#which also includes discussing stuff with anons who disagree; people obviously can disagree and they should

[daggryet]

what were you doing in 2022 ?

[straightlightyagami]

Political Ideology Tier List

if I ever get a callout it will be because of this. anon clearly wants me dead. uhh ok I'll try. I'm sure I don't have to say that this is Very subjective. please don't kill me, I'm neurodivergent and a minor.

Note that this is not about specific countries or instances of implementation of these ideologies!! If I were to discuss every variation, this would take forever. This is more like rating the philosophical basis of them. Factors determining the ranking include how much I agree with it, whether I think it's consistent and well-founded philosophically, whether the underlying philosophical ideas are interesting, and whether the aesthetics are good. Meaning a higher rating does not necessarily indicate I agree with it. if you cannot understand this sentence please do not continue reading.

I will go through the main "groups" of ideologies and then rank the sort of subtypes of them. I'm not going to explain all of them in detail here but I will do that in a similar format in response to another ask that asked me to do that.

Neoliberalism: almost nobody uses this to refer to themself, it's more of a descriptor applied to either the modern-day version of liberal ideas or the "state ideology" of the US. tbh seems more like post-hoc justification of existing policy. aesthetics are... most people would say they're not there but that's not actually true. maybe bonus points for the influence it has. C-.

"Classical" liberalism: anyone who calls themself nowadays that is guaranteed to be insufferable but also imo it has very interesting historical philosophical contributions, even if I disagree with them. obviously I think there are inherent contradictions in it if you take everything at face value, but for what it's trying to achieve, it's actually pretty solid. the old timey version's aesthetics are ok. B for the old version mainly for the philosophy reasons, C- for the Reagan version because it's the same as the previous. F when the socially conservative ones call themselves libertarians because it's inconsistent as hell. C+ for consistency if they are normal about queer people and other "social issues."

Social/left/progressive liberalism and social democracy: Keynesian economics is an interesting contribution to liberal theory, which adds a few points in itself. in the historical context (eg New Deal in the US, the nordic model) obviously it exists basically as an "option" to appease labor movements. which is bad if you're a socialist but that's not the view we're taking right now. It is more contradicting than the previous ones because of claiming to care about individual rights but yk all the imperialism etc. C. F if they call it socialism because now people have weird ideas of the definition of it, and words don't have meaning anymore.

Conservatism: Based on normal human instincts of "when stuff is good for me I don't want it to change" but does not have a sound philosophical basis as an ideology in itself. Makes more sense as a secondary feature of another ideology (ie added on to liberalism or socialism). I rate it a D.

Nationalism: Kind of makes sense when used as a temporary propaganda tool but as an ideology it's generally kind of cringe and not interesting and basically cope. D.

Fascism: The essence of trying to substitute a lack of ideology with aesthetics (which works, somehow). The aesthetics are like, ok, and that's the only thing they've got going for them. Nobody can agree what it means but everyone uses it as an insult for each other, which is telling for the tier it goes into. F-.

Authoritarianism: This is actually different from fascism. I would generally dispute overestimating the value of this descriptor, and it's pretty overused and most people would say it does not count as an ideology. Instead of the typical definition, here I am using it to mean those people whose political beliefs are just "follow whoever is in power because any kind of stability is better than disorder." Which is ridiculous and frustrating and prevents anything from being done but does make some sense ideologically. C-.

Anarchism: Actually includes a bunch of different ideologies.

Illegalism and anarcho-individualism: Interesting ideas. kinda shit aesthetics ngl but that's just me. combination of a bunch of stuff I dislike about anarchism. C-.

Anarcho-capitalism: even worse aesthetics, somehow. ideas I cannot even call interesting. it's like if you took liberalism and made it stupid and added anarchism with everything cool removed from it. it's a funny ideology though. F.

Anarcho-primitivism/anti-civ: would be kind of interesting but same reasons as previous. Would be funny but apparently people on this site unironically believe it which makes it annoying. F.

Anarcho-syndicalism: I'm not an anarchist and this is not like, my version of socialism, but it's cool and major respect actually. A.

Democratic socialism: basically what social democrat used to mean, wanting to achieve socialism through electoralism. it's an ok idea and it might work, who am I to know. but they all just become socdems. ok aesthetics. B.

Left communism: what if you took the leftism and just made it all about infighting. political ideology minus the politics. C.

Marxism: solid philosophical foundation. used as part of most of the other socialisms, and sometimes in part for other ideologies. A.

Marxism-Leninism: tricky one. great aesthetics. may be used to mean Lenin's development of Marxism or the state ideology as established under Stalin (btw I do not endorse stalinism or whatever in case this is like something you need to know) and as adapted to most other actually existing socialist countries. modern MLs vary from some of the most reasonable people to intolerably annoying. a lot of variation in historical implementations too. depending on what is meant specifically may be anywhere from D to A.

Libertarian socialism: "I promise we are not like those guys." ok I guess. btw I didn't include capitalist libertarianism because it's literally the same thing as liberalism. B.

Market socialism: bunch of different ones like this. it's a very interesting concept, interesting development of an existing idea and an alternative way of implementing socialism. B+.

sorry if I missed your obscure ideology

[mithliya]

I was looking at your anons that you shared. But I feel you are missing the point though I maybe wrong. Thing is culture and environment does greatly affect the way men view and act on things. A man raised in a liberal, cosmopolitan environment is less likely to have violent misogynist tendencies and more likely to support women's rights (though liberal misogyny may still be present) than a man raised in a place where women are subject to chattel slavery and covered or locked up in houses. You can look up global opinion polls where there's a clear hostility towards women's equality and lgbt rights and more support for conservative religiousness in middle East, Africa and South Asia (obviously not all countries in those) compared to Europe or the Americas (including South America). Obviously a man who is from such an environment is more likely to be misogynistic (in terms of actions) than a man from a liberal environment on an average. This has nothing to do with race, because the same man had he been raised in a better environment would've likely been better (on an average). It is fair to blame the global geopolitical game and actions of the Western powers for the current situation in middle East or Afghanistan etc, but that doesn't change the fact that men from these places are more likely to be misogynist due to their environment and culture (not due to their race). What do you think?

i would like to preface this (for future anons) that im simply rbing and tagging that stuff for future reference, these aren’t all there is that ive said on the topic and it’ll take me time to go thru everything ive said on the topic so what ive reblogged is by no means the entirety of my perspective. additionally, ive talked so much about this that i actually have no desire to really have a discussion on it. maybe a civil private one in dms or something, but not a public one on my blog. it’s just bc i found talking about this topic and discussing it with very blatantly racist ppl last month was very emotionally draining for me. so i would appreciate if this discourse isnt reignited bc my intention isn’t to reignite it, but rather simply to find all thats been said on it so i can share it with another blogger on here.

OKAY so onto what u said. i agree that environment plays a massive role, in fact i think it’s predominantly what drives people’s behaviours in this context. however, i disagree with the argument that it’s about culture. i think it is about society and environment, but culture in itself isn’t the root of the issue a lot of the time. you brought up afghanistan, and i think that’s a good example of what i mean. culture is very deeply rooted and our cultures often have hundreds if not thousands of years of history behind them. what we’re seeing in afghanistan today isn’t the result of culture— it’s the result of an extreme societal change that happened several decades ago. not to say afghanistan didn’t have their own battles with misogyny before taliban got power, but taliban getting power and coming to exist isnt because of afghan culture (which ive seen many people argue and then use to point out that “well their culture led to this, and since they created their culture this goes to show these people are innately more misogynistic and violent”) but rather because of foreign powers. communism was on the rise in many nations in the middle east and in afghanistan as well. on another end, there were also islamists. they existed (afaik, we have saudi to thank for that) but they were weak and didn’t have influence. western powers, namely US, thought of communism as a threat to their power & to their livelihood, and thus supported and empowered the “lesser threat”, which are the Islamists. this helped the Islamists gain power and take over. this led to a major societal shift in afghanistan. what was once a country where women could walk around dressed however they liked, turned into a country where women were being forced to wear a burqa. what was once a country where women were getting educated, now became a country where women had to pretend to be boys if they wanted to learn. there’s some famous images showing this (ofc they don’t give us the full picture of life in afghanistan before taliban took over, but we get an idea), all of them being afaik from afghanistan in the 60s and 70s:

so i firmly am against the argument that the primary issues involve their culture. the islamists existence AND their power were both things that came from outside influence and outside powers. what i think is fairer to say, is that the difference in extremes of misogyny is to do with society and moreso social progress. we cannot argue that misogyny in Western Europe is less extreme because of Western European culture, especially when European society, around the same time as the images above, had a lot of undeniable misogyny. for example, at around the same time, italy had a law where women were forced to marry their rapists so that their rapist can basically get away with it, and in the 60s was the first time when a woman publicly refused to do so (her name is franca viola). women like the aforementioned one pushed for social progress which has made life better for women today, it wasn’t about the difference in culture.

with some practices, i would give culture more credit. for example, fgm is an ancient cultural practice in various countries. however, some practices aren’t cultural. taliban is far from a reflection of afghan culture. and of course men took advantage of the taliban and became more overtly misogynistic. the number of men that come from places where women’s rights have made massive progress, only to go to other countries and be incredibly misogynistic to the women in said countries, points to me that even with social progress, men will try to find a way to be misogynistic in a way thats acceptable enough (ex: sex tourism or mail order brides).

this is a long reply and by no means everything i think on this, but hopefully you understand now where im coming from. i don’t disagree culture can play a role, but a lot of the time what people blame on culture isn’t even about the country’s culture to begin with.

[elysianslove]

hi! how have you been since the hell that ensued after halloween is?

also could you do a batboys college au? like their major and how the reader would meet them and all that jazz? 👉👈

-🐥

hi anon!! i’m not sure what ur talking about @ the halloween stuff hvsdhjs but! here are the batboys hc’s! i’m not very familiar with duke thomas’s character enough to write about him tbh, so he’s not included here :( but if you want me to add him let me know!! i hope you enjoy!!

dick grayson

out of all the batboys i really didn’t know how to choose a major for him

but

i think he’d do law tbh, specifically criminal law 

his main motivation to become a police officer in bludhaven had been to be able to help people in any way he can 

i forgot if it’s canon or not but he does realize how corrupt it is and he quits but that’s another thing we won’t get into that lmao 

anyways yes let’s just stick with law 

meeting you ! 

he shares one or two courses with you

one that’s really early in the morning 

and one that’s later on in the afternoon 

dick is like a magnetic okay

anywhere he goes people are just attracted to him

like literally he will breathe 

but someone call the ambulance there’s a person that’s passed out bc of how beautiful he is

but this is an 8 am class 😃

so there’s no way ur awake enough to notice him

coincidentally he sits next to you one time

and this is the one time

you decide

yeah lemme just fkn sleep is uni even worth it 

dick definitely notices right away but he doesn’t say anything 

he thinks you look so cute passed out on your desk like this 🥺

when the professor signals the end of the class, he watches as people file out and then he just leans over and nudges you slightly 

you nearly punch him bc he scared you ���️

he just laughs and goes “class is over” 

you just sigh like the guilt starts to hit you and your heart begins to sink

and he sees your disappointed face and just goes 

“i took a lot notes. i can share them w you?”

lifesaver in every single way dick grayson 😻😻😻

you had another class that you had to run to and you were rushing

he was like “dw i’ll just give them to you whenever i see you next” 

and you 🏃🏻‍♀️ outta there

imagine ur surprise when u enter class at 12 pm and he’s there in all his glory 

after the lecture is over, he walks up to you as you’re packing and asks if you want to go to the coffee shop nearby 

to take his notes of course

and you finally register just how handsome he is 

so obviously you say yes wtf

and the rest is history 😼

he asks you out, properly, pretty early on tbh 

so unfazed lmfao 

now you take naps on his shoulder instead of the desk 💞💞💞

soooo into pda 

kisses u when he first sees you

when you’re parting ways

when he feels like it

straight up cuddles w during lectures i’m not even joking 

it’s disgusting how cute you two are 

gets you coffee for all those 8 am classes u have w him hehe

study dates always turn into karaoke sessions somehow don’t even ask lmao

jason todd

english literature 

this is a collective agreement right? 

right

definitely english literature 

i dont even think he wants to go to uni but he’s going to waste time plus this is bruce’s money 😏🤑

your major doesn’t necessarily have to be english literature as well

but you share one class

and my god 

you two disagree on everything

like every little thing

at this point if he says something and you slightly agree internally you’ll still say some opposing shit 

that’s kinda what draws you to him 

at first you genuinely had nothing against him

but then this kind of rivalry developed for no specific reason 

but it was fun

and he was hot

so seeing him get flustered or angry made him even hotter somehow 

but then

but t h e n

you’re not sure if your professor like ships you or something

so you’re assigned a debate topic on one of the books you’d discussed in class/one of the books you’ve read outside, and within each group are the two sides for and against 

not only were you in the same team as jason, but you were on the same side as him

so you had to work with him

the audacity of the professor omg 

but jason needs this course 

and 

well you don’t but it’s too late to back out now 

you two meet in the campus library after deciding on a book with the other two of your team

and 

honestly??? 

