#they're just socially enforced

[deservedgrace]

"we're not like other churches, we don't get caught up in earthly things like doctrine or rigid rules, we're focused on our relationship with jesus 🥰" <- is exactly like other churches

non-denominational churches are the "i'm not like other girls" of churches

[brainrot-jikan]

im not the biggest alhaitham/kaveh shipper (because im a rare pair ho) but it seems to me that in alhaitham/kaveh getting-together fics tend to be... unequal.

the beautiful thing about alhaitham and kaveh is that they're both equally right and equally wrong and equally dicks about it. but the writers for alhaitham/kaveh much more frequently seem to give alhaitham the burden change (the burden of the character flaw) instead of kaveh.

in any good character arc, the main character has a fatal flaw or misconception, and by the end of that arc they have addressed that flaw in some definitive way. scrooge was a scrooge and learned that being that way was detrimental; merlin from finding nemo was overprotective to a fault and had to learn that he couldn't (and shouldn't) control everything and to let go; the wolf from little red riding hood learns that you should stop while you're ahead.

stories centering around romance tend to lean heavily on character arcs, which makes sense. and since romance generally requires two individuals to be vulnerable and open and emotional with each other, it makes double sense that alhaitham/kaveh authors zoom straight into alhaitham's lack of emotional vulnerability.

this bothers me.

in society, individuals are expected to experience and present emotions in a specific way. if someone dies, you cry. if someone smiles at you, you smile back. if you're at a party, you're supposed to be having fun. if you don't do these things, you're seen as impolite at best and a inhuman freak at worst. when these behaviors are frequent it's often viewed as emotional immaturity, or a lack of ability to feel at all. the inability or lack of willingness to conform to societies emotional expectations of you is seen as a flaw and a reason for exclusion.

alhaitham is canonically disliked and avoided for being the way he is. he prefers it this way, but that doesn't mean the people perpetuating this avoidance are in the right. they are the societal pressure to conform that alhaitham blows off. alhaitham could be the way he is for a lot of reasons: avoidant attachment style, trauma, following someone else's example (eg. his grandmother), or just his base personality. it doesn't MATTER. he is the way he is. kaveh having to accept that should be part of the story.

putting the burden of the fatal flaw on alhaitham, making the way alhaitham treats kaveh and the people around him the problem, feels invalidating. it implies heavily that alhaitham's way of interfacing with the world, alhaitham's very SELF, is incorrect. my suggestion is to flip a larger portion of that burden onto kaveh. kaveh 👏 character 👏 arcs 👏

some examples/recommendations:

- make kaveh project his insecurities onto other people but especially onto alhaitham; he's overly reliant on other people for his own self worth, and he perceives alhaitham's lack of positive feedback as a direct reflection of how alhaitham feels about him. but learns along the way that alhaitham doesn't hate him, kaveh's actual struggle is with hating himself and being unable to his own self as worthy of love. maybe throw in how you are responsible for your own recovery, other people can help but you can't rely on them to carry you through self actualization.

- or, kaveh tries to make alhaitham behave more like a "normal" person, to be more pleasant and emotive and forthcoming, and then realizes he's in the wrong for trying to make alhaitham into something he's not, possibly for all the wrong reasons (not because he likes alhaitham better like that, but bc society says that's healthier and a better/more conforming way to be)

- or you could go ahead make alhaitham's issues the main problem but they're too complicated to overcome in a short period of time, so kaveh has to accept alhaitham is doing his best in his own way and not push for unrealistic and unhealthy changes. he could alter his own behavior to give alhaitham space and time and a safe place to land.

that got sappy so it's past time for me to dip out. go forth and ship things; but maybe consider letting alhaitham be a rude stone-faced bastard if he wants to be.

