#this site is a hellscape

[silly-little-punk]

Y'all I just saw the most entitled post.

Someone tagged two roleplay accounts (no I will not be tagging the person who did it, nor the rp accounts. They already have enough going on as is.) and told them not to tag their rp posts with the source tag (the name of the show) because they kept seeing their posts and found it annoying.

Y'all.

Y'ALL.

The block and mute buttons exist for a REASON!

If you don't like someone's content, or you don't like seeing it under the source tag, MUTE their account or BLOCK them!! The internet is a place for all of us to get together and have fun, it is NOT your place to tell people how to use it.

The fucking audacity of some people.

Idk man. Just really irked me.

Please fucking be nice to people and just leave them alone. Mind your goddamn business, and use the mute button. Please. For the love of God. This isn't even the first time I've seen this.

[ironwoman359]

A story in 3 parts, featuring @cats-with-blogs

[lesbianfanfictionenthusiast]

sometimes when i go on twitter and see all those phannies being friends and having group chats i regret not posting on there but then i see someone get reputationally executed every week and make peace with my lurking

[sadiegirl2021]

Who's going to tell the E|riels about publishing rights, and that BAM own the rights to Azriel's BC.

Waterstones and B&N own the Feysand BC rights, which is why they're releasing that one! It's not that difficult to grasp.

[darkwood-sleddog]

you know i think it's really funny (derogatory) that tumblr seemingly has the ability to create popups for ad-free, crabs, anything that will get them money, but when it comes to using popups to guide new users around the website layout they're just like "uww what can we POSSIBLY do?? all these new people only know twitter and they couldn't possibly read a popup explaining how to use the site!! let's just change everything visually appealing about tumblr to cater to our inability to make popups for helpful reasons uwu!!".

like you know what i want? If you're testing a change on me I want a pop up that says so. I don't want to have to rely on the @changes blog to see that. If i'm testing a change I should be given a feedback form that is specifically about that change. I want the results of the feedback forms for changes to be publicly viewable to the userbase. you could learn so much about how this website actually functions for users through that, but no. we can only make popups when it fiscally benefits us! we can't use polls to get a sense of what the userbase is feeling! we can't publicize what % of feedback about a change was positive or negative. we couldn't...possibly...

[get-hamilton-on-your-side]

I've been seeing posts like these going around lately, and I don't want to start Discourse™️, but I do think it's an interesting conversation to be had.

OP mentions that this is a sentiment occurring in younger viewers, and I think there are lots of reasons for this response. I'm in my early twenties, and growing up, romance was pretty much guaranteed for any book/movie/TV series with a YA audience, even if it wasn't specifically in the romance genre. There were largely popular romance series, of course, (Twilight, The Selection, etc.), but romance was also integral to several series NOT centered around romance. The Series Which Shall Not Be Named ends in a hetero utopia, where basically every member of the original crew grows up, marries each other, and all have kids. Almost every main character of Rick Riordan's series experiences a committed romantic relationship, with the exception of Reyna, (although she's mostly a side character throughout HoO) and Meg (who is a god, and an actual child). The Hunger Games has fewer romantic pairings, but the marketing for those movies were very dedicated to the "love triangle" narrative between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale.

The dedication to establishing romantic relationships does appear somewhat differently for male/masculine and female/feminine coded characters well. For example, I've seen multiple series have a sort of "7th wheel syndrome" where one member of a friend group is made fun of and/or left out in some way because they're the only one not in a relationship. Shows like The Big Bang Theory majorly have this problem, where every character's main goal in life is to fall in love and have a family. In TBBT, Raj has major dating troubles and actually ends up settling for an arranged marriage because his friends are all married and he doesn't want to end up alone. Riordan's HoO series, once again, paints Leo as a tragic figure for being the only single person on the Argo II, but his self worth is finally in tact by the end of the series when he saves the day and gets the girl. Fez in That 70s Show is regularly made fun of for his inability to get a girl. It's not lost on me that many of the male characters in these situations are POC.

While male characters are set up with a last-minute shoehorned romance, female characters (particularly white women) are often given a love interest planned from the beginning. I love Marissa Meyer's Lunar Chronicles but I was kind of dumbfounded by the end because every one of the 8 major characters ends the series in a committed relationship. Every single Disney princess up until 2012 had a prince (although, this has since changed---the only princess post-2012 with a prince is Anna).

And then, of course, you have the plethora of sitcoms that end with every character (or at least every main character) happily in a relationship. New Girl, Parks and Rec, Friends, The Office, The Good Place, Ghosts (US). Even shows like Phineas and Ferb assure the audience that the couples stay together when they're grown up. Almost every Marvel and DC superhero has a love interest, and most action heroes have a girl to save.

