#this. isn’t. cancel. culture. anymore.

[burry-penguin]

Guys. The shit Jake Weddle went through is fucking haunting. That shit would’ve been on a True Crime Documentary if Mr. Beast hadn’t covered it up so very well with 100k hush money that had 40% stolen in income tax.

THIS IS PURE HORROR. THIS IS SOMETHING DESERVING OF TO PUNISH THE WORST AND ITS STILL NOT ALLOWED ON MASS MURDERERS BUT A CIVILIAN DOING SOME DUMBASS CHALLENGE FOR MONEY CAN BE PUT THROUGH WITHOUT CONSEQUENCE. WHAT THE LIVING FUCK.

Guys. Please go watch Dogpack404’s newest video and support Jake’s story on his channel. Reblog this or someone else saying a similar message. These videos are being shadow banned on youtube and the truth needs to be wide spread.

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

I still can't believe Shane Dawson is still active... Still positive videos and no one is talking about what he did/probably is doing.

he’s really the proof cancel culture isn’t real, his podcast editor is an actual pedophile and no one says anything because the people who have been saying things against him have realized no one cares anymore and it’s pointless.

[notfernintheslighest]

Obligatory TW for discussions of racism in media

Did anyone else notice that Deadpool 3 had way fewer characters of color? I really loved the movie and all but it felt like there was none of the characters I went to watch a Deadpool movie for. Like why is Dopinder replaced with that white man? Dopinder is one of my favorites and he’s just gone, same with Colossus. They literally replaced Dopinder with Peter, which was the joke they were making in the last movie, until they killed Peter almost immediately. Dopinder literally had a whole arc going. Where is his slow descent into madness? Like none of the main characters were people of color in this movie and the side characters were also a lot of whiter. Why doesn’t Domino make another appearance, or Firefist… Wade literally sacrificed himself to save that kid and he’s gone? Didn’t we spend a whole movie caring about them? Like Blind Al’s screen time even felt cut but maybe I'm reaching. I get that they’re not in Wade’s universe anymore but only like Blade is "new" and POC, which is typical of Disney, but not of Deadpool. He also didn’t seem to have as much screen-time as everyone else. There’s also a lot fewer references to African American culture, if memory serves. Maybe I’m delusional, but like even in the references and music it seemed to PALE in comparison to previous movies. I mean I guess Disney will be Disney, white right? I’m not excited to see how the mutants will be handled by them. Especially since the Doom casting, but playing a character outside his race isn’t new for RDJ, some could even argue that it isn’t even Tropic and that he’ll bring the Thunder.

I have only really seen one person, Nikhil Clayton on tiktok, talk about this and that was only about the lack of Dopinder to make room for White Dopinder Peter. This combined with canceling Donald Glover’s Deadpool series allegedly for being too black and making fun of Taylor Swift is not a great look.

Considering what Blake Lively has been exposed for + Ryan by extension (he’s heavily involved in the This Ends With Us debacle.) I wonder how Taylor Swift found out about the episode since allegedly it was her getting upset that “broke the camel’s back.” Shows typically don’t reach out and ask celebs who are mentioned, this is entirely speculative, but I wonder if her friend, Blake Lively, found out through her husband and somehow that information made it back to Swift. I remember Donald mentioning they had to lowkey force Ryan out of the writers room (which would be on track with his wife and his behavior on the set of This Ends With Us) but maybe I misunderstood. I don’t know for sure what all is going on, and the general public may never know, but I do know that something about this seems wrong. I hope I'm just overthinking all this, but the friends I’ve talked to have all agreed.

[nerdishpursuits]

Can you elaborate on your tags about reading jk Rowlings original post?

Just that I admit that at first, when the JKR discourse started back in the day, I didn’t actually go and read the essay she published on her blog, which is the one that started the entire thing. I did go and read it, eventually, because I tend to like forming my own opinions on things. Personally, I didn’t see any evidence of transphobia. Same with her tweets. Sure, she’s a sarcastic troll some days because she’s, probably, tired of this topic. She was arguing there is such a thing as biological sex and people transition from one to the other in order to embrace living authentically. And that kids should be kids as they have no way to consent. They need to be left alone, or helped to make informed decisions they’ll not regret later in life. Perfectly fine and I’m very much supportive of that.

