#but i've been thinking about sometimes prioritizing what i want to do vs what people want to see from me. so now you're getting

[idolomantises]

talking abt that one thing in velma thats on my mind a lot for the past few days (that turned into a big incoherent rambling about gay rep in media)

i'm seeing jokes about how the queer representation in mystery inc being so much better than the queer representation in velma and honestly it makes me want to go on a whole tangent about my thoughts on queer representation nowadays vs the more subtle examples decades prior.

There's this weird debate that goes on online about what is "good" queer representation, and one of the most notable and honestly annoying examples is that queer representation has to be so subtle that you could easily miss it/ignore it. i've always hated that take because its a claim mostly said by straight people who are uncomfortable with seeing characters who are openly queer and/or state their identity, but they present it as some sort of push for subtle and nuanced writing. personally i do prefer it when a character just, identifies as how they are without explaining their identity, but that doesn't mean flat out explaining your orientation is inherently bad representation. its why i will always defend the very clunky and awkward high guardian spice scene. it is absolutely poorly directed and written, but that doesn't make it "bad representation". however, I do consider the character who explains that he's trans bad representation because he is flat, uninteresting and very clearly a creator self insert. he doesn't feel like a well rounded character who's also a trans man, but just an incredibly sanitized example of trans representation.

i have many, many issues with helluva boss/hazbin hotel and i do genuinely find some depictions of queer characters just flat out offensive (you can argue with me about how angel dust being written like your average 90s gay stereotype is woke actually because he has trauma, i dont care), but i do admire and appreciate that the series doesn't want to sanitize its queer characters, even if its done poorly. though i could go into a whole rant about how i find it very telling that female characters that are queer are far less sexualized or allowed to be problematic compared to their queer male counterparts.

anyways back to velma. that show does something that i've always found pretty irritating in queer representation which is just this weird lack of faith in its audience. characters can't have a slow burn anymore. internalized thoughts, anger, frustration, longing. you have to immediately know that two characters are gay for each other, even if they're lifelong enemies. its like when modern horror movies open with the gore because they're scared people are going to be bored or leave early. there's no subtlety or chemistry between daphne and velma, they're just lovers because idk, its two girls who hate each other and who doesn't love that.

then i think about how mystery inc handled velma and her sexuality, how she was allowed to be well rounded and nuanced before you slowly realize that "oh, she doesn't like boys". i know her whole thing with shaggy is controversial among fans but i always loved how she does do something pretty unlikable but not immoral. yeah, it is shitty to force shaggy to choose between her and his dog, but i can understand her line of thinking and empathize with her. and i do like how they become friends in the end despite their awkward break up. It's always fun rewatching it and realizing that their incredibly awkward and cringe relationship was meant to be awkward and cringe. it was supposed to be weird and difficult to watch, because those two weren't meant to date each other. you could see how hard velma was trying to make the relationship work despite the fact that you never get the vibe that either character was full invested in it, unlike daphne and fred's relationship.

then you had velma and her relationship with marcie, which started off as sort of a catty rivalry (not full on attempted murder, i mean holy shit hbo velma) that slowly grows to where you're completely convinced that these two did gradually like each other. and i do really enjoy stuff like that, more subtle writing like that. which doesn't just apply to queer rep btw, my favorite ships are relationships that feel understated, something you have to really dig for and pay attention to. its why i consider bubbline the best f/f representation in cartoon. because its subtle, but not too subtle where it feels out of no where when they kiss, and nuanced in ways that enhances the relationship AND characters.

there's a good amount of relationships i see in cartoons where the creator, who is usually queer themselves, often wants to depict queer relationships, but is weirdly adverse to depicting the uglier aspects of that character, and refuses to add subtlety to it. steven universe is a show i've always felt conflicted on its handling of queer representation because on the one hand i appreciate writing lesbians that are messy, traumatized and make constant mistakes. but on the other hand, the show goes out of its way to ignore these issues and/or make excuses for it, making the decision to make these characters messy and complicated genuinely baffling (this is also one of the big issues i have with catradora and stolitz).

it makes me think back to my own work too. i really enjoy making fluffy, easily digestible gay content for my followers and myself because it puts me in a good headspace. But even now and then i like exploring those little nuances too, because i don't really enjoy stories with little conflict. Because of that acknowledgement of how satisfying it is to write fluffy, queer rep, you end up putting yourself in other creator's shoes. you're so used to media that either dehumanizes gay people or tells people that they don't exist that you push yourself to make the most in your face queer rep you can but its at the cost of an interesting and subtle characters. characters that don't really have arcs or places to learn and grow.

With bugtopia i made a joke about how i want some of my queer rep to feel like you're being queerbaited. It's not literal, obviously, but mixed in with characters who are already married and in same gender relationships, i really want to write dynamics that feel subtle enough for a bit of a slow burn. even if you know they're going to end up together, to at least value the characters on their own before centering them on their relationships. queerbaiting is something that deserves all the criticism it can get, but it is embarrassing when queerbaiting feels genuinely more interesting than actual queer rep because queerbaiting has that factor of "maybe they won't get together" that adds that bit of intrigue, vs so many shows that repeatedly hammer in your head "don't worry guys, they're gonna be lesbian lovers".

mystery inc (and many other shows) being forced to keep a relationship obvious while subtle to get through censorship really forced creators to be creative with their storytelling and not center characters around their relationship and identity. but nowadays i think shows like to take the easy way out. for me, i always thought the most impactful example of queer representation in steven universe is "Rose's Scabbard". I genuinely don't enjoy that episode because it's a good example of the show thinking that trauma is an excuse for shitty behavior, but i cant deny that an entire episode of pearl breaking down and finally accepting that she wasn't the center of rose's world. it's the crew being forced to be creative and push through censors to telling a compelling story about a traumatized lesbian slowly realizing that she basically deluded herself into thinking she was someone's savior.

