#this kind of behavior in fandom is so beyond gross all because hes the ‘wrong one’

[reyesranch]

i never go on twt for 911 stuff, but boy did i see tommy kinard on my trending page and the amount of people gleefully wishing for his death is so disgusting. like, they hate him more than the real fucking villains of the show. what vile, miserable people.

[sharonisthebettercarter]

you dehumanized madelyn stilwell without a problem

you should look into why you’re so much more likely to hate women and give men a pass for evil behavior

criticizing a character's action's =/= dehumanization/misogyny

being grossed out by the type a person stillwell was doesn't mean i thought she deserved to die or hate her for any reason beyond her actions, hell i don't even think shetty deserved to die and she was a bigger, genocidal piece of shit.

it means i felt more sympathy for her INNOCENT BABY SON and the guy and kids she helped FUCKING GROOM, along with all the RAPES she swept under the rug ( because of the deep) AND the way she treated STARLIGHT, and more than likely maeve as well, two other women that you just casually seemed to forget about. (and newsflash, she helped ENABLE and directly groomed homelander!!! she's partially fucking responsible for the way he turned out AND helped cover up some fo the shit he (and others) did!)

and madelyin doesn't have the reasoning of being tortured forever as a kid, it's implied she was well off and had a reasonably decent upbringing, yet she contributed to the grooming and torture of children (including her own child) and you're asking why i'd be disgusted by that while claiming i'd give men a pass?? seriously??

why, because i haven't made a rant about vogelbaum who's also fucking disgusting but at least showed some level of remorse for his actions apart from never on screen repeatedly sexually abusing someone?

or did you just miss how i'm constantly calling both homelander and billy giant pieces of shit? or the rants i've made about rape apologism in fandom and how people need to not fucking do that?

maybe you should look into why you'd give a woman a bunch of passes regardless of how many victims she had or people she hurt when she is criticized or ranted about ONCE as opposed to giving a shit about a single one of her victims (including other women)

oh, no wait, i'll answer it for you.

if you'd give a special pass to an abuser *because* she's a woman, you're a misogynist. possibly a misandrist too, if not just a general rape and grooming apologist, but *only* for women. so back to the selective sexism for ya.

the men don't get a pass, neither does she. she was a child abuser. so was vogelbaum. i just ain't the kind to sit around and play whataboutism and i certainly ain't fittin' to defend a rich white wasp woman because she succeeded at capitalism.

what the actual fuck is wrong with you anon.

[scoopsgf]

Literally though like anyone who hates on Jess and says he's boring, selfish, has no excuse for his behavior but then goes on to excuse characters like Logan or even DEAN for the way they behave around Rory throughout their relationship it's like, always obvious to me that they truly don't know wtf they're even saying most of the time. Like you can find a way to excuse Logan purely bc his father is shitty but you can't find it in you to understand why Jess is the way that he is when he had barely any parental figure as well as money? There's just zero reasoning for it beyond "well, I find this guy hot and I don't find that one hot", that's it. I'd be fine with it if people just were honest about it, and didn't just make up dumb bs about why Jess is the devil incarnate vs Logan the saintly Hamburger when Jess's behavior for the most part is just him being a kid who didn't grow up in a stable household in EVERY way.

LOGAN THE SAINTLY HAMBURGER babe… babe i love you i laughed out loud. but truly it’s so hypocritical and the complete lack of critical thinking skills is super obvious in shitty takes like that. everyone can have their fav and support them and whatever, but at least acknowledge when they’re genuinely a piece of crap human being? like, i can do that. jess was so wrong for the way he handled a lot of stuff in his and rory’s relationship, but unlike the other love interests there are reasons he sucked at communicating, reasons he shoved his emotions down, reasons he was insecure, reasons he prioritized work over school and (debatably) rory. dean has absolutely no excuse for emotionally, mentally, and verbally abusing rory over and over again, not to mention coercing her into sleeping with him. he made her afraid of him, he had her on edge and questioning/doubting herself constantly, he scared her. he was a horrible first boyfriend and a horrible guy for her to have had her first time with. i think most of the fandom can actually agree on that though, so it’s not really a hot take. logan, on the other hand, has way more people excusing his BS because it’s more subtle, because he’s more charming and suave, and because he’s rich and they’re projecting. he doesn’t have a great relationship with his dad and that sucks! and it did feed into the way he behaved sometimes, but when I really look at logan objectively all i see is someone who’s irresponsible, who refuses to take accountability for their mistakes and is determined to push the blame onto others, who acts way too immature for his age and seems to take pleasure in humiliating others (the stunt with rory in her classroom is a great example of this), who isn’t aware of his own privilege and abuses it to a point that’s actually kind of gross (sinking his father’s yacht, barely trying in his classes at yale/not contributing to the paper even though he’s able to attend an ivy league school), and who just… doesn’t understand rory at all. jess undoubtedly messed up a lot the first go around, but the difference is that he actually made an effort to better himself. he owned up to his mistakes, he changed his behavior, he matured, he made something of himself just like rory believed he would, and he saw rory and loved her unconditionally, even with her faults. we see the opposite with logan in the revival—he’s still up to his same old crap, he’s willing to put rory in the uncomfortable situation of being the “other woman” (and therefore doesn’t value her or respect her at all); he cheats on his fiancé and lies to just about everyone in his life, he’s unreliable and smarmy and just… idk, he grosses me out, but that’s def more of a personal reaction than a universal one. anyway, tl;dr: jess was a messy teenage kid when he dated rory for the first time, but he shaped up and became more right for rory than any of her other love interests (and even when they were teenagers he was still soulmate material, he just needed to wisen up and gain some self-confidence).

[the-black-bulls]

(If you’ve already gone into detail about this on another post, you can just link that as your answer)

What exactly are the differences between Anime and Manga Gauche? The anime doesn’t divert much from the source material, just adds onto it with filler. Did they change his lines or something and I just never noticed? And I can think of some additional anime scenes with him but none I’d say that mess with his character.

This is complicated.

I mean. I love Gauche a lot, I still hate his character in the anime with a burning passion, so there's definitely something not right with him because I'm clearly a shameless Gauche stan, but I'll try to go into detail in this post.

Fair warning: long post.

The issue with Gauche in the anime is not just one or two additional anime scenes, or one filler episode, or one aspect of his character.... it's everything, all of these put together, the "Gauche" in the anime is in and of himself the issue, the "vibes" and "interpretation" the anime is shoving to his character is an issue, even the anime details that are supposed to be used as good things about his character usually end up harming him in the long run because this is not how his character meant to be seen and written in the manga. Furthermore, the anime established a couple things with Gauche's character, things that are recognized in the fandom as undisputed facts, as canon and "things that Gauche would do", most of these things are either not even in the manga, or are in the manga but never meant to last or interpret the anime way, and these things end up harm, undermine, or even change Gauche's character for better or for worse. Something along the lines of "Gauche's nosebleed equals caring" because first, it's not, and second, the anime uses this excuse to overuse the nosebleed so much while pretending it's wholesome, and third, no it doesn't make it fine or justify the anime milking the hell out of this off putting and gross trope, if the manga toned down the nosebleed to the point of nearly nonexistence why doesn't the anime just do the same? I bet anime only will be surprised to know that Gauche nosebleeds for at best seven times in the entire manga.

The most notable issue with Anime Gauche is the "siscon" trope. His character in the anime is almost always reduced to a one-dimension siscon personality he used to have in the manga before his arc and character development, so he'll always bring up his sister every time he's in screen and every time he's with someone or doing something and most of these moments are so randomly weird in all the wrong levels, like how he once said he wants to eat his sister. In contrast, Manga Gauche has long since developed beyond this trope to the point that you will see him have normal conversations and chill with the bulls without mentioning his sister or looking at a picture of her.

I don't say Manga Gauche is "free" from these scenes, but they're not nearly as overwhelming as they are with Anime Gauche. And how this mess with his character? Because the anime added so much "siscon" scenes with Gauche that are almost always attached with nosebleed or creepy lines, even jerk behaviors sometimes, which after repeated and used almost every time he's in screen one will end up believing that he's still an underdeveloped character when it's not true, or that he's an empty character without depth and this is also not true, or they simply conceals his potential to be likeable. On the other hand, while not a saint Manga Gauche never gets close to that level of creepiness and cringe-ness, the level that tell you he's the kind of guys who will look at pictures of his sister any time any place even in the bathroom, or the type of guys who will take advantage of Grey's transformation magic as exchange of his help.

It's like... in the anime there are two types of Gauche, the one who's following the manga, and the one who's playing the "siscon" trope. The second overwhelms the first. In the manga, it’s different, because both types of Gauche and any other types blend in perfectly. He’s still a siscon but he’s also someone who has been getting a solid writing and constant build up, someone who does not need to play off the siscon jokes all the time like he used to be before his arc because he's changing and he’s not the same. And even if these additional filler scenes from the anime do work with his character in the source material (they don't), they're either harmless gags that add nothing to his character at best, or issues that change the canon writing of his character and undermine his canon development at worst. When Gauche in canon takes a step forward with his character, the anime comes and makes him step backward the next time he's in screen with these scenes. This leads some fans to wonder "when will Gauche finally develop?" or "I hope Grey will make Gauche care about other people beside Marie", and both points are already, explicitly, outwardly, happened in canon... multiple times!

In short, as a result of all of this, the writing of Anime Gauche is messy and unbalanced at best, poorly executed and harmful at worse, and the "creepy pervert siscon guy 24/7" personality the anime shoves into his character naturally leads some fans to hate him because this part of his personality overwhelms what BC the manga is doing right and great with his character.

As for the changed lines, I'm not well familiar with the anime but my friend told me the anime deleted some of Gauche's build up panels with other characters and changed them with "siscon" stuff to milk his trope. I looked for specific examples and I find these in another app.

Not probably what you asked for but they give you a clear idea of (How the Manga sees Gauche Vs. How the Anime sees Gauche):

I hope this answer your question. You're welcome to further discuss or ask more things about Gauche, and the same goes with everyone who read this post.

[agent-cupcake]

Hey AC! I love your blog and was wondering if I could get your opinion on something. I've seen some people complaining that Ingrid and Hilda are treated by the fandom, with Ingrid stans saying that Hilda is also racist towards Almyrans (which, granted, she is) but doesn't get nearly as much hate about it as Ingrid does. But personally I feel like their attitudes and the way they react towards Dedue/Cyril are wildly different and Hilda generally seems less hateful/irrational about it. Thoughts?

This is... kind of a touchy topic... I like it though! It’s worth discussing, especially since I feel like it’s broke criticism to simply deflect blame onto a character in order to prop up another.  Full and obvious disclosure: I very much dislike Ingrid and very much love Hilda. That said, I don’t think it’s fair to compare them for the sake of which is worse. I fall into the trap of character criticism through comparison far too often and it's not really valid unless you can fully explore each character in their own right beforehand. Which is why, while writing this, I came to the conclusion that the ways these two characters are interpreted and the reason people view their racist tendencies differently has far more to do with the characters themselves than their actual beliefs.

