#scared that im inherently bad and people want to hurt me on purpose

[quillkiller]

omg im gonna be alone forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[twistedastrology]

- The most painful Chiron placements -

----------------------------------------------------------

in my opinion-

to preface, all chiron placements are inherently painful, but these to me are the ones i have the most respect for in a way??

everyone knows chiron as the wounded healer, it represents our soul level wound that, once healed, is our greatest superpower.

so here are a handful of the chiron placements that to me are the most intense.

- Chiron in Aries/1st -

chiron in aries is absolutely terrifying to me and i have the utmost respect for people with this placement because this is a core wound of the self.

they go through life forever trying to find who they are and feeling like the world holds no space for them- ive said like a billion times that my biggest fear is losing myself, and that's the wound that chiron in aries has to deal with.

they might struggle with finding what they're willed to do and might feel like a mosaic of everything else around them instead of a real person and that is so scary to me.

once they manage to heal that wound though, they are fucking unstoppable and inspire others to find themselves just as they did.

- Chiron in Sagittarius -

this one is intense to me because it often has a lot of potential to remain unhealed- this is a wound that relates to spirituality entirely-

i dont know many ppl with this placement at all but i imagine they're scared or intimidated by spirituality as a whole to some degree-

these people don't know what the purpose of life is, they don't know what they believe in or If they believe in anything- the subject of belief and purpose in life is very sore for them.

when healed, this chiron placement bestows an intense sense of belonging and meaning in life, and it has a lot of potential to remain unhealed because spirituality at the very least helps you to find a true meaning in life, without adhering to a strict religion that makes one up.

- Chiron in Aquarius/11th -

im a little biased for this one because i have this placement but i can 100% speak from experience because of that.

this placement is easily the most agonizing one in my entire chart- for the longest time i felt like i would never find true friends, and sometimes that feeling will creep up again and it makes me absolutely crumble.

chiron in aries and chiron in aquarius are very similar to some extent because they both feel like the world won't give them somewhere to feel at home, just for different reasons.

chiron in aquarius makes you feel like you will never have anyone who truly understands you and that even if you do, they won't stick around like you want them to.

for some people, this can make them try to conform to somewhere they don't belong. thankfully i don't have that aspect, but it has crossed my mind multiple times in life.

this placement, when it's triggered by something, makes me immediately consider every possibility upon meeting someone new and forces me to give up my hopes until im proven otherwise.

im pretty sure it's the reason i have an avoidant attachment style as well as trust issues 😮‍💨

when healed though, these people have the ability to bring people together without snuffing anyone's individuality. they always respect people for who they are and the friends they do manage to find respect them for who they are.

much shorter post this time but ive been super tired all day and ofc had a chiron trigger so ive been a little cranky to say the least- but i wanted to write something for some reason so i figured what better than what i struggled with today 😮‍💨

if you have any of these chiron placements or just generally know your chiron fucking hurts really bad when it's triggered, i get it- but it won't be like that forever. the more we manage to heal, the more that wound is transformed into the most stable part of our charts.

if in general you're not doing well rn, again, i get it, but it will never be like that forever. that's not how life works. you won't be happy forever either, but if you were, there would be no value to it.

like the song i named this blog after says, "a lonely life where no one understands you, but don't give up because the music do"

- 🖤 -

[irrealisms]

very glad you're in favor of lying to therapists-- there's a lot i wish i could tell my therapist but i don't have the words, and saying a lot of it would get me hospitalized as it mainly relates to me deriving immense pleasure from causing myself pain. i feel it's almost hypocritical to be okay with someone else consensually hurting me but when i hurt myself (for the purpose of seeking pleasure) it is suddenly a huge concern.

ohhhh i have a lot of things to say to this but honestly the first thing is that this is #relatable. a Huge Mood.

okay now time for my ramblings. this is such a thing that can honestly be really frustrating and can make things hard? like, i self harm /and also/ i’m a masochist, and some of these experiences are super different, but then other times they’re... not. for the most part i have the policy of telling my therapist when i self-harm out of emotional pain reasons and not just Ooh Stimmy reasons, but sometimes it is genuinely hard to tell those apart, from both directions! and also that policy has.... mostly fallen by the wayside since I’ve had therapists who would report to my parents every time I self-harmed. (spoiler: it didn’t make me stop self-harming, it just made me stop telling them when I did.) honestly, I highly recommend asking your therapist outright (ideally on the first day! this is always the first question I ask when considering therapists) when they consider it justified to break confidentiality and/or suggest hospitalization and/or hospitalize a client involuntarily. some therapists won’t take any action about self-harm; if you can find one who fits your other criteria and is helpful, this might be a question to ask them, as long as you’re willing to lie if the answer is that they will.