Everyone should love and live as they please, and no one has the right to ostracize them for it. What she called problematic was the complete denial that biological sex exists, hormone blockers in kids who can’t really consent, self IDing as a woman without actually transitioning and some trans activists saying a biological woman’s experience doesn’t matter. I don’t see that as being transphobic. Just logic and concern.

Over the past few days my partner and I went on a deep dive on this topic and found there’s plenty trans people agreeing with JKR. We’ve seen videos of trans women competing in women’s sports and winning, then commenting they don’t care at all about the medals and winning, but simply enjoy having a good time with their friends at the gym. Why compete in the women’s weight lifting category if you don’t care about winning then? Aussie surfer Bethany Hamilton was dropped by her lifelong sponsor in favor of a trans woman who previously competed, and won, in the men’s division. Swimming, wrestling, roller skating even etc. There’s trans women out there claiming they’re the ones who know what a woman is because they’re forced to think about it, whereas a biological woman is simply born and therefore, inferior. Others who claim they experience period cramps or that their genitalia is superior to a biological woman’s etc. As far as I’ve seen. JKR and other trans people have spoken out against these kind of situations, comments and claims. That’s why I think that cancel culture is so toxic. We need to look at the whole picture and stop claiming things are black or white or the damaging adage of if you’re not with me you’re against me.

I think a very loud minority, who doesn’t represent the entirety of the trans community, might actually be doing more harm than good. Not just to the trans community, who deserves nothing but acceptance and support and love, but the rest of the LGBTQ+ community as well. Pushing a narrative too fast, and forcefully, isn’t helping. It’s actually turning people against us and it’s frustrating and depressing. Denying actual biology and elbowing your way into biological women’s spaces won’t win you their love. Calling them birthing people won’t win them over. Calling them lesser won’t open doors either.

There’s a ton of material to be found on YouTube, there’s podcasts, articles etc. Personally, I think people need to sit down and talk and debate and be diplomatic. I’m not saying JKR isn’t without her faults but I do think she’s been demonized for speaking her mind and voicing her concerns about women’s spaces and kids. It’s as if people can’t have a healthy debate anymore. We need to cancel those who don’t agree with us. It’s the all or nothing mob mentality and, personally, I’m sick of it. This is a nuanced topic and should be treated as such. But now you can’t even be a centrist anymore. You have to be for or against and nothing in between. How about we look at what’s right or wrong, for both sides, and decide accordingly. Why this inane ideological war that radicalizes people who should be having a productive conversation instead.

[winntir]

I hate to weight in on this, but I'm seeing a lot of finger pointing around the cancellation of The Acolyte, so let me point the finger at the correct culprit:

Bob Chapek, former CEO of Disney during a painful three year period the infamous Iger tried to take a step back. How is he to blame for The Acolyte's cancellation when he isn’t even in a position to do that anymore? Well, investor fraud.

See, maybe the pandemic gave some really inflated numbers for streaming services' success, maybe there was some deception on Chapek's part, particularly for Disney+, but streaming services have been over-invested in since then. With everyone stuck at home, what else were they going to do but watch stuff online? These circumstances that caused that boom no longer apply now, and because of that, all the investments made during this time couldn’t possibly see a proper return.

So, what's this have to do with The Acolyte? Well, it should be obvious. To pay back investors, Disney needed to cut their losses, and that meant anything underperforming was on the chopping block. The Acolyte was a very expensive show to make, and it wasn’t a success by the metrics they used, so they killed it. Lotta money went in, didn’t get the return they needed to justify its existence, so no more money goes in.

And from that perspective, The Acolyte was always going to get cancelled. It was never going to make a return on investment, it was never going to be a smash hit. Its destiny was failure, and it’s not because of any culture war bullshit that's a smokescreen for fascist ideologies, though the grift on YouTube got theirs. No, it was all just business. Star Wars is not art to Disney executives and investors; it’s a product, and what do you do when a product doesn’t make a return on investment? You discontinue it.

