#the actual issue is just a specific case of the broader one that people should be provided for according to need rather than ability
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Photography was invented in the 1820s and though it remained a fledgling technology in the few decades thereafter, many artists and art critics still saw it as a threat, as the artist Henrietta Clopath voiced in a 1901 issue of Brush and Pencil: "The fear has sometimes been expressed that photography would in time entirely supersede the art of painting. Some people seem to think that when the process of taking photographs in colors has been perfected and made common enough, the painter will have nothing more to do."
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When critics weren’t wringing their hands about photography, they were deriding it. They saw photography merely as a thoughtless mechanism for replication, one that lacked, “that refined feeling and sentiment which animate the productions of a man of genius,” as one expressed in an 1855 issue of The Crayon. As long as “invention and feeling constitute essential qualities in a work of Art,” the writer argued, “Photography can never assume a higher rank than engraving. At best, critics viewed photography as a useful tool for painters to record scenes that they may later more artfully render with their brushes. “Much may be learned about drawing by reference to a good photograph, that even a man of quick natural perceptions would be slow to learn without such help,” wrote one in an 1865 issue of The New Path. But the writer’s appreciation ended there. Photography couldn’t qualify as an art in its own right, the explanation went, because it lacked “something beyond mere mechanism at the bottom of it.
#time is a flat godforsaken circle istg#yes the ai industry has damning ethical issues re training on artists' pieces w/o consent but the 'iT's SoUlLeSs' arguments are so trite#even 'its being used to replace non-ai artists more cheaply' while still a valid concern is not one that has anything to do with ai#you could take the same logic to argue against the invention of fucking wheel for putting palanquin porters out of a job lol#the actual issue is just a specific case of the broader one that people should be provided for according to need rather than ability#and that new technologies like this need to be collectively owned and benefited from rather than privately hoarded by tech moguls#for later reference
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Keep hearing people say maribug keep asking adricat if he's ok and he keep saying he's ok instead of telling her his problem but I don't remember it happened more than once in s4 in Rockettear but even then the circumstances of that episode did warrant the "nothing" answer he gave her unless he want to tell her that "nino tell me you let nino and alya know each other identity" which will reveal adricat identity. So when else did she ask? about the thing in hack-san, I think another credit goes to alya since she's the one who bring the topic to maribug who seems to be blissfully unaware that her leaving without telling adeicat that she send subtitute would be a problem.
I didn't get into this side of things in my other post because it was long and I wanted to focus on why Chat Noir's behavior was so frustrating, but this ask brings up the other big reason why the season four conflict was such a frustrating and terribly written plot line. Specifically, the part of your ask where you point out that Maribug seems blissfully unaware that her actions are having a negative impact on Chat Noir until someone points it out to her.
Yes, she is presented as blissfully unaware of this and every other interpersonal conflict we're given in season four. Your ask treats this as a failing on Maribug's part as if she should have obviously realized that she was in the wrong, but that's the whole problem. Telling kids - telling anyone really - that they should just magically know what others need is a frankly terrible life lesson as that's just not how the world works. You cannot just assume that everyone will have the same view of the world as you do and instantly pick up on the same issues as you do. That is the path to easily avoidable frustration and conflict. It also teaches people to assume that their view of the world is inherently correct when that is rarely the case. We often don't know the whole story and the other person's point of view may end up being equally or even more valid. This issue is extremely present in season four as Marinette has legitimate reasons to behave the way she does, which I'll get into in a bit.
If Marinette were written as feeling guilty about how she was treating Chat Noir, then this would be a different story. She'd be way more in the wrong and would shoulder a much greater portion of the blame. But as is? She has no idea that she's doing anything wrong. And until someone takes the time to tell her that her actions are causing harm, she is going to continue causing harm because she has no idea that she's causing harm.
In fact, I'd argue that the Alya thing in Hack San is a point in Maribug's favor. Throughout the episode, we see Marinette sending Alya messages on ways to be a good partner to Chat Noir, proving that she does in fact care about him. And then, as soon as Alya says, "You need to talk to Chat Noir," what does Maribug do?
She goes and talks to Chat Noir, giving him a pretty good apology for the problem she now knows she caused. Because, shockingly, Maribug doesn't actually want to hurt her partner. She also clearly cares about his feelings, making me want to take the season four conflict and tear it into itty bitty pieces because what is the conflict even supposed to be when you write shit like this?
I want to briefly step away from Miraculous and talk about this issue in a broader context via this YouTube short:
This short is from a Vietnamese woman who moved to Germany. Her YouTube channel is about her experiences there, including things like the short above which goes into the differences between what it means to be a dinner guest in Vietnam and what it means to be a dinner guest in Germany. In Vietnam, it's apparently standard for the guests to cook dinner with you where as, in Germany, you're expected to have the meal ready when the guests arrive, making this a situation where it's super easy to come across as rude just by doing what you think is normal.
Society is relatively aware that these types of culture clashes are a thing, but you don't have to be from different cultures to have these types of situations. Every person has their own unique needs and ideas of what "normal" is. The culture they were raised in will affect this, but so will their family, their personal needs, and many other factors. Two people can be raised on the same street and wind up with wildly different world views even though they supposedly share a culture. This is extra true when you add in compounding factors like neurodiversity, which is why it's an exercise in futility to say, "But Maribug should have realized..."
Well, she clearly didn't. And you can't change that she didn't realize whatever you're mad about. All you can do is have someone tell her what she's doing wrong. If she then continues the behavior, go ahead and judge away. But if she immediately corrects it like she did in Hack San? Doesn't that just prove that she truly didn't know that Chat Noir was hurting and would have probably fixed all of his problems if someone just pointed them out to her?
This is only exacerbated by the fact that Marinette's behavior in season four is largely unchanged from her behavior in previous seasons. The only major change is that she revealed her identity to Alya, but as soon as that's pointed out as a problem, she course corrects with an apology. After that, she thinks that everything is okay because why wouldn't she? Chat Noir said it was fine and everything else has been business as usual.
Bringing temp heroes into help as needed? That's been going on since season two. Having these additional members has been vital in multiple battles and there have been plenty of times where Chat Noir took a background role to the temp hero of the day like in Sapotis, Rena Rouge's season two debut. So why would Maribug suddenly think that this dynamic is a problem when it's been working fine for so long? We even had a whole episode about how Chat Noir was still needed in spite of the new heroes back in season three! Or, at least, I think that was Desperada's message? This show is shockingly bad at giving clear lessons.
Keeping guardian knowledge from Chat Noir? That's also been going on since season two and was even treated as a conflict that supposedly got resolved in the episode Syren which was the episode that ended with Master Fu coming to the mansion to talk to Adrien after everything was over.
When I watched that episode, I assumed this meant that Chat Noir was going to be more involved in things like picking the temp heroes. I actually thought this was how we were going to get Queen Bee because I knew she was going to be a thing, but it made no sense for Marinette to pick Chloe for a miraculous. Of course, I was wrong. Nothing changed after Syren. Chat Noir remained nothing more than the comic relief while Ladybug got all the insider info.
To be clear, I think that was a terrible move writing wise, but it doesn't change the fact that this is what they went with. This is the established dynamic. I can't even say that Alya learning Marinette's secret led to something new. She's just taken Marinette's old role while Marinette has taken on Master Fu's old role. This show loves it's status quo and Chat Noir has been at least tolerant of that status quo since Syren, so it's not surprising that Maribug doesn't register that this is a thing that should change and no one bothers to point it out to her even though she has a mentor in Tikki (and Su Han, I guess?) and a confidant in Alya and a whole slew of Kwamis who could also provide insight if they were allowed to do that sort of thing. (Sass and Wayzz were robbed of mentor roles.) Additional blame goes to Plagg because he should absolutely have told Adrien to talk to Ladybug. What is the point of giving these characters mentors who never mentor? It's aggravating in the extreme.
To circle back to the first part of your ask, outside of Hack San and Rocketear, I don't think there are any times when Ladybug invites feedback from Chat Noir unless you want to give credit to the end of Kuro Neko:
Cat Noir: (lands next to her) I've been a really temperamental kitty, m'lady. I didn't realize how much trouble I'd make for you by giving back my Miraculous. Ladybug: (sits closer to him) Just because I don't need you all the time doesn't mean that I don't need you at all, Cat Noir. No one could ever replace you.
Which isn't Maribug inviting him to tell her what's up, but she is clearly willing to listen to him and reassure him, further backing up my point about this conflict being some of the worst writing I've ever had to suffer through. If Maribug always fixes the issue as soon as she learns about it, you are not writing a situation where she's clearly in the wrong. You are writing an easily solved communication issue where she gets blamed for something she clearly doesn't realize she's doing wrong and it is so frustrating!!! I feel so bad for her. The next episode is Penalteam, btw, which starts the battle with this gem:
Ladybug: (laughs) Nice scare tactics, but it's not gonna work. Cat Noir and I are the best at soccer! Cat Noir: (Whispers to Ladybug) I don't know a thing about soccer M'lady. Maybe it's time to call the real team?
And basically just spends the whole episode making Chat Noir seems like a worthless partner while Maribug tries her best to make him - and everyone else - feel special.
Oh, and the episode before Kuro Neko? Well, it's technically Ephemeral, but that got magically overwritten so let's go one further back and we get to Dearest Family, which ends with this:
Cat Noir: (grabs a golden paper crown on the coffee table) Since I'm the king, (wears the crown on his head) would you be my queen, Ladybug? Ladybug: With pleasure, kitty cat! Tradition is tradition!
Oh yes, these two are in such conflict and Maribug does nothing to validate Chat Noir. He's in pain every episode and she's just totally oblivious to it.