you two work so well together 

like insanely well

during the debate you destroyed the other team 

spoiler alert 

doing so well with jason kinda made you like hot and bothered 

seeing him in his zone

sexy <3 

what i mean to say is

you both end up making out in some storage room lmfao 

or hate sex 😏

professor has a phd in matchmaking 🤔😻

i think you two don’t admit you like each other

bc you’re both stubborn as fuck

but eventually you’re literally on his lap on his couch and it just hits you

and you lean back and go

“wanna go out w me” 

and he just shrugs and goes “sure” and pulls you in for more kissing hehe

he’s not v good at the boyfriend thing tbh

you have to chase him around and be like “sir!!! did u forget about me huh!!!”

he doesn’t mean to i promise

he gets all blushy and flustered once he realizes 

only ever into pda if he’s insanely jealous 

will straight up make out w u regardless of where u are or who ur with lmfao 

he’s still getting used to the little intimacies and all 

debates in class are so much more fun now cause he finds it so hot when u get all riled up hehe

that eng lit professor is so happy for you two omg

tim drake

okay i also couldn’t really decide for him

but maybe he’d study something like physics (or maybe computer engineering/computer science) 

idk u have to have a death wish to wanna major in physics so tim’s major it is

i’m not sure how it works for every other uni but my uni requires 6 credits of sciences to graduate 

so let’s say for the sake of this hc u take like just the first level of physics to get 3 credits 

and 

you’re struggling 😃👍🏼

so you like approach your professor with a few questions before the quiz 

but tim is also there

and he kinda makes small talk while you two wait outside the office

and he asks why you’re here

you show him

and he’s like “oh i took this course w the same professor as well, i could help?” 

it’s like an angel had descended from the heavens for you personally 

you take his number and decide to meet up with him after a few hours 

he’s of so much more help than your professor would’ve been, even if ur prof is a really nice and smart person 

and he’s super like

patient with you? 

also he pays for all the coffee and snacks you’re getting after you already get them 

ur like bruh i didnt 

dont pay pls

and he’s like no im loaded let me 😼

swooning <3 

and guess what!! 

you ace the quiz out of some miracle

first thing you do is text him and he congratulates you 

and then

bc ur not blind and tim is so fucking cute

you’re like “can i take u out to thank u” 

tim’s brain stops working but ! 

he does say yes eventually 

he becomes your designated physics tutor + your amazing boyfriend

being with tim is so like

chill

it’s a very relaxed time 

lots of study dates! and cafe dates! all hours of the day whether the sun is up or not 

into pda but to a certain degree 

like yes of course have a kiss pretty baby 

but also it will only be a small peck

any time anyone passes by like common rooms you two will be there snuggling on the couch, one or both of you completely passed out 

damian wayne

business major 100% 

or a bsba econ major, which is basically the business side of economics 

he has to take over his father’s company one day duh 

also i genuinely think damian would excel in this field 

he’s a very keeps to himself kinda guy in uni

like you only ever see him in your common classes and then he just

disappears 

anyways there was this party that everyone was going to, and damian wasn’t planning to

but dick accidentally read some groupchat’s messages and was like are u going

damian went 🏃🏻‍♀️

but dick was like go and try to make friends !!!! 

and dames cant say no to his big bro 🥺 so he goes

stays in a corner on the settings app the entire time

like half an hr in he just leaves and is walking home/back to his dorm when you come like rushing up to him 

you’re zooming 

and then you just latch onto his hand and lean up to press a kiss to his cheek, whispering in his ear “this person’s been following me for like 15 mins just please go along w this” 

he kinda stiffens but when he does notice that there’s a person eyeing you he slips his arm around your waist and just carries on walking

he walks you to your home/dorm and is like

so awkward 

but it’s okay ! ur a people’s person enough for the two of you 

you thank him so much over and over 

and then you’re like 

“can i take you out on a real date?” 

and then he becomes ur real boyfriend hehe

is still super stiff but it’s only bc he’s so hyper aware of how attractive you are

and i’m super positive he doesn’t have that much experience with dating so 

you hold the reigns 

but he’s a great boyfriend all in all tbh 

super attentive, super protective, and so loving 

isn’t into pda especially on college campus but he does like subtle pda

things like linking your pinkies or giving you his hoodie to just parade around campus hehe

end note; i’m sorry if these feel rushed or anything like. i used to be an avid writer for the batboys, but i just haven’t been feeling it lately. i still love to write from them bc i know these boys so well eeeeppp. anyways feel free to request some more!!

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

There is a very fine line between what happens on COAR and what happens beyond it.  The mods know this and our followers hopefully realize it, too.  The mods of this blog are not mediators for the RPC.  We do our best to keep things civil here in this space.  What happens beyond that space, for obvious reasons, is very much beyond our control.  When you comment on something here or reblog it to your own blog, your words become public consumption - for our followers, for Tumblr users, for people doing a random search on Google.  That is a risk you choose to take.  We hope you understand that the mods of COAR cannot control the behavior of people outside of our blog.

This blog is obviously a place of multiple opinions and viewpoints.  None of us are going to agree 100% of the time.  That’s okay; it’s how stuff like this works.  However, sometimes there will be people who you ALWAYS disagree with, or people who make your COAR experience more stressful than it needs to be, or people who just give you a funny feeling for whatever reason.  We are taking this opportunity to remind everyone of something that our confessors often remind all of us - the block button is your friend.  We encourage you to cultivate your own experience - especially here.  

In addition, while critical discussion is encouraged in the comments section, taking a conversation into someone's own space with the intention to harass them or circumvent our rules about politeness is a misuse of our blog's resources. While we will not block anyone for this, we do not approve of it.  This is our final stance on the matter, and any rules which touch on this topic will be adjusted accordingly.  If you receive harassment and/or hate in your personal space after commenting here, block every last message. Also, if you’re being actively and continually harassed off of anon, then please report those blogs.  I know Tumblr’s reporting system feels like a joke on the best of days, but it’s got to be better than doing nothing.

Alright, that’s everything.  For those of you using COAR the way it’s meant to be used, thank you.  Thank you for treating this blog, the mods, and your fellow followers with respect - even when you don’t agree with them.  It means the world to us.

~ Mod MJ ~

Addendum:  (I was reminded this was supposed to be included with the original post, and I forgot to add it.  My apologies!)  We will never block any users based on hearsay. If there is a problem on our blog with a user’s tags, reblogs, or comments, please send us a link to the post so we can look into the situation.  Thank you.

[genderfluidlucifer]

Response to being asked to give  an opinion on Connie’s calout by residentevil-4

(Tw: CSAM, rape fic, incest fic, predatory behavior, racism, ableism, kink mention, nsfw mentions. Minors should probably dni.)

“Connie and I know each other irl and went to school together for 3 years, although they now live in a different state and have cut contact with me. We went to a private therapy school in Manhattan as we're both disabled and were deemed unable to attend public school. Even though we were pretty close, Connie didn't like having photos taken of them, so I don't have any selfies of the two of us; however, these are from our sophomore and senior yearbooks which at least confirms that we were in the same year at school. People who have seen Connie's selfies should be able to confirm that that is what they look like. First and foremost, Connie is not TMA. They are intersex and the two of us have discussed intersex issues both in person and online, but they are still decidedly CAFAB.” Ok so first off, I want to address this part of the callout. To be honest...was it really necessary to literally doxx Connie ehre? Because this textbook definition of doxxing. Yes Connie’s done some shitty things but I freally don’t think that what they’ve done warrants this level of doxxing. Or...even better, any doxxing. This feels like a really unnecessary breach of privacy, revealing sensitive information on Connie’s childhood that they choose to confide in you with. I really don’t agree with this aspect of the callout as it feels very invasive and bordering on stalkerish.  Btw when I say bordering on stalkerish I’m not directly calling you a stalker Bonnie. Just so we’re clear. I am not defending Connie supposedly faking being TMA. Because faking being TMA is a very serious issue. HOWEVER since I don’t know Connie irl and to be quite frank it’s none of my business what the nature of their agab is. Were not close and I’m certainly not going to like lead Connie onto thinking we’re friends just to confirm this with them because that would be creepy. So to be honest I’m going to take this part of the callout with again of salt for now.

[ID: A cropped screenshot of a numbered list Connie posted to their blog hadrosaurs in response to an ask. 

“3. I’m TMA And that’s completely irrelevant. I’m not accusing them because of their gender I didn’t even know their gender when they said that to me saying that they said that because they fucking said that and the reaction to it was incredibly alarming. Don’t fucking say that stuff to people.]

I mean I”m not a trans woman so take this with a grain of salt if you want but...I don’t see how this is really proof of Connie being deliberately transmisogynistic? Yes Connie gives iffy retellings of mistakes they’ve made in the past. I’ve seen that on their blog before and I won’t pretend it doesn’t happen. BUT here they sound genuine enough and to be honest a growing issue I’ve seen with callouts as of late is. A person confirms they in fact did not do the thing they were called out for. And then the people who make the callout choose to see it as proof of incriminating behavior anyways. To be honest it’s a big problem and it’s also incredibly unfair to the person being called out. If you’re so determined at that point to see the person as bigoted no matter what they say then of course anything they say can be seen as proof. So I’m going to have to pass on this bit of evidence. “Connie responded: “Final note: I have spoken extensively with several trans women about using TMA to describe myself. I will not be getting into discourse about that on this blog again. All that leads to is people demanding my medical records and calling me slurs. If you wanna have a thoughtful conversation about it direct message me cause it’s not happening again here.” Again this really doesn’t seem all that self incriminating. Connie mentions here that they’ve talked to rl trans woman about whether or not they can be considered TMA. Connie really doesn’t have to disclose that personal information to people for any reason. Yes even when people are e including this ask response in a callout. And considering lots of people DO get invasive about Connie’s medical history ans general personal life over matters like this? I feel their reaction is pretty understandable here. “Connie has constantly compared “exclusionists” (or anyone, really) to TERFs, even when the people in question are not transmisogynistic, trans exclusionary radfems, or are even transmisogyny affected themselves.

