#the other thing about this discourse is that we're literally in a fantasy world

[songstep4002]

Do you know what's really annoying?

When you call someone or something not human, people always assume you mean less than human. Which is stupid because of the majority of the time, I don't mean less than human or even more than human, I mean different from human. But the average person's tendency is to put humanity up on a pedestal as greater, which in their mind, makes different from humanity inherently lesser than humanity. Which is stupid and annoying and I hate it.

[jq37]

So, that lady FH episode was amazing and all, but...

Hoo boy, I already see the discourse around the Ratgrinders' fates forming and it is going to be painful. Be careful around the fandom space.

(I mean, resurrection is still on the table for them, but that's based on if the players feel like it and right now, we're looking at 50/50 odds at bests)

Yeah, don't worry about me. This isn't my first rodeo and also I post a lot about D20 and respond to asks I get but I don't actually personally engage with any of The Discourse (tm).

And I'm not really surprised at the reaction. I know people have been opinionated all season in two main camps (that have a lot of overlap): people dissatisfied with the narrative direction and people deeply sympathetic to the Rat Grinders to the point of being mad at the Bad Kids.

The first camp I mostly understand. I get wishing the cast would explore a certain storyline more. For example, I've been on the Aelwyn redemption arc train since literally the first episode of Fantasy High so I was a little disappointed that when that finally came to a head in Freshman Year, it was a big fight and then very little aftermath/unpacking because Aelwyn was sent to jail right after. And Sophomore Year hadn't been announced so I had no idea that she was gonna get another shot. But I wasn't upset or anything. Adaine at that point still hated her sister. She had no reason to want to reach out. And at the end of the day this is other people playing a game. Brennan presented them all the possible plot threads and they were most interested in self discovery, hanging out with each other, doing Shenanigans, and playing Tomb Raider re: Ankarna. Those are all options they were presented and it's not like they were doing crazy off-roading. It's well within the parameters of what D&D is. If you're gonna watch a show like this (or honestly any show), you have to accept that what's most interesting to you isn't always going to be the most interesting thing to the people in the driver's seat.

So yeah, I feel like this side of things I get (even though I'm fine with how things turned out).

The other camp--people being legit mad at the Bad Kids (and in some cases the actual cast) for treating the Rat Grinders like antagonists instead of victims that they were responsible for empathizing with and redeeming--I find kind of wild.

Like…you're mad at the kids who go to Child Murder School for killing kids who want to end the world and kill them specifically? Literally the first day of school the principal of the school says that adventurers are violent wanderers who engage in shenanigans and enact violence. This is the exact assignment they were given and that's what they're doing.

I think it's wild to at the same time believe that the Rat Grinders (who have killed people) are not responsible for their actions and deserve to be talked down while in the process of causing an apocalypse because they're just kids who were manipulated while at the same time calling the Bad Kids evil lunatics for trying to stop them by killing them (in a world where Revivify and Resurrection exist) even though they are ALSO kids who are doing what they've learned at Child Murder School. The Bad Kids have to be mature enough to thoroughly investigate the situation and have nuance about it but the Rat Grinders don't have any responsibility to not join a shady evil murder plan*? And do the Bad Kids really hate the Rat Grinders to the point where they're doing some overkill in this fight? Absolutely. But it's not like they're killing them because they hate them. They're killing them because they're trying to end the world--and they also happen to hate them. Are we forgetting that Kipperlilly killed Buddy--her own teammate--with a gleeful smile on her face? That was so out of pocket.

They're adventurers! Not guidance counselors! If Jawbone was like, "We need to kill these kids," yeah that would be weird but why would the Bad Kids extend an olive branch to the kids who (1) famously hate them, (2) killed at least one maybe 2 of their own party members, (3) endangered the entire student body population an hour ago, (4) are currently trying to end the world. Hell, Adaine was ready to be mean to her own sister in elf jail literally up until the point Brennan described how rough she looked from the torture and that's when she changed her mind. The Power of Love and Empathy is on the menu but it's a special item you only can get if you know the chef. Everyone else is getting a serving of These Hands. Just because you can find a vegan solution to a problem it doesn't mean you're obligated to.

This all comes down to, "Maybe teenagers shouldn't have godlike powers and the ability to play judge, jury, and executioner" but that's literally the premise of the entire show so you can't get around it without rejecting the show's entire premise. If they were like, "Hmm the systems that underpin our world are questionable and we should change the power structures" instead of, "Let's kill some bad guys!" then that's a totally different thing we're doing here!