From first impressions to subsequent playthroughs, this is pretty much how I feel about Ingrid: she brings up her hatred of the Duscur people and Dedue unprompted and uncontested several times at the very beginning of the game, putting it front and center to her character. This is important, it sets a foundational component for how I could come to view her. According to her introduction, she is honorable and respectful, a model lady knight trope. But, as mentioned, she's really racist. Literally standing around thinking about how awful it is that Dimitri would trust a man of Duscur because they are all bad people. Yikes. And nobody calls her on it. Again, this is very important for perception. People judge Sylvain for his bad behavior in a much more harsh way than they do Ingrid for her vitriolic loathing for another classmate who we have seen as nothing but respectful. It's weird. And then, despite the fact that her close friend Sylvain was able to reason out that it’s not possible for the Duscur people to be at fault for the Tragedy, despite the fact that the prince of the country she supposedly hopes to serve with unwavering respect and loyalty has made it clear that he does not believe that Dedue or Duscar are responsible for the Tragedy, and despite the fact that Dimitri, her close friend and the one most affected by the Tragedy (seriously, she lost a guy she might have married and he lost his best friend, mother, and watched his father be killed in front of his eyes) continuously insists that neither Dedue nor Duscur are at fault, she loudly and openly believes that the ensuing massacre of Duscur was deserved and Dedue is inherently culpable simply because of his race. Her motivations for this hatred feel even more cheap considering her dogged hero worship for Glenn was born out of the fact that she was promised to him, making the fact that she’d use his death as reason enough for the destruction of countless innocent lives even more unsympathetic in my eyes. I mean, seriously, she was around 13 and he was older than her, how close could they have truly been? Dimitri says they were in love, but she was a child. Abandoning my modern sensibilities about age of consent or whatever, kids at that age don't have the emotional or mental capability. Maybe this is just nitpicking, but I have a very hard time caring about that relationship. But, if her actual justification is because of what happened to Faerghus as a result of the Tragedy and feels duty-bound as a knight to find justice through the systematic destruction of the Duscur people, then it just circles back to confusion considering the future leader of said country doesn't hold Duscur or Dedue responsible. The importance of perception comes in because despite these paper thin excuses and her seemingly willfully ignorant hatred, she is never challenged on her racist beliefs. The reason she seems to change her mind about Dedue and consider that maybe excusing a genocide is wrong stems from guilt that Dedue continuously comes to her aid in battle at the potential cost of his own life. I can understand, to a certain extent, why she might feel the way she does. But, again, I have such a hard time with any justification when nobody that she's close to is even nearly as hateful as her, there is plenty of evidence (evidence that the people close to her have found!) to provide a very reasonable counterclaim to Duscur's guilt, and that none of that even matters when it would require her to openly contradict the prince of her country to make the claim that Dedue was in any way complicit in the Tragedy. Which would be fine if she wasn't established as the model Lady Knight archetype, which also brings us into Ingrid's moral high horse. Admittedly, I hate the Lady Knight trope. I have a significant bias against these types of characters. However, I really do think that this moral crusade is where she lost me completely. Without even a shred of empathy or self awareness, she lectures Sylvain about his shitty behavior even though their circumstances are at least somewhat similar and he has his reasons (bad ones, maybe, but ones worth understanding if she actually cares about him), she lectures Felix about not being interested in knightly endeavors (an aspect of his character that is born of the trauma she has appropriated), and she lectures Claude about behavior that is befitting of a man in his position. Not because she cares about the girls Sylvain is hurting, not because she thinks there are any grave stakes from Felix choosing to do his own thing, and not because she knows that Claude's behavior affects his ability to lead, but because she doesn't like these behaviors and thinks they should be fixed. Yet, at the same time, she believes Dedue deserved to lose his family, country, and culture based on his birth and nobody ever does anything to morally correct her, it is something she eventually is forced to acknowledge on her own. It's frustrating, infuriating even, that the game lets her get away with being so grossly hypocritical. And, all the while, she is being painted as sympathetic. Again, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for her about Glenn, and I certainty don't feel sympathetic towards her issues about marriage because there's never any actual tension there. Of course she won't be forced to marry, she's a Lady Knight. Beyond being unsympathetic, I also find her massively unlikable. Awful design, poor voice direction, food-loving-as-a-personality-trait, the fact that she's written as one of those stock "feminist" characters who hate makeup and girly things until it benefits them, and constantly butting in on other characters to give her opinion without taking any criticism herself are all aspects that I just personally dislike. Ultimately, Ingrid being racist is only a symptom of the many reasons her character is one of my least favorites. Most of these points can be countered by someone who doesn't take issue with the things that annoy me and to point out that Ingrid DOES get over her racist beliefs. It's not fair to say that she doesn't change but, for me, the damage was already done by the time she became tolerable so I still have a hard time appreciating her. My assumption would be that there are a lot of other people who feel similarly to me regarding their dislike of Ingrid so they focus on one easy character flaw, her being racist at the beginning of the game, as a reason to validate their dislike of her overall.

On the other hand, Hilda's racism isn't a main trait of her character. It's related to her overarching character flaws, but she doesn't bring it up unprompted and can actually be pretty much missed without the Cyrill supports. Like you said, Hilda does seem less hateful and irrational, it doesn't take willful malice and an active rejection of reason for Hilda to dislike the Almyrans, they pose a genuine and provable threat to her family and territory, seemingly senselessly testing the borders and throwing away lives for the sake of conquest. To be clear, her "you're not like those OTHER Almyrans" schtick is legitimately nasty. Her behavior is gross and condescending and it really underscores the fact that Hilda is ignorant, lazy, inconsiderate, and incredibly comfortable in her privilege. She accepts what she's been told at face value because she's too lazy to look into it further. Cyrill does tell her she's stupid to think that way, though. Which is satisfying because Hilda in those supports is insufferable, it really highlights the worst aspects of her character, dismissive, manipulative, and very selfish. However, for me, she's also very likeable. I'm not interested in going over my opinions on her like I did with Ingrid as I don’t feel it’s as important to my point but a few reasons I really like her is because I think Hilda has a fantastic design, cute supports, amazing voice work, and is secretly sweet in a way that absolutely tickles my fancy. I am sure many people do not agree with me, which is fine. Additionally, just as Ingrid grows out of her racist beliefs, so does Hilda. They both end the game as more tolerant and caring people. Still, for the same reason a person could argue that Ingrid is actually great and I'm being unfair, they could argue that Hilda is terrible and I'm too biased. That's fair and true..... but I think the fact that Hilda is more generally appealing in conjunction with the less obvious nature of her racist attitude makes people less likely to dismiss her as a racist in the same way they do Ingrid. Unless they dislike Hilda, in which case, it’s all fair game.

Anyyyways, a main takeaway from this is that I highly doubt people are truly arguing on the individual basis of who's more racist, but that they're engaging in the age old waifu war. As with many characters in this game, it's easier to argue moral superiority when you can't quite articulate what you like or don't like about a character. Or, even worse, when you're arguing opinion. Even now, as is clear by reading this, I am arguing my opinion of why I don't like Ingrid. Not because she's racist, but because of the character traits and writing choices that make her unlikable to me. I like Hilda because, flaws and all, I find her to be compelling and enjoyable. From the people that I know, at least, that is basically how the Ingrid stans v Hilda racism argument is structured, even if they dress it up in different language.

By the by Hilda never talks about how the Almyrans deserve to be wiped out. I think that probably sours a lot of people's opinions of Ingrid no matter what happened afterward but that’s fine we can just pretend that didn’t happen

[missn11]

So I’m going to be a killjoy and talk negatively about Himbos for a bit or rather how fandom and people tend to view them, cause the last I saw about Himbos and some of the comments actually made me feel a some type of way.

I’m very sorry if I come off as shamey towards people who love Himbos and/or have characters they would call Himbos, I’m merely having a rant about how over used the term can be used at times.

Namely, in one person’s words, “and he never changes” and this creeped me out and I wanna talk about why that is.

So from what I understand what a Himbo is a kind hearted, attractive man of low intellligence, a contrast to the assholish, smug, pseudo-intellegent man who thinks they know everything and won’t admit they are wrong no matter what.

So easy enough right, but in reality not all people who are shall we say ‘dumb’ are kind, a lot of them are actually hurtful in their willful or unkowably ignorance and some of them are really nasty. In short while there are so many ‘smart’ people who are assholes so are there many asshole dumb people, God you can just go on a Reddit threat like AITA to find them!

But also, another thing we have to take into account, not all male characters who are labled as ‘Himbos’ are dumb, some have tunnel vision when it comes to their goals, and that makes them not always think things through, others are uneducated or culturally ignorant of a country’s social cues (and perhaps the only reason they sound ‘dumb’ to you is that they might not have for example a grasp of english, isn’t that kind of fucked up to call someone ‘dumb’ because they are still learning a second language and a whole another culture???) and also we have to acknowledge that some of them might be non-neurotypical too, so that makes me really uncomfortable to say the least to have them be called ‘dumb’ when they are merely different from the norm.

Also, why can’t a character be smart and emotionally intellegent as well? That’s kind screwed up to me that we have this binary where someone who is intellegent can’t be kindhearted but a person who isn’t intellectual but is able to have a heart of gold. Of course, it’s better to have more people who are compassionate and emotionally intellegent and honestly we need more of that frankly, but why at the cost of their intellegence? A truly smart person will admit when they don’t know something and be willing to learn or ask for help. But of course, a Himbo will actually realise that they need help and will ask without assuming that a woman doesn’t know anything and will actually respect her knowledge and I think that’s a good Himbo trait.

But let me get back to what I was creeped out about this comment “and he never changes” , I find it kind of gross that no-one, anyone no matter the gender, would want their partener/friend to even have the chance to grow as a person, honestly if you heard a man say that about his ignorant girlfriend, you would rightfully call him out on his sexism and creepy behavior! Trust me it’s an ideal that is worrisome and impossible, as no matter what a person will change throughout their lifetime for better or worse. And would you want someone to never grow and be stagnant, they can still be a kind person but perhaps wiser.

And let’s not forget another thing, someone that helpless in life that you need to constantly teach them everything, will get mentally tiring after a while. Provided that the person is acutally able to remember or willing to remember what you have taught them, cause if they can’t, they have memory problems which that need to be looked into, faking being ‘dumb’ or etc, etc, either way it’ll be exhausting to deal with daily!

Also, I’ve seen enough stupidity in my time to put me off the idea that it’s ever cute to deal with frankly, like I’ve said not all ‘dumb’ people are emotiaonally intellegent, a lot of them aren’t! And also, how emotianoally and intellectually stimulating are they in a relationship, again depending on the person the answer might be yes or no.

So, I had mentioned some men pretending to be ‘dumb’ so their so usually their wife will have to do everything, cooking, chores and looking after babies/children. Remember about that post about the man who pretended that he didn’t know how to make deviled eggs so his wife had to cook them rather than simply telling her he liked it when she made them?

You could say the post about the man who worked hard to make his wife the perfect breaded chicken cutlets is a Himbo, though we don’t know how intellegent he is, he could be real smart, but what we do know is that he cares about his wife and has the emotional intellegence to show it!

I think the thing is that we want more men/people to be respectful and emotionally intellegent towards woman’s/other people’s and you know what that’s beyond vaild but does it have to come at the cost of a person’s knowledge?

And labeling a character a Himbo is ignoring all of their characteristics and depth, therefore shutting down any meta discussion around in favor of a easy box we can place them in.

[shinystarfishpenguin]

An Explanation Not Due

So, I just wanted to rant about why I hate Dirk.  Now, a lot will probably come up later because I just got to the Alpha Kids in my latest HS reread, and nobody is reading this nor cares, but why the hell not write this, what’d to be lost?  Also, it’s been a looong time since I’ve been this far in the comic, let alone beyond, so I’m probably going to get things wrong, or forget things, or whatever.

Now, another clarification: Post-canon doesn’t exist and if it did, it would be utterly garbage.  I read the epilogues, and at some point I’ll probably get around to reading HS^2, but based on the Epilogues and everything I gather from Tumblr, it’s not for me, and despite what it may sound like based on how many times I’ve embarrassingly read Homestuck proper, I’m not a complete masochist.

Now on to Dirk proper.  What’s wrong with him?  Let’s start with the attitude.  He’s a narcissist, plain and simple.  Does it make sense?  Yes, for someone in his position that’s totally reasonable.  Is it still annoying af?  Absolutely.  He doesn’t himself actually feel all that important so he overcompensates to an extreme degree with several layers of “irony” involved.  He’s the epitome of the “you wouldn’t get it” stereotype that thinks that all his shit is so far above everyone and instead of being all cool about it he hangs that above everyone’s head to not only put himself up, but also push everyone down.  And it’s not like an occasional thing that we could shrug off as not being socially adept due to his upbringing, it’s constantly happening, and he seems to get off from it.  It’s like that idyllic hipster attitude that everyone claims to hate, but also seems to love when it’s them holding the attitude.  And certainly, I’m guilty of that myself.  I love having my own little bits that other people don’t/wouldn’t understand.  But I don’t, or at least try not to, constantly hold that above others’ heads.

And he’s jealous, too.  If I recall correctly, when he and Jake were together, he was suffocating Jake with his attention, while still maintaining the attitude of superiority, which is abusive af.  And sure, this is another thing we can attribute to his upbringing of, you know, literally being alone for his entire life.  It’s not unreasonable to assume that someone whose entire communication was composed of online chats, that when they came to meet in person and got in a relationship, boundaries would be very difficult for them.  That’s fair, I’ll cede that.  My issue isn’t necessarily that he was like that, but he’s the first openly gay human (I’m pretty sure his sexuality came to light before Rosemary became canon, but I may be wrong about that) and he’s super aggressive to his partner, and if I remember kind of guilted Jake either into the relationship to begin with, or guilted him into staying in the relationship.  Again, that’s beyond the scope of what I’ve read this time around and it’s been a long time since I read that portion of the comic.  So he’s the first openly LGBT+ character, and he’s abusive to his romantic partner.  Great representation there, Hussie and Co.

