#this isn’t a criticism or anything

[fulltimesapphic]

Why is not one talking about how Kripke just ripped off his shapeshifter from season one of Supernatural for 04x07 for The Boys? Like the peeling of the skin and the eyes being weird? I’m watching the episode and just going man you’ve done this before what the hell (not a criticism or anything just funny to me)

[blackbirds-on-the-marsh]

I think it’s hilarious that a lot of the solarpunk aesthetic gifs people reblog on this site come from a commercial.

[shorthaltsjester]

ashton buying into the same ideology as ludinus but replacing predathos with the titans isn’t something i expected but upon further reflection perhaps has been obvious the whole time. ludinus and ashton holding hands as they illustrate freud’s account of melancholia as they are willing to step on whatever ants they need to in the name of gaining back the life they believe they are owed and which they are melancholic over the perceived theft of. get a hobby. go to therapy. certainly shut your damn mouth about being for the little guy or the powerless.

[goldkirk]

I don’t know how to explain any more clearly that it doesn’t MATTER if it seems legitimate to you. You have got to fact check every single headline and post and claim on the left just like you need to do on the right.

The left is NOT immune to misinformation and rushed reporting. And the more emotionally polarizing or shocking the talking points, sound bytes, and headlines are, the worse it is and more frequently it happens.

Learn to verify through multiple independent sources. If you can’t do that, you can’t trust it.

If you have to wait extra hours for the real information to come through vetted channels—NOT just one individual somewhere everyone links to, and not just one single media source either, EVEN if it’s a major news network—thats just how it has to be. What news outside of genuine local disasters near you TRULY needs your outrage and post-sharing in the next hour specifically?

Misinformation works best by not seeming like misinformation and by fitting in with the rest of what you already expect to see. It doesn’t help anyone to not be able to recognize and avoid the stuff.

[theminecraftbee]

actually, before I go to bed:

you know, it’s funny. this has all the TRAPPINGS of a life series game. it’s got a “secret life” name. it’s got all the same players. it’s go the countdowns, the colorful statements… but in rules, it’s not one. the logo doesn’t even have the three colors bit on it; the logo doesn’t even look like it’s in the same font. and why would it be? the concept of green, yellow, and red lives is gone entirely. the idea of a “bloodlust” role is gone. the idea of LIVES is gone, even—you only have one!

this has all the TRAPPINGS of a sanctioned life series game, but it’s missing the core elements of what made the life series the life series in the first place.

so as people start to pull together their lore for this one, may I propose:

what if it’s not one?

[worstloki]

AU where Loki doesn’t interfere with Thor’s banishment at all and it takes Thor years to prove himself worthy and when he returns to Asgard everything is just. The same. Nothing seems to have changed at all and everyone greets him like his absence was a minor obstacle that didn’t fundamentally change Thor and the worst part is Loki stepped down from the place as regent without any delay and Thor can’t help but feel there’s something underlaying the way his brother looks at him now and won’t let him touch him and Thor doesn’t know what he could have missed because he doesn’t think he would have found anything wrong with the things around him and how everyone behaves if he hadn’t spent time on Earth reflecting.

[theboykingsghost]

Brennan Lee Mulligan is to Rent Asunder as Matt Mercer is to Toothy Maw

[blue-likethebird]

The explanation for why totk’s story is so Not Great and how disconnected from its predecessor it feels being that the devs didn’t want to alienate new players who didn’t know anything about botw’s story just falls apart the more I think about it. Nothing from this stupid half a plot works unless the player is familiar with specific details from the better games that came before it.

The believability of Link and Zelda’s connection to each other hinges on you knowing about the nuance of their relationship in botw. The ancient sages fighting with the champions’ arms and divine beast helms will only be impactful to botw/aoc players because totk doesn’t bother to explain the significance of that callback at all. Fi’s cameo is meaningless unless you either got every memory in botw or finished the master trial dlc (and know about her from skyward sword). You’ll only get the full context of Teba being sidelined in favour of a 12-year old if you played a specific chapter of Age of Calamity’s second DLC. Like sorry but I think Nintendo just made a bad story tbh

[idkwhatimdoingbutrandom]

idk if I wanna participate in ever after high discourse lmao, but I do not hate Apple White, she was just written too well for her purpose 😭. She’s meant to be unlikeable.

