#the video has the r slur in it btw

[withicecream99]

So, I recently replied to this, but after thinking about it a bit I realized my reply was pretty rude and reductive, so sorry about that. I'll assume this is sincere and try to explain why I think so many people have a problem with it respectfully.

First, the big issue is that you try to define an entire genre after seeing part of the work of only one studio. Regardless of how you feel about HH/HB, claiming every other reasonably polished independent animation is derivative of it doesn't make a lot of sense. If you want to make a more compelling/correct point, you should really only talk about things you've actually watched.

Going off of this, making plagiarism claims makes no sense when you haven't actually seen the media. This is a serious accusation that needs direct examples you can point to. The fact is that cliches and tropes exist, and no piece of media is ever going to be free of them. Aesthetic similarities do not imply plagiarism.

The fact that they include "furry bait" and "tumblr sexymen" is not only subjective, but it's also not unique to this proposed genre.

The claim that critics like them but general audiences don't doesn't make sense to me. Each of these shows has a large following. Besides, nobody is going to like everything, and nothing is going to be liked by everybody. Is it possible that your personal feelings about this perceived genre are being projected onto the "general audience?"

Also, I don't really know anything about saberspark or cellspex, but calling them shills (especially with no real evidence) is pretty rude and won't make you a lot of friends with their large fanbases. I don't really see how it factors in to the point your trying to make.

Okay, so the point you make that I think the most people would probably agree with is that something is lost with the success/commercialization. This also doesn't make a lot of sense, though, because success isn't a bad thing on the face of it. More independent things being successful is a good thing, actually. What you wrote here makes it sounds like you're annoyed the things you like aren't more successful. Which is valid! Shouting out the things you like is a great way to get more people watching them.

Finally, the commercialization thing. So, I think most people, to some extent, equate more commercialization with a degradation of artistic integrity. And this is partly true, especially when it comes to outside production companies. The problem, though, is kickstarter/patreon/sale of merch is how these projects actually make money. They're largely not making back the investment on Youtube.

Moreover, this is how the people who make these projects get paid. Less commercialized projects are, unfortunately, just less likely to get made. The timetable is going to be much longer, and those who work on them are going to be more likely to receive minimal or no pay. This is why it's more important shout out or support projects that you would like to see.

To finish, I'll just say that not liking something is completely valid. Like I said, nobody likes everything and nothing is liked by everybody. However, this post is, respectfully, not it.

So I’ve tried to make peace with both the Hellverse community and the Kicktoon community multiple times to no avail. But I’m going to try one last time. Each time I’ve tried to describe what a Kicktoon is, people just get angry and confused, so I’ll describe it like this:

A Kicktoon is a genre of indie web animation that is crowd funded, thrived during the fake indie animation boom created by Hazbin Hotel, abd follows a “fight first, ask questions later” formula. With this being the said formula:

-Is often heavily inspired by or flat out plagiarizes other media

-Makes tons of week one merch based around a test pilot

-Features furry bait

-Features Tumblr Sexypeople

-And last but certainly not least, critics and cartoonists/animation nerds love them, while general audiences and people who are indifferent to the medium view them as bland or don’t care about them

“But what’s the difference between a normal indie animated web series and a Kicktoon?”, well the difference is that the non-kicktoon cartoons aren’t as successful/commercialized as them and the genre has quickly dominated the platform, but does this mean that every non-kicktoon is inherently better than every kicktoon ever made, no, there are ones that are definitely worse (ie Skibidi Toilet), I just miss the days when indie animation didn’t have to be so commercialized to be popular/successful.

Although to be fair, I haven’t seen any other Kicktoon outside of HB and the pilot of HH, but the problem is that I don’t feel comfortable watching these cartoons by myself because I’m afraid of what they’ll be like; and since I have been living on campus for the past 10 months (I recently got out on summer break btw), the only thing I have to go off of is the “gold standard” for this medium.

But I haven’t explained WHY I don’t like either HH and HB, and it’s a bit simple, I don’t like the pacing, humor, soundtrack, and writing. A lot of people mindlessly hate on it because they think it’s either racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic, transphobic fat phobic, etc, but highly doubt that a cartoon created by an openly queer Latina American woman would be so bigoted. If you want to see a more in depth review, watch this video made by this guy here, he more or less shares my opinion on both shows:

As for the soundtrack, it’s just so bland, and I expected better from the Living Tombstone, like this soundtrack is so bad that it feels like it was written by Jake Paul. And the same hypocritical idiots who accused the songs in Wish of being written by an AI fucking love it.

Don’t get me wrong, if you like these cartoons but have a valid reason for liking them (instead of being a shill like Saberspark or Cellspex), then that’s fine, this is just my opinion and I’m just trying to vent my frustration. If I offended anyone with these posts, then I’m sorry, I’ll try to make it up to any of you somehow.

Btw, I don’t think that the Kicktoon genre is a bad thing, I just think it has unexplored potential to be good/great. Also, I don’t hate HH and HB, I just think they’re mediocre (but they do have potential, much like the genre they started).

[cyncerely-bullshit]

when it comes to internet drama, there’s three things I look for:

1: How the accused defends themselves

2: How the accused’s friends defend them

3: How stan accounts defend them

In that order, btw.

If someone is cancelled and makes a genuine apology and very clearly explains that they either didn’t know better or feel genuine remorse, the drama usually ends there. If the internet decides the response was invalid, friends get involved if they truly believe their friend is innocent. After all, the internet doesn’t know them, but their friends? People they speak with everyday? They usually know well enough to speak on if the person deserved to be canceled. Lastly, if the apology was bad and the friends either didn’t step in or made things worse, check the stan accounts. They will almost always pull something up to defend their favorite parasocial relationship. Sometimes they find pretty damning pieces of evidence to support the accused, sometimes they throw shit at the wall and hope it sticks. They bring up points the average person would never even thing to bring up, and sometimes it works in their favor.

Let’s take a look at how these three rules apply to Dream and Tommy, shall we?

Dream:

1: Crashes out live on stream for like 5 hours, brings up a bajillion other things to distract from the original issue, makes a reddit post where he doesn’t apologize for shit then promptly deletes it, calls Tubbo and never once concedes that he may be wrong, belittling what Tubbo says and changing the topic whenever he knows that Tubbo is right and he can’t argue it (also called Tubbo “Tommy” multiple times)

2: None of his friends stepped up. From what i’ve heard a few Spanish streamers spoke on his behalf, but no word from his housemates and closest friends. The way I see it, George can’t defend him because his career is already on the rocks with the Caiti situation (which, if I may remind you, Dream stuck up for George hard and Sapnap [though he wasn’t there] said that he knows George well enough to believe there wasn’t malicious intent [im paraphrasing]). Point is, when a member of the DTeam got cancelled, they banded together as friends, showing they weren’t afraid to defend each other. George likely doesn’t want to put his job in jeopardy by involving himself in more drama, but Sapnap has been silent despite being the least problematic member of the DTeam by a long shot. Even Badboyhalp (who didn’t speak on it directly) talked on stream about how much respect he had for everyone Dream had name dropped and villainized (Tommy, Tubbo, etc) while Dream was in chat.

3: DTeam stans, and Dream stans especially, can be brutal. I have seen what they can pull out to defend their youtubers, if you’re reading this you probably have too, and it’s crazy. So it speaks volumes that their only argument in this case that I’ve seen is the very same one Dream used initially: he’s neurodivergent, he can’t help it. He didn’t know it was wrong, he was genuinely trying to be a good role model to the kids of the server but his autism made him act like that, the essay he sent to Tommy wasn’t manipulative at all, etc. I should not have to explain why this is not an argument in the slightest and shouldn’t even be taken as one. Other than that, there isn’t an edited snapchat photo, message, or post to be argued (at least not on Dream’s side). Dream very clearly did everything and is still arguing that he’s in the right. There is no evidence against him because he’s still talking about not regretting doing anything, so the stans have to argue with what they can.