“ Gonna have to disagree with this part of the callout too. Lots of ace inclus blogs, even some run by trans women , have proven that the ace exclus movement was started by swerfs/terfs. But the blog that has the most evidence for this is courteousmingler on tumblr. I suggest you check out that blog’s archiving of the history of ace exclus rhetoric before rushing to call me a transmisogynist for disagreeing with this part of the callout. I looked through all of the evidence for Connie being racist and tbh as a black ndn it all feels incredibly flimsy. It’d be one thing if Connie was using their experiences to derail and invalidate the discussions about how black people are oppressed But they weren’t doing that there at all. This part of the post feels incredibly biased. And like OP is looking for things to be mad about. Going to have to pass on this list of evidence. Also uh I seem to recall that residentevil04 got called out for some questionable behavior as well. “Both me (insepsy, hi) and ezrat have had really weird spikes in activity on our Statcounters, both on the same day. (Saturday, 4/17/21) For both of us, majority of the pages looked at by these visitors have been related to or about Connie, or have been posts that Connie would find "problematic" such as the f slur untagged or something related to "panphobia"/aphobia. I’m sorry but...none of the proof of cyberstalking holds any water. Visiting someone’s blogs and rbing posts to disagree with them is not cyberstalking. Keeping tabs on urls that an abusive person who has harassed are using so you can block them (in this case with kyoshi) and warn your mutuals is not stalking. As a victim of rl stalking it’s...really weird to call this legit stalking at all. Much less claim that you have damning proof of it being stalking when no such evidence exists in the callout. Besides after Connie and nonbinarydave called out one of kyoshi’s buddies for sending a death threat hate anon to nonbinarydave’s toddler st4lker partly admitted to doing it a few times. Then other mutuals in kyoshi’s toxic social circle clearly began joining in. Making side accounts where they tried to spin a false narrative of nonbinarydave’s daughter being one of their alters (ableist as hell.) And also trying to do it in such a way that they thought would trigger nonibnarydave’s psychosis (also ableist as hell.) If you’re going to drag Connie for their mistakes and never let them move on from those mistakes then it’s only fair to do that to people you agree with who also do toxic/bigoted things. ALso the fact that your wording here suggests that you think panphobia and aphobia aren’t real makes me doubt this claim even more. Exclus and their allies are notorious for mislabeling inclus disagreeing with them as stalking. “connie said that they would release that info at a later time and the minor began to argue with them that they had a responsibility regardless of their complicated relationship with age. in this argument connie for a time kept their age ambiguous and at one point told the minor (who confirmed in a later ask that they were severely traumatized by adults) that they obviously weren’t traumatized. connie quickly deleted this ask and any mentions of it and the next post they reblogged was about how wrong it was to try and quantify or discount others’ trauma. on my old blog i @ed them in the replies and asked if they had just done that. connie admitted to it and said it was fucked up but quickly blocked + deleted my comment. i can’t remember whether or not connie apologized to the minor, they may have? but yeah. i thought that was pretty weird.”] I do agree with some of the concern here that adults shouldn’t over expose minors in discourse. I’ve been contemplating this for awhile myself. And trying to figure out how to take better steps to avoid including minors who are triggered by discourse in discourse, especially. HOWEVER I have one little issue with this addition to the callout. If that is the case then exclus and their allies need to practice this as well. You cannot ignore the fact that the reason a lot of minors are getting involved in exclus discourse is due to adult exclus and their allies forcing minors to pick a side in the discourse. Y’all are not at all exempt from this problem. I still remember an ex mutual of mine trying to convince a minor to agree that aces can’t face corrective rape. And based on how aggressive it got with me when I tried to avoid giving an opinion on the matter, I can’t imagine that it would’ve reacted better to the minor refusing to give an opinion or to the minor outright disagreed. Refusing to put these standards on exclus and their allies is both hypocritical and quite frankly very transparent. The claims about them glorifying dark topics on AO3 through their fics also seems unfortunately legit. I mean those asks of shaming people who ask their viewers to not romanticize or glorify abusive relationships in their works is very damning. I’m very disappointed to see that Connie has taken being an inclus to the point of validating antis anti culture wholeheartedly. I can’t think of much more to add to my opinion on that part of the callout. As for the issue of Connie interacting with pro shippers in the past, I do know that this claim is legit. I’ve seen it before and so has Breeze. This was why for a brief time we decided to stop following their blogs. Because it was triggering to have pro shippers put on our dash. And sometimes we just don’t feel it’s worth it to always let people we’re platforming know they’re rbing triggering stuff. So sometimes we just quietly unfollow and choose to not interact until we’re sure they’re filtering what they do and don’t rb in some way. I definitely don’t agree with that behavior. And if they’re still doing that I”ll deplatform again. “The anon asks: “A weird question but do you know any other stimboard blogs with your follow criteria? (No radfems, racists, fandom antis, etc.) I was hoping to find more through your “similar blogs” but a lot have no anti-antis for their DNI or allow truscum/transmeds and exclus. :(“

The user responds: “I know of @turtle-pond-stims, @outofangband, and @kinaesthetics! 🍂🍄" “[ID: A cropped screenshot of an ask sent by Connie from their now-deactivated blog, butch-with-a-tortoise.

Connie says: “hey anon I have safe stim blogs. dm me if you want them. And radfems/bigots aren’t allowed to interact. For my own safety (because the community is honestly terrifying) I can’t publicly say on my blogs that I’m safe for proshippers/kinky people but I try to spread word how I can.”] [ID: Screenshot of a post by evilwriter37, which reads, “I’ve been seeing posts about fandom police leaving ao3, and it’s like: Good. We don’t want you here anyway. Go find your own fanfiction site.”

The post is tagged “#Fandom #AO3 #Antis #Purity Culture” and has 87 notes. It was posted on December 21st, 2020.

There is a reply from main-to-outofangband-andothers saying: “there are Silm antis on that site who are against Russigon (Maedhros and Fingon) not because they’re cousins but because they’re both male (coded)”] [ID: A screenshot of an anonymous (though signed off as being from outofangband) ask sent to evilwriter37, which says, “Melkor and Viggo solidarity is ‘Look there’s nothing wrong with keeping my enemy chained up in my personal chambers at all times so please just focus on the war efforts and I’ll focus on the boy* in my chambers’ -@outofbangand.

*boy used figuratively @ antis”

The user responds: “Pfft!!! Hahaha! You’re absolutely right! (And Viggo does refer to Hiccup in canon as ‘my boy’).”] I can’t really say anything to refute this. Because these are all posts of Connie outright stating that they disagree with antis. And not only sympathize with anti antis but are fully against antis. Looks like very damning evidence. Although ngl I’m not entirely against kinky blogs as a whole? Just so long as they truly stay in their lane with their kink content. And don’t force it on others in any way. Or shame people who are triggered by their kinks. It is true that being entirely against kinky blogs no matter what is dipping your toes into swerf rhetoric. Tbh I’m not going to look at the rest. This is pretty much all I need to make a decision on whether or not I”ll continue platforming Connie. Though I will try to get some more  perspective from people who I interact with as well. Because I feel better about making a more definitive decision after doing that. Also in general please don’t not try to get an opinion from me on how I feel about syscourse. A lot of the claims about Connie’s age weirdness and them using their alters as a shield feel like syscourse to me. Especially if this callout was written by one or several singlets. Singlets should never be trying to judge how legit someone’s system is ever. Even if their system friends encourage them to. You can call out a horrible person with a system without trying to insinuate that they’re lying about their alters in some way. Doing otherwise is ableist ESPECIALLY if you’re a singlet. Also in general the reason I stay out of discussions of judging how someone is handling their systems is because it’s syscourse and syscourse is triggering for my system and I. If this post was an attempt to get me to give an opinion  on the validity of Connie’s system I don’t appreciate it. And I would appreciate not being dragged into such matters again, thank you.

In general there’s like a few parts of this callout that feel legit. Which is unfortunately cluttered with obvious bias and obsessive hatred of Connie. I’m not here to stan or coddle Connie. I know they are not a perfect person. Especially since no human being in the world is perfect. But I feel the way this callout was created was very sloppy since a lot of the evidence was messy at best. And some points were very hypocritical as well as there being some no true scotsman moments from OP. In acting like exclus never do any of the thing that they tried to call out Connie for. Which is behavior that I am not a fan of. This is why people need to be more careful about callouts and like make roughdrafts and have a more unbiased person helping them if they don’t feel they can do it on their own. I’m even trying to make a resolve to do better at that myself. So it’s not like I’m unwilling to put my money where my mouth is. Anyways those are all my thoughts on this messy callout. And tbh I’m not going to get too much more heavily involved in this. Because I need to focus on more immediately serious rl stuff more often, like doing what I can to get out of the hellish landscape of a house I currently am stuck in.

[blue-shaded]

Hey Dolphin anon! While I respect your opinion, I disagree on some points. I don’t know where the popular sentiment that he doesn’t denounce his stans’ toxic behavior came from but he’s said multiple times that he denounces it (https://twitter.com/PooGnf/status/1399592255657156608/video/1 ignore the user lol :) ) and that’s just what he says on Twitter. Some of it yeah is a little more lighthearted, like when he talks about Detective Dream in some of the tweets, but I’d say that a fair amount of those tweets lack sarcasm and are said in full seriousness. In addition, he’s also said not to send hate on his behalf during multiple of his own livestreams, he said it when he went on Kaceytron’s streams, he said he didn’t condone toxic behavior during Kavos’s video, as well as multiple times throughout various drama like the speedrunning situation and the John Swan situation (for Blue and others, John Swan is a commentary youtubers who basically did a lot of weird shit, who Dream worked with in the past and had a bad experience with. man imitated Dream’s discord profile and pretended to be him while sending sexual things to a minor, and then tried to blame everything he did on his 12-year old neighbor when he got caught, saying he left his computer open and that that neighbor got on Discord and was the one who did all that weird shit. Obviously false and got proven false, but even when Dream was debunking the situation on stream, he said not to send hate). He’s said it multiple times and I agree that he should continue to say it as he continues to grow to remind both new and old fans but he’s said it multiple times and at this point, anyone who Is still sending death threats is aware that it’s wrong and that he doesn’t support it and they just don’t care. I personally think that behavior is disgusting and I know most of the people I interact with on Twitter do as well. At this point, it’s just sort of a question of to what extent do people want him to say it. The most recent time he denounced death threats was on May 31st both on Twitter and on stream, and he’s probably said it at least once a month almost every month since like December, so he says it quite a bit, so going further would be personally DMing each toxic person he sees and telling them to stop which. I just think is a little absurd. I know that others want him to post a video on his main channel about it and condoning it as well, but I sort of disagree? While death threats can be sent on any platform, the platform on which people receive it on the most is Twitter. Anyone who’s obsessed enough to send death threats is going to be following him on all socials so they’ve definitely seen him condemning it as he’s tweeted saying that he doesn’t support that type of behavior multiple times, but of course, others are allowed to disagree with me on that, I just think that it’s hard to find a good course of action past that. I agree that toxic behavior should still be called out, but I feel like a lot of people advocating for him to do it more than he is now kind of don’t understand how out of control toxic behavior is and how they rarely listen to creators themselves.

The speedrunning stuff I kind of agree on, though I’ll just go a little more in depth about the situation. basically, for those who don’t watch Dream’s videos, dream codes mod videos for Minecraft and these mod videos would consist of things like “Minecraft but everything is dark” and “Minecraft but we can only see one chunk at a time”. Now because Dream still runs the dream SMP and did speed running at the time he had to move these mods out of the mod folder in order to do everything else that he was doing when he wasn’t recording videos. This would later on lead to the problem where the speed run moderators would ask for his mods folder and he wouldn’t be able to provide a full copy because he had since moved stuff around because it had been a week after the actual speedrun streams they were inquiring about. The thing that ended up being the problem was a recording mod that Dream had asked a separate developer to create for him and the Dream Team in order to make their recordings smoother. that was sort of it there weren’t any specifics given, he just wanted recordings to be better. Now because it was just for recordings and since the mod ran well dream didn’t ask the developer for the specifics of what they coded into this recording mod at the time. In his mind this recording mod sort of just clean things up visually. And for those who have never really played Minecraft, what I mean by that is if you press F5 in Minecraft you get a whole ton of information on your screen about coordinates and computer specs. When people say that the mod cleaned things up visually, they mean that all of that irrelevant information that clogs up the screen in a video was minimized to just coordinates. he was wrong in this assumption, the Recording mud also included coding that allowed for better trades. again for anyone who doesn’t play Minecraft, Dream and the Dream Team record their videos in the 1.16 version of Minecraft. In this version of Minecraft, it’s a widely used tactic to use piglin trades to get ender pearls. Since their videos aren’t just about beating the game regularly, there’s usually more of a focus on fighting or the specific mod that they’re using for that video, the developer increased the likelihood of ender pearl trades with pigeons in order to make recordings go faster. Regardless of that and his misconception of what the mod actually did, Dream didn’t believe it mattered because there was no record of him having loaded that recording mod during the speedrunning streams in question. This is because Dream uses something that a lot of speed runners use, he uses Fabric. Fabric API is something that both allows your Minecraft to run smoother (which is why a lot of speed runners use it, it’s approved to be used by the speed run moderators) and for those who wish to do so, it also functions as a mod loader. So when I said that he had no record of him having loaded the recording mod, I mean that when he checked the logs of Fabric API, it said that the only thing loaded was Fabric itself. this was inherently a wrong way to go about it because the way Fabric API logs work is that you have to be searching for a specific mod, so you can’t just look at what the log says is loaded on because sometimes the logs don’t show a mod unless you specifically ask the program to look for it. Dream figured this out a couple months ago, he went back through the logs, talk to the developer who coded the recording mod and got confirmation that yes, he did have the recording mod on and yes, the recording mod does increase ender pearl drop rates. He recently wrote a pastebin that has since been taken down by the pastebin staff though screenshots of it are still easy to find. I do wish that he had come out about this sooner because he knew of this information for a couple months before openly sharing, but I do get the situation has sort of faded and that he wasn’t excited to re-open that discussion when he himself had gotten a lot of hate and the threats during that situation.

Obviously as outsiders looking in we will never know how genuine he’s being, if he’s telling the truth, but I choose to believe that he did feel as bad about the situation as he said he did because for a lot of people who do consume his content, it’s been very noticeable within the past couple months that he’s been a lot less active both in terms of streaming and just interacting with the community, but of course, it’s all just personal interpretation and we will never actually know. 

