#(just in case. I do like it but this sure is criticism)

[melrosing]

What do you think of the Sansa bullied Arya take if you don’t mind me asking (just don’t answer if you don’t want to haha)

per my usual practice on Controversial Topics im putting this under a cut

At the real risk of that lot showing up in my notes again, I think this ‘Sansa bullies Arya’ pins their pre AGOT dynamic squarely on Sansa herself, rather than the way they are both being raised by the adults around them to behave towards one another. Sure, Sansa is mean to Arya sometimes during their childhood! We don’t have a lot of examples besides the oft-mentioned ‘horseface’ insults, but I think it’s fair to assume that more often than not, Sansa was looking down on Arya. Meanwhile, Arya herself feels inadequate and like she just can’t do anything right. She resents Sansa, but also worries that Sansa’s opinion of her may be true.

Fine. But where has Sansa’s opinion of Arya come from? Is it her cold black heart? Fucking no, it’s come from Septa Mordane, Catelyn, and whoever else surrounds them growing up. The men don’t seem to really give much of a shit how Arya acts because it’s not their business and she’s just a kid anyhow, but the women pointedly give many shits. In our first scene with Arya, Septa Mordane scolds her for not being good at ‘women’s work’, and there’s plenty to suggest that this is just another day in the life for Arya. Meanwhile, Sansa gets the carrot for excelling. Both Arya and Sansa are learning their own worth in this chapter, and the worth of one another. Sansa internalises the praise whilst learning that Arya is bad, and everything she mustn’t be. Arya internalises the criticisms whilst learning that Sansa is good, and everything she can never be.

They’ll be getting this from Catelyn as well. Catelyn clearly adores both her daughters, and will move heaven and earth to get them back in ACOK. But one good adjective for Catelyn is ‘dutiful’ - it’s in her house words, and it’s how she’s lived her life up to AGOT. Doing as she’s told, even when it pains her. She expects the same of her daughters, and finds those expectations satisfied in Sansa’s case, and apparently flouted in Arya’s. So again, from their own mother, Sansa internalises that Arya is bad, and that she, Sansa, is good. Arya internalises the same. If societal standards were reversed, perhaps it would be Arya lording over Sansa, but such as it is, it’s Sansa over Arya. 

Now, Sansa is a child. When children are told over and over that X is good and Y is bad, they generally don’t question it, at least until they're older and more experienced in the world. They will also parrot what they hear, often in graceless ways. Because they’re children. Sansa is told that Arya wilfully misbehaves because she’s bad, and so Sansa thinks: then I should look down on Arya. It sounds like Sansa mostly keeps her distance from her sister pre AGOT. Not always - they play together sometimes - but a lot of the time. She has internalised the teaching that Arya is an aberration, and as she herself knows the adults value obedience in girls, and she wants to please them so badly, the distance between her and Arya demonstrates to them just how good she is - she won’t descend to Arya’s behaviour. 

When Sansa does interact with Arya (pre Darry), we see her being a bit bossy - telling Arya what to do, etc. Sansa is replicating what she has seen the adults do with Arya, and is mimicking them to assert her own position as the good, obedient child. If Arya ever doesn’t want to do something, it can only be because she’s bad. 

[sidenote, it all really reminds me of these short stories me and my sister used to get read a lot as kids, called My Naughty Little Sister (lmao) by Dorothy Edwards. They're pretty old and I don’t think they ever got major circulation outside Britain, but for anyone unfamiliar, you can probably guess how these stories go. There’s an elder sister, good and obedient, who narrates short tales of her ‘naughty little sister’ doing terrible things like idk, making a terrible mess etc, and going ‘now I’m sure you [the child audience] wouldn’t do a thing like that!’ They’re supposed to be short morality tales for the children, and amuse the parent reading them aloud, who recognises the mischievous behaviour of the younger and is charmed by the haughtiness of the elder sister, who you can hear is narrating the incidents of her sister’s mischief with the disdain that she’s heard the adults do so, and is asserting her own good behaviour over said sister. And the whole fucking reason we were read these stories was because my younger sister was precisely the kind of kid who got up to all kinds of shit as a little kid (which now all of us find hilarious but DIDN’T AT THE TIME), and I was the elder sister like ‘my goodness how could she do such things as these!!’ (e.g. paint an entire bookcase with grout). It amused us both to see ourselves in the stories. You could say this was life imitating art, but I think this is simply an age old dynamic, familiar to many people with siblings: you would see how the adults spoke to another child in your family, and replicate their manner in an effort to come across as an adult. Except you weren’t an adult, so you weren’t always as graceful about it as they were. That is pre AGOT Sansa, to a T. And I’m sure that’s what GRRM, a child of three who had two sisters of his own, is replicating here.]

But I think there’s also a loneliness in being the ‘obedient child’. Doing as you’re told all the time can be boring, and living up to expectations is a lot of pressure. Sansa wants a companion in all that, but Arya has no interest in sharing in it. Arya is offering friendship, but from a place Sansa believes she can’t reach her sister - Sansa thinks she’d have to ‘descend to Arya’s level’ to accept it, and she can’t do that. You get a sense of Sansa thrilling in trying Arya’s ‘misbehaviours’ for herself when she quietly delights in behaving ‘as wicked as Arya’, but you see in this that she has to condemn such behaviours and herself for exhibiting them, all in the same breath. And in the end, I can easily imagine Sansa resents that Arya has more fun with their brothers than she ever does with Sansa herself: that the one sister she has is one she has nothing in common with. Sansa can’t find a like mind amongst her siblings, and so clings to Jeyne Poole, and the praise of the adults around her.

