#'please educate people' that's literally what op is doing what

[madfantasy]

To fan art and fiction enjoyers:

Please excuse my rage slipping if it happened over having to address this literal mediocrity of a subject in comparison to endless things that actually matters in real life. Because this would be at the scrapping bottom of it, but since the occasion presented itself, here we are:

Do you know there are some, let's say, manners, being in fandoms, and/or in using social media in general? NOOO? 8U

Well, Lets start somewhere!

Like it or not, YOU NEED TO ACTUALLY READ STUFF PEOPLE WRITE. Before you follow, before you comment, before you interact, because if you come across something you don't like, or you started to assume things— that's a you problem and not the fault of the poster.

If you DO NOT enjoy a character, a pair of ship, or a certain head cannon, filter the tag it's used for, Google has free tutorials on how. Most social media have these settings and most decent posters tag their posts correctly. If you keep seeing that pair, you can block the people who create it. You are free to do so ofc but WHY WOULD U come on main and air that out? Personally I find it so bizarre and it could show the type of person you are to other people — a toxic company over fictional substance — and I'd say that is not a flex, more like showing your dirty nappy in public. Those characters you love are not real and so not effected by your high ground stance, but actual humans that share you that love notice and get that impression, and it's a weird one. You SHOULD, of course, set your boundaries, and usually where that is be in your profile, on your bio or a pinned post.

Loving bizarre, villainous, creepy concepts DOES NOT EQUAL morality, nor loving good sunshine and flowers does. It's what a person does in real life what counts, not what they consume in entertainment. In fact, it is not a sign of a good person those who be shaming humans who like different fictional concepts. Or when someone keeps using ai generators knowing full well it's based on constant data theft of all sort of human creators across generations and can not exist without the continuance of this theft. Or those supporting creators that they know did irl crimes. Or those who are Policing what's can and cannot go into fiction as if the fickleness of preference have never let alot of things survive its judgement. And I can go on with the miniature examples. You are forgiven if you did not know before, some people learn through experience, but not anymore when you continue this behaviour. And maybe if you can't differentiate between reality and fiction, and what's more important than what, maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't be consuming fiction.

DO NOT POST WHAT YOU DID NOT CREATE. Do you like it when people keep posting your selfies that you only ment to share for funsies and what not? Isn't worse if you did not post that selfie in the first place or never wanted it to be used like that? It's the SAME FOR ART. This is the artists work just as much as your face is yours. Social media at the baseline is about who ever the poster is, their posts are theirs. So you posting an artist's drawing, with no permission, no credit to them, no nothing, is not allowed and people can report that. Don't be an ignorant thick fig and play the victim when schooled like this precious dear\s .Reposters disconnect so many content from their creators and this is how alot of beautiful things in life die, by simply not knowing they are loved, shoved into the over consumption machine..

And lastly, You don't have anything nice to say to OP? Don't say anything! It's not your misguided duty to educate people on how embarrassingly self centered you are, it's okay to be a basic #&★— I promise. It okay to feel out of place in a niche that doesn't concern you. It's okay to realise other people have different perspectives of the fiction work you enjoy. You can sit down.

And I'd like to add, Mani is a safe space for au and ships even if I don't like em, cuz they are only FICTION and will remain FICTION no matter how much I loved them or hated them.

Good day, dears🍀

#text #im probably blabing but i felt its needed #Severus Snape #fiction

[saetoru]

About that entitled ass post about x reader, op was definitely wrong but a small point was made.

I agree with your response but I'd like to add that, unless you've stated that certain characteristics or features will be present in reader, certain kinds of ambiguity is necessary, especially in appearance.

To make a character completely void of any backstory or personality is just bad writing period but to add an appearance is a little ...

As a black reader, reading about certain things that are supposed to reflect the reader is genuinely disheartening. I'm talking about things like referencing imagery of lighter skin (such as refering to readers skin as pink, pale, creamy, etc) or something like a character running their fingers through the reader's hair or having a hair washing routine that can be done in the time it takes to have a regular shower. I know with people with big bodies, having descriptions of small, light bodies is also disheartening.

Bc, once again, unless it's been stated that those are a part of reader's appearance, it's a little unnecessary bc it shows that although it's x reader it's definitely not for us.

I don't expect writers to write about specific events or characteristics about different cultures and such bc that can also go south REAL quick if you aren't properly educated or aware but a little diversity never hurt anyone

I know that some people do this out of genuine dislike of darker skinned/bigger people but I know most people do it out of genuine ignorance.

Unfortunately, you cannot bring up including people who don't fit typical beauty standards (pale/light skinned, long straight hair, thin/slim bodies) without people telling you that not everyone has to cater to you.

But the thing is, we're not asking you to cater to us; we're just asking you to include us in your vision of reader. You don't need to add specifics of everything regarding different races or cultures but you don't need to add specifics that exclude them.

And then when we go to create our own stories that do envision us, we're met with so much hatred and backlash about it like that one deleted comment on op's post.

I'm sorry for ranting about this but it so frustrating sometimes when people don't understand this. I brought up something similar to this topic once before and got death threats in my mentions for weeks (that's why this is anonymous)

ALSO, I'm not accusing you of any of the things I've mentioned in this ask. Based on what I've read from your work so far, the reader is actually someone you can enjoy reading about without feeling excluded when appearances are mentioned

Btw I adore your rich boy gojo series and would love to continue reading your work ❤️

im afraid you missed my main point and also, u are talking to someone who is literally a POC so i am definitely not in need of a rundown of how important it is to write reader in a manner that does not perpetuate western beauty standards. writing a reader that is inclusive for people in a manner that doesn't solidify western norms is important, but writing a reader that is an all encompassing fit all type of thing in terms of personality and decision making is not

its not that their point ab mistagged gn! readers and white/western physical features weren't valid—it was, but it was sprinkled in their main point that writing reader with personality is an oc and is not belonging in the tags and writers should focus on writing generic hcs instead. they used the issue of race and gender and other minoroties to support their idea that readers have to be ambiguous from all fronts, and that is a very twisted way to use actual real issues to justify your tantrums ab not liking dialogue or what the reader chose to do. my point that i was trying to make is that writers are entitled to write however they please as long as they tag what features of reader are set there. if they mistag that, then yes, that is something you should bring to their attention (politely) because then it misleads ppl to think this fic includes them. but that also is not done through a rant in the tags because that does not belong in the tags

quite frankly, to pair racial and gender representation issues as comparable to not aligning with the choices a reader takes to develop as a character and to put those two on the same boat takes away from the issue of inclusivity. inclusivity of a reader does NOT equal to how they think, process, feel, and progress in the storyline. not fitting in with the actual character of reader is incomparable to racial representation issues and misgendering tags and etc. the latter are REAL issues. the first is simply complaining bc u did not see urself in a plot

the actual problem with their rant was that they were using REAL issues to justify entitled complaining and that is why i did not validate them in that. yes writing reader as white and not tagging it is an issue. yes giving little to no thought to poc readers in writing is an issue. yes mistagging something as gn! while using gendered terms is an issue. but they should not be the backbone to an entirely different argument that essentially censors people

#it’s not that ur points are wrong or that ur invalid for ur thoughts #ur very right #except i do not need those things explained to ME bc i AM a poc and i have my own multitude of experiences to draw from #and having someone explain the poc experience to me makes me feel quite invalidated #i’m more than happy to explain my point to you but pls do not come to my inbox hoping to educate me how poc ppl feel #bc i’m VERY well aware how poc ppl feel #as i am one myself

[duck-in-a-thrift-store]

Getting on my soapbox for a moment, topic being, uhhhh... religious influence on education and bodily autonomy? Smthn like that idk

(This ended up being really long, so, more below the cut)

My parents put my little sister in homeschool as soon as I graduated, which like, i WoNdEr WhY (it's me hi I'm the problem it's me)

And the program/co-op thing she's involved in is christian-based bc my folks are unfortunately conservative christians who think it's a good idea to bias their child's entire understanding of the world through their religious beliefs

So my sis was telling me about her health textbook the other day, and how it was kinda weird? Like, they have a unit on I guess dating and sex type stuff, but this textbook has some interesting opinions

Such as, suggesting kids (not like little kids we're talking about high schoolers here) avoid hugging their partner because it supposedly might turn them on??