And, idk man, this show has always had a Who Framed Roger Rabbit style morality where the normal rules of ethics stop applying when it's funny. They beat the crud out of Ragh and then lied to him that he shit his pants just for the bit. A pirate was rude/kinda racist to Riz so they scared him into killing himself. Riz ate the remains of the sentient (albiet evil) dragon he killed. That's all unhinged behavior but none of that is meant to be serious. Getting upset about Fig sending Ruben to hell to me feels like getting mad that Jerry hit Tom with a cartoonishly large mallet.

None of this is new so I have to assume that people are having a big reaction because they relate to the Rat Grinders or just really like them so it feels bad that the Bad Kids are treating them like fodder rather than beloved NPCs.

But again, this is a world where you can bring people back from the dead and the Rat Grinders have showed intent that is grievously neglectful at best and insanely murderous at worst so I can't muster a lot of sympathy for the fact that the Bad Kids are just taking them down without remorse. I don't think you have to try to empathize with the people who are trying to harm you if you don't want to especially while they are in the process of harming you.

(*And we still don't know how voluntarily they joined this plan. We don't know if they were killed and basically forced into resurrecting with rage or if they just leapt at the chance to join a plan that would let them get one over on their rivals. It literally could be either. We've had kid villains on this show strong armed into being party to evil plans by threat of harm (Aelwyn) as well was kid villains who just had their own selfish motivations and weren't tricked at all (Penelope and Biz). We actually don't have any clear answer on how culpable they are. We don't know if they all have rage crystals (except for Buddy). And we don't know how much having a Rage Crystal effects your actions. The best indicator we got is in this latest ep when Brennan said that there was a mechanic where Porter was going to call anyone with a rage crystal to fight for him but that says to me that he's only directly puppeting them when he uses that action and otherwise they have free will and are just angrier. The Bad Kids don't have a reason to believe definitively that the Rat Grinders are just unwilling puppets even if that is the case so of course they're treating them like enemies. Anyway, this is a whole lot of "I don't knows" but that's only because I've seen a lot of people talking like the Rat Grinders literally aren't in control of their actions but that's not info that we have. It could be true but we don't actually know that so it's not a good argument.)

[astrabear]

A writer friend of mine posted this on Facebook:

A FB friend made a post asking if writers have any sort of ethical or moral responsibility regarding our writing. Most of the answers were about our only responsibility being to the "truth" of the story and characters, or the like. The following was my response. ---------- I guess I'll be the voice of dissent. As writers, we *absolutely* have a responsibility to the culture and times we live in--or rather, to the people who share them with us. Any piece of fiction longer than a short story (and many short stories as well) has a socio-political message. It may be minor, and it may well be unintentional, but it's there. It's there in the decisions we make about what characters to spotlight, and how we portray them. It's there in the attitudes we don't even mean to express. It's there in our choice of what struggles to showcase, and why characters on different sides of the issue make the choices they do. You can choose to craft your message deliberately, or not. But it will be there. It is our responsibility to be aware of what we're saying, and if what we're saying is harmful to people, to choose to say something else. If (to choose some random examples) your survivalist ammosexual turns out to be right, and his way of self-centered violence is the correct way forward? You're saying something that speaks to issues our society is facing right now. If your villain is Black or trans, and your heroes are all white or cis? That's a message. In a world of true equality, it might not be, but in this world? In a world of persecution and hate crimes and laws of deliberate oppression across multiple states? It's absolutely saying something. And what it's saying is harmful. It literally contributes, however small your audience may be, to a greater harmful attitude and world view. As a writer, you own that. And as writers, I believe we have an ethical and moral responsibility not to make things worse, if we can't make them better. And if doing harm is the only way you can be "true to the story"? Then you damn well tell a different story. As humans, our obligation is to our fellow humans, the marginalized most of all. Being a writer or an artist doesn't change that; it only changes how we go about it.

Me again. Now, this author writes novels and screenplays (Ari Marmell, he writes mostly fantasy with some sci-fi/horror, many of them have audiobook versions, some have been translated into other languages, see if your library carries anything but don't pirate minor authors who barely make enough to get by please) but this is the crux of the conflict I see in fanfic discourse.

And I don't know if it's possible to have constructive discussion between people who agree with these underlying principles (that everything communicates a political viewpoint, that what you put out into the world becomes part of a larger system of beliefs and values, that you are responsible for the effects of your work) and people who disagree with them.

[taylortruther]

So here's my thing about the Barbie discourse:

Almost nothing that holds such an iconic place in society is one thing. So much of this discourse comes from this, imo, immature very black and white internet space. It's either good or bad. But like most things, Barbie is both.

Everything critics have said about Barbie being a cultural icon of the patriarchy is true. Barbie's size has long been critiqued and also studied and it has done real damage to real people. This is all true and not to be made light of

Studies upon studies upon studies have also shown that dolls and prominent cultural figures engaging in traditionally male dominated fields increases the participation of young girls. So Barbies such as Astronaut Barbie increase girls' participation in STEM. There is empowerment even without Greta Gerwig's film.