[grison-in-space]

The obvious question—why do women organize against their own freedom—is thorny.4 In her 1983 book Right-Wing Women, radical feminist author Andrea Dworkin tried to answer it. She described three types of antifeminism. “Man dominant” was the crudest form, resting on the principle that men should subjugate women because male dominance is natural, necessary, and rooted in love. “Woman superior” held that female power resided in women’s lofty moral sensibility and sexual desirability—not to be confused with their sexual desire. Women’s authority was innate yet limited, physical yet passive. (“She’s ethereal,” Dworkin wrote, “she floats.”) The last type, “separate but equal,” emphasized that the sexes were destined for different spheres of existence, neither of which was better than the other. Women bearing and nurturing children was just as important as men providing for them financially or fighting wars to protect them. Dworkin theorized that some women embraced antifeminism, in one form or a combination, as a means of self-preservation in the face of male oppression. “Feminists, from a base of powerlessness, want to destroy that power,” she said. “Right-wing women, from a base of powerlessness, the same base, accommodate to that power because quite simply they see no way out from under.” Dworkin also argued that any disdain antifeminist women felt toward an “other” on the basis of race or another identity marker was really displaced rage they felt toward men. “They are easily controlled and manipulated haters,” she said of these women. “Having good reason to hate, but not the courage to rebel, women require symbols of danger that justify their fear.”5 Dworkin’s interpretation was compelling, but it contained two monolithic assumptions: that the patriarchy is an absolute negative for all women, and that women act largely on the basis of their womanhood. In fact, the overlapping lines of race, class, and culture complicate both ideas. What about women who benefit—or want to benefit—from existing structures of dominance? We risk stripping them of responsibility when we suggest that the harm they do is merely a way of coping with their own oppression, whether real or presumed. As Adrienne Rich wrote in Of Woman Born, “Theories of female power and female ascendancy must reckon fully with the ambiguities of our being, with the continuum of our consciousness, the potentialities for both creative and destructive energy in each of us.”6

[unproduciblesmackdown]

no context no details "these days ppl can't Work Through Conflicts or they don't Try hard enough & this is why Communities are broken :(" how is it meaningfully different from "look at the divorce rates Today vs in the '50s :( everyone just throws marriages away. Women aren't having Kids everyone just throws Families away"

"oh these days people can think about their experiences as Trauma or Abuse simply if they Want to :( you can't even talk to anyone anymore, if you make them uncomfortable (through no fault of your own. they're too sensitive & i'm simply always Being Normal) they'll be crying victim :(" how is this meaningfully different from "ugh how can a man talk to a coworker woman anymore or even look at her. how can men try to flirt with and date women anymore :( everythinnng's misogyny ohh harassment assault oppression because you breathed in her direction :("

[ghostdnfie]

continuation of what i was talking about last night would this disclaimer be petty of me to add to my pinned post on my phan tumblr. bc to me it reads as petty but i genuinely dont know how else to deter antis from me 😭

[rjalker]

Feel free to reblog this by the way. All my posts are rebloggable unless stated otherwise (usually because I haven't written the image description yet or need to fix a typo)

Conservatives will be like, "I am a master debater! No one can win against my perfect logic and reason!"

And then what's actually happening is they constantly interrupt you and are consistently raising their voice louder and louder with every moment that passes until they are literally trying to shout you down and drown out every word you are saying while pretending that really, they're just being so perfectly logical that you can make no response, rather than the fact that they are literally fucking shouting you down and not letting you say a single thing without being interrupted.

Anyways my mom's husband has absolutely no fucking clue what he is talking about, ever, but no one else will tell him this because he turns even the most normal not at all controversial conversation (like...the duration of a year's pass to a fucking museum) into a "debate" where he is just pulling out the most random fucking shit you've ever heard for no reason ("Well if it's a year's pass, if we went this day (when we got the year's pass) next year, that'd be a year and a day! So we can't go this day next year!" (Literally no one was suggesting we did, and also, that's literally not how calendar's work!)) and raising his voice like it's a life or death situation and this is the hill he's going to die on.

The hill called "we bought a life's pass for the museum because it's cheaper than paying for a single visit as a group and now we can come back later with everyone". That's the hill he's gonna die on now, for no fucking reason other than he has no fucking clue how to have normal conversations with people.