Now let’s talk about the community for a sec.  The Homestuck fandom is not historically remembered for being the best fandom in the land.  I’m glad I was never part of the cosplaying or the cons, but I was part of it and I was part of the problem.  That said, how the community treated the Striders as a whole was that they were soooo cooool and could do no wrong.  So when Dirk was portrayed in fan media, all his problems were ignored.  Now, this problem certainly extended beyond the Striders, let’s not be coy, but I felt it was most prevalent with the Striders, and considering my previous point about Dirk being gay and his status as an abuser, he kept the good and the community just...ignored the bad.  Now this is a problem that’s also prevalent with Vriska, whom I adore as a character now.  But I take the bad with the good with her, and let’s be honest, the community has gotten a lot better with acknowledging her faults, at least since I’ve gotten back on Tumblr.  And that may be true for Dirk, I go on Tumblr to see content I want to see, so a lot of Dirk stuff is not in my periphery.  It was just very frustrating to see a character that could have been so good and could have been presented so well just have his characterization butchered by the fanbase.  All that said, this was not so much a problem with Dirk himself, so much as the fanbase at that time as a whole.

Now, side note: I used to feel the same way with Dave and Vriska, and I’ve certainly come around on Dave AND Vriska, and if during this reread I come back around on Dirk, that would be great.  I want to like all the characters, I just don’t.  And Dirk is the one that just so happens to be harboring the brunt of my ire right now.

One of the biggest problems with how I see Dirk as written, is that I see Hussie in Dirk.  And I don’t know anything about Hussie.  But Dirk seems to be another one of his “splinters” in the story.  There’s his self-insert and Doc Scratch and Lord English and they’re all kind of traditionally villainous in their own right, but there’s just something about Dirk being one, that he’s one of the kids, albeit Alpha kids, and he plays this part of Hussie’s splinter that just seems...gross?  I don’t really know what it is about it it just doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem like a natural character in the world/universe/multiverse that is the Homestuck canon.  And yes, I get that every character of any written work is by their very nature a kind of splinter of the author, my point is that Dirk just seems a little too on the nose for being one of the kids.

And I think my final point is that I know someone in real life who is very much like Dirk.  Always lording how much better they are and how much better their taste is and their opinion is always right and my opinion, if it differs, is just wrong, and not a different opinion.  It’s exhausting.  I lived with this guy for a while, we’d been friends for a long time and even though it was exhausting, I still liked him before I lived with him.  And, granted, so many of the problems that we had were my fault.  I was going through a really difficult time and myself brought a lot of problems into the house.  The thing is, though, the part that probably hurts the most and connects the best between him and Dirk, is when my roommate and friend, a cis-man, hit on me, a transwoman, and I rejected him, and he managed to subtly turn it around on me and caused problems and eventually kicked me out of the house.  Just the connection with the psychological abuse that Dirk literally commits in the comic and the abuse that I went through, and that just goes completely gets ignored.

Everything above notwithstanding, I think Dirk is fine as a character.  He’s kind of lazily written, tbh I think his Autoresponder was written better and had a better arc, at least before...You know.  But Dirk proper is fine.  Not great, not necessarily poorly written.  Milquetoast is how I would describe him, if I’m being honest.  But I don’t like him.  I hope that changes as I read his character arc as a more mature adult (”mature adult” reading Homestuck), maybe I’ll be able to see something more that I glossed over previously.  I want to like him, and a lot of my own issues are personal if I’m being really honest about it.  But I can’t look at him and see a cool guy like the fan media oft portrays him as.  I do see a guy that was destined to be fucked up and is hurting.  But pain and hurt and abuse can’t excuse all behavior.  It doesn’t work that way.

Thank you, this has been my TED Talk.

[ellstersmash]

Three: Fifteen

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Solas x f!Lavellan (Modern!AU)

Rating: overall E for Explicit | this chapter T for Teen

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--

    [  Results were inconclusive. Again. Any last-minute suggestions?  ]

Athi reads the message from Solas, then reads it again. Is ready to send back [???] but her phone buzzes again before she has the chance.

    [  Apologies. That was not intended for you.   ]

She smirks—

no shit

—deletes her question, taps out a response.

    [  :* i miss u too   ]

    [  oop sry. wrong #   ]

    [  Ha Ha.   ]

    [  sry bout ur results :(   ]

    [  Thank you. What are you doing today?  ]

“That Solas?” Sera says, not bothering to look up from her unbroken line of yellow glitter glue. “Tell him to suck it.”

    [  arts n crafts   ]

Athi snaps a quick picture of the mess they’ve made in their living room and sends it to him.

    [  sera says suck it   ]

    [  Of course she does.  ]

“He says hi.”

Sera gags dramatically. “Thought you wanted to help with all this, not flirt with your boyfriend.”

A snotty retort itches behind Athi’s teeth but she stifles it. Rolls her eyes instead and tosses her phone aside, the device bouncing once to rest face-down on the sofa cushion. She picks up a thick black marker with pungent permanent ink, and gets back to work filling in the block letters Sera lined earlier.

Her boyfriend. Gods, but that sounds strange. Childish. Like they go on dates behind the primary school, or pretend not to be having sex in the room down the hall from someone's parents’. And yet she finds herself giddy at the thought. To be fair, it’s all she has for the moment. The thought. He's off on some adventure, and she's stuck here. Again. They'd only had that one perfect day, breakfast and window shopping and holding hands like real life lovers under trees full of dry rainbow leaves fluttering their applause. And then he took a phone call and went home to pack and left first thing in the morning.

She wonders just how often this happens.

How important could it be? Not like a bunch of ancient artifacts are going to up and wander off if he can’t go poke at them right away. A mental note to ask him later, and she moves this poster to the pile of finished ones and exchanges it for another that says “YOUR VILLAGE —> OUR CITY.” Cute, though maybe a smidge too reliant on humans knowing their history.

“Sure you don’t want to come?” Sera asks.

“That’s not—” Athi sighs. “I told you, I have work.”

“Yeah, but isn’t this more important?”

“I don’t know. Do you want rent paid?”

Sera quiets, kicking her legs back and forth as she works. Her glue bottle sputters, spits shimmer all over. A frustrated grunt and she tosses it aside, rolls onto her back.

“I’m just saying you should care is all. ‘S not going to get any better if nobody makes noise, and nobody’s making it for us.”

“Us?" Athi scoffs. "When we met, you said—and I quote—‘So glad you’re not one of those elfy elves.’”

“Yeah, well, therapy’s all right. Besides, it’s not for elves, or not just. It’s for whoever gets stepped on. That means us.”

“I didn’t know you were in therapy.” 

“Maybe I don’t tell you everything," Sera mutters. “Thought of that?”

Athi caps her marker and lays it down. It’s just a feeling, but it's nagging. Persistent. Like and yet unlike the one she still gets when her papae calls her by her full name. Isalathena Sulahnera Lavellan, come here this instant, and it’s heavy on her chest, sitting right on top of her breastbone. Guilty, but she's not.

“What’s wrong?” she asks. Throws it out there before the feeling gets stale and she decides it's something she can live with.

“Nothing.”

“Right, ok, except for it’s not, so come on. Let's get it out and over with.”

Sera sits up, blonde hair sticking out in a couple new directions. “What’s your problem?”

“You! You’ve been acting weird all week, Ser. Haven’t come in for lunch or been home at night, responded to texts—”

“If you think I want to be in the next room while you and—”

“Oh, so you have a problem with Solas? That was one—”

“No!” Sera groans in frustration. “I mean, yeah, he is kind of old, and talks about old stuff a lot, and he’s all”—she straightens her spine into an uncomfortable posture, then slouches again—“but I like him well enough.”

"Then what?"

Sera stares at her hands for a while. Then out the window. Then at the wall. Then back at her hands. Athi’s patience is thin on a good day, and it takes a lot of willpower to keep quiet as Sera opens her mouth and closes it again, false start after false start.

Finally, Sera blurts out: “I want to ask Dagna to move in.”

Athi has no idea what she was expecting, but not that. Searching for some way to relate it to her own behavior, to justify her feeling or shove it aside, she takes so long to form a response that Sera begins to fidget.

“You what?” she asks at last, thoroughly stumped.

“I want to ask Dagna—”

“Yeah, I…” Athi tries to catch up, shuffles through the past month as best as she can in the pause between. “Here?”

Sera squints at her like she's stupid, but that's fair. It was a stupid thing to say. 

“No, my mother's. Yes here!” 

“I’m sorry, I didn't realize you two were dating again. What’s it been, a year since you broke up?” 

“Yeah. You were out at your friend’s place. Better you missed the makeup sex, though, yeah? More room for fun.” 

At first Sera’s cheeky grin has Athi smiling too. It’s a relief to talk about someone else’s shit instead of her own, but then Sera glances toward the couch and—

Oh.

Oh gods, she wouldn’t have . . . would she?

Athi gets up for a glass of water, makes it two at Sera’s request. Sits cross-legged on the coffee table when she comes back. Just to be safe.

“Isn’t it a bit fast?” she asks.

“Maybe. Doesn’t feel fast, though. If you add 'em all up it's been like, a few years or something, so it sort of works out to normal. If you think about it.”

“I guess.”

Sera empties her glass in one go. “Her lease is up next month,” she says.

Athi nods. “Right. So soon, then. Um… and if it doesn’t work out?” She leaves out the again, but it’s implied.

“But that’s why I should do it! See, I keep losing her because I’m not in. She was serious about us, but I kept messing around. Don’t even know why, really.” She looks on the edge of losing her momentum, halfway to introspection, then snaps back into the room. “But therapy! So this time, like Wicked Grace, right? I’m all in and she’ll see I mean it. And then it’ll work out.”

Her logic isn’t quite flawed but it’s far from perfect. Still, friends don't tell friends to be afraid. Especially when those friends have clearly put a lot of thought into their dynamic-altering life-changing decisions. So Athi drops the questions.

“Wow,” she says instead. “I didn’t know you felt that way about her.”

Sera shifts into soft focus and smiles, a faraway look in her eyes. “Me either.”

She seems so certain. Satisfied, and happy. Really, truly happy. And it’s kind of fucking beautiful.

Feeling overcome for no good reason, Athi goes back to her task. Long thick careful black lines, then short ones. She marks a pattern with them to make it less work and more play. Not that anyone will see unless they’re trying. And as she makes the spaces solid, a thought occurs to her.

“So,” she says, bright. Like it’s no big deal. “Do you want me to move out?”

“What? No! Course not. Why would you say that?”

There’s no time to answer. After so much silence, Sera bubbles over with unused conversation. 

“I mean, do you want to move out? You’re not moving in with Solas are you? Gross. Definitely too fast for that one. Bet he wants to get married first, in a chantry and everything. Is he Andrastian, do you know? Where is he, anyway? He travels a lot for work, right? Must be nice. Wonder if his job pays for it. Is he gone now?”

Too many questions, so Athi answers the last one.

“Yeah. Flies in late tonight. He’s picking me up after work.”

Sera snorts. “What, picking you up? So you wouldn’t get up to take him in, huh? Good girl. Stay strong. Trust me, you drive him once and you're in for forever.”

“No, he didn’t even ask. Figured he’d take a cab or something, but I guess he drove himself.”

“And paid for parking? What’s he, loaded?”

Athi grins and crosses her fingers.

“Real nice. I’m serious, Ath, that’s some weird psychopath shit. Nobody drives their own self to the airport. No one who has friends, anyway.”

"I think he's just used to being alone.”

“Way to make it sad.”

"Alone doesn't mean sad."

"It kind of is though. But then, he’s got people, right? Like Varric, and, well... I don’t know. People.”

Athi shrugs. “Habits can be hard to break, especially when you’re not trying.”

“Ooh. Very wise today."

"Shut up."

"I mean it!"

She doesn’t tell Sera about the other things. The books covering all his furniture. The busted bathroom door that he removed rather than replaced. The singular coaster on his side table. The way he forgets to be hospitable, then overcorrects, asks her if she needs anything three times in a row. His house, his life, is not prepared for the presence of others. Not meant to host company or take in strays or accommodate a lover, meant for him and his needs and his convenience and no more.

And she’s honestly not sure if that makes her an exception or an intruder.

--

“Woah.”

The door slams shut behind her. Very nearly catches her in the ass but she happened to freeze just beyond its reach.