Barbie is the pretty pink, Barbie is the tiny and physically impossible body, Barbie is the permanent high heels. Barbie is also the astronaut and the doctor. She is both the bimbo and the message that girls, too, can be smart.

And I think the most interesting critique of Barbie as a brand, a character, and eventually a film when it comes out, is (will be) how these work together and play off each other. From what I've gathered from what Greta has said, her intention with this film uses this duality to validate the "you can do anything" and point out that all of those unfair and unhealthy expectations come from her being a literal doll. I think that's going to be interesting! I think it's interesting how in the current reality of the brand and the character, this duality plays off itself in a feedback loop. We have to be submissive and docile and pretty and inhumanely shaped, but we also need to be smart and capable and powerful, but not too much that we're not idealized.

I get so exhausted with the overly slimplistic dichotomy on both sides of this debate cause the reality is VERY CLEARLY in the middle. And also it drives me crazy cause I don't think anyone involved in making this movie has given any intention of ignoring that reality. Even the trailer highlights it in the forefront. The story is literally about how the fantasy Barbie sells is a lie, from what I can tell. Anyway... Point being: Barbie good or bad is a stupid argument because the answer is both. Which means that this movie is both. because it's also Barbie. But ain't that like the internet to oversimplify in extreme avoidance of nuance?

yes!! this is well said: barbie represents A LOT in our society* and having conversations about it takes time and effort. there are countless studies about what you've described here - toys' affect on children's self-esteem - and it's valuable to consider it all when we're criticizing.

i also want to elevate what you said in your last paragraph: And also it drives me crazy cause I don't think anyone involved in making this movie has given any intention of ignoring that reality.

so glad you said that! and this is probably what one of my anons meant about waiting 'til the film comes out. i am excited for the film! it will not score straight A's on my personal feminist report card because, well, i think my personal ideology is more extreme than what mattel would sign up for lmao. but i still want to see what greta created and i'm fascinated by what margot said about how barbie would interpret being objectified in the real world.

like, the film is going to give us A LOT to chew on in regards to girlhood, womanhood, objectification, etc. - how could it not? barbie is a kid's toy, a literal object! it's exciting that a major blockbuster will tackle these issues, even though i know it will be lacking in others.

(*since i am a swiftie blog, we can also discuss how taylor occupies a similar, and worse, space because barbie is a literal product but taylor is a human being)

[la-pheacienne]

Do you think any Targaryens who have married non-Targaryens have actually truly loved their non-Targaryen spouses? Like, this is a genuine question from a Targ anti to a Targ stan. Because Targs from what we’ve seen, are all about the blood of the dragon. So would they really be capable of loving their spouse who isn’t a Targaryen? And I’m only talking about those who have absolutely no Targaryen blood at all, not half-Targs like Aemma Arryn. And I’m not counting Velaryons either because they are still Valyrian. So what do you think? Wouldn’t Targs be more likely to just view their own husband or wife as inferior if they lack Valyrian blood? We know that Targs are at least capable of love when it comes to their own, but are they capable of truly loving a non-Valyrian/non-Targ person?

So. First of all. We need to take into consideration the fact that actually, most Targaryens wed non-Targs post-Aegon's conquest. I found this on reddit (it includes Velaryons but many aren't) :

Duncan Targaryen went against his own father's wishes because he loved Jenny of Oldstones so much, and he went as far as to relinquish his rights to the Iron throne for her. She wasn't a Targaryen. We don't know a lot about many of the other marriages but still, the marriage between Daenerys and Maron could have been a happy one, they had many children and Martells became officially part of the Seven Kingdoms after this.

Let's go to the main course. We do have Dany who genuinely loved Drogo (even though it was partly Stockholm syndrome, she still loved him and didn't consider him inferior, on the contrary she tried to learn about the culture and adapt to the culture), and then we have Dany again who loved Jon before finding out he was a Targaryen (that was only in the show but I believe it's hinted on the book that it will happen) then we have Rhaegar who loved Lyanna even though she wasn't a Targaryen (despite the problematic traits of this relationship he still loved her as much as a male medieval prince could love a teenage girl ). And we also have Rhaenyra who I believe loved Harwin and didn't consider him inferior to her. I believe she would be very happy with him if he was her husband and I say that as a Daemyra shipper and a huge Daemon fan. Harwin was the man and she clearly thought the same.