Arguing with no one for no reason that a year's pass to a museam won't actually last 365 days because that would actually mean it's lasting a year and a day because he doesn't actually give a shit about logic at all, and just wants to turn every conversation into a debate that he will "win" by literally shouting down the "competition" (our mom, usually) and being so fucking hostile about shit that literally does not matter and is not up for debate (That's literally fucking now how calendars work!!!!) that his "opponent" finally just has to stop to put their hands over their ears and ignore him.

This man is so fucking poisoned by far right bullshit online that he has become a fucking troll in real life and literally no one besides us is actually willing to tell him he has no fucking clue what he's talking about, because 90% of the time he is just doing this shit about things that do not matter in any way, were not up for debate, and are things no one who is not on an eternal quest for Something to be Outraged By™ would want to argue about.

Like whether or not buying a year's pass for the museam would mean you can go there in exactly a year on the same day you bought the pass. Which everyone who uses actual logic knows you would be able to. Because we don't fucking celebrate birthdays the day before you were born.

So then when he starts trying to use these tactics to shit on trans people, he is fully fucking unprepared to have actual facts thrown in his face that he has to actually counter with other actual facts because we literally will not let him keep raising his voice and interrupting us.

He starts raising his voice? We tell him, the way you'd tell a five year old, to lower his voice and use his inside voice, and keep repeating this instruction until he does, shocked either by our audacity, or the fact that he'd raised his voice so high in the first place.

He interrupts us? We say, again, the way you'd tell a five year old who doesn't know what manners are, "It is my turn to talk, stop interrupting me. When other people are talking, we don't interrupt them. I am talking, it is my turn to talk, do not interrupt me" until he shuts his fucking mouth, looking absolutely fucking bewildered. Probably because no one besides us has ever demanded he use the kind of manners a five year olds are taught.

And now, when he is forced to keep his voice at a normal conversational level, when he is not allowed to interrupt every word you say, when he is forced to provide actual, factual evidence for the claims he's making, he is left to flounder, with no way of reacting to what we are saying, because he doesn't actually know how to have a conversation or a real debate.

Because he doesn't have any facts on his side, nor any logic. He doesn't actually know how to argue with reality on his side, and the constraint of not behaving like a five year old having a tantrum, because he spends 90% of his time "arguing" with his wife about random shit that has nothing to do with anything that she's not even pretending to entertain.

(But, it's important to note, she also can't be assed to tell him he needs to stop picking random fucking hills to die on, because that would require more than the bare minimum of effort of communication and commitment. And she's incredibly fucking lazy and doesn't care about fixing bad behaviors as long as she can ignore the behavior in relative peace. This is also why both her dogs are insuffurably untrained and bite and jump up and destroy shoes for fun. Because letting them do these destructive and dangerous things is less effort in her mind than simply training them to be well behaved would have been in the first place. She still gives them her old shoes as chew toys on purpose. I'm not joking.)

We've had these sort of "debates" with our mom's husband before. Last time he was spouting off about genderfluid people who change their pronouns every day and will blow up at you if you use the wrong ones. He was very blatantly just repeating the same shit the people on his shitty podcasts say.

We pointed out the most basic logic of this hypothetical situation -

If someone changes their pronouns every day, they'll tell you what pronouns they're using that day. They want people to use their pronouns, so they'll tell people which ones to use. No trans people expect you to be able to read their minds.

His mouth fell open and you could almost literally see his outraged thought processes screeching to a halt now that the wrench of logic had been thrown in.

If this fucking jackass weren't constantly listening to shitty podcats by people whose names I can't remember to constantly be radicalized and getting spoonfed Outraged Rants about trans people, it'd be really fucking easy to show him how absurd the shit he's being told is.

The ability to use actual logic is there, as is the ability to stop being a raging bigot.

Unfortunately, listening to podcasts by far-right bigots who want trans people dead is a lot more accessible for him than listening to trans people. Because if you're not the sort of fake trans person that exists in the Outraged Rants on his podcasts, then you're not really trans, so you're not actually an expert on the topic and you don't know what you're talking about.