I think it's silly to try to place good queer representation in one box. like subtle queer rep is good, but also queer rep where a character flat out states that their gay. where I think it falls apart is when it either reinforces stereotypes without properly deconstructing or expanding on them, makes the characters so overly kind and non-controversial that the relationship is just boring, or try to make your messy and complicated characters but the narrative refuses to hold them accountable or at least acknowledge that they're doing something wrong. and to clarify on that last part, i'm not asking for some hays code nonsense where every bad person goes to prison and/or promises to stop being a bad person again. i mean the narrative doesnt just fucking sugarcoat their behavior. i don't want to see helluva boss ignore the fact that stolas made blitzo call him out for only using him for sex and then pathetically rush to justify their relationship by giving them a bizarrely sanitized and sweet backstory. and i don't want to see catra literally end the fucking universe and only do something good because she's straight up out of options and the show just decides that that was her redemption and she doesn't need to do anything to atone for what she did (including repeatedly abusing and verbally berating adora).

anyways velma has none of those interesting qualities and i'm pretty sure daphne and velma kissed because the creator is a weird pervert who thinks two girls kissing is hot.

#txt #i was thinking abt knocking off some of my longer posts on my tumblr but ya know its tumblr. its made for a blog #twitter isnt really a good place to write think pieces because its not really made for thinkpieces #i really enjoy expressing my thoughts on discourse and media but i don't want to over do it because ya know. you guys followed me for my ar #not my 2434334th post about why i think helluva boss is a bad show #but i've been thinking about sometimes prioritizing what i want to do vs what people want to see from me. so now you're getting #a long ass rant about why i think velma showing two teenagers kissing by episode 2 #encapsulates the overall issue with modern queer rep

[laundrybiscuits]

I've recently been tagged in a few WIP/"last thing you've written" type games, and…to be completely candid, I haven't been writing any kind of fic lately because I've become a little bit obsessed with analyzing the Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along.

Not for any particular purpose, I just saw it at the Hudson a little while back and have a lot of feelings about it! In my tiny scraps of spare time, I've been working on an essay about Merrily and inevitability that will probably end up rotting in my google docs*, because that's how I approach writing as a hobby.

There's just so much there, holy shit. I'm focusing particularly on "Franklin Shepard, Inc." because Radcliffe's Charley brings a frenetic, desperate vulnerability to the performance that reads so, so differently from earlier productions. Throughout the show, I was consistently blown away by the heavy lifting Radcliffe, Mendez, and Groff do in shifting the core tension from "art vs commerce" (fine but basic, and difficult to keep modern) to "how people prioritize different types of relationships in their lives."

In an effort to make this slightly less wildly off-topic for this blog: this has gotten me thinking about the way that platonic relationships are treated in narratives, particularly but not exclusively in fandom.

"Found family" is and has always been a popular trope, but I do think its current incarnation trades a lot on the underlying fantasy of relationship permanence. When we recategorize friendships as familial relationships, we're making a claim—whether or not it's justified—about the indelibility of those relationships.

That's not inherently bad (or, god forbid, problematic). I think it's very very natural, especially for those who don't necessarily have a lot of experience with the way adult friendships change over time. Why wouldn't you want something as precious and unique and amazing as a good friendship to stay with you forever?

Certain people can feel like pillars of your world, and it's fucking terrifying to think about that being yanked out from under you—or even worse, to think about your lives slowly shifting like geologic plates until suddenly you realize it's been weeks, then months, then years since you last really talked.

CHARLEY: We're not that kind of close any more, the way we used to be. And a friendship's like a garden. You have to water it and tend it and care about it. And you know what? I want it back.

It's a peculiar, particular kind of grief when it happens, because even though it's a fairly common human experience, it doesn't get socially acknowledged in the same way as e.g. a romantic breakup.

So yeah, it makes a lot of sense that found family is a popular trope in all kinds of media, not just fandom.

However...at this point, I've developed a knee-jerk wariness to the phrase "found family," because I've found it often correlates with a really flat, simplistic depiction of human relationships. In extreme cases, it simply recontextualizes a relationship within the socially acknowledged/acceptable framework of a stereotypical family unit.

This does a disservice to familial and nonfamilial relationships alike. Every family is different, so why do so many found families in media look the same?

(I was monologuing about this to my very patient girlfriend, and she pointed out that this also sets up a success/failure binary condition in relationships, where permanence is the arbiter of success in both romantic and nonromantic contexts. She is of course both beautiful and correct!)

I have friends with whom I can sometimes share a glance and know exactly what they're thinking. I even have a running joke with one friend about the sheer number of times we've said the same thing in unison over the last 15 years. I still need to be intentional about building those relationships, extending empathy when we differ, and carving out time to reconnect. Truly intimate long-term relationships of any kind involve disagreements, conflicting priorities, and negotiating and renegotiating boundaries.

Being "basically the same person" or "sharing a braincell" actually sounds super fucking lonely to me, personally, and it handily elides the difficult, essential process of keeping people in your life.

FRANK: Old friends let you go your own way. CHARLEY: Help you find your own way. MARY: Let you off when you're wrong. F: If you're wrong. C: When you're wrong. M: Right or wrong, the point is, old friends shouldn't care if you're wrong. F: Should, but not for too long. C: What's too long?

That's a more complicated and much more mature narrative to tell than "friendship will save the day!" Because it's not that common and there's not a deep bank of references to draw from, it takes a lot of effort and skill to depict well, and I don't blame creators for not wanting to let it suck up all the air in the room. However, I think it's important to acknowledge that platonic relationships can also be flanderised and flattened.

In the context of fandom, which has always traded heavily in Romance genre conventions, I would really like to see more thoughtful explorations of complicated nonromantic relationships. I'm not even talking about genfic here! I've actually been thinking about Stobin specifically because that relationship (rightly & understandably) tends to show up in any Steve-centric fic, including the vast ocean of Steddie fics, so it makes the issue slightly more visible than I've seen in other fandoms.

I'm not saying I want to see them fight, or not be friends, or not love each other fiercely and near-obsessively in the way that lonely teenagers can. I'm just saying I want them to be distinct individuals who view the world in very different ways, and choose each other anyway. They already have a complicated past; I know from personal experience that it's possible as a lesbian to be best friends with a guy who once made a little speech about how into you he was, but that little layer of history never quite goes away.

I don't want frictionless relationships in my life. I want people who will challenge me and whom I can challenge, in the context of love and trust. I want people in my life whom I have to work to understand, because my life is richer when I do. And sometimes, I want narratives that will reflect the grief of friendships that are no longer part of my life, despite the best efforts of everyone involved.

In Merrily, Charley sings, "Friendship's something you don't really lose—" but Radcliffe's thready, pleading delivery makes it all too clear: Charley already knows he's lying. The audience just needs to catch up.