Just wanted to explain the situation fully because people who may not play Minecraft and understand it the developing behind it may not understand how he could’ve possibly not seen the mod or not have a copy of the mod folder. I would disagree with you on the point that the controversy around Dream’s speed runs has delegitimized the rest of the speed running community. As someone who still watches well-known speed runners like Bennex and Illumina (TapL and Punz if they count as well), I don’t think any of them have really argued that they think that situation has delegitimize them, though I guess you could argue that they simply haven’t spoken up because they’re a little too afraid to speak up against a big Youtuber, which is fair. But as someone who has spoken to a lot of people who have sort of slightly read up on the situation without actually caring about Minecraft or Dream, none of them have said that they think that the speed running community is not legitimate because of it. Not to sound flippant because I do like watching speedrunners (albeit the already more popular ones) or anything, but the Minecraft speedrunning community isn’t exactly very mainstream, not very many people care enough to actively oppose it or say that they’re not legitimate, from what I’ve seen it’s either just you support the community or you don’t care. Even people who actively thought that dream cheated from the beginning, never used that to discredit the rest of the community (at least from what I saw). They simply didn’t care. anyone making that argument is sort of ridiculous, before the 1.16 speed runs that got investigated, Dream already had a couple official speed runs on his YouTube channel. At the time they were posted, they were approved and legitimate (though I believe one’s been taken down now), so it’s not like even Dream’s entire time in speedrunning was completely falsified, so anyone using one situation to delegitimize a whole community is being a little ridiculous. In addition, anyone who actually knows and cares enough about the speedrunning community to try to claim that all of them aren’t credible, would know that a lot of the speedrunning community didn’t even like dream all that much, even before the cheating out allegations, and they didn’t really associate with him, so they would know the Dream’s actions don’t define the entire community. If you’re talking about Dream’s more general fans, like those who watch his YouTube who may now be skewed against the speedrunning community, you can look at comments in his community tab on his channel and see that people aren’t actively against the speedrunning community, they just say they don’t care and they want it behind them which is very different from thinking that they are all illegitimate. Though if you have substantial proof of multiple cases of multiple people being biased against speedrunning community and believing that they’re all cheaters after Dream’s situation, I’d be open to see them.

I also disagree with your point over Dream being a “professional speed runner”. He says this in responses to claims that speedrunning is a huge part of his career. And he’s correct when people talk about dreams achievements, none of them really talk about speed running that much it’s always about the SMP, his manhunt videos, and his coding videos. He’s not a professional speed runner in the way Illumina and Couriway and Bennex are. His career isn’t based on professional speedrunning. Citing the Minecraft manhunt series as proof that he’s a “professional speed runner“ is definitely a little skewed and ultimately wrong. If you tried to claim those as official speedruns, the moderating team would likely have a little laugh and then reject it. Yes, he has speed runner in the title and yes in a way, it is a speedrun because he is trying to beat the game as fast as possible, but more so he’s trying to avoid being killed by his friends in the game so it’s about both speed and being smart. Everyone within the speed run community and a lot of those outside of it would know that being chased down by your friends during the game isn’t a real category in Minecraft speedrunning and therefore the Minecraft Manhunt videos aren’t official speed runs. So people claiming that dream is an official speed runner and that that’s his career is ultimately false, which is what he was saying. His official speed runs were all done for fun and have never been the main focus of his content.

When you say that the legitimacy of the speedrunning community was called into question, I will admit, I’m unsure if you’re talking about the community itself and the people with in it, like the actual speedrunners, or if you’re talking about the moderator team or both.  I will admit, even as someone who hyperfixates on Dream, his initial reaction to the moderators video saying that he cheated was godawful. for Blue and others who aren’t as into this and don’t know, basically the gist was he was lashing out and saying it was total bullshit and calling them idiots. He has since deleted that tweet and apologized for it and admitted that it was incredibly childish and impulsive. While I do get why he was so mad since the video had blindsided him after weeks of radio silence from the moderators and as a kid who didn’t finish high school he didn’t really understand the statistics that were being said in the video and since at the time he genuinely didn’t think that he cheated (a lot of people have said that all this combined led to heavy RSD which is why he lashed out like that), I still think that he could’ve handled the situation a lot better.  on the other hand I think the moderators could’ve handled this situation a lot better as well. I don’t want to talk about the whole moderator team but I do want to talk about specifically Geosquare, who is probably the most talked about moderator when it comes to the situation. Dolphin anon, if you’re talking about the legitimacy of the moderator team being called into question, I’m assuming the situation surrounding Geosquare is likely what you’re talking about, which is a slightly different situation from just the speedrunning. So for Blue and others, before the video talking about Dream cheating was released, Dream had been told that there were people on the moderating team who didn’t like him. Knowledge of this bias is also a part of what caused Dream to lash out more in his initial reaction (though again it doesn’t excuse it). The biased moderator in question turned out to be Geosquare. This was heavily proven later on in about March of this year, where Geosquare played a large role in spreading the video of fake ‘dream’ saying the n-word. Geosquare was a speedrun moderator, he Has investigative skills and he got called out for spreading that video without doing any sort of investigating because it was clear to a lot of people that the person in the video wasn’t Dream. There were multiple things that made this video seem not credible, all of which easily could’ve been found by Geosquare.

Firstly, antis of Dream had been saying since January that they were going to try to find a way to accuse Dream of saying the N-word whether that just be through spreading rumors or faking a video or whatever else. Secondly, the video really sounds nothing like dream. Now I will say this video that the clip of someone saying the n-word was from 2016-2017. I’m not saying the video was fake, I’m not saying that someone somehow predicted that Dream was going to become a big creator or time traveled and went back in time to set him up for that. but the most common theory is that and he simply did go looking back through old Minecraft videos in order to find something incriminating. Both the creator of this video and a friend of the person who was saying the N-word in the video have since explained this.  so basically for blue and others, Dream has not always on the Minecraft username Dream. He got it from someone else. And so the person in this video is called Dream. Since it was a while ago the timeline’s a little fuzzy for everyone and it’s unsure if this video occurred before Dream got the username or if it occurred after Dream got the username and the people within the video simply still called the person in the video Dream because that was what they were used to calling them. The clip’s a little too grainy to see the usernames and the video has since been taken down by the original poster. Either way, two different people. Geosquare has since admitted that this was bias on his end and that he apologized to Dream and that they’re all good and has given an apology to the black community for using the n-word as a weapon for his own bias and he has since stepped from the speedrun moderating team. so dolphin anon, when you’re talking about the legitimacy of the community being called into question if you’re talking about the moderating team, yes, you’d be correct, it was called into question, but I would say for valid and good reasons because it ultimately was biased (though again, doesn’t change that Dream was the one in the wrong in the speedrunning situation w how he initially reacted).  I don’t want to fully blame Geosquare and say that it was completely obvious it wasn’t Dream or make it seem completely obvious to you guys, because things like mic changes and puberty do exist, so I’ll give the clips and allow you all to decide for yourselves.

The clip of someone, accused to be Dream, saying the N-word: https://twitter.com/Tommathyinnit/status/1375395156791336964/video/1 (I am not entirely sure which speaker is being accused to be Dream, which was sort of the first indicated to me that it probably wasn’t him because I don’t think peoples voices change That much, but I think he was being accused to be the person who was saying “well you can bring your friend...”) Again, this video is from 2016-2017.

A clip of Dream talking, also from 2016-2017: https://twitter.com/Onciescumbucket/status/1357440678909923335/video/1 (okay so. again ignore the user 😭 but it’s confirmed to be Dream by the fact it does sound like him and his long-time friends Sapnap, who used to go by PandascanPvP, and BadBoyHalo being in the video. I believe the video has captions so even for those who don’t know Dream or what he sounds like, it’ll tell you which one’s him and you can compare that voice to the one in the other clip)

But yeah. aaaaa I’m sorry for such a long submission, I’m hyperfixated on Dream and the Dream Team, though I do understand that there are legitimate criticisms on all of them and that no one’s required to like them, and people don’t need real reasons to dislike them because people are allowed to dislike whomever they want. Definitely not any hate towards you dolphin anon, I think that you do have points, I just wanted to express my disagreement with some of them and it’s nice that you do acknowledge that the toxicity goes both ways for both stans and antis. I think a big problem is that a lot of the creators who condemn or speak against Dream (people like Slasher and Noah Hugbox and Kavos) don’t openly condemn the toxic behavior of their own fans as much as Dream does, so it becomes a very hypocritical cycle where they’re making videos about the toxicity of Dream stans and yet their own fans send death threats to Dream and his community. And since the death threats towards Dream come from multiple different fanbase rather than one centralized fanbase the way it is if toxic people from Dream’s community are attacking someone, he can’t really pin it on one person and ask them to denounce their fans so it just becomes a thing where he’s both receiving a ton of death threats while being asked to denounce death threats towards others when there’s no one really denouncing death threats towards him, which is just discouraging for his community to see, but that’s just how the Internet is, I suppose. Again, no hate to you dolphin anon and I’m sorry if any part of this came off as such, and again Blue, I’m sorry for such a long submission

MY GOODNESS WHAT A SCROLL Not gonna read all of it cuz its clearly dedicated to my dolphin anon.

[dramionediscussion]

Thanks Lisa and Anon for answering! I don’t think I really disagree with either of you. I think, we share quite similar views, or at least something quite close to each other. Those answers got me thinking, and gave me a lot of food for thought. It’s not exactly the first time, I’ve pondering this. It always happens, when I am trying to find AU Dramione fics (semi-regular occurrence. I especially enjoy regency Dramione, which compliments HP and the pairing marvelously. As I see it, HP is unconsciously reminiscent of and models certain aspects of wizarding world after Victorian and Edwardian Great Britain). I just cannot help myself with stuff like this.

I imagine, there aren’t many people who find something like this riveting to think about or discuss, so thank you for indulging me. After all, people get by splendidly, without ever considering what is the formal definition(s) of AU. In almost anything people can operate exceedingly well by just going with their their gut instincts (kind like, I know what AU is, when I see it serves people well).

I’ve seen roughly three different main interpretations for the term AU, each with some internal variations and nuances. Differences are mainly on how encompassing they are, as they tend to overlap and include each other, because they are formed from common basic principles. They are just applied differently, or more accurately it goes from broader to narrower, but broad definitions also include narrower ones.  

Also, there are more possible definitions, which could be derived from same principles, if one would on look at them entirely divorced from how they are actually used anywhere in the fandom. Just by looking at the word AU totally atomized, and then forming principle from it, and applying deductive-logic.

The first principle is canon divergence. Whatever AU is, it’s clearly related to divergence and alterations from canonical events, characterizations, and universe. The differences are mostly about how widely or narrowly this is applied. Sometimes also what exactly counts as canon, or what is believably canon compliant. The second principle seem to be avoiding redundancy, though this is applied a lot more randomly, and its usage seems to based mostly on conventions and popularity of certain tropes.

By redundancy I mean, that certain more commonly used tropes and descriptors often don’t use AU, because they are well-established terms by their own right, and they obviously by their own definitions are AUs. Like mentioned 8 Year, EWE, time travel, Marriage Law, creature fics like werewolves and veelas, and many others. Sometimes all non-canon pairings intrinsically are omitted in similar manner, but sometimes they are not. Like said, this seems to be more up to fandom conventions and mimesis, rather than applying logic rigidly from first principles.

By using these foundations, one could establish quite many similar but slightly different definitions, depending how HP universe / canon is understood. People seem to go with mostly with 2-4, but logically one could use 1 or 5 as well, but it’s impractical for other reasons. First one is broadest, and fifth is narrowest, and first includes all others within it, second everything except the first, and so on.

1. All fanfics are AUs. If HP universe / canon is understood very stridently as single chain of events and singular universe, which is authored only by JKR. Every fanfic forms its own universe, which will be slightly different from JKR’s one, by adding literary anything what wasn’t already in it. Even if a fic doesn’t contradict JKR directly in a knowable way, but it still won’t be the same, because we cannot know if events or characters would’ve taken that exact particular path, or if any description or characterization would exactly match the one true timeline and universe. We can only asses whether something is more believable or likely to happen in canon, but we cannot ever ultimately confirm them, because the final reference point is JKR’s works.

As an example, saying that Harry Potter drinks a cup of tea at Burrow at midday 2.10.2015 might not be exactly contradicted by anything in canon, but the event itself isn’t canonical, and it is contradicted by saying that Harry Potter drinks a cup of tea at Grimmauld Place at midday 2.10.2015. Both are equally true and likely to happen canonically, yet neither is canonical event. They are differing alternate universes, despite being about equally compatible with canon. If canon is understood as single non-contradictory universe with single timeline with exact properties, then all fanfic is AU.

2. All fics which diverge from or directly contradict canon are AUs. In this definition antonym for AU is canon compliant, and every fic can be classified as either AU or canon compliant. This is quite common definition out there. It certainly is workable and there’s nothing wrong in using it. However, like with all definitions it’s not entirely free of problems and ambiguity, especially how it’s applicable and to what it fits exactly. Some say that adding anything to already covered timeline is AU, even if it could believably happen between gaps not covered by canon. So, in order to not be AU, it has to set before or after HP heptalogy*. You could say, that we cannot know anybody else’s inner-voice or mindscape except Harry’s, thus anything written from any other perspective is AU.

