#thought piece

[pencopanko]

Antisemitism and Islamophobia are very similar (if not the same), actually

So I was scrolling down the #palestine tag for any updates and important information, and I came across this:

And I think we need to sit down and talk about this.

I am a Muslim. I live in Indonesia, a country that is predominantly Muslim and a lot of Muslims here also support the Palestinian cause. Hell, even our government supports it by not only allowing Palestinian goods enter the country without fee, but also by taking in Palestinian refugees and even acknowledging the status of Palestine as a state while not having any political ties with Israel. The topic of the Palestinian tragedy has been spoon-fed to us at schools, sermons, media, etc., so your average Indonesian Muslim would at the very least be aware of the conflict while non-Muslims would hear about it from their Muslim friends or through media.

However, there is a glaring problem. One that I keep seeing way too often for my liking.

A lot of them are antisemitic as hell. The sermons I would hear sometimes demonize Jewish people. Antisemitic statements are openly said out loud on social media. Some are even Nazi supporters who would literally go to anime cons and COSPLAY as members of the Nazi party. This is not just an Indonesian Muslim problem, no, but this is a glaring issue within the global Islamic community as a whole. Today, this sense of antisemitism is usually rooted in general hatred towards the Israeli government and its actions against the people of Palestine, but antisemitism amongst Muslims are also rooted in certain interpretations of verses from the Qur'an and Hadith mentioning Jewish people and Judaism (particularly the Bani Israil), but in a way that is more ridiculing instead of life-threatening when compared to how antisemitism looks like in the Western world.

As someone who prefers to become a "bridge" between two sides in most cases, I find this situation to be concerning, to say the least. While, yes, it is important for us Muslims to support Palestine and fight against injustice, we must not forget that not every Jewish people support the Israeli government. A lot of them are even anti-Zionists who actively condemn Israel and even disagree with the existence of Israel as a state as it goes against their teachings. A lot of them are also Holocaust survivors or their descendants, so it is harmful to think for one second that Hitler's actions and policies were justified. It's just like saying that Netanyahu is right for his decision to destroy Palestine and commit war crime after war crime towards the Palestinians.

As Muslims, we also need to remember that Jewish people (the Yahudi) are considered ahli kitab, i.e. People Of The Book along with Christians (the Nasrani). The Islam I have come to know and love has no mentions of Allah allowing us to persecute them or anyone collectively for the actions of a few. While, yes, there are disagreements with our respective teachings I do not see that as an excuse to even use antisemitic slurs against Jewish people during a pro-Palestine rally, let alone support a man who was known for his acts of cruelty toward the Jewish community in WW2. They are still our siblings/cousins in faith, after all. Unless they have done active harm like stealing homes from civilians or celebrating the destruction of Palestine or supporting the Israeli government and the IOF or are members of the IOF, no Jewish people (and Christians, for that matter) must be harmed in our fight against Zionism.

Contemporary antisemitism is similar to (if not straight up being the exact same thing as) contemporary Islamophobia, if you think about it; due to the actions of a select few that has caused severe harm towards innocent people, an entire community has been a target of hate. Even when you have tried to call out the ones supporting such cruelties, you are still getting bombarded by hate speech. It's doubly worse if you're also simultaneously part of a marginalized group like BIPOC, LGBTQ+, etc. as you also get attacked on multiple sides. This is where we all need to self-reflect, practice empathy, and unlearn all of the antisemitism and unjustified hatred that we were exposed to.

So, do call out Zionism and Nazism when you see it. Call out the US government for funding this atrocity and others before it that had ALSO triggered the rise of Islamophobia. Call your reps. Go to the streets. Punch a fascist if you feel so inclined. Support your local businesses instead of pro-Israel companies.

But not at the cost of our Jewish siblings. Not at the cost of innocent Jewish people who may also be your allies. If you do that, you are no different from a MAGA cap-wearing, gun-tooting, slur-yelling Islamophobe.

That is all for now, may your watermelons taste fresh and sweet.

🍉

Salam Semangka, Penco

[pinksbrickwall]

Rain World, Dark Souls, and the Value of "Bad" Game Design

So I've finally started Dark Souls, and I'm hooked. A few annoying bits aside, I would probably consider this game to be one of my absolute favorites. And as I fell in love with the game's unique atmosphere and approach to difficulty, I couldn't help but recall back to the first time I really got into Rain World. I know it's a huge meme to label any given game as the "Dark Souls of _," but hear me out, I think I'm on to something here.

