not having a love interest is not inherently equal to not wanting romance and/or sex. I feel especially that people like to assume not wanting to have children means not wanting sex (which I find pretty reductive in that its acting like thats the only reason ppl have sex, especially as a sex favorable person who doesn't want kids). And all aspecs deserve more canon rep to begin with. I think I have a gripe with ppls aspec headcanons almost always being alloace or aroace. It's like they forget other aspecs like apls, alloaros, neu aros, non sam aros, atertiary, etc. even exist!

Additionally I think its partly because romance is emphasized more for female characters that even fans decide to make their interpretations about romance/a lack there of as if its the character's only personality trait. In my opinion its just as obsessive about romance if someone thinks all there is to a character is not engaging in it. I also see people act like they're solely worried a woman/girl character is going to fall for a man/boy character they hc as aro but not often the opposite like. Just say you see romance as gendered/feminine in some way and go I guess lol.

I also feel like mainly allistic non-aspecs do this but when ppl hc an autistic character as ace or aroace it feels infantilising if theres literally no other rationale behind their headcanon. I feel desexualised at times as an autistic and thats mostly bc ppl pick up on some kind of nd thing and they assumed I'm too "innocent" to like romance or sex, or because they view us as "unable to consent"(which can be true of some people if their neurodivergence affects their ability to consent to things even as an adult, but isn't universally true.) . I think some of this perception is also rooted in eugenics (due to people equating sex with having kids and viewing disability and/or neurodivergence as a tragedy and thinking its 'bad' for disabled and/or nd ppl to have kids).

So I don't really appreciate implications that someone is ace just by virtue of being autistic. I think its also unfair to autistic aros and aces because our neurodivergence can influence our orientation, but being autistic does not mean that makes someone inherently ace and/or aro.

My physical disability is relatively mild and less talked about (chronic pain and fatigue), and I don't reveal it to most ppl(ppl who dont live with me won't know I get exhausted from non-taxing to abled ppl activities, and chronic pain is not visible at all and we can't get mobility aids due to not being independent yet) so Im not fully aware how people view my apl and aro identities in that regard.

And there is definitely an issue with aspecs trying to enforce NEW norms. They cry about how people are forced into performing romance and sex to fit in but then turn around and tell people they need to love or have friends or family or pets in order to be a good person. It's also very harmful to aspecs bc some of us are loveless or atertiary etc. in ways that aros and aces apparently hate lol. A lot of aros in particular are very platonormative.

The aro community is also rather hostile to romo aros. There are still people who exclude romo aros from the aro label or act like we have to bend over backwards and acknowledge that we are "amatonormative oppressors" for liking romance or feeling some connection to it.

I think also the meme about putting a box away on a tall shelf away from a child is relevant here. The word amatonormative is constantly misused by a lot of aros. I've seen aros call alloromantic apls "amatonormative" and act like "amatonormative" means 'person who engages in romance'.

Its not a term abt engaging in romance or liking it. It's also not an excuse to pressure people to have or like friends either. I think aros should have actual discussions about amatonormativity that aren't just US-centric and about romance(wow do aros love to ignore that monogamy, non-queer, cis, etc. are social categories deemed more valuable under amatonormative societal norms), instead of using it to describe anyone they deem as interested in romance .

On that note, a lot of them use some examples of toxic relationships as reasons to call romance toxic and almost advocate for romance to never exist(which is especially disgusting to see for me, as in my country a lot romance negative conservative rhetoric is literally worded the same way). These people almost never acknowledge that other relationships like friendship can be toxic too.

I think some of these people believe in 'morality of repugnance' in that they think if its something they personally find repulsive in some way, that means its inherently immoral, which is not conducive to having unbiased views of the world, or critical thinking. I think a lot of ppl my age and younger are especially trying to do this because Ive lost count of how many I've seen be like "ewww thats gross/weird and so its wrong/immoral", and literally spouting conservative rhetoric while thinking they're politically liberal/leftists, perhaps with different wording but yeah. (I think that one tumblr post abt ppl in that age range being 'conservative on accident', especially in the united states- though that is concerning given the way ppl from other countries tend to absorb american opinions and such too much, describes this phenomenon)

I think some aros are also still so caught up in how much of a tragedy they think their aromanticism is, and I feel bad for them but thats not all there is to being aro and its a bit weird when ppl act like it is.