Because in the little bubble of conspiracy that exists in far-right people's minds, if you're not a pedophile who grooms kids, you're not trans, because you aren't convenient to their arguments for why trans people should get the death penalty, and any normal, non-pedophile trans people who exist online are actually all just AI generated and not real. Because you can't trust anything to see online, but you can trust the bigots on his podcasts who are claiming that a school is being sued for not letting a catgender kid use a litter box instead of the bathroom.

Anyways. We're turning one of the sticks I found into the woods into a Talking Stick and whoever is holding it will get to talk. So that we can continue forcing him to behave like an adult who is forced to use actual logic and facts instead of just repeating the same Outraged ideas he keeps hearing on his podcasts.

Anyways did I mention that he was the one willing to use my name and pronouns until our mom got to him and persuaded him to stop? Lofl. Well now my doctor is going to be using my correct pronouns, so she can deal with it.

[houseofwolvess]

okay apparently im not done ranting about quarantine puppies. for the love of god to NOT get a puppy if you won't bother with training and proper socialization. i don't care if you say it'll help your mental health, i don't care if you just reeeaaaally want one, i don't care if you're only gonna get a teeny tiny toy breed, do not get a damn puppy if you won't put in the necessary work for the sake of their own and other's safety

[luulapants]

I'm so frustrated by the lack of response to the mass psychogenic illness of law enforcement officials claiming to suffer contact fentanyl poisoning. There were a few studies done that quietly concluded that it's not real, none of the cases were credible, and the symptoms most closely resemble a panic attack or somatic episode.

No one is connecting this to systemic issues in police training and culture and no one is treating this as the canary in the coal mine it is.

Modern police training is functionally cult indoctrination, and intentionally cultivates paranoia. Police learn that everyone is out to get them, danger lurks around every corner, and their only job is to make it home alive after their shift.

They then enter the body of police culture, where questioning the bad behavior of fellow officers is at best strictly socially punished and at worst can get them killed, where they are constantly vigilant to say the right things and portray the right beliefs.

Suddenly, after generations of mainstream culture being generally supportive of police, in the midst of an anxiety-riddled pandemic, there is a highly-publicized backlash against law enforcement. Regular people are saying ACAB, calling cops fascists and murderers and wife-beaters. They're posting officers' service records on social media. Police, unwilling to believe they are evil, experience a cognitive dissonance backlash effect and cling to beliefs that contradict reality.

No one should be shocked - and no one should be hesitant to say - that there is a mental health crisis in law enforcement. They are paranoid, hyper-vigilant, and mired in cognitive dissonance. They have guns and virtually unchecked power to enact violence in their communities. Making up delusional stories about fentanyl is a pretty mild outcome compared to what we should be expecting from these circumstances.

Police aren't just bastards. They're a danger to themselves and others.

[tobiasdrake]

Like, getting political for a moment. A thing a lot of people need to understand is that, ultimately, rules only exist if they are enforceable. The mechanism of enforcement is what determines the realness of a rule.

If you're playing Monopoly and you decide that being in Jail sucks so you move your piece to Go and call it a tunneling loophole, there's nothing built into the game to actually stop you from doing that. Other players yelling at you and banishing you from the table is how the rule is enforced. But if they don't, if they let you do that, then I'm sorry but that's just how the game is played now. If you're allowed to do it then it's not against the rules.

We all instinctively understand that when you're running track, you're not supposed to cross the lines into someone else's lane. But the lines are not a wall. They're not physically preventing you from doing anything. If you decide you want to run into the lane to your right and jump-kick the other racer, you physically can do that.

The line on the ground is a social construct. It's part of the magic circle; A thing that takes on special meaning, even psychological power, so long as we exist within its play space. But it's not real, and it only has power if somebody comes over and drags you off the field for striking that other racer.

At the highest echelons of power, a lot of what "can" and "can't" be done are actually just the boundaries of a magic circle with few real enforcement mechanisms. The President can't do that. But. Like. Who's going to stop him if he does?