The place is gutted. Or maybe it's not? Ceiling and walls are fine and nothing she can place is missing, tables and chairs and bottles of booze all present and accounted for, but it looks fucking empty. And clean, though she can’t tell if that’s real or just the lack of tasteless decor.

“I know, right?” Tali dumps a bucket of ice in the bin with the rest. “It was like this when I showed up today.”

Athi drifts in slow, perturbed by the smell of cleaning solution and the lack of clutter. Hangs her purse on the coat rack just inside the office, her jacket on top of that. Pulls her hair back, ties her apron, washes her hands.

“Were we robbed?” she asks, only half joking.

“Technically, that would be a burglary.”

“Were we burglarized?”

“You know,” Tali says, “If someone broke in just to take those awful knick-knacks and creepy pictures Seggrit had up, I say more power to ‘em. Enjoy your ghosts, thief!"

Athi giggles. “Worst was the cabin.”

“Are you kidding? I couldn’t even look at that family one. The kid’s vacant stare, blessed Andraste, I wanted to flip it around every time I walked in that door. And you know that cat had seen things. I mean, did Seggrit know them? Why were they on our wall?”

"Somebody had to keep an eye on us."

"And make sure we weren't flirting with tall handsome customers in the back alley?" Tali grins, tongue stuck out between her teeth.

"Why? You make that a habit too?"

Tali wrings out and refolds her bar towel. “Ok, sweetie. Keep your secrets. I'll get my details one day."

"Anyway." Athi gestures at the naked walls. "Change!"

"Right. It was Seggie for sure. He was here when I came in. Must have dealt with all that crap this morning, though I couldn't say what he did with all of it. Or why. Oh! And he left that.”

Tali reaches back and raps a knuckle on the fridge where a sheet of paper hangs. Athi slides it out from under the magnet. Scans its contents. Flips it writing-side-out toward Tali.

“The fuck is this?”

“A cleaning list.”

“I can see that. Seggrit made it?”

“Either that or your writer pal is moving in for real.”

“And that’s not strange to you? That he cares?”

Tali shrugs one shoulder. “Maybe he’s decided to rejuvenate this place. You know? Spruce it up, invest a little time, maybe hire some better bartenders.”

“Hey, don't sell yourself short."

"Bold of you to assume I meant myself."

“This is weird, though. Right?" She reads off the paper. "Sweep out back? Deep-clean the office? Dust the brick wall? Tali, most of these have nothing to do with anything. Where are the temp checks? Or the fucking tap lines? Or, you know, any of the shit we should actually be doing?"

“Beats me, babe. I'm just glad he's getting involved. You should’ve seen him whirling around here earlier. Something seems to have lit a fire under his rear-end.”

Another feeling, but she can't place this one. It all fits together somehow, or should. The list and the bare walls and the lack of fire hazards. Chewing on the puzzle, Athi picks a task at random, takes a spray bottle and a coffee filter to the windows. Even free of five years’ grime and in full sun, they don’t illuminate much. But that’s all right. The list says clean, and they are definitely that.

[migleefulmoments]

Abby is the 1 who needs a reading comprehension lesson. An anonymous person said 'You're a narrow-minded fool if you actually put any stock in whether or not a married man is wearing his ring.' Abby's reply was 'Never once did I or anyone I know say that a married person has to wear a ring.' Am I crazy or is that totally 2 different things? Sometimes Abby is so blind it makes me crazy. Also, if u could do a follow up to her blatherings re her post it would be great. I'm just gobsmacked over it.

I see you wrote another post clarifying it was Cassie who made the comments you quoted but the entire coven’s comments after Cassie just get more ridiculous- “fact” after “fact” of lies and nonsense comparisons.  It’s batty that they believe any of the lies- but they believe them all! 

Anonymous asked: My grandpa doesn't wear his wedding ring because he used to work as an AC/heating repair man (he even taught college courses on fixing heaters at one point) and then was just not in the habit when he retired. That doesn't make his and grandma's marriage less valid. Rings are a symbolic thing that most cultures don't even do. You're a narrow-minded fool if you actually put any stock in whether or not a married man is wearing his ring.

cassie1022 answered: Oh yay, fun. (Cassie -always so charming)  My dear Nonnie, once again, reading comprehension eludes someone that believes in the Miarren myth. Never once did I or anyone I know say that a married person has to wear a ring (and yet Abby pops in below to claim the same but then argue that it IS the ring coming and going that looks suspicious. Let’s pretend that cc rings were real- he didn’t wear them every day regardless of what Abby claims.). Some people don’t wear them because they work with their hands, like your grandpa, and some just don’t feel comfortable wearing them. Let’s be real though. D has never shown an aversion to wearing rings. He’s worn them quite often, even while playing a show (yes, but he also took them off.  It’s his prerogative.  Until he says he’s getting divorced, it’s none of our business). There was a time when the only time he DIDN’T have a ring on was while he was in character (so what? He has had his wedding ring on most times we’ve seen him. You are counting individual photos as entire days and that isn’t accurate)

That being said, let’s examine. When was the last time you think D fixed a car, operated heavy machinery, or, like your grandpa, fixed an AC unit or heater?  (You have no idea what he does in his spare time.  This is a gross comment-some people do things with their hands -build things- because they enjoy it)  (Maybe if he could do that, people wouldn’t be making their own sweat gravy when they go to TSG.)(So now we start with the lies and mischaracterizations. FUN. There are two comments from TSG claiming A/C was broken. Since likely Mia doesn’t own the building, she has no control over the A/C being broken). 

As I’ve already said, rings aren’t for everyone, but I’ve also pointed out that D has been an avid ring wearer most of his life, and there is more than enough photographic evidence to support this. Also, most couples that exchange rings don’t usually stop wearing them in the first year of marriage.(And he hasn’t stopped wearing his now has he?) That’s when it’s usually a point of pride and you want the world to know you are someone’s spouse. (Does Darren seem like the kind of person who is worried about “the world knowing he’s someone’s spouse”? He’s pretty open about his relationship and taking his ring off for an hour or two isn’t indicative of anything).

You know what DOES make a marriage less valid? No legitimate officiant.(LIE)  There are only a handful of states where you can officiate your own marriage, and guess what? Louisiana isn’t one of them.(He didn’t, Joe did)  You need an ordained minister and in addition to that, the minister must register in the parish where the marriage is taking place.

So, if this makes me a “narrow-minded fool,” so be it. I’ve been called worse. (It definitely does).  

ajw720 I needed to laugh this morning, thank you nonnie.(I would imagine you need to laugh a hell of a lot more than you do Abby)  You people really don’t get it (Oh lord).  Also, it isn’t JUST the ring (which is very suspicious especially as he deliberately takes it off at random times, there one minute gone the next) (Here abby argues it isn’t the ring.... except it is the ring) , it is as @cassie1022 pointed out, no officiant (LIE) , weird wedding algorithm (the fact that Abby truly believes there was a guest algorithm says everything there is to say about Abby’s judgment and the cc nonsense)  is FAMILY HONEYMOON (a joke)  constant babysitters (LIE) d’s complete lack of enthusiasm (he practically said he was bored and realized at the last moment that that was bad) (Desperate Abby, you're so desperate) , talked about pooping exes as opposed to how life changed with his bride (and you don’t get that this is was keep from speaking about his personal life? How long have you been a fan? Joking about something to distract from having to answer something private is spot-on Darren), speaks more passionately about his jacket then his wedding (we done got hitched) (This means nothing Abby...NOTHING. He wrote a boring post about his jacket and you’ve been losing your shit over it ever since. IT meant nothing...it was a coat he wore to an event. You only like it because he was boring and serious. It was the farthest thing from Darren I’ve ever read.), announced the engagement using a reference to the wrong freaking franchise (I can’t...this is one of your dumbest arguments out of a lot of arguments. It was a JOKE Abby, a joke.  He used the franchise that made the joke funny. Darren doesnt’ own a franchise)   , FIVE FUCKING encagement rings (LIE), the last of which is an advertisement that she is paid to wear and they haven’t even tried to hide this fact (LIE), utter lack of chemistry (again desperate Abby) , the weirdness with his non-relationship but clear friendship of sorts with his ex co-star (It’s not “weirdness” it’s a nonrelationship-you said it yourself). , the way she is promoted that is beyond excessive for someone who isn’t famous (This entire rant is unhinged. Nobody is promoting her, he’s living his life with her.  Like we expect he would with his wife. There is nothing untoward with their behavior together.  The fact that you have to label it “promotion” says that it worries you a lot). the fact that the sold their entire wedding to about 100 sponsors )(LIE) (I am sure there are more than we even realize), the clear references to fandom at the sham mockery (OMG Abby, give it up. Nobody cares about you), and that this allegedly private couple also released 85% of their wedding for public consumption (They released 27 photos. That is HARDLY 85% of their wedding. You saw a lot of the same photos posted by their friends and it upset you but they didn’t release 85% of their wedding. It was a 4-day event and the wedding events started at around 3 pm and lasted until after midnight -27 is not 85% of 10-ish hours of celebration).  

If it was ONLY that he randomly took his ring off depending on how the wind is blowing, fine, that is evidence alone of nothing.  All of these things, and hundred and hundreds of other facts (which are ALL LIES). (inconsistent timelines (Darren doesn’t owe you a “consistent timeline” that’s asinine)   they don’t know where they met each other RC handshakes (You know that isn’t a handshake- they were photographed together right before the “handshake’ you won’t let go of and he’s heard introducing her as his girlfriend ), D running from her every moment he can, etc, etc)(Whatever you tell yourself to sleep at night), are clear evidence it is fake that is beyond a reasonable doubt (Bwahahahahaha you are conning yourself Abby) .  Him kissing her in her bar is his job.  I suggest nonnie you pay attention to the details (Which ones- your lies or the real details?) And please pay attention to the captain, he hasn’t even been subtle lately, he has been fairly blatant (Le sigh, he isn’t the captain.  He’s a dude who loves his boyfriend Will and writes children’s books that are not cc Bibles) .

Happy Thanksgiving Nonnie!  I hope you can tear yourself away from reading blogs you disagree with long enough to enjoy your friends and family! Cheers!

notes-from-nowhere What love are you talking about, anon? M doesn’t love D and she makes this clear every chance she get (LIE- there is nothing that suggests MIa isn’t in love with Darren). Do I have to remind you how she denied to D’s mom one red carpet to celebrate her son? (LIE Abby fabricated)  Or to D’s dad to be honored for his military past?(another LIE Abby fabricated)  But why listing all of her actions when you know very well this is only the surface.

Btw, I still have to know a singer/actor lost a finger because of a wedding band. Anon, try again, this attempt failed. (SMH)

leka-1998 You know what I like about this instance in particular? Apart from the fact that the ring isn’t off the whole time, he’s still wearing the other one here.

After 284719 years, she should also know what the language D’s mom speaks is called. Seems she doesn’t care enough. (Another LIE that Abby fabricated) 

Also, former platonic roomie says hello. (LIE) 

ajw720

They still can’t explain away B/enny, the man D just praised for his new album yet D hasn’t even mentioned his brother’s (I can’t explain it but it has nothing to do with Darren and Mia.  You’re the one making it a problem) .  The man that mocked fandom on his IG by referring to M/oulin R/ouge when posting about the fraud in NOLA (Nobody-especially Ben Hudson- gives a shit about fandom Abby. You’re a nobody)  The man who seemingly officiated the wedding (Again a LIE)  And the one who appears to have a dog (yes he does, he lives with his girlfriend, Joanna, and their two dogs) . Hey remember just a few weeks ago when PBB dropped her teeth in the dog’s bowl? Funny as we know she and D don’t have a dog (Nope, they clearly don’t- stop trying so hard).…

[itslmdee]

Fic: Fandom Policing

This month's theme is 'gatekeeping'. Today's piece looks at gatekeeping and harassment in online spaces.

John deletes his Instagram, his DeviantArt; he's already deleted his tumblr and other sites linked to his J05draws username and set up a twitter under a new psuedonym. He's relieved he never put his real name on those sites. Ten years ago he was enjoying being a fanartist. He was recently starting to use his popularity to highlight his original works and planning on taking commissions.

Slowly though there had a push against artists. He noticed some fandom gatekeeping on who was a good fan. Then it moved onto what were the best ships (relationships between fictional characters). Then more fandom policing by 'antis' on what were 'good' or 'acceptable' ships and which ships and what kind of content was 'bad' or 'problematic'.

Soon it was drawing 'bad' ships was wrong and people were getting harassed over them. The closeknit community he loved is now unrecognisable.