Most people can agree that certain events are canon, and that’s fairly uncomplicated (Sirius dies at the end of OftP, Bill and Fleur have their wedding at Burrow, etc), but almost everything else gets quite murky very fast. So, if this definition includes anything beyond those canonical events, like characterizations, descriptions and mechanics of how HP universe functions exactly, then it can be fairly difficult to determinate whether a fic is AU or not. As almost everything except those canonical events are easily contested and ambiguous to being with. Usually there’s multiple equally plausible interpretations for almost anything not covered explicitly or in great detail in canon (sometimes even when they are covered extensively).

Personally, I am not too found of this definition. Not because aforementioned difficulties, but because it’s too broad and encompasses too much. All non-canon pairings are AU as an example is just too large portion of fanfics, because we only use AU in context of fanfics, thus it’s better that the terminology reflects and helps us to distinguish and categorize fanfics. Multitude of fanfiction has grown so much beyond canon, and spiraled so far and wide, that terminology which is so pivotally anchored to canon is more detrimental than helpful.   

3. All fics which diverge or contradict canon in some major or significant way are AUs. This is something I see used a lot, and I believe this definition of AUs was what the person in Dramioneasks was referring to. Typically this means absence of some major characters, such as Voldemort or Dumbledore, or that major canonical events are changed, such as Wizarding Wars are have starkly different outcomes, or that golden trio never became friends, or main characters are sorted into different houses. Also, widely different characterizations (Evil Harry or Hermione, or good Voldemort) are counted as well.  

I found this to be quite solid definition, and this is my personal threshold of what I consider to be AU. Ofc, its not unproblematic either, because what exactly counts as major or significant is very open-ended. There probably is very strong inter-subjective consensus on certain matters, like everybody probably agrees that Harry, Voldemort and Hermione are major characters without any doubt. Also, they’ll probably agree that Oliver Wood is a minor character, but what about Draco, Neville or Luna? How about if or when Harry joins the Gryffindor quidditch team. Does alterations in stuff like that count as AU? Can many minor changes create a cumulative effect, in which the fic in question is so different from canon universe, that despite no major changes, it should still count as AU, because so many little things are different.

Quite a lot of characters, details and events fall into that gray zone, so often it can be quite difficult to determinate AU by this definition, because so many things fall into that gray area of what is exactly significant change and what isn’t, and from what perspective. The only way to really determinate something like significance is an inter-subjective consensus by the fandom, and that might be either uncharted or too arbitrary for some people.

4. Only fics which change canon or the established universe in some foundational or fundamental way(s) are AUs. These are fics, which are not set in a same timeline at all (at the end of the 21th century UK), such as medieval, regency, prohibition, and they might only have slight parallels to canonical events. Also if some common defining elements such as presence magic or muggles are entirely absent, or changed beyond recognition (everyone’s magical, or nobody is, or muggles are aware of wizarding world, and actively hostile towards it). No Hogwarts at all, or the entire wizarding world is modeled differently, etc.

I see this used quite a lot as well, and these tend to be automatically labeled as AUs by almost everybody. It’s quite narrow and specific, thus it’s not very problematic, except it borders of being too narrow or rare to be really useful. Personally, this is mainly what I am seeking for, when I look for AUs, but I can see that it doesn’t cover enough ground for many. This is what I am primary thinking, when I see tag AU, but I can see why including previous definition is necessary. Problems are quite similar as in previous, the similar ambiguity of what is foundational or fundamental, like in beofre. But I believe there’s way more common ground and shared understanding with this one. It’s very rare to see a fic, which would qualify as something like this, but what isn’t described or labeled as AU.  

5. Only fics which change some determined core component(s) are AUs. This is merely taking similar logic one step further, and saying that some specific element(s) is absolutely crucial and at the core of HP (like the presence of magic), and as long as a fic fulfills that condition, it isn’t AU. Nobody actually uses this definition, but I added it as more as demonstration of logic and principle, and how it can be applied further, exactly like the first definition (logically totally sound and sensible, but empirically mindless and useless).

Ofc, one could use this logic even further to either direction. Sort of logic ad absurdum, to a point in which, either every Harry Potter text out there (even those published by JKR) are actually AUs. or nothing is. Already not everybody considers everything JKR has said or published as canon, and by restricting what counts as canon one could get to a point that nothing actually written is really canon (something like real canon is what JKR intended HP to be, but failed to accomplish by her writing). Or that only one particular fic counts as AU, or that no fanfics are AUs, because by labeling them HP fics in some manner is meaningful enough to consider them just as a re-interpretation of multifaceted canon.

The first and fifth definitions are closing into the absurd territory, and I’ve not seen anybody using them. Words are more than stiff logical proposition, and there’s other considerations, which sometimes overrides internal logical consistency (reasons relating to things like aesthetic, social, and utilitarian concerns). Like the first definition would be totally unproductive and redundant. AU is always used in the context of fanfiction, in order to distinguish different fics from each other, thus a term which contains all fanfiction is tautological and useless for that purpose. Also, too narrow or specific terms are not useful either, because they pile on unnecessary accurate and too specific information, which ends up distracting people by cluttering them with overabundance of details and needless complexity (human mind is nothing if not finite after all).

*What are canonical texts of HP is can of worms I am not touching. Most agreed consensus is probably that at least HP heptalogy is canon, so for purposes of this that’s what I am sticking by. There’s some differing opinions about CC, Fantastic Beasts, her online commentary, Pottermore stuff, interviews, and QAs. I’ve only met one person who didn’t consider the whole HP heptalogy as canonical (because he was convinced that books 5-7 were written by a ghost writer, and they didn’t count). Everything else seem to be quite disputed.

[graciecatfamilyband]

I truly hate to put myself at risk of the label of “shit-starter”, but I couldn’t disagree more about the way forward- possibly because I think we have very different perceptions of what has occurred in the recent past. In general I prefer working things out via PM but this whole thing has been dragged out pretty publicly and I feel I must respond in-kind, especially since I don’t think I’m the only person feeling the way I do. And if other people get to put themselves and their thoughts out there like this, I do too.

It’s ironic to me, because on Sunday night I went to bed deliberately refraining from posting something I thought was innocuous but that I feared could be taken as inflammatory regarding an issue that was dying down. I awoke Monday to see that other people had no such hesitance, and some of them felt very comfortable directing their statements at me. I mention this because I am continually finding no benefit to staying silent except perhaps avoiding labels like attention-seeker or shit-starter (literally among my top 5 fears lol), but I am also finding that people will think what they will think, and I have very little control over it. I still feel some views are more welcome here than others, and that some people can behave far less charitably without any consequences while others have to crawl on the ground to make sure their statements aren’t taken the wrong way and then are still expected to apologize when people willfully twist them. When I point this out, I’m told that I can’t understand because I have only been a fan for 20 years, and that’s not long enough to understand people’s attachments and emotions and reactions. It feels like my behavior is something I’m held accountable for under a critical lens, while older fans cannot help themselves and should be given a pass. Older fans will be older fans, as it were, despite the vast majority of them being kind and affable people who don’t engage in this kind of pearl-clutching behavior when other people have different opinions. And when this dynamic finally makes me feel so bad that I speak up, thats suddenly the time for us all to unite, pretend no individuals bear responsibility or that everyone has engaged in the same behavior- and to create rules about what we can and can’t talk about! Which is frankly in my view what started everything in the first place- some headcanons being seen as outright offensive, off the table, inherently diminishing of our favorite pairing, or indicative of not being a real fan. To me this has never been about which headcanon is “right” or “best”- obviously all headcanons are valid!- but about which headcanons are allowed a voice. To me, “I don’t give a fuck” therefore misses the point (I hope very, very few people actually give a fuck); it becomes downright baffling when it is used to justify telling someone to STFU about their own headcanons or thoughts. This began far off Tumblr but has finally reached our shores and I know the bad feelings from elsewhere are one of the things that have poisoned and amped up this discussion beyond what seems (or is) reasonable. But that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the things that have occurred here that have in my view deliberately fanned those flames.

I am still raw, and hurting, as you see. That hurt is not the kind of thing I usually share publicly or even privately outside of my closest friends. Creating that post about how I was feeling was exceedingly difficult for me. But I was frustrated with the sense that I should suck up everything and be fine while other people get to play the victim, and genuinely shook by the idea that perhaps many, many people felt I was violating our norms of respectful fandom behavior in pretty drastic and mean-spirited ways. Yet other people who, in my view, have clearly been treated the same way and who did not make public posts have been left with nothing but the comfort of anons who also recognize shitty behavior when they see it. They’re left just as alone and unsupported as they were before because they didn’t want to appear to be calling anyone out. Where are their hugs? Heck, where are their apologies?

Shit got stirred, and I don’t particularly feel like swallowing it.

Of course no one should call out individual fics or fic writers during fandom discussions, and I believe our community largely does a good job of this. Not a perfect job, certainly a job that could be improved upon. Based on my personal observations, I think where we do struggle is in issues of word choice or squicks as much as anything related to anything socio-political (though obviously there is a real feeling about the latter being a major struggle at the moment). Major issues have come up in the past related to what baby names Han/Leia writers “should” or “should not” use or what canon they “should” or “should not” be writing in that have not been very empathetic in nature. I think for the most part people have been largely respectful on this issue though. I think the sense of tension has been related to real or perceived disagreement even when that disagreement has been polite, as disagreement is always uncomfortable for people by nature as a potential threat to harmony, and I think a very small number of few people have been very willing to fan those flames either within themselves or publicly, largely going off on interpretations and assumptions that are in fact wrong.

I take issue with the idea that no one can speak generally about fic because they must be talking about one of ten or twenty “current” writers, as there are far more people publishing Han/Leia stories at present than that, and a backlog of fic that is actively read and generally treasured (some of which admittedly ages better than others).

Unity is great but I don’t think my behavior is the problem and I don’t think those who have, in my view, made this discourse so toxic have made serious amends or see themselves as anything but victims. The current calls to banish certain kinds of discussion from fandom seem to me to be misguided; “apolitical” views really just mean the status quo- which is very much political. The reality is when you write any fic that goes against this grain (and I am expanding way beyond virginity discourse here), you do get pushback, and criticism, including from the same people who I’ve seen saying that we should never engage critically with a trope or a trend- yet who are very comfortable publicly saying that fics that involve certain real-life elements that are underrepresented in fic are “politicized” and “agenda”-filled! And how that’s off-putting thing to see in fandom!!! And people should just stick to telling stories without dragging that stuff into it! (And again I want to stress I’m expanding far beyond virginity discourse here.) Leia making one decision is “apolitical”; Leia making the opposite decision is “political,” regardless of how realistic that decision might be, and you’ll be publicly taken to task for that. I know you’d probably agree that’s wrong and I would too, but it’s the reality. To say we can’t talk about “the political” really means that we can’t talk about that environment in fandom in which certain views are actually uncommon or marginalized and people’s diverse reactions (some positive, some neutral, some vehemently opposed) to their being written in fic. It means we cant say, “it was so nice to see this done so incredibly differently or to see a character make this choice for once.” It means we can’t talk about why we prefer our own headcanons when they go against the status quo, or talk about our own controversial choices in stories- simply because no matter how respectful we are, someone who wrote a different story in which different choices were made might take it upon themselves to get hurt. That is… beyond frustrating to me.

I think it’s also worth noting that some of these same people seem all too happy to talk about the politics of pairing Rey with her kidnapper and torturer, or of Finn’s erasure from fandom, or of fetishistic portrayals of gay relationships, or of minor white male characters being more popular than leads of color and/or female leads. Real issues! That deserve discussion! I understand wanting Han and Leia to be sacred because they’re so special- they are incredibly special to me- but they aren’t inherently different from any other character or fandom issue.

At the end of the day, refraining from certain topics out of fear of being bullied and refraining from certain topics because engaging in them puts you at risk of being called a bully seem like the same thing to me. I really can’t see it another way, and believe me I’ve tried. I would rather see us united in our willingness to extend olive branches and engage with each other politely than in an agreement not to talk about certain subjects. The latter seems to me to be both superficial and incredibly unevenly applied. I intend to continue to conduct myself the way I have always done, which includes openness to respectful discussion. I love discussion, I’m here for discussion, including public discussion that remains within respectful bounds. This is a great way to connect with people I might not otherwise connect with, including with those who don’t have a tumblr for fear of how they might be treated here or for any other reasons. It’s a great way to exercise parts of my brain that I don’t get to use in other facets of my life. While I am not perfect and I do make mistakes, I don’t believe I have violated those bounds of respect in any of my recent discussions. Others may disagree, and they are free to disengage from me or my blog as they will. Those who don’t wish to see such discussions in general may unfollow me or blacklist the discourse tag (and I will do my best to tag)- or simply not read those posts. I will also never stop reading many different iterations of these characters rendered in many different colors and shades and choices, or encouraging authors to write what’s meaningful and true to them, or to just write, period- getting something, anything on the page is a huge victory for a new (heck, for any) writer, and one I would never seek to diminish.