More so than a lot of the surface-level similarities, (desolate, abandoned setting, infamous difficulty, emphasis on exploration) I feel like the main trait which these two games share is that of immersing the player through fear. Bonfires/shelters are scarce in both of these games, and that combined with the games' bone crushing difficulties led to me treating everything, from the creatures to the objects to even the landscape as a potential threat. And one aspect which contributes to this fear, which I feel is understated in discussion surrounding these games, lies in their jankier moments.

These games are messy as hell, both games having multiple sections where the means of traversal almost seems like an accident as opposed to an intentional choice made by a human developer. There are multiple sections in Dark Souls which almost seem untested, Pinwheel, the entrance to The Great Hollow, and the part in Anor Londo with the archers being an especially infamous example. There's a part in Rain World where, in order to clear a bridge in the Sky Islands, you're forced to make multiple blind leaps of faith as a result of the game's fixed camera. These perfections are flawed and frustrating, sure, but I believe there's also an exhilaration to be found in traversing a world that isn't necessarily built for you. Unfairness in a game, when executed right, can create memorability; sure, a game with a linear difficulty curve may be objectively well-designed, but who can forget the experience of beating Pinwheel in three hits? Who can forget the experience of getting snagged by their first pole plant? Who can forget the first time they found out about Ash Lake?

I think what these games do better than any other game I've played is lend the player a sense of autonomy, not just from the games themselves, but also from the developers who created them. Games which prioritize the convenience of the player may be more easily accessible, but personally, I always tend to gravitate towards games in which the developers may not necessarily have my back. Though games like Rain World and Dark Souls may be frustrating at times, every mistake, discovery, and improvement you make in those games are undeniably your own, and that to me makes all the frustration worth it.

[soapdispensersalesman]

[mogai-angel]

something i never liked that i find commonly in the mogai community, and generally more radically leftist queer spaces, (though thankfully less often now) is the pressure to disclose whether or not you're "tme", or in other words, transmisogyny exempt.

it's extremely regressive to expect people to indirectly expose their agab in the name of "intersectionality". it's part of a larger trend of even those who hold more radical views on gender subconsciously upholding a gender binary. it's just a slightly more veiled way of asking someone for their agab, or as all trans people can attest to being inappropriate, asking someone what's in their pants.

is there something to be said for the unique experience of those who are both transfeminine and affected by misogyny? absolutely. however, under true intersectionality, there's something to be said about every overlapping point of an individuals identity. they're all relevant in the appropriate conversations, however trying to list every intersection you personally fall under in a social media bio is futile.

it also completely undermines the unique experience of those who don't fall into the binary of being affected by or exempt from transmisogyny. gender isn't binary, sex isn't binary, transitioning isn't binary. for example, i consider myself both transfeminine and transmasculine. am i supposed to disregard one part of my identity in favor of the other? am i supposed to disregard the ways in which ive been perceived through different stages of my life?

the tldr: you can't progress past a binary by enforcing it under other labels, and there are ways to hold conversations about transmisogyny without expecting everyone by default to disclose their relationship towards it

[drphitheguy]

Hotline Ruina and Acceptance (and a lack thereof)

I've been playing Hotline Miami 2 & Library of Ruina lately, and it's got me thinking about their similarities. Both are settings that have incredible violence, interesting characters, and they're both very gloomy and kinda depressing, though Ruina is way more dystopian. But what I've been thinking about is how these series handle death.

A bit of a warning: there will be spoilers for both Hotline Miami and Library of Ruina, as well as mentions of death.

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D A N G E R S P O I L E R S A H E A D

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In Hotline Miami 2, we see into the lives of everyone involved in the story. The Fans, Beard (Jacket's friend from the first game), Manny Pardo, Richter, and even some members of the Russian Mafia. While the gameplay is still more or less the same as the first, you realize that the people you fight and kill throughout the game also have names, aspirations, and are trying to live their lives, no matter how egregious the cost. You also learn that they're all heading to a quite literal dead end. We also learn how 50 Blessings operates (the people who spurred the assaults on the Russian Mafia.) Basically, what ultimately happens is that this cycle of violence escalates so intensely that it leads to nuclear annihilation. Every character we've ever gotten to know and see the life of gone in an instant. And do you know what I felt? Hollow...but I also felt acceptance. I came to terms with the fact that all these characters made the decisions that brought them all to that point. And there's nothing that we the player could have done to change the outcome. Now let's switch gears over to Ruina shall we?