So with all that in mind, YES! Sansa is sometimes mean to Arya, and calls her horseface. That is because Sansa is a child, nobody is correcting her behaviour, and she understands that Arya is bad, and the way she behaves is frustrating to Sansa herself, so really what does it matter if she’s a little mean sometimes? She knows that she is good, because everyone says so. Even if she calls her sister a name now and then, she’s still the good child. 

AND THEN we get to Darry. And Sansa starts to see that society isn’t a song, and sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you are, horrible things can happen to you anyway. But she doesn’t want to believe that, because it would turn her world upside down, and her future would look a lot darker, too - Ned has not ended her engagement to Joffrey, and Sansa has to live for the foreseeable in KL. So when Arya doing the thing she ‘wasn’t supposed to’ (playing with Mycah) snowballs into a terrible miscarriage of justice where Sansa’s wolf is killed, Sansa rejects the notion that the songs could be wrong about beautiful princes, and shifts the blame onto Arya for that original 'misdemeanour'. The grief at losing Lady is terrible too (the wolves are meant to have a soul deep bond with the Stark children), and so the target of that grief likewise becomes Arya. What was previously a normal, childishly complicated sibling relationship gets twisted into something else.

This is where I think Sansa becomes different level of unpleasant towards her sister. She’s cruel about Arya’s loss of Mycah, tells Arya she wishes she were dead instead of Lady, etc etc. Arya is not giving as good as she gets here - she even tries to make amends with Sansa, but Sansa throws the offer in her face.

The reasons for Sansa’s behaviour are complicated, but not that complicated. She’s been raised to slot perfectly into this world, without ever being told what that world is really like. And when abruptly it turns out that what she’s being raised for is essentially the slaughter, she rejects it. She can’t see Joffrey as he truly is: she’s been told that princes are charming, that Kings are just, Queens are kind, and she herself will be a Queen. Sansa is going to be handed over to the Lannisters, and she’s going to live the song of her dreams, and the only thing between Sansa and the realisation of those is the thing that’s always been wrong: Bad Arya. Because again, if Arya isn't bad, then everything else is, and Sansa is in terrible danger.

No one is sitting Sansa down and explaining to her that Arya is not bad, just different from her, and that they should love one another - that there are dark forces here far stronger than them that could tear them apart, that the Lannisters are the greatest of them, and they have to fight together, not each other. Arya gets this talk, funnily enough, but not Sansa. Arya is asked to understand that Sansa is different from her, but Sansa is only ever taught to abhor that her sister as different from her. Where Arya is told to be wary of the court of King’s Landing, Ned leaves Sansa to continue her fantasies, and then, when he abruptly tries to put an end to them, he doesn’t bother to explain why. I’m not saying this is unforgivable on Ned’s part - he has a lot on his mind lol - but it’s quite obviously a major failing. Ned leaves Sansa in a fantasy world. It’s fucking Joffrey who has to step in and clarify for Sansa that actually, she’s been dreaming.

So as long as they’re together, Sansa is never able to come to terms with the fact that Arya was not the aberration, but rather, everything else was. In the absence of one another, they cannot reconcile over that fact. So yes, GRRM says they’ll have deep issues to sort through when they meet again, but those aren’t going to be the times that Sansa called her ‘horseface’ - they’re going to be about what happened since they left Winterfell, when their relationship was twisted by forces much darker than Septa Mordane. 

So no, I think the ‘Sansa is a bully’ diatribes are seriously tedious, because even if you want to insist that calling your sister ‘horseface’ a few times even qualifies, you can still accept such wrongs without deciding that that makes Sansa a fundamentally unkind person who cannot be reconciled with Arya and doesn’t deserve to be. It is on the page that the two of them miss each other. Like I genuinely cannot imagine going through everything Arya does in the story and then, upon reuniting with a sister I thought lost forever, deciding I’m actually still mad about the things she got wrong as a child that she herself has paid dearly for, both physically and emotionally. Like jesus fucking christ man. By all means let them talk about it!! But who do you think Arya is lmao

Tl;dr: Sansa is a kid in a society. She is not the arbiter of Arya’s place in society. She is not mean because she’s cruel, but because she has internalised the exact same things that Arya has, based on the example of the adults surrounding them. It just happens that those things were a carrot for Sansa and a stick for Arya. But then in the end, they weren’t a carrot for Sansa either.

tl;dr 2: clarifying once again - i am a jaime stan. i find the stark sister relationship interesting bc I have experience of a similar sisterly dynamic and find it interesting to see a version of that explored on the page. so if you think one has to be a sansa stan to observe all this then that kind of just demonstrates how dichotomous you've become on this issue lol like if I'm talking about takes I dislike re JB I don't generally feel the need to attribute them to JC fandom. let's all grow up x

tl;dr 3: no i don't hate sansa or arya, since i know these are both conclusions various people reach whenever i even mention these two. in fact i think they are both great girls! imagine

#ask #im not tagging them

[tokyo-debunkers-headcanons]

can I get a frostiem boys with a super shy ™️ mc!?!? I really enjoy your hcs btw ^^!!

Thank you so much! Thank you all for reading them! I'm gonna take these hcs in more of a romantic context just be aware!