She reminds me of those tiktokers that go ‘I was a young teen and had a racist phase like the rest of you :(‘ as if they weren’t oppressing other young teens!!! (edit: and tf you mean ‘we all had racist phases’ ????? 😭)

Raven was so patient literally humanizing herself to Apple. Apple has interacted with so many rebels that it shouldn’t be hard to respect their right of choice and it’s just so frustrating thinking about the fact that this so obviously has real world implications/ is inspired by our real world.

Apple White isn't this big bad evil villain that needs to be put down, she’s a cog in a system she’s been indoctrinated into believing works. Watching the way she functions is supposed to be frustrating because, a lot of the time, she isn’t right. She’s stubborn and confused and trying to find her place in the world like everyone else.

But I never read the books lol so I might be missing context lmao

[autism-crime]

Uncanny Vash fanarts : ominously staring, stood awkwardly hunched over, appearing behind people with no warning.

Me, who is autistic: hahaha, I do that.

[waterberry-strawmelon]

honestly I do kinda mourn the cool story beats we might’ve gotten if Riz and Kipperlilly had interacted more throughout this season, so I’m kinda hoping she comes back?

[aight-griffin]

Only Hazbin Hotel would give some radio motherfucker more devil coding than the literal devil.

[milquetoad]

how many times have we said ‘my god orym really is at his lowest low :(‘ during this campaign only for something to come along that just pounds him back into the dust even further somehow

[highabovethecloudssomewhere]

I just read “Loveless” by Alice Oseman as someone who’s aroace and I am. Struggling.

I was expecting to love the book and I’m so, so happy to see aromanticism/asexuality in the public eye, but as far as the story/characters went I was really struggling. Maybe I’m too old for it but I found it… very lackluster. The characters felt deeply one-dimensional and I did not like the protagonist at all.

If any of you have read this book and really enjoyed the characters, I would love to hear more about it. Maybe I’m just missing something. But also if any of you have recommendations for LGBTQA+ media with engaging characters and an engaging story I would love some recommendations.

I also just watched Nimona for the first time and I absolutely adored it. Would absolutely recommend it to anyone.

[theshadowsingersraven]

I had this drafted around elaingate, and now that my fever has finally broken, I can piece together my thoughts on the absurdity that is this fandom and the rhys week tamlin and rhys' sister piece debacle. Because, of course, no one has learned anything from elaingate to now, and it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

If there's one thing about this fanbase that I've noticed so far, it's that people will accidentally tell you exactly who they are in the most embarrassing way possible. What's the main takeaway in the overlap of the rhys week drama and elaingate?

Art, purity culture, and "victimhood." And people deciding who does and doesn't get to fall under the latter.

The thing that I appreciate about elaingate (and I guess Rhysgate??) happening is that it outs the people in this fanbase who don't see art that doesn't cater to them as having same rights as the art they do like/are comfortable with to be celebrated and appreciated in a community event about a character.

It outs people who only care about "protecting survivors" if their trauma conveniently matches what SJM believes to be abuse or trauma. It outs people as having the same performative inclinations of "protecting victims" as pro forced-birth/anti-choice pundits do. Rhysand’s sister, a nameless character, is the perfect "victim" to create an upheaval about because, like Elain, no one actually has to sacrifice anything or do any difficult self-reflection because fictional characters will never ask anything of you.

Remember this quote from Pastor David Barnhart? It's pretty relevant.

"The unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus, but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn."

Rhys' sister and Elain are the perfect vehicle for people to feel like they're "morally just" for "protecting" from...Tamlin. And people creating specific dynamics between these fictional characters, too, I guess. Because they're evil or whatever, I suppose.