the other thing is safety. (this is not actually a reason to tell your therapist, btw, people in general tend to be super bad at judging which things are safe and which things aren’t.) if you’re doing something for pleasure, you probably don’t want to die! a lot of “coping mechanisms for self-harm” are just maximally safe ways to self-harm, like snapping a rubber band against yourself or putting your hand in ice water. other things you might like that are basically zero-risk: spicy food, waxing, getting your flu shot, (nsfw) figging. when cutting yourself, avoid veins and arteries; when hitting yourself, avoid organs and bones. one of the most famous “people are really bad at judging what’s safe and what isn’t” examples is that fireplay and waxplay are less dangerous than slapping someone’s face hard. in general, anywhere that’s covered in fat (breasts, butt, thighs) is gonna be safer to hurt than places that aren’t (face, neck). there are some things where having a partner does improve safety a LOT— especially if you’re doing anything where you might go unconscious before you’re able to respond (don’t do solo breathplay, kids). if you’re doing anything with infection risk, keep a fully stocked first-aid kit, use it, and be mentally prepared to suck up your pride and go to the doctor if you have to. i’m not an expert on this, but in general, you’re going to want to be looking for BDSM safety guides and self-harm harm-reduction. don’t 100% trust advixe from anyone who isn’t an expert (including me!), because, again, it can be REALLY unintuitive which things are dangerous and which are low-risk. (note that i DIDN’T include exercise on my zero-risk list; IME, it can range from “healthier than not exercising” to “significantly less safe than cutting”, depending how good you are at noticing the difference between good pain and bad pain while exercising and whether you consistently stop when you experience the latter.) if you’re doing high-risk things and don’t want to compromise on them (for example, if you’re me age 15 and are super into solo breathplay) please please PLEASE look up safety/harm reduction/risk minimization guides. (if you’re unwilling to do this, consider that you might, in fact, be self-harming; putting yourself in risky situations is a form of self-harm, even if the situation is one you enjoy.)

there’s also a thing where.... okay this is gonna be controversial but. safely practiced self harm is not actually an inherently bad thing! for me, self harm is often a bad sign because it signals that my normal strategies for distress tolerance have failed, that i am in so much emotional pain that i’m relying on this for endorphins. other times it’s bad because it signals my belief that i deserve to be hurt. these are bad things! my pain is bad! but the badness isn’t located in the self-harm, they’re located in my motivations, and (sometimes) in the fact that i’m inflicting a negative experience on myself without a reason. the self-harm is more measurable, so it makes a good metric of how well I’m doing, but it isn’t actually the goal, except insofar as I want to avoid scaring other people. (my friend wrote a post about this; I’ll link it in a reply to this ask, because I’m on an ancient version of tumblr mobile and don’t trust it with links. I’ll also drop a link to the Icarus Project’s short workbook on self-harm.)

[fallingstarset]

Hi! I’m in a bnha discord, and while I was making my character, I realized I essentially gave them DID. I want to do this right if I’m going to do it- what are some ways to accurately portray DID in a system that doesn’t know its there? What are some things to avoid? Thank you!!

Considering DID is a very... controversial topic, and its very important to portray it correctly. I would suggest you do a lot of research, considering the nature of DID.

Okay, im gonna be honest, I'm not way too confident in my advice giving(🎶cause I got nonself esteem🎶<thats abreference btw), so I watched a few videos of others answering your very question to kind of say "there, im not alone or the only one who thinks this" because I dont want to add to the shitstorm of misinformation about DID, so if you see some others bring of similar points as im bringing up, keep this in mind.^^;

First of all, you know the movies like Split about the guy with DID? A few things about it— Not all alters are that quirky, and the body cant literally morph like, to that much of an extent the character in the movie did(like the whole "hoard" thing)and many portrayls of DID in the media have some kind of misinformation(thanks Hollywood!!!-_-)

(Other examples of bad representarions of DID: Split, The United States of Tara, Fight Club..)