If that was what they wrote, then I'd probably agree that we needed more instances of her asking if Chat Noir was okay. But it's not what they wrote. If you look through the list of season four episodes, you'll find that less than half of them deal with the supposed conflict of the season (by my count, only 8 of the 24 episodes before the final actually showcase the conflict and they are not in a logical order in terms of escalation as I tried to demonstrate above). The rest of the episodes flat out ignore it or even straight up work against the conflict like when Ladybug says this to Chat Noir in Guilttrip: "I probably don't tell you this enough, but I couldn't do this without you. And it'd be a lot less fun too."
Seriously, what even is this season? What is the conflict supposed to be? Because it sure as shit isn't Maribug undervaluing Chat Noir, if memory servers, season four sees her validate him more times than any other season. And it isn't her guiltily hiding things from him like so many fanfics claim because we have multiple points of evidence that prove that she's completely oblivious that there even is a conflict. So what conflict are the writers actually trying to write?
What's even more baffling is that none of this logically leads to the loss at the end of the season:
Maribug's new secrets didn't lead to her downfall. The only reason she lost was because of the secret that's always been there - a fact that's never revealed to her - and a freaking evil twin! So why did it matter that Maribug was keeping secrets? This is made even worse by season five maintaining all of the secrets, once again begging the question of what lesson were we trying to teach here???
Chat Noir wasn't needed for the final fight of the season, Maribug only needed the powers of a few of the temp heroes to win, a baffling ending to a season whose focus was Chat Noir feeling unimportant. You could scrap that conflict entirely and the ending would not change. In fact....
Adrien quitting to be nothing more than a good little boy who obeys his father would have actually saved the world from eventually being rewritten. If you think about it, the season four final actually punishes Adrien for being defiant. So does season five as, if Chat Noir had quit, his father would still be alive. I thought this show was supposed to be a romcom, not a tragedy. Why is Adrien being punished for being a hero? Is this supposed to be karma for lying to Ladybug with the whole Catwalker thing?
This shit is why I say I'm a writing salt, character sugar blog. I can't get mad at the characters when they're in such a nonsense story where things never logically tie together. They all deserve so much better.
None of this is meant to imply that ignorance is a blanket excuse for hurting others. Nor is it meant to imply that you have to forgive someone who hurt you just because they didn't mean to. There's a ton of nuance around these topics. But season four acknowledges none of that nuance while creating a situation that desperately needed nuance because there was no clear right and wrong here. Should Maribug work to be more aware of others feelings? Sure, but that journey can only start after she's made aware of her faults and no one ever points them out to her. Does Chat Noir need to work on clearly communicating his needs? Desperately, but no one is teaching him that lesson so he remains a terrible communicator who suffers in silence. What impressively bad writing.
#ml writing critical#ml writing salt#adrien deserves better#marinette deserves better#kuro neko salt#my queendom for some good character arcs#and good story arcs#there's just so much squandered potential here#ml fandom salt#ml fandom critical#Adding those tags because I am sick of people holding Marinette to unrealistic expectations#This was long so I didn't add this part of the rant but:#It's important to remember how much we know as an audience vs what Maribug knows#Adrichat is really good at putting up a front that everything is fine#And Marinette knows nothing about his homelife when he's Chat Noir#Plus the show has made this kids kinda terrible at understanding Adrien's home life
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I think for me, one of the big stumbling blocks I had for a long time with understanding the problem with antis and how they act is that I came from the world of anime fandom, and I have seen all the time how the idea that you're expected to be tolerant and accepting to straight men who are really into lolicon or slavery isekai or whatever in the name of "sex positivity" does in fact lead into a lot of normalization of genuine creepy IRL behavior, and ignoring red flags for those. Because I've never met a man where doing a lot of apologetics for his interest in fictional 10-year-olds as a grown man or why you just need to understand that in this fictional culture sexual slavery is totally normal etc. didn't come along with some grosser attitudes about real women in girls - look at how a ton of the guys in the first group, for instance, are always trying to argue that "Japanese culture" is actually A-OK with relationships between young teens and grown adults and it's just your mean feminist American bias that's getting in your way. (None of that shit's true about Japan, btw.) Like if it were a purely fictional-preference thing, they wouldn't be saying that about real-world relationships as well.
But see, I have literally never seen those kinds of arguments from, say, women who write fanfiction about teen/adult relationships. To me the problem with a lot of anti behavior is not just that it's pro-censorship (which I oppose on principle, I don't think any of the stuff mentioned in the previous section should be censored, for instance, much as the prevalence of lolicon in anime squicks me out) and that it's puritanical and sex-negative, but also that it goes after the wrong people. There IS a huge creeper problem in fandom but it's largely not coming from the predominantly AFAB and queer world of fanfiction and shipping, most of whom are pretty good at separating fantasy from reality. Or their "fucked up" ship might not even be "their" fantasy but just thinking a particular character dynamic is really interesting and it happens to fit into some particular "problematic" broader dynamic. Sometimes it's specifically that it's fucked up that we like, that's what makes it interesting!
But I do get uncomfortable sometimes when people take the fact that censorship is wrong, harassing people for what they ship is wrong, what you like in fiction is not necessarily what you want in real relationships.... and take it to the extreme of "fiction has no impact on reality / there is never ANY connection between what gets you off in fiction vs. real life" (I do think it's rarely an exact 1:1, but for some people there is a connection), or feeling like you're never allowed to just privately judge people for what porn they're into or they talk about or post about when they go horny on main, or decide you don't particularly want to have, say, cis men who are super into loli as a part of your social circle.
Because I've seen cases where men use that, and other people being shamed for taking issue with how they talk about it because it's not "sex positive" or "you're just like an anti" etc., to raise the temperature on what kinds of creepy and red-flag behaviors are allowed. Or like, people start to get suspicious of things these guys are doing to real people, and question themselves because they worry they're just judging them for liking loli.
I mean, is it wrong to think that a guy who is really into underage girls AND talks a lot about how culture needs to "normalize" it AND makes people feel bad for being uncomfortable with that particular interest of his, is throwing up a lot of red flags for how he's likely to view real women and girls and IRL sexuality?
Once again, I've basically never seen cases where a fanfic writer (other than in some cis-man-heavy fandoms like MLP) who is into some "squicky" dynamic feels like they have to constantly talk about it even to people who are uncomfortable, or feels like they're not "accepted" in a space where they can't constantly bring it up. Maybe they exist. But then maybe it's fair to say that behavior is creepy in a way that just peacefully shipping [whatever "problematic" dynamic] and writing and reading fic for it is not.
But I've seen people be like "a lot of you act like 'well that behavior is only problematic when cis het white men do it' well no i think you're still sex-negative if you're against ANYBODY liking it" and like I'm sorry but power dynamics matter, and HOW you talk about this and to WHOM matters and I think it's just kind of ignorant to act like there isn't a huge difference between how a lot of cis men in anime fandom talk about this shit vs. other kinds of people in fanfic fandom, and that the former is very much informed by the fact that cis men and especially cis het men have cultural power that they are throwing around in the way they influence those spaces.
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I found your post about forgetting about privileges after gaining them very insightful, but I don't really agree with what you said about transmisandry.
Because I've never seen transmisandry used as a shorthand for dening that trans men can gain privilege by transitioning (which is how your comment read to me). The usage that I'm familiar with is as an umbrella term for transphobia specific/specifically trageted at trans men/trans masc people.
An example: The visceral disgust often expressed about the concept of pregnant men and the way this bleeds over into treatment and discussion of pregnant trans men. Is this transphobia: absolutely, but it also just not something that trans women have to deal with (not directly at least). So why not group issues like these with a specific word?
You could absolutely make the case that most of the things that could be called transmisandry are a combination of transphobia and misogyny and should be named accordingly. But as it stands transmisogyny is currently used as "transphobia trageted at people perceived as trans women".
(Sorry about the spelling, English isn't my first language)
What you are describing is transphobia. I guarantee you that if a trans woman could get pregnant (or once medical innovations allow trans women to), people would also react with extreme disgust and violence. Just as transphobes get disgusted when either trans men or trans women breast feed.
It helps no one for us to act like every single highly specific experience of transphobia is its own unique oppression, because that denies us the ability to talk about the actual systems and beliefs that make this stuff happen in a broader sense.
Both trans men and trans women face loss of reproductive control. Trans women are forced to be sterilized in order to change their gender marker in nearly every country in the world. Yet almost no one talks about it, including women's reproductive justice organizations. Many of those same organizations are quite vocal about preserving reproductive care for trans men. Why?
This is not intended to erase trans men facing restrictions on reproduction. We have to realize we are all under attack collectively. We need to stand up for trans women's reproductive freedom as well as our own. These attacks have the same origin points: transphobia, and misogyny.
Oprah's "pregnant man" was the first trans man I ever saw in media and it fucked me up, so I get why this topic hurts. But our pain must be a bridge to our fellow trans people, especially women. Let's not lift that bridge up and separate ourselves.
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Dev Diary 11 - Special Checks
Welcome back, Cosmonauts!
Today, we’re going to be talking more about some of the systems in Torchship. As mentioned previously, Torchship uses systems of telescoping complexity to regulate how many mechanics you’re bringing in at a time. At one end is the core system of rolling dice for Checks and investigating things, which can be used in a pinch for just about anything. On the other are the specific costs, penalties, and conditions of hazards, tool making, repairs, and combat, all the detail we could possibly pack in and everything we could think of that might be relevant, if you wanted it.