I think one of the best things about being aspec for me is feeling more like I can engage in and not engage in relationships (Im only favorable to sexual partnerships w no label other than 'sexual partner', and romance only w two partners as of now, and completely averse to all tertiary/nonrose. before I fully realised my aspec identities i pressured myself to have friends and felt like I'd be obligated to be favorable to nonsexual romance if someone wanted that with me, to 'be an ally to aces', even though it repulsed me. I also felt obligated to want qprs especially after realising Im aro. Realising Im atertiary helped me stop forcing myself to want nonrose relationships.)

Anyways that was a lot of rambling but probably most of my opinions on the aro and some extent aspec community.

[demonsfate]

guilty as charged (mun edition) // accepting // anonymous asked . . . Have you ever unfollowed a blog? What were the reasons?

All the time LOL. Most often I unfollow unactive blogs, typically blogs that have been inactive for a year or damn near it. Why do I bother? Because sometimes I'll notice my dash is very slow and I'm like "daaamn I've got [this many] followers... how come nothin's happenin?" Then I realize oh wait, a lotta my mutuals became inactive lol. So softblocking them is a good way to gage how many active followers I actually have.

Other times I've unfollowed a blog just because I personally didn't vibe with the mun's ooc posts, or content they're putting out. Or, one time when somebody was just reblogging TOO many posts that were completely unrelated to their muse, and was just spamming the dashboard with unrelated fandom reblogs as if they were a personal or somethin. I don't mind a lotta ooc posts, but I do start drawing the line when my dash gets spammed with completely different fandom posts that aren't related to their muse in any way.

The most controversial time I unfollowed somebody, and this may kinda count as drama but not really, was this K.ingdom Hearts blog. For some reason, my Riddler blog took MONTHS to pick up. I mean, I had it for 4 months and couldn't get a single follow back or anything. I have no clue why - literally nobody wanted to write with me then. (Which is really bizarre, given that, I think at one point, it had 400 followers - many ppl started writing with me later). I'm gonna guess it's because my blog had dark themes / backgrounds. (I wrote my Eddie as a CSA survivor - this may be semi important later)

Anyway, a confession on one of 'em RP confession blogs was expressin' how sad they were that nobody was writing with them, I agreed with it too, also offering I'd write with 'em too. A KH blog came up to me and saying they were having the same problem. I was about to learn a big lesson in writing with them just 'cos I was sympathetic LOOOL. So basically I followed, and we kinda talked on and off for a couple weeks, we wrote a lil. But then their topics started getting ... weirder, horrible even.

Then suddenly, their posts got super fucking crazy. Like they BRAGGED about their tags were apparently QUOTES from the Columbine shooting and the Jamestown cult tragedy?! I didn't fuckin' know 'cos who would??? And like when I went to unfollow them, they were having a thread where the character casually threatens to rape his brother and it's like holy shiiiiiiiiiit. So of course, I hardblocked 'em for that clownery.

Unfortunately, I started getting anon hate on my blog (obvs from him). I got like 4 anon hates in a row - but I blocked the anon and well, that did that lol. Some of the anon hates were like "I thought you liked dark content..." and it's like yeah, when HANDLED WITH RESPECT LMAO. My character was written as a CSA survivor as a background, I don't actually write the fuckin' act out, it's just part of his story. And like, it's also there to show how male victims handle it, and how a lot of sexual abuse survivors tend to turn to hard drugs to cope with it. my BLOG HAD NOTHING THAT WAS GLORIFYING / USING TRUE CRIME SHIT & THEN HAVING MY CHARACTER THREATENING TO UGHGHHH. And like, I didn't call 'em out, didn't mention it on my blog. They can write whatever the fuck they want, I just don't want anything to do with that stuff lmao. So I blocked them.

Then I got one of their mutuals messaging me like "why did you block [user]? they thought you were good friends with them. they're really hurt :(" and it's like?? I kinda talked to them every now & then thru DMS, that's it. We never exchanged discords ffs, we were far from "friends" never mind good friends lmao. Also don't be wildin' on your dashboard, ppl are likely to become uncomfortable and unfollow.