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iguessitsjustme · 3 days

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*flips hair* I have never blocked anyone because I'm nosy, but I want to know #4!

What was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I am also nosy...to my detriment sometimes. Which is why it takes me so long to actually block people that I should probably have blocked a lot sooner. But I do have a story.

4. what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

I've kind of vaguely mentioned this when asked before but I'll talk a tiny bit more specifically here. Not too specific because I'm not trying to start shit buuuuut....also they are definitely not the only person I've blocked but I think they might be the most recent one? I don't know.

About a year(?) ago I had to block a couple of people because they were starting to make me uncomfortable. I was being tagged in all sorts of posts (and to be clear the posts weren't bad, they were even positive! kind posts even) and something about what was happening was rubbing me the wrong way.

Actually before I keep talking about this, I feel like I need to talk a tiny bit about myself because it's important context. This also might surprise people considering how much I overshare on here, but I am, at my core, an extremely private person. I do not like attention. I get anxiety when my follower count goes up here (genuinely love all of my followers and this is definitely a me problem). I live in fear of being secretly recording for some stranger's tiktoks. I don't want my face seen by people. I do not wish to be perceived. It is 100% a trauma response and I am aware of all of this. And this is extremely important to why I blocked these people.

It is slightly easier for me on tumblr than it is in real life, but this is quite literally my safe space that I have built for myself. It's why I'm comfortable sharing things here. I have no issue being tagged in posts. I have no issue with people wanting to talk about things I've said or if they tag me because they want me to see something. So getting tagged in seemingly genuinely kind and positive posts should be fine, right?

Well, yes and no. The posts I was being tagged in felt...hollow to me. Like I was being tagged in an attempt to build a platform instead of because they actually wanted to tag me. I was being tagged in posts thanking me for participating in a fandom which kind of made it seem like the reason I was posting about anything was for accolades and that...is simply not why I'm here. I am not here to gain a following. I am not here to build a platform or to help others build a platform. I am here to post silly little posts about my shows and my life and also now keep track of character's glasses. If I wanted to build a platform, tumblr is not what I would be using (and honestly if I wanted to, I genuinely think I could be pretty successful at building a platform and gaining followers and other platforms. I would consider myself highly marketable if I wanted to go into that industry).

But the last straw for me? What finally did it? Why I finally blocked the people whose vibes have felt off for me and clearly did not know me well enough to know that doing what they were doing was quite literally the opposite of something I am comfortable with? It was when someone (again not naming names because I don't think they had bad intentions but were just so horrendously misguided as to allow themselves to ignorantly do this) who did not follow me, did not reblog any of my posts, did not like any of my posts, had never replied to any of my posts, nor had they ever interacted with my blog or with me in any type of way (I checked because I'm nosy enough and petty enough to have checked that) tagged me in a post. To thank me. For participating in a fandom. And I am not saying anyone has to do any of those things. But if you're gonna tag me to thank me for participating...perhaps maybe at least like one of my posts about the thing you're thanking me for?

To be clear, this was a show that a lot of people were talking about at the time. I was not the only person tagged in these posts. I was for sure not the only person talking about the show. In fact, I probably posted a tenth of what other people posted. If that. And my posts, honestly, weren't very well thought out or coherent. They were my typical little silly posts. And I know people like those. But they weren't the same as what other people were posting. And to be tagged by someone that seemed to only care when it was something that could gain them notes and followers instead of someone who actually enjoyed what I was saying? Felt strange to me. And rather than start beef with a stranger on the internet I blocked them.

Blocking them solved the issue that was making me uncomfortable as peacefully as I felt I could. They no longer had the ability to tag me in strangely performative posts and I didn't start yelling at a stranger and potentially ruin their day. Or start drama that no one else needed to be involved in. I did make a small post about it at the time mostly because I felt so weirded out and I did feel a little bit bad about blocking them. But it was such a quiet thing that no one noticed and everyone moved on with their lives. Made things happier. For me at least. Probably happier for them too.

Choose Violence Ask Game

#ask game #choose violence ask game #i also want to be clear that i love being tagged in things #this was an extremely weird situation all around and likely won't happen again #because with the exception of this every time i've been tagged has been a genuine tag #and it makes me giggle and kick my feet and makes my day every time #im typically thinking awwww someone thought of me i love it how nice #this was just...strange. the vibes were off and i had to peace out #it's like when my old roommate would throw parties and invite me and i would go cause i lived there #but even though his friends were nice they weren't my people so i would irish goodbye to my older brother's apartment #i'm a big fan of just...leaving. no need to explain why. especially if the why might hurt and it's not something that someone needs to hear #cause i'm sure most people do not have the same issues i have with being perceived

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hxhhasmysoul · 2 months

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Seriously? lol

@voxmxchina I'll answer this in a post because I don't feel like writing on a character limit. It will be an expression of my annoyance, read at your own discretion, Najma you don't read, you don't need my vexation, I love you.

You gave me too much credit, voxmxchina, I tagged the post out of sheer pettiness. You should’ve looked more closely at the tags on that post, I did not tag the Sokka x Zuko ship because I have nothing nice to say about it. And I don’t go into ATLA tags so I don’t know how fans in those tags behave.

Maybe I didn’t express my main issue with SatoSugu as a ship clearly enough. The main issue is how so many fans of that ship treat the fandom as their private playground and relentlessly spam tags of unrelated characters and ships. Regularly on posts that don’t even mention tagged characters, or much more upsettingly overwrite the canon character moments of those characters by making those exact moments about Gojou, Getou and/or their ship. Posts that will have one sentence preface about how character X (usually Yuuji but others too, all too often, Kenjaku is the second major victim, Megumi third) is a foil/parallel/whatever of G or G and character Y is a foil/parallel/whatever of the other G. And then produce paragraph after paragraph of utter drivel, sometimes not even mentioning character X and Y again, just overwriting their scene with G&G. Or pretend that a moment that is very specifically about another character is actually about G or G, like recently they spammed the tag with claiming Sukuna was disappointed that Gojou died, when Sukuna was very clearly fucking referring to the person he'd just killed, aka Higuruma. Because no moment in JJK can be spared from being about those two characters or their fucking ship, because to their fans, apparently, that’s all that JJK is about and other fans better fucking get along with that program.

During the Takaba and Kenjaku fight I actually blacklisted the SatoSugu ship tags because I couldn’t fucking stomach the behaviour of the fans. And yet I stumbled on a post that made TakaKen about SatoSugu. It was not tagged with any tag mentioning the SatoSugu ship, not a single one, I’m not even sure it had any of their individual tags. But it had Takaba and Kenjaku tags. When I pointed out to the op, amid a longer exchange, that if they didn’t want people who don’t like SatoSugu to engage with their post maybe a) they shouldn’t’ve spammed the tags of the characters they are erasing and more importantly b) tag their shitty ship so people who are actually using available tools not to see posts about it, can avoid that content, that person called me some equivalent of “insane”. They told me that it’s none of anyone’s business how they tag their posts.

So as you see, a member of your own community deems what you’re asking for crazy. Your community is by far the biggest subset of the JJK fandom on this website. And maybe that person was the only one who actually said it verbatim, but everyone who spams the other tags is of the same mindset.

And while I didn’t extend the courtesy to SatoSugu fans because at this point I don’t give a single shit about their feelings and I actually wanted them to see that post and either reflect on their asshole behaviour or get upset and block me and thus purge what I see in the tags from their shit takes, unlike many of them I actually didn’t break the Tumblr ToS by tag spamming. That post is actually partially about the SatoSugu ship.