In between we have a set of intermediate mechanics called Special Checks. Special Checks are variations on the regular Check with a bit more detail specific to what you’re doing with them. The Medical Checks from last week are an example of Special Checks; they are ways for your specialist in that area to feel like they are engaging in their job specifically when it matters.
Many Special Checks have further associated mechanics in their own chapters (the same way Hazards will lead directly into the kinds of Harm players experience), but we define them up front with broader terms because we know we can’t possibly cover everything, and you don’t always want to bring play to a halt to look up how much a repair might cost if it's not the central beat of your episode’s story.
So, let’s talk Special Checks, and all the weird ways you might roll dice.
Leadership & Institutions
While Star Patrol doesn’t have formal ranks, it still has leaders. The Admin Department is tasked with organisation and management, keeping everyone on task and coordinating between groups, and when emergencies strike it’s helpful to know who to listen to if you don’t know what you should be doing.
When you’re leading a work team of characters, PCs or NPCs, you build your dice pool the way you usually do, but with a few modifiers depending on the availability of tools, the relevant expertise, and if you actually have enough people to do the job. Otherwise, it’s a pretty straightforward roll, treated like any other.
The other thing an Admin character might find themselves doing is coordinating with, leading, or relying on an institution bigger than a work team, like trying to coordinate the healthcare system of a planet fighting a deadly plague. In this case, you roll your Check like you normally would, but you’re using the institution as a tool, building it with the same tool level system as everything else. The 5d6 computer-coordinated government agency of an industrial world is going to make running a census much easier and more accurate than doing it with the 3d6 bureaucracy that has to do everything with styluses and clay.
Of course, while ‘specialised’ makes sense for institutions-as-tools, ‘emplaced’ doesn’t. That’s why, instead, that extra +1d6 is gated behind if the institution you’re using is legitimate, which is to say, if the people the institution is working with see it as The Proper Doers Of The Thing. If you’re tracking down a person fleeing from justice, you’re a lot more likely to get results if people view the local law enforcement as having real claim to being the law of the land, rather than simply being occupiers.
Negotiation
Gee Administration, why does mum let you have two Special Checks?
One of the things Star Patrol ends up doing a lot is negotiations, both as a participant and as an arbitrator. In both cases we use the same system, but in one it’s you rolling against the person you’re negotiating with, and in the other its you trying to get two squabbling sides to compromise.
In either case, negotiation takes place as a series of Opposed Checks over a central issue; if you’re a participant, this is the thing you’re arguing over, while if you’re a mediator, Star Patrol’s demands are “Talk about this like adults” and the participants’ demands are “Don’t wanna!!” Winning the Opposed Check also strengthens your position as your rhetoric and posturing gives you an increasing advantage; eventually one side will have to either concede the central issue or quit in a huff and be seen as the one who made negotiations break down.
Negotiation is accompanied by the offering of Concessions, promises by one side or the other that, if a deal is eventually agreed on, will be honoured. Having a concession accepted means you take a die from their pool and add it to your own; if you’re making good-faith offers, it strengthens your position. When you’re arbitrating, you’re the one proposing concessions between the two parties, dragging them kicking and screaming towards making some kind of deal.
Hacking
Signals is the Cert for using computers and communication equipment, but because we don’t just want you to be the one who informs the captain there’s a new message coming in, you have some modern tricks up your sleeve in the form of hacking.
Hacking Checks are made against a different difficulty than usual, a sort of Opposed Check where the system has already rolled the dice. This difficulty is the Security Rating, determined by what kind of system you’re infiltrating and how advanced it is. Oh, right, ‘hacking’ doesn’t just apply to electronic computer systems; you can one hundred percent hack any kind of decision-making system. If you forge the King’s wax seal and slip orders in his handwriting into the mailbag heading to his vassal? That’s hacking, baby!
Your excess Successes above the Security Rating earn you Actions, stuff you can do once you’re in the system before you get noticed and booted out. You can use this to subvert the systems on an enemy rocket, shut down incoming missiles, steal or insert information, spy through cameras, open doors… you know, hacking stuff. You can also add backdoors to make it easier to come back next time.
Because the Security Rating on many important systems will be somewhat insurmountable, there’s a special kind of Investigation Checklist for computers where you can gather edges. This is where you can engage in the fun social engineering and physical theft that, in real life, makes up a large amount of real hacking, acquiring passwords or inserting devices into computers to make them easier to subvert.
We also have some guidelines for how you might hack systems in unusual situations; you can hack any computer that takes in any information from the outside world (as data sanitation is not always practised with nearly the thoroughness it should), and if you’re dealing with a device that runs on machine learning and takes natural language input, you can use prompt injection. Thanks, real life, for making ‘Kirk talks the computer to death’ into hard science fiction!
You also get to roll to oppose hacking if somebody else does it to you, even if the Signals character isn’t actually aware the hacking is happening; after all, as the admin, you’d be responsible for setting up the defences.
Invention & Repairs
We’ll go into this more in the specific chapters where it’s most relevant, but Engineering characters are often going to be making tools, fixing things, and making tools for the purposes of fixing things. These special Checks handle those situations; they use most of the normal Check mechanics, but with an added framework for costs and time.
So when you’re faced with something broken, the GM lays out what it’ll cost to fix it, in Supply or otherwise. You then choose the ‘level’ of repair you’re attempting. A ‘patch fix’ is fast and cheap, but you can’t ever get a full success doing it, meaning that it’s never perfect; you’re just getting the system online, even if the results are unsafe or use resources you could have used elsewhere. Jury rigging a solution will fix the problem, but never permanently, so it’ll do for now. A proper repair takes the longest amount of time, but you can reroll it over and over for a small amount of additional Supply until you get it right; it’s what you do if there’s no time or cost pressure.
Invention is a bit more complicated, but in summary, you take the tools you have to build a new tool with them, where a full success gets you the new device at the cost of time and resources, of equal tech level to the tool you used to make it. The more complex the device, the more Disadvantage you face, and insufficient successes mean you need to make compromises that might reduce its tech level or place limitations on the results.
When we talk about tools in more detail, we’ll go into the specifics; tool-building is one of the game’s major complex systems, with the ability to make almost anything!
Attacks & Defence
If you’re Security or Tactical, Astrogation during space combat, or stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time, you might end up making attacks and defence rolls. While there are combat subsystems in the game to handle the details, you don’t always need to interact with the full set to roll attack and defence; sometimes it’s just a shooting gallery, sometimes you’re using your weapons as demolition devices, sometimes you’re just resolving an attack quickly because the story is happening elsewhere.
Attacks & Defence are always rolled as Opposed Checks, but with very specific dice pools. Your Attack is determined by your weapon and the Certs relevant to it, which is pretty straightforward, while Defence is more complicated and situationally dependent. In space or other vehicles, you’ll often be rolling the vehicle’s Evade stat, a dice pool which is derived from how nimble it is. If you’re facing incoming missiles, though, you might try to shoot them down with point defence instead. Sometimes you don’t even get a roll; there’s nothing you can do about a laser beam except pray the screens hold.
On foot, you often have to make a decision between dodging the attack, trying to block it with an object, or taking cover behind something. Dodging faces the problem that your body is only a 2d6 tool, so once people start using things more dangerous than fists, that’s not going to work very well. Blocking isn’t always viable, and you’ll take penalties (or simply not be able to use it at all) if the object isn’t designed for it. When you take cover, you treat the cover itself as a tool.
While the dice pool for cover isn’t determined by tech level, we are very proud of the fact that hiding in a foxhole is, in a sense, taking cover behind the collective energy of an entire planet, so it’s 6d6.
Psychic Checks
Psychic Powers are a big topic, and we’ll need to save it for another day.
In short, though, psychic powers are largely freeform, with some specific limitations and guidelines, and you can always attempt to use psychic powers; you don’t need to tick a special checkbox to make you a psychic. There are four special Psychic Certs (right now they’re ESP, Psychokinesis, Telepathy, and Precognition, though this is subject to change as we work the details out), but like any Cert, you can still roll them untrained. So while you can always try to use your latent mind powers, it’s unlikely you’ll get very far to start.
Which is why you can train your psychic abilities! Nobody gets to start their Star Patrol career as a qualified psychic, but you can become one as you explore the galaxy. It’s a difficult road, and one that’ll cut into your professional development, but you can do it. Further details will be confined to a dedicated dev diary; it’s a big complex topic!
That’s it for this Dev Diary. Next time, we talk the weird branch of the human family as we take a look at the Proxies and Archivists of humanity’s first extrasolar colony.