DID can be scary, and definitely can scare the host and those around them, but those with DID are not inherently dangerous or evil(I mean. That should be obvious I think, but... ya know ^^;)

Nothing is really random in a DID system. Alters, from what I've seen, can be anything really, but its not like "oh this alter is this kind of thing and the reason for that is..just because!". Like, if the child's abuser was a female, persay, then the child may find comfort in those that are the opposite sex of the abuser. Or if their abuser was racist or against certain groups of people, the child might find comfort in those very people that the abuser was against, the child-logic being that "if so-and-so doesnt like these people, and so-and-so hurts me, then maybe these people are actually safe!". Also, everything has specific purposes, even if the host or certain alters cant see it, even the little details of alters personalities and things in the headspace/inner-world are designed to basically keep the child safe while they are going through the trauma. Remember, Dissociative Identity Disorder is a trauma based disorder that is a coping mechanism that develops when a child is very young and they go through intense, repeated truama.

Persecutors are NOT evil!!! Persecutors are defined by "a person who harasses or annoys someone persistently"(thanks google XD). They are imperfect, and not completely bad or good. Their job is to inflict harm to the host, certain alters, or the system as a whole. Persecutors may harm the body or harm their relations, like cutting ties with friends(maybe they believe that friend to be harmful to the system). They can also be trauma holders, this being a reason for them to lash put and harm the system. But they arent pure evil. Maybe said persecutor is doing what they think is right for the system, even if they are actually doing much harm. The way we've dealt with pwrsecutors in the past is with realistic fake blood if they want to self harm, allow them to do vent art, and limit them and set rules but not to the point they will want to lash out and break said rules and boundries.

Concerning switching, there's not always total memory loss. That depends on how good the system communication is. Those who loose time aren't always aware they actually lost time. Like legit hours went by and I didnt relaize any time had passed until I looked at my camera roll and found like 100 selfies (yeah thanks Roman XD).

Tldr: Do a good ammount of research before you try to write it.^^

[tumblunni]

hey uhhh YKNO WHATS GOOD brainstorming potential headcanons for a character you know NOTHING ABOUT

i guess its less headcanons and more like.. wishes? hopes? what i think would be cool to do with this dude and like ALL I KNOW is that he is a cool dude and apparantly he doesnt have a backstory or sympatheticness SO consider what if he did and maybe thatd be cooler. like dude he owns THE SINGLE BEST BOSS BATTLE THEME IN ALL VIDEOGAMES EVER and that is ALL I KNOW ABOUT HIM and i just want him to deserve it, yo. also if he turned good i could be his friend and some of the badassness would rub off on me

ANYWAY

COOL SQUID PRESIDENT

i would vote for this man as squesident

seriously the design is SO GOOD!!! how did they manage to get such a cool colourscheme out of his entire Thing being that he has no colours?? like damn i like white being used as an evil colour for once, thanks. it symbolizing emptyness and emotionlessness is like BIG YES and i really hope thats what they were going for cos apparantly the wiki says that all the yokai who join his “we should never be friends with humans” gang turn colourless to match? but like the dude himself is less plain white and more very light shades of blue, grey and gold. MAYBE REFLECTS THAT HE IS A MANIPULATIVE DOUCHE WHO MAYBE DOESNT REALLY CARE ABOUT YOKAI AND JUST WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD PERHAPS dammit why does everything about him scream “great 100% evil guy who is very scary” when man I WANT TO LIKE HIM, DAMMIT!!

ALSO SERIOUSLY the visual effect of the wild spirally red yellow eyes against an otherwise “peaceful” colour whose entire point as an evil is “peaceful” taken to a bad extreme. it REALLY immediately sells that “tries to pretend to be calm, collected and fancy but is actually an angry mofo at heart” vibe i got from his theme song??? I REALLY HOPE THATS ACTUALLY HOW THIS COOL BOSS BATTLE GOES DOWN cos man the best villains are smug asshles who Always Win and then when you FINALLY win you get that much of a better ending!!! but AGH another part of me is like “i hope im wrong because he looks like a Cool Dad and i want him to be good”. Maybe his true design concept was to betray me personality with using all his cool dad power for evil...?