And, ok, to be honest I have absolutely no idea how realistic that is, it sounds pretty silly to me, but like even if that totally is a thing that happens to people... who cares, right?

But no, obviously that would be just disastrous because we can't have anyone tempted to do something totally crazy like having sex before marriage, god forbid

And there's just that sort of "no touching" purity culture bullshit and it really pisses me off, especially as someone who was also raised in that mentality, and I was just lowkey flabbergasted by the ridiculousness and audacity of a health textbook to tell kids not to hug someone they're dating bc it might lead to premarital sex, and I basically said as much, smthn along the lines of "imagine sexualizing hugs" to my dad, trying to get him on my side I guess, but that isn't how it went

Let me preface this with: I love my dad. I do. And he has really been making progress in terms of letting me be me and still supporting me even though our views don't always align. But my dad can also be petty, and he's a very touchy-feely person and I'm very much not, at least with most people including him. We have a little bit of history of him trying to hug me, me rejecting it, and him getting butt-hurt over it. So there's your rant-relevant context I guess

So when I half-jokingly say "imagine sexualizing hugs," he shoots back with "imagine being uncomfortable with hugs" in like, a targeted mocking way, like that in any way makes sense to use as an insult toward your own child or anyone for that matter

I didn't have the presence of mind or energy to really unpack that in the moment so I kinda just went "bruh did you really just-" made some joke like "well gee sorry for being autistic" (which yeah that's part of it too) and dropped the conversation

But like.... does he really not see the irony?

One of the major reasons I'm not comfortable with hugs and touch in general is literally BECAUSE of how it's been sexualized, like, that's kinda the whole point?

Of course I'm not going to want to hug you, my father, when there are voices in my upbringing suggesting that touching people is sexual, duh

Like it's literally so obvious to me how the two lines of thought are inextricably linked and how this sort of ideology can fuck someone up because, hello, living proof right here dude, so let's maybe NOT teach the same shit to your younger child?

Yeah you're right I'm not comfortable with hugs and that's kinda sad but I'm trying to get you to see that part of why that is is because of the same idiocy you're letting someone preach to your daughter, so if you don't want us both to be like me,,, maybe don't do that

To the kids and anyone else who needs to hear it, when how and why you touch another person should be up to you and that person and no one else. If you want to hug someone and they vibe with that then hug them, please don't let some bible-thumping freaks tell you it's a slippery slope to sin or whatever. Your body is your own and you make the decisions about what to do with it. That is one of your most basic, most fundamental, most bar-on-the-floor rights as a human being. Anyone who tries to guilt you about something like this is trying to control you and you should be wary of them

Me personally, I just find it interesting how society is so set on calling drag queens and queer people groomers when there are literally religious teachers out here manipulating children into not having bodily autonomy

What's up with that?

#duck rants #hug discourse i guess? #hugs are both sacred and repulsive to me so yeah i was gonna rant about this #obviously #religious trauma #bodily autonomy #sexualization #stop sexualizing touch #education #health education #family issues #this is health class not sunday school #get your puritanism out of the damn textbook #so help me god #(yes i see the irony) #purity culture #fuck purity culture

[gothhabiba]

[ID: a tumblr post that begins with a screenshot of a tweet. the tweet is by @.Staya_Stray and reads: "Hot Take: ADD, Autism, and ADHD are only "disorders" under capitalism. Otherwise they are neurodivergence: different needs, thinking and working styles and sensory issues than neurotypical people. They are only problems due to our hierarchies and modes of production" end tweet. another tumblr user, whose url is blurred out, has reblogged the screenshot and added text as follows: [large text] This misinformation harms people with ADHD and autistic people. [end large text] No hate to OP please. This is extremely common misinfo and chances are that they didn't realize the danger in this type of post. Reminder that this is harmful rhetoric. It pushes the idea that these disabilities - which would be disabling under any conditions - don't actually warrant help. This is blatantly incorrect, even for low support needs autistics and pwADHD. In the tags OP also used the "superpower" rhetoric. Again, this denies the very real support needs of all autistic people. It is a disorder and a disability no matter what. Executive dysfunction, a hallmark of both disorders, is the definition of disabling, and that is literally just one symptom. It also ignores the existence of high support needs autistics entirely. There are people who need help with tasks like eating, toileting, bathing, etc. because of their autism. How is that caused by capitalism? I fell for these ideas too once, but now I know better, and I think it's important I use this platform to educate others now that I do. end ID]

I'm sorry but this is so obnoxious and condescending!! lmao

[aronarchy]

@t00obsessed

I believe that if kids want their own specific spaces, then there should be specific spaces for kids, and they can work on making them themselves too. I don’t think of things as that we should have adults always planning things “for” kids on kids’ behalf trying to assume what they need. I believe in communicating WITH kids, and in a general anarchic view of society where if there is a resource need somewhere, then people will generally move to fulfill their own needs as such if they aren’t impeded by bureaucratic restrictions. You don’t have to Centrally Plan Everything so you can do it For Them. That’s also a very condescending and objectifying way to view other people in general.

So you would rather enable mass systemic child abuse instead? Just because of some abstract fear of “kids ending up in adult spaces”? Seemingly viewing children as inherently problematic, out-of-control, needing to be restrained (by adult authority) or else they will accidentally slip and slide into—what, exactly? Immorality? Stranger danger? Do you think “kids ending up in adult spaces” is a specific process, something that actually happens with concrete reasons and events preceding it, or just a catch-all term for “if we abuse children less then there will be Scary Bad Things that Just Happen(tm) and the children will become bad”?

Again, this is a conversation that should happen WITH kids. Which was what the whole OP was about—that they should be informed beforehand about what they might encounter online, what the Internet is like, so that they will be more able to protect themselves and filter out content they don’t like or don’t want to see. (This is also something adults who want to use the Internet should be allowed to know, as people in general.) If they don’t want to see sexual content, then they can work with an adult or tech-minded person to put on filtering technology. If they want to specifically screen out violent content, gore, etc. so they have no chance of accidentally stumbling across it, or block certain keywords or areas of the net, then they should be able to know that these are options. But if you just try to do them on their behalf without even considering that it’s to help them and better align with their individual wishes and feelings and needs, then that kind of defeats the whole purpose, doesn’t it? Would it really be improving their lives then, or just enforcing a standard?

I don’t believe it’s inherently wrong for kids to look at sexual content (which is what people are usually alluding to when they bring up “things not appropriate for kids”). This doesn’t even necessarily equal interacting with the content itself. Many children naturally have some sexual feelings at their age and would be interested in looking at content with which they can explore their feelings. Many are also coming from sexually repressive, conservative homes which impose rigid moralism and refuse to discuss sexual topics or allow the possibility that their child might be thinking about sexuality at all and shame children for wanting to explore sexuality IRL by themselves or with other children. (This is abusive and traumatic.) Viewing fiction might be an alternative outlet for that, or just something they want to do. (Many survivors have attested that shaming them for this or casting this as immoral/inexplicably Corrupting/Tainting was abusive and traumatic.) What children should have is comprehensive sex education including the fact that porn exists, and porn is often unrealistic and should not be used as a model for IRL sexual practices, so that they can make informed decisions on their own.

Obviously, this does not mean, in any way, being okay with adults themselves sexually engaging children online. It also doesn’t mean that it should be literally banned to ever say “this forum/server/etc. is adults-only, children/young teens please don’t join.” Kids looking at sexual content on their own ≠ them interacting with adults over it or participating in adult sexual discussions, or trying to join adult-only spaces or w/e. And they’re not exactly going to accidentally join some adult-only space if there’s a sign on the door that says that outright? (Which such spaces already do, so I don’t see where there’s a problem.)