I think you should first try policing your own community and not, I know it’s wild, zero in on one of the rare posts that express anything negative about that ship. Granted I have a lot of the fandom blocked for various shitty opinions, but when I scrolled down the SatoSugu tag organised by Latest, the first post I found saying anything negative about the ship was, lo and behold, mine. The one you left this reply on.

If I can stomach several posts erasing my favs daily, SatoSugu fans can be exposed to literal five short paragraphs criticising their ship, but mostly their behaviour actually, every once in a while.

#vent #bitter #like literally every time i express any negative opinions about the muppet man and his ship with the fascist #no matter how short #even if it's just a few sentences in a post that is about something else or a post with very few notes #his fans will always come to scold me #in that post there are literally 5 sentences expressing a negative opinion about the ship itself #the rest is about how the fans behave

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jingsyuans · 1 year

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(this is the same anon talking abt the problem with unspecified gendered readers being feminized in fics as a male reader, jing yuan hyperfixee yada yada.. i'll start putting a little 🌙 emoji every time i make these asks bc i honestly like sending these in to have these sorts of conversations LOL)

here's my perspective in all honesty— i'm not someone who reads smut for the exact reason you specified!! sometimes i'll skim over out of pure curiosity and from what i see its like.. "this is not ____ what????" bc so many writers like to water down their personalities for the sex appeal like you said— like it'll be the BIGGEST of sweethearts and then they'll be written like some sorta discord moderator ☠️☠️

which, like i said, is a reason why i dont read smut bc i totally agree with you with the fact that i prefer reading stuff where it actually. feels like the character (like ur content.. mwah)

tbh — i don't really care if people don't write content specifically catered to males ! cuz like u said i understand the difficulty especially w/ smut when ur just super unfamiliar with it ++ writers will tend to project too, i just dislike when it almost misleads you when they say its genderneutral and then immediately uses pronouns or fem terms HAHA

(i will be dropping into your inbox from time to time bc i also like to ramble and not many of my friends like hsr so i have nobody to share my silly little headcanons and thoughts with.. :3)

Yeahhh lol smut is very... specific, especially on tumblr. It's taken me a long time to realize the different brands of writers on this site. There's a lot of blogs that have high followings, and I think it's more about quantity than quality. A lot of writers will write for several characters all at once, and there's a bigger demand for their writing because of their content and popularity. Hence, you're making things a lot quicker, focusing more on things like the quality of the smut rather than the portrayal of the character. Characters will get narrowed down into sections- dominant, submissive, or S&M daddy. Lol. It works for some people, but not really for me.

A little off topic but in the same breath of things being fem/neutral/male ... every so often when i browse tags, i see people complaining about how there isn't enough content for m!readers or neutral, sometimes I even see posts where people don't want fem aligned persons to interact with their posts period "because its not for you, you already have enough". That whole mentality bothers me. (I'm about to go on a tangent, and this is thoughts of my own, nothing to do with what you've said, just in case you think im talking about you or anything like that)

It's true that fem readers are the majority, and it's because women take up the majority of fandom. From most to least in every fandom to exist, its afab women, gender neutral afab persons, ftm men, and then in the lesser pool is gn amab persons. Somewhere in there is mtf and i have no idea where they lie in the pool honestly. This is just my observation from being in fandom for awhile and being ftm once upon a time (before people yell at me, im more comfortably genderfluid now and rather lax about my presentation and gender nowadays, but i used to be dysphoric and was transitioning strictly to male). It makes sense that AFAB readers are the majority considering the people behind the content. You come a long way before you realize that there's literally nothing wrong with this.

I used to get upset about lack of representation in fics as well, especially when i was transitioning. I was extremely petty and hateful toward writers that were in the majority and toward women in fandom. It wasn't until i decided to grow up that i realized this wasn't helping anything, it was just keeping me in a bad headspace to think that complaining and hatred was my answer. My answer was finding a community of my own and writing my own fics, feeding myself the content i wanted to read. Realizing it was nobodies responsibility to create content for me besides my own. Is it nice when you get lucky and find that content? Of course. It's such a wonderful treat. But you are not due that content, nobody on the internet should have the expectation they will be catered to. To believe they are owed it. We are owed nothing from strangers.

People need to realize that writers on tumblr or otherwise, for reader inserts or ships, we don't write for the audience. It's part of it, yes, because its fun to share and motivating. But its no one's responsibility to represent and carry a community on their shoulders. If someone is going to write fem aligned reader insert smut, that was birthed out of their desire to write it and eat it whole. It was made for them and expressed outward onto the internet for others to enjoy if they have the same interest. But it isn't anyone's responsibility or need to write for you, to write for GN readers if they dont want to. It doesnt make them transphobic or narrow minded. It will make YOU narrow minded if you believe you deserve content just because you're part of a minority and if you arent catered to, you're allowed to be spiteful.

Open mindedness goes a long way. I've become a lot happier ever since I realized that people lead their own lives, create their own content for the sake of making themselves happy, and I do the exact same. I don't owe anyone anything. The internet can become a hive mind and what seems like a reality of it's own, but truthfully everything is surface level. Nothing matters if you don't want it to. Catering your own experience is amazing once you realize you have the ability.

Anyway i rambled AGAIN. These are my thoughts. Have at them.

#🌙 anon #anon asks #asks #rambling

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perfectlypanda · 2 years

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AtLA Ship Poll - Vote Buying? (A humorous hypothesis and experiment)

Disclaimer 1: I’m tagging this anti-Kataang not because it’s actually against the ship, but because it could be perceived as such, so it’s getting the precautionary tag. It’s really not looking at the ship, but looking at what seems to be one... unusually enthusiastic fan.

Disclaimer 2: If there are errors it’s not because I’m purposely trying to prove something but because I’m not a mathematician, so just kindly let me know and I’ll update the numbers.

Disclaimer 3: No matter how many people will claim I must be really upset that my ship lost because “wow you spent so much time on this”, I must emphasize this is just the exact kind of ridiculous thing that I find incredibly funny.

If you’re in the shipper side of the AtLA fandom, then you’ve probably seen the AtLA Ship Tournament poll on Twitter that’s been running the last few days. I voted in the Zutara/ Kataang poll, saw my ship lost, and promptly was about to stop caring when I saw this post by the Twitter account running the poll: (edit to clarify- the $2000 here isn’t specifically in reference to the AtLA polls. The Twitter account running the poll was retweeting someone else’s post about spending a lot of money on vote buying as a cautionary tale. No idea how much the AtLA vote buyer is spending.)

Winning or losing might not have been that interesting to me, but the idea of someone being petty enough to pay real money to buy fake votes for an unofficial poll about shipping cartoon characters from a children’s television show was hilarious.

Now, I didn’t want to make any assumptions without proof, because hey maybe there was an actual influx of voters. Which is when I was struck with the idea - what if, assuming someone did buy those votes, that same person bought votes to win the Kataang vs. Sukka poll, which Sukka was currently winning by a substantial margin? And what if, some other person were to collect data in order to test the hypothesis that someone was buying votes? Spoiler alert - it’s me. I’m that person.

Roughly every hour, I’d take a screenshot of the poll numbers, and then I could use the numbers to see if there was a genuine steady upward trend in one direction or if there was a sudden last minute surge of votes for one side. I recruited my friend A, who lives in a different time zone and is frequently kind enough to indulge my particular brand of crazy, to collect screenshots for me for the hours after I’d be away from my computer (hence why some of the screenshots are in dark mode). Our collection is missing a shot from the 12, 11, and 1 hour out marks, but otherwise captures hourly data from 13 hours until the end of the poll, and the results are wildly entertaining.