Don't get me wrong, I think many of the romances in the media I've talked about so far are good, well-written, and well-established. But based on the previous track-record of shoehorned romances, that is a concern I have about shows like Stranger Things (I won't talk much about The Bear because I haven't seen that show). Stranger Things has highlighted friendship as a major theme in the show, but as the characters have grown older, they've explored various romantic relationships as well. Many people online have already discussed how they fear relationships will be shoehorned in at the end of Season 5, since it is the final season. Ships like stancy, where it's clear that they wouldn't really work well together. I agree with Maya Hawke's sentiment about delving deeper into her friendships. It has been established that she has a crush on Vickie, but we've barely seen them together, and in a show that has to balance SO many different characters, I'm not sure it would serve the show well to put Robin in a romantic relationship. (There is, of course, another conversation to be had about how minority characters are presented in romantic relationships in media. Lesbian relationships are less commonly found in media and they can be really important to some viewers. My agreeing with Hawke is just my 2 cents as an ace lesbian. Other users have also mentioned that when it comes to The Bear, it can be harmful to perpetuate that a Black woman character shouldn't be in a relationship with the main white guy. I haven't seen the show and I myself am not Black, so I won't weigh in on that aspect, but it is another thing to consider in this conversation).

With romance so prevalent in media, it makes sense that our generation is taking a steep turn in the other direction. We've been shown all our lives that romance and sex trumps friendship in importance, but that's not how many of us actually live. Younger people are having sex less. I'm 22 and I'd say half of my friends are not currently in a romantic relationship, and many of them aren't looking for one. I know plenty of adults as well who are happily single, not looking for any more romance in their lives. Even the way people are experiencing romantic and sexual relationships is vastly different from what is shown on TV as there are more openly queer individuals, queer platonic relationships, and polyamory is becoming more prevalent.

I'm not an expert by any means, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. This is all based on my own observation and there is still a lot of media out there that don't have romance as a focal point, media like The Lord of the Rings, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Letterkenny, Bob's Burgers, Reservation Dogs, What We Do in the Shadows, Derry Girls. Shows like Doctor Who have characters in romantic relationships, but the romance is never placed above friendship with the Doctor. The amount of romance in a piece of media also relies on the genre it's in. I've mainly been discussing comedies, science fiction, and action, but other media such as horror, for example, treats romance and sexuality differently.

Still, showing romance, sex, and innuendo in media isn't counterculture, as is suggested by that second Twitter post. It's almost everywhere you look (and lots of kid shows/movies even include those kinds of jokes, as is shown by the amount of videos I've seen titled "I Didn't Get This Joke as a Kid.") I know we're on the internet so people don't care if they hurt other people's feelings, but acting like people who want a little less romance are immature or stupid can be hurtful. There's room for all different types of relationships.

TL;DR, I think a lot of people are just tired of media treating romance and sex as the most important relationship you can have with a person. We're not saying no media should have romance or sexuality or innuendo in it. It's just that as media diversifies, I think it's important to diversify the types of relationships highlighted as well. There's room for romance, sex, and friendship in media, and I don't think people should judge others for wanting positive representation of friendship.

[milk-sharks]

whenever ppl tag me in stuff it brings me so much joy like YES show me your little drawing i will cheer you on!!!

[furashuban]

I am no longer active on twitter 🎉🎉

[killrspringlock]

unpopular and probably abrasive opinion

ghost twitter is like the worst fucking place ive ever been, unfortunately. we have people dogging on religious folks for being interested in the lore of ghost n tobias forge’s ability to pull together such an elaborate and captivating story, literal racism and transphobia, and an insane amount of backbiting and ignorance.

if yall are serious about moving to other sites when/if twitter fucks up, leave that shit behind. 😭 please, we’re begging.

there’s a reason people call us toxic and unapproachable guys. lmfao

[sunnytastic]

i'm putting together an 18+ discord groupchat specifically for mac girlies (could upgrade to a server if we can get enough people who would be actively involved). dm me if you are interested!

[fiveholesinthefence]

i can’t wait to see taylor interact with all sides of social media but tumblr

[scorpiussage]

This app is so fucking broken like-

[kazz-brekker]

finished reading conversations with friends by sally rooney and i quite liked it so i'm very irritated to learn that the tv adaptation on hulu has been deleted off the face of the internet

[chillllii]

why am i only now realizing most people running social media (like the CEOs and shit) are either antisemitic cunts or zionists?

[vifetoile]

The Far Side by Gary Larson

abandon hope all ye who click this link

[ainsleyrice]

p-finch​:

text | shawn

shawn: im starting to think you have spidey senses. or shawn senses. i’m…enjoying myself. my sister says i need to let myself have more fun but idk how to really do that here tbh. 

ainsley: no i just know how i’d be feeling at something like that with 11 months. your sister is right but you have to figure out what’s fun for you without using. do you like to dance? swim? if you don’t actually like anything there you’re allowed to leave at anytime.