JIN KAMURAI

Jin is used to people, typically girls, acting all shy around him. He never expected his partner to be shy as well.

He himself isn't really a shy guy. He keeps to himself sure, but he's got too much cash money and charisma to be shy.

He doesn't mind doing the talking for his partner as well if they need it, but there are times when his patience is a little shorter than other days, so watch out.

He doesn't really like PDA so don't expect any gossip about that, he's more affectionate behind closed doors when its just him and them. What can I say, man likes his privacy.

TOHMA ISHIBASHI

Tohma finds his partners shyness quite cute actually. It brings out a protectiveness in him.

Seeing as he does most things for Jin, he doesn't mind adding his partners wishes onto that playe but please, give this mans a break every now and then.

He will 100% tease them and make them turn tomato red for the hell of it, let's be fair.

Here's another one that isn't necessarily into PDA but he's fine with hand holding while they both walk somewhere or carrying things for his partner.

KAITO FUJI

This is one that clashes a little bit. We all know Kaito is a loud mouth so as soon as he found himself a partner, we all know he's screaming it from the rooftops. If his partner asked him to knock it off however....let's just say he'd do his best.

Kaito thinks he wants like a Disney Channel movie type of romance. Big gestures, matching outfits, pet names, etc. So I think a shy partner would be a bit of a challenge.

There would need to be a LOT of communication for him to finally tone it down to suit his partners pace. He will however listen to their criticism, doing his best not to take it to heart, and actually take their concerns seriously.

He may be a goof, but I'm sure his granny made sure he knew how to respect someone's boundaries. But when his partner isn't there, he will sing their praises, no matter what.

LUCAS ERRANT "LUCA"

I think Luca would be one of the easier ones to adjust to having a shy partner. He's not really an attention seeker. He's more focused on his brother than anything else.

If anything, i think he'd be even more protective of his partner than normal. Making sure that they're okay and that they'll be okay of he's not there.

He always has his phone ringer on in case their partner needs something, even if it's small. If his partner needs help then he's gonna help damnit! Even of it's just ordering food at the cafeteria!

As for PDA, he's too proper, and I'm sure that DA has some kind of rule against PDA, so he wouldn't want to risk it. He will however hold their hand with a smile. At the end of the day he'd do anything if it meant the safety and happiness of his partner.

#tokyo debunker #frostheim #headcanons #jin kamurai #tohma ishibashi #kaito fuji #lucas errant #luca #i realized i may have forgotten to tag the last post or two #damn it smol #oh well

[snekdood]

yall are willing to die for trans women and not trans men and we should talk about it actually

#transandrophobia #you'll do anything to protect trans women but dont have that same energy for trans men. interesting. #anyways i think the reason this is is bc ppl like this think bc we're men we dont need to be helped or protected #that somehow we should have figured out how to do this on our own. that we dont need community bc we're already solid and tough enough #which is weird like. how are you trans friendly but then you dont do any other basic progressive shit like #getting rid of gender roles entirely instead of now instead applying them to trans people also? ?? #like you dont get to be all 'men should express their emotions and be vulnerable' and then reinforce the traditional gender roles on- #trans men still. like have you or havent you decondtructed that shit in your head or did you iust see someone reblog something that seema #correct w/o even doing any critical thinking or self reflecting or anything on your end at all #i didnt suddenly become made of rock and become invulnerable when i transitioned. bc that narrative for men in general is inaccurate- #and harmful. and even if i did become super buff and capable of mowing down my enemies that wouldnt mean i dont suddenly need community #that doesnt mean i become immune to bullets or that i dont need a space to express my emotions regarding being trans n shit #like yall really just want to leave us out here to die it seems like. we have nowhere to go. no real community bc yall wont give us the #time of day or compassion or anything. you think 'men bad' and thats the deepest your political analysis goes as far as im concerned. #and if thats the case how much better are you than a terf who just decided they were 'okay' with trans women? #p sure this post was inspired from a trans guy literally being a meat shield for other trans ppl and no one gave a fuck.

[iamanartichoke]

I made the mistake of scrolling the dash last night, hoping to re-engage my Loki fandom feels, only to be reminded of why I've more or less quit this fandom - which, for the record, is bc I don't know if it's purity culture or "woke" culture or just "for the love of god, I'm begging you to touch grass" culture, but I'd like to engage with my blorbo without running into posts spouting takes like "saying Loki has small, slender hands is a feminization kink (and therefore bad)." Like?? I think there's something inherently anti-genderfluidity(?) to assume that men can't have small, slender hands or that having small, slender hands is automatically a feminine trait, and also Loki does have small, slender hands, and also even if it is being written as some kind of a kink, so what? Why are we kink-shaming?

I mean, I don't know, it just seems like there are more and more and more things that are being shamed, or criticized, based on an arbitrary sense of morality that undermines fiction as a creative, explorative form of art and it's just beyond exhausting - and fucking obnoxious - at this point.