*Other essays in that particular graveyard: understanding the cast of Peanuts through the lens of anomie, humor and subversive linguistic nationalism in 00s Singaporean TV, how to fix Miss Saigon. WHY am I this way.

#side note: how fucking good was Radcliffe in that role? what a glow-up from HTSIBWRT #all the casting was brilliant but (Tony winner!) Mendez and (Tony nominated) Groff were less of a dark horse #anyway I think...I might start to get a little less rigid about letting myself dump nonfandom or fandom-adjacent posts here #we'll see if I have more time to post and/or write once this busy period at work dies down #recently is a relative term btw. I have been tagged more recently than the cambrian explosion. so that counts. #I appreciate the tags and it's very nice of y'all to think of me though!

[alevolpe]

Hi :) How are you? (This is going to be a lengthy ask lol)

You mentioned in one of your posts that you would like to see the relationship between the senshi and the normal everyday people and perhaps the humans turning against the Senshi.

What do you think about the enemy working with the human government to take down the Senshi to fulfill their goal of forming their empire or whatever and what your headcanon might predict of how it's all going to go down?

I wish the SM franchise would explore more with the outsiders perspective and relationship between the senshi's.

Hi! Sorry you've prob waited a while for this one, my bad.

But yeah, I've mentioned before that the public has an active and rocky relationship with the senshi.

It's a very mixed bag! But overall, to grossly generalize, most younger people are in favor of them and idolize them, while older people and parents tend to scrutinize and antagonise them.

They are unknown beings, who just pop in out of nowhere and at best cause property damage and at worst, well cause some casualties (in my hc, sometimes they fail and people die, it's unfortunate, but it's a reality they have to live with).

Say you're a parent your child turned into an otherworldly creature, a group of 'defenders' shows up and leads you away while promising you they'll try their best to save your child. Next thing you know, one of them walks to you with simply a bag of dust in their hands and a devastated expression, but no words spoken, and they leave.

This is what I see a few people experienced, parents, friends, siblings.. they can't really see past their own grief to understand that these saviors aren't just perfect immortal beings who can just decided who gets to live and who doesn't. They're human, like them, but not quite.

On the other hand, I see people adoring and respecting them, on the more superficial side cause they are superheroes and why wouldn't you idolize a person with super powers, furthermore on the more emotional side, people have been saved or have had other people saved by them. They're grateful and compassionate.

I can totally understand both sides, at the end of the day, people are scared of the unknown, you can't totally blame them for not trusting the senshi, no matter how many justice speeches they deliver.

Going more into the lore aspect, I don't really see the government working with the enemy, it's a neat idea, but I wouldn't really fit in my narrative.

I was thinking more along the lines of a subtle influence by the enemy. Pushing the public to hate the senshi more and more, to the point that they can't even show up by themselves without risking getting attacked by mobs for people.

After a particular deadly explosion, the public perception of them has hit an all time low, and the new enemy strives to dig that even deeper and deeper.

It starts with news articles after rumors and interviews, all these factors fueling a never-ending machine of paranoia. The senshi show up on missions like they always do, all of a sudden, stones get tossed, along with insults and threats. It gets so bad that they can't even transform without informing the others, they can't travel alone, they are just in a form of hiding, powerless to help people without putting themselves in massive danger.

Small note, but I think this situation in particular is very compelling. Seeing how differently the girls take on the issue of not being able to help the public cause the public does not want to be helped. Especially for Mina, she basically has to make the very hard decision of prioritizing the safety of her girls over the safety of innocent people and this could cause a lot of super interesting clashes within the group.

Going even further, it gets worse and now random girls start getting attacked and so forth. You kind of see what I'm getting at. This is the plot of one fo the seasons in my narrative.

It's not really government vs senshi, but the actual public is against them. I think it's very interesting, but I'm still very much in writing limbo, so that's how far I'll say about

Thank you for the ask! Hopefully this is the answer u were looking for.

#sailor moon #ask me stuff

[celluloidbroomcloset]

If I may, I think the issue of this discussion might be the “A vs. B” of it all. It appears to me that this is more about how it is very possible for a person to simultaneously enjoy AND dislike both their abuser and the things they do together, especially before a break from the abuse patterns has been made.

Sometimes a thing can be fun as an experience and also not a thing you want to inflict on the people you care about. I know I have had experiences that were bad and damaging, both to me and the people around me, but also fun, and reconciling that is hard; but that is a balancing act everyone has to manage in life. It’s about how willing you are to notice other people’s comfort and/or safety (as well as your own) and prioritize that over your own desires.

People are messy and internally contradictory, and maybe part of why it was becoming more upsetting for Ed to do those things with Jack throughout the episode was that he was finally starting to notice the dichotomy and conflict between how much fun they were for him to experience, and the regret he feels for how not-fun their outcomes are. He spends the whole episode oscillating between those two perspectives, which is why he both leaves with Jack and comes back. I think, for me, it is a more meaningful growth for his character if he does genuinely enjoy at least some of those activities (like yardies and coconut wars,) and even Jack’s company some of the time (and the experiences they have shared over decades of knowing each other,) but chooses to reprioritize them because of the context they hold in his life and effect they have on the people he cares about.

OK, I think a few things are being missed here. First, the thematic use of Jack, which is to expand on what we know of piracy and toxic masculinity outside of the Revenge and to provide a clearer insight into Ed's past, and therefore his current moment. Jack also acts as a progression in Ed's life, from his father, to Hornigold (I believe this episode is the first we hear of him), to Jack, to Izzy. I don't think Jack occupies exactly the same position as the other three (because he's Ed's peer, not a father figure), but he is another member of the "violent white men who punish Ed for being or wanting to be soft" gang. Jack really should not be removed from either of those functions, because he's not really an important character in his own right; he's an insight into Ed and especially into Ed's very complex relationship with what he has been and what he feels he truly is. I have written before about how Stede reconciles Ed's past with his present, and that episode challenges the viewer to do the same. Ed, however, cannot, because he sees Jack and how he behaves with Jack as the monster that he is and cannot escape from.

The other thing that's being missed is that Ed tells us whether he's having fun. In the beach scene with Stede, when they are both removed from piracy and from the Revenge, he says:

I don't know if I want to go back to the old days. Just...drinking all day and biting the heads off turtles and making some poor bloke eat his own toes for a laugh ... Right now, I just want to do what makes Ed happy ... These past few weeks have been the most fun I've had in ages...years...maybe ever.