Tommy:

1: made a short and concise 5 minute video calmly explaining his side and why Dream wasn’t good to him, telling him that the r slur wasn’t a joke and he personally knew good and kind people who were discriminated against with that word and how it isn’t acceptable to be used ever, and telling Dream to take some time off the internet, go to therapy, and spend time with his family.

2: Shout out Tubbo and Jack, the absolute strongest of fighters in this whole thing. For as much as Dream complained about Tommy “manipulating people into hating him,” he didn’t speak on Jack enough. Jack Manifold has not been quiet about his distaste for Dream, and is the one who brought it up on his and Tommy’s podcast. Tommy is the one who was trying to talk about Dream neutrally and change the subject, meanwhile Jack just went off, but somehow according to Dream, Tommy was the one accusing him of things. And Tubbo, the strongest of them all, watching Dream’s whole breakdown with a neutral and (mostly) calm perspective, speaking with him (more like talking at him while he said “let’s move on” or “let’s agree to disagree”) and fighting for his best friend. I’m glad the divorce was amicable. Dream had accusations, Tubbo had logic. It was an easy fight. Also, let’s not forget Ranboo, Philza, Sneegsnag, Aimsey, AverageHarry, Jimmy, Joel, Molly Melinks, Sarah Simons, Rue (Tom’s old roommate), Jonaay, MaxGGs, Kwite, Pokimaine, and many more that sided at the very least against Dream, but mostly against Dream and with Tommy. Also the fact that Dream’s supposed friends like HannahxxRose, VelvetisCake, and Sapnap himself were in Tubbo’s chat during the argument.

3: Ah yes, the 15 million people that got called the r slur. Easiest defense of a celebrity ever, since Tommy did nothing wrong, just defended himself. Even when Dream tried to say he used child labor to make his videos and the editors were underpaid, it wasn’t the fans who defended Tommy, it was the editors themselves. Tommyinnit truly has exactly 1 enemy.

just wanted to get all this off my chest and explain how I deal with internet drama and why this is quite frankly the most non-divided drama i’ve ever seen. I’ve never seen someone so in the wrong be so confident about it, it’s truly baffling.

anyway, back to coding.

[mioakem]

If you’re able would you be down to summarize some of the notable bits of the stream? Don’t wanna give Dream’s stream more views :P and I also don’t have twitter

(If not the vibe then no worries! Thank u for all ur service in the mcyt drama wars 🙏)

ofc i can!

so basically hes just going through tubbos stream from earlier and nitpicking it

he starts by talking about how tommy used to joke about dream being a pedo (when he was 16 btw) and shows a super long text he sent to tommy saying how he doesn’t like it and doesn’t think it’s nice to do that.

then he talks about the qsmp/usmp thing. he said that tommy really wanted to join the usmp and apparently said “fuck quackity” (has no evidence of that) and then says how he stopped being friends with tommy when he dropped the “if youtubers were honest” video. he goes on a whole rant saying how tommy is fake and how he’s lying to everyone and then he starts shit talking tommy’s mom cause she was defending tommy on twitter. he shows the huge dm he sent to sarah (which was basically just saying that he’s upset that she’s active on twitter and defending her son). he says some more things about tommy, saying that he’s “on his knees” for quackity and also said that he wouldn’t be doing this if w*lbur was in dreams place

he then goes into the logan paul situation and, as expected, shit talks tommy for being friendly with him when he was 16. he starts saying that tommy just likes to start drama to get attention.

finally he gets into the mizkif situation and again says that tommy is just trying to start drama. Then he goes on a whole politics rant about xqc or whatever the fuck his name is and saying that his opinions on trump dont matter cause he’s canadian? he then says that his own opinions on trump don’t matter and that he doesn’t talk about politics cause he’s not a politics streamer. then he addresses the r slur and to summarize it he basically just said “how come nicholas cantu can say a slur but not me”. he gets super mad when that jack and harry found the nicholas cantù thing funny purely because they don’t like dream.

he also talks about the philza tweet and says that he never ever took credit for other people’s success while in the same breath saying that he shined a spotlight on creators during the dream smp. he also says that he gained absolutely nothing from the dsmp and that “1% of his subs are from dsmp”

he starts going off about aimsey and says that he thought that she was the one who set off the whole caitibugs in an attempt to cancel dream and george (she didn’t caiti was literally speaking out abt george groping her and dream covered it up)

that’s about it after that it’s basically just a long coke rant about practically nothing, i’ll def update if anything else happens in the stream but rn he’s just going insane lol

[andromedasummer]

this whole lando and donald trump shit is gonna blow over so quickly btw it always does bcos people in the f1 fandom could literally not give less of a fuck about minority/vulnerable groups. nothing happened when carlos sainz made racist comments about chinese people eating dogs in 2020. nothing happened when sainz sr took photos of his dinner the leader of the alt right party in spain. nothing happened when max verstappen used the r slur and m slur towards lance on team radio and nothing happened even after mongolia made a complaint to the UN about his conduct and red bull joked about it the next week in one of their pr videos. nothing happened when nelson piquet and his family got outed as close friends and supporters of jair bolsonaro. nothing happened when zak brown bitched about politics in f1 and then filmed a video with a tory minister. nothing happened when a 20 year old ayrton senna dated a fucking 15 yr old girl! nothing!

you cannot convince this fandom to not bat for these white men, no matter what they say or do. they will die on that hill and they will look like some godforsaken amalgamation of a teenaged kpop stan sending death threats and a disney/marvel adult twisting progressive language in defense of blind media consumption.

ultimately and above all, their comfort and attraction will overwhelm anything else. praxis to them is looking at these coddled fucking manbabies and saying "oh he's so gay" "omg trans ally" "feminist king" when he blinks.

there is a massive conversation we could have about the intrinsic classism, racism and fascism that you cannot remove from f1 (and the whole of motorsport!) without crumbling its core foundations. about how every driver on the grid is complicit in these systems and how they overwhelmingly use their wealth to ensure it's existence. it will not happen here because interaction in that fan space has degraded to sending death threats because you have decided to criticize their specific special human incarnation of oatmeal slop

[puffyducks]

DCRC Week #19 (Part 1)

Hey do you guys remember that soap opera that Donald likes to watch, Anxieties? Well buckle up cause today we're reading PKNA #15: Camera, Action! which is all about the cast of Anxieties getting attacked by (you guessed it) EVIL EVRONIAN INVADERS!!! I don't remember much of this story past the fact that it's a pretty silly and lighthearted issue so letsgo

Bro locked in and hit the Dreamworks face

guys he's just silly... hi Donald 👋

I can't tell if this chapter is supposed to take place in the real life Isla de Providencia in Colombia or if this is supposed to be a fictional place cause I've never heard it referred to as "the republic" before lol

Footage of the writers of the Ducktales reboot (circa. 2017)

What a freak I love her <3

I'm really glad to know Donald and Uno just sit around and watch soap operas together, especially since Everett Ducklair originally just left Uno by himself and didn't want him letting anyone on the secret floor. FUCK YOU EVERETT we're watching Anxieties without you 🖕

guy that looks suspiciously like chris chan

WHAT NOOOOOOO I would never send my partner all the way to Colombia to infiltrate a film set just to get soap opera spoilers what

NOOOOOOOOO HE FUCKINF ESPLODED NOOOOOOOOOOOOooo oh nevermind he's fine

GUYS LOOK! IT'S ZOSTER AND ZONDAG! THE EVRONIANS THAT I CAN ONLY NAME BECAUSE THEY WERE THE TWO BOSSES FROM THE PK VIDEO GAME!!!

btw do people ship them together. cause if not can we start doing that? not because they'd make a good couple or whatever but because the concept of evronian yaoi is funny to me

see look they share trauma (and I don't mean the big evronian guy)

"anthropological studies" ok bro I know a silly billy when I see one!!!