I look forward to continuing to share fandom spaces with those of you who wish to share them with me in a courteous and kind way, and I promise to do my very best to extend the same to you. I am open to PMs about this but I am incredibly stressed out and also sick and may not be able to respond to them in a timely manner. The support that I have received has been truly appreciated.

[halo-2]

Preordering EA’s (also Ubisoft, Activision, Microsoft, etc.) games shows them that you’re okay with the nonsense. And the more this keeps happening, the more “okay” it will become. Charging extra for gameplay altering features should NEVER be acceptable. Regardless, you’ve gained a follower because I like Halo. And you’ve shown more open-mindedness than Boga who deleted my comments after I provided valid reasons for the Battlefront 2 fuss that’s been happening.

I completely agree. Pre-orders are awful, and attract people with exclusive content for that guaranteed sum of money. I’m not going to pretend like I don’t pre-order, because honestly, I pre-order just about every damn game I get. A lot of people will/have give(n) me flak for doing so, but when I’m confident in a game or have played a beta or previous iteration of a franchise, I know I’ll like it. The only game I have ever pre-ordered and regretted, was Watch Dogs. The first one. As of recently, I’ve also given in to microtransaction (I’m a sucker for cool shit). While these are only cosmetic items (generally and for the most part), it’s making the problem worse. Now obviously one person isn’t a huge difference. If I were to stop (which I am doing, because this short-lived gambling has taken so much money from me, and for what? To look badass.), it wouldn’t do much to direct them (publishers and developers) away from MTs. More people will be against them as time goes. I’m doubtful we’ll see much more than exclusive timed-items (Coldheart in Destiny 2 for pre-ordering) for anything in the near future, though. Buying crates in Battlefront 2 honestly doesn’t do much of anything other than being able to kit out your soldier to fit your playstyle right away. I would definitely not say it’s P2W. While I believe devs and pubs have every right to include MTs in their games, there should be no game-changing MTs in games that are paid for. Especially not a $60 game. P2W has no place in any game, honestly. I will never play a P2W game. Thank you for the follow, I’m glad to know yet another person out there still likes Halo, it’s appreciated. =)I can’t speak for Boga, but if I were to receive all the negativity and hate directed towards him and BF2, I’d be pretty heated as well. Even more so because he’s showing enjoyment for the game, and doing his best to point out that the game is actually high quality. Having people only respond with negativity is terrible, and just creates a toxic environment for both sides. I’m hoping you didn’t send much more hate than that post I replied to, because I’m not a fan of any of that. I’m actually kind of disappointed you’d say stuff such as that, Anon, though I don’t hold anything against people. Not that you’ll listen to me, but please do keep things much more civil in the future if you partake in any discussions such as this. You both seem to have a solid stance, and it looks as if it’s to the point where neither of you can reason much, if at all.I definitely pride myself with an open mind, though. I actually feel as if I’m one of the biggest critics for things I love. Even things I don’t love. I always do my best to look at every angle and understand each and every one. So, all in all;Yes, I completely agree that game-altering MTs have NO place in any games. Pre-orders are controversial. I’m against them if they reward you with actual [game-changing?] items, such as weapons as timed exclusives. Cosmetics only, IMO. That’s how I feel it should be. I stand my ground in saying I will still pre-order, however, as I do not believe it shows support for MTs. While you and Boga disagree, I encourage both of you to step back a little and look at the big picture. Look at each of your points. Work towards a better understanding of your differing points of view. He made the right decision with just shutting you out at the end, as neither of you were being understood completely by the other (sorry Anon, not trying to attack you here). The insults were completely uncalled for and didn’t contribute to anything but more hate between you two. It’s unlikely that this will happen, but even if you’re just on Anon, I think it’d be good for you two to talk this over. I’m not saying you should apologize, or that he should apoligize, but I feel it could be rewarding for both of you to hear the two vastly different stances (though I am suggesting to apologize for the insults, Anon. I think that would be a fair request).Anyhow, if you want to discuss any of this more in depth, please send another ask. Part of the reason my responses are always so shitty is because I’m on mobile (that may not make any logical sense, but trust me, it’s part of the reason), so I’m sure there’s something that doesn’t make sense or I didn’t touch down on.Again, thank you for the follow and I hope we can all avoid toxic situations such as this in the future (as the gaming community as a whole, not just the 3 or 4 of us).

[annashipper]

Sojourner Anon Submission

I’m in a similar situation to the Confused Anon - I’ve known about Benedict Cumberbatch since 2007 (Atonement), and had seen him in a bunch of stuff over the years prior to Sherlock, but wasn’t impressed enough with his acting to take an interest in him until Doctor Strange and TLD (it helped that he was smoking hot in both of these - scruff really does wonders for his face). Naturally my first course of action was to go on a bender through Tumblr for a couple of months, which is how I wound up on skeptic blogs. I’d seen pictures of Benedict with his wife in the past (mostly from the 2015 awards season) and I was aware that there existed a faction of fans that didn’t like her - mostly because of something that had happened to a friend of mine about two years ago.

I don’t wanna go into too many details, since I don’t want to expose her to more hate, so I’ll keep it simple: she’s a huge Benedict fan, not a UK resident but got to stay there for a while back in 2015, during which time she saw Sophie and the baby at some kind of event she (my friend, that is) attended - something that got her torn apart by the skeptics. Now, I’ve known this woman for ages. I’ll grant you that she’s a nanny, but most of her friends are, at best, very casual fans. She’s not a BNF, nor an attention-seeker or a consummate liar, so I find it truly hard to believe she’d make up something like that. There was literally nothing for her to be gained by saying she’d seen Benedict’s wife and baby (I doubt she’s on his PR’s payroll, considering she’s not someone followed by a ton of fans or anything remotely close).

I’ve seen the uncensored pap pics where you can see the face of the child being carried. His resemblance to Benedict is almost uncanny, which is saying something because Benedict doesn’t exactly have a very common face. If they really did hire someone, they did one hell of a job finding a kid who looked like the biological son of both parents.

Furthermore, I agree with what Confused Anon had to say. It’s one thing to get your friends and family to cover for you, but this is a man who’s constantly surrounded by virtual strangers that don’t owe him shit. There’s nothing stopping them from going to the press, and yet not even CDAN will publish a blind contending Benedict’s children are a lie (when it had no problems publishing such things about other celebs).

And what happens down the line, if he did create a fake family? They’re too young right now, but in a few years Benedict’s gonna be expected to discuss funny anecdotes about his children on talk shows - like that cute gifset you recently shared, with all the Marvel actors saying how their kids were embarrassed by them. You can bet your ass someone’s gonna ask Benedict what his sons think about him being Doctor Strange, and people will wonder why he’s not bringing them on set like other Marvel actors… and later, he’ll have to start regularly showing up in public with them, or gossip rags are gonna wonder aloud how come he never brings his children to any public events, like others do with theirs.

I don’t pretend to know what spurred this relationship, although I do have a theory that he panicked as he was nearing 40 with no kids and just jumped at the first opportunity to be a father, maybe hoping he’d learn to love Sophie along the way. Sadly, I’ve met couples like that IRL… but I digress. Whatever the real reason, it can’t have involved a fake pregnancy, or he would’ve said “not mine” a long time ago and jumped ship. At this point, that kind of admission would destroy his public image and career for a very long time, possibly even for good, so unless Benedict is EXTREMELY stupid - and he doesn’t come off that way to me - there’d have to be at least one child.

And yes, I’ve seen the photo collages of her pregnancy. I too have been pregnant and given birth, but unlike the rest of your mom anons, I don’t think that makes me an authority on either pregnancies or babies. No self-respecting medical professional would opine on a stranger’s pregnancy by just looking at photos, and neither should laymen who only have anecdotal evidence at their disposal. In other words, sorry, but drawing outlines on pictures isn’t how gynecologists determine pregnancy.

I’ve seen how you react to people who disagree with you, so I just wanted to say upfront that I’m not really expecting a serious answer beyond a sarcastic gif or sending me to those archives that don’t actually answer anything. My infatuation with Benedict has already begun to subside (I mean, it’s been almost six months, there’s only so long I can fangirl). I had five minutes to burn on my daily commute and that Confused Anon was something of a catalyst, so I dropped you a line. Have a great day, Anna, I hope both you and Benedict find happiness in your lives. (Please accept my apologies if this comes out too long, incoherent or misspelled; English isn’t my first or even second language).

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Hi Sojourner Anon!

First off, since you’ve seen how I react to people who disagree with me, you probably already know enough to expect a serious answer from me when you’re being as cordial as you have been.  I reserve sarcasm and snark for the obviously baity Anons who’re just looking for trouble.

Anyway, as your submission has indeed come out a bit long, I’m going to try to keep this as short as possible and simply address the points you’re making in the order that you made them:

Regarding your friend and her being torn apart by Skeptics, I don’t expect you to be aware of this since you’ve only just recently discovered the Skeptical community for yourself, but we have a long standing rule about sightings.  They have to make sense (to at least be taken seriously) and they have to come with photographic evidence attached (to be believed and included in confirmed sightings).  As I don’t know what your friend saw and where, it is impossible for me to argue whether what she saw was legitimate or not.  The one sighting of Weirdo and Pilo at an event I can remember, is the one where Weirdo supposedly took (a very young) Pilo (at the time) to an Ian Mc Kellen reading, and that’s simply because there was a lot of back and forth about it being legit.  Skeptics who are much more social media savvy than I am and have far higher powers of Google Fu than I do were able to find multiple pictures from the inside of the venue and ... guess what:  No matter how many brunette women the Nans pointed to as being Weirdo, it turned out she wasn’t in the audience.  If this is not the sighting you’re alluding to, I would be more than happy to discuss this with you privately in case you’re inclined to provide me with more details.  

On the matter of your friend being torn apart by Skeptics, let me also add that I personally have never ventured outside of Tumblr for any reason whatsoever and have made it a point to try to deter my fellow Skeptics from doing so as well.  For the record, all real Skeptics know how to stay in our lane.  The ones who don’t are not considered real Skeptics (and yes, there are a number of trolls who have infiltrated the community since the beginning of this showmance and are posing as Skeptics just to make us look bad).

I’ve seen the unblurred pics of Rent-A-Pilo’s face too.  At first I had the same reaction as you did.  I thought Rent-A-Pilo looked remarkably similar to Ben and went on record saying so (on a post which I haven’t deleted, because I don’t delete posts).  Here is the LINK.  Notice how even immediately after seeing Rent-A-Pilo’s face for the first time and posting under shock I still didn’t believe Weirdo had gestated a real human baby?  I still don’t.  

Seeing how the pillows are only ever mentioned / trotted out when Daddy needs to sell a new project or Mommy throws a tantrum to get a new pap walk, I don’t believe they’re surrogate children either.  I just think they’re imaginary.  It goes hand in hand with the fact that Ben knows next to nothing about babies.  2 hour skyping sessions with a 5 month old, filthy props from a movie set being used as teethers by a 10 month old and babies eating sliced apples are only some of the things Ben doesn’t seem to understand are not the norm for children of Pilo’s age.  I won’t even mention the lack of bathtime.

I don’t think Ben is extremely stupid.  I think Ben is extremely desperate not to come off as a man who faked a relationship / engagement / wedding / pregnancy / fatherhood for an Oscar he didn’t even come close to winning because he simply chose an unstable famewhore to play the part of his red carpet girlfriend.

I have to say I’m disappointed you don’t see fit to counter any of the arguments we pose via the bump comparisons you mentioned seeing as you’ve obviously studied them.  I have been posting / reblogging / arguing using these bump comparisons as evidence that Weirdo faked the first pregnancy for the better part of the past two years and not a single Anon has ever offered a convincing counter-argument regarding how ridiculous Weirdo looked with a bump that kept inflating / deflating / changing shapes / inflating again / folding over / disappearing altogether / inflating again / staying the same size during the last trimester of that weird pregnancy.  I would really like to hear your thoughts on that if you feel inclined to have a mature back and forth about it.  Be forewarned:  arguments such as “I can’t accept anyone would be crazy enough to fake a pregnancy like that while being papped left and right” and anecdotal evidence such as “my sister’s friend’s mother’s cousin’s (twice removed) never developed breasts / never got swollen ankles / belly kept deflating / bellybutton kept popping out and in and out again, etc” won’t be taken seriously.  For obvious reasons.

I hope the above answers some of your questions about my take on this showmance and I apologise for getting a bit snarky regarding the pregnancy that never was on my last paragraph, but faking that pregnancy is a very sensitive subject for me personally.

I have a couple of very close friends who have been trying to conceive and I know how taxing it’s been on them.  Let’s just say a famewhore faking a pregnancy just to establish herself in the public eye rubs me the wrong way.  