Some kids do join adult-only online spaces knowing that they’re marked that way, and lie about their age. I would like to examine this issue differently from how most people look at it though—has anyone bothered to ask why they might motivated to do that, rather than just demonizing them, condemning them, using this as evidence that children are just Like That and Evil and always trying to stick their noses where they don’t belong and disrupt good, normal, adult business? Could it be, perhaps, that children are already excluded from much of public space, that everywhere is already marked as “adults only” (whether implicitly or explicitly, online or offline, regardless of whether the topic of discussion is sexual or not, “mature” or not) and they are treated in such a hostile manner for being children, told constantly that if they want to be respected then they have to be adults, that some children might try to be “adult” in attempt to challenge this? If everywhere is deemed “inappropriate for children,” then there’s not much visible incentive for children to treat different places differently, is there? If this is a problem, it requires more compassionate, rational engagement with systemic trends than just ham-fistedly banning everything like a surveillance state because you can’t think with nuance (and, of course, just making it even worse in the process).

Treating The Internet as someplace Uniquely Bad And Dangerous And Corrupting is just a new version of “Stranger Danger” and overlooks that IRL is far more dangerous on average for children than most things they will ever find online. Most child abusers are the victim’s own parents. The parents also make up a massive, disproportionate chunk of CSA perpetrators. It’s hypocritical to identify the Internet as the main problem when exponentially bigger problems are already right there, have been for a long time, and so far have barely changed.

Children are already being abused and exposed to awful things against their will and being traumatized. Pretending like they can’t possible know anything out of some misguided insistence on “childhood innocence” just prevents them from talking about it. (This doesn’t mean dump everything on kids at once, or try to aggressively “remove” ignorance/peace either—that’s also terrible, and not what I'm advocating for. But I do think it’s possible to have sensitive and age-appropriate conversations and interactions with children while also not forcefully cutting off vast swathes of public space or informational access from them.)

Note: I’ve had numerous conversations of this manner already. I’ve also been frequently attacked, harassed, and misrepresented for my views. This topic also tends to be triggering for me because it’s tied to my personal traumas too. I was more patient and read to talk a long time ago, but now, I generally feel bitter and cynical about most things and most people, and don’t really feel like I have much more to say, because it’s all already been said. I’m not saying this is your fault, but I just want you to be aware of that; I’m very tired and also busy IRL and going through things right now, and I’m just not sure I’m the best person to be asking these questions and looking for a discussion; these usually stress me out to some degree nowadays. I have other mutuals who would probably be better to talk to here.

[xxlovelynovaxx]

Screenshot:

.

Gods I hate lists like these.

First of all, they literally say in the notes their only issues with wicca outside of appropriation (which they acknowledge is not inherent to the practice and also list later) are it being the most mainstream form of "magic practice" and being "mostly ineffective" and "not real magic". Same with spell jars. Hunny, you're doing MAGIC, you have no leg to stand on with what's "real" or not, and I say this as someone who DOES believe in magic.

Second, they have reality shifting in the same category as actually bigoted and harmful things because it "encourages delusions" and "causes suicide". No, CULTLIKE practices that HAPPEN to use that might. Reality shifting is not INHERENTLY harmful.

Also, as a schizophrenic person who experiences delusions, shut the fuck up. Every religion that exists can feed into a psychotic person's delusions, especially when being pushed by charlatans. Not one is inherently so, even for SPECIFICALLY psychotic people. Not all delusions are even harmful. Like please, educate yourself before talking over psychotic people (even if you are one).

Changelings. Okay, that can potentially have weirdness, but again, not inherently harmful. Also didn't call out the person who said otherkin is also a delusion thing (which, even in cases of endelity, is what's known as a EULUSION, or a harmless and sometimes even helpful delusion that is fine and healthy to acknowledge, but in either case isn't bad).

Literally what do you mean by self-harm. If you're a fat liberationist you'll acknowledge that fasting is very nearly inherently a form of self-harm (not even counting for people with eating disorders, since most of these religions do have rules against participating in fasts if it'll be SIGNIFICANTLY harmful, but just fasting at ALL), but you'll STILL be a bigot towards MULTIPLE religions if you say people shouldn't fast religiously.

Visualization can be energy work. Magic's "efficacy" varies based on belief system and insisting that there are "wrong ways" of doing it makes it sound like you might in fact believe in "one right (set of) way(s)" for doing magic ("one right way" is bad but correspondences and wicca and visualization are all red flags that should prompt an instablock). Half of these things are utterly harmless and the other half are actual literal bigotry.

Here's a good block list for witchy stuff:

Appropriative assholes

Bigots and white supremacists, including ones who use the listed dogwhistles

People who tell you that certain types of magic are useless or wrong.

Anti-otherkin and its more recent sibling, anti-reality shifters.

People who condescendingly explain that a certain practice/s is "bad for mental health" and speak for all psychotic people, especially if not psychotic themselves.

In fact, anyone who uses phrases like "causes/encourages delusions". I've seen that enough in syscourse that THAT'S a red flag for someone who doesn't know what the shit they're saying about mental health OR spiritual practices.

People who take issue with you exercising your autonomy even in ways that harm yourself.

Anyone exhibiting red flags according to the BITE model, especially who is trying to isolate you from others.

Like, I actually agree with most of the things in red, except for reality shifting, blood magic stuff, and "self-harm" as a vague nebulous taboo (I do think encouraging healthy practice is good, but as someone who has literally self-harmed in general, this is not at all helpful in doing so, and as a disabled fat trans person, "self-harm" has been wielded against me too many times for me to trust anything that even ENCROACHES on threatening autonomy).

A couple others (godphoning and black/white magic) I don't know enough about to know if they're inherently harmful or just misused.

Anyway yeah. Don't get your info on witchcraft from random Tumblr users. Don't take me at my word either, do your research. That's the one thing I agree with the OP of that post on (they said people should research in the notes), but key difference here is I don't accuse everyone who disagrees with me of "endorsing [x] things" which aren't even harmful.

[wonder2realities]

You never mentioned you were disabled in your original reply to that ask. It’s also not on your pinned post. How in the world were they supposed to know that the response came from a disabled person? And before you say you’ve mentioned it on your blog before (which I have no idea if you have or not) how do you know they would have seen it? They most likely found your response through the notes on the ask post. And just FYI, you can educate someone without calling them “icky” or degrading them in any manner. They asked if the way they thought was bad, you could have said yes and explained why instead of calling them icky and assuming they would know your disabled. At the end of the day it’s just a damn opinion on the matter. Opinion is not fact just because it came from someone in the group in question.

so much to unpack this is insane im losing my mind this is gonna be a long ass response

op was geniune, i gave my opinion saying its a bit icky - thats not degrading??? i never called them an ableist, never said they were an awful person, i said in my opinion i think its icky - i didnt even direct it towards the person. i never said "youre an awful person for doing that." - i literally said "its moreso the fact that scripting out disabilities is icky"...

please point to the degrading. point to the meanness and evilness, the harshness...point to it. unless the person who originally made the ask to that confessions acc wants to come into my dms or my inbox and say they were personally offended, i really dont see how it could be degrading. maybe its the alexithymia but i dont see it, i dont get it.

ive talked abt being disabled on this blog frequently, literally i make a blog at least once a week talking abt being autistic : even if they were unable to find that out and assumed i was not disabled then they can simply take my opinion as something else i wouldnt care as much about that however i literally MENTIONED THAT YOU CAN SEARCH UP AND ASK DISABLED PEOPLE AND LOOK INTO SIMILAR DISCOURSE because then youd be able to see it from different perspectives as the term disabled is a large umbrella term. so i not only said my opinion as a disabled person who has frequently talked abt being autistic and has literally made blogs talking abt keeping my disabilities in my drs but i also gave advice on where to find other perspectives that will go more into detail of why disabled people dont feel comfortable with the whole "heal everyone!! we're gonna heal all disabilities to save them!!" mindset.

you have no right to say whether an opinion is a "fact" or not when your opinion on the topic is automatically invalid because you arent disabled - dont try to pull that shit on me when you know for a fact that being disabled means that id have more of an understanding on the social aspect of what its like to be disabled...because i experience it and i wont let any ablebodied person or any neurotypical person try to speak over me on that. also, ive mentioned im autistic AND have physical disabilities multiple times on here - even if its not mentioned in my original post i quite literally said if youre confused you can look into discourse regarding the whole "disabled people cant be in fantasy because fantasy = utopia which = everyone being healthy" thing because there are disabled people who have talked abt this multiple times and in my eyes there are similarities to that and the idea of scripting out disabled people because they have similar reasons.

also if youre who i think you are aka the person who deactivated the second i responded : if youre able to go that far into my blog to find a post where i said i was gonna go on a social media detox - you wouldve been able to find a post on me talking abt being autistic because i literally made a post a FEW DAYS AGO talking abt being a blk autistic.