ALSO im not gonna spoil you guys on it cos it is JUST AS AMAZING AS HIS SONG but i was toooootally right that he has some sort of super intimidating second form and its got THE COOLEST DESIGN EVER HOLY SHIT! and also apprantly there’s a recoloured bonus boss called Minister Squisker who’s like a colour swap in a really creative way?? it swaps him being all “blank” themed with scary bright eyes and instead his entire body is a wild ye olde mythological illustration style paint job in every colour ever. okay COOL HEADCANON NUMBER ONE thats actually the regular colour of the species and mckraken is the white sheep of the family lol

also UHHH i dunno it seems kinda weird to me that theyd have this dude running a goddamn political party about humans being bad yet he doesnt seem to have any motivation whatsoever for it? unless it really is just supposed to be ‘he only pretends he wants to protect yokai from humans so he can manipulate and rule the yokai’. but like HYPOTHETICALLY in some universe where he actually lives up to his Grumpy Dad Who Has A Hidden Soft Spot potential, maybe he has an understandable backstory that raises legitimate concerns about how humans are destroying the natural and mythological and forgetting their roots, or other reasonable reasons why yokai could think humans are dangerous and all. i mean we ARE dangerous, we’re just a wide group of people that contain evil bastards and also good people, yknow. And thatd resonate well as a plot probably, cos well the whole point of the series is “in real life ur scared of yokai but theyre actually all goofy pranksters who will be your best friend forever”. Both sides being afraid of each other could lead to some good plotness! and it could be really effective and sad if after hours of joyous childhood wonder the protagonist bumps into the first yokai they couldnt befriend. the first one thats scared of them. the first member of this weird colourless political party who accuses them of committing crimes against yokaikind, of obviously only enslaving these yokai friends cos you have an ulterior motive, just like all humans! it could be effective if its something that shakes up the whole way you saw the world and establishes that hey its not all fun and happiness, and there’s some people you are powerless to convince. maybe even some people you are powerless to save...?

ANYWAY possible idea for ‘what if the dude originally had a sympathetic motive but it got twisted over time and now he’s just a fuck BUT maybe he could still be redeeminated someday ok thanks” What if he’s the spirit of.. like.. ocean pollution? Like there’s some yokai who are ghosts of a mortal person but theres some that are just nature spirits or personifications of concepts. What if he’s the personification of the dying screams of all the wildlife killed in a particular tragic oil spill? hence squid = thematic, and blank white colourscheme = even more thematic reflecting the stain the oil would leave on a pristine ocean and also the blank emotionlessness he was left as after witnessing that tragedy. Cos like his entire Purpose would have been born out of avenging anger but i mean he was just a kid, the only one left alive on a ruined beach and seeing just how powerful humans were and how pointless it would be to try and fight them with his weak power. like he was born to avenge all these souls and he just keeps failing!! his entire reason to live and he’s just too small!! so he ends up becoming bitter and cynical and learning how to use his silver tongue to manipulate others into becoming his weapons, and he vows that someday he’s gonna come back when he has the power he needs to complete his mission. and he’s just forever had this anger seething inside that he’s been unable to get any catharsis from, so when his cold and collected persona cracks he’s really damn scary with all these years of a man who’s grown old fearing he’ll never be able to avenge his ocean friends and just AAAAAA! itd be really good cos itd be a way he could still be intimidating and high stakes as a boss fight but also sympathetic!! also it could make sense why he’d only be redeemable after defeating him? like this entire time he’s been hidden behind a million layers of politics and minions and stuff and its very easy for him to not see the reality of the fact that he’s terrorizing human children just like how humans scarred him as a child. so like his whole big second form transformation super anger mode time would be sort of a last ditch attempt to deny what he already knows, the doubts that have been eating away at his soul now he’s getting close to the end of his life goal. but also like.. he doesnt even know who he IS, under the lies! its been his entire purpose for existing. like he probably uhh.. didnt have much plans after his victory. he probably wouldnt have much will to live left. so yeah you basically beat up this guy’s emotional walls and make him face the face of the people he’s been hurting, when he’s been trying to avoid it for so long. and he gets to see how much all the other yokai genuinely trust you and how much youre personally sacrificing to protect them so maybe you really arent just lying about being a good person...