First, the percentage of votes for Sukka vs. Kataang is consistent from 13 hours left through the 2 hours left mark. Sukka hovers around the 65% mark and Kataang hovers around the 35% mark the entire time.

Untilllll the last two hours. I wish I had a screenshot for the 1 hour mark, but alas, we must go without one. Leaving out the number of people between the 13th hour and the 10th hour (as it’s a multi-hour span), the poll averaged 21.75 new voters every hour from 10 hours left until 2 hours left. In the final two hours, the poll received 795 new votes. That’s 34% of all total votes, or slightly over 1/3, happening in the last two hours. Funnier still, of those 795 votes only 34.15 were for Sukka. The other 760.85 were for Kataang.

Serendipitously, all our screenshots happened to capture the Zukka vs. Azuki poll that was posted just below the Kataang/ Sukka match up. If you find the average number of votes per hour from the 10 hour mark to the 2 hour mark for that poll, you have an average of 26.85 new votes per hour. Which is only slightly higher than the 21.75 on the Kataang/ Sukka poll. To me, this indicates that it’s likely the numbers up to that point were genuine, because that’s roughly about the same number of people showing up to vote. In the final two hours, the Zukka/ Azuki poll had 40 new voters. The Kataang/ Sukka poll had 795.

Is it possible that this happened naturally? Yes. Is it kind of improbable? Yeah. But! It was a pattern, as something similar happened in Kataang’s previous match up (Zutara/ Kataang). Is it even more improbable for this to happen naturally twice in a row? You be the judge.

Some final thoughts - Thank you random shipper who is buying votes, because I have been giggling about how ridiculous this whole thing was all day. I’m very excited to see if the vote buyer continues their trend for the final round and slides in with some votes for a last minute win, or, realizing that the jig is up, doesn’t buy more votes and must come to terms with how they’ve unintentionally harmed their ship’s chances in the final by making many voters choose Zukka simply to spite the person buying votes. I care very little who actually wins, because the poll’s accuracy is already unquestionably tainted by this whole affair, but I’m very excited for the chaos.

The poll creator made some follow up posts on the topic, which pretty accurately sum up my other feelings on the matter:

If you’d like to see the screenshots of the polls, I’ll put them under the read more since this post is already long enough.

They’re unedited except for cropping them, and hiding the mark that would show which sides my friend and I voted for:

#atla #anti-kataang #sukka #avatar #zutara #I don't even know what to tag this #I did this for me because I thought it would be funny and I was right I had a blast #thank you random person buying votes I applaud your unintentional chaotic energy #if you comment and it's rude/ angry then I'm just going to delete it and block you #long post

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suffersinfandom · 4 months

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I was going to make some embarrassing, fluffy New Year post about how grateful I am for OFMD and this fandom and how cool it is to be here and participating for the first time ever (I mean, I made some goofy meme edits for BSG and Star Wars, but I sure as heck wasn’t brave enough to share actual thoughts). I was going to type about how awesome and smart and funny so many of the people I follow here are and how much I love all of the meta and art and fanfic, and I was going to go on about how important OFMD is to me and how much it’s brightened up my life.

But then I logged on and remembered how flawed this fandom is, too. It makes me sad to see all of the insults and personal attacks in a fandom that is -- or at least claims to be -- more queer and more accepting and more invested in kindness and goodness than any other I’ve come across.

There’s the block button, I know (believe me, I use it every time I come across someone who goes on about how abusive Ed is because I absolutely won’t entertain that), but the hostility runs deep and blocking alone isn’t fixing anything. People act like the mere existence of interpretations that contradict their own are direct attacks on their character, and they retaliate by calling people idiots with zero reading comprehension and abuse apologists and cruel sadists who wouldn’t know suffering if it bit them on the dick and so on. It’s not enough to disagree; we have to tear people down and insult them and make everyone angrier by showing our followers strawman arguments being tossed around by ~the other side~.

Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely abhorrent takes that demonstrate, at best, ignorance on the part of the person making it. We should call those out!

Idk, I just wish we could have discussions and disagreements without attacking actual human people. Like, I love it when people engage with things they don’t agree with in good faith and pick apart arguments and make new points. I even love passive-aggressive indirect responses to bad takes. Those can be very fun and, tbh, it’s not a fandom without a little pettiness, as a treat.

But it sucks to scroll around and see people in your fandom throwing out very personal insults and attacking others for interpreting things differently or thinking a fake guy is a piece of shit, y’know? I want better for us. We deserve better.

Also, just to be clear, this isn’t in response to anything specific, okay? I was just generally set off when I scrolled through the OFMD tag today and saw yet another “well, if you don’t see things the way I do, you’re a stupid piece of shit who loves abuse” post from someone I hadn’t gotten around to blocking yet. Not to get personal, but as someone who was regularly called an abusive, stupid piece of shit by someone who was genuinely abusing me when I had the nerve to challenge them, that kind of thing can be legit triggering if it hits at the wrong time.

Also also: I do feel all of those things that I mentioned in the first paragraph! I’m so grateful for OFMD and the fans of it! There are so many brilliant and talented people around here, and I know I wouldn’t be as bummed about the unsavory parts of OFMD fandom if I didn’t love it so much as a whole.

#ofmd #fandom critical #new year same me lol #i'm not trying to accomplish anything here #just venting a little #maybe hoping someone will see it and go #oh dang i was insulting people and didn't even think about it #time to be nicer #time to screenshot and dunk on bad takes without attacking the op directly #TO BE CLEAR #i think most people in the fandom are chill and cool #if this isn't about you don't make it about you y'know

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oblivious-aro · 1 month

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Apologies if this is a bit of a weird ask, but I'm kinda curious about if you've had any experiences with not liking LGBT+ media that was seen as a must watch, and what your thoughts were on them? That reblog sprung me back to thinking the Matrix was boring in middle school despite it being a Trans movie and feeling slightly confused why my friends were surprised by it.

(also that dear lgbt kids blog is really cool, thank you for sharing it!)

Not a weird ask at all, 'tis an honour when the internet people are interested in my thoughts :)

(also yes, I looove dear lgbt kids, that blog is so soothing!)

I wasn't really thinking of anything in particular when I reblogged that post, but if I had to list some specific examples, Steven Universe and Nimona come to mind.

SU's lgbt+ content never sat right with me because of the fact that only character that were lgbt+ were the gems. So in this show, any and all lgbt+ characters are...literaly aliens.

Yeah...

Even outside any lgbt+ themes, the show was a slog to watch. It started off decently enough, but as the it went on, the quality deteriorated heavily. The plot was all over the place, the characters were massacred, and the protagonist is the only child character in all of media who I genuinely hate.

But for some reason, lgbt+ fandom loses their mind over SU. When I read the stuff they say, I honestly wonder if we watched the same show. Like the show's got some decent moments, but it ain't all that. Not even close.

This might be a catty thing to say, but I think it's because it's got a space theme, pastel colours, and some androgynous looking characters. From the way some people talk, a lot of them seem to think that certain aesthetics are more valuable rep than actual lgbt+ content.

I didn't really interact with people online when SU was airing, but my sister was a diehard fan of the show, and we got into a lot of (in hindsight very petty) arguments about it.

I don't judge people who like bad shows (my most used tag is 'Lego ninjago', glass houses), but SU fans always seemed so defensive wave atright up dishonest about the show they claimed to love (this post is long enough, so I won't go into specifics).

It was borderline surreal (and slightly insanity inducing), watching a show that did so little get praised for so much.