^ incase u dont believe me for whatever reason, this was literally 2 days ago.

also im not an educator never claimed to eductae the person i gave an opinion - it is not my job to educate people. you are twisting a small paragraph of me saying "scripting out disabilities is a bit icky" into me being this harsh and awful person because i...didnt write an essay educating the person when i never claimed to educate them in the first place????

and again, i never attacked op the only person i attacked (which could be u if ure that account but im too lazy to do the whole "finding out whos behind the anon ask" thing) was the person who randomly responded to me, went through my entire blog to find a post of me saying i deleted twt for a social media detox and painted it as if im this limited person who "doesnt believe shifting is limitless and has a bad mindset" (which is insane???)

so to conclude this

speaking over disabled people where someone is asking disabled people for their opinion is weird. dont come into my inbox with this weird shit, unless its an apology because this is slowly creeping into ableism territory (before u even try to argue that its not - downplaying a disabled persons opinion on a topic that revolves around being disabled and speaking over them to then try to disregard their opinion being going "just because youre apart of a group doesnt mean your opinion is a fact" is insane. that is insane. call me crazy, idc thats insane.)

#ᡣ𐭩 wonder2realities #zzz ... cici's rambles #⋆˚✿˖° cici's asks #shiftblr #desired reality #shifting consciousness #shifting blog #quantum jumping #shifting antis dni #scripting #kpop shifting #manifestation

[posebean]

hello herotaru newbies/ people interested in haniwa i am going to educate you about the wonderful thing that is shibarisa/ ariken / kenrisa/shibaari (yeah honeyworks fandom with multiple names for one ship bc we cant choose. i like shibarisa though so thats what ill be using)

first, may i introduce you to the goddess of our world, takamizawa arisa

recognize her? if youre completely new, you might not, she did only appear for like 3 seconds in the first episode and like a few frames in the op

so, who is she? she’s voiced by Nao Toyama! she's currently a second year at sakuragaoka high school, part of the same friend group as hina, kotaro, koudai, and ken! (you might recognize them all if you’ve watched the ima suki ni naru movie~) she has a pretty concrete backstory! in middle school, she spoke up against bullies and in turn became the new bully target (and the original girl being bullied turned on her...) this can be seen in detail in Heart No Shuchou and the Heart No Shuchou novel.

This is very summarized, but basically, she knows A LOT about faking feelings and being someone that you aren't, having had to suppress a lot of her likes in order to fit in with the bully group.

Now bring in ken. (Voiced by Takuya Eguchi! )  Ken plays around with girls, not taking love seriouslly. He does it all to escape his home and the sullen atmosphere there is, rarely coming home ( and leaving aizou all alone ): ) (( and yes. shibasaki ken IS shibasaki aizou's actual older brother. yall clowns that dont believe it are so funny im dying)) Ken was interested a little in arisa since middle school, but since they weren't in the same class he didnt really step forward to do anything much, instead telling kotaro to watch arisa for him :)

So when they enter Sakuragaoka, they both are in the same class. Ken takes that opportunity to introduce himself, and slowly they become friends (with a little rough bumps along the way. You can see this in Ijiwaru na deai (sana version, i cant find the seiyuu version :( ) and the Ijiwaru Na deai novel. Also, Ken adopts his and Aizou’s cat, Kuro, because of Arisa :))) It leads to Ken falling truly in love with Arisa and confessing, and Arisa eventually accepting after first being friends (and going on a few dates :) (namaiki honey (ken pov)and Namaiki honey: another story(arisa pov)) (please watch them theyre so cute sobbign crying arisa saying that she’ll be the one confessing and ken being like i’ll wait forever for you crying sobbing they are EVERYTHING)

Besides those couple songs and novels, there isn’t much other content out there for them. Well, besides the honeyworks premium live events and POSSIBLY herotaru crumbs :’) BUT!! Shito has teased that there could POSSIBLY be a new shibarisa song !!!!!!!!!! (Remember Kuro? Kuro is often seen as a big part of their relationship, being in namaiki honey and also being a big part of their story. Who else could the black cat emoji be for?)

Anyways, honeyworks premium live (hanipre, honeyworks’ official mobile rhythm game) there are some REALLY CUTE shibarisa events, like one where Ken and Aizou lose Kuro and Arisa comes to help them, and one where its ken and arisa’s first anniversary and ken secretly takes a part time job so that he could buy arisa a gift :)))))) theyre literally so cute they are my everything

So, why did I spend time to introduce you to one of literally the best couples of haniwa? Well because thats what they deserve (ken is so whipped. Arisa is also but shes good at hiding it. ken doesnt hide it at all, whipped as fuck) They are just SO important. Like just the dynamic of two people with hard pasts finding each other and changing for each other. As shown in samishigariya (a must watch. i demand you go watch it right now. /srs)

So now I hope you love them too. They literally deserve their own show crying sobbing haniwa why

From this point on I will now introduce you to another aspect of them. If you don’t like aiyuu/ don’t ship it (aizou/yuujiro) feel free to ignore this because I’m now going to ramble SO MUCH about the CANON shibarisa/ aiyuu parallels and why they work so well (and also promote me and lisi’s roleswap AU :))) )

So. A big part of this comes from samishigariya so if you haven’t already, go watch it. Basically, it shows how Ken and Aizou used to be close, but as they grew and their family fell apart, their bond broke too. Eventually, both meet their most important person, quote on quote, the only one that found them (For Ken, that being Arisa (which if obviously romantic) and for Aizou... his unit mate, Yujiro.) Both are compared to moody kittens, sometimes there, yet quick to flee, but always there when their Shibasaki needs them. (Also. Aizou and Ken are canonically wearing a black dog hat and a shiba inu hoodie. You really can’t make this up, the cat/dog parallels are real.)

There’s even more things about the two that parallel each other besides those shown in the MV. Some can be seen as coincidences, but honestly there’s way too many that I’m thinking it’s got to be on purpose:

Both Arisa and Yujiro are from traditional families. Arisa’s family runs a shrine, while Yujiro’s family are Kabuki performers.

Both Arisa and Yujiro like sweets. This is more of an educated observation, though we know that Yujiro definitely likes sweets. It’s just, Arisa and ken go to crepe stands a lot and that one 3 star in hanipre with her eating a crepe makes me think she’d love sweets.