Now. We see very clearly that the things Ed lists are things that are associated, thematically at least, with the "games" that he and Jack play in the previous episode, and by extension what we learn was normal life on Hornigold's ship. None of those things are associated with fun or what makes Ed happy. These are not things that Ed thought were fun but that he doesn't want to do anymore, as he explicitly says that he's had fun with Stede. The fun and what makes Ed happy is not Jack, and it is not anything that Jack represents, nor is it the games that Jack plays that Ed once had fun doing—the implication here is that Ed recognizes that those things were never fun and never made him happy. It is Stede.

We can argue that Ed is lying, but why would he? He's working up to kissing Stede. He has no reason to lie about his feelings at this point. There is no one that will punish him for expressing them. Seems to me that deciding "oh, yeah, he likes Jack! He's just settling down in a little marriage with Stede now!" takes away a lot of Ed's right to self-knowledge and understanding that the things that he has done and has had done to him are not....FUN.

So I suggest that we believe Ed when he says what makes him happy and what he understand fun to mean, and don't assume that that includes his frat boy abuser.

#reply #ofmd #edward teach #calico jack #ofmd meta

[darkfictionjude]

Saw the ask saying thank you for actually giving us an MC that represents what having mental health issues is really like and I agree. I kinda feel like there isn't enough IFs like this. It's not just about the scary bits tho those I'm gonna fucking love because that's a rarity in itself in the community. But it's about the complex relationships we have with people. It's not all let's fall head over heels at first sight and everything is sunshine and cupcakes. MC has a really difficult relationship with not just their family but with people in the community as a whole seeing them as some sort of problem. Not just a person struggling.

The family dynamics are also very real unfortunately because favoritism to some parents is very common even when they won't admit it outright and it can weigh heavily on the mind in the sense of why you aren't good enough or as good as your siblings. Then people wonder why that specific person isn't reaching their potential. There is alot to say about nature vs nurture.

And out of pocket yes but I also appreciate that this is about people and not about people getting their rocks off. I see the trend too much lately where everything is just smut overshadowing the actual premise of the story and that being all you see in asks. I like this community. I like that you guys make me think about shit I wouldn't have and I appreciate Jude for responding in similar fashion and never telling us (me) I ramble too much lol I've unfortunately had a writer tell me that before 🙈

Stop y’all are inflating my ego! (Please continue 😏). But yeah I felt like sometimes people who have mental health issues might not want to play games where instead of acceptance they receive suspicion, fear and sometimes disgust (unfortunately very real) but that’s what I wanted to do. Given it’s a small town and given that it’s the 90s people reacting like this to mc is common. I’ve always liked to write about very dark themes not with an intention to glorify but to depict. Even if mc has done violent things that doesn’t mean that the discrimination they face is just (if you read chapter 2 the way the detective treats mc is awful and it’s a greater indictment on society as whole who group all people who suffer with issues as one).

With the family yeah? Percy and mc are in the same boat. Both of them stunted because they weren’t the favourites of their parents and they were shown that all their childhoods.

With the smut, you see I like it but I don’t like it over plot. For me smut in IFs only ever truly hits if the relationship is there, if it’s been earned. I’m fine with flings with characters who never show up again but sex with the principal romances, makes me feel more excited if that relationship feels real and it doesn’t happen sacrificing the logic of the story or interrupts the pace. Basically I can’t do porn without plot 😭 (oddly enough I can consume the prompts though but I have to be in love with the RO). It’s fine if some authors prioritize that over the story because it’s their choice and it’s respectable but I can’t. It doesn’t feel honest to the story to have mc jump straight into bed with the ROs. It’ll happen when it needs to.

Also I find your rambles are very cute, keep them going because I like reader feedback and reader gushes 💜

#anon asks #anon love #y’all who come in with the asks are all amazing 💜 #we wretched creatures

[captainsupernoodle]

just saw a post about kingsley seeming like he has more of his shit together than fjord in reunited and how that's likely related to the level of confidence from a relatively inexperienced person vs imposter sydrome in a more experienced person who's entering a new time of their life and is struggling to adjust but also!!!

confidence games are something that molly and fjord played so much and how incredible is it that fjord feels comfortable enough to fumble? what a difference from the beginning of the campaign! he was alone! he had to appear In Control or he'd get taken advantage of, it was how he stayed safe. Now he has the Nein, and Jester always at his side, and, yes, even Kingsley, and he allows himself to be silly and make mistakes and doesn't prioritize saving face. In the midst of a crisis he knows exactly what to do, that's his area of expertise, he's a master tactician and a great leader who prioritizes keeping his crew safe, he's just new at the whole captaining day-to-day thing and he's no longer afraid to show it.

kingsley, on the other hand. ooooh i love him so much. VERY true that he's brand new to living life and on top of that he comes by being a little shit honestly. on the other hand!!! "there will always be respect there. it might not look like it, but it's always there." "i've been wanting to go on one of your adventures and so far? it hasn't disappointed." "i'm trying to make new mistakes, I promise." i promise. Kingsley is the new-old guy in this group, the one they're explaining in-jokes to, telling stories to, teasing and protecting. he's a lot like the younger brother of a dearly beloved dead friend, loved on his own merit but with the unavoidable impact of those who came before him shaping his relationships. fjord talks about lucien. jester talks about molly. this is apparently the first time he's talked about either of them with beau and yasha and he's looking for guidance. beau says she'll kill him. fjord say's "we'll see." these people lifted kingsley out of the grave they put his past in and greeted him with open arms and grief and watchfulness. he's learning and watching with them but i don't know if he's grieving yet. i don't know if he will. i think he feels like he owes them something, not in a transactional way or out of guilt for people he isn't, but in the way you want to repay the trust and faith and work a mentor gives you.

but his confidence? the way his sassing and sarcasm and frank admiration sometimes sounds like a teenager? he totally comes by some of it honestly, he's charming and good at what he does and has a rock-solid support network, but he's been alive for six months. he's had these complicated relationships from the time he opened his eyes six months ago. i'm so excited for his confidence to grow more genuine and solid as he lives.