Glad to see a group of people finally treat the Evronians with the fear and respect they ACTUALLY deserve

I'm gonna see big buff-armed Uno in my nightmares now thanks

Gotta say, I'm impressed with the number of explosions there have been in this issue given the fact that Xadhoom isn't here

Alright folks you know what the fuck it is, it's fucking TRIP TIME!!!! YIPPEEE YAHOO WOOHOO

First and foremost shoutout to the way the Raider is drawn here I think they should draw him like this all the time actually. Second of all TFYM "HONEST WORK" YOU'RE LITERALLY A TIME PIRATE 😭

Using time travel as a shortcut to riches eh??? I'm having flashbacks to a certain storm-themed cartoon episode... can't quite put my finger on it........

Shoutout to Trip meeting another version of himself and IMMEDIATELY starting beef, FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!

ALL THE FUCKING FACES HERE I'm so mad the art in these comics is so expressive and silly

NOOOOO TRIP DON'T SAY SLURS YOU CAN'T RECLAIM

Ok but seriously, this specific line has been haunting me for months because I was like "there's no way that's the original line right? Is there actually an Italian equivalent to the R slur or was the translator just having a bad day???" WELL TODAY I HAVE SOLVED THE CONUNDRUM ONCE AND FOR ALL. And the truth is:

Trip was fucking FRAMED!!! The original insult used was "babbeo" which, based on everything I can source online, roughly translates to "fool" or "idiot" or any other derogatory name that's basically just calling someone stupid. So like THEORETICALLY it could be translated to the R slur but it's a bit of an extreme take 😭

Anyways I'm not saying that Trip WOULDN'T say slurs, just that I needed closure and I finally have it.

Raider just coming home with groceries what the fuck is this outfit

I'm assuming this was all resolved in the same way as Steven and the Stevens where they had to make all the other Trips blink out of existence. And then they wrote a silly little song about it!

OKAY this is only my first post for this week I will be back later with Trick or Treat 🎃 in the meantime STAY SPOOKY FOLKS

[mukuberry]

What happened in mcyt btw... <- watched enough to be invested but not enough to go back there everytime a new Thing happens to the current streamers (rip Techno)

Tommy talked about how he didn't like Mizkif on a podcast(?) which prompted Xqc to call him out on twt which prompted Tommy to make fun of him for being a trump supporter which for some unknown reason made Dream decide he was going to call every one of Tommy's subscribers the R slur! And everything kinda blew up from there;; under the cut cause its kinda long and mentions grooming

Dream deleted the tweet and said he can say it because he's autistic and has adhd, tubbo streamed saying that that's not how reclaiming a slur works because he used it to insult 15 million people and just overall criticised dream, dream then responded by making a 3 hour stream where he reacted to tubbo's stream but instead talked about everything except the slur- the grooming allegations, old dsmp drama, how tommy is spineless, how there's rumours that every cc is a bad person behind the scenes, how aimsey is manipulative apparently, how he dmed tommy's mother on twt, how averageharry said he hated him when he was 14, how he was guilt trippy towards 16yr old tommy (but phrased it so he was in the right), how he called a woman a whore, how the younger members were exposed to porn in the dsmp discord, how it's all the stans fault that he isn't friends with punz anymore and not because he slept with punz's girlfriend- I don't think he talked about the slur for more than 2 minutes and he just made excuses rather than properly apologising. Tubbo reacted to it for 5-6 hours and just got increasingly frustrated, tommy made a 6 minute video on yt basically saying "you've always been a dick to me, log off and go to therapy" and dream made a now deleted youtube post about how he'll make a video to respond to it later. Yeah! Lots of other ccs have made tweets about it but that's the jist of it from my understanding

[sneezyonmain]

lol, lmao even

Okay I see you vague posted about me, (low fucking blow btw) which gives me the right to respond. And I am going to be brutally honest because that's just how I am. I don't like being fake.

Firstly, the post was not about you. I didn't even know you reported me, I assumed it was V (shortened name to avoid harassment) because on the same day when I got banned, they asked to speak to a mod. Less than an hour later I get banned. It's not that fucking hard for me to figure out, love. Also very cool and awesome that you lied about unfriending me because "we don't talk very much." You could have, oh I don't know, communicated that I was doing something wrong and approach me in DM's about it instead of running to the shitty ableist mods to do something about it. You're incredibly vain for even thinking that I suspected you, but thanks for outing yourself I guess lmao. Now I know who to never trust again. I really need to trust my gut when people give me the ick from now on, cuz god damn you're gross.

Secondly, I'm aware of another user su*c*de baiting in general AFTER I left, met with everyone saying "aw poor baby" when they were spiraling, meanwhile I got no such treatment because everyone hated me for being "not normal" and "rude." Yes, I may have been acting out for attention. I admit that, and I should not have baited like that. You had a right to report me for that, fair enough. This is where my nuanced impression of you being even a *slightly* good person stops however.

When I make a joke that sounds rude but I say /j, it means I'm joking. It's just my sense of humor, everyone in there doesn't understand me because most of the people in that server are cringe millennials that don't know post-ironic humor. I felt really bad when I hurt someone and once everyone started digging it back up for no reason even tho it seemed like the other person moved on, I spiraled mentally and was met with little to no sympathy because "I started it" even tho I apologized and felt bad. It was gross and felt like dogpiling. I was spiraling because I was doing masking of my real personality because I hate looking vulnerable, on top of masking to look "normal"; something that I would think another autistic person would know about and sympathize with! I was talked to by the female mod (who will remain unnamed) about the su*c*de baiting, and she helped me calm down and collect my thoughts. You know, before she stabbed me in the back. She consoled me about my su*c*dal thoughts, I was having a panic attack, I was afraid of losing more friends. But hey, with friends like you, who needs enemies, right? :)

Thirdly, saying that you can't be ableist just because you're autistic is laughably untrue. I know many self-hating autistic people who will call someone even slightly more autistic than them the r slur just because they are more "annoying." Stims are not just fucking phrases you quote daily from a fucking Markiplier video. They come in many different forms. Physical, mental, verbal, etc. Like I said, I have a breathing stim which makes me sound like I'm "moaning" or straining my voice. It has happened other times in other vcs, it happens randomly, I am unaware of it happening until someone points it out. If you truly are autistic (if you are self-diagnosed then everything you are saying is invalid btw, not that it wasn't invalid already), you should know that some stims are somewhat involuntary, and I also don't stim much in vcs or in public (at least not on purpose) because I'm trying my best to be "normal" in society. I have a full time job that I have to mask through every day. Walk a mile in my shoes and see how you like being accused of sexual harassment at the end of the day for something you had no control over.