Both arisa and yujiro are tsunderes. (and both shibasakis are often more earnest and outgoing!! im looking @ u aizou, saying that you were glad that you went on the kyoto trip with yujiro even while yujiro refused to say that aloud )

BOTH COUPLES HAVE THE SAME SECRET SPOT: The spot where the beginning of namaiki honey happens/ where arisa agrees to be friends first is the SAME SPOT as the place that aizou drags yujiro to whenever they need a heart-to-heart in private. i literally cannot make this shit up

and the most important: both couples are pairs where 2 people, broken and hurting/ with a rough backstory, finding each other and helping each other grow.

like, these two pairs are SO SIMILAR you can come up with any scenario for either of them, and it’d PROBABLY work for the other. Literally. Just try it. In fact, this is exactly why our roleswap AU works so well. It literally fits both couples so perfectly (and you should check it out!!!!!!!!!!!! lisi’s writing for it is absolutely FANTASTIC)

Also. One more thing Not to forget. The latest Hanipre Valentines event: Yujiro seeing Ken and Arisa arguing in front of him, but then making up and having a heart to heart, agreeing to talk to each other clearly. And then Yujiro admitting that that was the kind of relationship he wanted. AND THEN YUJIRO THINKING ABOUT HOW KEN (who he didnt know was aizou’s brother) REALLY REMINDED HIM OF AIZOU. just some. food for thought

if you want to read more about the parallels, lisi has a really good post here!

ANyways yeah. Stan shibarisa. and maybe aiyuu i guess idk just know that the shibarisa/aiyuu parallels are very real and so important

also praying for more arisa and aizou interactions, its so wholesome, aizou accepts his future sister in law sobbigngn and she doesnt treat him like a celebrity or anything, she just treats him as shibasaki’s little brother, like family

and also praying for yujiro and ken interactions pls im beggind theyd be so funny

and maybe yujiro and arisa bonding over how dumb their shibasakis are

ahgfhjkjhdf just all of them together theyd make such a good family. real true shibasaki family.(yuko does not count. she remarried, shes basically not a shibasaki anymore) Kuro is also a very important member of this family. THE most important

SO ANYWAYS. hello herotaru people if ur still here. stan shibarisa. they are SO important and in love and my entire world.

#honeyworks #confession executive committee #heroine tarumono #heroines run the show #heroine tarumono kiraware heroine to naisho no oshigoto #shibarisa #ariken #kenrisa #takamizawa arisa #shibasaki ken #aiyuu

[3-inch-sam]

just letting you know the op of that anti-censorship post is a pro-ship weirdo

I'm only gonna say this once.

Do not send me this stuff.

Look, I don't know your intentions, but don't send me this kind of "info". Unless you have PROOF, and the person is causing real legitimate harm, like sixpencee or something, I don't care what they like.

The message of anti-censorship is way more important than "this user did x thing that I don't like" (again, only if it's not causing actual harm).

Edit: amending this to say that I'm more educated on this topic now. i want to start off with

If you are in a friend group that tells you to cut people off or harass them based solely on their fictional tastes, please please seek help outside of that group. As a former cult member myself- yes, that is a cult mindset- that is incredibly dangerous thinking that will fuck you up for a long time. Please talk to someone you trust if that happens to you, that's how a lot of real predators isolate their victims.

If you put fictional characters above real living people I have no respect for you. Real people will ALWAYS be more important. Yes that includes the freaks and weirdos with niche fetishes that you think are gross.

If you think that fiction affects reality in such a way that writing about anything less than total moral goodness is wrong, I have no respect for you. That's literally "violent video games cause violence" wrapped in shiny new paper. That is not how people generally interact with fiction.

If you think that it's okay to harass, dog pile, fake claim, bully, suicide bait, or threaten people over drawings or fanfic of fictional characters, I have no respect for you. Again, you are putting real living people below drawings and words. That is never ever okay.

There's going to be stuff on the Internet you don't like. There's going to be people on the Internet who make things you don't enjoy. And guess what? It's not their job to cater to you. No one is telling you to engage with things that upset you. You have the power to walk away at any time.

The people who advocate for banning books are never remembered as the good guys.

You are doing the job of queerphobes for them.

all that said, my original statement still stands. i will delete any asks related to this topic. go find someone else to argue with if you really want to so bad.

#James got an ask #I'm only saying this once #again i don't know your intentions nonnie but i really don't give a shit in the most polite way #editing this bc it's been on my mind and i just gotta say it #discourse #i guess #i just wanna make my opinions clear. i don't wanna start shit or get into arguments

[sabrinaacarpenters]

As a response to your post about the likes and reblogs :

People don't owe you anything. Education about how it works is good, but the way you're doing it is kind of rude? If people like your art they will support you. If they have a specific type of blog and it doesn't fit that blog, but they want to like your post and they keep your name saved somewhere so they can find you on other platforms, then they will. If they don't care, they won't like or reblog.

Do you really think making a huge deal about it is going to cause people to actually reblog your stuff? Because it is in fact very off putting. Perhaps second guess your choice on how you word things. Asking in a kind manner is generally the way society will go out of their way to support you.

No one wants to support an someone if they are threatening not posting, if their followers don't reblog, No matter how good they may be. Regardless of how things were in the past.

Just some advice. Take it or leave it.

I literally just screenshot 3 posts from 2013 and you’re out here writing an essay why exactly ????? Pls do tell what is rude about me saying that in the past people reblogged posts and now they don’t because that’s literally all i said

anyways this is the second hateful message im getting bc of that fucking post, if you find 3 screenshots so off putting then just block me

update: i see that you sent this exact same message to the OP of that post (and im going to assume to everyone else who commented on that post) so please just block every content creator on this site if you hate us so much

#god im so tired of people like you you obviously never created anything on this site otherwise you would understand why we are asking #for reblogs #replies #also is this a copy pasta or what the fuck im not even an artist #why would anyone try to find me on another platform im a gifmaker

[yak-leather-whips]

OP blocked me, which means my response won’t show up in the notes of the post. I guess that explains why there doesn’t seem to be a single response disagreeing with her in the notes 🤔

Which, honestly, that’s her prerogative, it’s really not my desire to tell anyone they’re required to engage with discourse, though deciding to cherry-pick poorly phrased comments then erase all the more substantive disagreements does rub me the wrong way, so I decided i’ll make my own post where i can post my reply and add more of my thoughts on the subject.

Look, a lot of trans women I see online seem really hostile to the idea of gendered socialization, and I can kind of understand why. They seem to think it’s just another attempt at a roundabout way of saying they will always be men deep down, which is how terfs use it, but that is decidedly not what the term means, and certainly isn’t what this person is saying. In the same way I refuse to let queer be reduced to a slur, I refuse to allow intersectional feminist terminology to be written out of our vocabulary just because terfs think they can twist it and use it against us.

Saying that many trans women, especially those who transition later in life, experience male gender socialization isn’t meant to be a way of saying “you can never escape manhood, you’ll never truly know what it is to be a woman.” It’s meant to be an invitation to discuss and deconstruct things about the way you were raised, things that you, a literal child with no understanding of feminist theory, may not at the time have identified as a gendered experience, and examine how that effects you now.

It seems like a lot of trans women online, especially those who it seems don’t have a lot of contact with in person trans communities, are really resistant to the idea that their upbringing might have had an effect on them. They seem to think that because they’ve rejected the gender assigned to them by society, they therefore can’t have possibly internalized any of the beliefs and ideas pressed on them by society. But gendered behavior isn’t always obvious, especially not as a kid, and even when you do understand it’s happening and want to reject it, there’s not a way to force society to give you the other option. It’s not just about what’s inside you. It’s about the pressure’s you were subjected to, the activities you were restricted from, the education and experiences you weren’t allowed to participate in. It’s about what behaviors you were rewarded for, and what behaviors you were punished for. In that sense, queer and gnc people are subject to more gender socialization than cis people, because the more you deviate from the norm, the more the gender machine bears down on you.

Anyway, socialization is real, its just another form of more pervasive societal trauma, and on the off chance anyone actually sees this post, please don’t bother this person, she’s allowed to think whatever she wants, I just wanted to talk about this because it’s impacted a lot of trans women I know, and I think it’s important that they know it’s not something they need to be offended by. We are all struggling to overcome our socialization.