It’s why I keep coming back to the first pregnancy (which we got to document through numerous pap walks unlike the second one), it’s why I’ll keep calling Weirdo ... weirdo and it’s why I intend on remaining an active Skeptic for the foreseeable future.

Apologies to everyone reading this blog as I think my answer to Sojourner Anon may actually be longer than her submission was.  What can I say?  I’m a rambler...

[terresdebrumestories]

stop. sexualizing. the. friendship. of. real. people. (anti-gross Scömìche bullshit forever). it baffles me how you all think they approve of this stuff because of a little teasing.

Youknow, I was gonna go for a flippant reply but you haven’t beenquite as insulting as the previous anon I got on the topic, and Ifigure putting my thoughts on this in order can’t hurt, so you geta long answer under the cut.

Preface:while I have written a couple of RPF fics before, including a coupleof shippy ones, I am not involved deeply with the RPF community andintend to keep it that way. Also, I will not get into the question ofwhether or not Scott Hoying and Mitch Grassi really are dating ornot, because I believe it is ultimately irrelevant to the discussionat hand and to the writing of RPF fic in general.

(Inany case, it’s completely irrelevant to my shipping, and I tend tothink the contrary would demonstrate an unhealthy levelof investment, but that may just be me.)

Withoutfurther ado (but with apologies to the tag for the unnecessary drama)let’s get on with:

Fanfan’sthoughts about RPF

So.‘Gross Scomiche bullshit’. There are two ways to read this:either you’re implying that RPF is gross in general and onprinciple (which I disagree with) or you’re saying that implyingthat these two guys, who are both part of the LGBTQ+/MOGAI/Queercommunity, could be in a romantic relationship is gross, which I alsodisagree with except with a lot more passion.

I.‘RPF is gross!’

Thisassumes that I (can’t speak for other RPF writers, obviously) writeabout Scott Hoying and Mitch Grassi as actual people, the way I could(but personally wouldn’t) write about a neighbor or a classmate.I’m writing about them as characters, by which I mean I am writingabout the fictionalized version of their persona they present throughtheir work with Superfruitand the various videos, interviews and live chats they’ve given asmembers of Pentatonix.

Here’sthe thing, we don’t actually know anything about what they are aspeople. What we see is a facsimile designed to imitate their lives,but whatever we see—and this is even more the case now that theyhave actual notoriety and actual PR to think of—is always releasedwith the knowledge that thousands of people will see it, analyze itand judge it, meaning it is notthe same as what they’ddo when unwatched.

Howmuch the two differ, I have no idea and, in any case, I don’t thinkit’s my business. They get to decide what they put in the publicsphere, and they get to decide whether the stop line moves, how far,etc.

However,once they put something up on YouTube or wherever fans can see it, itbecomes part of this semi-fiction that are public relationships. (1)I mean, I get why people don’t want to dig into that aspect offandom. Some people prefer to keep more distance with thenarrative—because, again, itisa narrative—because they can’t dissociate it from the peoplebehind it, just like some people can’t dissociate a movie characterfrom the actor who plays them, and that’s fine.

Ijust find it disingenuous to pretend like people shipping or writingRPF is the causeofthat dissociation when it is inherent in the very principle ofcelebrities sharing with the public. (Whether or not thatdissociation is a good thing or pronounced/obvious enough is aninteresting conversation, but it’s neither here nor there.)

Now,I won’t pretend there aren’t any problems with RPF. The fact thatcelebs get tweeted/mailed/forwarded links at RPF isa problem.They have a right not to be unwillingly exposed to stories writtenabout their fictional personalities, which I know can feel weird. (2)

Ialso acknowledge that sometimes things go far enough to weird meout—conspiration theory exists in every domain, apparently, and itlooks odd everywhere. There’s also the…oddly entitled tone thatsome anti shippers such as the anon I got a few days ago, who soundedalmost offended that Scomiche wasn’t an actual thing, like it was abad show plotline. (3)

Thatbeing said, I would also like to point out that I have, as of yet,never seen or heard of an artist sending links to their works(especially not their erotic work) to celebrities themselves. In myexperience, celebs getting linked to RPF usually comes in threeflavors:

A friend/acquaintance of them somehow found the RPF and sent itforward, presumably out of a ‘this shit is hilarious and they haveto see it’ sentiment

ATV/radio host went on a ‘I need something to laugh at and thesestupid delusional fans are the perfect target’ binge

Theceleb themselves went ahead and read fic, but those are usually awareof fanfiction beforehand, imo, should know better than to go lookingif they’re not ready to handle the levels of whackadoo-ing. (4)

However,none of these problems are inherently tied with the fact that thesubjects are actual people: they come from how people treat the ficthemselves. Actors and actresses have similar problems with beingshown fanart of their characters (which have their faces so I doubtthe weird effect is entirely absent there) and fans who write regularfanfiction are also mocked for what they do.

Soif you don’t like RPF, honestly, it’s your prerogative. You couldalso not have a problem with RPF but find certain fics gross, whichis alsofair. Heavenknows I’ve noped out/away from enough fics not to blame people whodo the same.

ButRPF isn’t inherently gross, any more than regular fic is, and whilethere are things to pay attention to in writing it (just like thereis in any kind of fictional writing) I honestly think the systemicproblems lie more with how people handle it than with its existenceas a whole.

II.‘Ew why can’t two guys just be friends?’

Thesecond possible reading of your ‘gross Scomiche content’ commentis that you basically find the possibility of them having a romanticrelationship gross which, well. You do realize how saying that to alesbian isn’t exactly the most polite thing, right?

Imean, honestly, I don’t want to spend hours on that part. Therehave been thousands upon thousands of words written about how the‘let them be just friends’is often mostly a newway of saying ‘keep thegay out of myface!’. Now, maybe you are LGBTQ+/MOGAI/Queer person, in which caseI apologize for the assumption of lingering homophobia.

Honestlythough, the only pairings that get more ‘ew, just let them befriends instead of making them all gay’ than white males are peoplewho are even more marginalized (lesbians, trans people, women ofcolor, you name it) so forgive me if I’m not exactly receptive tothat line of thinking, especially given the fact that, again, ScottHoying and Mitch Grassi are both somewhere on the rainbow spectrum ofsexualities.

Toput it succintly, that second possible reading of your commentstrikes me as either really bad wording or a frankly gross sentiment,and while I’m hoping for the former, the fact that I’ve literallynever seen or heard of similar comments for het-RPShipping makes mefear it’s the latter…and if it really is the latter I don’treally have any answer to the sentiment than a giant, rainbow-coloredfist-shaking.

(1)As an FYI, when I say PR is a fictionalized version of the truth, itdoesn’t only apply to celebrities. For example: two days ago, thenew French Ambassador of Cambodia visited my workplace. We werewarned several days in advance, and the whole place got scrubbedfloor to ceiling in preparation. Then, about 10-15minutes before thelady came in, one of my bosses made sure none of the teachers wereeating in the teachers’ lounge and told us, verbatim ‘pretend tobe working’.

Whenthe Uber-boss and the regular boss noticed I was looking at a boardgame in the corner, they hurried to explain that I teach children soyeah, this is totally work.Which it was, the ambassador just didn’t get to see that I was alsowatching Superfruit vids in between preparing activities for my kids.

Whatwe presented that day wasn’t a completefiction: I really am a teacher for kids and we really do work in theteachers’ lounge. But also we eat, we banter, we have fun, none ofwhich fits with the accepted workplace fiction of everyone being 100%at work all the time…which is why we had to create a facade. It wasclose—very close—to reality, but it still wasn’t real.

Celebritieswho are paid a lot and work very hard to make us think they’rehaving so much fun it’s almost like their don’t work, and alsolike there’s nothing they’d rather be doing than to meet a bunchof us and have the same four or five conversations over and overagain, probably get a bigger difference between their actual livesand their public persona. But I digress.

(2)Fun fact, @talysalankil once got an anon ask that shipped ustogether (I can’t remember if it was a friends ship or a romanticship) so I can confirm the thought of seeing stuff about beingshipped with someone myself was a strange one. I’m fine with it aslong as I don’t see anything (if there is even anything to see,lbr, it’s not like I’m actually famous, even on Tumblr) but Ialso acknowledge that I would probably not feel very comfortableabout seeing that potential material.

Thatbeing said, imagining there were any content to be found about me(again: highly unlikely) all I have to do is not go see it andeveryone can be on their merry ways because no one gets hurt.

(3)Full disclosure: my personal opinion, given the recent material I’veseen, is that these boys are either really, really unsubtle abouttheir love life and its current state, or they’re pushing the PRgame quite far indeed. Neither outcome is going to prevent me fromwriting RPF about their fictionalized lives if I damn well want to.

(4)Like, for example, I haven’t watched the Superfruitvid where they read RPF yet (I’m going through their channel inchronological order, sue me) but I do know Mitch mentioned being ontumblr all the time so I’d be really surprised if he didn’texpect at least someweirdness going in. Sometimes you get more than you bargained for,it’s true, but basic self preservation is a thing, guys.

[dustfromthestepsbefore]

Alright. Here is the master post.

I got 7 messages after I answered all of those other ones earlier. SEVEN.

I’m gonna go ahead and make some general points here and then add a little individually to each ask. I will probably reference some of these points in those individual answers to save time for me. Because I’m sure that this post will end up taking me over an hour to make. (Yes, everyone. Answering anon asks and the like is a great expenditure of time and effort. Especially when you put thought into every answer.)

1. This blog has and will always stand up for what I believe in. I will continue to call out things that I think need to be changed and I’m not okay with. Even including something that I even originally called MINOR and was just an offhand comment that was NEVER the main point of anything. I don’t care if you call me overly sensitive or too PC or whatever term you want to call me. I was raised this way (I promise you that I let my family hear my opinions more than anyone and they disagree a ton), my faith leads me to be this way, and I feel like it’s my duty to stand up for things that I think is right regardless if it “affects” me or not. Thank you for all of these asks. Because it 100% gave me a kick in the ass and showed me how much harder I need to work for making the world a better place.

2. The irony of so many asks telling me that me and others are “too sensitive” when you can’t handle a minor critique of your favorite is not lost on me. I’m too sensitive to point out something that is a societal issue that sexism is so ingrained in society that people don’t even realize it, but if I say one small negative thing about your favorite then my inbox is flooded. Even to the point that people tell me that I obviously dislike Blake or think Gwen is too good for him. 🙄

3. You are correct. I am very sensitive. And I honestly think that is one of my best qualities. I am very stoic on the outside and hold myself together well. But I have so much empathy for others that I tend to actually be very emotional on the inside. Empathy is such an important part of my life that my future career is based on it. The ONLY reason I’ve gotten into medicine is to help people. And I’m hoping to work as a family medicine doctor in an area that is in desperate need of them. Being sensitive for others is NOT a bad thing. And I don’t know why people try to act like it is or use it as an insult.

4. The whole “It didn’t bother/affect me or most people” line is honestly probably the most upsetting thing that I keep getting in my inbox. History is plagued by people having that exact same attitude in situations that are MUCH MUCH MUCH worse than a dumb minor sexist joke. But if you can’t take a moment to sit back and go “hmmmm, that probably isn’t the best joke. He probably should come up with something different. He is funny enough to do that.” then wow. I’m not sure I would want to be around you when something actually important shows up. If you can’t take a stand for the small stuff, how can you take a stand for the bigger and harder things. That response is from being in a place of privilege. Instead of trying to help others, you just ignore it since it isn’t bothering you.

5. I never once came about this discussion trying to say that Blake is an awful person. You can have discussions about something you wish a person would stop doing without considering them horrible. This isn’t a black and white world where a person does one thing that you disagree with and you immediately have to hate them.

Anon: People are too sensitive today that's my opinion. Like why should that bother someone? It's words. Now if they were harming someone that's different. Ever heard of sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never heart me? Ignore people! Girls do some shitty things too. We all aren't perfect. Everyone's going to be offended by something no matter how much you stand up and fight for BeingPC.

Me: See point 4. And also points 2 and 3. 

Being in the medical field, “sticks and stones will break...” is one of the most untrue phrases ever. Words can be extremely hurtful and you shouldn’t just brush that off. I understand trying to help somebody cope and learn how to deal with mean people. But you should never act like words can’t really harm a person. 

And I don’t know why you turned this is in a guys vs. girls thing. I never presented it in that way. I also never said that anyone was perfect.

Anon: You know what there are things that both of them do that are not PC, but if you look at the big picture, they are great people who love hard and are nice to everyone. Why must we knit pick at every little thing they do or say. They are not harming anyone.

Me: I agree with you for the most part. But see point 4.