Library of Ruina follows up after the events of Lobotomy Corporation (which you should play beforehand) We follow Angela (the Library Director) and Roland (a washed-up grade 9 fixer). Basically Angela fills Roland in on her plan to become human. Angela created the library in an effort to find "The Perfect Book" to make her human. She intends to do this by sending out invitations to certain guests so that upon their arrival she will kill them and trap them in books. So throughout the game you fight all these guests and learn about them. You may get attached to them only to realize that you have to fight them. And THIS. SUCKS. It gets even worse when you end up fighting recurring characters that appeared in Lobotomy Corporation. Ultimately after a bunch of fighting, floor realizations, and one final battle between Angela and Roland having been blinded by revenge, the two ultimately come to their senses realizing that their conquests for revenge caused so much harm to The City (which already has a whole slew of problems, but that's another can of worms.) So Angela ultimately releases the light built up in the Library, releasing everyone who has ever been trapped in a book, effectively giving them all a second chance. Now how did I feel after this? Initially ENRAGED... then relieved (woo hoo Myo gets to live! :D)

You're probably wondering what the point of any of this is. It all comes down to a question that I've been asking myself the past few months. How come I can accept everyone's death in Hotline Miami 2, but not the deaths of certain characters in Library of Ruina? Maybe it's that not everyone in Ruina dies, maybe I'm comparing apple to oranges here, or maybe it's something else. Regardless, what do you think? I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

[zombehattack07]

ive got weird opinions on tomtord.

i hate them but i love them. i like the idea that they both feel drawn to each other but they both suck at communicating it. but i only see them having tangible chemistry at two points; as teens-young adults, and in the far off future. i think things got too messy with them. i think they got too afraid of their own issues. i think tord lost himself for a while, and when he came back he came back wrong. tom feels like a guard dog to me in the end; matt and edd are his only anything, and he's got to keep them safe. it doesn't matter what tord used to say that made him smile, or what happy memories they've got of one another. something poisoned that comradery right before tord left, and tom needs to fight for the people and the place he clung on to in the aftermath. they can't have what they had again.

not until the future. when tord is coming to terms with the broken guy that he is, when he's finally realized the hurt he caused in his own stupid path to "saving the world", and he knows now that he's been doing it all wrong. he needs help. tom doesn't have another choice; he's worn down and he's got no where else to go. they think they're going to kill each other the longer they work together. tom thinks tord is going to blow his brains out any day now. until they share a bottle and talk and it all comes out, that's when they realize again that they're both human. they're both hurting. they're both missing the stupid, simple life they used to have and they're missing their friends. they miss themselves. that's when they can love again. and maybe they can get it right.

(not without a few fist fights. nobody's perfect.)

[lamentingmidna]

"Penance"

a thought piece about the chimera ant arc, another timeline aside from canon, where the King and Queen live happily, but not peacefully.

***

The small farmhouse across the field of tall yellow grass, plains mowed and raked and seeded. The soil rich in smell, coupled with the fragrance of blood. At his feet, headless bodies, blood pooling from the napes of their necks, drenching the dirt in thick red.

“You’ve been here before.”

Meruem lifted his head. A small girl—as tall as Komugi’s youngest sister, and just as stout. She wore a small orange frock that was spattered with blood. Her neck was bruised, and her hands were in the early stages of decay.

But her face was just as it was before Meruem had killed her. Her cheeks were rosy in her youth, her eyes wide, her hair cut short, just past her ears. He had almost failed to recognize her without that fear in her eyes.

He started to speak. “You’re…”

“I have no name,” she said. “You never knew it. You never will.”

Her voice did not flow with natural human inflection. It lifted on words it should not have, as though she was automated. 

Meruem looked hard at her face. “You’re not angry with me?”

“What good would it do? I am already dead.” She said, her voice was breathy, without form or assertion. She sat on the floor with her legs crossed. She did not blink. “Join me.”

The two bodies lay on either side of him as he sat. “This is a dream,” he said, “since I don’t know your name, you can’t tell me. I suppose I can’t ask you about your parents.”

“No.”