Nimona was okay, but very overhyped. Story wise, I think it needed some buffing in a few areas, but it's a fine kids movie that just didn't super grab me.

As for the lgbt+ elements, the two main bits are a gay couple and some gender stuff.

The gay couple are...well they exist I guess. I didn't like how any potentially interesting angles of Goldenloin's character were sacrificed because the writers really wanted him and Boldheart to be fighting the whole movie instead of doing anything actually romantic. The romance isn't interesting, and one of the characters is barely a character. Eh.

Now on to the gender stuff, aka the thing everyone raves about. See, the movie wants Nimona the character to be a metaphor for transgender struggles in society, but instead of making Nimona trans, they made her a shapeshifter.

Why would you not just...make her trans of you want to tell a trans narrative? And you can't blame "homophobic executives" on this one because there's an explicit gay couple right there, and this movie came out on Netflix post 2020. Why do I feel like I'm back in 2016?

And to be clear, it very much is a trans narrative they're trying to push, and not just the story happening to be presented in a way that resonates with trans people. There's some bits (such as the train scene) where the trans narrative directly interferes with what's happened in the story and what we know about the characters, but they're there anyway.

They reeeeeeally want to talk about trans people without talking about trans people for some reason that absolutely boggles my mind.

I just...I don't get it. Just tell the story you say you want to tell. Why are we being so weird and indirect?

That's been my experience with a lot of the lgbt+ media I hear people raving about. I don't know why this seems especially true with specifically lgbt+ people, but a lot of the community has incredibly low standards for lgbt+ themes and representation in media.

A year or two ago, I specifically remember a looking at a list of top transgender characters in children's tv, and literally only ONE character on the list was actually trans.

In summary, I just can't get behind media that acts needlessly secretive yet weirdly proud about specifically its lgbt+ themes and characters, but that's the kind of writing I hear getting the loudest praise and the most glorifying articles.

It felt like I was in the twilight zone.

Finding like 3 people online who were like 'no, you're right, people are being weird about this' was such a relief, and I think knowing there were at least a few people who had the same take as me helped me be able to deal better.

Things are getting better as more mainstream media is incorporating actual explicit lgbt+ representation, but the the crowd that celebrates over scraps of nothing is very much still there.

It didn't bother me nearly as much as it did years ago, but I've learned to take online ravings and reccomendations with a large pinch of salt.

#hope this answered your question sufficiently and want to rambly #steven universe #nimona

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admirableadmiranda · 1 year

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Question for the people trying to push you guys out of the canon Jiang Cheng tag. If canon character tags are for canon character content, why does no other character have a canon tag in regular use? I just feel the whole argument about what should be in the tag they put forth falls apart when they don't even do it for any other character. Once one realizes this, it's almost like canon Jiang Cheng was made by a specific group for a specific purpose. Funny what widening the scope of perspective reveals.

Oh yeah. Turns out that there's perhaps a bit more to the story than some of the stans wanted to admit. I even told them that if they wanted to use canon character for other tags, that they were welcome to do so and I would in turn filter out the tag and we could go back to being happy. Somehow I don't think they liked that answer.

And I know that some fandoms do have specific tags that are devoted like this, usually with slightly less...petty names, but the idea is usually more that there's a lot more genuine room for debate on the subject. Such as video games with karma and split endings or divided routes where one character may be very different depending on which way you go. Jiang Cheng has no such excuse, but we still made a tag anyway so that they could have their precious Jiang Cheng tag.

How greedy must you be to say that having the whole main character tag to yourself isn't enough and that you need this one too to be happy? What happens then if we do make a new tag, will they move over and take that one too because they need every tag in the world that mentions their precious character?

Yeah, I'm not giving up canon jiang cheng to them. I was here first, this chair has a firm imprint of my butt in it and they can deal with it.

#mdzs #canon jiang cheng #asks #anon #anon asks #my tag

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woomycritiques543 · 1 year

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As a HB/HH liker, I sincerly apologize on behalf of most of the fandom, As someone who actually likes those shows, i'll admit that they do have major flaws (Seeing Stars was meh for me), but seeing how fans, Especially big fans/artists (Like DaniDraws, Teathekook, Elcee, etc) react to any sort of criticism on twitter, is rather embarrasing to say the least.

(You can imagine the releif when I read the rest of this. lol!)

Thank you, its nice to see someone from the main tags being reasonable for once. Very rare when I end up seeing that.

Its not even just the big artists, its people from Spindlehorse too that act childishly about it. Getting suprised when anyone doesnt like an episode and pitching fits about criticism, acting immature in general.

Speaking about critique in such a condecending way that can only be concluded as "shaming" rather than just dissapointment. Not even admitting to the episode had flaws, but shaming those who critiqued it. Vivziepop being so petty, that she liked this specific post as a way to pretend as if the critiques were "wrong." (putting "ruins the show" in quotations, the way its being said, the emoji, etc.) These being the comments after. With the average "wait for another episode!" excuse when theres now been enough episodes to know most of the quality of how the show will be going forward. This was also written before S2 Episode two, another awful episode, which made this all the more hilarious to read from these people. Also saying "this is just temporary!" or that "im just watching them to prove to the haters that they're "wrong" and they gotta see what happens before they judge them!" as if the last episode didnt fuck up the lore of the past ones (spoiler alert: it did.) which would automatically effect other episodes by default. There also being mostly character decisions that would effect the rest of the show based on how the show is sugarcoating their actions. Not letting them actually develop as a result.

Hince the "ruined" statement the fandom has been saying.

Since- the timeline was ruined, the potiential in certain characters was ruined by the backpeddling and sugarcoating. We dont need to watch other episodes to know this as "ruined". They're that bad.

These episodes are allowed to be judged as themselves Callis (I know there are people from your staff reading this.) we dont need to know "everything" about the show and whats going to happen to stand our ground about how we feel about it. Were not doing this to "assume" about whats going to happen. The show is already bad, this has been proven to us hundreds of times already. No new episode is going to "fix" how much damage thats been done already unless they rewrite the story altogether. The merch, the sugarcoating, and all.

Callis saying that the critiques were "mean" just because they arent the ones who constantly kiss the feet of their favorite ocs and mention that-gasp??? Their "bad people" demon characters are- NOT GOOD PEOPLE?! and- GASP! Should legit be held accountable for their actions?! WOW! Its almost like this isnt the "secretly wholesome" adult cartoon that they wanted it to be but was executed as showing their characters as awful because- GASP! The writers also just happened to not be good people with questionable morals! /j

A group of bad people trying to dictate what's "moral" or not? Who would have guessed that this would eventually lead to the show becoming messed up as all fuck- not even in a good way, but showing messages from the writers terrible enough to make even a 90's series blush.

Its almost like all of this whining about people who critique in the fandom is just an attempt to gaslight people into seeing the critiques as "hot takes" and not anything of actual value. When people are upset for actual reasons. No "youre allowed to critique" gaslighting is going to make us hold back our words. Lmao!

Calis also mentioning a nonsensical critique about Lucifer's new design but not even mentioning what people were actually upset about. Its bias such as this that is just that- "Embarassing."

These people react to the critique like teenagers who just got a f on a test for the first time. Immature, making excuses, and just downright being very condesending, gaslighting, and non-addressing.

So your ask was entirely understandable anon. Thank you for apologizing. It wont do much for how these people effect us, but I do appreciate the empathy. Thank you.

#helluva boss #helluva critical #it truly is embarassing to watch.#these people react to the criticism like teenagers.#its hilarious! theyre so petty about it you'd think that a bunch of kids wrote these comments #but no! theyre all grown adults! older than even me! HAHA!