oh also i was thinking about the inherant hypocrisy present in the fact that this guy is a big spoopy REALLY WELL DESIGNED squid monster that spends all his time in a depowered humansona instead, despite his whole Thing being hating humans. and, yknow, ‘i’ll solve this using a carbon copy of human politics instead of any more traditionally magical way of fighting the humans’. Yeah. So THEORY of SADNESS maybe he like never actually met any other yokai for a long time? I dont think it really makes sense that he’d be hypocritical because he secretly likes humans or something, that wouldnt jive with this backstory idea. So im thinking another explanation could be that he genunely doesnt know much about yokai culture? Like cos of his backstory he just poofed into existance on this destroyed beach in the human world and spent the first few centuries of his life completely alone except for the terrifying monsters that haunted every second of his life, and the knowledge that it was his purpose to defeat them but he didnt know how. And he was a nature spirit of the sea but his sea was empty of everything except death, so he couldnt even hug a cute fish sidekick or something- OH GOD WHAT IF HE DID HAVE A CUTE FISH SIDEKICK AND IT DIED COS OF HUMANS!!! very tiny sad squid monster child holding a dead pet, oh god why did my heart did this to meeee!! so yeah he didnt even know he was a yokai or wtf yokai are, he didnt know anywhere outside the tiny rock pool he would hide in on this barren beach. And then someday he gets found by an older yokai and adopted and like he feels like he owes them so much cos they gave him a reason to live, and a connection to the nature that he was supposed to protect, and.. well.. any companionship at all ever. So thats how his directionless “humans are bad” turned into “yokai are good and i need to protect them from humans like i failed to protect the beach” which turned into “i need to get more power to do this” which turned into manipulating other yokai and seeing them as nothing more than tools to take down the humans, his revenge consuming him until he barely remembered the reasons he originally wanted to do it...

and blablabla thats where we bring in the recolour bonus boss also, and say thats the nice grandpa figure who adopted him when he was all lost and trapped in the human world. and cos he was sorta adopted into nobility thats why he’s so over the top with his pompousness, its like a hint of IM LOVV MY GRANDEPA shining through his grumpface. ALSO maybe a sad situation where the gramps saw his kid growing up into this scary extremist and he tried to reason with him that humans dont need to be destroyed and that led to them fighting and him getting sealed off in recolour bonus boss land. and mckraken sees it as the biggest betrayal of his life and it totally threw him off the slippery slope to feel like the one man he trusted the most was a traitor to yokai all along. but even at his most evil he couldnt bear to actually kill his beloved gramps so he just imprisoned him and tries to stop thinking about it but like THE CONSTANT SPECTRE OF THE GUILT HANGS OVER YOUR HEAD THAT YOU DID YOU GRAMPS WRONGGGG So yehmaybe protag could find the gramps guy and hear about the sad backstory via him and then defeat mckraken and make him realise he was wrong and he apologises to his gramps and atones and all the humans and yokai are friends again and BUNNI CRIES FOREVER the end

cos seriously man this guy’s design is too good to be wasted on a hateable!! srsly he’s like that archetypical goofy big beard chubby pirate dude BUT INTIMIDATING AND BADASS AND COOL FASHION AND DAVY JONES SQUID BEARD SQUEARD I LOVE HIM he is too round to be 100% evil

*slams fists on the table* IF YOU DONT LIVE UP TO MY EXPECTATIONS I AM GONNA CRY

aaa i need to stop just sitting here theorizing about this game and actually friggin play it lolllll

[freedom-of-fanfic]

hey there! so, i strive to be philosophically consistent and i think i need some insight: what would be the point of critizising stuff if you ultimately couldnt claim that some content is inherently bad? why would any of us want to critizise anything at all if problematic content is always allowed to exist? how can i ever say 'X show is mysoginistic' if i also say 'noncon/loli/etc is acceptable'? im not trying to test u with these q's, i just want to hear some other opinions bc im confused. x

these are good questions tbh. I’ll try to keep the rambling to a reasonable length for once. but the really short answer to all three of the questions you posed is 

it’s all about context.

question 1:

what would be the point of critizising stuff if you ultimately couldnt claim that some content is inherently bad?

First let’s define the words ‘bad’ and ‘inherently’. (This phrase gets used so much in anti parlance because it’s ill-defined and vague and therefore perfect for wrecking debate attempts.) in the context of the rest of your ask, I think I’ll define ‘bad’ as ‘immoral’. (Therefore, ‘good’ means ‘morally upright’.) Also, to make it clear: ‘inherent’ is ‘innate’. 

to say something is ‘inherently bad’ is to say that the quality of ‘badness’ is inseparable from the thing. so the core of this question is: can fiction be innately immoral? and if not, why would you critique it?