The sun shone bright and burned hot onto the dry grass. The air was thick with humidity. The wind picked up and rustled it, the sound like crumpling paper. 

“Was it just like this?” Meruem asked her, “There’s not a cloud in the sky.”

“You spent the morning looking down. I did not think you noticed.”

“I did. Briefly. I imagined it was the perfect weather to hunt, but I did not think I would remember much else.”

The girl’s chin lifted to meet his eyes. “That’s not true. This is a core memory for you.”

Meruem did not say anything in response. If this was, in fact, a dream, then something within him had manifested into the child he did not know. It was something he had read about, once, an analysis of dream study. He did not know he had the ability to dream.

“I am surprised I still remember what you look like.”

The girl’s face was still. He didn’t know why he expected her to smile at that—perhaps it was something a human might find funny. 

She spoke quietly. “Do you know, Meruem, why you are seeing me again?”

His name in the mouth of an inferior was not something he had expected, but it lost its power in the voice of the dead—it was as though someone else was being addressed.

“I cannot say for sure. I can guess.” 

She did not speak, instead she waited for him to do as he suggested. 

He cleared his throat. “You are my first human kill—but you were a young life, and I snuffed you out. There was no room for your potential because of me.”

She stared at him. The sun blazed above them, and the light did not catch in her eyes. “But you do not regret killing me.”

Meruem’s mouth began to dry. “Regret is not something I experience. Every choice I have ever made—including the wrong ones—helped me to become who I am today.”

“And you are?”

Her stare had pierced him in a way he had not anticipated. He could not look away. 

“I am…” 

He did not know why he hesitated. I am King. I am a spouse to my beloved wife. I am a friend to her, a colleague, a catalyst of change. I am changed. I am different. I am not who I was before.

The scent of blood overwhelmed him. He expected to smell the bodies on either side of him decomposing, and was unsure if they were still there. He could not bring himself to address them in front of the girl, though she was looking right in his direction.

Even Komugi’s focused stare had more emotion than this. He could not read this girl’s face, trying not to stare at her neck, nor the rotting flesh that turned her skin into a deathly, weathered gray. 

“I am a murderer.” He said. They were the only words that would fall through his tongue. “You were but one of many lives I had taken.”

The girl’s expression did not change.

“I did this.” He still did not look. “I killed and ate your parents right in front of you, and I spit it back out. Then I killed you. I did not think about it. I did not feel a thing.”

“You will not apologize, then, if you do not feel regret?”

“I can extend my sympathy, at most—I understand what I have taken from you. I know now that it was wrong. But I cannot apologize to you. It will not bring you back. It will not change what I have done.”

“No,” she said, “it would not.”

“And this is a dream.” He said, “You’re not really here. Even if it would assuage anything I felt, it would be meaningless. What point is there in assuaging myself when it is now etched into my memories? I will live with this forever.”

She cocked her head to one side. “And this is not regret?”

“No.”

“No,” she repeated, and muttered the word to herself. “No, no, no.”

The blood from her parents had dripped towards him.

The girl watched him closely. Her gaze had not left his own. “And Komugi?”

Meruem’s tail coiled towards himself. He could not quell the unease that was beginning to rise up within him. Something was going to happen soon, but he did not know what. “What about her?”

“She is a human you did not kill. She changed your mind.”

This was an easy and difficult answer. To state that he grew to know and love her was the truth, but wrong in the face of the girl he killed without hesitation. He knew that much.

“You thought of killing her once, too. Would you have regretted that decision? Or would she also have been a casualty in your growth of character?”

Meruem’s mouth was completely dry. He did not have the strength to deny the girl of that fact. 

“Who is a casualty? Who is not? If one life does not matter to you, does any matter at all?”

“Komugi’s life matters,” he said with a voice made of chalk.

The girl’s hands fell neatly into her lap. “And mine does not.”

Meruem could not tell if she was saddened by this, and knew that the comfort he offered was minimal. He gestured to the bodies on either side of him. “It mattered to them, didn’t it?”

The girl said, “They are dead.”

“But they were alive, once. As were you. You mattered to each other.” Meruem finally broke his gaze from her to look at them. Their flesh was still intact, as if the killing had happened only moments ago. “You were more than what my memories can make of you. To me, you were a victim. To them, you were cherished. Only now do I understand how much a life can mean. Only now do I understand the weight of what I had done.”