Of course the Targs have a thing for incest, but pretending that they can only feel something for another Targ goes directly against canon, I am sorry. Of course Targaryens have loved non-Targs. They still had this thing for incest for the simple reason that their blood is literally magical. Literally. Emphasis on literally. This is a fantasy story, the Targs have a magical blood that allows them to command the biggest power imaginable and naturally they want to preserve that. This is an extremely important point. So if SOME Targaryens preferred their own blood, they didn't do it because "racism" but because they wanted to preserve a very real quality their blood has that non-Targs do not have. And this is NOT applicable to the real world because in the real world, there is not one ethnicity/race/tribe/family/house/nation that has a blood that is different/superior. This thing does not exist. That is why white supremacism theories do not work in the ASOIAF universe. We're talking about a bunch of magical weirdos with purple eyes that command reptiles and fly on the sky for god's sake. Blood supremacism cannot enter in the discourse.

[wonder2realities]

You never mentioned you were disabled in your original reply to that ask. It’s also not on your pinned post. How in the world were they supposed to know that the response came from a disabled person? And before you say you’ve mentioned it on your blog before (which I have no idea if you have or not) how do you know they would have seen it? They most likely found your response through the notes on the ask post. And just FYI, you can educate someone without calling them “icky” or degrading them in any manner. They asked if the way they thought was bad, you could have said yes and explained why instead of calling them icky and assuming they would know your disabled. At the end of the day it’s just a damn opinion on the matter. Opinion is not fact just because it came from someone in the group in question.

so much to unpack this is insane im losing my mind this is gonna be a long ass response

op was geniune, i gave my opinion saying its a bit icky - thats not degrading??? i never called them an ableist, never said they were an awful person, i said in my opinion i think its icky - i didnt even direct it towards the person. i never said "youre an awful person for doing that." - i literally said "its moreso the fact that scripting out disabilities is icky"...

please point to the degrading. point to the meanness and evilness, the harshness...point to it. unless the person who originally made the ask to that confessions acc wants to come into my dms or my inbox and say they were personally offended, i really dont see how it could be degrading. maybe its the alexithymia but i dont see it, i dont get it.

ive talked abt being disabled on this blog frequently, literally i make a blog at least once a week talking abt being autistic : even if they were unable to find that out and assumed i was not disabled then they can simply take my opinion as something else i wouldnt care as much about that however i literally MENTIONED THAT YOU CAN SEARCH UP AND ASK DISABLED PEOPLE AND LOOK INTO SIMILAR DISCOURSE because then youd be able to see it from different perspectives as the term disabled is a large umbrella term. so i not only said my opinion as a disabled person who has frequently talked abt being autistic and has literally made blogs talking abt keeping my disabilities in my drs but i also gave advice on where to find other perspectives that will go more into detail of why disabled people dont feel comfortable with the whole "heal everyone!! we're gonna heal all disabilities to save them!!" mindset.

you have no right to say whether an opinion is a "fact" or not when your opinion on the topic is automatically invalid because you arent disabled - dont try to pull that shit on me when you know for a fact that being disabled means that id have more of an understanding on the social aspect of what its like to be disabled...because i experience it and i wont let any ablebodied person or any neurotypical person try to speak over me on that. also, ive mentioned im autistic AND have physical disabilities multiple times on here - even if its not mentioned in my original post i quite literally said if youre confused you can look into discourse regarding the whole "disabled people cant be in fantasy because fantasy = utopia which = everyone being healthy" thing because there are disabled people who have talked abt this multiple times and in my eyes there are similarities to that and the idea of scripting out disabled people because they have similar reasons.

also if youre who i think you are aka the person who deactivated the second i responded : if youre able to go that far into my blog to find a post where i said i was gonna go on a social media detox - you wouldve been able to find a post on me talking abt being autistic because i literally made a post a FEW DAYS AGO talking abt being a blk autistic.

^ incase u dont believe me for whatever reason, this was literally 2 days ago.

also im not an educator never claimed to eductae the person i gave an opinion - it is not my job to educate people. you are twisting a small paragraph of me saying "scripting out disabilities is a bit icky" into me being this harsh and awful person because i...didnt write an essay educating the person when i never claimed to educate them in the first place????

and again, i never attacked op the only person i attacked (which could be u if ure that account but im too lazy to do the whole "finding out whos behind the anon ask" thing) was the person who randomly responded to me, went through my entire blog to find a post of me saying i deleted twt for a social media detox and painted it as if im this limited person who "doesnt believe shifting is limitless and has a bad mindset" (which is insane???)

so to conclude this

speaking over disabled people where someone is asking disabled people for their opinion is weird. dont come into my inbox with this weird shit, unless its an apology because this is slowly creeping into ableism territory (before u even try to argue that its not - downplaying a disabled persons opinion on a topic that revolves around being disabled and speaking over them to then try to disregard their opinion being going "just because youre apart of a group doesnt mean your opinion is a fact" is insane. that is insane. call me crazy, idc thats insane.)