IMO, because fictional content is fictional, and thus unverifiable, no one fictional work can ever have an inherent moral value. However, critique is absolutely valuable as a supported opinion (though it cannot be a verifiably correct truth).

There’s debate as to whether humans have an inborn moral compass. If they do, then it’s possible that certain actions can be innately immoral. Deliberately harming another person’s physical being by assault, rape, or murder would certainly count as innately immoral. Lying is immoral; stealing is immoral. There may be good reasons for some of these things (though not all) - harming or killing in self-defense/in battle, lying to protect or for social grease, stealing to survive - but they are not moral actions.

Similarly, a character in a fictional work might act in an immoral way. But does that make the fictional work itself immoral? 

The answer will depend on the person. Some people will feel that any morally gray action in a story means the fictional work is endorsing immorality. Others might feel the work depicts the acts but condemns them. Others still will feel it’s simply an aspect to a good fictional story, and yet others may feel that the work is trying to do one thing but actually accomplishing another.  

And they will all be right. Each person’s individual understanding, created by how they read the work, their personal experiences, their cultural background, their personality, their identity - will come together to create an entirely unique experience with any fictional work, and each person’s final opinion on the work can never, ever be wrong.*

If the only reason for criticizing a work is to determine whether the work is good or bad on some universal scale, then yes - it’s useless to bother. no scale is actually universal when it comes to fiction. But if the purpose of critique is to give a reasoned opinion and appeal to others to agree with you, then criticism is still valid as part of ongoing, honest debate about what makes fiction ‘good’ to you and people who think similarly to you.

In short, no crit of fiction can truly encompass every individual experience of a piece of fiction, so no crit will ever be the ‘absolute truth’ any more than any story will be ‘innately good’. it’s all about context, and everyone has individual context when it comes to fiction.

*an opinion can be misinformed or lack information, so some opinions may be more valid than others, but an opinion is an opinion: it’s not wrong. It’s personal.

question 2: 

why would any of us want to critizise anything at all if problematic content is always allowed to exist?

because fiction may be allowed to exist - but so is your opinion of the fictional work that has content you find problematic!

Just because fiction is allowed to exist doesn’t mean you can’t try to dissuade people from consuming it. There’s nothing wrong with deciding you hate something and telling everyone that you hate it and you think it’s awful and bad in every way and nobody should ever look at it.

However. (when is there not one!)

It is the responsibility of a critic or reviewer to review with respect, particularly in the realm of fanworks. Just as a creator should be held responsible for tagging their work with the correct pairings and warnings (or make it clear that they choose not to warn to avoid spoilers and consumers should be aware the work might have upsetting content), a reviewer should be held responsible for:

keeping their review focused on the work, not the creator, and 

being clear that their review is an opinion, not fact.

keeping their review focused on the work - depiction is not endorsement. there is no way to know, unless a creator states it directly, that their work is a direct reflection of their personal beliefs. Saying ‘this story contains [x] and therefore the author is an [x]ist’ is defamation.

being clear that their review is an opinion - A reviewer can use facts, their personal experiences, and their knowledge of the creator’s other works as backups for their opinion, but their opinion will still just be an opinion. people who assert their opinion is a fact are being disingenuous and shut down discussion rather than stimulating it, which is a shame because more discussion leads to be better understanding of why a work is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or whatever.

unless one is the appointed spokesperson of a group, and that group has agreed that whatever that person says about a work is their collective opinion, no opinion speaks for an entire group. if a reviewer asserts ‘I am [x], and this work upsets me because [reasons related to being [x]],’ that does not mean that everyone else who is [x] will feel the same way. (expecting a marginalized or hurt individual to be the spokesperson of everyone who shares that marginalization/hurt is actually a form of stereotyping and really shitty!)

When reviewers don’t review responsibly, particularly when giving negative reviews, they can incite personal hatred of the creator and fear/hatred of the work itself. Depending on the situation and severity, it can even lead to mob-law-style dogpiles and attempts to scare the creator into either taking the work down or running away themselves - a form of group censorship, to be frank.

