#So just leave the discourse to people who know how to handle these things and keep out of it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ranboolivesaysstuff · 8 months

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IMPORTANT POST PLEASE READ

Im gonna be honest and open for a sec, and please do not take this as "oh I HATE my community or I dont like the people who watch me" but honestly as of late (and I did highlight this during the mcc bit), ive felt like I havent been able to really be in my own community simply because of the constant way that "discourse" is handled. Making vague posts and not really tackling issues in a good way, all that is going to do is just show people a big "THIS COMMUNITY BAD" sign and not actually help anything within the community, all its going to do is have the good and potentially good people leave or not join in the first place. The way that discourse is treated that ive seen has been the main reason why I have started to try to distance myself, which has been the most heartbreaking thing I have had to do. I want problems to be solved in a mature, civil way, with either a dm or a reply, not an entire vague thing that only says "bad things are happening" and doesnt elaborate on anything or barely elaboratesa and only gives people on both the inside and outside a bad sign of what the community is. Making posts whenever something happens being like "here we go again" is only going to highlight the wrong things, and actually DOESNT help the issue at all! The problems should be discussed directly with the people who are doing said problems FIRST! Bring attention to behaviors and things that arent good DIRECTLY! And also, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO!!! It is not your duty as a viewer or fan of me to be involved in any of this if you do not want to! Just enjoy the content and make silly posts! As someone who constantly tried to fix and get into every problem as it was happening, it took a huge toll on my mental health, and I want you guys to just be able to enjoy the content without having to worry about what you say about it! Be constructive! Dont make posts again just being like "wow this community is so bad" because that doesnt solve literally anything! If you have enough passion to make the posts saying "wow this community is bad" then only post about that, you are only spreading that negative message, and not uplifting anything of actual value! And if the person you are trying to help is not willing or not listening, BLOCK! MUTE! DONT BRING MORE ATTENTION TO THE PERSON IF THEY ARE NOT BEING A GOOD PART OF THE COMMUNITY!!!! I know I say that if I see problems I will call them out, but I shouldnt have to babysit every single time a thing happens within the community as that just isnt a healthy way for a creator or a community to be handled. This does not mean that I do not care about the issues or dont want them fixed, rather it shouldnt take me having to make some grand statement every single time something happens it should take only your own self reflection and self awareness. And to add onto this, make sure that every once in a while no matter who you are you think and have that self reflection, you should be open to being willing to learn and grow as a person! And again, I do NOT want anyone taking this as "Wow this community is terrible" but rather that we just have things that need to be fixed and changed and THAT IS OKAY! I do not hate the community, I care so much about it that I want it to be a silly place for my content again! I want it to be the reason why people get into what I do because of it again! And I want to be able to just have fun and relax without having to worry about how every single thing that I may say could have someone stirring things up that simply dont help or solve anything! Take care of yourselves. And this isnt coming from a place of "I hate the community as a whole" but rather again I want to be able to exist and make content that we can all enjoy without having to worry about walking on eggshells around me or around eachother! At the end of the day im just a fella that wants to make silly videos for you all, and you are people who enjoy said videos. Nothing more. Nothing less.

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centrally-unplanned · 6 months

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The thing about morality is that it only matters when it's real. Discussions of rules or norms for what is right or wrong are almost always, at some level, illusions, approximating reality and guiding decisions in an uncertain world - which does not make them useless, just contextual. Profaning god in your bedroom can never be “wrong” - there is no one to hear you, no one to be hurt by it. You can only show something is really wrong from the intentions of the actions and their results.

So with that out of the way, lets talk about Knives Chau - and specifically, how the comic vs the anime handled that part of the story.

Scott Pilgrim vs The Reification of Dating a High Schooler

There is an extremely pervasive meme in Scott Pilgrim discourse that our titular Scott is a scumbag. Our returning whipping boy the Kotaku article loves this idea, describing Scott’s “detestable behavior” and wondering “was it too subtle the first time about Scott being an absolute shitbag?”. There is this viral headline screenshot from an interview floating around right now riding that same line:

Which is, of course, pretty much false. Its up to you in the end, “shitbag” is a subjective description, but the story just isn’t about events that would be described that way. Its the story of a guy getting over an awful ex, hurting some people, then meeting a new person, and realizing step-by-step what it takes to be their partner and levelling up as a person each time he does. He starts off broken, and Ramona of course is just as broken - getting better is their mutual arc. And its fundamentally about relationship drama - those stakes don’t make you a scumbag lol, just clueless, unless you are terminally online and don’t know what real stakes are.

I will let O’Malley get the last word in with his quote the writer of that interview is hilariously trying to torture into his headline:

There's a bit of, like, young people see Scott Pilgrim a certain way, and, you know, there's a lot of, like, 18-19-year-old fans that are really judgmental of the character. They're like, "Oh, he's a bad person. I would never do that." But I always tell them, like, get back to me when you're 25 or 30, tell me how your 20s went. Were you a bad person? Everyone has to make choices and do things in life that maybe they're not going to be proud of later.