#anyway i just needed to get that off my chest #bc every time i try to hop back on tumblr and like. do things #here comes this fucking fandom being like 'hahaha no' #'bc can we address how this is problematic or that's a kink or how there is only one true loki and here's all the ways in which #your loki is not my loki and wow what an abuse/torture/fascist apologist you are' and just #it's not just that it's obnoxious as fuck (though it is) #it's that this mindset is no longer limited to just tumblr or fandom spaces #it and similar mindsets have spread into the real world and books are being banned #and anti-lgbt+ laws are being passed to 'save the children' #there's no fucking escape from this toxic thought-policing basically #it's all a slippery slope #so anyway see y'all again in six months or whatever #i'm sure i'll have 3/4s of the fandom blocked by the point that loki season 2 drops #but in case there's still 1/4 of people left who actually want to talk about #character analysis and valid criticism based on the material and not morals #i guess we'll see #mood gif #standom frank

[musical-chick-13]

Okay, no, sorry, I’m still mad about this. “Be critical of the media you consume and examine why you react to it in the way that you do, support marginalized and stigmatized identities.” Yeah, until it’s about mental illness.

A woman (or even man, if he’s deemed over-emotional) makes music about suffering from mental illness and people just go, “What are they complaining about, that’s so immature, hashtag wangst.” (And then, sometimes, inexplicably, if the mentally ill woman gets better and writes happier music, they then talk about how artistically bankrupt she is now and that she should go back to hating herself.) People LOVE cis white pRoBLeMaTiC (straight) fictional men until they are realistically mentally ill, in which case they’re “whiny” and “insufferable” and deserve to die violently, apparently (or, if fandom is merciful, they’re ignored). (And then they celebrate when they DO inevitably get killed off.) “Do your duty and watch [thing I, mc13, personally find insufferable] For The (white) Gays because it has Gays.” Sure, will you watch c4 Pure, the ONLY show specifically about OCD, then? (No, the answer is no, it’s always no.)

I can’t get anyone to watch Doom Patrol. I couldn’t get people (in general-I did convince a few irl friends thank GOD) to watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. One of the most popular and acclaimed shows right now has a character with schizophrenia who was turned into the Big Bad Villain for no fucking reason. One of the most commonly-cited examples of Iconic™ queer media involves a mentally ill man being broken over and over and over again before The Ship™ can reasonably happen. DW introduced a major character who was at one point suffering from mental illness in her past, AND THEN ALL MENTION OF THIS WAS COMPLETELY DROPPED IN THE FUTURE, WITH NO BEARING ON ANYTHING TO THE POINT WHERE I FORGOT IT EVEN EXISTED??!?!? R*tched was a thing that existed despite the Sad Sympathetic Backstory treatment being IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION OF WHAT PURPOSE THIS CHARACTER SERVED IN One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. THEY GAVE. A SAD WOOBIE VILLAIN TREATMENT. TO THE /LITERAL PERSONIFICATION/ OF ABLEISM. THAT IS HER FUNCTION. TO EXIST AS A SYMBOL OF ALL THE WAYS SOCIETY OPPRESSES THE DISABLED AND MENTALLY ILL.

I am!!! Literally!!!!! The only one!!!!!!!!! Complaining about these things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No one else has said ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No one is talking about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so tired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#*OBLIGATORY COMMENT ABOUT HOW REPRESENTATION/FICTIONAL DISABILITY IS NOT THE END ALL BE ALL OF ACTIVISM* #*OTHER OBLIGATORY COMMENT ABOUT HOW LIKING '''pRoBLeMaTiC''' CONTENT DOES NOT MAKE YOU A BAD PERSON OR A HORRIFYING ABLEIST* #THIS WAS JUST ME GETTING MAD IT'S NOT THAT DEEP #In the Vents #the real horror was the ableism we found along the way #like. in some of these cases yes I /KNOW/ it was not meant to come across like that!!! but y'all accept that as a valid type of media #criticism when it's about anything else!!!!!!!! just not this apparently????!?!!!! #I do not understand how there is such an ABYSMAL treatment of the subject of mental illness in fiction when this is the #memetic Mental Illness Website like genuinely I do not get it I am scaling my walls and banging pots and pans and growling like a rabid dog #IF YOU WANNA TALK ABOUT THE MESSAGE A STORY IS TELLING YOU GOTTA APPLY IT HERE TOO #I AM ALSO THE LAST PERSON TO SAY THAT YOU'VE GOTTA ADD A DISCLAIMER OF SOMETHING'S LAUNDRY LIST OF FLAWS BEFORE YOU TALK ABOUT IT #BUT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST YOU HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE ON SOME LEVEL EVEN IF IT'S JUST TO YOURSELF THAT THINGS HAVE FLAWS #YOU'VE GOTTA BE AWARE OF SHIT #WHEN WILL WE HAVE THE OUTCRY OVER BURY YOUR DISABLED THAT WE DO OVER BYG (WHICH IS ALSO BAD BTW) #I GUARANTEE YOU WE WON'T BE GETTING A SEPARATE FUCKING CON OVER FANDOM OUTCRY THAT'S FOR SURE #I'm making a rule: if you can prove to me that you've started cxgf after reading this and/or if you can prove to me #that you've watched pure (channel 4/hbo max-the one with charly clive) I'll write a fic for you #let's see if I get sniped for criticizing both the beloved sacred mads show AND the plane crash girls show #if I see ONE more comment about how either of those is a perfect show that Gets What All The People Want I will in fact spontaneously #combust. #(and before you @ me yes I have any and all permutations of show tags blocked I'm not just being mean to be mean) #my god remember what happened the last time I tried to talk about this a;lsdfkajs;ldfkj #good thing I turned off anonymous asks!! #this is not even getting into some of the SMALLER fandoms #like I do not ever want to think about the takes I saw for ctrlz EVER again