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blushiing-official · 1 year

Text

nice to meet everyone ig

(HUGE POST INTRODUCING MYSELF AND WHAT I MAY POST HERE)

(thoughts connected to a topic will be separated by [//], and topics will be separated by [////////])

/////////

hello! I go by blushiing, hence the name lol :)

I am mostly multifandom, anything that interests me goes in my little trashcan of a brain 👍

poc

I struggle a bit with my mental health so posting may vary from multiple posts a day to barely any posts in a week sometimes

this is where my fancontent and art will go, I suppose [fandoms I may post abt are in tags]

I'll also post stuff my friends ask me to draw as well cause they're great yk 👍

(spoiler alert it's so very silly and not straight. I also may post suggestive things here I think, any characters depicted will be over the age of 18 ofc)

/////////

INFO ABOUT SHIPS AND HEADCANONS!!! BC APPARENTLY THATS IMPORTANT:

splatoon 🦑🐙 :

I ship pearlina/marine/calpearl/frye x shiver/agent 8 x agent 4, and have my own agent ocs as well as normal splat ocs.

nsfw content for ships I draw will not be of any canon agents/characters that do not canonically have an age yet.

(pearl and marina are believed to be 26/23, and callie and marie are at least 24 as of splatoon 3. it is also believed that neo 3 is still 14/15, agents 4 and 8 may be 19 and 18, respectively, and captain 3 is now 21, but this has not been completely confirmed and therefore I will only be drawing sfw for them specifically. plus they're so silly and goofy why would anyone wanna sexualize some goofy ahh young adults)

for headcanons I hc that the squid sisters and pearl are black. I am okay with depicting all characters in their original skin tones, but if I post art that has to deal with my headcanons, I will not be going into petty arguments over fictional squid and octopus people.

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super mario/nintendo 🟥🟩:

I ship luigi x daisy and bowigi, and I am not opposed to mario x peach.

I like to think that most of the characters (including bowser) like to be open with their identity and orientation.

luigi is depicted to like wearing peach's dress in an official comic, and mario even has a wedding gown outfit in odyssey. even if they're straight in canon or not, they're comfortable enough to wear things that are not seen as what 'typical men' would wear. I love that abt them.

luigi is my bf and nobody can take that away from me.

///////////

sonic 🦔💨:

I ship rouge x knuckles and sonic x shadow. idk how to truly feel about sonamy as sonic is 15 and amy is 12, but I see it as a cute puppy love kinda thing. (btw rouge is 18, knuckles is 16, and shadow is 17)

not much else to say here except I like the real-time fandubs go watch them love snapcube

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self insert content 👤✅:

I have a self insert I will use for any visual novels/dating sims, their name is astrid. their age can vary, for example if they were in ddlc.

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oc content ✏️📃:

a friend and I are working on projects regarding our ocs. one of my ocs, taryn, is in both projects. their appearance is different in each one.

taryn is over the age of 18, and their partners are as well. any mature content the three of them are drawn in and posted here will have a content warning.

////////

I think that's everything for now, welcome! if you made it to the end, thanks :)

(I hope I got everything)

#splatoon #sonic fandom #oc #super mario #self insert

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queerofthedagger · 2 years

Note

You followed be back after I followed you and then unfollowed me a few days later?

I'm assuming that this is a question about why I unfollowed you again.

Short answer: come off anon, and I will tell you exactly which post it was that you put on my dash that made me decide I didn't want to see more of you.

But because this is something I have strong feelings about, because I've had a bunch of asks about this that I've ignored, and because you were only slightly rude, the longer answer is: fanfiction, and fandom as a whole, is a hobby of mine. I do this to unwind, to have fun, to enjoy myself. As such, I'm very, very particular about curating my experience on here. If someone follows me and I feel up to it, I'll check their blog to see if I might want to follow back (side note: a lot of times I won't have the time or energy and won't do this at all). I won't follow back if the initial scroll of someone's profile shows me they have a bunch of stuff I don't care about, or has takes about my favourite shows and/or characters I disagree with.

I will block someone if they have nothing on their blog, if they display antisemitism, racism, transphobia, queerphobia, etc., or if they so much as vaguely allude to buying into the belief that 'some' ships or themes in fiction are immoral. Yes, that includes the "icky stuff". Yes, this includes the stuff I personally don't want to read. If you think that there are any topics in fiction and/or fanfiction that people shouldn't write about or enjoy, I will block you on sight.

Again, this is my hobby. I do not use tumblr for politics or whatever. This doesn't mean I don't care, it simply means that I consider tumblr the worst possible medium to do anything about it. In a broader sense, beyond specific topics: you're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to thinking that you are mighty stupid, and to prevent myself from having to deal with your bad takes.

If I haven't blocked you but only unfollowed, you probably posted and/or reblogged takes about shows, books, or characters I care about that I don't agree with. I cannot say this often enough - I am here to have fun. I'm not here for discourse, I'm not here to see people drag things that bring me joy. I'm not saying you're wrong, even if the petty part of me thinks you are. You are here to have fun too. But I don't want to see it, plain and simple. I don't have to. If you get on my nerves through the tags or through other people's reblogs, I will block you for this too. Yes, I'm merciless about this; the number of blogs I've blocked goes far, far into the upper hundreds, and this isn't counting tags and blacklisted words.

This is called 'boundaries'. I'm an adult at the far end of my twenties. I have a work life, and an academic life, and a family life, and a social life, and a life dedicated to my hobbies and the things I care about, etc etc. There is only so much time I am able to spend on here, and I want to spend that time being happy about the stuff I enjoy. I don't care if you disagree - it is your godgiven right. Mine is not to engage with it.

Now, you might say, there is no way that none of my mutuals ever put something on my dash that I disagree with. And that's true. Sometimes, someone I've come to value as a friend puts something on my dash that makes me go 'bestie wtf is up with you.' Unfortunately for you, I guess, I'm human and there is this thing of 'stuff I will tolerate from my friends and/or people I like, but not from strangers.' I am lucky enough to have made some great friends on here. On top of that, there are some people I have rarely talked to but whom I am fond of anyway. They get some leeway, although that being said, that too has its boundaries.

If I have only followed you a few days ago, though, and you put something on my dash that makes me pull a face, I will unfollow you. Consider yourself important enough that it was so bad, I clicked on your profile to do so. Consider that it wasn't so bad that I actually blocked you.

Now, is this 'fair' in an ethical, equitable sense? No. I nowhere, ever, claimed to be that, while curating my goddamn tumblr feed. I'm not the government. I don't have to be. You don't have to be! You can unfollow, hell, even block people because they reblogged that one post that really raises your hackles. In fact, I do think you will be happier for it.

This is supposed to be fun. if anything about it isn't fun, get rid of it. It's not a debate in congress. It's a barely functioning hellsite about fictional brainrot that doesn't let any of us go, but that we love despite (or, actually, because of) that. Just block me. It's a little bit vindictive and feels great, I promise.

#answered asks #anonymous #mona rambles

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lancrewizzard · 3 years

Text

I’ve seen a few people actually complaining about Ao3′s upcoming tag limit of 75, and I don’t know how to say this nicely, but if you’re one of those people, you either can’t use Ao3 or you don’t know just how many tags 75 really is. You see, tags are for telling people what your fic is about so the can find/avoid it. That means you tag relevant characters, not the person who turns up for one scene to have a chat and is then never seen again. It means you tag relevant fandoms and don’t add, for example, “Harry Potter” to a Good Omens fic which has Aziraphale drop a line about his friend Irma Prince.