The biggest thing we learned during the Trump Presidency was just how many restrictions on government power are illusory. Trump spent his four years in office testing the limits of what he can and can't do. Stepping over the lines of the magic circle to see which ones had enforcement mechanisms and which were merely decorative. And revealing that an alarming number were decorative.

Because the thing about the highest offices, about POTUS and SCOTUS and Congress, is that they're the highest offices. There's nobody above them. The only check on their power is each other and, contrary to what high school social studies might tell you, those checks aren't very strong at all.

Trump wants to redefine the game rules to be dictatorial. The magic circle says he can't do that. But the only factor that truly decides whether he can or can't is whether the other players at the table will let him do it. And if you listen to the way Republican Congressmen talk, it's not reassuring.

There are no executive super-cops who will arrest Trump if he breaks the rules. The Avengers are not going to show up and stop him from continuing to reconfigure the magic circle to his liking. The only thing, the only true restriction on his power, is the vote. It's the fact that we, as a population, get to make a choice as to whether or not he even gets to sit back down at the table to play again at all.

In a democracy, voters are the enforcement mechanism. Let's try and remember that when November comes around.

[medicinemane]

I don't know... just the utter insanity of being like "I don't trust the government" only to put your full faith in the government cause you've decided that this punitive law is one you like and could totally never be used in an inappropriate way

Never trust the government man

Government needs to be forced to have full transparency and accountability and have a boot kept on it's neck at all times to make sure it's doing what we need it to... and we're not there yet, not even close. DOD can't even pass an audit man, and so many of the governmental systems as so clearly just kind of broken

So why on earth would you ever trust some new law to only be used in positive ways and not as a tool of suppression?

And part of it is about looking at laws, looking at what they say and do, looking at their scope. Like yeah, I'm pro right to repair laws because they mostly say companies can't stop me from fixing my own shit and need to make parts available (which they demonstrably don't do otherwise, which is the only reason I even want a law about it)

But like... there's a bit of a difference between the scope of a right to repair bill vs something on surveillance, or banning something like tiktok, or making it so police can arrest you for something new... never trust that stuff's going to be applied how they say it will, assume they've slipped massive overreach in the fine print, and assume that even if it's technically the most restrained bill that the feds might ignore that and use it as an excuse to trample all over your rights despite technically not being allowed to

Doesn't matter if the cop technically isn't supposed to arrest you for it, we see cases all the time where cops do shit they're not supposed to do and go after people not doing anything wrong

[thatrandombystander]

Wait ok so that nonsense social media ban for anyone under 16 bill passed and social media platforms have a year to figure out how they're gonna enforce it, but they're also not allowed to compel users to share any government issued ID. But they'll get a penalty fine any time it's proven someone under 16 is using your platform

God you can tell this bill was so fucking rushed. If I was in charge of a socmed platform I'd just completely pull out of the Australian market. Our population and userbase is comparatively small anyway

So either they'll have to accept losing socmed platforms for all Australians, or allow compelling of sharing ID, or defang the penalties to the point of the law being useless for its intended purposes, or scrap the law altogether

[apas-95]

While I, on the one hand, understand monogamy has been enforced politically throughout history as a means of ensuring lines of inheritance and the dominance of men over women (hence also why polygamy has been permitted insofar as men are allowed to own multiple wives); I also don't think the construct of the so-called monogamous relationship is inherently worthless or harmful. This is certainly not the popular opinion among those with an understanding of monogamy's history, where an understandable advocacy of doing away with monogamy, along with other harmful structures of domestic person-ownership, like the family, is common - but I do think the structure, outside the social system of enforced monogamy, has positive aspects. As a professional diver, I'm well-acquainted with the buddy system: whenever diving, no matter how many are present, divers are paired into buddy-teams, who are each fully responsible for each other. Doing so is the only safe method - in an emergency, a diver's life may rely on another diver noticing they're in distress and reacting within only a few seconds. Having someone whose sole focus is yourself (and someone who is your sole focus) is an incredibly important safety net. Obviously, if an issue occurs with another diver, anyone available comes to their aid, but they are always responsible for their buddy, and vice versa. As a dive leader, I've dived without a buddy before - the idea is that 'everyone in the group is my buddy', but in truth, it's just diving without anyone specifically looking out for you, and it's something you can only do if you're competent enough for it. I was responsible for everyone in my group, and nobody was responsible for me. I can see these general bases for the buddy system applying to broader life in general. Do I think monogamy is for everyone? No, it obviously is not. But, neither do I think it's for nobody.