Scott is a scumbag the way everyone is - you yourself will likely commit similar sins; that at least seems to be the authorial intent, and I agree with it.

So how does dating Knives Chau slot into this?

Despite the memes, age, in fact, is just a number - two consenting people dating does not a sin make. The reason dating underage people is bad is because of its consequences, not the categorical imperative. So what are the consequences of dating Knives Chau in the comic?

Knives is, as a consequence of dating a guy who is simply via his age able to appear so much cooler than her peers to her, absolutely obsessed with Scott. She worships his band:

She starts aping his taste in music and interests; she slots herself into his circle of friends, who don’t relate to her, even after their breakup (often drinking her way through it):

She totally spirals after he cheats on her and leaves her, blaming everyone but him; she is wounded and hurt for months, a year, over a relationship that lasted weeks:

Knives Chau is a literal poster child for why you should not date a high schooler. She is, at every turn, emotionally not ready to date someone who is not at her own level of social development, and is deeply affected by it. It is, sometimes, played for laughs - that is the nature of the comic, everything is played for laughs, but I would have given it a bit more dramatic space myself - but over the course of the story Scott himself realizes how much of an ass he was to her, and how he didn’t take what happened seriously.

The reason I view this with charity is what Scott did to lead to this - he met a cute girl on the bus! He was deeply hurt and kind of numb in life, and found someone who was safe and easy to talk to. He never attempts to kiss her (she starts trying to kiss him which he repeatedly rejects) they don’t even hold hands, and it lasted a few weeks. He knew deep down, pretty much immediately, it was fake:

Then he met an actual person he liked, and with some browbeating from Wallace agreed to break up with her, but chickened out for a day. Then the next day he decides to break up with her, and she drops the L bomb before he can, so he instantly ends it. It is really awkward for everyone involved.

Pushing off an awkward and uncomfortable conversation resulting from a dumb decision you made on a whim for a week - god I relate to that, that’s everyone! If you think it isn’t you I think you're lying. Its why this relationship is so interesting in the comic - Scott is always one step removed from it, putting it at abeyance, and the fact that something so minor to him is so destructive to her is a really good portrait of how these kinds of things happen. Its so easy to hurt someone when you don’t even know what the stakes are, and when its coming not from malice, but from weakness. Its a very good portrayal of a bad relationship because its bad in a relatable way, even if as a story is a bit more dramatic than is typical. And its a great portrayal of how fraught age gaps can be - this bad relationship is part of what makes the comic a good story.

But its 2023, we don’t give a shit about any of that anymore!

O’Malley in the same interview discusses the cultural shift around these kind of relationships:

I felt like in this day and age, I had to provide clarity on that [relationship]. Because when I wrote the first books, I took it for granted that people would understand that dating a high schooler was a bad thing. But on the internet, in this day and age, people are like, "He's dating a high schooler. That's terrible!" Like, that's pretty much what I say on page 1 of the book. But I try to spell it out a little bit more this time.

He isn’t telling the full story though - it was bad in 2004, but not bad the way it is today. Its dubiousness was mitigated by its frequency; people were doing this kind of shit all the time. Scott Pilgrim is a bass guitarist in an indie band; fucking groupies is like built into the cover charge. Half the problem Scott has in dating Knives is that she is the wrong kind of 17-year-old - had Scott met her at 1 am in the aftermath of a Born Ruffian’s concert at the Whippet Lounge knocking down shots off the back of her fake ID, no one would have even noticed. Hell, no one does notice; there is someone who actually makes out with a drunk 17-year-old Knives Chau in the comic Scott Pilgrim, and isn’t Scott Pilgrim:

No one cares about Kim’s inebriated petting session here; that is 10% because she is a Girl and Girls Can’t Be Predators, 40% because she isn’t the main character, and 50% because Kim Pine’s dating history is not a useful proxy battleground for GamerGate-adjacent nerd culture wars in ~2014; but that is road that goes directly to hell, so let's veer back.

The point, of course, is that in 2004 this is a crime flecked with normality, something your friend would do and you would maybe just cock an eyebrow at:

Its not that in discourse today - it is radically more condemned. It is not a contextual sin, but an original sin. It underwent a process I am calling reification - where it goes from being just a shifting descriptor of reality, to a thing in itself, with a defined (reified) meaning. And to be clear, that is in a lot ways on net a good thing? The reality is that, despite everyone’s protestations, there are today thousands of 17-year-olds taking the L line out to a gig at the Brooklyn Steel and going down on a 25-year-old guy they just met in a back alley off Frost St who swears he’s a “drummer in a sick new band” that played here “just last week”, he promises, and she is having a great time, bragging to her friends about how hot his tattoo was, and then shipping herself off to Cornell next year to start on her pre-med track with barely a memory. But for every dozen of those, there is at least one person who is deeply, deeply hurt, a Knives Chau who never deserved this. The rest can have a slightly worse time, its probably worth it.

That does not make it a categorical imperative, though - the reification has masked that truth. The crime comes from the context - those other girls aren’t victims, they would laugh at you for suggesting they were. But in 2023, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is no longer concerned with context. It is telling you, right to your face, that Scott is a bad dude. Over and over and over - jokes from the Evil League about “wow, I thought we were evil”, its not subtle.