Let’s take a hypothetical story which might need a lot of tags, say a big crossover fic, since they seem to be the ones which keep clogging up all the tags. I’ll accept there might be half a dozen major fandoms in there with a handful of characters from each one having enough of a role to be worth mentioning. That gets us up to 30. Accounting for one prominent relationship per fandom still doesn’t get us above 40. That still leaves another 30-odd freeform tags, while the average total number of tags is only 17. You can likely list relevant AUs, tropes, and the like in half that, and if it’s something really dark that somehow needs more than 20 trigger tags, you can still list more and chapter specific ones in the author’s notes.

I can’t describe quite how easy it is for a remotely competent AO3 user to use less than 75 tags. Under the cut, because I’m a petty bitch, I’ll do a breakdown of tags by someone who is not remotely competent.

First, feast your eyes on this wall of tags that takes up almost two whole screens (title, author, and description hidden to protect the guilty. sadly this is one of at least 4 they have like this)

Look at it. Let this wall of tags fill your soul and remember this isn’t an outlier, the (very small) fandom I found this in has had half a dozen similarly tagged fics added to it in the last year. This abomination has 178 fandom tags alone. That huge chunk of relationship tags? That’s what 63 tags looks like, and some people are saying 75 is too few?? Freeform tags add up to only 17, and absolutely none of them are characters.

All of this for a fic about 34k long, so let’s look closer.

1) They’ve tagged just about every animated Disney movie ever made, but also “Disney - All Media Types.” You do not need to do this. Tag the major properties and add the broader tag, so readers know other Disney movies are going to have a bit part.

2) I don’t know who the main characters are, you don’t know who the main characters are, and even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to find it in their character tag because they haven’t tagged a single character. Tag for your major players, maybe notable supporting characters if you feel it’s relevant.

3) Is the fic relationship centric? Which relationship? Who knows! if each ship listed gets equal page time, they get roughly 500 words each out of 34,000. You don’t need to tag every background relationship, especially if it’s canon since most readers will presume canonical relationships unless told otherwise. Only tag a relationship if it’s a major part of the story. Whether that means focusing on the romance or if them being a constant presence in the near background counts is up to you to decide. Just don’t do the nonsense this person did, okay?

4) Basically, I should have a rough understanding what’s going to happen and who’s going to be involved after reading the tags and summary. If that’s not the case, you need to do both better.

#ao3 #ro's bottomless salt mine #ro's rambles #i feel very strongly about this okay

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crimeronan · 3 years

Note

Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so. yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world. follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content. in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass. which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype. mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that. yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale. both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness?? rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family?? rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life?? rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry?? once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks?? all that repression baybey. this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years. every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far. not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc. i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc. but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me. he’s so fucking good

#replies #tsc #tda #julian blackthorn #meta #long post #ungodly long post.#shadowhunters #Anonymous

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everything-laito · 3 years

Note

hey,,, i've seen this controversial opinion about laito not being sexually assaulted by cordelia. . .as the only opinion of laito that matters, what are your thoughts on it? i know you've made some posts in the past about cordelia and laito's relationship, but i think that now would be a good time to i guess, remake a post or clarify your thoughts so people could follow along?? i hope you enjoy your day.

*proceeds to crack all my knuckles at once*

This isn't really my own "response" cuz oh boy I'm sick of this petty ass drama lmao. To begin, SKLDJF I'm very flattered that you hold my opinion in that high of regard! I'd say there's others that have interesting interpretations of him too though :) but again, thank you :') glad you enjoy what I have to say!

I know I've already kinda responded to this via a screenshot here, just to hold you––and others reading this––over. As much as this is a great time to talk about a how-to-analysis, I’ll still put that as a separate post eventually, but I still will go over the philosophy of truth and writings etc. But anyways, to answer your initial questions, they’re under the cut!

And no, I’m not specifically calling anyone out here. These are just issues with the fandom that I find as a whole, along with some extremists. Thus, I’m not going to be putting tags for people to easily find this post because I don’t want to be wound up in this drama––once again this is just more commentary on the fandom as a whole, which hopefully you can apply to people you find!

I have a lot of my own thoughts about Cordelia and Laito’s relationship here (just in case if people need it):

1. Goes over potential grooming of Laito, facts about Cordelia and what happened before she did stuff to Laito, and when did she rape Laito for the first time?

2. Stuff about incest and how any relationship out of a parental/child relationship is abuse even if it’s not penetrative sex, more incest stuff, and just more thoughts on their relationship

3. Neuroplasticity, trauma, Karlheinz, and isolation

4. What does sexual trauma look like? And some stuff on Laito’s facade

5. More stuff on his facade, and projection on Yui

6. My thoughts on Laito’s dark fate vampire ending + Conclusion

7. Answering some inbox stuff relating to Cordelia

Sure I realize I might be missing some stuff but that’s just my whole analysis on them. I’ll probably make some follow up posts eventually but I’m not sure when that will be.

But as for this analysis/ramble, I’ll divide it up into sections:

The issue of hypocrisy in the Dialovers fandom:

I- oh dear god. Ok, just saying, there’s a lot of people being like “oh I hate Cordelia because she was abusive” then ??? yo??? Why do you like the boys?? They’re abusive and we see more of them than Cordelia??? I just personally hate hypocrisy. However, it’s okay to hate Cordelia! It’s okay to love Cordelia! It’s okay to hate the boys and it’s okay to love the boys too. But recognizing that you don’t like one or the other just because “they’re abusive” is a fallacy at that point.

The reason why so many people hate Karlheinz/Cordelia/Beatrix/Christa/Richter (or at least start off hating them) is because they are written as the villains of the story! Karl’s the main villain, and the rest (including the diaboys and Yui) are kinda just tragically wound up in his plans. You sympathize more with the boys because you spend more time with them and watch them grow! It’s a whole “us vs them” situation. Since those people were awful to the boys/the boys hate them, you’re like “yeah they’re bad!” But the issue with the whole “us vs them” situation (as in real life) is that people tend to excuse the actions done by the “us” party.

Same thing goes with extreme Karl/Cordelia/Richter fans (I’ve never seen a hardcore Beatrix/Christa fan but they’re probably out there). Some hate the diaboys but love the people in that party. They’ve also done some shitty stuff too! Bro, even Yui has done some terrible stuff! But that’s because she was a product of the events she was thrown into––and same with everyone else.

Karl has been the mastermind of all this, and for me I don’t have any sympathy for him, mainly because we’re not shown anything to sympathize with (except that he just is tired of living but idk why he wants to create a whole new race like lmao science nerd ig, I feel that king). A lot of people like him for his looks, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing––he’s a fictional character, objectify these characters however you want. This is more of a personal opinion of mine though. And maybe people do just sympathize with his outlook on life, that’s totally fine.

But since these characters are all attractive in their own regard, they all get the treatment of “pretty-boy” syndrome (Idek if that’s the exact name for it). Which is just the privilege pretty people get. But again, this is fictional, so it’s not necessarily important in this case. Bro I got into DL cuz of “ooga booga hot vampires” and stayed for the complex lore and characters (especially one complex character, wonder who that could be). I imagine most people got into DL because of that, or out of sheer curiosity.