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there is NO fucking reason to blame "transmasculine folks" for covidsafehotties banning, what the fuck. we're all different, that's an insane thing to say. trans men and transmasc people are not as a community in the position to oppress anyone, and centering a "tme v tma" mindset in this is insanely harmful. all trans people are one community!! tumblrs transmisgoyiny problem is not the fault of other trans people
well... nadica's ban came after she mentioned the acronym tme ONCE in a post. so. i don't know what to tell you 🤷
as someone who is transmasc, and has seen her blog(s) get deleted (because this has happened before). and seen how predestrogen get banned, then stalked across other social media... we are not fucking innocent in it.
are we (transmascs) the sole cause? no.
tumblr's transmisogyny is its own breed of ugly that stems from varying circles (including the trans employees working on their moderation teams; we don't know the genders of everyone involved specifically, nor do we need to to conclude that staff is transmisogynistic)
did i frame that as the sole cause? also no.
if you read the post i made, i put the crux on staff as a whole. i only mentioned the tme/tma dichotomy because... that is literally what happened to her blog? i'm not going to omit the fact that a "controversial"/"discourse-y" acronym made her the target of transmisogynistic harassment, led to the mass reporting of her covid safety blog, then got her deleted by staff.
edit: in fact, actually, the claim i put the blame on the transmasculine community is... asinine. absurd. there are two times i mentioned being tme and/or transmasculine in the post i made. neither of these statements put the blame on the transmasc community.
in fact, i even clarified that tme is not a transmasculine exclusive term.
people simply did not mass report her for being a covid resource blog or a disability advocate. to say that is the truth would be reductive and transmisogynistic in of itself.
to address this in a broader sense:
yes, the trans community is the trans community. that does not mean we all face the same oppression, nor that we all exactly get along with each other. transmedicalists and enby-exclusionists exist. racist white trans folk exist. conservative and alt-right trans folk exist. misogynistic trans men and transmasculine folk exist. ableist trans folk exist. intersexist trans folk exist. just because we are one community does not mean we all fight together.
would it be ideal if we did? yes, absolutely. i believe that we should all be conscious and aware of the intersectionality that comes with various aspects of our community.
however, we know this is not the case.
and sure, these issues may seem "small scale" in terms of what's going on with the community in the larger sense (re: the massive loss of trans rights across the globe)... but it is still important for us to confront bigotry as it can and will fuel things beyond our community.
oppression and bigotry are vicious cycles, and the sooner we stop being individualists who are concerned about "what about me" and actually listen to those who face more intersections of oppression... the sooner we become that "one community" you believe us to be.
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Something I find absolutely fascinating about when people reduce the issues of censorship to an "anti/proship" thing is how tons will insist that it's not reductive at all and it's absolutely not just an us-vs.-them thing and there are no thought-terminating cliches in play here and there's DEFINITELY no problem of toxic tribalism or hearing one specific keyword and having your entire critical thinking center shut down except on the OTHER side--
And yet so many of the same people who say that - and ACAB, and all kinds of places where the laws are and have been unjust - will immediately revert to arguing that legality equals morality the moment it's convenient.
For people who fall on the "anti" side it's "WELL the law SAYS that even just lewd illustrations of kids are bad, therefore drawing a fictional 17-year old naked is literally morally equivalent to sharing a video of a 5-year old being raped because the LAW says they're the same"
For people who fall on the "proship" side it's "no the fuck it isn't, not because that's a completely stupid comparison in the first place, but because that's not even what the law says, they're BEGGING you clowns to stop sending in unactionable things with no actual victim, that law is about drawings that depict ACTUAL living kids or can at least be mistaken for it"
In reality...that's a law. It has no bearing on morality. Whether or not a fictional depiction "counts" is completely up to whether or not the officer assigned to any given case has an axe to grind, and if so, with whom. It's a law that WILL be enforced more strictly against queer people - and even has a historical precedent being used against SURVIVORS of CSA talking about their experiences. This should not be the argument you're leaning on!
It's just fascinating to me - at least when it's not making me want to fling myself into the sun in frustration - how many people will insist that they KNOW that legality doesn't equal morality...UNTIL the great pan-fandom ship war comes into play.
It is also hard evidence to me that a lot of people are not taking the broader implications of their stances about fiction anywhere near as seriously as they claim they are, ESPECIALLY not in places where they should be.
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the SCREAM i SCRUMPT skskskss
i gotta tell you a story now of him thinking he's a mastermind genius
both him and my uncle who lives abroad work in a similar field, except he works in it in a broader sense, and my uncle has a more specialized job. it's to do with blood work tests that they do in hospitals. whenever I have a more serious health issue, I talk to my aunt and uncle because they're both in the medical field. a couple of times in the last 7 years, my uncle has asked me to get blood work done and have a specific thing tested in it. and since my fil works at the local hospital, doing these tests is free and I get to skip the line. the thing is, he never does the specific thing that my uncle asks for in the blood tests. in the past, he always said it was because they didn't do that specific test in the hospital (this turned out to be a lie I realized a couple of months ago). when I was having health issues at the start of this year, my uncle asked for the same test, and when I told my fil about it, he laughed an said "I bet your uncle told you to ask me that. Well, let me tell you how much of an idiot he is." and proceeded to explain how the fact that my uncle's work is highly specialized means he has no idea what my fil does at his job and that the test he asks for is worthless and it's how he knows my uncle's an idiot. Lo and behold, I go to a doctor - ON MY FIL'S RECOMMENDATION - and this doc asks me what meds I'm currently taking and I tell him one supplement I started on recommendation of my fil. And he asks what I'm trying to treat with those pills, and I quoted what my fil told me about something in my blood tests being low. The doc laughed and said you don't treat numbers, you treat diseases, and I should stop taking the pills asap. The doc also explained when those meds are taken, and I told him I already know, but I don't know of any sort of meds that treat stubbornness in other people, so the best choice in such a case is to just pick my battles. The doc laughed and followed me out of the exam room, to where my fil was waiting, and proceeded to school my fil on giving people supplement recommendations when he's just a lowly lab tech and not a doctor, and how he seems to not know half of what his job entails. And also explained to him, like talking to a little kid, what each result means and how what he recommended to me based on the low number is irrelevant, because -AND GET THIS- the number that's actually important for that supplement is THE SAME TEST MY UNCLE KEPT ASKING FOR.
Dude was so mad and talked shit about that doctor afterward, yet he kept praising the guy not an hour earlier lmaooo
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes I guess
the way some men assume that they’re always correct about everything genuinely makes my blood boil atp like it does not hurt to admit when you’re wrong
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Thank you for bringing up Remus! He is, in my opinion, the distillation of the two major faults of HP: 1) sloppy worldbuilding and 2) a lack of messaging.
Remus is a character with a chronic condition that renders him a not-person in the eyes of wizard society. This is unfortunately not without reason, as the condition makes him a considerable danger to others (but also, himself). Medication exists that would allow him to integrate himself into society and live an almost normal life, but it is accessible to him only under very specific circumstances. For most of his life, he has to do without.
There are some glaring issues with this; the most obvious, why aren't werewolves medicated? If there exists a potion that renders them harmless, why isn't it widely available? Why does this society insist on pushing werewolves to the margins, where they pose a considerable threat?
Now, I am not saying this in itself is bad writing. One could imagine a better version of HP where this is very intentional. Where maybe, Remus's lycanthropy is used to show how obsessed with blood purity wizarding society is, and to explain how Wizard Hitler could find the public support to rise to power twice. Where lycanthropy is on purpose grouped together with other magical disabilities (squibs coming to mind) to make a point about fascism and the ideal of health, gesunder Volkskörper etc, and how the seeds of naziism lie within a society; all people like Voldemort do is bring them to fruition.
It's almost there. But it all falls apart, because once again, the narrative validates wizarding society in their views of the other. Werewolves truly are legitimately dangerous and refuse to integrate. The only other named werewolf we meet is a predator who mainly targets children, and we are led to believe that he's much more representative of the norm than Remus. Remus is very clearly the exception. The message then becomes that it's not wrong to discriminate against the disabled in general; but it is wrong to discriminate against Remus specifically. Because Remus is a good person.
This, of course (however unintentionally) actually enforces the dehumanization of disabled people. This is why I find the criticism of there being no physically disabled students at Hogwarts a little silly; of course there aren't. Disabilities are simply not permitted in wizarding society, and it is always justified! Squibs are bitter and evil, or just too weird to be allowed in polite society. Werewolves are dangerous pedos. In fact, Remus removing himself from society because he recognizes that he can't be trusted around children is meant to showcase his good character!
And then add onto that the fact, that lycanthropy is intended to be read as Wizard HIV. A disease that was still very much a death sentence when PoA was written and published in the 90s, there wasn't even pep available yet. And of course, the accusation of targeting children for exploitation has forever been flung at gay men to dehumanize them.
So like - what's the point here, JKR? "People dying of AIDS generally deserve it because they are often gay dangerous predators and pedos who spread the disease intentionally, but sometimes they are actually good and straight! In which case they should still die, but we are allowed to be sad about it! :D"
Bit fucked up, innit? But of course there's no point to it at all. Like much of the story, werewolves just kind of .... exist, with no broader implications intended. Which makes it worse; it's the result of not thinking any of it through, not considering the larger implications for the world you're building, not questioning one's own preconceived notions and assumptions. The result of wanting the optics of social commentary without actually having anything to say.
What is your Hogwarts house?
yk, I always thought it was a shame that we (here on the Overanalyzing Dumb Pop Media website) consider HP a forbidden topic; or rather, have collectively decided that, because its author is an idiot transphobe, it is unworthy of discussion. There are so many things worthy of discussion about it, about what it believes in, what roles it assigns to people, why it ultimately fails in delivering its message.
Actually, the houses are a big part of that.
What is evil in the world of HP? Not what the text says outright, not the lip-service it pays to Fascism Bad! No, what is shown as evil? What marks an evil person, and in contrast, a good one? (Aside from superficial and again, obvious traits like cruelty or intolerance)
The defining trait of the "evil" house is ambition and cunning - and intelligence. Ravenclaw might not be "the villain", but the characters placed here, when they feature at all, are often morally ambiguous or downright antagonistic. The big bad villain comes from devastating poverty, just like the secondary villain.
What does HP believe in? Well, underlying seems to be the assumption that it is inherently suspicious to want to rise above one's station. It is fine for characters to explore and make use of their natural gifts, but it is wrong and a mark of evil to have ambitions beyond that. Wanting to be better is fueled by bitterness and jealousy; in HP, you either have innate talent, or you're a fraud and a villain.
This isn't something that's put in consciously, I am almost certain of that. Rather, it stems from a cultural background, where everyone ought to stay within their class. Where good fortune, wealth and talent is a mark of God's favour, and trying to achieve better status despite not being born into it, is hubris that ought to be punished.