The other thing you might have heard that sounded like moaning was probably literally just me stretching. Also, I did not mention this in the vc because of my trust issues and the dumbass anti-weed rule, even tho the mods said we can be high in vc, I took an edible and didn't tell anyone because they were "uncomfortable" with me. I was paranoid that someone would snitch on me, especially since I was already on thin ice. My body feels heavier when I'm high. So I was stretching a lot, and I was also sighing and groaning a lot because I was having a really shitty day, no thanks to people like you in the server :) Or if you're referring to me saying "mm" after everyone's sentence? That's just a confirmation noise. Whatever you heard, it wasn't moaning, and you false reporting me over it and probably conspiring with V to do so is really gross and manipulative. Bottom-line, I did not masturbate in the vc, I even told V that and she even said "okay" and then reported me the next morning anyways. Really gross of you both to lie about that shit.

Also from what I've heard from a friend, you have literally had continuous sexually charged conversations about men with them after they told you over and over that they were uncomfortable. Oh but I guess you can't control your hypersexuality, huh? If I can control some stims, then you should be able to control your hypersexuality. So you can dish it but not take it I guess.

And finally, I don't recall saying the anti-weed rule "triggered" me. I DO recall saying I have trauma with misinformed morons threatening to call the cops on me just because I smoked weed at the age of 20. Even tho I was at a house, not driving, minding my own business. It infuriates me to no end when people spread this false fucking lie that weed kills you when it DOESN'T! It is impossible to overdose on weed and people thinking you can die from it is so fucking dumb and uninformed. I even tried to be rational and give the mod a solution to make a thread for weed so that people don't have to see it if they don't want to, and the manly man mod started bawling like a little baby saying he wanted to leave when the server owner got back lmao. It's frustrating because I had previous snzarios involving weed, and I couldn't post that shit anymore. It's such a stupid, stupid rule that has no place being in there other than one sensitive suck-up was "triggered" by weed. Ooooooooo scary pot oooooooooo~! Grow the fuck up. You know who you are.

Idgaf what you say, that server is fucking garbage and you'll never catch me dead in there ever again. Well, obviously not since my banning, but from what I hear, it's so lame and boring and bland and sanitized that I don't even wanna join with an alt account lmao. From what I hear, you're not the most comfortable person either. Also, the fact that the only mods the main shitty mod picked are only cis white straight people is not lost on me either. Go outside, touch grass, and never talk about me on your blog ever again, and I'll never "vague post" about someone I didn't even know I was vague posting about ever again.

Does that compute? Are we clear? Good.

-You already know who I am

P.S. Never call me or anyone "pookie" ever again. It's not charming coming from you, it's just fucking cringe and makes me wanna throw up.

cry about it

[cesium-sheep]

I saw a [long post] with a lot of different people’s thoughts on use of the word crippled, especially in the context of the able-bodied nd/mentally disordered. I’m having a lot of trouble parsing it so I don’t want to reblog and add my thoughts directly, but I do have thoughts. (btw the post and the other post the ask was ostensibly in response to both have a lot of interesting discussion about ableism towards both physical and mental disability (and a lot of overlapping issues), I just. can’t read very well right now.)

before I got really sick, I started shying away from using the word crippled, because I’d heard other people say it was ableist, just like I started shying away from using the word crazy to describe things like buckwild video game plots, or how we’re not supposed to use “stupid” because it’s just one step down from the r slur dontchaknow, or “dumb” is a slur against the nonverbal (frequently posited by the fully verbal).

but as a cripple myself now (depending on how precise we’re getting with the term; I do not have severe motor dysfunction, paralysis, or loss of limb, but I rely on mobility aids to leave my home for more than a couple minutes and I am severely disabled), I think maybe broad discouragement of use is a bad thing? individuals who are not comfortable with it should be respected, just as individuals who prefer person-first language for themselves should be respected, but as a Broad Community Thing yknow? like, a lot of the instances in which it’s used are just... correct usage. to the best of my knowledge current use of the word “cripple” is basically synonymous with “disable”. crippling illness is generally considered acceptable even by those against other uses. how is that a different use from crippling depression, crippling debt, crippling cold?

it wouldn’t be more or less correct to refer to these things as debilitating instead. but “hey swap in debilitating” never seems to be the talking point. I’ve only ever really seen “don’t use The Bad Word”. which kinda increases stigmatization and stuff.

and like, by the same turn, I’d been nd and mentally ill (different things to me, and it’s very valuable to be able to speak of the cluster of autism adhd and other closely related disorders as a group with a single group term, which again no one is trying to replace as they try to turn nd into a whole-community term they’re only saying “no not for you”) for a very very long time, but one of the first things that happened as a result of me getting very very ill was being hospitalized in a psychiatric unit for several days. (which btw was abysmal and made things much worse mentally so like be careful tossing that kind of recommendation around.) and idk people saying “that’s crazy” doesn’t feel like an attack after that. especially when I’m most often hearing it from other mentally ill people that actually talk about accessibility and call out ableist things in the games they’re playing or their public conversations with friends.

idk it just kinda feels like. people are picking fights over language and in more than ten years it has not helped at all. so while there is absolutely some derogatory language that the outgroup should not say (the n word, the f slur, the r slur, etc), this kinda feels like it falls under the “queer” category for me. a word that absolutely has been used as a weapon (and which targets’ preference to “opt out” should be respected) but also is not inherently a threat.

(plus a lot of it feels like it totally fails to take into account that english is a living language, and use dictates meaning, and these words flat out are not the same as they were 50 or 100 or 1000 years ago, even though understanding how they came to be is valuable and often illustrative.)

[james-harmony]

ok I don't know the WHOLE drama but the recent stuff:

dream jumped into a random discussion on twitter that didn't include him whatsoever (literally no one was talking about him) and called all tommyinnit fans the r slur in a meme, took forever to apologize

tommy released a 5min video (not gonna go into detail bc it makes more sense if u just watch it), and then dream said smth on reddit about how he was autistic (which is stupid because you can't rlly reclaim a slur if you're just. gonna use it as a slur, derogatorily towards a mass of people, yknow?).

tubbo did a stream talking about it at some point I think, either before or after (or both) dream's stream. then dream did a 5+ hour stream just talking around the subject & randomly bringing up other things unrelated to the fact that he called people a slur.

when he finally did properly apologize, it was about 1 minute of a video on his youtube (trying to save face on a different platform), and the rest of the video was him accusing tommy of

then, and I'm not caught up on this bit so it's just what I've heard, tubbo did a stream where he talked w/dream, dream gish gallops (look it up if you're not familiar w/what gish galloping is) around the subject enough that sometimes people forget the point of the question they had asked, tubbo tried to keep him from changing the subject, and... yeah honestly no idea what happened in that stream bc I haven't watched it yet, but that's how caught up I am 

stuff that OTHER tumblr users have said to summarize or provide context:

1- @/pyperplane, in a comment, and a very good summary.

"Basically Tommy mentioned how he disliked working with a YouTube named xQc or something, and Dream decided this was the perfect opportunity to post a meme calling old DSMP fans the r slur. People started calling him out for that, but he responded it was okay for HIM to post it because he was autistic (allegedly) and reclaiming it (this isnt how reclamation works, btw).

Everyone called out his bullshit and it all went downhill from there. But to sum some important points:

A) dream admitted to sending porn into the DSMP server when he was in a call with minors,

B) dream texted Tommy’s *mother* a year or two ago complaining about how he didn’t like Tommy’s way of making videos about Dream (+ how Dream got tommy’s mother’s phone number off a doxxing scandal),

C) Dream called Tommy’s editors underpaid, BUT all of Tommy’s editors came forth after this point was made to DISPROVE IT,

D) he claimed Tommy scammed his fans and showed ‘receipts’ that were ACTUALLY invoices that Tubbo paid (Tubbo said this on stream WITH proof). Tubbo has done the most vocalisation on this drama, so i would recommend checking out his streams. If you want to stay on tumblr maybe visit user bugflies00 (they’ve been posting consistently on the issue).