#honestly having the goal of plank king!! go get some independence bor that's a great next step! #*bro #critical role #mighty nein reunited #cr2 #noodle watches critical role #kingsley is a walking existential crisis two times over #and he's actually trying to engage with it to avoid molly's mistakes #i betcha he's got some Deep confidence issues and i Adore that he's at sea with #jester i believed a new god into being lavorre and fjord of many faces stone #also the fact that he's friends with caduceus. cry. #noodle speaks

[theangryjikooker]

just read your last anon and I’m usually just a silent reader, and tbh as someone who believe Jikook are a think I disagree with you a lot, but anyways I like reading your blog you seem very down to earth and I like that and I get your frustration. it’s not the first time that I see similar messages and i know I’ll get bashed for saying this but I don’t even believe half of the ppl out there pretending they’re queer (what does that even mean at this point) are anyway. I’ve been in shipping spaces for a long time, I share this "hobby" with a friend of mine and so many "cishets" as they say use the queer umbrella as a shield because we know damn well rps mlm shipping has been thrown upon (sometimes for good reasons, and often times due to misogyny, but that’s just my opinion ). I know some ppl are gonna get mad at this and call me names, not sure why I even send this but as a "cishet" (I usually refuse to use the word cis but that’s another can of worms I won’t open here) I’m seriously done with this mindset. i’m free to make assumptions and ship whoever I want or deny any ship I want to deny like anyone else and being part of the lgbt community is not a requirement to ship, what’s with people acting like the thought police here… ha sorry I needed to vent I guess, that post made me mad

Yes, it's fine to disagree with me! A lot of people who are following me don't agree with everything I have to say, if any at all. The only reason why I know this is that I've seen some familiar names interact with bloggers I 100% would not get along with, but that's really none of my business. I'm not here to change minds.

I think those followers tend to be curious about what I have to say about some aspect of Jikook. Sometimes it'll make them think; most of the time they think I'm full of shit. I have my own critiques of hardcore shippers/supporters, so I fully expect that my existence throws a wrench in all of that and incites aggression in others. All I do is talk about how I feel. Anyone who chooses to interact with me are doing so of their own volition and are responsible for their own actions.

I don’t even believe half of the ppl out there pretending they’re queer (what does that even mean at this point) are anyway. So this POV is a bit of a slippery slope. If we cast doubt on everyone and everything because a fraction of one's community is encouraging those feelings, it doesn't help anyone. Personally, I haven't "met" general ARMYs or shippers who have pretended to be queer, but I've read about this happening. I think the real culprit is the anonymity of the Internet and what kind of behaviors that's enabled over the years, but that's another can of worms I don't want to get into.

To be fair, I understand queer shippers who are tentative about shipping occurring amongst cishets, which is valid, but the way some of them go about protecting what they consider an exclusively LGBTQ+ activity can be extremist and nonsensical, in my opinion.

(Part of me also suspects that this overly passionate dedication amounts to how important fandom is to a person. I prioritize and cherish my real life more than I ever could about fandom, but fandom is also a much needed escape for others, so I can see how that might play a part in people's motivations and how they might go about protecting their safe space.)

Male, female, non-binary, gay, straight, bi, asexual, whatever your sexual or gender identity–don't be an asshole and don't be an idiot, that's all I'm saying. If you're cishet and shipping two males/two females, just be mindful about how you're going about it is all. Shipping because you genuinely care about the individuals involved and believe in who they are as human beings vs. fetishizing them (unintentionally or otherwise) can get a little blurry. (Fetishization is not the only issue that occurs in this cishet vs. lgbtq+ in fandom discourse, but it's the most common and most talked about.)

In my opinion, attraction isn't so discerning; sometimes people just gravitate to whomever they like. If cishets can recognize that attraction is just a feeling that can occur among and across different genders and sexualities, I don't see how this is a bad thing at all.

__

* Sorry, I talk about "cishets" like I'm othering them, and I don't really care much for that attitude, but for distinction purposes, it is what it is.

#TAJ asks #anon submission #jikook #kookmin #jikookers #kookminers #bts shipping #bts fandom

[aro-culture-is]

(this isn't a submission) i just wanted to say thank you for posting such a cool response to that one person asking how Hanahaki can be made unproblematic. i'm aro and honestly really like the Hanahaki trope- i'm writing my own novella about someone getting Hanahaki for someone who's aro and it talks a lot about the problematic aspects of it, so it was really cool to see your reply putting things i've been thinking into words. especially when so many other aro ppl hate the trope. wishing u well

[empty paragraph in case tumblr eats it]

(response in question linked here)

hi!

honestly, I think as a trope it makes so very much sense that hanahaki appeals to people - it’s sort of a combination of many people’s fears, an externalization of feelings that are hard to describe, and situations many people experience something reminiscent of. those categories can be fun playgrounds for plots. and, honestly, I shied away from my main point in that initial response. I worry that when we care about things being “unproblematic”, we’ve well... lost the plot of social activism.

when we refuse to talk about nuance, the why, the how, the ways in which people may respond differently to the same situation, etc, the gray zones become uncomfortable and unspeakable. all too often, I feel like that gray zone is microaggressions and history and intersections. I totally get that sometimes, it’s nice to just have a Good Guy and a Bad Guy. but I worry that people forget that it’s important to still talk about what makes things good and bad. we can’t just... label everything as one or the other.

To connect that back - when we try to make a trope that by nature was always about being problematic (ie, always about uncomfortable feelings, always about a lose/lose situation and wondering, can we win it, and what does that take?) “unproblematic”, we ignore the history. It feels much to me like the ways in which my K-12 education pretended that all of history was actually about people caring deeply about others. “European explorers wanted to spread Christianity because they wanted everyone to go to heaven!” It certainly, certainly had nothing to do with anything else, ever, in those descriptions. They read as unproblematic - you weren’t horrifying kids, right? You kept it to a maturity they could appreciate? But what were we avoiding? What were we ignoring as problems always, always for later, which never came?

I like letting people explore those topics. I want people to question why things are good and bad and in between. I hate the focus on “problematic” vs “unproblematic” because black and white morality doesn’t teach.

Are you more likely to follow a safety rule - especially one that you may not feel inclined to follow - because you were told “doing the thing is bad”, or “here’s why this is in place”? Or, say this rule is weirdly... vague, or too specific. “Do not operate heavy machinery while starting this medication until you know how it affects you” - how is the average person supposed to know that includes driving cars without a nuanced discussion? “Use two pairs of gloves while cleaning this machinery” - how were you to know that it was determined that those two pairs would protect you for long enough that, if you forgot to unplug the machine, you could probably respond in time to not lose a finger if you accidentally leaned and turned the machine on? Not everyone will listen, of course, and you probably need to prioritize when you introduce nuance and when you don’t. But.