She did not follow the gesture to look at her parents. Her eyes had not left him. Not once. “You do not…” she said, “...this is not regret?”

“It is guilt.” He said. “I find it unproductive to wish I had not done what I did. I am not the only ant, nor human, who has killed—and I will not be the last. I am leading a nation of ex-murderers—I have to live through what I have done, despite the weight it bears on me.”

The girl looked at him, finally blinking. Her gaze fell to her parents at his sides. “They were my Komugi.” She said. 

Meruem sat with her, feeling the blood pooling around his legs. He silently mourned all three of them—a mother, a father, and their lonely daughter. 

“You are going to wake soon,” the girl said. “You still have not told me who you are.”

“Perhaps with time,” he said, “I will find out.”

 Meruem met her eyes again. She did not smile, but her face had caught the light. “In time you will understand me further, as you will be reminded of me for the rest of your life.”

He did not know why this hopeful look about her had been paired with an ominous parting, but he could not help but feel as though he was not going to speak with her about this again.

“Meruem,” she said, “please take care of me this time.”

[writingwhateveriwant]

Stanford Pines found himself questioning the nature of things constantly. It wouldn’t have been anything he didn’t feel equipped to handle if it hadn’t ever started being about him like it had been recently.

How would a normal person handle this? He found himself asking. Is this something that anyone could ever think was okay? It’s societally frowned upon, but what about it is objectively wrong?

Is there something wrong with me? Is there something wrong with them? He found himself asking these questions in his head constantly. He didn’t stop to consider that the fact he was so concerned about being a good person is, in itself, proof that he is doing the best that he can.

Incest isn’t inherently wrong. But Stanford didn’t know that. He knew it in his head, but not in his heart. Not in the little, nagging feelings inside of his chest and throat. Not in the moments where he walked past his brother and felt that wave of longing, shame, fear, and acceptance.

He had accepted long ago that he would never be considered normal or alright by most of society. But it’s frustrating when life throws just more and more unexpected parts at you.

“I just want to be normal,” He would think constantly, backing against the farthest wall from all of the strangeness from him combined. He’d pull at his hair and cry, thinking that everything would be better if he just didn’t exist in the first place.

But that’s not true.

And I’m disappointed in people for making him think that it is.

Open your mind. He’s trying to. I promise it isn’t easy to go against things you’ve believed for as long as he has. Take a chance.

[catnherthoughts]

ptsd in romantic relationships 12/18/23

this is not fair to you and i apologize. there is nothing you have done to me as far as i've known. this weight coming onto you is not what you deserve. i should be sorry that i am the one you love*. you don't even know it! you have no clue and as much as i'd love for it to stay that way i don't know if i can keep hiding these panic attacks. but how am i meant to tell you. it's not a good thing and i'm meant to be good. i am as good as i can be because you picked me an made me yours. you gave me something i've been searching for for years and i have to nerve to feel any sort of way? it's been a very long time since i've been in therapy. i think that you can infer from some things. you aren't dumb, in fact you're a capricorn. with a cancer moon. god you are great.

i remember when we were in the car and you said you've never really had any sort of real emotional turmoil. you've never thought of suicide. never been abused to a degree that was severe. that is so nice. i was so grateful that you never had to experience something like that. you don't have any sort of weight on you. then immediately after i thought to myself. i have thought of it. there were days, weeks, months, years where it's all i thought of. more times than i'd like to admit that i've tried and for some reason unbeknownst to me all failed. all of them failed for me to come to you like a battered puppy inside.

you don't know what happened to me. how they hit me and what i was forced to take and how i was manipulated. i was meant to feel like i wasn't a person. that is what love is to me. i am scared everyday that you are going to do the same and that is not fair to you. you are nice to me. such a great partner. how could i ever think that way. i feel so horrible about myself when you say something stupid and i think about how you could be trying to manipulate me or trying to do something to me. when we got high over the phone and u joked about gaslighting i laughed it off but i almost went into a panicked frenzy.

i don't deserve you. i can't pretend like i am not who i am. you don't know me at heart and i don't even know if i can tell you. how is this gonna work. you don't get it and i don't want you to. no one has ever really loved me without repercussions to my psyche. i have scars on my body from everyone i've ever loved, whether self inflicted, inflicted by them, or mental. im so tired. i dont deserve you i should kill myself. you don't deserve a girlfriend like me. you deserve a girl that is okay mentally, no attempts under her belt, a normal girl. so you guys can love each other and you don't have to deal with this. i don't even want to deal with it. i don't want to tell you but i think after we break up i may do it. i got the love i've been longing for and i've been so tired of keeping going. you don't deserve a dead girlfriend. maybe i'll do it a few years after we break up so u don't think its your fault. if anything its the opposite. you're delaying the ineviatable by being such a good person.