Welcome to the fucking real world.

[shoot-i-messed-up]

Shoot, have you ever heard of the Star Darlings books or the cartoon? Oh my god Star Darlings is sooo good it’s up there with Ever After High for me. It’s about this planet of essentially almost star beings that have their main source of energy come from granting wishes on Earth. It is obviously very star themed as even the way the mcs get to Earth are on hitching rides to shooting stars. Anyways, for years they’ve been having weird readings in the energy, and they decide that not enough wishes are being fulfilled to meet their needs, so they decide to train a group of 12 girls from the nearest academy and essentially have them taking expedited studies while also keeping the energy problems secret as it will cause a panic or cause students to be jealous. The girls go down to earth one at a time and realize that the magic isn’t going to be as hard as they thought and that they’ll quickly have to fit in to an alien culture to make it in their missions. Of course there is an evil villain reveal and lots of obstacles on the way, but if I said anymore it’d be a huge spoiler. It’s a damn shame that Disney cancelled the books and the webisodes though so there are 11 books. I heard years back it might come back, but I’m not holding my breath.

Omg i didn’t know there was like? actual lore for the star darlings? I actually had run across a clip on youtube when they were first coming out but I didn’t know where to watch them + it did not aeem from that clip that there was EAH levels of plot or plot at all so I kinda lost interest before I even started. When DC loses its chokehold on me a little bit, I’ll have to check it out, ty!!

[paulkleestan]

Rewatching Invader ZIM and I’m kind of stunned that it got away with so little censorship like right after 9/11 and Columbine. And I’m not referring to how adult it was because there are plenty of kid shows with mature content (Regular Show, Animaniacs, Rockos Modern Life) but how dark and cynical it was plus the concept of having an outcast in a trench coat vs a literal terrorist as a protagonist - very bold in the dubya years. I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t cancelled or drastically changed earlier as it was an overwhelmingly negative satire of American society in an era of extreme patriotism and hostility towards any criticism of American culture or policy (Google “freedom fries”, zoomers).

I’ve been reading a bit about the early development and apparently Nickelodeon was desperate to recreate the magic they had with Ren and Stimpy in the 90s so they let Jhonen make it as edgy as he wanted it not realizing that IZ would be like 10x as expensive as Ren and Stimpy and not profitable at all with its mediocre ratings compared to titans like SpongeBob. So then they were left with an expensive, mediocre performing, unsettling and unpredictable show that starred two morally ambiguous protagonists with an angular and drab color scheme and a creator who is notoriously stubborn and refuses to compromise his vision. This made Invader ZIM nigh unmarketable to kids the way SpongeBob was (this is before its Hot Topic renaissance). People get understandably frustrated about ZIM being cancelled especially with episodes still unfinished but I’m honestly grateful it got made at all.

Now what really grinds my gears is how neutered Enter the Florpus was despite the censors not even being an issue anymore due to streaming. Yes, I understand that Jhonen has gotten older and isn’t the cynical young man he used to be but at least give us some creepy atmosphere and cyberpunk aesthetics. It doesn’t have to be body horror or gross out even - just give us some cool camera angles and some gritty futuristic tech.

[stewpid-soup]

VENT CW!! STAY SAFE!!

anyone else find it exhausting to just enjoy things?

I don’t want to support people or companies that are actively doing things that are bad (racism, homophobia, defending SA, etc etc). but it’s so mentally draining to look through all of this terrible shit and not be able to enjoy things bc of their creators or ppl associated with it

i mean, i don’t support dream. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. I don’t support dream or the dteam as a whole - but the dsmp was such a big comfort to me through quarantine, and even now i still love the storyline and the characters.