Nuance and discussion exist for a reason - and while fiction isn’t obligated to portray it, we do ourselves a disservice when we pretend there was never any nuance to discuss.

- mod kee

#not aro culture #aro #aromantic #actually aro #actually aromantic #ask #mod kee #hanahaki #hi i'm mod kee and i go on very long tangents about internet purity culture with minimal prompting #irl i'll see if you're comfortable first #but basically i've never subscribed to a binary in my life and i'm not about to start now #Anonymous

[painted-crow]

hey so i'm looking to figure my sorting out. i'm p sure of my secondary but honestly i've gone in circles so many times that i'd believe anything lmao

so i guess to start like. i'm fairly sure i'm an idealist, but with a twist. i care about making the world a better place-- i'm kinda infamous among my friends for being a little TOO outspoken about my opinions. on a small scale, i have strong opinions about a lot of things, but on a larger scale... idk. i don't think any one person can know what an ideal world looks like cause there really is no such thing. there are literally countless variables when it comes to implementing even small systems, countless ways to fuck it up, so i don't think i'd be choosing some grand ideal over the people i love anytime soon.

that being said, i think my idealist streak gets directed into something else most of the time. i'm very focused on understanding myself to a fault. i want to know why i do the things i do, why i believe certain things over others. when it comes to my beliefs about the world, they're strong but take it or leave it, but when it comes to myself they are not a good idea to push. i've ended relationships over not feeling like myself with them or feeling like i'm losing myself or they're pushing me to be someone i'm not. i make strong instant decisions about what the "right" thing to do is when it comes to how it impacts my perception of myself, especially with intimate relationships (i'm a lot less impulsive with things like friends and things i'm less personally involved in). i NEED to know who i am, way more than i care about any one specific person or thing. obviously i love people very deeply and would do just about anything to have both, but if i don't know who i am, if i'm not true to myself, then i have nothing. losing people happens.

the issue is, because i'm prone to doing that and not thinking as much about how it'll impact people, i've been called selfish a lot over my lifetime. recently i've started thinking more about how my actions impact people and their feelings, and i'm feeling a lot more torn. i want to do what i want to do, what i feel is best, but i feel immature for doing it a lot. i've started worrying a lot about being a bad person and hurting people, and i've been thinking about how the "right" way to be is. i went through a phase where i was repressing myself to make the "moral" choice, but i just felt so flat. ultimately i realized that it doesn't really matter how good i am if i have to repress myself to get there, cause then all it is is performance. tldr is i feel super guilty for making "selfish" choices rn, especially as i've gotten more aware of other peoples' feelings.

what i think is probably going on is that i'm an idealist primary with a badger model, but i'm not sure between lion and bird, and i'm still open to badger. pretty sure i'm not a snake.

the section on my secondary's gonna be a lot shorter, sorry this got so long! so i'm p sure i'm a badger secondary. considered lion and snake secondary too. whatever i am, i have a p loud lion model over it. i've always had a gift for making people trust me, for acting. i kinda blend in and become what i need to to both help them and get them off my back so i can do what i need to do. i have a serious passion for helping people with tough love (i like to think of myself as a p good advice giver, since i can both tell people what they need to hear and really get in their shoes and be kind where other people might not). i think i judge myself the least when i can kinda toe that line between pushing boundaries and stepping back-- i track where peoples' boundaries are constantly so i can push them to the limit without stepping over them. i'm very fluid when it comes to presentation in reality, even though i think people actually think of me as kinda controversial. i tend to see people who are ACTUALLY overstepping boundaries as lowkey selfish at times, even though i also really respect them. i like to do things the "right" way as long as i give a shit about them. the catch is, i don't want to blend into the background, and i don't think i do. a partner of mine called me a fox cause he noticed the way i constantly toe that line where i can get people to notice me and still keep them off my back, still make them comfortable. i'm also NOT a planner. people constantly give me shit for only ever feeling things out in the moment, and honestly thinking about the future freaks me out. i don't want to plan how i do shit i'd rather just get in the zone and figure it out from there. tldr i'm pretty sure i'm a badger secondary? but i could be convinced of snake. definitely see elements of both but my gut's telling me badger so take that how you will

anyway! thank you so much for taking the time to answer this, i know it's a lot.

also sorry one thing i forgot to add about my secondary! i think my lion model got so loud because when i do the shifty presentation thing, i have a tendency to lose myself and start perceiving myself as whatever i'm presenting. it's made it really hard to figure out who i actually am and so i started just being as clear about it as possible.

for my primary, i really care a lot about being right. i try to take every side into consideration to make sure i get the best conclusion. i can be super stubborn when it comes to certain things, but i don't want to just... hold to perceptions that are wrong. that being said it's important to me to trust my gut and i take it as a big input. i'm very felt out for most things, don't really have a strong system of how to be. i really wanna be able to trust myself but i just don't. i have a big habit of relying on other people to tell me what to think, which is uh. yeah.

Primary

You're a Bird primary with a Lion model, and you're trying on some Badger ideals. That's one of the easier Sorts I've done, lol! Possibly because your primary and models actually House match mine :p

Your reasoning process screams Bird xD and so does your writing style and just the length of the ask. Birds love self-analysis, it's part of how we make sure our systems stay as close to true as we can make them.

You've got some Lion too, but it's a model. It sounds like your Lion and your Bird have come into conflict before, and like most Birds with Lion models, it bugs the snot out of you when your Lion's intuition (which is important data!) doesn't line up with what your Bird knows.

You've prioritized Bird's conclusions before, but (as with many Birds) you don't entirely trust your own system and you're wondering if your Lion might have been right and you should give its reasoning more weight.

Also, you're consciously deciding that maybe Badgers' way of doing things is more moral than yours, and you're pulling in some of those ideals. That doesn't make you a Badger primary. Birds are notorious for this kind of thing actually 😂

The line between whether some ideals you've pulled into your Bird system vs. what counts as a model is fuzzy. It's up to you really, how important those pieces of Badger are to you.

For me, I think the line might be--is it wired into your sense of self on its own, or does it get filtered through your Bird and Lion? It really sounds like your Lion is a strong part of your sense of self: if you ignore its advice, you feel not totally like yourself. You don't have to feel all your models equally strongly, but thinking of it that way might help.