[hardpacker]

what pisses me off the most in my unfortunately time-consuming process of deciding whether or not a character will be trans, is that there's a shift from "developing a story" to "debating the weighty sins and Meaning, Significance of manhood, along the same lines and employing the same discourse words as is done all day every day 25/8 well outside the bounds of fiction."

i am suddenly weighing the world against the little world i'm making. a cis guy is the default palette, a thing on which everyone is allowed to project and make as Good or as Bad as we like— a cis guy can carry a story and themes and motifs pass thru him, he is Problematic or even Evil, but we're allowed to love him! encouraged, even! (and it's not unique to be told to love a cis guy.) so a cis guy symbolising some criticism of All Guys is one thing. but a trans guy even just perceived as such carries entirely different weight. that bugs me. to me it matters, And, equally as much, it doesn't. i spend x amount of time tossing a character back and forth in my head (because setting out with strict intent is a bit difficult for me— everything builds all together) so what happens is either the narrative completes itself so neatly so tightly that a character gets locked in as they are— cis included— or... something else happens, i break out of the SAW trap i created for myself and they're allowed to be trans. trans is more complicated, you see :) so it is never arbitrary :)

and it really sucks to think that even if i put in the work— or if i didn't! if i just freaked it!— that i could write something that seems to agree with or invite the type of catty stupid bitchbrained cruelty that people approach trans men with and theorise about trans men like they're not in the room. that something indulgent and honest would somehow be used to substantiate and inflame the already-fucked real life interpretations of trans men as a whole (down to/irrespective of the biggest or smallest detail) is so terrible to imagine, it's such a gutpunch. i know this is a problem i've constructed/i've let it be constructed around me, but that doesn't make it any easier to break.

how is it possible that we (well, me i guess) let cisness be a safely neutral default. jesus that's so fucking SAD. oh this guy is bad and perhaps we can accept it isn't BECAUSE he's trans, but because he IS trans, everything he does is filtered through transness, his actions are no longer his own, they are both symbolic and metaphorical and literal and justify how everyone thinks of us. an ultra divorced deadbeat dad is a cool guy to think about. an ultra divorced deadbeat TRANS dad is a betrayal to himself, his family, his community (like he has one) his obligations to society and to you dear reader.

a big thing i think about is "is this time period appropriate." of course it fucking isn't, he'd be dead. it's a fantasy. most fantastical aspect of story. undermines attempted realism of other aspects. fucking sucks ass god damn it!!!!!!!!!!!

[harleyacoincidence]

Just realized that I never did an actual writeblr introduction. Whoops. Anyway!

No idea how to format this, but we're here now and there's no time like the present.

Hello writeblr, I've been with you for almost a year now (I think). You can call me Harley, and I've been writing as long as I can remember. While the stories I wrote back in elementary school aren't the best, I am still proud of how much I've improved since starting out. I've kept a few WIPs I worked on in high school (those are being finished and edited), as well as a few others I started in the past few years.

Speaking of which, here are some original WIPs you might find featured on here (whether as part of tag games, asks, or random snippets):

Tales of the Unfortunate Summoner - Demons, humans, and trauma galore! Yes, I finally named the WIP with the niece-uncle relationship between a human (Henriette) and demon (Hadeon), featuring nobody's favourite former Shakespeare demon, Blaise. If you enjoy more modern fantasy, this might be the one for you. Once I finish writing and editing it so it's up to standard, of course.

Love Corrupts Fresh Lilies (often shortened to LCFL, due to laziness) - Ah yes, another instance of "idiot protagonist messes up and now everything's destroyed"! Meet Rafflesia, the poor mistreated girl who finds herself lost in some bizarre world after escaping her cousin, Jacob. She soon becomes corrupted and ends up a machine of mass destruction. Well, that's the plan, if I ever finish it. If you enjoy dark fantasy and dark romance, you might enjoy this.

The Devoted Musician - Wow! An analog horror series based on other horror media, how original! Well, it's been seven years in the making and I'm hoping it turns out alright. If you enjoy graphic horror media, ghosts, curses, and comic relief brought to you by deceased teenagers, this is something you might be interested in. It will be available on YouTube (with the next episode coming out VERY soon), and I will post the links to the videos on here as well.

Undying Service - I've barely outlined this WIP, due to focusing on my larger projects (see items 2 and 3 on this list), but here's the gist: altar server dies and is buried in a church, which they haunt to annoy members of the clergy as well as other religious folk. They might fix the occasional thing, but this is a mystery/satire, so we can't have too much of that.