Ok, I’m throwing out a lot of points but not really connecting them. Lemme give you an example: I don’t like Reiji. His character doesn’t vibe with me most of the time aside from the fact that he’s hilarious. But I just am very neutral/neutral-negative on his character. But I’m not like “oh cuz he’s mean/abusive” cuz LOL EVERYONES MEAN IN THIS GAME. Sure you can still say that, it’s just not a very strong claim. Hypocritical claims tend to be like that. Same with a lot of Yui haters. In this case, they’re more jealous that she’s there and not them, which I’ve explained a lot in this post about toxic femininity and Yui in the fandom etc. But it’s ok to just not like a character! It’s alright! I know someone who just doesn’t vibe with Subaru. She doesn’t know why, she just doesn’t vibe with him. There’s no need to defend it either. But the use of hypocrisy is my main issue, and I’ll get to that in the next section.

(There’s a really good post explaining this too but I cannot find it for the life of me. I think it was made by @/abottleofkarlheinz or @/the-madame21)

How opinions of fictional universes left unchecked can effect real life:

I’ve said this a little bit in that Dialover PSA post I’ve made about Yui that I linked a couple paragraphs ago. But the reasons why people say they hate Yui is concerning. If you don’t like Yui, that’s totally fine! Again you don’t need reasons to hate on a character or defend it. But if you do choose to defend those characters, make sure what you’re saying isn’t out of some other place in your heart. Let me explain.

In that “Yui PSA” post I made, I say how your attitudes in being critical of a fictional universe usually does reflect on who you are as a person, at least when you’re making certain claims. In that Yui post, I say that the hatred on Yui is a result of the “other girl” mentality. On top of that, it erases her experience as a survivor. Yes, this is a fictional character, but bringing that into real life can have some dire consequences if you don’t differentiate them. If you have the same attitude of Yui with other survivors if the “abuser is hot” then thaaaaaat’s so fucked up.

For example, there’s people who have crushes on real life serial killers! That- that’s absolutely disgusting! Those real people killed living people and effected so many lives and families. Dude I have fictional crushes on fictional serial killers, and that’s different, because it is a removed universe. It’s why I can still call myself a lesbian but still have crushes on fictional male characters, for a further example (and vice versa! I have straight friends who crush on fictional characters of their same gender! But that doesn’t make them any less straight. And no, I’m not erasing bi people here either, just clarifying in case if you needed that).

Not being able to differentiate your opinions of a fictional universe can get very toxic. Like I love Laito, but I’m not like “omg I wish he was real so he could do that stuff to me uwu” like no!!! UH!!! I wouldn’t want to date anyone like him in real life! That’s literal abuse! And if Laito was here in real life it’s not a controlled environment, he’d literally be able to do anything with you, etc. That’s what makes a fantasy, a fantasy. They’re controlled.

Also vice versa, some people get really triggered by Dialovers, specifically Laito’s route. A lot of non-consensual acts that he does have been experienced by people in real life in any extent, myself included. For me, it’s a personal escape from that, because it is an environment where I am prepared for those events and can control my exposure to it. For some, they are reminded of the reality they had to experience. Fictional universes are inspired by real life, no matter what way you look at it. Real life people are making it, after all.

I feel like I’m going in so many circles, but trust me, I’m getting to the point.

I- I can’t explain this enough but it is most definitely implied that Cordelia had raped and sexually abused Laito. If it was explicit, DL would be an 18+ game, but they cannot do that in Japan. I’m not going to like defend this point because so many people (myself included) have defended this point. It’s implications carry over into Laito’s character and why he’s like this. He’s a textbook sexual abuse survivor. I just,,,, cannot explain this enough. Same thing with overwriting the abuse of Yui. They get jealous of Yui. Sure I’d say a good chunk of people have ravishment fantasies here. At least the 18+ people in the fandom who are into that stuff. But oh my dear god, ravishment fantasies are super super dangerous to enact in real life. It’s possible to do them, but it would take years of building up to that point in kink. That’s a whole other discussion though and I’m not incredibly comfortable talking about it knowing that minors read my blog (I’ll also have to say here: no minors in kink--its alright to educate yourself but pleaaaaaaaaaase don’t enact on any of those activities until you are of age, and even so that still can be dangerous right as you turn 18).

But anyways, saying that Yui should enjoy this because she’s experienced the ravishment fantasy you’ve dreamed of? Oh fucking hell, if you leave that opinion and mentality unchecked and it goes into real life, that’s incredibly awful. Abuse apologists are absolutely terrible people, almost as much as the abusers themselves.

If you twist the narrative that Laito loves Cordelia or Yui loves the boys at the end of the first game, that’s still––ughhhhhhhh. Especially when it’s so obvious that Laito has so many mental issues with Cordelia. His whole monologue and breakdown at the end of Dark Fate definitely tells us that he has had such an issue with Cordelia. And MB+ Laito is still Laito. As for Yui, dude she literally goes through stockholm syndrome in the first game like it is so goddamn apparent idek how to explain this at this point.

Ok dear god lmao wow, uh I think that’s answering the first couple of questions?

The philosophy of truth:

“Truth” has been an incredibly debated topic in philosophy for years. Truth is more of a subjective item rather than objective. Sure you can have personal objective truths, but they may not be the same truths for others. For example, a tomato is red. However, that tomato is red to me, because I am not color blind. A red-green color blind person may see the tomato as being brown or more muted in color. That’s their truth. They can’t really imagine what red is (ok depending on severity of their color blindness), considering they have not experienced the color red in the same way people who don’t have color blindness do. God uh, here’s a whole ass essay about truth, I’m cherry picking some of the things in there that are relevant to this.

Basically what I’m saying is, truth is very subjective. However, there are philosophers arguing a more objective truth. But that’s a whole other discussion. Also, this isn’t to support any political opinion, but I can use that as an example. Let’s go for well... The death penalty. I’m in America, we have the death penalty in some states. Yes, this is a very controversial topic, and no I’m not arguing the ethics of it here. Just hear me out.

If you live in Europe for example (except in Belarus and Russia––ok when I looked it up they consider Russia in Europe and technically it is but also there’s the whole chunk that is not- lmao even the truth of geography can be subjective), you might be like “yeah what the fuck are Americans doing?” (a common sentiment that I also share lmao). But yeah, what the fuck are we doing? Why is the death penalty still in existence? Yes, there’s statistics that prove that it doesn’t deter crime, but even crime rates is caused by a lot of different things too. Even statistics aren’t always accurate, because of many different factors. They’re not objective either, although good statisticians try their best to get good results and not skew the data. (please try to see where your data is coming from and who it is sponsored by––it matters a TON)

I’d say the closest thing we have as an objective truth to argue the death penalty or not is money. Money, although the concept is subjective, is a very objective currency. It’s why artists hate “exposure” compared to “money” as sole currency. The death penalty is very expensive, and not even used that often.

So, although money is currency made by us, and is technically 75% linen and 25% cotton (in America at least) with some funky dudes n numbers printed on it, it doesn’t sound that special. However, it would be considered as a baseline of some type of “objective truth” in ~society~ because people are typically on the same page of what money’s worth. Even so, this baseline of truth is still subjective! If Bill Gates accidentally has a $20 bill fall out of his pocket, that’s nothing to him! But if someone who’s working very hard to make ends meet loses that same amount of money, it could deal a lot of financial damage to that person.

Ok, hopefully you guys kind of get my drift. There are a lot of theories of truth, I’m just explaining one (honestly I forget the name of this theory) because it is the closest to the types of truth we are dealing with. And in this case, it’s called “canon.”

What the fuck is analysis:

The concept of “canon” is the objective truth that we have when analyzing universes. They’re our bread and butter of interpretation and extrapolation. The art of analysis clings to this notion of an objective truth. It needs a baseline. I’m going off of Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle, because that type of analysis I have the most experience with.