(It's also hard because Birds often feel like they kind of are their systems, or they are their ability to reason, that's a core part of their identity. ...It's complicated.)

Secondary

You sound really really Snakey. I'm not sure where you're getting Badger, actually!

Badgers are more than the mirroring ability. They also bury themselves in work or community, and it can sometimes look like they're neck deep in so many responsibilities that they couldn't possibly handle any more problems--and then they do have a problem, they do need something, and they stand up and all that stuff they were buried in turns out to be armor and tools.

Snakes, otoh, are improvisational and tend to be very aware of their surroundings. Unlike Badgers, the Snake brand of social shapeshifting involves a lot of keeping track of other people's reactions to what they're doing--trying something and then watching the response, then adjusting, rinse and repeat. You turn yourself into exactly the right person for this situation.

Badger mirroring is usually simpler. You reflect the other person's energy back at them: it's an empathetic response that says we're alike, I accept you, you're safe. A lot of Badgers do this without thinking--it can be hard to turn off.

Snakes also don't go in for prep work as much, it tends to trip them up (Snakes with Badger or Bird models notwithstanding). They're Improvisational secondaries, unlike Bird and Badger which are Built and rely heavily on some form of preparation.

The Lion model sounds legit, but just check for yourself: you might be learning to use Snake's neutral state. Snakes will sometimes drop all their layers of acting and maneuvering and suddenly they're just themselves. Different Snakes have different relationships with neutral state. For some Snakes, it's a relief to drop the mask; for others, it feels vulnerable and they only trust certain people with their full authenticity.

It does sound like you really admire Lion secondaries, though, so you might indeed have a model there! This is just something else you could check on.

Hope that helps!

- Paint

#first post in a while huh folks #gotta remember how to tag... #ravenclaw primary #gryffindor primary model #slytherin secondary #gryffindor secondary model #asks #paint speaks #sortinghatchats

[amysubmits]

Hello again! I've been binging on all of your writings and noticed that you mention the hierarchy several times, along with the fact that you often sacrifice your wants for CD's. Do you have any average, every day sort of examples about what that means in your dynamic? Also, how do you two go about determining wants vs needs?

Hi! 

Our dynamic leans pretty heavily on obedience and while it certainly doesn’t always feel like a sacrifice at all, anytime that CD tells me what to do and I listen to him instead of doing what I would have instinctually done that’s basically “sacrificing” my wants for his. Sometimes it’s very obvious like I really wanted X but he tells me to do Y instead. But even when I didn’t have something really worked up in my head that I wanted that was different, anytime I listen to him I’m prioritizing his wishes, though not always ‘over’ my own if I didn’t have a different desire of my own in mind yet. For us, the most common examples are just anything he tells me to do or anytime he tells me no. Some day to day examples:

“We’re waking up at 8 tomorrow because I want to be early to (event).”

“Will you make mac and cheese?”

“Bring me a glass of water, please.”

“I need you to do a load of my clothing tonight.”

“You should take an allergy pill.”

“Don’t start that project now, we’re going to the store in half an hour.”

But there are also a lot of little ways that aren’t direct orders on a day to day basis but that have become habits for me because of preferences he’s stated in the past or sometimes not things he’s said but things I just realize he has preferences on so I regularly do those things ‘his way’. Examples:

I know how he likes most of our meals made and will make them the way he likes them on a regular basis. 

I mate his socks and organize them in the drawer because of how he told me he liked them done. (I have a post on this somewhere)

I put his lunch in the fridge in a certain placement each night because he told me how he liked it once. 

I use dryer sheets because he likes for them to be used. 

He likes it cooler than I do so I turn up the A/c before he gets home and put warmer clothes on if needed.

How to determine wants vs needs is a big question and different D/s people handle it very differently sometimes. 

For us, we don’t consider needs to only be survival needs (food, water, shelter) but to also include anything we need in order to stay content long term in a relationship. So for example, if I “could” grit my teeth and submit to doing something every single day, as in, I thought I could find the willpower to force myself through it, but if that action made me really resentful, make me feel bad about how I was treated, scared me, etc then we would consider it to be opposed to my needs because for the health of our relationship we feel that I shouldn’t do anything that makes me feel resentful or otherwise bad about how I’m being treated. Or on the flip side, if I “could” go without something but it made me resentful, feel neglected, feel low about myself, etc then we would consider it to be a need. 

Sometimes I don’t know if something is a want or a need so I am upfront with CD about that and we try to figure it out together. He tends to think that I set a standard for my own needs too high. So if i’m like ‘I don’t know if I just want this really badly or if I actually need it’ he will almost always think it’s a need. 

#asks #d/s

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Hi! I was wondering what was your take Fe vs Fi and emotional expressiveness? I've seen on several sites (funkymbti comes to mind) that high Fe users were emotionally expressive while high Fi users tended to keep theur emotions to themselves and a few trusted ones but in my experience, it just doesn't map with the way I see actual people behaving around me. In my experience, people who are not very attuned to other people's emotions/group dynamics (and therefore unlikely to be Fe users) are 1/2

more likely to be oversharers, while people I see being much more in tune with theur social environment tend to prioritize other people's emotions over expressing theirs - and are sometimes not very aware of what they feel in the first place, because they kind of absorb other people's feelings. 2/2

-------

Yeah, I would agree with you - it’s a lot more complicated.

Some of it doesn’t map to MBTI at all. I think a lot is highly cultural. Women are encouraged to be more expressive and men to be less, and different countries, regions, or communities have different expectations as well - I’ve lived in the northeast and the midwest, for example, and they are pretty different in terms of what level of emotional expression is typical. It’s also somewhat generational - I’m pretty private but I’m also a millennial and think some amount of social media sharing is normal, whereas my parents are much more private online, and people younger than me who grew up with social media from an even younger age have a different attitude than I do.

I also think oversharing is its own topic because it’s not the same as emotional expression (I’m pretty private about all emotions and personal stuff in public , but I know people who are very outwardly expressive of their emotions while sharing what I’d consider an appropriate amount of personal life). I get really uncomfortable when people overshare, but also I wouldn’t say I’m amazing at being attuned to group dynamics (and I actively sucked at it when I was younger) - my default thought was “I don’t know what level is appropriate so I will reveal nothing” but some people either don’t have the awareness to realize that they suck at group dynamics, or say “I don’t know what’s appropriate so I’ll just lay it all on the table.”