#trans stuff #feminism #gender stuff

[yesterdayiwrote]

Oh, it's so funny that the anon is implying early 20s isn't "grown-up" after all, when it's always the argument when one of the younger drivers fucks up that they are grown-ups and should know better. What is it going to be then? Ah, I see, always the stance that it more convenient to push the narrative you want. My 70-year-old mother said she doesn't feel grown-up. And what's the problem with wanting cute things in your life? You think there's only children working at Sanrio's? Oh, right, after 29 my life should turn into a sad black and white movie where only my children are allowed to enjoy pink and blue, but only the one that's fit for their gender, obviously... Hello justice warriors, please open your eyes and realise how messed up you perspective is and reconsider your life values, your future selves will thank you. OP, please keep on doing what makes you happy.

This whole Tumblr ageism thing has been going on for years but it only recently I’ve started to have things thrown in my direction.

Ultimately it’s a sign of how terminally online some younger people are imo, everything has to fit in a neat pretty box with a binary answer to every question and no room for nuance, but also it’s a viewpoint I think a certain age group are absorbing from their parents. This idea that life follows a specific course of expectations that all have to be achieved by a certain age or else you’re a failure is largely something that’s trickled down to Boomers and Gen X and every generation is slowly cooling on the idea and realising that’s not the case, but it doesn’t stop parents putting that pressure on their kids and them developing and echoing that unhealthy and unrealistic view of the world subconsciously.

There's also an element of misogyny to it. If Men in their 40s and 50s obsessively follow comic books, sci fi or sport and it's a commonly accepted personality trait. If Women in their 40s or 50s obsessively follow a pop group or film or TV show, it's seen as a flaw.

I can't help my age, I put it on my blog because I'm not trying to hide it and because I'm acutely aware how some people think anyone over a certain age has ill intentions or shouldn't interact with people younger than them so literally if you're uncomfortable interacting with older people you can block me.

Young people don't want older people to be in spaces they deem exclusively 'theirs' but they're equally upset when older people aren't engaged in the same things they are. There comes a certain age in life, somewhere around mid 20s where age doesn't matter as much. You're no longer forced into age specified groups as part of education and instead you work with a variety of ages and realise age is just a number.

One day this bullshit will stop, but there will absolutely be a day where the people telling older people to "get off the internet" or get interests for things that are 'age appropriate' will be on the receiving end of this stuff themselves. I've already seen it suggested that I shouldn't be a George fan because I'm older than him and if that's the case, as the drivers on the grid get younger, some of you are absolutely fucked...

#Tumblr ageism #ageism

[cute-catt]

I swear, one of these days, the shit fucking audacity of the people in this fucking country is going to kill me.

Take a look at this.

Translation: This legend was quoted from a journal titled Moral Values ​​and Hard Work in the Tale of Lake Toba from the Indonesian Language Textbook for Grade VII published by the Ministry of Education's book centre, written by Rosmilan Pulungan and Amanda Syahri Nasution.

That is an article from Kompas.com.

Kompas dot fucking com.

For those who don't know, Kompas is like one of the leading news broadcaster in Indonesia. Like ok there's CNN, but Kompas is the go to textbook example of "legitimate news". like, take it with a grain of salt, bc this data was sourced from a survey website with only like 200ish responders average. i refuse to do more extensive research for what literally amounts to a salty midnight online rant

Like, ok, sure, this probably just some fodder article done to fill the ridiculously high demand of mainstream media. And sure, the myth quoted is so basic that sourcing from textbooks would probably give you similar stories to actual research.

But still-

That is a seventh grade textbook, written for seventh graders. It's literally taken from a middleschooler's language exercise about morals and hard work. It's like if some big media like Natgeo sourced their articles from like, I dont know, Gastronuts or something, but worse. no shade on Gastronuts. it is a good childrens programme, but it's for children.

Like, op writer newsman mamser, please, can you not??? like, find a more respectable source??? than a seventh grader textbook???? Is that so hard??

Writing "journal" in front of it isn't going to magically make it not a children textbook. It won't magically make it more respectable either.

It just makes it worse, really.

urhghghghsdyfshjc jUST

The fact that this manages to make is past screening in a considerably ""legitimate"" news media, the fact that this made me realize full well that this is an acceptable and expectable thing in this goddamned country is just-

I am going to tear my hair out.

p l e a s e the low standards of credibility and expectations in this country is going to make me cry. that or make me very violent. i am going to stab a man istg

#incoherent rant #indonesia #indonesian things #shout at the walls #oh im shouting at the freaking walls alright #this is fragging me up the freaking wall in fact #like just #the low ass standards reporters have #and just #low ass stardards for whats considered to be credible #like ok #i know this news is very irrelevant #and like #is probably just fodder news #its still a seventh grader textbook #and im still pissed #ARGHAHSJDCBDV #im mad #sister dearest if you're seeing this im sorry #but im not sorry for cussing #i spent over half an hour ranting (vent-rambling) to my roomate and im still pissed #i am McLoosing it #AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #this started out as a rant joke btw #it still is #i am pissed #but the main reason i wrote this out is bc i thought it'd be funny #i think i put too much effort into it for it to stay just a /hj tho

[bookofmirth]

I saw your recent response to an anon where you mentioned the drama that occurred the other day based around bookprofessor’s post. Obviously you don’t have to respond to this or publish it if you do not wish but I just wanted to bring up that while it is important to focus on the real life issues at hand, the OP was hypocritical in her post which is why people were getting upset. She was preaching against ableism while simultaneously flaunting her IQ and degree which is a form of ableism. She was speaking out against racism while ending her post using the racial slur “cracker” when talking about the possibly Caucasian Twitter elriels.

Obviously she had some important points but it was completely overshadowed by her participation in the hate speech and prejudice that she was speaking out against.

This does not in any way justify the nasty messages she received but on the same hand, I do not blame anyone that called her out for her hypocrisy. I hope you can understand why her post was so negatively received and how flawed it was. My hope is that one day everyone can just ignore the negativity, report those who are being racist/prejudiced in any way, and block those who are just being loud and who you don’t wish to see content from. But unfortunately I do not see that happening any time soon.

There are a few things I want to address in this because I think it's a good moment for the fandom to step back and reflect on how we treat one another, how we react to such issues, and how we behave moving forward.

First off, thanks for explaining your point of view without being antagonistic. I do think that everyone's emotional reactions to the post were valid. I do NOT think their responses, in terms of words and actions, were valid. Now before I move forward, I want to clarify that when I use the word "you", I am referring to anyone who may have had the response I am describing - not you personally, anon. Also please don’t freak out about how long this is, as a majority of it is a response to the fandom in general, not you in particular.

What was - and wasn’t - said in the original post

In this post, there were completely valid criticisms of the way that people in this fandom behave, and it wasn’t “generalizing” a certain group, it was literal, actual proof of things that had been said, by multiple people. I’m not going to get too into what Alyssa argued because her critiques of those tweets was flawless. The original post had very valid criticisms of what was happening on Twitter. Alyssa exposed the actually racist, homophobic, and imperialistic underpinnings of those tweets.

However, a lot of people are stuck on the bits before and after those critiques. @bookprofessor apologized for different aspects of her post in a few different asks. There were perhaps better ways that some of those things could have been phrased, some things that could have been left out. And she apologized. People can accept that apology or not but we can’t act like it didn’t happen. Like she didn’t reflect and learn to do better.

However, the people she was calling out have not done the same thing, and if anything, comments that focus more on Alyssa’s tone than why she wrote the post in the first place lets those people off the hook.

On cracker - Using the word "cracker" is not racist in the same way that using racial slurs against POC is. Is it prejudiced? Yes. But you cannot say that it is the same thing when that is demonstrably untrue, given centuries of oppressive history. No one has been oppressed for being white. Those are not the same. Reverse racism is not a thing because a white person punching down on POC is NOT AT ALL the same thing as a POC punching up at white people. The actions look the same, but the impact is so unequal it’s not even funny.

Racism is a systemic, institutionalized problem. It is not defined by individual actions, though those actions can either support or challenge racism. When someone calls a white person a cracker, there isn’t centuries of oppression giving power to and reinforcing that statement. That is not a “gotcha” moment.