It is not up to me whose “side you’re on”, but I hope this clarifies some information so it’s easier to follow. It is probably wise to understand both “sides” and then compare which “side” has more valid points (from a completely objective view)."

1- @/witherrosealliance (in a comment), good at summarizing this newer situation with context.

"OH BOY. so 2 or 3 days ago now, tommy was having some extremely mild beef w/ another cc on twitter, then another separate cc got involved and called tommy cringe, tommy called this one cringe back for being a trump supporter - in response to this dream (had not been mentioned up to this point) tweeted a meme calling tommy fans the r slur. literally everybody went wtf to this and some ppl talked abt it on stream a little, incl tubbo.

dream makes a reddit post doubling down on using the slur and notably does not apologize in any way. then he does a 3 hour stream reacting to tubbo's stream where he does not address the r slur thing at all, rps as his "detective dream" persona in mc the whole time, namedrops a shitton of ppl w/o evidence (a lot of women esp), incl bringing up caiti, who his friend george groped when she was 18 and george was 26-dream was present for this, did nothing, and defended it on twt. dream also mentioned that he was letting ppl in the dsmp discord show tommy+tubbo (minors at the time) drawn porn of his friends.

tommy drops a 5min vid essentially asking dream to leave him alone and get off the internet (recommend watching), as well as calling out dream and his friends' misogyny tubbo reacts to dream's react stream, and mentions that he's planning on talking w/ dream on stream to potentially sort some of this out, but dream backs out bc he says hes too busy making a response video to tommy dream drops the response vid in which he spends maybe a minute apologizing for using the r slur and the rest of the time just lying about tommy? for ex the claim that tommy doesn't pay his editors properly and uses child labor for his merch (remember this last bit). dream also uses out of context clips of tubbo (branded 'tommy's best friend' in the video) from tubbo's streams to make tommy look worse in the video

tubbo does another stream about the video pointing out that its fake and trying to talk with dream a second time to hash this out, but dream says he's about to go to sleep (which in his defense here, he probably was despite the time being midday, he notoriously has a horrible sleep sched) finally dream agrees to talk with tubbo on stream today and is constantly talking over and interrupting tubbo (who he called 'tommy' 6 times 💀), adamantly trying to avoid talking about the caiti situation, admits he has no proof about the tommy using child labor claim but says its probably true bc of where the merch company is based (racism moments), and kind of sidesteps the queerbaiting accusations (complicated). worth noting that pretty much every cc outside dream's immediate friend group that dream has ever worked w/ (and some he hasnt) has come out of the woodwork to support tommy or argue against dream across these few days. fucking DEADLOX showed up again lmao. this is not all of it, but here's the cliff notes."

2- @/halfabouros, in an ask, actually a really good summary of the most recent stream tubbo did w/dream lmao

"Basically the entire stream between Tubbo and Dream surrounding Dream's entire situation that he entirely dug himself into was as follows

Tubbo: Dream please give context on why you've refused to give context on these situations

Dream: No, but do you think I'm sexist?

Tubbo: Dream please explain why you think I would defend you when you're not providing proof and are putting words in Ludwig's mouth.

Dream: Tom-Tubbo you're being ridiculous

Tubbo: Explain why you were being sexist to HannahxRose and Aimsey. Also Aimsey is Nonbinary

Dream: I don't think I was it was. I was just joking around you know? Also what's Nonbinary?

Tubbo: Explain what proof you have over the editor sweatshop after everyone you've shown proof of has come out with the full context and has denied your claims.

Dream: well.. you don't have the full picture and I'm not showing anything more. Because the proof is in that I have those screenshots at all.

Tubbo: So delete that part of the video if you don't have any proof for it?

Dream: No because it's a joke lmao

Tubbo: Explain how you've linked Tommyinnit getting scammed by a merch company to him directly profiting from Child Labor

Dream: Well it's a Chinese company. They use child labor.

Tubbo: Provide proof that Tommy did that

Dream: Well you got scammed by them too so.

Tubbo: Proof Dream. Proof

Dream: No also it was a critique over his video because he made fun of my ~homemade~ merch

Tubbo: Tommy stated an opinion and you've claimed this as a fact. Facts require proof. So show the proof

Dream: No and also I'm right because the company is Chinese

Tubbo: Okay so... You're not actually saying anything about change or apologizing to anyone that needs it and Tommy doesn't owe you communication.

Dream: *lovebombs <33333*

Like. God it was so manipulative and scummy. I'm actually disgusted just hearing everything."

[kondoram]

me every goddamn day trying to make my apple pen to work

[hargrove-mayfields]

Autistic max? I’m all in -🦖

yes!! Max being on the spectrum is one of my favorite headcanons! Here’s a bit of my thoughts and hcs for you anon! <3

okay so first i wanna talk a little about where this hc came from! this idea was born in my head for a multitude of reasons, but the general summary is this:

-she misses a lot of social+emotional cues! she didn’t pick up on just how annoyed Mike was with her in the gym and kept pushing until El intervened, she didn’t detect any of Lucas’ panic or frustration when he was explaining the upside down to her until he touches her, and when el is jealous and just not interested in meeting her, she seems to be completely unfazed by that until she walks away. also every scene she has with Billy, he’s very shut off and she seems to be confused about what she’s expected to say, missing that he’s angry until he’s lashing out, and idk to me it just seems like she doesn’t really have a grasp on understanding others’ emotions!

-similarly, she only seems to react in the face of immediate danger, as if she’s a lot of the time unaware of how bad things truly are around her. like when she’s helping to find dart without even knowing what’s going on, driving a whole muscle car and going down into the tunnels without a hint of fear, seeming barely concerned when the mindflayer was about to drop through the ceiling. it’s almost like she has trouble fully processing the consequences of certain things, which could also explain why she sneaks out even though she probably knows what Neil is like and the fact that it could potentially put her in danger.

-the way she dresses just screams tactile sensitivity! she doesn’t ever wear anything flowy, any scratchy materials, and even at the snowball, where we see Susan fussing over her, she’s still dressed for comfort. what young girl with a mother clearly interested in making her pretty is going to get away with wearing jeans to a school dance if she doesn’t have sensory issues?

-also, whenever she gets upset she seems to shut down. like she almost never talks to Billy after he yells at her unless it’s necessary, when her and Lucas are talking on top of the bus it definitely seems like she’s struggling to voice her feelings or put words to her emotions, when Billy’s in the sauna, after he’s activated she starts turning in on herself, and after his death she’s just sitting in his room. like maybe she doesn’t really understand her own emotions that well either.

I’m not really viewing any of this as like, solid evidence or anything btw, these are just some things I’ve noticed about her as an autistic girl her age and living in a very similar situation that I think are neat and relatable!

onto the stuff I literally made up because I love her!

-Susan gives me autism mommy vibes. Like, making it her identity that she has a child with autism, and at times that can get super frustrating for Max because she hates being her mom’s little trophy daughter, gossiped about at all the potlucks so people feel sorry for her. Her absolute least favorite thing is “She’s such a handful.” and when Susan pulls the I’m so lonely because of taking care of you card to make her feel bad. Especially because she doesn’t feel very taken care of, once she’d hit a certain age her mother decided she’d be alright without all that “kid stuff” and basically tossed her into the world on her on. (hence why she’s Billys responsibility)

-In the 80s (and still now if we’re being entirely honest) it was very normal to just throw a casual r slur into conversation and it kills Max every time her friends say it, especially Mike because she thinks he’s being mean and doesn’t like her. She doesn’t know how to explain to them that that hurts her feelings because she doesn’t even know how to bring it up that she’s autistic. Billy tells her once to try to cheer her up that he could beat them up for her but she cries even harder because that’s what she doesn’t want, is for them to think she’s overreacting. He feels bad and tries to make up for it bringing it up with some of the moms of the group and asking that they tell their kids to stop using that word ever.