Now, on the surface, HP obviously rejects this. Harry himself grows up a destitute, abused orphan! Doesn't he?
But he is lifted from his old life when he learns that he was always special. Fate has marked him favourably. He is innately talented in all the right ways, and he's heir to a fortune.
Contrasting that, there's Ron, whose family is actually poor, but who bear poverty gracefully. Who would, of course, never accept charity! And who's father could have had a better, more lucrative carreer, but never had because he enjoys working in his deadend position so much! (And then look at Ron's brothers: The twins find success and a fortune by exploring their innate talents, seemingly without too much care for financial gain. Percy, otoh, who actually has career ambitions, is painted as shallow and selfish for it.)
Even of the protagonists, the one who is the most hardworking - Hermione - is also the most ruthless, even cruel and dangerous at times. And she is allowed to work for success only because all her motivation is purely academic (and also rooted in poor self-esteem). She studies for a love of studying, and because she is terrified of failure. Not because she wants to be the best.
Being the best is something you simply are. Not something you work for.
On the surface level, HP is about defeating fascism. But the whole framework of HP, its underlying worldview, is far more compatible to that of fascism than antifascim. Voldemort kind of has a point! In HP, muggles are constantly portrayed as clueless and idiotic not-people who are needlessly cruel and intolerant towards wizards. Voldemort's offense isn't thinking wizards are inherently better - the narrative believes this too - it's that he's going to far. He's targeting other wizards and that's inacceptable.
Because in the world of HP, the traits and talents you're born with determine your worth as a person. They're the mark of goodness and achieving success beyond your "station", that's evil.
In the world of HP, not everyone is born free and equal. From birth, it is determined whether you're good or evil, and that's unchangeable (which is why there's so little character development in the entire book series). Redemption is impossible. At 11 years old, your character is declared in front of everyone, and this is unchangeable.
So, to answer your question: idk, man. I'm 35, I'm beyond that age when you want to categorize yourself into a neat little box. I don't think people can be easily divided into "brave heros", "loyal servants", "kinda suspicious nerds", and "evil masterminds", we're more complicated than that.
#yeah man idk either#sorry to be rambling about hp in the year of our lord 2024#like im not calling jkr a fascist#and like. im not saying this is worse than outright fascist propaganda.#but it is the sort of intellectual laziness that leaves one vulnerable to dehumanizing ideologies#as has been proven true#harry potter#thoughts
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I saw a post awhile back that was up in arms at the idea that fandom meta could be considered literary criticism in any sense, without giving much in the way of arguments for why that's wrong beyond "how dare!!! your silly shipping manifesto isn't literary blahblahblah."
It's obviously deeply akin to the gasp! horror! at comparisons of prestigious literature that re-purposes specific characters and events from other sources to fanfic. And the way in which the responses are mostly akin, IMO, is that in nearly all cases, they use vague scorn in the place of substantive argument. The argument is usually phrased along the lines of "how dare!!! your silly A/B/O slash fic isn't literature blahblahblah."
Both arguments (basically the same argument) rely on a) using very specific subtypes of meta/fic that the speaker obviously holds in contempt to stand in for the entirety of the broader genre (e.g., just going with AO3, ~146,000 of its over 10 million works are tagged with A/B/O, while less than half are m/m slash). The point isn't that the genres used are actually representative; rather, they're used to provoke disdain or disgust in place of some kind of coherent criteria for literary criticism/literature that could consistently distinguish fanworks from prestigious works or genres.
I actually agree that some commonly-cited works are not really fanfic (especially religious texts written by adherents of the religion in question), and if you've followed me for awhile, you probably know I have a lot of issues with a ton of popular fandom meta and fanon takes. At the same time, the idea of a hard line between (say) meta and literary criticism in terms of approach or quality just seems kind of absurd to me.
Let's be real, if you're in literary criticism, you know that some of it is really bad, and if you're in fandom, you've probably encountered very insightful meta at some points. There's a lack of quality control as with fanfic, sure, but that doesn't mean that meta is intrinsically inferior or fundamentally different from all forms of literary criticism, just that a higher proportion is likely to have problems that would often (though not always) be caught through peer review. At the same time, it allows people (including literary critics) to reach others without the problems of the journal system (inaccessibility/paywalls, glacial turn-around, etc).
So there are differences on the gatekeeping front, sure. And there are different conventions and certain theoretical approaches that tend to be treated as gospel more often in fandom than in some areas of lit-crit (fandom meta tends strongly towards anti-intentionalism, for instance). I'm not saying that formal literary criticism and fandom meta are customarily identical in style or perspective, but that they are fundamentally related. At the end of the day, they are sustained interpretations of stories, whether they're particularly good ones or not, and the distinction is more of a spectrum than a line anyway. I don't think fanwriters are wrong or mistakenly defensive in seeing a connection there when there so obviously is one.
Additionally, the argument-by-cultural-disdain (in addition to being just generally poor argumentation) is often extremely presentist. It's grounded in contemporary assumptions about the nature of literature, interpretation, and originality, for both meta and fanfic, that are wildly ahistorical when applied to things like early modern English drama. And people who use that argument tend to also be completely uncritical about the modernity of their assumptions, so there's that, too.
Usually, the argument seems to be "and don't mention Shakespeare, that's different" without any evidence or argument for why, beyond sometimes, again, falling back on vague contempt ("so you're saying fanfic is equivalent to Shakespeare now?"). Like, why should originality be a defining quality of literature for some things but not others? Deflecting onto the question of quality doesn't answer that.
(It especially doesn't when you consider that early modern "quality control" for works in English typically involved patronage from aristocrats or being one yourself, and the ability to navigate heavy state censorship—which I assume the "fanfic is not literature, somehow all early modern storytelling of any quality is tho" people are not advocating for.)
Now, I don't personally think Shakespeare et al. wrote fanfic, but for me, it's not a matter of quality but of the fandom context. Fanfic, in my view, intrinsically rises out of fandom, and though it can overlap (sometimes very heavily) with other kinds of derivative works in terms of tropes etc, it has to be part of a fandom's activity (not necessarily Western media fandom, but something recognizable as a fandom) to really "count" as fanfic. It also has to be intended as fiction, even if inspired by real life. Many of the usual examples don't satisfy those criteria for me, so I don't consider them fanfic.
These don't mean that fanfic can't ever qualify as literature, can't be analyzed in literary terms, whatever, but that a lot of other things don't qualify as fanfic. It's a stricter category. And that's my own definition—other people's may differ, though I think mine is pretty common (if often unspoke
#anghraine babbles#general fanwank#fanfiction#anghraine's meta#though this is more#anghraine rants#i actually wrote like four more paragraphs but decided that was probably enough. just maybe.#long post#ivory tower blogging
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What are your Thots on jake’s pq route?
I already wrote some about it in this post where I discuss the problem with taking dirkjake as a literal parallel to tavris (Mainly, that it’s inaccurate to both situations and misrepresents the dynamics at play) but it’s been long enough since release that I feel like I can talk about it without that criticism being taken as a personal witch hunt. TL;DR: As a general rule of thumb I don’t cite Jake’s PQ as part of his characterization, and I think basing your Jakewriting on it will only lead you astray.
I liked a lot of the Pesterquest routes and the alphas were among some of my favorites, but I think when you play the four of them in sequence Jake’s really... stands as the odd one out. It’s almost as if he’s afforded way less sympathy from the get go for some indiscernible reason, or like MSPAR took a day to say ‘I can’t stand this kid in particular’ after dealing with waaaaaaaay more mindboggling troll customs or stupid dangerous situations that tested their patience and their limits. When it comes down to it, it’s mostly an issue of framing.
Let’s go with the “Just the Alpha routes” example, because I think that makes the overall context clearer and the response/reactions it gathered (or the lack thereof) easier to understand. The alpha kids were the last 4 Pesterquest episodes. They were also afforded entire volumes just for themselves, which cemented our expectations on “oh, they’re going to really dig into unexplored territory!” and for the most part, that’s what we got! It was really nice to see the internal mechanics of Jane as someone raised within a corporate echochamber, Roxy as a grieving, isolated kid, deprived of all human contact, and Dirk as a nerdy doomsday prepper haunted by private flashes of himself as a supervillain. It all works! Those are things the alpha kids were dealing with on the background of the broader Homestuck story, things we were only hinted at as the *larger* problems played out. It makes you understand their point of view. Except on Jake's route, where nothing about his life seems to be relevant at all?
With Jane we get discussions about HIC and her family, with Roxy beautiful passages about a mother they never met and growing up alone— Same for Dirk, who gets a whole brother zapped from an alternate timeline. But on Jake's route there's not even an expansive dialogue path dedicated to Grandma English, Skaianet, the rebellion, or the giant red ship that came and murdered her in the night and then bombed his house, leaving him trapped inside his only surviving tower. No understanding passage realizing that this kid has had to fend for himself in an island full of Actual Giant Alien Monsters trying to eat him alive, or that he cremated his guardian specifically to avoid attracting predators to the scent of fresh blood drying on her mutilated corpse at the age of an actual toddler. The text refuses to dig into any of the psychological implications or impact an environment like this could have on a kid, which is even weirder when you consider MSPAR has met and helped Vriska get out of a similar situation. The whole thing with Jane in the previous volume has just happened, even, while Jake's particularities go unremarked. He was just supposed to deal with it. And that's because a choice was made to portray all of Jake's problems in this route as sort of... single handedly Dirk's fault? Something he should have Just Dealt with?