Organized Obsession - This WIP has a better outline than Undying Service (at this point, literally anything does), as well as some characters. If you saw the poll that involved "fandom discourse but turned up to 11", that's this one. This WIP has some dystopian elements to it, but is also a satire (taken more seriously, unfortunately). I don't want to spoil too much, but in this world, taking sides is a must if you want to survive.

I'm going to be releasing a WIP crash course soon (along with the next episode of The Devoted Musician, which will have a bit more substance), so stay tuned!

I hope to meet more mutuals and people to follow, and the ones that I have are the best writers I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. If you have questions about any of my WIPs, feel free to send me an ask or tag me in a game! I try my best to respond to those as soon as I can.

(Also, obviously I have more things planned, such as smaller WIPs, possibly sharing completed works, ARGs, and even a game...but those are stories for another time.)

[infiniteglitterfall]

"Those mean bad Jews who keep claiming I know nothing about their history, politics, or actions should kill themselves, because I decided they think Bad Things"

Okay, well, some of us survived the ace discourse, and we're not impressed by your boring copycat bullshit.

You want us to kill ourselves because you've become Nazis, because you're guzzling propaganda from a group that was literally founded by Nazis.

You have a narrowing mental category for "the good Jews," and you want all the other Jews to die, and you've constructed a false binary where this somehow makes you the good guy.

Your activism is centered around celebrating Hamas for taking a break from its 18 years of brutal repression in Gaza to decimate 22 kibbutzim in one day.

And you revise and retcon everything else as needed to make that act not only justified, but laudable "resistance."

It's all a fantasy for you, because you don't have to burn anyone to death.

You don't have to actually stare the reality of what you want in its fucking face. You tear down and deface posters about it. Attack people for putting them up. Mock and deny the brutal reality of what Hamas members deliberately did, one on one, in an explicitly hands-on illustration of what territory it want to "free."

Whatever it takes to create the illusion that Hamas's attack was irrelevant, and minimal, and definitely not explicitly the first in a series of increasingly brutal attacks funded by half a billion dollars so far from Iran's actual fascist dictatorship.

You get to pretend your words don't mean anything. That "kill yourself" is activism. That you're not happily swimming in a wave of antisemitic assault and stabbing and arson fueled by a flood of hate speech.

That you're not actively screwing Palestinians over by supporting the group that has run Gaza as a dictatorship for 18 years, that is still actively stealing from and killing them in the middle of the war.

That you're not actively screwing them over by ignoring human rights activists in Gaza, speaking over them, and fighting against their needs. Boosting only what Hamas's international outlets (like SJP) tell you to boost.

All of you who tell us to kill ourselves are empty, gum-flapping puppets.

You have internalized the self-righteous rage modeled by every system of oppression. And you spend your energy searching for a target that will finally give you that glorious feeling of privilege and power-over that the world keeps denying you.

Your thirst for power will doom you to never find peace.

Those you despise as Zionists (literally anyone in Israel) and traitors (the many who hate Hamas in Palestine) will achieve peace, one day, and may it be soon.

All of these wars will become lessons we teach our children, while the memory of your useless and impotent evil is completely blotted out.

Kill yourself zionist

Lol. Ratio

[miharuhebinata]

imo it's extremely telling that the majority of people that id as &/or support bi lesbians are other white people. like the whole concept of using any label you want however the fuck you want regardless of whether it makes sense or harms other marginalized groups seems like a very white concept to me & i think we all, as white LGBT people, really need to start unpacking that.

bi lesbians & their supporters do not interact with this post. if you do i will not even bother responding, you'll simply be blocked.

[caitlynxviolet]

Sorry I'm going to rant but I'm starting to be pissed off about people around saying that Vi's sole relationship is the one she shares with her sister ! Vi is described as being Cait's partner in LOL. Also some saying that if Vi is going to be an enforcer they will riot, but she's literally the Piltover enforcer ! I've been playing LOL for 4 years now like many others so can't those people be a little respectful of the lore ? I hope the writers of the show won't be influenced by those new fans

I'm just as sick of hearing weird counter arguments about Cait and Vi it's so tiring.

There are so many quotes from both Vi and Caitlyn in all the Riot games combined that allude to them being romantically involved or at the very least, ambiguously "partners". The LoL lore is literally right there, yet people are choosing to live in a world of delusions where they're NoT cOnFiRmEd so we can't say they're canon. It's exhausting.

Don't even get me started on people refusing to believe Vi will become an enforcer and Caitlyn becoming Sheriff. It's infuriating. Their arguments are in line with the irl copaganda discourse, but you can't really compare the two systems. Arcane is a fantasy world where there are class issues, obviously. If you want to compare irl systemic issues to what's going on in Arcane, you can't use race biases at all because this is not an issue in Arcane. Plus, people already criticize Caitlyn for being a privileged "white" girl, completely white-washing her mixed race, clearly because they're trying to draw comparisons based on real life. It doesn't work.