-In California she was in special ed classes, but Hawkins Middle deems that not necessary for someone of her “functioning level” (yuck) and she gets landed in coed instead. It might’ve been alright if that was how she started her education, but she was already used to classes of four or five kids like her, and she just cannot learn in that new environment. So she does really, really bad in school her first year in Hawkins. She feels kind of self conscious around her friends because they’re all so smart and her grades make her feel stupid even though it’s not her fault, and that’s why she kinda drifts towards being close with El because she struggles with learning things too.

-Smells are probably her worst overstimulation triggers. Things like cigarette smoke, fresh brewed coffee, her moms perfume, cooking and baking smells, the automatic air freshener thing, candles. Pretty much anything stronger than the smell of water is just overwhelming for her, especially if there’s something else already working her up, because then a whiff of something too strong can put her straight into a meltdown. Billy decides to quit smoking for her (he’ll never admit that, he’s adamant that it was because it was messing with his lung capacity and he’s trying to work out) and he also does things like buy Susan a new, less offensive perfume for her birthday and open windows to get stuffy air out of the house. They never really talk about what that does for her but like, that’s part of how they start getting closer, is when he starts making little accommodations for her like that.

-In addition to smells, there are very specific sounds she can’t stand. It’s not all loud noises, some of them like the rev of Billy’s car or a bass guitar at an outdoor amphitheater are some of her favorites, but the ones she doesn’t like, she really hates. Things like styrofoam, dishes hitting off of each other, something scratching against ice that builds up in the freezer, TV static, the toaster popping up or the oven beeping, and people who can’t chew with their mouths closed (looking at you Billy, keep that gum in your mouth please) all make her feel gross. She’ll try to physically shake off the way those sounds make her feel but sometimes they’re just too much and she shuts down for a while until she gets to hear something else. In that case usually really quiet music or someone talking to her quietly can reel her back in.

-Her interests vary a lot! The longest she’s ever held one special interest was a Miss Piggy phase! Susan liked that she was showing interest in a feminine character because of a lot of her si’s were tomboyish, but Max liked Piggy because she knew karate and punched people who laughed at her or tried to make her feel bad about herself! She has all sorts of Piggy collectibles, like toys, bed sheets, posters, books, mugs and watches! Otherwise her interests and fixations tend to come and go pretty quickly, like one week she could want to know everything there is to know about pro skaters, and the next she’s into the history of circuses! She liked cars for a little while and Billy was really excited to indulge in that and let her get familiar with the camaro, but she shifted to video games pretty soon after and he had to let it drop.

-Another interest that’s also pretty constant for her is nature! Not only for the sensory experience of it, listening to leaves rustle and birds chirp and water rush, but also all the knowledge about it. She can identify any type of flower, grass, tree, critter, or fungus! When she’s melting down and needs to be away from the house, she asks Billy to take her to the state park so she can just sit and be quiet and calm down on a fallen tree or a swing set somewhere. They do have some woods behind their house but she’s too afraid to venture out there and prefers to be out with her brother anyways.

-Stims! She’ll fiddle with zippers and buttons and loose threads constantly to the point that they buy her three or four of the same jackets and shirts for when she inevitably breaks them. She also chews on sleeves and hoodie strings a lot. Other tactile stims she favors are string tricks and braiding and tieing knots! Braiding her and Billy’s hair is something she’ll do anytime she needs to feel grounded, and she has a whole bunch of those little wooden boards that kids use to learn how to tie their shoes to tie knots with. She also always has a pocketful of yarn, and her favorite thing to make with them is a spider web or a star!

-Sort of related to her fascination with string is that her shoelaces never ever match, she has like a whole drawer in her room full of different ones to change them out! (and she has Miss Piggy Bow Biters to put on them!)

-She’s also a very verbal stimmer at times! Giggles for days with Max, if she’s excited, happy, nervous, whatever, she’s giggling. Humming and mimicking too, like if she hears a sound she likes she’ll try to make it, whether it be part of a song or something she hears outside. But if she is sad she’ll get as quiet as a mouse.

Idk these are just like my sort of canon compliant hcs I guess? Like what I feel would be true for her in the timeline and storyline of the show!

[foryouthegays]

Nothing goes wrong. [Dream SMP] liveblog

ok im not gonna say anythin abt before 20 mins in bc its p standard but i will say that as SOON as phil messages techno chat spams blood for the blood god and it barely stops the entire time, its incredible 

kills: 00:37:25, 00:37:40, 00:55:20

i LOVE his ‘if theres no other way, I CHOOSE BLOOD’ line at 00:37:00. its just,,,,,it shows his new justice system where he treats others how they treat him even before he makes that speech i love it so much. also he spams potions like how he does in skywars and it makes me happy. honestly a lot of this stream reminds me of skywars like how he went through quackitys stuff and ran nd stuff. maybe ive been watchin too much techno skywars

also durin that first fight, techno only looses half a heart. against FOUR PEOPLE hes too powerful

does techno saying “bs” count as swearing (00:39:40)

techno insultin his kidnappers is the funniest thing to me like hes outnumbered outgeared and he still makes fun of them and theyre still scared of him asdjkfsdalkfj

00:55:00 I HAVE A PICKAXE, AND I’LL PUT IT THROUGH YOUR TEETH i need some fanart of that right now wljdflkasjf also durin that fight techno looses  2.5 hearts at the end. in iron armor. against a diamond axe. using a netherite pickaxe. with a bad fov. why is he like this. 

techno on his horse by the ocean gives me big ‘beating minecraft with tnt falling on me every 10 seconds’ or w/ever vibes. if u havent watched that stream, u should, its great, he has a horse named rocket w diamond horse armor and i love him. 

just realized my head hurt bc i was clenchin my jaws so much. whoops

techno literally has a boat in his inventory when hes like “theres a boat!!!! :D” skdfjlksajf (01:02:20)

the whole raccoon innit thing starts at 01:08:20 btw :)

techno gettin distracted w the skeletons killin each other is so funny to me hfdgksal (a min or so after raccoon innit happens)

01:09:45 tommys scream is so funny to me can someone find how many hearts he looses from that bc i am crying ghfdjksla 

i think techno has the alphabet memorized. not like, the alphabet song, but like he knows what letter are around each letter without going through the alphabet and idk why but it makes me laugh. i think this bc at 01:16:11 tommys like ‘what, f?’ and techno says, not a second later, ‘no. close to that, though.’ and that is NOT enough time to go through nd find f in the alphabet nd then find where e is compared to it. therefore, he is a nerd. also i love him

01:20:00 this is everything to technoblade: Phil, Carl, and then his items. 

im so gay for technos yelling voice. like. hhgnng he

“if we’re being serious, for a millisecond, dickhead,” :LDSFJLKSDJ I LOVE TOMMY 01:22:25

technos ‘join me.’ at 01:23:25 is SO GOOD AHHHHHHHH

vault/welcome home theseus is at 01:27:10 :D i might start calling it theseus’ vault bc that sounds cool to me