In short: critique must be kept in the context of opinions, or it stifles conversation and leads to censorship in situations where discussion and education would be more effective and valuable.

question 3:

how can i ever say ‘X show is mysoginistic’ if i also say ‘noncon/loli/etc is acceptable’?

because it’s okay - and, maybe paradoxically, more logically consistent - to have different stances on the same subject depending on the context. 

you can’t apply the same rules equally to all people, all situations, or all experiences and expect to get fair results (and if you try, you’ll inevitably bring down the most harm on the people who need the most help). For a simplistic example, if you taxed everybody the same income percentage, it would look fair. But more of a poor person’s income goes directly to living expenses than that of a rich person’s income. If you tax the rich person 10%, they won’t feel it in any want of necessary food, clothing, or shelter, but the poor person almost definitely would.

what I’m trying to say is that it’s acceptable - even ideal - to apply different standards (and different scales of reaction) to fanworks than to published books, than to high-circulation published books, than to TV shows, than to internationally-released movies, than to real life (etc etc). There’s several reasons for this:

the scale of impact is widely different. Fanfics rarely get even a million unique views, even after years of circulation. A tv show reaches millions of pairs of eyes every week.

the context is widely different. Transformative fandom, a relatively small space, has a disproportionate number of non-straight/non-cis participants, is overwhelmingly female/afab, and probably has an unusually high number of survivors, not to mention relatively high awareness of social issues that impact them. The average audience member for a fanwork is therefore a very different one from that of a large-scale media release.

the vulnerability differential is widely different. Social power in fandom is mostly determined by popularity, but this is a very volatile source of power and can disappear in an instant. A single fanwork creator, therefore, is about the same level of vulnerable to a rumor, a callout, a complaint as everyone else in fandom (very). The vulnerability of a movie director, on the other hand, is relatively low. If hundreds of thousands of people rallied behind callouts and expressed their anger and hatred of a director, it probably won’t make any meaningful impact on their output or their personal life without outside factors.

So to use your example: You may be bothered by misogynistic content regardless of what you consume - fanwork or TV show or otherwise, but if you call it out in the TV show vs call it out in the fanwork, you’re going to have a very different impact level (not much on the TV show/its creators, but a lot on the fanwork/its creator).

Conversely, nonconsensual sex in a TV show reaches not only a much larger audience than a fanwork, but also a very different audience. For the TV show: a smaller percentage will have experienced sexual assault and the level of education about sexual assault will generally be lower. Also, unless the show explicitly warns for rape, it’s possible some people won’t even realize it’s noncon depending on how it’s portrayed - whereas fanwork ettiquette demands tagging and warnings. In other words, noncon portrayals in TV shows are more likely to send a damaging message than noncon portrayals in fic - fic, which has warnings on it, reaches a much smaller audience, and has an audience that is more likely to judge the content on personal experience and education than the TV show audience.** 

Basically, it’s not contradictory to take a different tack of behavior to the same issue in different spheres, and it’s not contradictory to decide that you’re okay with content that is potentially damaging existing in some spaces but not in others. That’s putting your opinions and morals into context and changing how you act on them.

In fact, it’s downright important to do this. When you don’t change your response level or moderate your judgement in consideration of relative power and/or impact, the people who are the most likely to get run over are those who are at a disadvantage already: LGBT/queer people, black and brown people, immigrants, survivors, women, etc. Who is going to be more hurt and scared by people coming down hard on noncon fic: the rape survivor who wrote it for personal therapeutic value or the person who wrote it for titillation and fun? I bet you can guess.

the title of this blog is related to fanfic specifically because the hard stance I take on censorship is one I’m comfortable taking in the realm of fanworks, but I think the line - already a bit fuzzy at this low impact space - gets blurrier and blurrier the higher impact you go. Where does responsible depiction outweigh the freedom to portray? At what point does tolerating a fictional content become inappropriate? Where’s the line between fiction and propaganda?

These are all great questions to ask, but in the meantime, I’ll be down here saying that fanworks - lowest of low impact, plastered with warnings, and with the empowering effect of giving largely marginalized people a voice outweighing the danger of portrayals of immoral things - should always be free to exist.

**again you run into the issue that every fictional portrayal of something will have a unique interaction with every individual. What one person finds pornographic and harmful might be therapeutic to another. But with mass media the question of ‘does the message this sends amplify already-existing harmful opinions?’ becomes more important and ethical to ask.