HP, well that’s self explanatory. JKR is just a shit person and i’m not gonna give her my money bc i enjoy the plot of HP. I just take fanon on its own for the most part. I own the books and the films already (my family loves HP and has for a long time, since before JKR was outed as a transphobe) so i don’t need to buy anything from her. HP was a huge part of my childhood and the thought of not interacting with any content related to it makes me so sad, because i still love it even now.

and as controversial as it may be, i’ve enjoyed hazbin and helluva boss for years now. it was another comfort during quarantine, and i watched it with friends and got to bond over it. i do not like vivziepop or support her, and it’s exhausting to see all this back and forth about her online bc it’s so confusing. I love these shows and it makes me so happy that I get to see hazbin come together after waiting so long, and the same goes for helluva boss. of course there can be improvements to the way vivziepop writes some characters, but i still love these shows so much. it hurts my heart to feel like i can’t enjoy the content because the creator is such a bad person.

and then the number of musicians i’ve had to stop listening to because they turned out to be shitty people. or actors i avoided watching content of because they’re bad people (especially when the list of ppl who support Israel came out- of course im not supporting anyone on there, but some of the ppl on there just rlly hurt my heart because ive enjoyed their content for so long)

i know there’s not really any way to avoid this, as people are complex and can be an asshole w/o you knowing. funding people like this isn’t something i want or care to do, so of course i actively avoid it. but I just don’t know what to do when it comes to this.

a friend told me that it’s sort’ve about picking and choosing things, because you never know what people are really like. they said that with the state of the world, it’s important to stay educated but don’t let shitty people get in the way of things you enjoy. i’m just at the point where i feel like i can’t enjoy anything because anytime i get stuck in a rabbit hole of content, i see people going back and forth about who should be cancelled and who actually isn’t a bad person. cancel culture is one of the worst things about the internet, and it just makes interacting with fandoms even more toxic than it already is.

ig this is just a rant talking about comforts i have that i feel like i can’t enjoy anymore because of cancel culture and just like..people being people? i’m just so tired of finding something i enjoy and then learning out that they are or possibly could be doing/supporting something bad and just— it makes me feel so guilty because i don’t want to indirectly/directly hurt anyone. i know what i believe in and what i do and don’t support, at least for the most part (still learning everyday atp), but it doesn’t make it any easier to part with things i hold so dearly in my heart.

does anyone else feel similarly? if so, what have you found that helps or at least is a comfortable middle ground?

idk bro, my life is so exhausting with everything i deal with in real life- so to feel like i can’t even find comfort in my silly little shows anymore is really depressing. my mental health is not doing well lmfaooo

[neveah-llama]

Why do I have gospel on My Spotify Daylist? I’m Atheist. Oh Also Here’s Some Background Info For the Fic :)

Haha ignoring the title, I just wanted to talk to you more about ‘The Impossible Adventures of the Phantom and the Ninja,’ give a sneak peak as to what I plan and maybe get your guys’ input.

So as I said before I love serialized cartoons centered around teenage superheroes. Maybe because I love comics, or because I too felt like I was living a double-life and found a connection to these characters. Still do even though I’m now older than the characters. But what I love most about them is the possibilities for world-building.

I love stories that center more about the world the author has created, along with how that world affects the character(s) relationships, traits, etc. It shows me the extent to the author’s creativity, having thought of all these cool societies, cultures that seems real like it could belong to the real world, even down to how people in that story keep track of time.

(Off topic but this is actually the main reason why I love the ATLA universe)

However I don’t really get that with the teen-superhero drama. Especially when it airs on cartoons like Disney or Nick. They do explore some topics for sure, but I’m looking more to the drawbacks of living a double-life. Mostly because I feel those drawbacks even today. Furthermore, most of these shows like Danny Phantom and Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja were only able to air due to both the networks and the creators, at least in simple terms. So sometimes shows would be canceled when it’s left at a cliff hanger (I.e. Teen Titians (2003) and RC9GN)

So that’s why I wanted to write this fanfic, I want to try to expand the worlds of both shows by connecting them together, I want to add my own flair to the characters, story arcs, and the direction of the series, and I really hope I do both shows justice because I grew up on these shows and I even still watch them (even when some words they use are outdated and just overly obnoxious/cringe)

Which brings me to the second part of this post. To those who read this far good for you, you get a cookie 🍪.