This is called rhetorical analysis. Rhetoric is the use of words in a persuasive fashion, and the analysis part is a breakdown of how words are used in order to achieve persuasiveness. I don’t typically use a lot of explicit rhetorical analysis in my personal writings, but I guess a version of it. Which typically has to deal with intention and execution. A lot of analysis on language has to do with this. Language is incredibly subjective. Certain words carry individual meanings to people. I have gone over the difference between real and lexical definitions before, and I’ll do it again.

I’ll just copy and paste what I’ve said before here from this analysis:

To put it simply, lexical definitions are the definitions you find in the dictionary. This is an “official” and “agreed upon” definition. Real definitions (quite a misleading name in my opinion) is the definition that’s more kind of “felt” in a way and how you internally interpret the word in context (these can be through individuals or any niche group). What I mean by this is that when you say a word (for example) to convey a feeling, you usually won’t know the dictionary definition off the top of your head. You say that something’s “savage” for example when you want to describe something violent or gruesomely awesome (it depends if it’s in a slang context or not) but there’s many lexical definitions (and outdated lexical definitions) of the term. But the first definition that usually comes up is “adj (of an animal or force of nature) fierce, violent, and uncontrolled.”

But people typically don’t think of the lexical definition when they learn what a word means; they usually learn the context of it and apply it as such. And that’s what a “real” definition is. Laito has a differing definition of what affection and love is, and that’s his own meaning and what it means to him.

I’ll even add another example to that too. The word “cunt” in english refers to a vagina. That’s just it. It’s lexically synonymous with “vagina,” “pussy,” etc. However, “cunt” has a subjective meaning to it. This is where “real” definitions also come into play. Many people view the word as vulgar and dirty. And that’s cuz we live in a ~society~ lmao. Our use of language has shaped what this word means in a context outside of the dictionary. I’ll do you one more. The Japanese word マンコ (manko) is also vulgar slang that’s kind of like our word “cunt/pussy.” Sometimes I say “cunt” for jokes, but I don’t use it that often to begin with since it’s just a very strong word to most (albeit it’s not that strong of a word for me). However, マンコ is a strong word to many Japanese people, but if I hear it even though I’ve been learning Japanese, it doesn’t have that same effect as hearing “cunt” for me is (which still, idc if I really hear it depending on context) because I haven’t been shaped in a culture that uses Japanese.

Even so, tone, intention, and context is HUGE in this. If someone called me a “useless fucking cunt” when they’re angry at me, I’d be close to crying. If someone told that to me as a joke, I’d be like “lol yeah you right, bitchass” and if someone said that in a consensual sexual context, it would certainly tickle my masochistic heart.

DSLKFJ also sorry if you don’t like hearing that word, I just had to utilize a strong example for this. But anyways, now let’s change the lens to Dialovers.

No, it never explicitly says that Cordelia rapes Laito. It doesn’t. However, there’s this WACKY thing called being able to infer, reading between the lines, and identifying implications. Those are kind of all the same things. However, indirect exposition is used a lot in effective creative writing. The utilization of this type of exposition is more preferred when writing a story, because direct exposition is kind of referred to as “info-dumping” when used excessively. Forgive my jargon: this is just showing vs telling as we’re taught in every writing class. I’m personally very bad at it, which is why I stick to writing these, and stick to reading creative fiction. (NOT SAYING IF YOU’RE NOT GOOD AT THIS TO NOT CONTINUE TO PRACTICE CREATIVE FICTION, I JUST DONT HAVE THE CURRENT MOTIVATION TO GET GOOD AT IT)

Dialovers uses a LOOOOOT of showing. And even so, its “showing” ability is very minimal considering the Japanese language can be vague on its own, it’s medium (visual novel) does not show a lot of things explicitly most of the time (and even when it is shown it doesn’t convey a lot). There’s several CGs of Laito and Yui where it doesn’t show the amount of pain or the dire situation Yui’s in, compared to what she’s saying she’s going through.

When I made my whole breakdown on Laito’s HDB route from Yui’s perspective, I got several comments about how they didn’t realize how bad his route really was. That’s either because people might not have experience with verbal abuse themselves, can’t exactly see Yui’s body language except her head (and even so, her expressions are limited), or don’t know a lot of gaslighting/verbal abuse techniques/have done research into it. Honestly verbal abuse is kind of hard to realize, so I’m not calling anyone dumb here. Despite me knowing a lot of the signs, I didn’t know I went through it––and even so I’ve denied it. And that’s what is so effective about this game though! Especially Laito’s route! Because you’re also sucked in with limited knowledge because you’re seeing this through Yui’s perspective, and on top of that it’s isolating. You can only make so many choices, and I feel like Dialovers is perfect as a visual novel. You get caught up with a lot of shock value things that Laito says, which serves as a perfect distraction for your first time through. But anyways, I’m getting off track.

For example, many people found his Maniac 07 chapter to be very confusing. I broke that one down here as well, and even so I was confused at first (also I was like 14/15, dear god). It tells you SO little, but you know that Laito’s incredibly upset at Richter for some reason, and even so, Yui comments on it a little too. Laito is shown to still hate Richter in DF, but he talks about it a tad more.

Here’s a further example from my writings in that first part of the Cordelia/Laito analysis series but I have bolded the terms I use to convey this rhetoric:

There hasn’t been any flashbacks that specifically show us the first time that happened. However, I believe that there was a flashback in HDB that shows one of the first times. Here’s a scene from Laito’s Dark Epilogue:

Cordelia: ー Laito…Laito… Laito: …Hm? Is something the matter? Cordelia: I have a favor to ask. It just isn’t enough. You can do it, right Laito? Laito: You really are something…So that’s why you came to me again? Cordelia: Fufufu…That’s right, Laito. Come on, quickly… Laito: …Guess it can’t be helped. I’ll love you plenty. Cordelia: Aah…My cute Laito~ I love you. I really do. Laito: I can do it…right? Cordelia: Of course, Laito. Now, quickly…

First of all, ew. Second of all, Laito’s diction implies that this was maybe the second or third time this occurred. He asks a question, and ends it with “again.” We know by this that it is not the first time, but the question also means that Laito might not have expected to occur again. His tone also implies some surprise to it, at least in my ears. His other question, “I can do it, right?” screams hesitance to me. If this scene took place down the line, or after many times he did this with Cordelia, I don’t believe he’d be some level of surprised or hesitance.

That’s what rhetorical analysis is. You take the contextual meaning of the words, the tone they use, and extrapolate what they imply. On top of this, we know that the term “love” here is sexual, implying that they did something sexual. We are not given the details of this, but considering we know that Laito uses “love” before he rapes Yui in the game, we can infer that’s what happened (or something similar) to himself with Cordelia, considering he projects on Yui quite a bit.

I was going to go over what is good/bad analysis, but I think I’ve implied it anyways here. Utilizing separate information from different sources of canon in order to make sense of something is good analysis. That’s our objective truth: canon. I’m not saying I’m the best at analysis, but I am fairly confident in it. It’s how I’m able to attempt to answer some of your “how would Laito react” questions without it being specifically hinted in the game. You cannot cherry pick specific sentences and go off of that alone for analysis. It’s context. It’s reading tone. It’s knowing the characters attitudes towards things, how they speak, etc. There’s a lot going into analysis in general. I know I didn’t elaborate on Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle right now, but that’s for another date I suppose.

Oh dear god I hope I didn’t lose you guys, I know this is a lot of information, but if you have any questions/comments/clarifications, as always, please let me know!

Hope you enjoyed! -Corn

#analysis #ask corn

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