[kaijutegu]

From the Rattlecam project- "The first baby garter snake has arrived at the den! It immediately found the perfect pillow."

More rattlesnake snuggles, from the same location.

I know a lot of the time in captive care settings, we warn keepers that their snakes aren't cuddling- that they're competing for resources. And I'm of the opinion that for the vast majority of captive snakes, they don't benefit from prolonged, enforced conspecific contact.

But it's fascinating to watch these rattlesnake cams because rattlesnakes do benefit from prolonged conspecific contact. Rattlesnakes den together, and several of them are highly social species. If I was designing an exhibit for rattlesnakes, I'd certainly put more than one animal in there, because when you observe them in the wild they spend so much time together- which we didn't know until we started setting up cameras to observe them. It just goes to show that you really need to pay attention to the particular needs of individual species. What's good for rattlers and garters isn't necessarily good for ball pythons and cornsnakes.

[andhumanslovedstories]

The constant thing on nursing as a profession on this website is getting kind of exhausting to me. I am so truly sorry that people have had negative experiences with nurses and they absolutely do not deserve that. But it’s such a massive profession with such a huge diversity of people and practices and people paint it in such broad strokes and it’s starting to kind of hurt my feelings :/ Thoughts? Am I just being a baby/does this ever bother you?

Honestly the constant negativity I saw towards nursing was why I started writing about nursing so much more. It's not that I think that negativity is incorrect--people HAVE had horrible experiences with nursing, some nurses do abuse their power, and that even without abusing power it is easy to hurt a patient. I seek out and appreciate those accounts, people should share those, people have every right to talk about their experiences. But if we're being human about it, yeah, it does bother me to see posts that call me and everyone I work with mean girls. I don't think those posts shouldn't exist, and at the same time, it is frustrating that it seems to be the dominant narrative about nurses in the particular parts of the internet where I spend time.

A big annoyance to me is that SO MANY CRITICISM of nursing is gendered! We're catty, we're bitches, we're mean girls, we're "the female versions of cops" like there aren't female cops and male nurses. And frankly, the worst nurses I have worked with have overwhelming been men. To be clear and to state the obvious, many male nurses are good at their job. We also know that female-dominated professions get valued less than male-dominated, and that men in those fields disproportionately get leadership positions.

And I've listened to patient complaints about some nurses who, sure, may have had a bad interaction with the patient, but who I KNOW are superb, brilliant, and compassionate professionals. They're also women of color who don't smile.

Nurses are the tip of the spear, as people talking about med errors love to say. Nurses are at the bedside, present and available to be mad at. We wake you up for vitals at 4 am, enforce fluid restrictions, tell you there's no more pain meds, and take ten minutes answering your call light when you desperately need to pee. Nurses are very accessible to be mad at.

There's weirdness about the perception of nurses in general. We're angels, we're heroes, we do stuff that no one else could, we're caregivers, we're nurturers, we're miracle workers, we're the people in the hospital who do "the real work*," this work is our calling, and this work is exclusively wiping butts and hand out pills. And by the way, wiping butts is degrading work. That's why we're angels. A guy shook my hand in the grocery store today because I told him I was a nurse. That's wild. Fun to be a mean girl angel cop hero.

(*untrue. you could not pay me a billion dollars to do the work doctors, surgeons, PTs/OTs, lab techs, social workers, pharmacists, and a thousand other specialized and often much less visible professions do.)