Saying “I have x IQ” or “I have X degrees” is not ableist. I’m sorry to whoever told you it was ableist (again, not you specifically anon but people who had read the “aw shucks guys” vagueblogs about it), but it’s not. Those are facts. I have no idea what my IQ is, but I have five degrees from institutions of higher education. Me saying that is in no way ableist. 

Often, people mention those things to be elitist, yes. Sometimes, they can be used to say “hey I know more about this than you”. They can be used in a way that tries to make themselves feel superior. I suspect that this is the impression that a lot of people got of the post. However, there is a fine line between saying “hey that’s elitist” and professing anti intellectualism. Which is perhaps a side issue so I’ll let that go for now.

Another reason that people mention their degrees or qualifications is to establish their background knowledge and credibility. If I were to say “hey y’all I have two MA degrees” (which is true) I am not being ableist! It is a fact! It is factual! And I worked my ass off for those, I will be in student loan debt until I die for those, I have every right to mention them if I want to, and often I do so in order to establish my credibility, to explain the position I am coming from. And my prior knowledge of these topics is relevant when we are talking about literature since that’s what my degrees were on - literature and linguistics. That is why Alyssa mentioned her background, though she did pair it with comments about other people, for which she has apologized.

My final point about this is that I 1000% understand feeling insecure or less than because of educational attainment. I dropped out of high school. I had a complex about that for a long, long time. But I also know that if I took offense at someone else saying they had a PhD, then that offense is about me, not them. Someone else’s inferiority complex is not reason for people to pretend to be less than they are.

If those two comments are what overshadowed the bigger, more important issue for a lot of the readers of that post, then y’all allowed them to overshadow those more important issues. I am 99% sure that someone right now is reading this and thinking “but Leslie, it was the way that she said it!” Boy have I got some news for you!

How we react

This next section is not specific to this ask; instead, it is a discussion of how the fandom responded. If it were only one person who had said “but her tone” then I wouldn’t need to make this point. The fact that multiple people are exhibiting the behavior explained below is what makes this a cultural problem within the acotar fandom.

The main argument I saw on the post itself, and indeed any time I see people bring up how nasty Twitter can be, is that “it was a joke” and “that’s how stan Twitter works”.

No.

Those responses were quite useful for this post, though! So buckle up everyone, because I am going to talk about gaslighting, racism, respectability politics, and tone policing. While I understand that some people might have taken personal offense to what was said, there is a much bigger issue at stake that has nothing to do with individual feelings, and everything to do with ensuring that POC stay silenced and white supremacy is upheld. 

Back to the “but it’s a joke” thing. Thanks for gaslighting! Great example of that, person I’m not going to tag! Gaslighting is when you make someone question their experiences, when you try to make them think “wait, did I really feel that way? Is my feeling about that valid? Do I need to re-evaluate my response to this?? Am I blowing this out of proportion???” And saying “it’s just a joke” is a perfect way to do that. Did I say something accidentally sexist? It’s just a joke, nbd! Now you’re the problem, because you didn’t understand my joke and laugh!!! 

Saying “it’s a joke” or “oh they are old/young/ignorant, they will learn” is not a good response to... anything. It takes the responsibility off the people who are doing the harm, and putting it onto the people who were hurt. And in this case, anyone who read those tweets and found them harmful (which should be everyone?) is completely valid. You aren’t lesser for being angry or emotional or for seeing a problem where other people saw a joke. The people who see those things as acceptable jokes are the ones in the wrong.

This is a tactic that is used against women all the time. Any time a woman is sexually harassed at work or online, for example, and she gets upset about it, and someone chimes in with “oh they weren’t serious, can’t you take a joke?” So you can imagine what this is like for women of color.

It is a very, very common tactic for people of color to be silenced via tone policing and respectability politics. Tone policing and respectability politics are very closely related, especially in this context. The idea is that if Alyssa had just written that post in just the right way, it would have been more palatable to white people, and therefore okay to write. The idea that if she had tried to be “understanding” or “see it from their perspective” or understand that it’s “just a joke” are all ways to silence and de-legitimize any accurate, valid criticisms that were made of those tweets. It effectively re-routes the conversation away from the real issues, and to the person trying to bring them up. It’s essentially an ad hominem attack in disguise. 

We see respectability politics in media when people of color who act or dress or speak like white people are afforded more respect. Or any time that a person of color is pulled over and people say, “well if they had just done what the police officer asked...” There is a pervasive idea that if people just “act” properly, aka if you act white, then the police won’t feel antagonized and try to kill arrest you. If we are nice enough, meek enough, smile enough, etc. then we will be accepted.

When we tone police, we refuse to allow marginalized people the right to be angry. We say that "hey, we can only have this discussion if you leave emotion, which you rightfully feel, at the door, and we can only continue this discussion if you behave in a way that makes me feel comfortable." But guess what? It isn’t about you! These discussions are often highly uncomfortable. There is no nice way to tell someone they are being racist. And yet somehow, that is the ever-moving goalpost. It seems reasonable, right? “Just be civil, be nice, don’t insult each other!” And there is that. But those criteria change constantly, to the point where anyone (white) at any time can say “WHOA WHOA THIS IS MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE???” Then we find ourselves at zero, and suddenly the focus of attention has shifted away from the actual problem.

Before we go further, I want to say this: people have a right to be angry. They do not need to make their anger palatable or tasteful for the consumption of others (read: white people). 

We saw this last summer, and I’m not sure how the message didn’t get across. But people are rightfully angry about racism. They are angry about the murder of people of color by police, they are angry about lack of quality education, or clean water, of centuries of oppression that have led to this very moment when all of that ceases to matter because a white woman’s feelings got hurt one time. 

And that is what pisses me off so much. There is no way in this world that we could criticize tweets like those that everyone would agree with, and that everyone would “approve” of, that would be “nice” enough and yet still be impactful and make the authors of those tweets understand the gravity of what they have done. 

The least we can do is allow one another to express our anger, our outrage, because it’s highly likely that those people know exactly what the fuck they are doing, and they do not fucking care. By criticizing a woman of color for the way in which she chose to engage with this topic, we are avoiding the issue and letting the people in those tweets off the hook. 

There were many responses to that post that were positive, that agreed with Alyssa. There are a ton of people who disagree with those tweets, who find them disgusting, who understand exactly how and why they are problematic. That should be what we are talking about. Getting to the core of the argument, on that post or any about racism or other problematic behavior in fandom, requires getting past our own egos. It requires us to be able to step back, say “hm this thing is frustrating but there is a bigger picture here”. It’s not easy, and I recognize that. 

The fact that it is a common tactic though? To say “hey this hurt me personally and so I’m going to ignore any valid points you made?” That feeds directly into centuries of white supremacy because it, once again, silences POC and makes them try to play a losing game. And they will always lose, because no matter how hard they try to play the white game, the goalposts are constantly shifting. So you know what? Fuck the game, and fuck respectability politics, and fuck tone policing and “uwu be nice guys” because when it comes to things like racism and sexism, I don’t expect the people who deserve to be criticized to be nice. In fact, trying to be nice only serves to fuck POC over in the end.

Indeed, in response to that post, certain blogs have taken the opportunity to position themselves as “the nice ones” or “the ones who would never” or “uwu let’s be nice guys” while completely ignoring the fact that a woman of color was attacked for calling out racism. And yes - that was the point of her post. People getting hung up on mentions of her degree are (intentionally or not, it doesn’t matter) completely obfuscating the fact that that is not what her post was about, which was to call out disgusting behavior. idk how many words the post actually was, but essentially, people are focusing on 5% of it to the detriment of the 95% that was actually really important shit. These types of vagueblog posts about the issue fall into exactly what I am talking about - these are people who have decided to look at this issue, see how Alyssa (and anyone else who dares speak up) has approached it, and intentionally try to act like they are “better” because they can be “rational” and “kind”. Newsflash, if you don’t have something to be angry about, then being “nice” about racism isn’t that much of a flex. If it didn’t bother you, then congratulations. That doesn’t make you better than people it did bother. You just got lucky this time, and decided to use that to your advantage to look like the good guy.