As a general rule of thumb for my sanity, I hate to freak out over things that haven't even happened. I trust the writers. I trust the show runners to take the stories they're telling where they need them to be. I don't want to speculate about potential discourse that is purely subjective at this point. There's a degree of accuracy from the LoL lore that will be implemented in Arcane for sure, but there are already things in the lore that diverge from what's canon in Arcane. So... we don't really know what can or cannot happen.

At least the writers can't be influenced by what we're saying as for season two because the scripts had been handed in prior to season one's release. It's a relief!

[fenmere]

These are really useful terms for how to discuss what we're writing. We need that for how to frame our novels to publishers and readers. Thank you!

But, I do have an added wrinkle. Personal perspective and identity.

I existed long before I got my name and sense of identity. It was sort of a long infancy, really, though. Like, I didn't know I was a separate person from the rest of our system, but I see that I was in retrospect, and I can often pick out when and where I was probably fronting in our childhood.

But, when we were somewhere between 19 and 24, the exact date eludes me, my system decided to name me and put me forward as a persona under which they would write poetry and stories. I was meant, initially, to be a fictional character who was given life through their use of my name as a pseudonym.

As a result, I've always thought of myself as a fictional character. Not a fictive, but literally a work of fiction. And that fiction was my reality.

When they named me and decided who I was, I fronted immediately and got a vivid visualization of my place in our system and my roots to our collective identity as they wind through our history. And maybe that should have been enough to tell me that I was a real, factual person, but we were so in the closet about our plurality we thought that DID/MPD was completely fake and thoroughly debunked by science.

So, the next couple decades of my life was spent living through our comics and other writing as an active participant in fiction. It was written and presented as fiction, and I was described as a fictional representation of a part of our system. A fictional character who metaphorically and practically represented "a part of" our personality.

And, I'm not the only member of our system who's experienced this sort of thing. Every RPG character and every cast member of a comic, myth, or story that we've written tends to identify this way.

And collectively, as a system, we tend to identify as a work of fiction, like an epic fantasy, in a sort of kin way.

And, seriously speaking, we live in our stories more than we do in any other way, even though we frequently go shopping or front while speaking to friends and family, and the like.

And we get a huge rush if we've written a story about ourselves that takes place in the real world, and then visit the real places where the story took place. It fills us with nostalgia for what we've done.

So, sure, when discussing the ethics of writing and reading fiction, terms like "speculative memoir" and "fictional depiction" can be really useful. But, while I am not exactly like how I depict myself in some of my stories, and my motives in my stories are not my real motives, and I was enacting the plot of a story we'd all agreed upon beforehand, I still see that as literally me on the page. Like watching myself play myself on a stage production of some sort.

And when someone says something like, "Fictional characters aren't really living, breathing, conscious people," I do know where they're coming from and what they're trying to say, but it hurts and feels wrong. And if what they are saying by that is something that really does need to be said, I would like everyone to find a better way of saying it.

There's a whole lot of other nuance in there, too, along with other arguments to be had, but that's part of what makes declarations like that a problem in the first place.

It's like the whole furry/therian sex with animal people discussion, honestly. There is a line there that shouldn't be crossed (for different reasons in each case, true), but maybe in both cases it can't be defined by a word.

I'm not interested in ceasing to identify as a fictional character just to appease the discourses going on in the outer world. I'm proud of what I am and the power I have in being what I am. Very much in the same way that I will never stop insisting that I'm a literal dragon. A dragon who's gender is girl, despite everything the outer world has tried to tell us.

Question.

If you write a biography about someone, is the person as named and depicted in the book fictional?

Or, is the person in the book actually the same as the person who is not in the book that they are based on?

What if you get something wrong?

Or, what if you write about a real, living, breathing person but deliberately fictionalized their experiences and actions? Just a little? Or a lot?

Does their depiction become a fictional character then? Do we call them that?

Where do you draw the line?

[avokado-hyperfixates]

Buckle up your seatbelts. I've been waiting for a long time to spill the tea.

I must say, I was incredibly surprised when a huge amount of users started to comment every post of the arcana about the goat man before his route was released. I didn't know what all the fuss was about. I mean, yeah, he's a character designed to look attractive and his also charismatic but that it's a thing made on purpose to make you realize that monsters don't have to necessarily be scary, because in the real world all monsters use human faces. I could name a politician or two that had done and said terrible things acting like childs that are enormously egoistic but people don't mind because they're charismatic, or artists that have committed different kinds of abuse on others but people don't mind because they're hot.