[toskarin]

sorry to ask, but can you explain your last post to someone who knows nothing about the musician community youre talking about... it sounds like a really really good post if i just understood it better

this is another one of those posts where I'm transcribing a stream of consciousness, so I'll throw in a courtesy readmore

the musician community, as a whole, is much more segmented than the visual artist community

this leads to good and bad things, but generally it allows for more awareness of one's position and an acknowledgement that the needs of an underground folk artist are going to be different than the needs of a composer who receives a name credit. this means there is always going to be heavy pushback when someone tries to impose ethics downward

one element of this is the inward acknowledgement that the monolithic musician community isn't actually real in a way that isn't really mirrored in the visual artist community. besides making music and navigating the financial (and legal) landscape of that, there is very little that intrinsically unites musicians

this acknowledgement allows discussions about concerns among poorer musicians to exist without being completely shut down by someone who has different concerns, because they're not seen as the subject of the discussion unless they are respectfully contributing to it

one big reason for this being possible is that musicians are less respected than visual artists in the professional world

that might sound absurd if you only know of one landscape, but think of how many game (and movie, and tv, and etc. etc. etc.) franchises with identity-defining composers go on to swap out the composer at the first sign of a labour dispute, to very little protest as long as the quality of music isn't seen as dropping

hell, if someone else can copy your style satisfactorily, there's often no fuss at all! this leads to a pretty violent disillusionment with your place in the creative world

even beyond that, there exists an entire industry based around creating a parasitic body of IP landlordism for anyone whose music isn't attached to another product. the musician is, in a way that is deeply and thoroughly beaten into them, a labourer

the visual artist community (until recently) didn't tend to have this disillusionment, so it often follows the sway of its most popular and established members

in fact, the modern visual artist community as a broad cultural body is carved almost entirely from social media discussions that treat the community as one entity. accordingly, becoming established basically requires participation in this online entity

to further poison the well, the position of a visual artist is regularly talked about in spiritual terms rather than labour terms. there is something special that makes you a visual artist. it's the exact mentality that people rightfully made fun of in those ordinary people vs creative people comics. it's the unspoken cultural assumption that natural talent exists, even if most people would deny believing in it if put into explicit terms

while this does feel very good, it means that acknowledging labour-originated conflicts of interest is a bit rude

when a community unites itself around a spiritual core, it can't properly assert "your experiences are not applicable to what is being discussed and you should not be imposing yourself" because, by all metrics, an artist is a fundamentally unique demographic that can speak in all conversations about art

it's a warped form of anti-gatekeeping, a one-way gate through which you can strike down at other poor artists, but not up, enforced from below and framed as a desire for openness

the visual artist community's relative homogenisation of popular consensus is, on the whole, very very very bad for what it does to its norms. it hashes out and legislates within itself with an unspoken assumption that its most prolific members are simply further along the artist lifecycle, and therefore the most trustworthy

discussions with direct parallels ("is it okay to be obviously influenced by someone else's style?") come to much hazier conclusions which lean towards the opinions held by people with the most followers

most egregiously, this manifested in how visual artists react to piracy

the past ten years (in large part because of patreon making viable the paywalling of material behind a regular subscription) have been consumed by arguments about piracy that all seem to terminate in the assumption that piracy is theft, with little stratification of opinion between the hobbyist and professional scenes on this matter

this assumed spiritual core of the community is felt strongly in every conversation. look at the difference in attitudes around the distribution of cracked VSTs and the distribution of brush packs. hell, even on the corporate level, look at the difference in attitudes around pirating DAWs vs visual art programs

even when people are implying an approval of piracy, they find ways to frame it from a position of revenge on a company for something wrong it did, because they still need to conform to the community understanding of piracy as theft

individual visual artists can be (and often are!) more conscious of this stuff, but even then, people react with shock when these visual artists aren't horribly concerned about the possibility of their paywalled work existing on a torrent site

in a word, if you can see the ways these conversation spaces are different and similar, it's all so exhausting

[nickeverdeen]

Hey, could I get an imagine with Ekko x introverted!GN!reader who looks scary, serious and cold at first glance, but is actually just socially awkward and very geeky and silly once you get to know them? Like, they're very creative and love coming up with stories, as well as infodumping about random stuff they're into at the moment, like criminology or extinct animals.