[daisywords]

nothing like getting very minorly told off at work to make me feel physically ill for the rest of the day

#logically it's like. ok no one told me not to do that and it was ambiguous #so now that you've said not to I won't in the future. case closed #but it's like ahhhhhhhh so who even told you I was doing that in the first place #and why. were they annoyed? and more importantly did they present the situation accurately to you? #or do you now think I was doing something worse than I actually was? #second of all it wasn't complicated to explain so you didn't need to slack me to tell me to stop by your office #you could have just said it over slack. two sentences #a real win for the inclination to assume that everyone thinks I'm annoying and bad at my job and they regret hiring me #<<skewed for sure but there is a tiny bunny rabbit in my chest who needs a 99:1 positive to negative feedback ratio and she's not getting i #anyway I don't ever want to be seen as resistant to criticism so I'm always just like okay :) 👍 #resisting the urge to explain or justify but then that just makes me worry everyone assumes the worst of me #bc I'm not making it absolutely clear where I'm coming from #and the answer is. bestie they aren't thinking abt you at all it's not that deep #also. it makes sense that I am worse than everyone else at my job bc I am the newest and the least experienced #and also! this is the first time I've ever worked in an office environment! first time I've ever worked full time! #I don't know what I'm doing! I deserve a little grace! #anyway yikes yikes yikes #yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes

[canismajors]

the problem w hoyos storywriting is that whatever themes they try to establish will never be actually followed through with or explored properly making it feel just really shallow & weak

#idk how to explain properly. many such cases though #one im thinking of rn is collei for sure but also the ipc in hsr. maybe will elaborate but also 11:30 so maybe not #like the thing about the ipc is that they cannot criticise the societal parallel in its entirety because they are in the societal parallel #& so they just feel weak as villains. idk #even in the topaz quest 😭😭 as a viewer i was like well obviously the ipc swooping in & reposessing an EMTIRE PLANET #is bad & it is deeply predatory for them to do so whilst they are in the middle of a change in leadership disaster recovery & planetary #reconstruction. & then in game they want you to consider both sides as though the financial benefit is worth mass loss of freedom?????? it #was so bizarre. the ipc within hsr just fails because there's no material criticism of the system tht allows it to thrive (capitalism & #imperialism) & instead just criticism of it as an individual entity #which quite frankly is the basis of similar organisations & megacorps within scifi like its always a metaphor for capitalism 😭😭 & obvs they #wanted that but as a company survive on it so cannot fully explore that concept without criticising themselves #anyway. that is why i felt sooo weird seeing spoilers for the new quest LOL its like. this does not succeed in what it wants to say #+ why is no one else talking abt it

[iwantyoursexmp3]

posting here bc i feel like i always reblog other people’s takes on main then make my own post about the discussion LOL but the post about writing dog cannibalism etc notifs like…..my only thing I’d say is I’d like to see the ideas of these motifs expanded ie i think there was a post about how cannibalism is a great metaphor for devotion but that’s not the only way you can utilise cannibalism for a message. and sometimes these metaphors have a complex history. and without these expansive discussions/explorations these ideas that are so rich and complex can risk being reduced to buzzwords. which i agree and also think at the end of the day if someone wants to write the same cannibalism and dog poem over and over who caressss like why would i stop them? especially if it’s just for their own expression like why would I decide what expression is worthy of creation and sharing? oh my god idk if its dramatic but literally you are not alive forever why would you stop yourself from creating bc of what others might think? because the idea is cliche?? like idk im probably going to be writing about death and grief for the next ten years at least. i wrote really melodramatic, surface level poetry about my mom when i found out she was literally about to die of cancer can you imagine telling me that i was being too cliche with that? id kill you. anyway i think when an idea or metaphor gets popular on tumblr it’s good to be nuanced about it bc i do think sometimes ideas get watered down and diluted (hence my encouragement to expand your reading and ideas of say, cannibalism as metaphor) but at the end of the day if someone is personally moved by it why do i care. they’re alive they can do what they want

#when it comes to criticism about how they approach that expression it’s like. case by case basis #I think the whole Christian trauma thing is a good example of that bc some people really do aestheticise it in a way i think is harmful to #do with what is a real life institution that hurts so many people. but again you can’t make sweeping statements I think you have to take #that kinda thing story by story poem by poem #I can’t take the very generalised criticism seriously though because like that’s an entire complex idea. and every execution of it will have #a difffent context #like if the criticism of these ideas comes from wanting to be above what’s popular on tumblr then I’m not listening lmfao #im not really into the dog stuff but a lot of people i know and admire are. i like to see them be moved creatively!!! #also I don’t like the whole just make sure it’s well executed and good like okay and who decides that #also let people write shitty poetry about Christianity if it helps them

[cutemeat]

Glenn would appreciate your theories me thinks because when he said dennis was actually rehearsing and was just mad that mac saw it before he should have I thought he was reading one of your tumblr posts

FIRST OFF I AM SO FLATTERED BUT SECONDLY I RLLY GOTTA BE UPFRONT HERE 😭 yes i come up w theories i come up w AUs but bros… a lot of my posts abt Macden and Dennis in general… i re-watch the show itself SO often i am genuinely speaking from my analysis of the canon itself. i dont want ppl to get it too twisted— i genuinely have just been picking up on the stuff they have been writing into the show.. thats my feeling.. like when i talk abt the Shamrock stuff.. how Gets New Wheels/MFHP are macden arc foil eps… the Cats in the Wall metaphor, that is ALL rcg! that is what THEY wrote into the text!!