i haven't been good at all. i'm a bad person. i can say that the world molded me this way but that is an excuse i chose not to take. there is something wrong with me in the soul after being thrown around the way i have. you don't deserve someone like me. if i had a gun i'd do it right now and leave you a long letter about how you were such a great boyfriend and how you helped me through what i'd never tell you about and all the things of that sort. i think that i was meant to perpetually be abused so that i can take all i can possibly take and then reach a breaking point where my method of choice actually goes through. i'm sorry that i am me.

gray text: ohh, guessing u don’t wanna talk about it

blue text: i don't want it to seem like i don't tell you why i feel some ways sometimes because of anything against you. there is just a good amount of things you don't know ab yet and eventually you'll know ab it all but i just get anxious that you won't look at me the same plus i don't wanna like burden u with this stuff i can deal w myself. i trust you a lot and rlly do appreciate you very much.

im so sorry that we met and you liked me.

[drawnaghht]

So! I think I've figured out how to tag both the leosagi and leochi ships.

Since this is mainly a BLOG and not just a random social media page, it will be easier for me to organize the tags as if this were a more traditional blogging site. So I will be trying to keep the tags as few and as relevant as possible.

I'll be mainly using YuiNardo / yuinardo from now on for just the Yuichi Usagi/rottmnt Leo ship, and stuff like my own fanart. it's specifically "show x show" for me (Yuichi x Nardo, bc those are their unique names in their respective shows xD) and not some of the fan OC stuff

leosagi for the general 2003 Miyamoto Usagi/Leonardo ship but maybe also i.e. crossovers where ppl draw all the versions?

katanashipping also for 2003 leosagi? like I guess I'll decide based on how specific it gets (edit 1.05.23) definitely about 2003 leosagi, since that's where it originated from

I'll use 2003 leosagi when it gets more specific i.e. fanfic recs or longform comics which I wanna find later

Rise Leosagi for the 2018 versions that people have made their own, based on the Miyamoto/Leo ship (lol this might be difficult to retag, cuz I'm not sure what I've tagged with what anymore)

Sliderbunny for people's own versions of rottmnt Leo and (both romantic and platonic ships, cuz there aren't as many posts for this anymore)

and I guess Leochi for something more specific? like that's been the tag now for Leo/Yuichi but I'm not sure where it started from so idk how to use it but I guess I'll find out when I see more stuff in the tag lol. might use it just for reblogs/fanart but I’ll see

I can't remember any other names so those are it for now. I probably won’t use the longer names like Yuichi x Leo, Miyamoto x Leonardo etc just bc I find it tedious to use that many spaces in tags when tagging can be sorta annoying to do on mobile and then fix later on PC. I’m more of a “tag and go” kind of person and I like my tags to be easy to write.

like im sorry I write so much (I don't enjoy writing lenghty things) but i legit need to tag like an oldschool blog occasionally bc I ENJOY finding stuff on my own blog later. it just makes sense! it is so confusing going thru multiple tags for the same thing when it could have a singular tag. or a single new tag for a specific use. and I've forgotten to do that after using social media so much for so long lol

anyway this isn't that important i am just chillin and remembered that I thought of this and needed to post it so I wouldn't forget.

more related random thoughts under the cut!

Thinking of that, I guess the tag clogging starts to make sense, considering how much people are more used to the "tag clouds" popularized by twitter and instagram and social-media-like sites before those (the sites inbetween blogging and web 2.0, maybe, but didn't really use those as much so I don't remember either) + the confusion about what the og leosagi was (+ maybe general tmnt fandom confusion over various versions of media for the franchise)

lol it's gonna take a bit long but I'll reorganize the blog more once I have a bit of time on the side from other stuff. now it feels nice that this blog isn't actually that big yet. I don't use sideblogs very long usually and it's my first time actually making anything TMNT related for this long, so it'll be interesting seeing where this blog will go in general. like how it's probably been subtle that while this userhandle/blog started as a tMNT sideblog, I actually have started blogging more about Usagi Chronicles now bc I like the show. and idk what else I'll post if I have time but I will probs keep it as a reblog blog anyways!