Thanks!

Unmasking the Introvert | Ekko x gn!reader

Pairings: Ekko x gn!reader (romantic)

Type of fic: I’m not sure

Warnings: None

Summary: Ekko is slowly getting to know your true side

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Ekko had always been intrigued by you. From the first time he’d caught a glimpse of you in Zaun, he’d pegged you as the silent type, intense with that don’t-mess-with-me aura. You were usually found in the corner of any room you entered, often watching others with a gaze that could cut through glass. Most people didn’t get close enough to try talking to you, content with spreading rumors instead: some said you had a secret criminal past; others thought you might have alchemical powers that could hypnotize anyone with a glance.

But Ekko didn’t buy it. He knew better than most that appearances could be deceiving. So, he decided to talk to you himself, casually striking up a conversation at the Hideout one day after he’d noticed you tinkering with something in the corner.

“Hey, whatcha working on?” Ekko leaned over your shoulder, watching as your hands deftly tightened screws and adjusted wires.

Caught off guard, you jerked slightly, glancing up at him with wide eyes. But you quickly masked it, pulling up that familiar guarded expression, making Ekko smirk a bit. He wasn’t easily intimidated.

“Just… something I’m building,” you replied coolly, your voice steady but your eyes shifting nervously. “Helps me think.”

Intrigued, Ekko leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Mind if I watch?”

You didn’t answer immediately, but after a brief pause, you nodded. As he watched, you slowly began explaining each piece of machinery, your voice growing a bit stronger and more assured with each word. After a while, he noticed the hardened look in your eyes beginning to soften. By the time you’d finished the explanation, your whole demeanor had relaxed just a bit.

A few days later, Ekko bumped into you again, and you couldn’t help but launch into an animated explanation about something random you’d been reading about—extinct animals. Before you knew it, you were on a full-blown tangent about the Moa bird, a giant flightless bird from New Zealand that had been hunted to extinction centuries ago.

“They were enormous, like ten feet tall, with these long necks! And did you know their legs were so powerful that one kick could shatter bones?” Your eyes lit up as you spoke, hands gesturing wildly. “It’s kinda sad… but also fascinating how ecosystems just change when one creature disappears.”

Ekko just grinned, genuinely enjoying the infodump. He’d never expected that someone as intense-looking as you could be so endearing in such a nerdy way. “That’s cool, I didn’t know that. What got you into extinct animals?”

You shrugged, a small smile tugging at the corners of your mouth. “I just… like learning about things. And sharing them, even though I know most people think it’s boring.”

“Boring? Nah, I think it’s cool. You got any other fun facts up your sleeve?”

You blinked in surprise, before diving into your latest fascination—criminology. He listened as you passionately detailed the science behind forensic psychology, your eyes lighting up as you explained how criminals are profiled. At one point, you started mimicking a detective’s voice, spinning a little story about a fictional thief in Zaun who’d slipped through the Enforcers’ hands multiple times.

Ekko laughed, “You’d make a great storyteller. Ever thought of putting all these ideas into a book or something?”

The suggestion took you aback. “I don’t know… I just think people wouldn’t really get it.”

“Bet they would,” Ekko said with a reassuring smile. “And hey, even if they don’t, I’m all ears.”

Over time, your quiet bond grew stronger. Ekko made a habit of stopping by to hear your latest “random obsession,” and you found yourself looking forward to sharing with him, little by little letting go of the intimidating front you put up for the world.

One night, he found you on a rooftop, writing notes in a worn-out notebook by the light of the moon. You looked up as he approached, giving him a slight nod in greeting, but he could see the glint of excitement in your eyes.

“What’s on your mind tonight?” he asked, settling down beside you.

You paused for a second, before leaning in and saying, “Alright, so imagine this: a heist, set in Piltover, but the thieves are all masked vigilantes from Zaun… and they have this backstory, see, where they all have these ridiculous alter-egos…”

And as you spun your tale, Ekko watched you with a smile, feeling lucky to be the one who got to see you like this: genuine, animated, and maybe a little silly.