An online friend of John's got death threats for drawing a character that was a teen in an anime which he and John both liked. The friend, only known to John as Arts01OK, had drawn her as an adult, in a piece he tagged as taking place ten years after the show. People started calling him a p*dophile because ageing her up was the same as drawing her as a sexy teen...John never quite understood the logic.

What John did understand was that the harassment got so bad, including someone saying they had his personal details and were going to tell his boss he was a child abuser, that his friend put up one last message, "You win. You want me dead? Fine."

John's never heard from his friend again. He doesn't know if Arts01OK is dead or just quit social media. He hopes it is the latter.

He starts looking for others who have been harassed; there are stories by fanartists and fanfic writers about harassment. Rape threats. Constant "kill yourself" comments if they are deemed problematic.

Someone tries to feed needles to a fanartist at a convention. This is what things have come to, people in fandom being targeted for physical harm other fictional content despite far more shocking things existing in mainstream media.

When John gets his first "ur gross" comment about a piece depicting a relationship between two characters that some people love and other people hate he shrugs it off. But when after he doubles down and draws another piece, this piece Not Safe For Work, with some mild nudity, he gets an onslaught of abuse that follows him on every social media linked to his online user name.

John is not going to kill himself. He also hasn't got the energy to deal with this abuse. So he deletes everything. Sets up a professional account for original work with a Patreon, and sets up a new fandom account and mutes all notifications for it. So j05draws might be gone but John Geraldine artist who only draws 'respectable' creations isn't, and Arts01NeverForget continues to draw the content John and his fans enjoy.

Maybe one day the gatekeeping and harassment and fandom-as-activism will fade and things will become civil again. Right now John does what he needs to feel safe.

______________________________________________________________

Notes: This article on Geek Dad, Toxic Fandom: When Criticism and Entitlement Go Too Far goes into some detail about how fandom as activism has led to creators getting death threats and includes the fanartist being given cookies filled with needles mentioned in the text. https://geekdad.com/2018/10/toxic-fandom-when-criticism-and-entitlement-go-too-far/

This article https://kathrynhemmann.com/2018/10/27/call-out-culture-on-tumblr/ looks at the difference between calling out genuinely dangerous behaviour and the tumblr harassment over fictional works

This article talks about a fanartist who says harassment from 'antis' drove her to attempt suicide https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3da838/an-attempted-suicide-forced-a-tumblr-community-to-open-its-eyes-about-bullying

Where does purity policing come from? at https://prostasia.org/blog/what-purity-policing-fans-get-wrong/ gives some background: "Purity policing has also been visibly influenced by other social movements outside fandom, who join pile-ons and shape the “discourse” by which it is justified. These movements include anti-porn feminism, pedo-hunter vigilantism, and even the intolerant Christian right, which regularly attacks pop culture properties such as Big Mouth and (yes) Sabrina for promoting masturbation or the “transgender agenda.” These make odd bedfellows for purity policing fans, most of whom profess to be pursuing their agenda from a “social justice” orientation." Noting that "Since it is so disconnected from any real-world sexual abuse, this kind of toxic behavior seems incomprehensible to many outsiders. Yet it has become an inescapable part of the online experience of many fans. "

Those are just a few links that can give some context to this fictional piece about harassment in some fandom spaces and how that has spread beyond fandom creators to anyone enjoying "bad" content and to sending death threats to the creators of the media via their social media.

I used the spelling pdophile rather than the UK padophile because the harassment is most often coming from US spaces. I censor the word because using the word in any context can get your social media banned, and even harassers will often throw the false accusation worded as "p*do".

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

How Not To Write Villains (and Antiheroes) In Romantic Fics

I’ve been in Villain fandom for a while and honestly, there are some common issues I’ve seen crop up in our romantic fanfic that I really feel need addressing. I’m interested in the methods with which we write these kinds of stories, and I find myself frustrated with the repeated destructive tropes that show up in the fic I try to read. 

So here’s a few of those tropes, why I think they happen, and some alternative suggestions to help writers avoid falling into these traps. I’m using gendered language here because these are the particular iterations I see most regularly (and some of them are specific to systemic sexism and dysfunction in M/F relationships), however some of these thoughts could of course apply across the board.

Mr. Grimdark

This guy shows up when the author’s main concern/anxiety centers around “keeping him in character.” There’s a lot of villain fangirls out there who are really worried that they’re going to get criticized for writing their villain too “OOC” and nice. They want to capture a tone of “realism,” and so they inadvertently write him monstrous beyond what canon even depicts him as. This guy is an abuser despite the villain canonically showing no domestically abusive tendencies. He doesn’t believe in love, and/or thinks emotions are a weakness even if there’s no evidence of this in canon. He’s willing to subject the heroine through endless cruelties, often above and beyond what he’s done in canon.

Mr. Grimdark is a mistake when it comes to writing a villain in romantic contexts. It’s not worth sacrificing the stability of the romantic narrative just because you are afraid to push the boundaries of canon characterization. I’d rather read a slightly OOC villain who treats the heroine with respect (even when he hates her or is working against her), than one who’s constantly subjecting her to extreme cruelty (and who’s OOCness is pretty much just skewed in the opposite direction TBH).

Sometimes Mr. Grimdark also shows up when the author is particularly fond of heavy angst and drama, or wants to involve more character drama in her fic, or is trying to write a Slow Burn or Enemies to Lovers plot. It’s important to learn how to identify the difference between constructive drama and destructive drama. Ask yourself why the dramatic tension is happening. Interrogate your methods. Is it aiding the character’s overall arcs? How will it effect their relationship? How does it help me build towards my narrative goals? How do I believably bring my characters back together after this moment of conflict? Does this moment reflect real-world domestic abuse dynamics? What does this moment say about who these characters are?

A lot of this lies in identifying how to depict villainy without crossing over into mirroring real-world domestic abuse, stalking, etc.

How and why does your villain wield power? 

You can write a bad guy in love without writing an extremely toxic situation. I promise, you don’t have to sacrifice romance in the name of “realism.”

The Womanizer

The Womanizer crops up when the author wants to make her villain extra sexy. She’s trying to depict a seductive rogue who’s main goal is to get the heroine into bed, but who inadvertently falls in love with her virtuousness and integrity.

What the author actually depicts is a man who’s reduced the heroine into a sexual object, another faceless conquest. Instead of being sexy, he’s a cheesy, gross Pickup Artist incapable of humanizing the heroine, let alone respecting her. The plot of the fic is suddenly transformed into his journey in discovering that women are human beings (or at least ONE woman is).

Honestly? This guy is lame. He’s a misogynist. He’s also OOC as hell in most cases. There are so many more ways of depicting a man who is seductive, and all of them center around him treating the heroine as the subject of his desire rather than the object. It’s so much more interesting and complex to see him like her and want her for who she is while dealing with the cognitive dissonance of being on the opposite side of a proverbial battlefield, and vice versa.

The Predator

The Predator is a horrifying mix of both of the above problems. He’s an abusive, cruel, misogynistic monster who’s out to torment AND/OR bed the heroine. This man has absolutely no business being one half of a romantic narrative. 

Again, it’s entirely possible to write an in-character villain who has dark aspects to him, as well as a seductive nature, all in a narrative that involves drama and conflict, WITHOUT writing an unbearable monster. 

If your villain is incapable of even empathizing with your heroine for the majority of your fic, you aren’t writing a romance.

The Nice Doppleganger

The opposite of the above problems, this guy is perfectly nice and un-challenging. He and the Heroine easily fall in love and have a relationship of no conflict whatsoever. He’s OOC and doesn’t really resemble the personality depicted in canon. The author may not realize this, or she may have done it intentionally.

This honestly isn’t a real problem if you’re doing it intentionally. By all means, play in your sandbox the way you feel like. 

However, he’s potentially a limp noodle when it comes to generating the drama, mystery, and gravitas of his canon counterpart (which are most likely the most exciting aspects of his character, which inspired you to write about him in the first place). If your interested in exploring the journey a villain takes from his canon behavior towards a romantic relationship, with this trope you’ve basically cut out the juicy parts and skipped to the ending. 

For you, that might be just what you want, and that’s fine. 

But if it isn’t, allow the material to challenge you. Don’t be afraid to explore conflict in your story that is generated between the main characters, just try to understand where the boundaries between “conflict” and “toxicity” lie.

Ask yourself why the villain intrigued you in the first place. What aspects of his personality can you utilize to keep his edge (without tipping him over into abuse)? How could those appealing dark and spooky traits translate into more (safely) seductive traits? What conflicts would arise between him and the heroine, and how can I explore them without making it destructively toxic? How can I soften him without declawing him completely? 

The key here is creative, thoughtful transformation rather than erasure. Start translating certain traits into constructive and/or romantic versions of what they once were instead of erasing them completely. Don’t change him. Change his mind.

The Emotional Knife Fight (or Heroines Can Be Abusive Too)

This one crops up when the author isn’t really sure how to depict a strong female character, or the author is writing an Enemies to Lovers plotline. She wants to show a heroine who stands up to a powerful man, who can hold her own against the villain and eventually change him/his mind. She wants to show the journey from lack of understanding to mutual understanding and empathy.

What instead happens is the heroine uses abusive language to talk down to the villain. She doesn’t truly respect his humanity because to her, his villainy eliminates his humanity. The heroine has a status of goodness and purity, and because the villain does not, toxic harm towards him is fair game.

This manifests in examples like the heroine utilizing the villain’s vulnerable emotions - which she is strangely aware of and yet unmoved by! - to cause him emotional harm. Is he the villain because he’s been betrayed? Abused? Neglected? She’ll minimize his experiences and assert that his actions cancel out the relevancy of his pain.

In return, the villain might start using the same weapons against the heroine. Alternatively, one of the above versions of the villain started this toxic dynamic.

Because the heroine can wield psychological weapons against the villain, the authoress believes she’s balanced the power between the heroine and the villain. And with the weapons these characters have used to slice into the raw parts of each other, the authoress thinks she’s depicted characters who are capable of seeing each other.

In theory, I can see why the authoress fell into this trap. She wants to write a battle of wits that results in deeper understandings. But that cannot manifest healthily if the heroine and villain are utilizing each other’s vulnerabilities to harm.

Instead, I’d like to see the battle be about mutual respect. Because the characters can see the vulnerabilities of each-other, they might use their own similar experiences to argue philosophy. They might express solidarity and use that solidarity to call each other out when they think they’re in the wrong, or to try and pull the other to their side. 

Explore a meeting of the minds like it’s an elaborate chess game, rather than a knife fight in a back alley.

[smoaking-greenarrow]

All right. I had to weigh in on this because I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Here are my thoughts on the ‘Stephen Amell vs Beyhive’ debacle. Putting it all below the cut because I understand that some people are just here for fandom fun, not politics and discussions about racism, and that’s okay too.

Stephen’s initial tweet 100% sounds like he’s saying “I’m leaving before Beyoncé’s performance to go home and watch this other thing.” Some people added their own “because I don’t like Beyoncé” at the end of that. Others took the tweet as “I hate black people” so you know, it was obviously a very misinterpreted tweet. Stephen tweeted back to a few people that he was simply referring to traffic, which clearly hasn’t been sticking for anyone. How is about traffic? No clue. I don’t get it either. 

Part of the problem is that he wasn’t clear. It was Coachella, I doubt he was sober enough to realize how the tweet would come across. Most of the problem is that people overreacted. Unfortunately, Stephen has a mean streak too, that directly relates to when he feels belittled or attacked. It was a recipe for disaster, is basically what I’m saying.

We’ve probably all met people like this: once offended; walls go up, blinders go on, and they stop looking like the person we know. They get defensive and stop listening.

He’s done this before. Whenever this man is questioned, criticized, or he comes to the conclusion that not everyone loves him... he lashes out, specifically on social media. It’s a flaw of his. We all have them. 

I’m a fan of Stephen. I’m a huge fan of the guy who is passionate about charities, who loves his mama, his daughter and his coworkers, who is humble and grateful to be playing a superhero, and who speaks from his heart. That guy is awesome. He seems super chill and I love following him on social media and watching his videos. He’s that guy 99% of the time, but every once in a while... we get this. You could say there are certain people in his life who he appears to maybe spend a little too much time with and when he does, it brings out the entitled, offensive side of him, but hey. That’s none of my business.