#im so honored u think glenn would appreciate my theories tho tbh i rlly hope he would #mostly cuz i do rlly try to parse what they are writing/acting into the show i try so hard dude #i just lov dennis im so passionate abt how theyve written him i think glenn has such an attention to detail w his character #n puts so much into him i rlly fuckin admire it i do #cuz tbh i rlly am a little bitch for canon thats just who i am #n dennis reminds me so much emotionally of how ive felt in my dads side of the family who Have that level of dysfunction the gang do so that #also helps a bit w my reading i feel LMAOO #like so many of my theories i try to specifically make sure they line up with the pre-existing canon as if i were pitching 2 rcg themselves #like. again thats just me 😭😭 #so yea.. again im so so flattered but truly a lot of my posting is based on what i think is written!!! #n as someone who has watched this show so so sooo many times i rlly do see them writing macden i see them writing den as having Loved mac #even when hes saying he hates mac….. he doesnt. he rlly truly doesnt. n rcg knows it i swear to u #they are smart. they have Been doing this for years. thats not givin em credit thats truly just experience! #(this is also important when it comes to criticizing them i believe.. like i cant let em off the hook for the stupid racist shit theyve #pulled n try to brush off cuz i KNOW theyre intelligent n not just bad writers thats a case of em choosing to be ignorant or phrasing their #frustrations against specifically Hulu pulling those eps performatively very poorly cuz Hulu now is part of the house that pays their bills #n they dont wanna get in trouble but seem to hav no qualms just coming off like they think Ppl Just Dont Get The Joke n NO Racist Adults #watch their show… thats BS n they should know better or fucking learn.. anyway) #like i aspire to write tv n i rlly like how theyve written sunny for the most part #like their character writing is just… i love it im obsessed w that aspect ive fallen so in love w all these characters’ writing #okok im done gushing #u are so sweet anon ily #but also i dont wanna give MYSELF too much credit when i dont feel ive done the heavy lifting yknow what i mean? 😭 #i truly believe if anyone rewatched the show as much as i have (and with how rcg hav been talkin abt sunnys streaming potential i believe #they want ppl to at some point be able to rewatch it like that n pick up on this stuff) #but if anyone rewatches this show enough times u will see this stuff cuz again its totally just written into it!n #i am just pointing it out not writin it myself #but again im more than happy to talk abt it n point it out if RCG themselves aren’t always comfortable doing so/feel like its ‘bragging’ #or pretentious.. cuz i hav So much fun analyzing the show n talking abt it n dont rlly hav any personal reputation stakes in doing so LOL

[regallibellbright]

Shoutouts to the TWEWY reddit for having the EXACT map I abruptly remembered I needed so I didn’t have to replay huge swathes of the game to figure out what day it was or substantially rework my damn timeline for like, the fourth time since I started this fic.

(Unfortunately, “three episodes take place in the span of two weeks and this is verifiable if you’re obsessive enough to freeze frame, which sadly/fortunately I am, then a key character fucks around for an indeterminate time that you can’t fudge as LESS than a month and that’s PUSHING things, and then everything starts rapidly moving again and the three critical episodes for my main arc explicitly take place over a single week” is not very good for everyone else’s sense of urgency. There’s only so much wallowing I can justify when everyone ELSE is trying to get shit moving.)

Good news! The map is JUST loose enough I can bullshit it as is!

#like a butterfly #wips #writing with regalli #yeah sure kongming’s doing important research it’s VERY INCONVENIENT TO ME #it’s just a VERY awkward timeline I have to work with #because in this case the plot was very much built around three BIG setpieces in YBK and one plot point #with the story kind of necessarily molding itself around those setpieces. #it is not my smoothest work and I will own that. Sadly I committed to a critical plot beat before I realized it was ONE WEEK #and there’s only so much I can make it work around that fact so I just sort of have to acknowledge that one and roll with it #shoutouts to Eiko and Nanami for going from strangers to ‘would fight the world for you’ in a week. you fit in perfectly around here. #sadly this is also the crux of the problem

[musical-chick-13]

.

#the PROBLEM is. some properties I like I cannot even talk about my Criticisms™ because if I do it attracts people whose side I am NOT on #like in the case of a certain british procedural show adopting old mystery novels that went on hiatus a lot. I did not like season 4. #but that is not because The Ship didn't go canon and it CERTAINLY wasn't because I never thought any of the show was good in #the first place. and I don't like The Main Ship of the c-chibs era but it's because the way it was written was VERY much not for me. #it's not because I think the whole era is trash (that ship was really the ONLY part of it I didn't like I loved everything else) #I DO have beef with some of the choices in season 8 of The Gritty Deconstruction Fantasy Show but they sure weren't ANY of the issues #that anyone else had!!! and I don't think it retroactively ruined the whole show actually!!!!! #like it's just so frustrating. especially since sometimes I DO want to break down what I consider to be unfortunate writing choices. #and I DO want to complain sometimes! but so much of the discussion around various properties is taken up by me just. #trying to explain that I'm allowed to like it in the first place and defending why I don't think it's Unconditionally Bad #so I can't ever like. for example. discuss the deaths in 8x03 and my issues with THOSE as character endpoints #or why they killed mary and had her husband act terribly to her for no reason just before she died #or how shitty it was in the last era for me to see ANOTHER character be mentally ill but in the most unobtrusive palatable way possible #(and then also make that really weird comment about a previous love interest??? who WAS unpalatable in many ways--though not like. #canonically mentally ill. even if I and many other people are drawn to that interpretation.) #perHAPS I want to talk about my confusion over the story's handling of j/d for reasons that are not 'I hate these characters' or #'that's pRoBLeMaTiC and you shouldn't ship it because that's pRoBLeMaTiC' #maybe I WILL just make a 4-hour video essay unpacking all my Thoughts™ on that show. because people don't have to watch it! #they could just hit the back button!