Anyways I have three arcs planned so far when it comes to this fanfic (more will defiantly be added later on). Granted it’s not all fleshed out so I’ll have to add or take out stuff as I continue with this story. But here’s a brief description and some notes for the first three arcs:

1. Origins

Obviously it’s the introduction to the story. Danny and Randy just returned to their homes a week before school starts, it’s their first year of high school and both of them have big plans for the next four years.

They just didn’t account the chance to become heroes of their respective towns.

The arc is going to be about 4 chapters long, ending with a rewrite on ‘Bitter Reunions’. The chapters will briefly glaze over the first six episodes of Danny Phantom. And the first like two/three episodes to RC9GN.

This arc will mostly focus on Danny struggling to getting a hold of his powers and Randy coming to terms that being a hero isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Only problem is I’m not sure if I want that to happen to Randy this early on the story or not. Eh, guess we’ll see what I feel like, lol.

2) Original Storyline:

It’s in the works! This is set after both of their Halloween specials in season one. Mostly because this is placed in November. I might plan a chapter or two to happen before this arc so who knows (really want to write Fanning the flames- I have plans for that one it’s all based on a joke while I started writing out the three arcs lmao). I don’t want to say anymore other than the fact I want it to focus more on Japanese myths, it’s actually how I got inspired to write this fic so I’m really excited.

3) Interlude:

After that week-long adventure, Randy, Danny and friends slowly adjust to their new normal. Mostly just rewrites of canon episodes to help build up to another major story arc that is forming in my head at the moment. (It’s definitely a canon one just to give you a hint).

Anyways so yeah. That’s all I have so far. Thanks for reading, love y’all!

Ps if you see a poll thing, no you don’t. This is my first time posting on tumblr via phone and I don’t know how to delete it. (I’m not old I swear I’m in my early twenties 😭)

[swords-of-a-soilder]

Bless you for compiling what’s going on with that ex-bird app. It’s been genuinely insightful for me to understand the thoughts of the kinds of people behind those accounts.

That person trying to cancel creators for associating with Forever (and probably advocating for his lore to be excised from the server) saying “but I can’t possibly give up guapoduo, it’s My Hyperfixation” is very telling. Hypocrisy specifically in the context of “separating the art from the artist” isn’t something I’ve seen before, shockingly, so I guess I get to add that to my Social Media Discourse Bingo. (I had an online friend in 2016 who I was terrified to talk about my interests with because I didn’t know what angry punk teenagers on tumblr had deemed “evil and disgusting”, and even SHE stopped listening to some of her favorite metal bands when she learned they were homophobic, and had absolute turmoil when she learned that David Bowie might have allegedly slept with an underage groupie in the 70s. Her constant, unpredictable rage at seemingly random pieces of media was awful for my mental health, but at least she wasn’t a genuine hypocrite.)

Also that tone of “I’ve had good memories here… but I just can’t handle it anymore.” It sounds like someone whose meaningful but soul-crushing work has finally broken them, almost sounding like someone I knew at the frontline worker job I had mid-pandemic who missed her own birthday three years in a row, got repetitive stress injuries, and then got passed over for a promotion that was given to someone who did a fraction of the work. But the “God willing, I’ll never come back” was followed by “I’m 13” …damn, I got whiplash so hard that I astral projected into a universe where things made sense for a second. Because of course kids don’t have a complex view of other countries’ political systems or cultural pressures. Or the nuances of personal change and redemption. Or that sometimes people are just not online for a few days. And of course a 13-year-old doesn’t understand how dumb and petty they look by trying to ruin other peoples’ careers in the name of Activism (tm) while having a fandom portmanteau username.

“I didn’t want it to come to this but… I’m going to delete twitter!” I hope so, but more for their own sake, honestly. I actually have less anger towards most of them now. Many are kids with a false sense of grandiosity that makes them believe they are the ultimate moral authority, but have very little understanding of how messy people or societies can be. I just hope they can learn one day, and look back on who they are now and cringe. (And then many years after that, have the grace to forgive themselves.)

Oof, sorry for the wall of text.