The person I don’t enjoy is the one who claps back at people unnecessarily. All he had to do was say “my tweet was about traffic. What happened was...” and then maybe even add in an “I’m sorry that so many of you misunderstood it, but the response I got was crossing a line. What you all said... IT HURT MY FEELINGS.” Why do some men have such a problem with saying that their feelings were hurt? Ego. The answer is ego. And let’s be real, this dude’s is pretty big.

I honestly feel like what offended him the most were the people who dragged his career. There were multiple people replying with screenshots of his lower-rated movies and using it as a point to say “you want to come after Beyoncé? Really? You?” 

The irony is that most of the people doing this clearly do not know him. Some of them said they stopped watching Arrow years ago. But most of them obviously just did a little googling. Has Stephen been in any blockbusters...? Has he won an emmy? Is his status in the realm of Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith, or Tom Hanks? No. That’s just the truth. I do think he’s a wonderful actor and could reach that status someday, but it’s not like the massive network of shows built because of Arrow is anything to turn your nose up at. The guy is successful. He is talented. The people attacking him were just being rude. Absolutely. 

But Stephen felt the need to defend himself when he really shouldn’t have. He didn’t need to. He is wonderful with fans, works really hard, and goes above and beyond as far as expectations of actors is concerned. His actions speak much louder than his tweets do. And he should have left it at that. He seems to struggle with letting go of slights. He seems to have a hard time with criticism. And he doesn’t handle haters very well at all. He stoops to the level of the people criticizing him, and he tends to get very defensive. I hate to make this comparison, but there’s a certain manchild in the oval office of my country who also has a bad habit of lashing out on twitter, has an ego that gets in his way, and even has a fondness for calling everyone who insults him “losers!” Sorry, can’t say that comparison hasn’t popped into my head.

I’m not a stan. Of anything. People are flawed creatures and incredibly complex. All of us. In my opinion, I can still be a fan of someone even if I don’t like or disagree with certain things they do. Celebrities make mistakes, and It’s okay for celebrities to disappoint you. 

Tyler Posey said it better than I can:

“If me, or one of my fellow celebrity friends or whoever is out there in the limelight, if we do something wrong, morally and humanly, don’t respect us for it. It’s nice to stand by somebody’s side that you admire and look up to, but you can’t stand by our side through everything. If we fuck up then we should be treated that way. That’s all I have to say. We’re no better than you. We’re humans, normal humans. And if we mess up, don’t praise us for it.”

You don’t need to attack celebrities, or say anything actually, when they do things you don’t like, but you also don’t need to boost their egos by tweeting them things like “you didn’t do anything wrong!” or “don’t worry about those idiots!” or “It’s okay, you’re perfect and I still love you!” 

Do we understand how problematic this is? Stop putting celebrities on pedestals. Stop making excuses for them. Let them be human, let them learn, and let them grow. Unfortunately, I’m left to wonder if Stephen reads tweets such as these and buys into them (as I’m sure many celebs do). But the plethora of white folks sounding off on Stephen’s tweets with these comments is gross, okay? Gross. 

No, I don’t think he deserved the dragging he received. I was not personally offended by anything he said. But you can’t just ignore that many of the people upset with him were black men and women who felt disappointed that an actor was seemingly discrediting a black artist. A black artist who has made insane strides against racism with her music. Who has been a voice in the sea of whitewashed award shows. Who is now the first black woman to headline Coachella. It’s a big deal. Imagine how things like that can make people feel: hopeful, represented, proud. 

Now imagine some white guy shitting on it. Yeah, those fans got pissed. And yeah, it was a misunderstanding. But it is what it is. Considering everything I just listed above, Stephen probably shouldn’t have tried to get away with an “IF I was dissing Beyoncé...” tweet.

So let’s talk about misunderstandings.

Most recently, Stephen is being criticized for not putting an accent on Beyoncé’s name. I’ll admit, I rolled my eyes to see people getting mad about it. And I also laughed at his response to one of the critics. Because like him, I have never even had to consider moments like this. Wanna know how I found that video? I said to myself, “wow, I’ve never even thought of how that might make someone else feel.” And then I spent some time on google to try to understand. Wild, I know.

Stephen obviously didn’t mean any harm by it, and he didn’t intend to offend anyone. 

Here’s the crazy thing about offending people though; you don’t always get to decide when you’ve done it. If you ever find yourself saying to someone “you have no reason to be offended by what I said,” you might as well just stop there. Because that conversation will not get you anywhere. Some people are easily offended. Sometimes they will have real reasons that seem silly to you, because you haven’t had the same experiences as anyone else. It’s life. Calling him trash for the missing accent? A little much, in my opinion. I definitely thought that was reaching. But it did remind me that unintentionally making racist comments and microaggressions is still wrong and deserves to be discussed. 

 I was with my boyfriend in an art gallery once when an old woman came up to him and touched his hair. She did not ask, she just reached out and felt his hair. Then she said “wow, your hair is so neat! It feels awesome!” My boyfriend sighed, because he got that all the time. He was used to it. I, on the other hand, got more upset than he did, and asked the woman why she thought it was okay to touch a stranger without asking. She looked embarrassed, and kind of just walked away. Was it “latent racism”? Was it her “subtle inclination to dehumanize” him? No. I don’t think so. I don’t think she meant any harm. Was it still a problem? Yes. Did I overreact? Probably. Looking back at it, I wish I hadn’t confronted her in such an accusatory manner, because she probably could have benefited from an open discussion about appropriate behavior and how comments like the one she’d made can, however innocently intended, isolate people and point out their differences in a world where they unfortunately don’t need those reminders.

My point is, I also think that Stephen Amell is a person who can benefit from these conversations. WE ALL CAN.

So, I encourage anyone reading this to check out THIS thread on twitter, which is a response to Stephen’s recent tweets and his own admitted “laziness” over adding that little accent. I learned something from it. So, you know, I hope Stephen finds a moment to read it so he can too. He’s not evil for leaving off an accent, and even though Clarkisha Kent starts out harsh, I hope y’all take the time to look at what she has to say. Things like this are important to consider:

“In addition to this and the assumption that these names are predicated on the most "unsavory" parts of Blackness, your piss poor Shaniqua and Bon Qui Qui jokes don't really land unless the target of these jokes--BW--are actually ashamed of their names.”

Clarkisha breaks down the idea of black names being ridiculed and laughed at, and yes, Stephen’s tweet kicked it off. I don’t care if he’s a saint who can do no wrong in your eyes, I don’t care if you’re a stan. The root of what this woman talks about in her thread is important and enlightening. These are the kinds of things that I wish Stephen would see, take a moment to really think about, and then respond. Yet I can’t help but assume that all he can think is “you were mean, you don’t like me, so you’re a loser!”

To make matters worse, Stephen didn’t reply to this thread. Oh no. Instead, he chose to hash it out with someone from CNN. Because, of course, it makes more sense to address a news source for “personally offending” him than it does to acknowledge the black woman who very clearly and eloquently laid out the problem with his joke.

I’m sorry, but this tweet is infuriating. He’s ignoring a black woman’s thread that prompted the fight he’s trying to start with Jeff Yang. He’s making it about himself, because Jeff called him trash and he feels insulted. BUT THEN he also wants to play the tough guy? The end of this tweet in more direct words sounds a lot like this to me: “you’re not replying to my tweets right now because I’ve intimidated you. You didn’t think the awesome celebrity that I am would actually respond, and now you’re embarrassed.” 

Oh, but let’s talk about the “shift of discourse” that he mentioned. After Jeff called him trash and Stephen offered to come on his podcast...which...ugh... Jeff responded with this:

First of all, let’s stop calling ignorant people trash. Let’s address ignorance through a scope of educating. Let’s leave the hateful comments to the hateful racists that still exist. I’m not saying Stephen or others (including myself since I can be ignorant to things I have not experienced and do not know, too) should be let off the hook. But when you attack someone for being ignorant, they will not see their own ignorance. They won’t see the problem with what they’ve said, they will only see the attack. They will never learn. Because in their eyes, their intentions were good, and you’re the bad guy for getting mad.

I actually loved Jeff’s response to Stephen. It is valid. “Why are you replying to me...and not the black women who you’ve offended and who you should be having this conversation with?” Yet, Stephen still doesn’t get it. That’s the problem. He is still viewing this whole ordeal as a personal attack on his career. 

Tell Anderson.... Tell Anderson Cooper you say... *Imagine Detective Holt screaming “bone” at Diaz voice* Hello? Hello? HELLO!? HeLLLllloOOO!?!? Y’all, this was narcissistic pettiness at it’s finest. Ignores the issue at hand, makes a nod to his celebrity status. The more Stephen tweets about this, the worse it gets. Just stop, buddy. Please. Take a couple days. Take a social media break, like you did after this happened. 

Sometimes we gotta take some time to reflect and calm down before we try to discuss things, especially when we feel defensive. 

I dated a guy once who would get this look in his eye at a certain point, whenever we argued. I just knew he’d checked out. Dude would not even be listening anymore, he’d just repeat the same two things over and over. It was a waste of time trying to argue with a brick wall. If he felt backed into a corner, he didn’t know how else to get out of it besides being cruel enough to make me stop talking. So I had to learn to listen, say my piece, then let it go for a while. He’d need to take a breather, let everything sink in, and then come back to me once he had some time to think. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if that is in fact Stephen’s personality, then this is probably a good time for him to recognize that and adjust his tweeting accordingly.

I think once Jeff Yang realized that Stephen responded to him, he decided to try being respectful. Because at least then, maybe Stephen would hear it and see the truth in what was being said. But Stephen took the shift as “oh, I’m an awesome celebrity and he didn’t think I’d see this, now this guy’s rattled.” 

I do not think Jeff was rattled. I think Jeff wanted Stephen to pay attention to Clarkisha’s tweets, not his. And Stephen’s ego is unfortunately convincing him that this is all about him. He responded to Jeff because he noticed that Jeff works in the media. It was a shallow choice, and a shallow response. Sorry, not sorry.

Steve- he was politely telling you to shut up and listen, and I must kindly echo that statement.

[cheylouwho]

Submission from @nellynee

oh thank you for this!!! im putting it under a readmore bc its long but you bring up some fantastic points i missed.

@nellynee submitted:

(meta points on your ACE post that can also be taken into consideration. Just a few things I’ve noticed that I can’t actually collect into cohesive meta enough to post, but I’ve never seen mentioned and I feel are important.)

On Tweek 

A lot of modern Tweek meta take into account his drug addiction when trying to pinpoint which symptoms are mental illness and which are the drugs, and I’ve been looking further into that, trying to figure out what’s been going on. I have a pretty reasonable argument that all of Tweek’s symptoms are all his own mental illness, or alternatively, he’s recently became aware of the meth which is actually a lifelong problem, and is weaning himself off.

I don’t believe that meth was involved in the coffee of the town at all until season 2 at the earliest. We know in the season 2 episode Gnomes, from Mrs. Tweek’s speech at the end, that the Tweek’s make comparatively poor coffee, and we see many people jump away from it in favor of that with better taste. While foul tasting coffee makes sense if the drug is being added wholesale, due to the addictive factor of meth, I just don’t think it would have been possible to loose such a customer base if drugs were involved. (that being said, with the gentrification of the town, and more options for coffee, that seems like a reasonable place for the Tweek’s to have started. I haven’t pinpointed a specific point, but that seems the most reasonable)

What this does mean though is that it is possible that all of Tweek’s behavior in Gnomes, at the very least, was his own and not fuled by anything other than Caffeine.

(argument against. As you said in your own analysis, meth can be used as a treatment for ADD, and the Tweek’s are definitely the type to medicate their own child if they thought it pertinent. I find this actually most likely, and what I adhere to, but my first point still stands at a conversation piece)

I’ve never actually found evidence either, (though if there is some please tell me, it might just be the playthroughs I’ve seen)  that Mrs. Tweek is aware of the meth in the coffee at all. All of the incriminating interactions go through Tweek or Richard, with her outside of the room. 

additional point, we also don’t know what Tweek’s awareness of the situation is either. South Park likes to be very wishy washy about exactly what the children know about more adult topics like sex, politics, drugs, cursing, ect. It tends to vary episode to episode, so there can be arguments made that Tweek lacks understanding of what’s going on, that he’s transporting drugs and the like, but the opposite is true too. But in the end there are three possibilities. Either he isn’t aware and that’s that, he is aware and is actively partaking anyways, or is aware and has been actively avoiding it since the revelation. 

Not all hard facts, but factors I haven’t seen brought up before and are interesting to consider. 