ALRIGHT so in the vault techno has 167 skulls on display. thats 56. withers. they r gonna cause SO much chaos i love it. AND thats probably not all of them ahhHHH I LOVE TECHNOBLADE SO MUCH. LMANBURG IS SO SCREWED A;LDKJFALK 

also thats only if i did my math right a;lksdfjaslk

i have decided that the best trio is techno, tommy, and ranboo. they all just jump all over the place with topics and i thin the convo at 01:56:25 shows it p well

Tommy: Technoblade, why havent you face revealed yet? 

techno: I-I have

Tommy: well, answered that quick

ranboo: *laughs* that answers that question

techno: that was resolved really easily!

tommy: why don’t you do it again?

techno:....what would be the point?

ranboo: yeah, what would be the point??

tommy: because then it would be like -stutters- it would be, you know, easy, good video because there’s so many people who dont know what you look like

techno: ehhhh ill find a good moment at some point

tommy: you could face reveal with me, bro!! we could face reveal together!

techno: ahhh finally, we’ll know what tommyinnit looks like 

ranboo: -laughing- thank god! that was one of the unsolved mysteries of the world

techno: unsolved mysteries of minecraft, what does tommyinnit look like 

ranboo: what does tommy actually look like? 

tommy: hey! speakin of unsolved mysteries, lets talk- lets talk psychology. what- what would be- you know, not the worst one you know, but just the worst word?

ranboo: I’m going to- I- if i hear this question one more time i’m going- i dont know what im going to do. i can’t do anything at this point

techno: ....cactus. 

tommy: ????cactus??? 

ranboo: that is a bad word, i cant believe you said that, 

tommy: -unintelligible- it is cacti, my friend, not cactusus 

techno: I’m sorry

ranboo: how could you say that on stream? 

techno: I’m sorry

tommy: it’s not cactusus, technoblade, its cacti

techno: i- i am aware  

ranboo: you- you gotta stop sayin it.

tommy: cacti almost sounds like a terrible, terrible slur right now

techno: please, please stop saying that- please stop sayin that word

tommy: what, cacti?

ranboo: AHHHH cmon, cmon tommy

techno: you cant use that word!

tommy: AYYY IF I SAY IT OFF STREAM I CAN SAY IT ON STREAM

techno: WOAHHHHH WOAH WOAH -laughs-

ranboo: NO THATS NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS 

techno: thats just not how this works, tommy!!!

tommy: eyyy man im just me, im just me- OOOH i have a novel to write!

ranboo:....where did that come from??? 

tommy: HOW TO SEX 3 BABEYYYYY 

techno: i thought you were already...done with that? 

god theyre so chaotic i love them so much

also yall are WRONG abt eret soundin like techno. ranboo sounds like techno. not in like, a really big way, but when theyre both monotone they sound similar and i love it. this is great

this is actually the most ive laughed at the smp in so long PLEASE go watch the entire techno ranboo tommy interaction its so funny technos just *long, long sigh* ranboos just ???????? and tommys just !!!!!!!! its amazing im crying 

technos such a dad to these kids oh my god his voice at 02:12:40 was so disappointed just ‘do not do that.’ he sounded like a parent on a trip to disneyland and his kids r like, hanging out the window of the car or smthing adjfaslkfkadsl techno :handshake: phil [being tommys dad] and also ranboo is bullying him its so funny i love it

AHHHHH HIS VOICE AT 02:20:35 I AM IN LOVE YALL HEAR THAT???? YALL HEAR HIM??????? AHHHHHH 

“in the small event that your internet goes off or you get hit by a car,” TOMMY THAT IS NOT A SMALL EVENT WHA T 2:21:30

A;LSKDJFASL RANBOO AND TECHNO HAVE SUCH SIMILAR HUMOR I STG TECHNO LOOKED AT RANBOO WAITING FOR HIM TO SAY ‘enchant?? just a wild guess’ AT 02:23:00 A;DLKJFASLD;JF I LOVE THEM PLEASEEEE KEEP INTERACTING IK I WAS A RANBOO HATER LIKE A WEEK AGO BUT ALSO I WOULD DIE FOR HIM ITS FINE 

this is so fuckin funny this end of stream stuff is gonna be a comfort stream 

“what does the moon make you think about?” “it makes me think about the moon” ALSFJDSKJFDSL 2:32:10

techno makin fun of ranboos defense of bein peer pressured,,,,,,,m’dude that was the reason u killed tubbo how is that ANY different (2:33:50) (yes i know he mentions it but FHGJKSDL)

TECHNOSWEAR TECHNOSWEAR TECHNOSWEAR TECHNOSWEAR 2:35:25  HE SAY THE CRAP WORD

[cbrownjc]

Just to back up your point about her not being able to recognize the actual racial commentary in the show after episode 3, here's my exchange with her on YouTube about that very thing on her EP07 video right after she first posted it and made this same argument there too:

And, just for the record, I wasn't the only one in that comment section pointing things like this out to her at the time. 🤷🏾‍♀️

But yeah, for her, it seems if the show isn't having people thinking racial slurs left and right and Claudia and Louis aren't hearing them -- and therefore the audience isn't hearing them -- that means the show isn't doing racial commentary anymore. As if racist language is the only way you can show such things, otherwise it isn't being "realistic."

As I said above, what was heard from the Alderman in EP03 wasn't realistic (which she argued it was) because, if it had been, he would have been dropping the hard-r N-word left and right. (The show had him do it once, in EP01, to establish that fact BTW.)

And as a black person who's actually had to deal with racism IRL? I didn't need to hear such language all the time to see the racial themes and issues were still very much present throughout the whole season. (A lot of it wasn't even all that subtle.) Nor did I think because we didn't hear Louis hearing a bunch of racial slurs directed at him he suddenly wasn't "battling racism" anymore. Which has got to be one of the most tone-deaf takes regarding what dealing with racism is actually like when you're black in America (like Louis and Claudia are in the show) IMO. 🙄

And frankly, I think any media that does have primarily a white writing/production staff should be careful when using such language or it can, and usually will a lot of times, come off as just exploitative IMO.

I actually watched all 7 of her Season 1 reviews. I really gave them a chance but after this stuff, (which was in her EP07 review), I knew I was done watching them going forward. Nitpicky takes are one thing (especially when they contradict what the show has actually said and shown), but the terrible racial commentary on top of that? Yeah, no thank you.

Woah, I must have missed something, why are people jumping down your throat?

From what I can gather at this point, it seems like they feel like anyone who likes Anne Rice herself and the books better than the show=automatically racist. Even if they ALSO enjoy the show and support the race change of the characters and all the racial conversation the show incorporated into its adaptation.

Personally, I think it does a disservice to the fandom to assume that the only reason one could like the books over the show is because of racist reasons. Anne's books speak to so many people in so many ways, especially those who have ever felt like outcasts or apart from mainstream society, and many fans have extremely personal connections to the books for a huge variety of reasons.

Like I said in my videos, I was excited and intrigued to see this AU version of the story (I love AUs!) but my complaints with the writing of the episodes mostly came back to when the show was trying to stick TOO MUCH to the books.... Because the show was really making its own thing with its own versions of the characters and all these new ideas, but then suddenly it would shove in a scene/dialogue straight out of the books which would contradict or make no sense with everything else the show had already worked to set up with the new direction it was taking itself.