But welp, who am I to judge other people's taste and try to change their ways and vision? Why should I in any case...

So I respect that between the arcana community there are lots of Lucio stans and it's ok (same goes with Valdemar. I can't understand how, considering of how they were with Julian and how our doctor trembles when he hears about them but o k a y, love them if you wanna)

Another thing that I accept is that in this website you are in a safe space to share whatever it is you wanna share, including your sexual fantasies, and it's okay! I've seen good quality content from lots of writers in here, even some graphic art tho I don't fancy that kind of things a lot, but I don't oppose to any of it! On the contrary! I like to see other people's creativity flourish.

What I can't tolerate it's the fact that all of what the devs tried to share and "teach" us through the game gets completely lost when you start to make couples like these:

Lucio x Asra/Muriel/Julian, and any other person who suffered any kind of abuse from him.

Valdemar x Julian. (though I won't talk about it today)

The devs made a game that yes, it's about romance, but it's not the only content of it. Besides the mistery and intrigue, you can witness a journey in every main character and sometimes also witness a secondary character of the plot having a huge development. There's a background story, there are traumas, flaws, mistakes, guilt, grief, support, friendship, trust, love (not only romantic) and that's is one of the reasons I really love this game. It's not only a "date game". It's a visual novel. And if you read it, if you play it, you'll discover that some characters really suffered enormously thanks to Lucio (I'm going to stick to him on this discourse, let's keep the doctor aside).

I feel really uncomfortable when I realize the degree of objectification that the characters reach thanks to these contorted fantasies. I mean, they aren't human beings but the mere fact of putting a theoretical someone into a position that would be terrible for them only because you want to feel pleasure at the thought of it it's not precisely relieving. Better to humanize them than objectify them, in my opinion.

Asra lost his parents when he was still a little child because of Lucio. He was left alone. Then growing up he had to hide from Lucio (we learn this from the Tales). Afterwards he had to obey the Count in order to protect Muriel (which was a scam). The plague was in Vesuvia thanks to Lucio, and Asra lost MC and that was the last straw that hurt him the most and literally split his heart in two. (So don't come now @ me now that we're on this saying that Asra is the antagonist because NO). Now, having all that in mind, knowing how much genuinely Asra despises Lucio, why would he want to be with him?

Muriel. Oh boy. Now, I won't blame Lucio for his parent's or the entire Kokhuri's death. That was a tribe thing and Lucio had none to do with it, so Lucio stans don't worry. BUT he was a nightmare for Muriel even when he was a kid wandering through the streets of Vesuvia. Muriel had to fight in the coliseum to protect Asra. M U R I E L. F I G H T I N G. That gigantic being is only that big because he has the biggest of hearts, he might seem fearsome but he's truly one of the purest characters of the entire game. He's pacific. Completely. Now imagine all the pain he had to go through by killing other people for years until Inanna appeared. He clearly suffers from post traumatic syndrome. He asked to Asra for a spell to disappear from people's mind. He hates himself for what he had done. And the coliseum thing isn't something related to the ritual, it isn't something the Devil told Lucio to do. He was a monster to Muriel and that's it. Why, tell me a good fucking reason why Muriel would want to be with Lucio?

Julian. Seriously? Julian was decided to kill him in order to make the plague disappear but I doubt that that was the only reason he had. Put it this way: if Nadia was the reason of the plague, do you think that he would had rushed through the stairs to Nadia's room to kill her in an instant? No. It would had been a really hard thing to do for him, they were friends. But why the situation is different with Lucio? Oh. Do I have to remember you that Lucio force-fed him with a beetle and that Julian was dying from the plague afterwards? Don't tell me it was the only way to make Julian found the cure and that it was necessary because, oh gods of the Olympus, you don't want to start an argument about it. Julian also despised Lucio. He was willing to kill him. He couldn't stan him. Why would Julian be with Lucio?

Now. I've been playing his route. I don't like really that much his character and I wish they were more options of less physical interaction but he's the romantic route so I won't complain about it. But I've been playing it to understand him better. I think he's not exclusively a monster. He can be a dork, he can be truly protective and caring and he has difficulties facing his mistakes and I feel honestly sorry for him and wish things would had been different. But that doesn't make up for all of what he has done. You can't justify all the terrible things he did because "he was hurt". All the characters in the game as well as ourselves, had passed through hard times and bad moments in life but we aren't pricks that go here and there hurting people just because, are we?

So yeah. I don't like Lucio either but I respect that lots of fans in the community do.

Keep making wonderful fanart and keep writing amazing fanfics, but please,

for Faust's sake, don't romanticize him with those who suffered any kind of abuse from him.

I.

Do not.

Like.

Lucio.

-Don't At Me You Bitches