That being said, my personal opinion is such. Tweek is on meth, and has been medicated by his parents in secret since or closely after a false diagnosis of ADD (his attitude towards coffee is to close to an addicts to sway me in this direction) but the coffee for public consumption is not tainted until gentrification starts in town. At this point I’m not sure if Tweek is aware or not. He’s to blase about hard drugs in his home and personal life to actually be aware of the implications of what’s happening given his usual responses, but I can’t believe that all the educational programs of the school and town hasn’t left enough of an impression for him not to connect some dots. Conclusion, he knows, but it’s been normalized in his homelife to the point of not setting him off. I have no evidence on this point, but Craig doesn’t seem like the kind of person to become loud over this sort of information. Just another shitty thing in South Park, and the thought of them quietly weaning Tweek off behind the scenes is pretty cute and sad.

For Cartman

This is something I haven’t posted at all, because it weakens Heidi’s character arc, and I don’t think Matt and Trey are immersed enough into the fandom to have done this on purpose, but there’s some interesting points so here we go. 

Heiman and Creek are obviously paralleled for the last few seasons, but something I don’t see pointed out beyond the top obvious layer is how Heidi and Cartman are paralleled, but we see it VERY HARD in fandom reactions. 

Fandom reaction to Heidi is almost identical to that of Cartmans. He’ start of funny/she start of kind and general well liked. They cross a moral even horizon, the fandom splits into those who bail and those who support, with more and more excuses made for morally ambiguous choices and more support for the positive ones. For Cartman, after so many season and so many morally wrong choices, this leads to a pretty intense fandom. Heidi’s is much more mild, but similar, and having seen the nice person she started out as, it paves the road for potential Cartman redemption, despite having done nonredeemable things. It makes empathizing with him easier, because we got a very condensed version of his own long arc to compare it with. It makes the argument that “it’s not all Cartman’s fault, he can’t help it.” a valid one.

In the end though, and I’m glad I waited to post the meta because the ending only cemented this, it came down to explanations vs excuses, and how those who are abused both have the power to stop the cycle and to perpetrate it. Heidi had explanations that she turned to excuses, and used those excuses to be awful. It’s not arguable that she was abused by Cartman, and even those around her, who were sick of her, still placed a lot of blame on Cartman. But she was able to make a choice to stop, to make an effort at least to stop.

And this is where Cartman is absolutely nonredeemable. Cartman has explanations for his behavior as well. Since the recent seasons a lot more meta has come out about the terrible abuses he’s suffered since an early age. But Cartman doesn’t have excuses, these are EXPLANATIONS.

The episode that hit this home the hardest, and by hit home I mean painted it on our walls with finger paint in big neon letters, was Tsst. It made a big deal of how Liane’s treatment of Cartman was very much a source of his behavior, but it was also Cartman’s own deep, personal choice to continue same behavior as well. In the end, they used Heidi to emphasis that point of self victimization for Cataman, and I feel like her arc was weaker for it. 

About kenny

You made an ACE list for Kenny, and I feel like sexual abuse should be in there somewhere. Not in his own home, but a distressing number of his early season dialog is VERY sexual in nature, that speaks of an easy knowledge that you can’t get from anything other than experience. Again, I don’t feel like this was gained in the home. More likely or not Kenny, knowing at this point he was immortal and much more jaded, went seeing various dangers he knew would no longer affect his body once he died and came cross various sexual situations in that way. We know this is at least partially canon, as he does so with very gross or harmful behaviors in even latter seasons for a quick financial gain/high. for the first seven seasons of dialog, see here for what I mean

http://www.southparkcows.com/kennysays.html

[chimerafeathers]

just wanted to write out a bunch of My Hero thoughts/opinions because idk anybody else who watches it (or who would want to), but i don't really want to get into deep enough into the fandom to see the #drama

so, a bunch of random shit in no particular order:

- this is more about my relationship with anime in general but.... i always feel like i need to put a disclaimer on My Anime Opinions because of the perviness and fanservice and sexualization. it’s frustrating because the “shounen” genre (and yeah i know it’s not exactly a genre. whatever) caters to my interests in so many other ways!!! big, flashy battles, cool powers and magic systems, huge emphasis on The Power of Friendship, cheesy humor, great animation, everything is all kinds of HYPE and EXCITEMENT and FUN....but since shows like this are targeted towards teenage boys and often made by horny men, there’s also Boobs and token pervert characters that serve as an excuse to show More Boobs or Fantasize About Boobs. and the women’s powers are either “look i’m a girl!!!” (there were a couple of women early on in hunter x hunter whose powers were....sewing and vacuuming?? seriously??? and then another one later on who was an older woman who chose to make herself look like a little girl as her superpower??) or “what’s a power-related excuse to make these costumes As Skimpy As Possible” (cough cough Momo and Hagakure cough cough) or even having NO excuse (what the fuck, Bubble Girl, i know it was a fan design contest thing but that never should have been accepted it makes no sense i--) and that’s. really damn tiring and annoying. mha hasn’t quite crossed the line for me yet overall -- meaning my disgust with grape trash and other gross tropes hasn’t outweighed my enjoyment of every other aspect of the story and characters, and i hope that never becomes the case. (i tried to watch 7 deadly sins on netflix and??? the main character gropes an unconscious woman in literally the first episode with no consequences???? no fucking thank you!!!!! i’m OUT)

- anyway if anybody reads this and has any show recs that hit that Good Shounen Hype vibe with good animation, fantasy/sci-fi/superpower elements, but minimal (or nonexistent??) Creep Vibes, please send them my way. i know there are a bunch of good slice-of-life or comedy or drama shows that have queer themes and sensitive storytelling but man.....if there’s no magic or dragons what’s even the POINT

- on a related note, god fucking bless every “AU - M!neta M!norou Doesn’t Exist” fic on ao3, and everyone who makes every member of class 1-a queer in some way or another, so i can get my cool powers and great characters and dramatic plots without the threat of disgust and frustration

- also i just read the School Briefs series and while there were entirely too many chapters/sections that focused on grape trash, it WAS mentioned that Tiger of the Wild Wild Pussycats is canonically a trans man (who hasn’t been killed off!), and Shinso Hitoshi became the only man at UA I respect with one line: “He’s gotta be expelled for sexual harassment one of these days, right?”

- seriously, if shinso’s transfer gets approved i would literally rather have grape trash expelled than whoever ends up being the traitor (if it’s a hero course student. i honestly don’t really care about traitor speculation/theories).

- and yes “only man i respect” includes aizawa and every other 1-a boy who just!! lets shit happen with barely a comment!!! again, bless every fic where grape trash gets expelled early on or at the training camp because Hey, What He Does Is Fucked Up Actually and maybe someone who consistently disrespects and violates his peers’ boundaries and privacy shouldn’t be accepted as a HERO without getting some behavioral therapy first???? same kinda goes for bakugo too though, they really need to address his anger issues and beef with mido beyond “let’s force them to team up in high-stress situations even though this boy basically tried to obliterate the other one on, like, the second day of class. they’ll probably work it out!!”

- and on the subject of bakugo! i really fucking can’t ship him romantically with mido as their history and relationship stands in canon. (this is not meant to shame anybody for shipping it, i just want to articulate why it’s a notp for me personally. expressing my opinions is the point of this list.) i can see the foundations -- mido obsessed with baku, baku constantly frustrated by yet aware of mido, both of them being drawn to each other and tangled up in each other’s ideas of what it means to be a hero. but. baku made mido’s entire childhood hell. rejected and abused him for something he couldn’t control, ostracized him from all of his peers, mocked his passions, crushed his dreams, told him to jump off a roof. of course mido still clung to him--baku’s strong and smart and talented, and he was the only friend mido ever had, the only friend he had left, the “hero” he could see in his own life.

but at UA he has other friends, other heroes, people who support him and believe in him. it’s his chance to step outside of baku’s shadow and see his own self worth. and it’s baku’s chance to see how wrong he was, and outgrow his anger and prejudice!! see others as his equals instead of his inferiors! but it’s gonna take years for that to happen for both of them, and while i can see them becoming partners and friends who can finally talk to each other on the same level, and work together better than anyone because they know each other so damn well after everything they went through....i think they need to do that healing and growth separately, for the most part.

and like...okay, disclaimer, i am fully asexual and aromantic, so while i love reading shippy fics, there are some things i just cannot fucking understand or relate to. the whole “sexual tension between people who hate each other but can’t stop thinking about each other” or “arguments turn into make-out sessions” thing is just beyond me. if i hate a person i Do Not Want to be around them! at all!! so the idea that baku treats mido like that BECAUSE he’s attracted to him?? incomprehensible.

and on mido’s end, no matter how much he respects or admires baku, or even if he was endlessly infatuated with/attracted to him when they were younger, why the FUCK would he want to stay with someone who made him feel like dirt for so long, when he’s finally surrounded by people who love him fully and unapologetically? i want him to have more self-respect than that. i honestly, truly want to see baku grow and develop to the extent that he and mido can stand on the same level as equals. i want to see mido unashamed and unafraid, i want baku to apologize and mean it, i want mido to forgive him, i want baku to become the kind of hero mido always believed he could be.

but to me, that depth and complexity of relationship (while very very very good!!) is NOT the same thing as a romance, and turning it into one feels wrong when the foundations of it are just....baku tormenting mido, while mido had nothing and no one else to turn to. (his mom is great, but a parent is not the same as a friend, and she was literally the only person in his life who cared about him while baku and his cronies were beating him up and ridiculing him in front of teachers who turned a blind eye.) if they had been equal rivals from the beginning, with mido able to hold his own physically, socially, and/or emotionally instead of being left bruised and battered in the dirt every time, then sure! rivals to lovers, have at it. but for me, there’s gotta be that give-and-take.

i haven’t read shippy fic for those two and i’m sure there’s a lot of great stuff!! i’ve read platonic bk//dk-centric fic by writers who DO ship them and write mostly shippy stuff, and their take on that relationship is great and engaging and everything. but i feel like, to me, even when the growth and development of their canon-based relationship is handled really well, it’d feel wrong to me as soon as it turned romantic.

- .....which is one of the reasons why todo//mido is my JAM. bonding over shared loneliness and trauma, respecting each other as rivals right from the beginning, the contrast of chatty and sunny mido with quiet and calm todo, hurt/comfort on both sides, navigating their relationships with the people who have hurt them so much in the past, the capacity to be gentle and tender with each other while remaining passionate and dedicated rivals, growing and healing together, that good good Pining because neither one of them believes that they deserve the other, all of it!!! now THAT i can relate to and understand and see as the basis for romance. mido changed todo’s whole damn worldview in ONE FIGHT after todo spilled his whole tragic backstory to mido in their second conversation.

even so (and again, this might be ace/aro me not relating) i kinda roll my eyes whenever a fic emphasizes how attractive they find each other right away (especially on todo’s end, when mido is consistently described as plain or unremarkable). worst offenders are when they ~just so happen~ to be EXACTLY each other’s “type.” like, alright, sure, i gUESS.

it’s just so much more interesting to me if attraction follows affection instead of the other way around? especially in the context of canon events. but whatever, love at first sight’s just not my thing. never has been. and i like the idea that even though the start of their friendship is so chaotic and rushed in some ways, it still takes them time to get to know each other and come to terms with their own feelings. (slow burn slow burn SLOW BURN)

- okay those are all my more sincere/serious opinions

- i know canon is like “stop being such a crybaby :/” but mido crying all the time is one of my favorite things about him and i hope it never goes away, at least not completely

- some fics have mido getting growth spurts and getting really tall, and it’s an anime trope that getting taller parallels character growth/maturity (like Ed growing up in FMA after being short and mad about it was one of his defining characteristics for so long) but again......i just want him to stay short....please let my boy stay a small overemotional nerd.... hori please i’m begging you

-  it’s hilarious to me that the “dabi is a todoroki” theory is present in almost every single damn fic where that character makes an appearance. personally i have no stake in the theory (wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true, wouldn’t be disappointed if it isn’t) but i feel like it’s never gonna die even after his identity is truly revealed

- apparently shinso/kami is a decently popular ship and i.....have no idea if those two have ever interacted at all?? did they talk to each other in the show or in the manga or some side story and i missed it? are they popular JUST because they parallel eraser//mic to some extent??? or is it purely a case of “those personalities would be fun together--SHIP TIME”?? idk i don’t get it but it’s funny

- back to School Briefs, there’s a neat Kendo-centric chapter during the school festival that ends up being an introspective on kendo’s relationship with her own gender and the idea of performing femininity for the beauty pageant and it kind of rules??