There's not even a hint that Jake knows Hal exists. Which is important! Jake can pick out Hal from Dirk based on *verbal cues*, and the fact that he considers Hal a barrier between him and his "real friend" getting to communicate with one another is a whole point of contention (and even comedy) in the story proper. Instead of examining Jake's isolation, or grief, or how he literally locks himself in his room and plasters it with cinematic posters to pretend he's just the main lead of a wacky adventure movie in the face of the immense shitshow outside, we get brobot acting nonsensically and threatening to break into Jake's room to beat him up.
A general reminder on brobot: He was programmed to scout the jungle and deal with predators so Jake could a) Be allowed to safely leave his room (something he simply didn't do before age 13 out of sheer terror, and we know this because dirk and jake talk about it on his birthday conversation, when he first gets brobot) and
b) Learn how to defend himself in the case of a surprise attack, with different combat settings adjusted to his level. The brobot has a novice mode Jake feels patronized by, but pushes him up levels quickly enough. In Homestuck proper, the brobot only enters "stalking mode" after Hal gets pissy with Jake for finding him out, and forcefully switches the setting on to make Jake work for the Uranium inside it. When you take Hal out of the picture, this plotline makes no sense! Jake's route is set way before the Alphas even think of entering the game, so this particular event hasn't even happened. Jake goes on to text Roxy and she turns the stalking setting off remotely anyways, so even if brobot was programmed to murder Jake in his sleep, or jump him inside the safe zone of his room (he's not) he has literally no reason to be acting like that when he's been set to Baby Buff Up Mode.
(Brobot does end up spontaneously pulling himself apart to give Jake his reward after this)
Which brings me to my other problem with the general framing of this volume; the alpha kids don't feel present in Jake's life as friends at all. It's all "romantic options" and "shipping discourse" and MSPAR making these silly logic jumps to justify insisting on this line of query, and all it does is completely flatten out anything of interest having to do with Jake as a Person, to build up an image of Dirk as being suspicious and shady for his volume and more or less come to the conclusion that Jake sucks because he just Cant Choose Who To Date Between All His Friends! And that's why jake is just like tavros… and dirk is just like vriska! Or something.
And just as a reminder, here's Jake talking with Roxy so I don't have to explain why that feels like a weird choice to me. (click to zoom)
And then there's the endings. On the vriska ending, MSPAR just ends up weirdly angry at jake for being such a piss baby and not getting that he's tavros and dirk is vriska so he had to… uh… take all his anger out on this 13 year old alien girl he has never met and teach her a lesson to prepare to do the same on dirk, or something. And on the other ending Jake mentions his pen pal, is zapped to meet jade, they have some non-committal greetings and then a cosplay party where Jake insists that he totally likes Lara croft not because she's a femme fatale and he relates to that, because he's never ever in his life thought of anyone being interested on him. Or Something. He likes Lara croft for normal reasons only. He wears really tiny shorts and does sexy poses because he's not aware at all of how other people find him attractive. He's just too dumb to get this, or the shipping thing, or that he's tavros and Dirk is vriska (who the hell are these people?).
Jake feels like an afterthought in the grand scope of events. Sidelined on his own episode. This volume is busy with rehashing age old fandom arguments that have little to do with his character, because said arguments were started and maintained by bored teens engrossed on fighting online instead of analyzing Homestuck; we introduce vriska for no interesting reason at all (thank god at least Jake has enough decency to say he's not into hitting on 13-year-olds, because that would have been particularly rancid.) And aside from catchphrases and old slang sprinkled liberally into his dialogue like a fog making machine, none of the motivation for the character is there. What does he want? What does he fear? Why does he act like the way he does? What would accommodating him look like? What would helping him look like? We get this on Jane's volume, Roxy's volume, and Dirk's volume. To really heart-wrenching and dramatic results, too. You get to know who they are, where they live, what they want, what they fear, what might help them get better, but Jake is just sort of There. He's a burden. MSPAR either ends this volume berating him for not doing what they want or finding him weird and confusing and like they don't know each other at all, and the fact both of those were marked as dubiously bad ends in the game files speaks for itself, I think.
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OP I hope no one was mean to you for saying something very true and valid, especially from the perspective of someone who’s part of a minority! It’s an issue I myself encounter a lot too, in this fandom and in many others. And calling that out is not an attack on anyone or anything, its simply stating a thing you noticed. People need to remember their manners.
To me personally, part of writing a reader insert is writing it as inclusive as possible, because otherwise it is literally an OC. It’s supposed to be relatable for the broadest amount of people, its supposed to leave a mostly blank slate for people to fill the gaps themselves, since you’re supposed to insert yourself as the Reader. Like the name of the trope states. It’s obviously a skill to learn, and yes that takes time, but if you wanna crochet you need to learn how to do that first too dont you? Skills just work like that.
I personally like to approach it like this: Y/N isn’t just me, Y/N is everyone. And while i am the one writing the script and decide what they do and say, I am not in control of who they are and what they look like. Any of my friends could be the starring actor, so i should write it in a way where they could see it like that themselves too.
Anyway, if a person belonging to a minority calling out a pattern they noticed in a community/group you’re involved in makes you uncomfortable, that means you need to look at yourself and your own body of work. And why that is the case, not at the person who had the courage to bring it up. The fact that it has to take courage to say you feel excluded is already kind of sad.
As a writer, having stuff to learn/get better at doesn’t make you ignorant, but getting angry at being called out does. If you notice a lot of color descriptors, especially for skin like pale/porcelain etc in your own work, it actually just gives you reason to go over your own writing style, see if those are really necessary and maybe find a new way to describe a physical reaction in a broader way. It Literally makes you a better writer to do that, and then automatically makes your piece of work more inclusive. That does not mean your work is bad otherwise, not at all! It simply means this specific thing is worth practicing. And is that not the joy of having a hobby? Continuing to grow and refine the skill over time and keep evolving it. Is that not part of the fun?
I’m loving the overall creative expression that has come from these fics and the global obsession that seems to follow Agatha Harkness & all the amazing witches from her coven, yet if I was being completely honest though, I really wish y’all would keep in mind that not all of us are blonde haired, blue eyed, “porcelain skin” girls. Some of us are apart of different communities and cultures that look nothing like what’s usually described as the reader to look like. it can be quite distracting and if I’m being honest quite dejecting when most of the stories use that specific set to describe the reader when that’s not what i look like at all. Not just me I’m sure there’s others…..idk if I’m being overly critical or sensitive but It would just be nice to read about someone who looks like me.
This is not me bashing the current releases either, I think all authors on here are doing absolutely phenomenal and i love reading everything you all decide to share with the community. I just wish people thought about the minority perspective sometimes. ONCE AGAIN YOU ARE ALL FANTASTIC AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR AMAZING WORK!!!❤️❤️❤️❤️
#like we are not literally supposed to be a community#lets be nice to each other and listen and give each other the benefit of the doubt#anyway im gonna go walk my dog and get some wood chopping done does anyone want some grass to touch fromm outside
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The Faery Etiquette
1)Not giving fae your name. Even if you think that this fae can be trusted or it's not a fae that's known to want to hurt people, it's never a good idea to give a faerie your full name. They could give your name to someone else, there could be someone else listening, they could not be as nice as you thing, or they could be perfectly nice and do something they think is good for you but you view as harmful. As for why names are important, names- especially full names- are actually a pretty intimate detail. Think about it, when humans want to dedicate themselves to something, they sign their name on it. Not only can fae think you're agreeing to something by giving them your name or do something with your name, but they can also feel they're indebted to you in some cases. You don't want a fae owing you or trying to make good on a debt. You're better off giving them a nickname or an alias, preferably one you actually use, but don't use that often, and/or saying "Call me BLANK" instead of "my name's" or "I'm". That way you aren't lying, but it doesn't have the same sense of identity that your actual name has and there are less tricks to be played by any fae who know that name. For example let's say your name is Alexander, but you usually go by Alex. You run into a faerie in the woods and they ask you your name. Not telling them would be rude and we know what happens when you're rude to fae. Instead you should say they can call you "Al" or "Xander" or a computer handle or nickname that people don't call you out loud but is technically your name or that you do go by just not out loud.
2)The "thank you" one is not on it's own a good rule and is kind of dangerous on it's own, but it has a point. "Thank you" in a way is a suggestion of debt, and there is almost never a good time to say it to a faerie. That not to say you shouldn't give thanks to or show appreciation to a fae, but the specific words "Thank you" can be dangerous and even offensive when said to fae, and it's hard to explain. There's a certain intimacy and gravity to it. The only situation I've come across where it was comfortably excusable is when it's a protective fae usually living on the person's land. "Thanks", "Thanks so much", "you have my thanks", "That was very nice/generous/sweet of you" are safer alternatives, but still should not be said to excess. Faeries don't do things to be thanked, they do things because they want to or they feel it's right; and they tend to be very annoyed with how easily humans throw around their thanks. Honestly, if you feel indebted to a faerie folk, the best thing you can do is leave a gift where you met them.
3)You usually shouldn't ask for a faerie's name. Like I said names are quite valuable, and asking for their name can imply a debt or even be offensive. Usually they'll give you their name once they know yours, it often won't be their real name but it works all the same much like the first rule, which is another reason you shouldn't give them your full real name. If certain boundaries have already been breached by the faerie, (as in they're in your house, they've lead you off into the middle of nowhere, they have you more or less cornered, etc) it's acceptable to ask them their name along with other more useful questions in trying to gather their intent. Usually though, you'll get a more honest less violent answer by asking a broader question like "Who are you?".