[lith-myathar]

.

#god i hate this #it's like somebody switched on a light #i was just BRIMMING with with these behaviors and trauma responses and i had no idea what they were #like when the Agonies really kicked off in my late teens i just didn't even kniw what was happening to me #i just started collapsing in on myself #and as far as i could tell there was NO REASON #i didn't have any EXCUSE to feel this bad which created a whole new layer of shame #and the best i could find to describe it was anxiety and social phobia and that sure was the case but it was because #i was so hyper vigilant and so ready to be criticized or put down or guilted #fuckkk #and here's me on this stupid fucking website for 10 years reading about all these reactions to abuse #and going ''huh relatable. that's just my anxiety tho. that's just residuals from the major traumatic life event.'' #im so tired #just exhausted frankly #and still a significant part of me wants to say that im exaggerating #''abuse? isn't that a little melodramatic? you're being overly sensitive and bliwing things out of proportion like you always do. #it's self-centered and trivializing to call what you went through abuse.'' #got me so well trained i gaslight my own damn self

[pastadoughie]

many people were confused about some of my previous posts, so for the sake of clarity i am condensing everything! tumblr has extremely transphobic moderation practices, often flagging completely innocent posts as explicit, solely for containing trans women in them or mentioning transgenderism. while letting untagged porn in sfw tags (ive literally seen porn tagged as "sfw agere") and blatent hatespeech, especially twards trans people (just look at the "gender critical" tag) go completely unchecked recently the CEO of tumblr had a big public hissyfit about people (rightfully) calling him transmysogenistic, going into random trans womens dms to harrass them, and saying that predstrogen saying she "hopes he explodes with hammers and then explodes again and hammers fly everywhere" is a death threat and saying he is calling the FBI on her (repeatedly misgendering her and calling her "it") and many bloggers, apon speaking out about it or even making harmless jokes (one trans woman posted a picture of a car and a hammer with the caption "reblog to scare matt" and got nuked for it) and many are very very angry (rightfully) about this whole affair and tumblr in general. if you would like to look into it i reccomend scrolling the "predstrogen" tag as she is the case most people are talking about at the moment. So, what can we do? this is clearly an ongoing issue, and, dispite having lost a lawsuit about their transphobic moderation in the past (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement) its clearly not gonna stop with just user complaints, as staff members are perfectly content to just go scorched earth on users who even so much as lightly poke fun at them well if you want to help you should contact the human rights commision (i will give clear details further down) ! you dont have to be in the US, nor be an adult to file, and it only takes a few minutes. this is the best and most effective method to fix this, because it hits tumblr where it hurts. human rights acencies have a lot of legal and financial power and tumblr CAN NOT just ignore them, and given that this will be the seccond time this is happening, the commisions shouldnt be playing nice anymore eaither. its really important that AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE FILE, and with different examples! while maybe your case might not be enough to prop up a lawsuit on its own, we need to prove a general trend. so every little bit counts! to respond to another question abt this ive gotten, as for what exactly to report, you should a) write about an act of discrimination youve recieved on tumblr that was eaither administered by a staff member OR that staff refused to give adequate moderation action in for example : a terf posted some blatent hatespeech targeted twards you, and you reported them, and staff looked at the issue and refused to persecute it. example 2 : you were unfairly flagged, deleted, or otherwise punished by a staff member and you are queer ( AND the post they banned you for has some kind of tie to your gender, ex : a sfw transition progress photo ) OR b) if you have not personally recieved something like that, please look for other peoples stories (THEY SHOULDNT BE HARD TO FIND, within the last couple of hours trans people have been being banned LEFT AND RIGHT for trying to speak on this. i would reccomend checking some of the tags related to what happened with predstrogen) and you should describe that incident as best as possible (be sure to disclose that you are speaking for someone else, ideally you should tell the story of someone you know, if possible.) you can also mention any reports you have made twards people posting blatent hatespeech that, opon reveiwing tumblr refused to prosecute dispite it being very obviously against terms of service. just so nobody gets confused about the filing process, im laying it out in more plain languadge!!

first you should email the SF HRC (san francisco human rights commision), at [email protected] and say something along these lines :

Hello, I am [full name] from [country or state] and I am filing a complaint against Tumblr, witch is owned by the parent company Automattic Inc. located at 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110.

Tumblr has had previous issues with the NYC DHR for their moderation being unfairly biased against trans women (see : https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21274288-tumblr-nycchr-settlement).

Despite a legally binding agreement with the NYC DHR, staff members still regularly harrass users based on their gender or sexual orientations. For example : on [date of most recent infraction] [describe incident] (if you are describing an incident that did not happen to you specifically, say something like) This incident involves the user [username] who I am not affiliated with (or/) who I am filing on behalf of.