- there’s also an entire chapter from the pov of koda’s bunny during their first couple days in the dorms. apparently koda can’t understand animals, he can just control them by talking to them!

- in shinso’s chapter he overhears the dance squad talking about the sports festival and he hears mido talk about how useful and great shinso’s quirk will be for hero work and shinso’s like “!!! thank you???? finally???” and then resolves to get stronger and make it into the hero course before they meet again

- during the school festival when mido ran off to make eri’s candy apples, iida and todo were like “is he running into trouble again?? can he PLEASE tell us where he’s going? we would track his phone but he never brings it with him anyways!!! what are we supposed to do about him!!!!” and then they found out what he was doing and went “oh ;u;”

- School Briefs in general (minus grape trash sections) were exactly the kind of “slice of life but there are superpowers” fluffy nonsense i always crave, would recommend

- also hilarious: baby mido in fic (especially de-aging fic) is often either a) the Most Precious Sunshine Child in Existence, even villains can’t help but adore him, or b) the most obnoxious, borderline-creepy, whiny little brat in existence, No Wonder Baku Couldn’t Stand Him. i imagine the “reality” would fall somewhere in the middle and it’s always a little jarring when authors so solidly fall on one extreme or the other lmfao

- just bnha fanfic things: “is this an intentional use of All for One vs One for All or was it a typo/mistake on the author’s part??”

- that’s all i’ve got for now yall i love these characters

[bigskydreaming]

Also, for the millionth time - I’m not actually a Posey stan? LOL. I don’t stan for actors or celebrities. At all. Ever. I have some I like more than others, but I am an actor myself, I work in this town, I have met or worked with a LOT of the people whose names come up in fandom spaces, and stanning for any of them would just be weird for me? LMAO. Look, actors and celebrities are just people like anyone else, and nobody’s more aware of that than me. There is no such thing as a person who hasn’t or isn’t going to do something I disagree with at some point, and I’m not like....interested in emotionally investing in real people I’m not actually close with to the extent where I’d feel let down or disappointed by their behavior if and when they do something I disagree with.

Obviously, I have spoken up in defense of Posey a great many times over the years. Because being in the TW fandom, there’s no way to avoid being exposed to the stanning and vilifying of the individual actors, and the harassment and demonization Posey’s faced from fandom has been so fucking over the top and beyond the pale (not to mention so clearly racially motivated in a vast majority of instances) that yeah, I’ve called that crap out and will continue to do so. Because it’s bullshit and it actually has nothing to do Posey himself and everything to do with the attitudes and behavior aimed AT him. If you actually READ my goddamn posts, you’ll notice that I don’t defend him from a place of ‘Posey can do no wrong and I love him’, but rather from a place of ‘what the fuck is wrong with you that you think this kind of behavior is okay, especially when its based entirely on a) your hatred of the character he plays and/or b) comments he’s made that have been taken wildly out of context’.

And before anyone feels the urge to Go There, let me remind you that despite my clear and present dislike for S/tiles, I’ve never used that to bash DOB or anything like that, because I have as little interest in using actors as a target for my feelings about their character as I have in stanning for actors. I’ve said like....’I don’t think DOB is as good an actor as his stans make him out to be’, lol. That’s about it, and uh, that’s not bashing, that’s an opinion that doesn’t actually devalue him or his worth as a person, rather simply says....yo, I’m not as impressed with DOB’s acting as the rest of you.

This post is in response to a second anon that follows after that last one I just responded to, passive aggressively lampshading the age gap relationship Posey’s been in and like....no? That’s not going to work with me because I’ve never said nor do I believe that Posey can do no wrong and that I agree with everything he does, its simply that I don’t actually concern myself with the decision making processes of celebrities or actors. DEFENDING him from this toxic fucking fandom’s behavior isn’t due to some innate view of him as a paragon of virtue or anything, and the reason you don’t see me criticizing him for behavior I dislike or disagree with is because there is literally NOTHING I could say that would be more than a drop in the ocean compared to the rampant demonization he gets for any little thing he says or does, so I see zero point in calling attention to anything he might say or do that I’m not a fan of when like, fandom is already all over that shit ten minutes before I even know anything has happened. I’ve got no interest in contributing to the extremely skewed take fandom has when it comes to analyzing anything and everything Posey might have ever done or will ever do that’s right or wrong. And that’s why I’m fully comfortable defending him from gross racist double standards that really have nothing to do with anything he’s actually done other than take umbrage with the fact that he dares exist and call himself the main character.....without harping over every single thing he does that I don’t like.

*Shrugs* Not happy with how I reconcile that for myself, that’s a you problem. It works for me. Now there, I’ve clarified YET AGAIN my stances on this weird obnoxious fandom and its view of the characters and actors. So if you all could just stop with the leading questions and painfully transparent attempts to...idk, trip me up or contradict myself or whatever the fuck it is this kind of passive aggressive pseudo-analytical bullshit is each time it crosses my inbox, that’d be swell. It’s not clever, its not insightful, its not anything I haven’t seen before in this shitshow fandom, its just tired and predictable and BORING. Like how are you not bored of this crap yet? I’m so bored.

[innocentbeing]

I haven't seen anyone make a full-length post on what might be going on with Lizzy that I agreed with 100% yet so I'm gonna write out what I think.

TL;DR: I think Lizzy knows Sebastian is a demon and about 2ct. She's staying with Blue sect for Sirius aka real!Ciel. I know there's already lots of posts saying this but I haven't seen one that was thorough and I agreed with completely.

Lizzy most likely knows that Sebastian is a demon otherwise that means she was trying to kill the Sebastian she knew as a proficient, loyal, dedicated Butler to Ciel.

She's aiming for his head here, guys. She's not holding back.

Sneak attack, again aiming for his head. If Sebastian was a normal human, he wouldn't have dodged that. A regular person wouldn't have seen that coming and would have died instantly from that strike.

But Lizzy must've known that was Sebastian since she wasn't surprised to see him. She knew it was him when she attacked.

Also, she wasn't shocked that he was able to avoid her attack nor surprised at his inhuman strength.

God, she's so determined. It's actually making me tear up.. (; _ ;) Lizzy…

If she wasn't aware he's a demon then it would mean that she's doing all of this while thinking he's a regular human who is very much capable of dying from her incredible strength and swordsmanship skills. It would mean that whatever reason she's trying to keep him out of the area she was protecting is worth killing him over despite the fact that Sebastian hasn't done anything wrong, at least to her knowledge. It would mean that Lizzy doesn't care whether that she's attempting to murder him even though she usually praises him and acted very friendly towards him.

She's just as happy that he's alive as Meyrin, Finny, and Bard is that she leaps in tears to embrace him.

She obviously cared about him, so does it make sense for her to harm him if she didn't discover something drastic about him?

And if that's the case then it could be said that if it was another servant (Finny, Nina, etc..) that walked in the room in chapter 117, she would treat them just the same!

That doesn't sound like Lizzy, does it?

Also, it doesn't make sense since:

1) She was grateful for him and wants (wanted) him to stay by Ciel's side

2) We know how much she yearns for Ciel's happiness (even if 2CT is real, which I believe is, and she's choosing to stay by Sirius's aka real!Ciel's side, which I think she is, that doesn't mean that she doesn't care for Ciel at all anymore)

It's actually very endearing how she says she 'entrusts' Ciel to Sebastian. It proves how much she trusts and puts faith in him.

"Anyway, what was that job? I entrusted you to Sebastian, didn't I?"

If nothing changed in the way Lizzy regards Sebastian then that whole scene is ??? because it's violently against everything we know about her character.

That must mean the relationship between Sebastian and Lizzy, or more specifically, Lizzy -> Sebastian has changed. And that makes sense because the way she addresses him is different.

It could be that Blavat told Lizzy a lie that painted Sebastian in a really terrible light. Enough for her to completely shift her perspective on Sebastian and not care if she ends up killing him, but he had to provide indisputable evidence for such a thing because I doubt Lizzy would be so easily swayed that Sebastian is evil especially when it's coming from a stranger.

OR he told her the truth. Sebastian's true nature, what he really is, who Ciel really is and what they have been hiding from everyone. Showing her real!Ciel could be a quick way to convince her, even more so if Undertaker also got involved somehow.

I've seen criticism that Lizzy's behavior is odd if she knew that Sebastian was a demon since she's more concerned with keeping him out then anything, but I disagree.

The rest is in the favor of 2CT so heads up.

Like I mentioned above, I think the reason Lizzy is staying with the Blue Sect is because of Sirius, who is real!Ciel. I think the boy she was with in 113 is real!Ciel and she's upset being unable to "save" him, whatever that means. (Maybe because he's undead/soulless?)

Here's why I think this is Sirius (if you're already convinced he is, feel free to skip):

First of all, the room they're [Lizzy and Sirius] in is different from where Ciel slept at.

This room is the where the four doors all lead to, it's where Ciel sat down watched the P4 sing, fell asleep, had blood taken, and woke up.

The place Lizzy where was is where the other door leads.

We can tell because from when Sebastian investigated the place. Panel on the left is the place where Ciel was and the right panel shows the door (shown above) that leads to Lizzy.

He opens the door and as you can see the room is a long hallway with windows exactly like the room where Lizzy met Sirius.

Ciel woke up in the same place he fell asleep so… unless they moved him then put him back, I really doubt that's our!Ciel. Why would they move him in the first place? All they did was take his blood, just like with the rest of the guests there.

Second, his right eye is shaded, hiding the spot where his eyepatch should be, similar this page. I also think this is real!Ciel btw:

What reason to hide his eye? ..It's because that isn't Ciel, Sensei just wants us to think it is. Sirius's right eye wouldn't have the mark.

Also, he isn't wearing his shoes, yet just before he falls asleep he has them on. What reason to take off his shoes?  

Thirdly, we see at the end of the chapter that Lizzy is still next to that person, who we thought was Ciel, but it can't be Ciel since he already left that place.

Why I think Sirius is Real!Ciel:

1. Same Blood type as Ciel 2. Really important 3. Layout of his room is very similar to Ciel's 4. This: Lizzy meeting Ciel

Violet meeting Sirius.

The silhouettes are exactly the same. Some say it can't be the same people because the one with Violet arms is all veiny and gross, but maybe he just looks like that when he's running out of blood??? Maybe he's really sick and vomits blood every hour, idk. The old lords' arms were kind of like that when they were getting their blood sucked out of them.

Or it could be something else. He's an advance Bizarre Doll so maybe he works differently from the others.

Anyway, the reason why I don't think it's strange for Lizzy to be more concerned about keeping Sebastian out over him being a demon, the reason why she left her family and Ciel, is because of real!Ciel. She's there for Sirius. Not that she doesn't care for her family anymore— and you can tell because of how she tries to reassure Ed that she's OK and that she doesn't hate home— or the fact that Seb's planning on eating Ciel's soul (perhaps she doesn't even know about that part), but Sirius needs her more (at least for what she knows) and she wants to help him. Her anger towards Sebastian and reasons to prioritize guarding the rooms makes more sense if he's the one who ate real!Ciel's soul.

And no, her choosing to stay with Sirius doesn't make her shallow. This is just me ranting about some stuff I read from various people so don't mind what I say from here on too much…

We already see how much this whole ordeal is hurting her so obviously it's not an easy decision for her to make. The situation sucks especially for Lizzy. It's painful and confusing but she's strong, determined, and loving and of course she's going to try to help her family especially if it's for someone who she once spent so much time with, once adored and played with.

She would do the same for Madam Red or Vincent etc. and if it was our!Ciel who died instead and came back as a Bizarre Doll, of course she would want to take care of him just like what she's doing with real!Ciel! Maybe she wouldn't be as torn cause the circumstances would be different (real!Ciel not lying about his identity for one) and maybe she wouldn't be as determined cause she probably didn't spend as much time with him, but it doesn't change the fact that she has always cared about both of them.

Maybe if you get your heads out of your ship for 5 seconds you can see that Lizzy's love and concern can go beyond Ciel.

And honestly??

I think

Lizzy

Misses

Her friend

And fiancé

A little

Phew. Rant done.

All the posts I’ve seen regarding Lizzy claim that she has yet to choose what “side” she’s on, which i disagree with... I agree that she’s confused and unsure what to do in this situation (which is understandable!!) but I think she is cemented on staying by Sirius’s side, for now at least.

She’ll evidently end up back with Ciel when all this is done anyway or dead but lol. idontthinkso, but I’d like the fandom to be more considerate with what she’s going through and her choices in the meantime...