I’m still not over the whole situation with Forever. I miss his energy, and his accent, and his silly bits with Richas that always dragged on too long, and N.I.N.H.O. (and everything it represented), and how different he and Cellbit are but how they understood each other WAY too well, and how he tried to make people who didn’t log onto the server as often still feel welcome and wanted, and how happy he got when anyone non-Brazilian even tried to speak a little bit of Portuguese. (I was learning, but I’ve barely touched it since.) I won’t lie, it’s affected me far more than I thought it would.

I miss Forever. Thank you for your blog being a little space where that’s okay.

I'm honestly a little worried for the kid (s), not in a "oh I just want the best for" fake bs way just a little concerned tbh. I still don't like them but I don't hate them either, they're a kid.

But at the same time I'm worried for their well being, they have like 5,000 follower on their main Twitter and 28 on curious cat (which is apprantly high for that app )

That's 5000 people (teens or not) waiting for you to tell them how to feel that can't be good for their mental state, not for a 13 yr old kid.

Most of their life was spent learning about the world and their still learning, these are the ages where you're worried about the sun blowing up.

You haven't seen how awful the world can be yet, You haven't seen how much worst it could get you haven't learned calculus yet!

To you the world is only these 13 years and you think if you don't act now everything will be over.

I get it, I had that fear too, most people grown into it and realize just how shitty it can get an settle in choosing their own battles and not letting It consume them, because no one had time for that anymore.

You want to experience the most out of live while you can and the older you get the easier it is to balance.

To me it looks like one of those situation where you'll look back and think "I wish I enojyed my childhood."

Because 5000 people waiting for you to tell them who to bash, 28 people prasing your while admitting they use to hate you.

It can't be good. And if they were to read this they'd probably say "oh you don't actually care you just want to shit on me."

And like, yeah I don't care, but am I saying all this because I want to shit on them? no I'm just pointing out concerns.

Apart from that I fully agree with anon.

[jjkyaoi]

i’m not a dsmp fan anymore so maybe people would think i shouldn’t be talking about this, but that’s stupid. this isn’t about anything but shelby and what wilbur did to her. this isn’t about the dsmp, it isn’t fandom drama or cancel culture, something that will be forgotten in a week, it’s abuse. plain and simple, there’s no other word for it.

clearly there’s something in him that he needs to work on that lead him to doing this to shelby (and other people too!) and i think he’s unwell, and needs to seek help and actually fucking fix himself instead of whatever that bullshit apology was even supposed to be, but regardless of whatever he might be going through—whatever “reasons” he could have, none of them are good enough to treat your partner like that. it was abuse. if your partner is telling you to stop doing something and it makes them uncomfortable, if they use the safe word you two came up and with you ignore it, it isn’t “playful and consensual” and i think that’s pretty fucking blatant?? having people around him that were afraid to speak up, to even make him angry, says so many things about the kind of volatile person he is and it’s disgusting how much he’s done and how many people it’s affected. support victims whether or not it’s your favorite cc. find different fucking music to listen to. support shelby

[awesomefringey]

Hi Sabine, I'm from Asia, with all due respect I wanted to correct you on the "Louis fandom" in Asia. Louis doesnt have a huge fanbase in Asia.

In Asia, the culture is very different. Most people in Asia are fans of Kpop. But the situation is different for Harry, he has been more noticed here in the last three years. And even if people arent harry fans, At least they've heard Harry's name. but Louis is not well known here, Most of his fans are larries who know him because of Harry.

I can assure you that even if you ask from 5K people in an area if they know Louis Tomlinson? They have no idea who you are talking about. But out of those 5k people, at least 3k know Harry Styles.

To be honest, I'm not surprised that Louis's tour was canceled here.

Hi nonnie, thanks for sharing your impression.

It’s so hard to discuss fandom on an entire continent. Especially as large and diverse as Asia.

I keep thinking back to when @lthqofficial asked us to share our location last summer, and maybe that helped them located the most convenient locations to where people can fly out to. Even if Asia isn’t as huge of a fanbase for Louis. But I guess with 3 months ahead, it was too short notice for many fans to find cheap enough flights and hotels anymore. 😔

In reference to this.