Critiquing sloppy/weak writing does not mean I or any other fan who feels the same is doing it for racist reasons. Much of my criticism was about how the scripts changed Lestat's character to make him so much worse than he was in the books (which would be fine, it's their story, whatever--except the show runners told us over and over again that the whole reason Louis was doing a second interview was so that this time we could see the real version of Lestat and how Louis felt about him instead of the mean, insulting version he gave in the first interview). There was a lot promised by the showrunners about what their adaptation would be like that was not delivered ("closer to the books than the 1994 movie," "true to the spirit of Anne Rice" etc). The entire reason I made my videos was to evaluate how well the show measured up to those promises.

Worse than making Lestat so irredeemable, the way the first season ended in a way that made so many fans believe that Louis might have been lying about everything didn't sit well with me at all--it's a harmful stereotype to make the black man a liar, especially when it comes to abuse. I know the "the DV didn't actually happen and black Louis was lying or mind controlled by his evil non-white boyfriend" became a running fan theory, but I personally don't believe it one bit. But I can see why so many fans do--again, sloppy/weak writing on the show's part.

Like I said in my video, the only thing Louis actually lied about in ep7 (and he was lying to himself, not deliberately lying to Daniel) was the depth of his love for Lestat at the end. And that's entirely canon for Louis to deceive himself about--admitting how much he truly loves Lestat always came hard for him. I personally don't think it's going to turn out that anything Louis told us in season 1 was a lie. I think the show would have revealed that at the end of the season, not waited another season (or two or three) to reveal that. And the theme of season 2's promotional material has all been about memory, not honesty. I don't think Louis could mistakenly remember getting dropped from a mile in the sky and the months/years of recovery afterward, so I personally think all those memories were real.

The first three episodes of season 1 made Louis's struggle with race its primary focus, and the series description began with how Louis was chafing at society as a black man. But then from episode 4 on, the focus of the show shifted entirely. Obviously racism still existed in Louis's world, but the show pushed it all entirely to the background with little things, like segregation on the bus, and we saw the characters quietly taking in stride, not making any plot out of it. Suddenly all of Louis's character-driving moments weren't about that anymore and we were in a whole new story, when his battle against racism had been the entire theme of the first three episodes. This was something I noticed and pointed out in my videos--I didn't say it was a bad thing (after all, seeing people be racist to Louis on screen, while "realistic," isn't exactly fun for anyone, and we'd already seen plenty), but I did think the sudden dramatic shift in story focus weakened the show's themes and throughline.

Again this comes down to writing, and the premise/script was written by white people. I think they could have done much better with much more non-white involvement on the writing level. I think the show could have been stronger with some more care taken to create consistency and smoother transitions between episodes (like when they take Claudia out to feed in episode 4, suddenly all the race riots are gone, when everything was on fire 2 hours ago). It's common for shows to have each episode written by a different person, even though they all collaborate in a writer's room, but to me it felt like the show lacked efficient script supervision to make sure all the scripts flowed into each other without any contradictions or inconsistency.

When I talked about these things in my videos, when I said I would have liked the show to do better with the way it missed the mark sometimes in handling racial aspects (even though other parts I commended as being great), and the way I critiqued the inconsistencies and contradictions, some people took that to mean I hated the show entirely. The point of my videos was to see how well the show measured up to Rolin Jones's promises that it was so faithful and respectful to the spirit of the books and that all he wanted to do was honor Anne's work. I know the books back and forth, enjoy having a ND hyperfixation that gives me near-encyclopedic knowledge of the texts and Anne as an author. So people ask me questions about them all the time, especially in comparison to the adaptations. Who better to make videos evaluating how well the show measured up to RJ's promises and claims of faithfulness? But some people took me comparing the show to the books to mean I thought it was a bad thing that they weren't the same, and I hated the show entirely for not being the same as Anne wrote it, and therefore that meant I (and anyone else who loves the books) was racist 🤷

[dads-back-from-the-store]

Hi! TW for Dream and MCYT. So, I saw your Dream thing, and I kinda know what's going on with him? But is there anything else than using the r slur that I don't know about? Could you please explain the situation to me?

hello, and sure! I was a bit confused about the situation at first too.

so basically (@/enby-ichi provided these screenshots btw you should check them out bc i wouldn’t have known about the situation otherwise) dream did something on stream/video that is widely known as a native american call. this wasn’t a huge deal, so people addressed it calmly; but he was honestly an asshole about it on his alt.

while this, again; wasn’t a huge deal at first, the way he handled it was irresponsible. telling people to fuck off if they’re slightly offended by you appropriating their culture is a yikes. most of the people who were addressing it were actually native americans.

to my knowledge he hasn’t gone out of his way to publicly apologize for these statements yet and that leads me to believe that he has not grown from this situation.

[gncrevan]

don't rb, tbd

as a disabled person i have been very much upset by things j/enna marbl/es has said and done in the past (iirc she used to use the r slur and she did that "conjoined twins challenge"), none of which she addressed in her apology video btw, but like maybe i'm just so used to people being ableist and never finding any content anywhere that doesn't have at least a little bit of ableism in it, but i genuinely don't really care what she said or did ten years ago, i'm really sad she's leaving youtube, her videos have been such a calming presence in my life while i deal with a world of shit so. yeah i'm just sad. it's good that she apologized for doing racist "jokes", and most importantly it's good that she has moved on from edgy, offensive humor and grown up. as someone who has been hurt by her old content, i think she does good stuff now and moving on is enough for me. obviously you don't have to agree or whatever but i'm upset and sad and feel robbed of a source of comfort. idk the discourse on tumblr about it is so fucked. like it's one thing that ppl call her out for her content, holding people accountable is right and good, but it's another to be spiteful especially if you're not actually affected. that's just performative allyship, which isn't helping anyone, and if a rather privileged person does that sort of thing it really reads like an attempt to gain power inside a movement that isn't yours. but maybe i've just met too many abusive people in social justice circles. people grow up in a bigoted society and it takes time and effort to unlearn things, so i think we should celebrate stories of personal growth rather than compulsively looking for a hole in them. i'm not even defending j/enna, there's actually even more videos that she should have deleted/privated and apologized for imo, but oof being a public persona on the internet is impossible. everyone's gonna fuck up, what matters is if and how they own up to it

[marxistswiftieism]

if any of you really think that matty isn't a terrible person I would like to remind you that he VERY RECENTLY decided to do the nazi salute on stage during one of his concerts (and btw I do NOT want to hear your opinion on this unless you are roma or jewish otherwise FUCK OFF)

also he's harassed ice spice and made racist comments towards/about her, posted a screenshot of a wikipedia article later after the salute video that was titled "list of jews", he's repeatedly made fun of japanese people and done racist accents, posted islamaphobic jokes on his instagram, he repeatedly has used the r slur on stage and refused to stop when people told him not to, and he works with serial sexual predators like matt powell over and over despite the NUMEROUS allegations against him

a loooooot of white people in this fandom being like "we don't KNOW they're dating, stop being weird, she's known him years!!!" as if the fact she's friends with a scumbag racist is any better than dating him. taylor is a brilliant musician but she regularly surrounds herself with racists (blake, ryan, gigi, lena, matty, etc) and whenever anyone says anything about it all the whites act like we're being oversensitive or ridiculous.

you are entirely right about this and I fully agree with what you have to say. I'm sorry if any of the posts I've made seem dismissive about it. I personally fucking LOATHE matty and I can't stand the fact that she's even friends with him. I think a lot of fans refuse to criticize taylor or anything she's done and it makes it a lot harder to have nuanced discussions about shit like this. There have been a lot of things recently and in taylor's past that have driven me up a wall and made me want to scream at her for being a fucking spineless liberal white feminist and this is one of those moments. If I see anyone on this website defending matty healy or taylor's possible relationship with him I will smack them. (Also if I oversteped in this post I'm sorry)