Just because it isn’t hurting you, doesn’t mean that it isn’t hurting anyone else. Once again, I said from the get go that this was a MINOR problem. People on here have escalated to something much bigger. But I still think that this is an important point about everything in life.

I also don’t think this is knit picking? It was literally an offhand comment about something that I wish he wouldn’t do. The anons on here are the ones that blew it up and made it a big deal.

Anon: Well what he said didn't offend me and I'm sure it didn't offend a lot of women. They honestly probably didn't even catch it so who really cares. Not a big deal. It's not harming anyone if he calls Adam a girl.

Me: POINT 4. POINT 4. POINT 4. POINT 4. POINT 4.

Anon: I'm sorry but calling someone out for making a sexist comment is calling them a sexist. Poeple are so weak thease days. Once mind needs to know better to know when is someone making a joke and when are people serious. We all take all things to serious. It includes you and everyone. No one can say anything anymore without affecting and or a fending someone and taking hate for it. It's a big problem in this world. People need to learn to not take everything so seriously and tuff up.

Me: See points 2 and 3.

I could not disagree with your first sentence more. If that is your criteria for labeling somebody sexist and then I’m assuming racist, homophobe, etc. then basically everybody you know (including me) is one of those if not all of those. I’m sure that almost everybody out there has messed up and said something a long one of those lines. Hopefully somebody (nicely) called them out on it at some point and it made them change their ways. Constructive criticism is a thing and hopefully people grow and become better people throughout their life.

Anon: But what about times when Blake said he wants to be a girl (G sang JAG) and sang Every Woman or he wants to live like a girls dream etc. Contradictory

Me: See point 5.

I don’t really see your point. You can say something cool and then something totally awful. That happens all the time. Just look at politicians (or don’t, they are depressing). 

Anon: I am a woman of almost 30 years old and I can honestly say I see nothing wrong with Blakes "like a girl" comments towards Adam. Maybe it was the way I was brought up or the community I was raised in but I learned to be strong minded from the beginning and not let anyone's comments or opinions bring me down. The whole over sensitive nature the world is adopting towards sexism and other subjects is making the world a even meaner and hateful place.

Me: See points 2, 3, and 4.

I 100% disagree with your last sentence. What is happening is that people are now being called out on their hateful and mean rhetoric that they didn’t even realize was happening. Objecting to something that you are used to isn’t being mean or hateful. It’s trying to stop the ingrained mean and hateful things.

Take for example my mother. A wonderful Christian woman that grew up in Mississippi in the 50s/60s. California in the 60s. And Arkansas in the 70s. She mentioned that she wished to head back to the 50s a couple of weeks ago. People were “so much nicer and well mannered.” I turned and looked at her and said, “Yes, if you were a middle class white person, Mom.” Her eyes got really big and she kind of stammered. She even said something like “I didn’t even think of that.” So yes, the world was a much better place for the privileged when people when everybody kept silent. But the world as a whole is much better.

Anon: In my opinion, the reason he calls Adam a girl is solely because of his high pitched voice which of course he admires. Also people need to lay off as other perspective exist. Insulting is not the intension but people do get offended. Like I remember people getting offended by sushi and cow milking skit. PS: Old BSer here. Peace ✌

Me: See point 5.

Yeah, I get you. And I agree that I don’t think it’s from a place of meanness/hate/etc. I just don’t even think that Blake has thought about it.

But my problem with it being about his voice is that once again kind of reinforces the stereotypes of girls with high voices and guys with low voices. I personally grew up with a lot of girls that had lower voices and people were cruel to them about it. I also have a guy friend that is always embarrassed at drive thrus because he always gets a “Thank you ma’am” over the intercom. And at least 1/3 of those encounters involve a “I thought you were a woman!” exclamations at the window. 

And then on the famous side, if you have ever followed David and Victoria Beckham, the number of times that they have addressed David’s voice being higher than the “average” guy is unbelievable. I just don’t think that’s what you should focus on. And Blake is such a funny and loving guy, I would just love if he would switch to something else to joke about.

And that is the last of them. I’m not going to answer any more asks on this. I think my position is clear. And the same rebuttals keep repeating themselves.

[baesketballers]

If I can chime in really quickly about this Hanamiya (and KiriDai by extension) vs. Haizaki thing - they're both pretty nasty dudes with bad personalities and low morals, but Hanamiya does the things he does because he wants to tear others down and sometimes literally break them, while Haizaki does the things he does because he literally just does whatever he wants without caring about others or the consequences to his actions. That being said, I'd say Haizaki is just the lesser of two evils

thehypestdeano said: And it’s shown that KiriDai doesn’t need to be violent in order to win, but they still do so to ruin morale of the opposing team by taking out their best players. Really, it’s just them being sadistic, there’s no other reason :/ Haizaki has injured other players on the court before too when he stomped on Kise’s bad foot during their game as a sort of last resort to hinder him, so he’s not above it, but he doesn’t seem like the type to do that unless he’s desperate, since he’s GOM level talent

(Very interesting discussion we have today!) Man I legit forgot that Haizaki stomped on Kise’s foot that was also freaking infuriating thank you for reminding me that the guy can also play foul if he wants to. 

I have to agree when you say Haizaki does stuff because he just does whatever he wants to do. That’s why I called him a grade-A douchebag. Aside from that, I really can’t overlook Kirisaki Daiichi’s playing style (if you can even call it that)… 

Anonymous said: 1-3 thanks for answering my question :) tbh i don’t really have to agree or disagree with you coz i myself don’t have an established opinion on hanamiya and kiridai. naturally when i first watched knb i hated all of them for hurting kiyoshi (i cried so much in those episodes). but as i think you know, bad boys have this appeal on women, and more esp if it’s in fiction. fans can just alter personalities or situations to suit their fantasies. i’ve requested for hanamiya on other scenario blogs

2-3because as a fangirl, i’m attracted to him. not his violent personality on-court ofc. but since it’s a girl’s fantasy, even someone’s personality such as hanamiya’s can be twisted to suit a romantic aspect. i guess that’s what’s drawing me and some others in? though obviously when you disregard fantasy and only see the way they injure people to secure their victory, it’s really disgusting.

3-3 some fans just overlook the reality (in the fiction), but i see that you don’t. that’s nice, though, sticking to your beliefs and morals :)

Hi anon, thanks for asking the question! I can understand when other fangirls/boys of Hanamiya/Kiridai are attracted to them because of the bad boy personality. I’ve read somewhere that girls (although I think this applies to boys too) tend to gravitate towards boys with their kind of personality because they want to be the one to “tame” the boys. As in, they want to be the one to “teach” these bad boys what love is and make them stop playing around or whatever. And I feel that this has some truth to it, although of course it doesn’t apply to everyone. So I understand that people are attracted to Hanamiya/Kiridai, just to make it clear, it’s not that I’m implicitly talking bad about people who like them. I was just expressing personal distaste.

Thank you for pointing out the fact that a fictional character’s personality can be twisted in fanmade stuff to cater to people’s fantasies (or even the creator’s fantasies). This is nearly always accurate to headcanons/scenarios/imagines: a writer that is not the original writer (fanwriters I guess, like me) can only guess/speculate/assume how the characters are going to react in a certain situation based on their personality that is shown in the series. Considering that Kuroko no Basket doesn’t really show romantic (and sexual) situations, writers can only imagine how these characters become when provided with said situations, and in this case, there is no right or wrong. It’s up to our imagination.

That said, when a writer portrays Hanamiya as secretly tsundere when he’s in love with his s/o, no one has the right to object. You can, of course, share and discuss the different ways each one of you interpret the character. Overlooking the “reality” while consuming fan-content is also somewhat okay to me, unless it becomes so off that it’s out of character (OOC, the lines of which are different according to different people) and throws me out of the experience lol

that’s nice, though, sticking to your beliefs and morals :)

I can be an idealist sometimes. In fact, I think I’m an idealist most of the time so that explains why I can’t write Hanamiya… 

Again, I’m sorry if any of you guys are waiting for the Kirisaki Daiichi gang to be included in the list of characters I can write, or if any of you guys are disappointed that Haizaki is in the list while Kiridai isn’t. I hope these discussion posts help you understand my reasoning. If you’d like to open discussion for other characters/hop in on this one (penny for your thoughts?), the askbox is yours ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

[janiedean]

I'm not trying to be rude or come up as passive aggressive but reading your blog in the past dea weeks made me wonder, have you ever tried to talk to an African American (or black person in general maybe not from the US) and see their point of view on some of the questions you raise at your blog? It just feel like you movk Americans while a conversation with them might not change your mind but could at least open you up to different possibilities.

... er, anon, no offense taken, but:

‘have you ever tried to talk to a black person in general’ man uuuhm I... uh... I teach the language to *migrants and refugees* I’ve spoken to more black people from various African countries than to white people in general for the entire previous year ^^’’’’’ like I speak to at least fifteen black people daily for four days each week and occasionally some of these topics come up and I 100% assure you I never heard tumblr rhetoric come from any of them?

also last year I was giving italian extra tutoring to american students some of which were black and sometimes some hot topics were discussed and I’ve never heard tumblr rhetoric from any of them either?

at least when it comes to the infamous HAIR question that everyone comes back to: my best friend from high school has an angolan adopted brother (who arrived in italy after the civil war in angola) and had like blood relatives in italy and so they all were in contact and like, uhm, given that they regularly made dreads for my friend who had the hair for it offering her to because she would look good in them I can assure you that at least when it comes to that question everyone I ever discussed it with didn’t give two fucks about white people and dreads. also er uhm I went to elementary school in an area which was filled with immigrants back in the day, half of my class was *poc*, including black people from africa/brazil and like everyone.. brought stuff from home to share or taught others something in their language and the likes I mean the concept of **cultural appropriation** the way it is on tumblr didn’t even exist back in the day and I don’t live in a bubble where *pocs* don’t exist ^^’’’’

I follow a bunch of social justice critical blogs full of black american mods who don’t agree with 90% of the tumblr rheroric in that sense and aren’t right wingers

I also follow a lot of people I know aren’t white and they don’t disagree with me on a lot of things (k not all american but... XD)

I’ve had anons from people who said they were african americans and agreed with me or at least said tumblr rhetoric was ridiculous

I’ve never once in my life said that if you’re black in the US you don’t face any issues and tbh if someone black comes to me and says ‘fuck anne frank you only care about the holocaust bc it was white people and not about slavery’ (never mind that I care about both) I’d have no issues telling them to shut up because whatever your problems are oppression olympics when it comes to the holocaust are 100% tasteless

most africans I’ve ever met think that their culture and black american culture have little in common so like if I ask them stuff about the *american* questions I talk about on here they’d probably go like ‘wtf is the problem at me’

(ps: we had a huge school party with the association I work with and there were a bunch of african women twerking, some of the white girls working at the association joined and everyone was like AH YES PLEASE COME ALONG and at the end they were inviting others to come up on stage and dance with them so I think their stance on idk twerking isn’t the same as tumblr’s)

like I don’t want to sound like I know everything because I don’t, I only speak about things that from my perspective seem ridiculous (the hair or complaining that paris gets terrorist attacks and we don’t care about hoax gunners in an american university no one here knows about) (and I’ve seen a bunch of AA people who agree about that btw) and I absolutely am NOT saying black people don’t face issue in the US (like I mean the first time I learned that police brutality in the US was a thing I was twelve, it was because springsteen and fyi I have the lyrics to his song about police brutality with a translation I made myself when I was thirteen attached to my door and when I found out I spent a week with my parents wishing I never knew about police brutality in the US because it was everything I talked about and I read the shit out of what I could find on the subject, OBVIOUSLY I don’t know anything in person and I don’t know how it feels personally but I’d never go around and say it doesn’t exist and guess why have you ever seen me saying black people don’t have a right to protest it? XD) and I try to stay in my lane in that sense and about things I’m not 100% sure I have an opinion about [as the hair thing] but like... I mean... I don’t leave in a bubble? I mean idg where you get the impression I don’t talk to black people or I don’t read interviews with black people or I don’t give a fuck about their point of view? I inform myself before talking xDD also I follow an american black youtuber who lives in italy who has made multiple videos talking about difference between how you live as a black person in the US and in Italy and who gave me a bunch of stuff to think about but who also basically says what *everyone* italian on tumblr says when it comes to how it works in this country if you’re black *shrug* I mean obv that doesn’t mean I know more african americans than average but like idg where you assume I don’t listen to the other side of the barricade or that I only talk to white people. because I don’t. XD

tldr: I talk to plenty black non-American people and I do occasionally speak to black American people yes and I try to keep myself open minded on a general basis and I’ll listen to anyone if they want to talk and explain things to me if I can’t understand it. like I enjoy listening to different point of views, that’s how you learn things..? but... yeah. uhm. to answer you: yes I actually do talk to non-white people. on a daily basis. XD