[thatone-churro]

i was gonna make this addition to someone else’s post but it got longer than expected and i really didn’t wanna do that to them after they said they were done talking about it in regards to their own work.

i don’t know if “bugs” or “irks” are quite the right words for how i feel, but this take certainly does something of the sort to me.

i hate that the concept of “bury your gays” and its related discourses are so quickly applied to ALL queer media. it’s completely stripped of its original context/meaning and i know THAT irks me to no end.

personally, i’m of a mind that queers deserve media about them, about queers, and also about tragedy, death, murder, action and suspense, or whatever the occasion is. it can be about the queer cast while not having a happy ending, or without the cast being perfect.

“casually queer” is how i used to describe my personal project. yes, it’s blatantly and unapologetically queer, and that queerness is important, but it’s not the focus of the story. it’s not the point of the story. there’s still action, still adventure, still death, still tragedy. the cast isn’t perfect, some die, some are awful, some are “problematic,” even the queer cast. most things happen to the queer cast, because most of the major cast is queer.

i don’t understand the idea of condemning a work for “problematic queer characters” if it’s just a primarily queer work. you can’t have a queer story with no conflict or have realistic characters that are perfect. you want a queer story, but no, no, the queer characters can’t be problematic. and the problematic trait they describe is simply just. a character flaw exploited for the sake of the narrative. i don’t get it.

a queer story written for queers shouldn’t be perfect and pure. there should be “problematic” things. there should be tragedy. they shouldn’t have to be pure. they shouldn’t have to be perfect. they shouldn’t be shunned by the community they were created for because they told an otherwise typical story, except now it’s queer. queer stories, or any story, should be allowed to be complex. there should be nuance. not everything in it should be likable. that’s how a story works.

using my story as an example, again, my all-time favorite character and one of my main protagonists for a good chunk of it is a nonbinary lesbian on ace-spectrum. okay. cool. lots of rep there. but they’re heavily flawed. they kill. they have regrets. they make stupid decisions. they’re self-righteous. they’re terrified of being the bad guy yet end up the bad guy in many people’s views. they have one very violent motive. they love their family to such an extent that they’ll destroy anyone who lays a hand on them. they’re complex. they’re nuanced. they’re not always the good guy. that’s how a story is. if they were a perfect, pure, “perfect” character, there would be no story. no enjoyable story, at least.

what baffles me the most is when queer creators make these queer stories and suddenly they’re a bad queer because they killed one of their many queer characters, for instance. i’ll use my project once more for an example. say, remember that nonbinary ace lesbian from less than a paragraph ago? yeah, i ended up killing them at one point. their story was over and while it hurt me, too, it was a necessary step for the story. their story was over and i needed them to start the next chapter of the next protagonists’ story. but as a nonbinary ace lesbian myself, does that make me a “bad queer?” am i suddenly evil if i killed off my sapphic couple that got marrie in the first part because their story was over and there was no other way to move on their daughter’s story with them there? am i the asshole for killing one of my ace characters for a narrative purpose? am i not allowed to do certain things to my queer characters anymore if i don’t want to be a “bad queer?”

i guess these feelings boil down more to how strictly puritan culture and/or cancel culture and/or “problematic” culture has invaded the literary scene and how that impacts me, a queer writer. how are we supposed to tell these stories that people beg for if they are torn down and torn apart for the exact nuances they want? how are we supposed to create anything without relentless scorn or fear of being “cancelled” for thematic complexities? i don’t understand it.

in conclusion:

i realize my opinion on the subject is probably HEAVILY swayed by my own tastes and preferences and i have no idea where i’m going with this anymore and there’s not really an argument here anymore so really this whole thing can be taken with a grain of salt.

anyway, that’s my angry rant for the day. please don’t witch hunt me for it, thanks 🤞

[noahschnappinfs]

aww, this has been in the press about ariana grande and it really made me think of noah! i hope there arent long term effects of what he's been through this past year :(

“There were all these stories coming out of nowhere that were completely false,” she said. “And that was, at 19 years old, the most impossible thing to acclimate to.”