4) Don't trust faeries is kind of right and wrong too. Plenty of faerie are perfectly harmless and completely trustworthy and many like to be nice and helpful to humans. But that being said, they are a different being all together and live in a very different context than humans and often don't understand humans at all. They can think they're being nice, or they can think it's okay to not tell the whole truth because they think it's not a big deal, even if it has a severe impact on the person that they hardly even comprehend. The best way to explain it is a conversation my mother and I once had "Hey mom, do you think that the lady of the lake would help someone get back to their realm since she can use lakes as portals?" "Well, she could..." "Could she get them there alive, without them drowning?" "I don't think she'd really care if she got them there alive. She wouldn't understand the problem with not getting there alive. She'd figure them and their souls got back home, so it's fine. Yeah, 'but their dead', but she wouldn't understand what the issue was with them being dead.
5)This one is tough. While you should be very careful going anywhere with anyone, especially a faerie, I'd be hard pressed to say Never go anywhere with one. But you should be very very cautious about following fae. First, of course, do not follow them without permission. Secondly, slow it down, ask "Before we go anywhere, I want to ask you a few questions. Will you answer them?" If they say no, say you won't go then, and walk away if you're able. If they say yes, question them. Where do you want to take me? Will you promise my safety? Will I be hurt? Will I die? Will I be allowed to come back? I need to return here by [specific time/event later]. I can only go if you promise to bring me back by then if I so wish. Do you give your word you'll bring me back if I ask you to? If they give favorable answers, and you chose to go with them, if they made promises to you, YOU MUST TRUST THEM COMPLETELY. If you don't put your trust in them but accept those promises and go with them, they do not have to keep those promises and don't have to keep true to anything they told you. If you have any doubt you shouldn't go with them. If you choose not to go with them you should tell them very firmly "I'm sorry but I’ll not follow “
#ethereal#aesthetic#beauty#faery#magical#dark aesthetic#magick#fae magic#faery lore#faery folk#faery land#faery ring#fae#fae tales#faerycore#fairy#dark#fae etiquette#faery etiquette#etiquette
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A movement that cannot be criticized cannot achieve positive goals
The hardest part of talking about malignant trends on the broad left is that, well, you’re not allowed to talk about them. It’s no exaggeration to say that criticism has become fully conflated with violence. If you attempt to engage critically with a left-liberal writer--regardless of how thorough and respectful you may be, and regardless of how powerful, public, or insulated the subject of the criticism--you will be accused of dismissing and erasing the writer, of inciting violence against the writer, and of committing some form of genocide against whichever identity groups the writer belongs to.
Conversely, if you don’t provide specifics, you’ll be accused of making stuff up. The same people who claim it’s an act of aggression to ask for proof when they make claims of victimization turn into immense pedants the moment they encounter a heterodox opinion.
Unsurprisingly, a discourse milieu in which critical analysis is forbidden is a prime breeding ground for unsustainable (and even horrific) behavioral standards. Never mind improving the world that exists outside their sphere of influence... these people are perpetually on the brink of destroying their allies, their institutions, and themselves.
Today I dug into an especially profane case that highlights both of these points. It’s a matter of public record, so I hopefully won’t get accused of “doxing” anyone for discussing it. It’s also the sort of story where if someone cares about it, they’ll have an opinion of it within a second or two of reading a headline describing what happened. This means it’ll only be of interest to the sort of cranks who read this blog. My goal here isn’t to express outrage or advocate for one side or other--although it is outrageous, and you won’t have to try too hard to see which side I favor. Instead, I’m going to try to move beyond that, to use this instance as a broader cautionary tale in regards to the more horrific tendencies of the identitarian left, and to begin formulating some means of resistance.
In other words, this might get boring. Even more so than usual.
The story involves a court case, documented here, in which a young man named Kieran Bhattacharya is suing the University of Virginia Medical School. Mr. Bhattacharya (a white supremacist name if I’ve ever heard one) was subjected to formal censure, repeated psychological evaluations, suspension, and eventual expulsion. This all happened because he raised some concerns after a White Fragility-inspired panel on microaggressions.
This is one of those cases where both sides are going to assume there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface and, like I said, are going to be disinclined toward actually reading the available evidence. Thankfully, the court brief is fairly exhaustive and--importantly--the account provided in the brief has received the approval of both plaintiff and defendant. To stress, everyone involved in this case agrees, legally, that the account provided herein is an accurate picture of what happened. Additionally, we also have audio of the initial microaggression seminar (Mr. Bhattacharya’s comments start at around the 28:30 mark), as well as of the pursuant committee meeting that ended in his expulsion.
Here is the initial exchange, as documented by the brief:
Bhattacharya: Hello. Thank you for your presentation. I had a few questions just to clarify your definition of microaggressions. Is it a requirement, to be a victim of microaggression, that you are a member of a marginalized group?
Adams: Very good question. And no. And no—
Bhattacharya: But in the definition, it just said you have to be a member of a marginalized group—in the definition you just provided in the last slide. So that’s contradictory.
Adams: What I had there is kind of the generalized definition. In fact, I extend it beyond that. As you see, I extend it to any marginalized group, and sometimes it’s not a marginalized group. There are examples that you would think maybe not fit, such as body size, height, [or] weight. And if that is how you would like to see me expand it, yes, indeed, that’s how I do.
Bhattacharya: Yeah, follow-up question. Exactly how do you define marginalized and who is a marginalized group? Where does that go? I mean, it seems extremely nonspecific.
Adams: And—that’s intentional. That’s intentional to make it more nonspecific . . . .
After the initial exchange, Bhattacharya challenged Adams’s definition of microaggression. He argued against the notion that “the person who is receiving the microaggressions somehow knows the intention of the person who made it,” and he expressed concern that “a microaggression is entirely dependent on how the person who’s receiving it is reacting.” Id. He continued his critique of Adams’s work, saying, “The evidence that you provided—and you said you’ve studied this for years—which is just one anecdotal case—I mean do you have, did you study anything else about microaggressions that you know in the last few years?” Id. After Adams responded to Bhattacharya’s third question, he asked an additional series of questions: “So, again, what is the basis for which you’re going to tell someone that they’ve committed a microaggression? . . . Where are you getting this basis from? How are you studying this, and collecting evidence on this, and making presentations on it?”
You can listen to the audio if you like. There’s nothing there, in my opinion, that is not captured accurately in the written description. Bhattacharya does not yell or raise his voice. He sounds skeptical, but in no way violent or threatening. Nor does Adams, the presenter, signal that she is experiencing anything that approaches fear or trauma.
Immediately after the event, a professor who helped organize the discussion filed a “Professionalism Concern Card”--a cute academic euphemism for a disciplinary write up--against Bhattacharya, alleging he had displayed a troubling lack of respect for differences (the irony here probably does not need to be explicated).
Soon after that--literally still the same day of the panel--Bhattacharya received an email from faculty asking him to “share his thoughts” so as to help him “understand and be able to cope with unintended consequences of conversations.” The tone of the email is polite and professional, but the text hints toward an attempt at entrapment. You’ll see this a lot in woke spaces--invitations to come to an understanding with one another that are, in actuality, attempts to get a person to say something cancellable.
Bhattacharya took the bait, and, well…
During Bhattacharya and Peterson’s one-hour meeting, Peterson “barely mentioned” Bhattacharya’s questions and comments at the panel discussion. Dkt. 33 ¶ 73. Instead, Peterson attempted to determine Bhattacharya’s “views on various social and political issues—including sexual assault, affirmative action, and the election of President Trump.”
At this point, the kid was fucked. He soon after had an uneventful-seeming meeting with a dean. Two weeks after that, a separate panel found him guilty of “patterns of unprofessional behavior and egregious violations of professionalism” and strongly encouraged him to seek psychological counseling.
Pre-Trump, Bhattacharya still probably would have been fine if he had just kept his head down, gone to a couple therapy sessions, and maybe issued an empty apology. Since 2016, however, the rules have changed. An accusation is now absolute proof of guilt and no amount of ablution can save someone in a vulnerable position.
Eleven days after receiving the ostensible suggestion that he receive counseling, Bhattacharya was informed that he would not be permitted to return to classes until he had been evaluated. A day after that--before even having the opportunity to seek the mandated counseling--he was given a mere 3 hours notice before having to attend another disciplinary committee meeting.
This meeting found that Bhattacharya’s continuing behaviors were proof that he posed an imminent danger to the campus community, although the committee did not bother to explain what those behaviors entailed. His behavior was simply noted as “unusual” and this was proof that “Any patient that walked into the room with [Bhattacharya] would be scared.” The following day, Bhattacharya was forcibly removed from campus and told he could not return until he had been screened. He was, subsequently, not allowed to receive sanctioned screening, because of his status of having been removed from campus after being deemed a security risk.
Again, none of what I have described is an exaggeration. None of these details are even being contested.
Now for my own conjecture: the problem isn’t that anyone genuinely believes Bhattacharya poses a threat to anyone’s safety. The problem is that he attempted to question the ideological firmaments of contemporary anti-racist training. These firmaments are protected with aggressive viciousness precisely because they cannot withstand scrutiny. Had Bhattacharya merely scoffed at them, or even if he had been outright condescending and dismissive, he probably would not have received such a severe punishment. The problem was that he was right, and his accusers knew it.
Understanding speech in the manner prescribed by the peddlers of microaggression theory cannot possibly be codified in a way that won't result in arbitrary punishment. Bhattacharya’s experience demonstrates that with horrific irony.
The assertion here is that the intention of a speech act should have no bearing on how we adjudicate the morality of that speech act--such a point was made repeatedly in the initial discussion, and stressed once again after Bhattacharya’s concerns have been raised. This standard contradicts how we've processed the morality of speech for centuries, but that's what people are very explicitly demanding.