"But, Raven!" I'm sure some of you are already scrambling to say. "There are real people in this fandom triggered by Tamlin, and they were hurt! They were so upset/disgusted that they left the fandom because people cared more about fictional ships than their triggers/feelings!"

And I'm going to hold your hand while I say this as a fellow survivor of DV.

No one is responsible for my triggers and caring for my own mental health other than me. And that applies to everyone else in this fanbase, too.

It's my responsibility to curate my online experience as much as possible to my own needs. This space is voluntary to be a part of, and if I no longer feel as though it's conducive to my mental health overall, then yeah, it's probably best for me to leave. Same with everyone else who felt like they shouldn't be in this fandom space because of the elaingate upheaval.

If people rightfully pointing out that this fanbase is extremely conservative and aligned with purity culture and morality policing to the point where art is policed in relation to celebrating a character during their own week is too much for someone because of the narrative around one of the characters involved...then yeah, it sounds like this isn't a good environment for them anyhow.

There's no judgment to be passed on the side rightfully saying this fandom is fucked up, whether or not people are ready to hear that. People saying art that features Tamlin in relation to another character event still has a right to be celebrated so long as that character in the event is depicted has no bearing on whatever real person Tamlin represents to the people that were triggered.

There's only so many ways people can actually be realistically protected from content that triggers them, and tagging is the most consistent way to do so. If the protection of tagging triggering content somehow still isn't enough for people when they might happen upon art depicting a character for one day out of a one-week period maybe is also still too potentially triggering for them, then maybe being in a fandom space isn't the best for their overall mental health and stepping away from it isn't a bad thing.

(And that's all without getting into why its totally fair for peoppe to question how true that ""stance"" of "protecting survivors" actually is when the Elain Week event's tagging system is consistently ignored and not used to actually protect survivors from triggering content. It's interesting how people spent more time angry at people who were adamant about the right to celebrate art instead of the event itself for not having a remotely thorough tagging system. How are you "protecting survivors" from triggering content, including yourself as the event runner, without tagging anything from character names to triggering content/events someone might view? Let's not forget how wide-spread triggers are, too. People have trigger warnings for content involving eyes or spiders due to phobias, not just events that they might have personally experienced, like violence.)

Back to the main point, however.

Issues like these out people as not understanding that creativity means bending the rules of canon however you want, because these are characters, not real people. But real people are making this art, and its value and worthiness of being celebrated is not up to anyone's personal discretion (including event runners) even in situations of discomfort.

It's a shame that the first upheaval happened regarding Elain since she's rarely appreciated outside of her ships anyway, but this Hell-hole of a fandom has had this coming for a while now. This is an absurdly conservative, rigid-to-canon, puritannical fandom, and unfortunately, Elain Week was the match that started this fire.

As a writer, I'm always going to have a hard stance on this because appreciating and celebrating art does not end where my personal likes and comforts do. Appreciation does not look the same for everyone, and just because it's not how you would personally celebrate a character does not mean it stops being appreciation or celebration. Your preferences are not and never will be the end-all-be-all of artistic appreciation in a fandom space. If you don’t see that, the block button is right there, and I've been using it very liberally.

You either stand for all of fandom integrity and creative works, or you don't deserve to be in this space. And I will very happily remove you from my space here since, as far as I'm concerned, you don't deserve to be in mine, either.

[squidsmeister]

my truest most honest conspiracy theory that I fully 100% believe is that they put Scott and Courtney together in tdas 1. because they needed a romance between two characters from different seasons and those were literally the only two they could’ve picked because every single other woman was in a relationship and out of lightning Scott and Cameron it’s unfortunately predictable they’d pick Scott and 2. they wanted to downplay the extremely lesbian activities Courtney and Gwen were getting into by going But Look She Likes Scott (even though she really only thought about him passively AND EVEN ADMITTED SCOTT WAS SO GROSS GWEN WOULD NEVER STEAL HIM FROM HER)