Anyway: anecdotally, most oversharers I’ve known have been feelers, simply because thinkers are less expressive and more private overall, so it’s not as simple as group dynamics since an ExFP would (usually) have better group dynamic understanding than an IxTJ, but the ExFP is (again anecdotally) far more likely to be the oversharer.

Personally I find that oversharers often fit the following profile:

First, they tend to have an idea of themselves as an open book or a super friendly person, and this is more common in the self-image of feelers in general (and not limited to either FPs nor FJs, though it’s more common in extroverts.

In the case of high Fi users, you get people who feel that to be authentically themselves they must be absolutely honest about everything with everyone. This is not how I personally feel (I mean, don’t lie, but excluding irrelevant conversation is not lying).

In the case of high FJ users I’ve found it’s more likely to be the fault of again, FJs having people skills but not person skills. In particular, it’s often been people in my larger friend group but to whom I’m not personally close who don’t draw that same distinction, so it’s like “yeah, I’m very close with this other person you’re very close to, and I like you well enough, but close friendship is not the transitive property and I don’t personally know you well enough.”

When you do get thinkers oversharing, then I would blame it on a really bad read of social norms - I think that’s fair. But it’s not in my experience accurate to say that’s the only cause of oversharing.

Two final thoughts.

First: as well-established I think instinctual variants are complete bullshit, but this is one of the topics some people claim is best explained via instinctual variants rather than MBTI/just being a person. If you want to explore that, I don’t really have recommendations, but it is out there as an option to explore.

Second: a few of the people, though by no means all, who overshared a lot in my past have also had complicating mental illnesses or personality disorders, and treatment for those conditions helped them better set and respect boundaries. This is obviously a delicate topic because I don’t think that mental illness necessarily makes you likely to overshare. However, there are some conditions that do affect how people perceive personal boundaries and that is worth keeping in mind.

#mbti #Anon ask #answered asks

[cancerbiophd]

hi!! i'm an undergrad with a research dilemma: i worked for this PI the summer after my freshman year who was verbally degrading and pushed me to work 12-16 hour days six days a week. i left the lab about this time last year, and i've been struggling to find new research ever since. every professor goes suspiciously radio-silent after they get a chance to look my resume over. What should I do? I want to go to grad school and so I think i kind of need more experience

Hi there!

First off, zero respect for that awful PI. Verbally abusive AND overworks their employees? Not a good person in my book at all. I’m glad you left that dangerous situation. 

So, a few things could be going on:

The PIs you’ve emailed genuinely don’t have the time/room/resources to take on another student. And unfortunately, some of them say “no” by just not responding to the email. It’s not polite, I know, but some of them are super busy and it just slips their mind to respond. 

The PIs are actually interested in having you join the lab, but have forgotten to respond. I think we’ve all been there right? We read a message that we have every intent to respond to, but life happens and it slips our mind. Feel free to send a follow-up email to check in (by forwarding your last email so everything is the same email chain). Something like “Hi, I really appreciate you taking the time to consider me. I’m just checking in to see if you’re interested in setting up a time to meet.” If they don’t respond after that, then it’s probably time to move on. 

Most of the time PIs are super close (physically, if not emotionally) with every other PI in their department, so if your old PI is an assholey type, they may have influenced their colleagues. Some people are just soooo egotistical they take offense to anyone leaving their lab, even for all the right reasons. It’s stupid and childish, but not above actually happening (though rare). And this has nothing to do with you, ok? You are still a good person and good scientist. But some bosses are just maniacal like that. If you suspect this is happening, I would recommend looking for research outside of your old PI’s department, building, or even general area on campus. 

Some other things to consider:

Double check the emails you send to PIs. Confirm they’re short and to the point (PIs are busy people; my old PI told me she gets 20 new emails every hour--that’s a lot to go through!). You don’t need to go into detail about anything that’s already in your resume/CV if you attach it (they can peruse more if they’re interested). Some PIs may prioritize reading shorter emails first. 

Check up on your local or university news often, and make note of PIs in the spotlight. They’re either new (so lots of start-up money and are probably looking for students/staff), just got a huge grant (more money for students/projects!), or just made a really neat contribution to research (potential for more grant money!). I would recommend emailing these PIs over anyone who seems kinda stagnant. 

Make use of your network. Ask fellow students in your classes if they know of any labs looking for students. Ask the professors and TAs teaching these classes. Even post about it on social media if you feel comfortable doing so (someone might know someone who knows someone!) (The TAs will probably be your best resource, as these are grad students in labs all over campus, and since almost every grad student knows every other grad student in their program, they will have great info about what lab is in need of students.)

Go to poster presentations on campus that exhibit the university’s research to find potential labs. These poster sessions are usually presented by students (either undergrad or grad), and they’re a great opportunity to a) find out what kinds of research are going on and b) ask the presenter if their lab is open to students joining. (And I would definitely recommend taking copies of your resume to hand out to anyone interested, as well as a notebook to jot down the presenter’s contact info. You should definitely send a follow-up email afterwards, even only to thank the presenter for their time. Because if anything, hey! You just added one more person to your network!)

Also, are you emailing for a paid lab assistant/tech job, or just as an undergraduate volunteer? Your chances may be higher to apply as a volunteer vs a paid employee. Labs in academia don’t usually have a lot of money :( But sometimes really great undergrad volunteers can be promoted to paid techs after a year or so in the lab!

Check out organized research opportunities by your university. This may include programs/internships/awards you apply to that will give you the opportunity to work in a participating lab. A lot of these are funded too (especially if they have a rigorous application process). 

The exact type of research you do as an undergrad is insubstantial to just getting productive research experience, period. At least in science, it’s so interdisciplinary that it’s pretty much a strength to have experience in a few fields. Also grad schools want you to have research experience not to check off techniques, but to get a feel for the research environment and know it’s a good fit for you. My research experience prior to grad school was in tuberculosis and cancer diagnostics. And in grad school my research is on breast cancer bone metastasis. Not necessarily apples and apples! So go right ahead and apply to labs that may vary a bit from the exact subject you think you may study, or what you’re familiar with. Who knows, you may just find a brand new calling :)

I hope this helps! These things may take time, so don’t give up! You got this

#chemiscream #also A+ URL i love it #college advice #lab advice