How is this workable, when literally any statement could, conceivably, be considered offensive by at least one individual? This, I feel, was the point Bhattacharya reaching toward. If you were to say, I dunno, "I love trees" to a group of 1000 people, 999 of them could regard that statement as benign. But what if one person takes offense to it? What if they work in the lumber industry, or they were molested by guy in a Smokey the Bear costume? What if that person then files a report accusing the tree lover of offensive speech? Will the speaker be disciplined? Or will the powers that be take intention and effect into account?
Of course, we're not going to criminalize all speech in this way. Like all extreme and broad-reaching disciplinary standards, this one will only be selectively evoked in order to punish people with heterodox opinions and/or those whose presence threatens the status quo. Someone who says something much more incendiary, like "all men are rapists" or "white people shouldn't get social security" would not receive a reprimand regardless of how much offense their statements caused, because they're saying something that's acceptable in our current milieu. And right now, the least acceptable speech is that which shines a light on the manifest flaws and hypocrisies of corporate anti racism.
Back to my hypothetical example, if the tree-loving speaker was on good terms with everyone, the complaint would most likely be ignored. But if he had said or done other things that for whatever reason displeased the people in charge, the specious accusation could still ruin him. What's worse, the person who filed the allegation of offense might not have even actually taken offense at the statement--they were just looking for a way to get rid of him.
Bhattacharya was attempting to voice legitimate criticisms about a political movement whose suggestions are functionally unworkable and that, even if it were implemented fully and uncritically, does not contain even a hypothetical explanation in regards to how its goals would result in improved racial equality/equity. Because of that, he was cynically labeled dangerous and expelled from a public university.
You'd think a group that obsesses over power differentials and their own marginalization would have some grasp of this. Regardless of which side you fall into with this particular culture war, it should fucking terrify you that a movement that’s been tasked with addressing pressing social problems is designed in such a way that any substantial criticism is met with aggressive punishment.
There’s no way you can win if this is you is how conduct yourself. This is why we’re losing. This is why even if you get all the censorship and deplatforming you can ever dream of, even if every major bank and multinational corporatation professes fealty to your movement, you will still lose. Because there’s no way you can win.
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Magical Girl Raising Project has this interesting side issue: I’ll believe you when you say that MGRP has no PMMM influence (my knowledge of MGRP is admittedly fragmentary)... but while everyone notes that PMMM was not the first magical girl show to go dark, fewer people these days remember that PMMM was not the first dedicated attempt to pull off Mahou Shoujo Evangelion, it was the second. And given what I know about MGRP I would put fairly decent odds that MGRP is directly inspired by the first such attempt in Mai-HiME.
Mind you, Mai-HiME in generally is a show that should probably stay in anime fandom memory if only for its historical importance - I’m not sure I’d call it good when it famously whiffed its finale but there is a legitimate argument that it and not PMMM is the foundational work of modern mahou shoujo, it is actually legitimately difficult to find a magical girl series in the last fifteen years that does not show signs of either first- or secondhand influence from it. Part of that is that PMMM itself shows heavy signs of Mai-HiME influence - most obviously if HiME didn’t get Kajiura hired on PMMM I’d be quite surprised, Magia and Mysterioso even follow the same naming scheme as the Kajiura main battle themes for Mai-HiME (”Mezame”) and its gaiden sequel Mai-Otome (”MATERIALISE”), but also I distinctly remember an interview where someone on the PMMM staff talked about how they made sure to hew close to traditional magical girl aesthetics and I strongly suspect that’s a direct response to Mai-HiME jettisoning some genre trappings. (And yes, I’m pretty confident Butch Gen watched Mai-HiME.) But works with little PMMM influence show signs of the same: I already mentioned MGRP and then there’s Granblem which almost has to have either direct Mai-HiME influence or common inspiration, but also I went into Symphogear expecting Nanoha descent and was rudely surprised to find a Mai franchise derivative so obvious that I’m not sure it isn’t literally Agematsu’s Mai franchise fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off[1], Symphogear just grabbed the Mai-HiME arc nobody else did anything with and is also one of the very few series to do much with Mai-Otome probably because Mai-Otome is bad. (Bikki is basically Mai-Otome’s protagonist Arika Yumemiya and Tsubasa is incredibly obviously influenced by Natsuki Kuga, for example, and that’s before we get to the raided plot points.) That just leaves the shows where the lesson they drew from Nanoha is that you can sell magical girls to the seinen otaku audience if you include, ah, extremely questionable fanservice (ala the aforementioned Prisma Illya), and even then I note that one of the more obvious examples in Vividred got Hiroyuki Yoshino as Series Composition (roughly lead writer, this was Butch Gen’s credit on PMMM) and Mai-HiME was Hiroyuki Yoshino’s first such credit and the work that made his career. (Which is unfortunate because we have a decade of work after this showing that Hiroyuki Yoshino is a hack; Mai-HiME is a fluke and that has a lot to do with its combination of the works Mai-HiME was drawing off of - it has heavy Eva and Utena influence - and the part where the most talented writer to come out of Sunrise in the last twenty years in Gorou Taniguchi got his writing feet wet on the show.)
As for your broader point...in the specific case of the Nanoha niche (seinen-targeted but not deconstructive) I kind of suspect the bigger issue is “how do we make money off this?”. Precure cornering the toy market (and slowly getting eaten by children’s idol shows) is less relevant to the seinen audience, though I can easily see Precure being popular enough among young men to undercut the room for dedicated seinen mahou shoujo. You can or at least could sell by trying to cash in on the big deconstructions, but that doesn’t help the Nanoha types. Symphogear survived and thrived by selling insert songs and concert tickets, but I’m not entirely sure that’s replicable. Of course there is one other way that seems to reliably sell... but the problem is, that’s how you get the Prillya route (and let’s be real, Nanoha itself has a real side of that path).
If mecha post-Eva is any guide we’re at the tail end of the Madoka imitators (Bokurano’s anime adaptation was 2008; Eva itself was 1995) and the genre will settle down into Precure, the reboot wave until it ebbs (mecha *also* had this in the early 2000s), a few attempts to recapture the magic (somebody may pull off Magical Girl Gurren Lagann if Symphogear doesn’t already count, but non-Gundam mecha after the Eva clone wave went out to see rarely seem to do well unless they are exactly Trigger), and shows that incidentally use magical girls as part of their main point.
[1] - Fun fact: Agematsu actually composed one of the Mai-HiME insert songs!
What do you think of the "magical girl deconstruct" genre?
I like it more than most other traditional magical girl fans, I think. I really like dark media and the deconstruction genre in general so that definitely influences it. However, I definitely agree with the opinion that there need to be more traditional magical girl shows. I also understand why other fans of the MG genre don’t like deconstruction MG series. Most of the series I’ve seen are guilty pleasures for me, lol (I think PMMM is one of the only series that really understands the whole “dark magical girl series” assignment).
So yeah, I like the genre more than most people but I definitely understand the criticism and I do think it got oversaturated after the success of PMMM (with diminishing returns).
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I think I agree with you most people who are anti censorship are pretty chill and laid back.
Unfortunately the other day a fairly popular person in my fandom who had their ao3 suspended because, and I'm not lying here, an anon reported them or something for their ao3 tags saying that their fics about siblings should not be read as romantic. Like their ao3 is legit unusable for a month. I felt so awful that this one person decided to stir up drama like this. Theres always like one or two people who just. do not follow courtesy and it just creates this aggression between people who are anti censorship and others.
Also this whole sending people death threats and suicide baits is so terrifying. its so disturbing how casually people just say stuff like that. Like no ones behind the words behind the screen. Idk its messed up
damn, really? that seems like one of those issues that's automated, seems I know actual people deal with the tags on AO3. might be a delay, as there's so many of them, but it's not all run by bots or something. if it's a case of reader interpretation I'm sure this person could contact somebody about it. it doesn't seem against the rules? unless they were threatening or excessively insulting about it, in which case they might get caught under a harassment rule or something like that. (for example, if they tagged something like "if you read this as romantic you're a gross pro-incest apologist who's probably banging your cousins" or something; not saying that's what went down but just to use as an example... that would definitely be against the terms of service, lol.)
alternatively it was a decision made based on the fact this person was trying to dictate how people read their story, which... to be honest, as much as incest fic isn't my thing at all, I have to agree with. when you post your writing for others to read, you retain copyright over it (as in, your right to assert yourself as the creator of the piece) but you don't retain control over it. people are free to interpret it or read it however they like, and if you're not comfortable with that you have no business posting your work publicly. Death of the Author is a concept that we learn in basic high school English classes, and it's very much worth taking to heart. if you post something online, or publish a book, or put anything anywhere where it's consumed by people who aren't you, you no longer control how a person interprets it or what they take away from it. it can be frustrating, and I know from experience that it can sometimes be very, very uncomfortable (I won't go into specifics because I don't want to shame anyone, but some of my characters have been given traits or kinks that I am 100% not OK with, but hey! I knew the risk when I made them publicly available, so I'm just going to sit here and mind my business and not look at that shit.) but that's just how it works. if somebody posts something and then tries to shame, intimidate, or otherwise force people into reading their work the "right" way, I don't support that at all. clearly they're just not ready for their work to be out in public.
of course, this is just me going off about broader topics based on very little information, so forgive me if I'm way off the mark. my wider opinion still stands, though, and I definitely agree that there's a small minority on both sides that make it difficult for everyone. however, I will say that I consistently see more vitriol and threats from people who are pro-censorship than anti-censorship, and this is a pattern I've observed for almost 10 years now. there's something to be said for that, and I think ignoring it would be dishonest at this point.
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