I try not to write long blog posts on tumblr anymore but I think the whole "leosagi-leochi tag clogging" point brought up in the "Why do we ship leosagi" video is also just a good point abt how we don't really treat blogs like blogs anymore. every sort of behaviour online has become so influenced by the want to make it trend or have it at least be read at all ("social media" aspect of online behavior now) that even stuff like ao3, a fanfic site, will have tags like "AO3 algothithm, PLEASE be nice to me" when sites like that don't even HAVE algorhithms. it's interesting to think about but also a bit sad on the side because that "tag clouding" does seem to be the only way for some works to become noticed on the above-mentioned actual social media sites. this almost makes me miss sites like deviantart and blogger because things always felt more centralized and easy to find vs twitter, insta or occasionally even tumblr.

ANYWAY

lol all this just to organize my thoughts on ship tags

if you've read this far, lemme know if there are any other tags ppl use? or are there any other types of tagging conventions we should bring back i.e. mashing the names together?

[arivinah]

Really interesting thought piece.

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available. 

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community. 

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company? 

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists. 

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom 

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

-

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits. 

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people. 

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it. 

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.

[pinksbrickwall]

Flowey's Final Message: Undertale's Perfect Ending

One of the best things any piece of media can do, in my opinion, is leave a lasting impression. A lot of my favorite games/movies/albums are those which, upon finishing, impel me to lay down for a while so as to process exactly what it was I just experienced. And it's so poetic that, for all its bombastic characters, fun humor, and wonderfully absurd melodrama, the moment in Undertale which stuck with me the most involved nothing but a still white sprite juxtaposed against a black screen.

Flowey's final speech is just about the most devastating final note Undertale could possibly have ended with. Upon first completing the game and falling in love with the characters and the world, there was a certain melancholy upon seeing the game finally wrap things up with an elegant bow, complete with a montage of the characters I had helped and befriended living happy lives on the surface, their respective journeys having been completed. But even despite this melancholy, I was contented by the fact that, like with every other game, I could go back and re-experience these characters' journeys any time I wished.

Only for the game, in its final moments, to shatter any sense of security I may have had with a final, desperate plea: to let these characters I had helped throughout the game live their lives in peace, to leave the game behind without ever looking back.

And herein lies the central theme of Undertale: moving on. This final moment with Flowey is perhaps the greatest final test the game could have presented to the player--not a battle or puzzle, but a moral dilemma. You've spent the beginning and ending of the game helping characters to move on from their unhealthy obsessions, Toriel and Asriel both having to let you go by the end of their respective battles. Now, in the game's final moments, you must learn to do the same thing.

No other game has ever scrambled my brain like this, exploring the inherent selfishness in resetting the progress of the characters whose lives you had claimed to value, re-experiencing their journeys like puppets strung by marionettes. So much weight is put on a mechanic which I had completely taken for granted otherwise. Would the act of resetting everything back to zero inherently cheapen your relationship with these characters? Are you able to immerse yourself so deeply into this fictional world that you're willing to never return to it again if it would mean allowing its characters to live happily? In the end, as the game so eloquently posits, the choice is up to you.

[haroldbiggs]

Positive minded is best for me.

Keep it positive!

[d3adly-d4rl1ng]

This is such an important message. I fully agree. I get honoring the work of the person who first came up with the idea of the story. It's like the foundation, and the fanworks are the house built on top of it. But it doesn't make the walls or the roof any less important, yaknow?

I've been so obsessed with Fionna and Cake lately because this show really represents the thought from this comic. Well, it represents a lot of things, but one of them is definitely celebrating fan work. Prismo made Fionna and Cake as a fanfic of Finn and Jake. They were his way of escapism, something that brought him joy. And the whole plot is basically protecting that from a canon purist. It can be read as an argument that an "illegitimate" story can be just as valid as any other and deserves to be treated with respect.

This meta narrative of fan experience has been popping up in media quite a lot lately. Owl House comes to mind. I hope it gets explored more, being in a fandom is such a big aspect of many people's life.

a comic about my weird irreverence for canon

go write a bad ending AU! ship your self-insert oc with your favourite villain!! the world's your oyster!!!

[drag0nerd]

so that One Piece remake news huh