I am not saying that all calls for peace are doing this. Obviously it’s what we all want. This is the worst I have seen this fandom in the 4+ years I’ve been here. But we cannot have that by ignoring the real problems and pretending that if we are all just nice to each other, then we will solve racism and sexism and all bullying in the fandom will stop. 

So combining all of this - the gaslighting, the tone policing, and what do you get? You get a fandom that refuses to actually engage critically with its own problems and take accountability for them. You get a fandom that decides that it’s easier to be distracted by this one mean comment over here than it is to engage in the fact that you know what, the culture in this fandom has actually turned incredibly disgusting and a lot of people are just okay with it. You’ve got a fandom that is using the tools of white supremacy to avoid the discussions that should actually be taking place. Maybe people don’t realize that that’s what they are doing. But if someone still thinks that after reading this post, then godspeed my friend, I hope you enjoy Twitter.

Okay so my last thing I want to say is that I didn’t come to all of this knowledge fresh from the womb. I do a lot of work, in my personal life and my professional life, to be better. So here is a list of books that I have found particularly helpful:

How to Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America also by Ibram X. Kendi

White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism by Robin DiAngelo (side note, I was kinda meh about this one but the chapter “White Women’s Tears” is particularly helpful)

So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment by Patricia Hill Collins

I’m not going to talk specifically about Alyssa’s post anymore, but if anyone wants to continue talking about these broader issues going on in the fandom, I am game. (I really should be grading papers though, so it might take a bit.)

#cw racism #acotar #acosf #acotar fandom #fandom wank #fandom things #this is the long post i mentioned earlier #i will link it in my meta post

[kritantathegreat]

Please read!

Hey, American/western BSD fandom: it’s very weird to me how some of yall consume japanese media all the having no respect for japanese culture and people. I have no idea what’s up with some of you but you are not entitled to japanese media. Please stop talking over japanese people.

A certain someone on twitter, I have no idea if they have a tumblr account or if they are going to see this or not, spread awfully disgusting misinformation regarding Ougai Mori-sensei and his works. The statements were disrespectful and inaccurate- one of them accusing Mori-sensei of writing child s*xual ab*se material. When people decided to correct & educate them, several of those people being japanese themselves, that person started acting in an extremely aggressive manner. They accused people of being pedophiles and blocked anyone who tried to explain to them why and how the misinformation they were spreading is not only disrespectful, as Ougai Mori is one of the most important and influential figures when it comes to Japanese literature, but also dangerous. Mind you, they were as polite and well-intended as one could be in such frustrating situation. Of course, instead of taking accountability and apologising of even acknowledging that they were wrong, OP decided to simply block them and move on with their day, acting as if nothing has happened.

This is prime example of how westerners feel entitled to asian media. Anime isn’t your culture. Japanese literature isn’t your culture. You don’t understand the source material better than japanese people do. Now, I’m not familiar with the details but from what I know this isn’t the first time that person has harassed someone, namely Japanese people, for trying to educate and correct them on the Japanese media said person is consuming. The victim was a friend of mine. The whole ordeal ended up with my friend being degraded & bullied to the point where they had to deactivate their account and I had to worry about their safety as at that point they were dealing with a lot and the last thing they needed was to be cyber bullied.

I won’t be dropping any names as this is more in order to spread awareness and a plead to the rest of the bsd fandom - please don’t do shit like this and don’t make excuses if any of your fandom buddies is being a bigot. It’s disgusting and it saddens me that the fandom of a show I hold so dear allows things like this to happen. It’s disheartening. As I already mentioned, the person I’m talking about refused to take any accountability. They simply cussed people out, blocked people and moved on with their day. I don’t know if you are reading this but in case you are: all you were asked to do by the people you disrespected, was to apologise for spreading harmful info about their country’s literature. That’s literally it. The fact that you have the gal to not only speak and argue with people about their own culture but to insult them, block them and pretend that you did nothing wrong ever..says a lot about the type of person you are. Personally, I think that you are an irredeemable, xenophobic pos but I hope you’d prove me wrong and be better. It’s very easy not to be a bigot.

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #mori ougai #literature #stop asian hate

[maulusque]

the Jedi should NOT have been generals

listen. listen. this isn’t an argument about whether or not the jedi should have agreed to fight in the clone wars. we’ll burn that can of worms when we get there.

GIVEN that the Jedi DO participate in the clone wars, they should not have been Generals. They were COMPLETELY unsuited to the position. They did NOT have tactical training, much less battlefield tactics with large groups of people. They did not know how to fight in teams larger than like, 3, and DEFINITELY not trained to fight alongside non-jedi, even stunningly competent superhuman non-jedi (like the clones). They were completely unfamiliar with the clones as a concept, much less what the clones were trained in, how they fought, their tactics, battle formations, codewords on the battlefield, everything like that. Like, if a Jedi wants a bunch of clones to go achieve an objective, how do they articulate to the clones what formation they want them in? How do they know what formations the clones normally use? How would they even know what formations are  GOOD IDEA to use???

And the Jedi were trained to use violence as a last resort to resolve a situation, they were not trained to deal with situations where violence is part of the premise, at least not on a massive scale. 

The Jedi should have left the General-ing to those who were ACTUALLY TRAINED FOR IT- i.e. the command clones. Those who actually had experience commanding and working with the troops under them. 

We see SO MANY TIMES where various Jedi just like, launch themselves into battle As Fast And Chaotically as Possible, and their entire orders for their troops are just like “try to keep up and also shoot stuff”. And clones try to keep up with Jedi yeeting themselves off of high surfaces into the literal middle of hundreds of droids. And the clones die.

ANYWAY, what the Jedi should have been, was like, special consultants, or Super Commandos. A jedi’s force-sense, especially the “bad feelings” vibe, is valuable! But the jedi doesn’t have to be the one in charge for that to be useful. And, quite frankly, the “bad feelings” vibe often doesn’t make much of a difference (that we see, anyway), and/or a non-force sensitive with a modicum of war-related education could look at the situation and go “yep, bad vibes” too. Where the skills/abilities of a Jedi are UNIQUELY valuable and absolutely irreplaceable, is on the front lines. A single Jedi can protect an an entire platoon of clones from blaster fire. They’re mobile cover, cover that doesn’t block the clones’ shots, and can sense random dangerous surprises before they crop up! A Jedi can take out tens of extremely dangerous droids (SBDs, droidekas, commandos), with ease in a matter of seconds, and STILL block blaster fire from the clones with them. They can catch a falling clone and get them to safety. They can protect the squad from falling debris. They can redirect incoming artillery fire. They can smash enemy vehicles and cut directly into enemy tanks. Seriously Jedi are so valuable in a battle. But like, it’s kinda hard to lead a battle when you’re getting shot at and protecting your buddies and all that. Yeah it’s cool to have a general lead from the front lines but it’s kinda hard to get a tactical sense of the whole scenario when you’re in the thick of things like that. Jedi aren’t omniscient, and if they’re up front, where they can easily triple their troops’ effectiveness, they’re not going to be in a good position to lead the whole battle.

And of course, Jedi excel at special missions- the standard “sneak in here, get this info” or “blow up this one base” or whatever. That’s what Jedi do anyway! But SURPRISE it’s also really hard to lead your battalion when you’re constantly getting called away for random shit like “we need you to fake your death and impersonate a bounty hunter for a bit” or “someone stole a holocron, go get that back please” or “insert random jedi bullshit here”. But if the Jedi were just Battlefield Super Commandos/Spec Ops guys, their intermittent absences wouldn’t cause huge hiccups in command.

So yeah anyway the Clone Commanders should have been in charge because they’d make better generals than the jedi and the jedi should have just focused on filling roles where they’d be the most useful instead of trying to do both of those things and therefore being slightly worse at both as a result.

#maulusque's stuff #my stuff #anyway i'm back on my bullshit