I can be reached for further inquiries about this incident at [email you want to talk over] or [phone number you want to talk over]. (if you would like to be anonymous) However, In the event of legal prosecution against Automattic I would refer to be kept anonymous, where possible, in court proceedings. alternatively, you can also call the SF HRC at : 415-252-2500, you can use the above text as a starting point for this as well, next you want to fill out the form for the NYC DHR (new york city department of human rights) here : https://www.nyc.gov/site/cchr/about/report-discrimination.page for company you wanna put : Automattic and/or Tumblr for address you wanna put : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003 for phone number you wanna put : [phone] and for category of discrimination you can put : Discriminatory harassment and basis of discrimination you can put : Gender; Gender identity you can then use a similar script on the written section of the form. when describing a specific incident, you should attach as many screenshots and links as possible! (for links, include both a live link and an archival link, so take a capture with the internet archive and have that as an alternative, incase a staff member gets petty.) this should only take a few minutes at most, and it helps alot! you can fill this out if you are a minor, and you dont have to be a us resident, please please take the time!!! and, just to clarify because there are many posts going around that are confused about this tumblr moved offices to san francisco recently, so their main HQ is at : 60 29th St, San Francisco, CA 94110 they DO still have an office in new york city, and thats where their PREVIOUS HQ was, the address is : 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003

#art #my art #mspaint #rowens liddol guys #mspaint animations #the beast speaks #important shit #transgender #trans #predstrogen

[storiesconsumemysoul]

For how much of a weakness I have for sibling dynamics it never ceases to amaze me how thoroughly Itachi's framing in the narrative decimated any possibility of me developing the kind of brainrot that most other sibling dynamics give me. Like ... I am very susceptible to just latching onto any siblings in media if the narrative pays them even the tiniest bit of interest. But Itachi and Sasuke? I'm good. I'm definitely still interested in their relationship and everything that that entails. OF COURSE. There is no loving Sasuke as much as I do without centering those he loves and his relationship with them. But their dynamic doesn't give me brainrot because I fundamentally, from the very depth of my soul, despise how the story wants me to think of Itachi. Which sounds very reasonable and all when I put it like this ... but for anyone who knows me, this is genuinely such a remarkable anomaly.

#like it's truly not that the dynamic and relationship itself is effed up #that is not an issue in this regard cuz I sure do love me some truly twisted sibling dynamics too #it's the framing that makes the whole thing utterly revolting to me #itachi critical #not really in this post but just in case

[nerdvi]

In the wake of the whole james somerton fiasco and inspired by this post, I wanted to share a few of my um, soft signs, like, orange flags to detect when someone is bullshitting you.

First of all, I am on the spectrum which means 1) I tend to take what people say at face value and 2) I have a strong sense of justice which makes me prone to biases, all of which combined means I am at perpetual risk of swallowing the bullshit.

So, what to do about it? You turn on the critical thinking and pay attention.

As one of my favorite youtubers, Hannah Alonzo, likes to say: "consider the source, remember the motive". Who is talking to you?? What do you know about them?? What biases might they have?? How do they interact with your own biases?? Where are they talking from?? Is it anger?? happinness? boredom?? Also, why are they talking to you? Are they trying to sell you something?? Are they trying to convince you and why?? How do they go about the finantial motivation, if present? If you have, in this case, a white cis gay man talking to you as it he has it the worst of the worst in the world, there's probably some exaggeration and you should start to wonder. There's a good chance he's bullshitting you.

How they talk about women and POC No, no, stay with me. There's a rule I had back when I was dating men: Always beware of how they treat their mother. With the exception of extremes like mama's boys and cases of abuse, how a man treats the woman with whom they have that familial bond is a good indicator of how they are going to treat you. Do they berate her? speak ill of her? are aggressive or controlling? do they dismiss her opinions? Same with creators, and by god I tell you, specially cis male creators, queer or otherwise, always always beware of how they speak of women, how they treat women, how they treat POC. Somerton had a weird vendetta against straight women. It went mostly unnoticed. Then, he was dismissive towards lesbians and other queer women and it was once again overlooked. Then he went ahead and made sinophobic content about genres and cultures he knows NOTHING about. Again, it went unchecked. What I am telling you is IT'S NOT NORMAL. Contempt about women and non white-western cultures is not normal and if someone has them as them as an enemy or a scapegoat, they're probably bullshitting you. Take what they say and fact check it, see for yourself.

If at any point in a video or an essay you find yourself thinking "wait, really??" then it's time to fact check. Is it a bit suspicious?? is your logic telling you that's not quite how this works?? Then take to google, my friend, they might be bullshitting you. At worst, you dodge a fake fact, at best, you learn way too much about a topic you were already interested in.

Beware of the lack of nuance. I can not stress this enough. We all love monochrome, but life and societal issues are never black and white. It's just impossible, there's too many factors to consider. If you are being presented situations or anecdotes as absolute truths, you're probably being bullshitted. If it's too good to be true, it is. If it sounds waaay too convenient, it probably is. A good researcher, a serious investigator, will always have some nuance because they have done the work and checked the sources. If someone provides you 1) no nuance and 2) no sources, THEY'RE BULLSHITTING YOU.

These are the ones I can come up with just of the top of my head, I'm sure there's more and please, add them. Remember that naivité isn't a crime, I'm fairly naive and that's made me distrustful, and these are some of the techniques I've found that help me navigate through a world of information without losing myself.

#james somerton #hbomberguy #plagiarism