“I hate overusing the word traumatic, but...it freaked me out,” she added.

i think this part of miss americana is very insightful about the weight that celebrities carry by being on the spotlight and how getting “cancelled” affects you since you can literally see the world change overnight from everybody adoring you to hating you. it must be really fucked mentally to see your life basically change and people just deciding they don’t like you anymore in mass scale. the good thing is that taylor, a few years later, is basically the biggest artist in the world enjoying plenty of success which imo is also a testament to how cancel culture actually isn’t a real thing long term just a excuse to police and bully people and that everybody is performative online if they are able to just switch up like that so fast.

what ariana says it’s also really important because for noah and every artist that starts their career at a very young age, i think it must be a really heavy weight to carry because you have everything about you publicly exposed in a way that normal people don’t have to worry about. you can just make mistakes and it’s seen as a normal part of growing up while they have everything plastered whenever they are true or not everywhere specially now with how extensive social media is.

it’s very human to be affected by this stuff but noah seems to have a strong support system and even sought out external support with therapy which i feel like will be very helpful in the long term. obviously i’m not him so i don’t know how he’s doing but i feel like he’s a good path there with all that.

[the1975attheirverybest]

as a white woman that grew up entirely in the middle east, literal child to woman, i cannot excuse matty’s silence in the slightest. seeing the things that i’ve seen, but living beside, protected by consulates and ambassadors, even when the suffering is right at our doorstep, was fucking terrifying. not for me, but for the people that i wasn’t allowed to help because the people around me saw me as “above it”. if matty truly cared about people, he wouldn’t hesitate to speak out. bottom line. the controversy he has been involved in this year has been on another level, but i don’t see how not getting cancelled is more important than using your platform correctly!!!!!!!!!!! idk it gets me mad that this is what he chooses to be silent over because as we know, the middle east never receives the support or the compassion it deserves.

Omg, I had no idea you grew up in the Middle East! That’s sooo cool!!!

Yeah, exactly. And, the thing is, this isn’t average conflict, or say, some country has passed a bill that may get voted on in some counties or some shit. Where he can legitimately ask himself “is this worth stepping in? Is this the appropriate time to bring it up?” What’s going on right now is not even about religion or politics or whatever. It’s literal genocide. Literal ethnic cleansing. It’s not a dispute. It’s a war crime and a moral tragedy. There are no pros and cons here.

The Al Jazeera reporter whose family was killed by Israel (who admitted on air that their goal was to murder them in order to silence him) said, of last night, “we are not okay. There are body parts everywhere.”

Not even bodies. Body PARTS. So, yeah him “choosing his mental health” is nonsense to me. What about the mental health of the children who are seeing body parts? What about the mental health of the parents who are burying their babies????

And Israel is literally trolling on Twitter?? Have y’all seen their tweets and Greta Thunberg (matty was right, the most punk person ever)? Or their taunting of Bella Hadid? Bro they’re even beefing with the UN online?!!! Branding Palestinians as “the children of darkness” calling us “human animals” while playing victims. But spending $7 million in YouTube Ads to spread propaganda. All of these things are close to Matty’s heart.

Remember the interview where he talked about how every artist has a responsibility to use their platform? And how he called out imagine dragons for branding themselves as “alternative” but never speaking up about anything? Or his little rants about how post-9/11 American music culture became escapist because people didn’t want to fade the real problems going on around them? Or how he always says he can’t sell out because he has kids coming up to him with “love it if we made it” tattoos on their necks and he doesn’t want to let them down? Fuck, even in Singapore he talked about how we don’t have anymore good protest music anymore and now art used to mean something.

Honestly, the more I think about it the more evidence I find for why he SHOULD have said something by now and the less I want to make excuses for him.

It’s making me feel invisible as a fan. I don’t know. Whatever he’s thinking, I hope the silence feels worth it to him. Cuz it’s not feeling that way to me.

[schrodingerscal]

I’m genuinely so numb to cancel culture by now that a cc can kick babies in the street and I couldn’t give less of a shit. What these people do is terrible and makes them horrible people, but who isn’t a horrible person by now? If engaging with their content makes me a monster, than I genuinely couldn’t care less anymore. 99% of content creators are terrible fucking people. I don’t like that they are but I’m just so numb that I couldn’t care more if it was a gunshot through the heart. I hate that.