Yet meanwhile, Knives Chau is, like, fine? She dates Scott, is totally into him, and then literally in the middle of his funeral forgets about him for Envy crashing it:

Picks up the bass and has yuri-inflected playtime with Kim the literal next day:

And less than a week later is pitching an off-broadway musical adaption of Scott’s life to a billionaire Matthew Patel - I can’t explain that okay, I’m as confused as you are.

She is mad at Scott, sure, but she is over it in a matter of days. Hell, notice how she was already a fan of the Clash at Demonhead now? There is no scene of Scott introducing her to his kind of music. He didn’t change her. By the end she is a member of his band and they are totally chill:

This is, again, about a week or two later.

Knives is not an important character in this show, way less than in the original, this is no grand sin. But I still find it very interesting: O’Malley is wrong. He “spells it out” way less in this version when it comes to the actual consequences of Scott’s actions. Everyone’s verbal condemnations are substitutes to replace the real damage his actions dealt in the comic. Scott is a better person this time, in a world that has universally agreed he is worse (still not a good move ofc). Even Scott’s moment of apology to Knives about their dating is so tepid its almost Straussian:

Its ‘frowned upon’…which is not the same thing as saying it was wrong! I don’t think this is intentional, its just funny, but its a nice capstone nevertheless.

And it had to be this way, not just for media in general, but for Scott Pilgrim in particular. Not only are sexual crimes far more reified today, but Scott Pilgrim’s sin of dating a high schooler is reified as well - its the first piece of discourse everyone encounters about it. Its the ur-debate of the franchise. The idea of actively engaging on this point, and digging deeper into it…its too hot, too controversial. Way better to shy away from it, disown it. The discourse wrote this part of the script over the course of a decade; its not something the creatives had any say in.

Honestly they should have just gone all the way - just make Knives 19. Then how tepid it is wouldn’t be a distraction anymore. Scott can just be an asshole for cheating on her, that would work fine. If you aren’t going to commit to the reality of these things, you shouldn’t bother with it at all.

#scott pilgrim #essay

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callout-tee · 3 months

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this is a post and blog meant to call out user @saetoru, whose blog is archived but now uses the account @ctrltoru. i highly encourage everyone to block both of her accounts.

i assume everyone already knows the controversy surrounding this user, but either way, i made this account to share my experience and the experiences of other blogs with tee.

hi, i'm a mutual of tee's and a little while back, tee confided her new tumblr (@ctrltoru) to me. we've been mutuals for a decent amount of time, but ever since october 2022, my opinion of tee has gone down the drain.

TLDR: as time went on, i found it harder and harder to excuse her actions. she's run many of our favorite writers off tumblr, and frankly, it's not a stretch to attribute jjk tumblr's growing toxicity to her presence here.

[ CW discourse. ]

read @/garoujo's post first. if you scroll through the reblogs, many other writers, including many big blogs that i'm sure you'll recognize, have had similar experiences with tee.

the anons: many big blogs left tumblr or moved accounts because of hate anons being sent on tee's behalf. many of them were death threats that included any number of slurs.

in tee's post meant to explain the archival of her account, she never even addressed the main problem, which is the fact that she, her mutuals, and her anons (most of which were sent by her) are the reason so many writers were harassed off the app.

tee has an ongoing habit of causing drama with any blog she feels threatened by. ever since her haikyuu days, this has happened over and over again. first it was emmie (@/garoujo), then it was yoru (@/anantaru), and then it was karma (@/kazushawty), and so many more and who knows who it'll be next.

as someone who has a decently sized blog myself, i understand feeling frustrated that a blog who hasn't been writing as long as you have is getting as many, if not more notes than you, because it's natural to feel that way. however, what isn't natural is actually doing something about your immature ego and going out of your way to be rude, directly or not to the person involved.

all the writers who reblogged emmie's callout post before leaving had one major thing in common: they kept receiving death threats on tee's behalf. this is both the anons' and tee's fault, because it's a fact that tee knew about this. i knew that she knew about this, but did tee ever tell her followers to stop? no, she didn't.

if you don't speak out against death threats being sent on your behalf, you're condoning them. tee handled it badly, and it was not a mistake. in fact, many of the anons sent were from tee and her mutuals herself: it's obvious, and it's disappointing.

the plagiarism accusations: it's a canon event for every jjk writer to get accused of "plagiarizing" tee. emmie got accused of copying her generic instagram theme, karma got accused of copying her generic mdni banners, sabrina (@/osaemu) got accused of copying her generic title, and so many more people have shared their experiences with tee too.

maybe tee's shots in the dark were right once or twice, but if you're accusing every single writer of copying your themes/banners/titles (bffr, who actually cares about titles) then frankly, you're the problem.

there's inherent bias within people's heads (this includes everyone, not just tee) that makes them want to see similarities between them and others. that's just how the human brain works. however, again, that doesn't excuse making it a canon event for every single jjk writer to have a bad interaction with you.

i'm not the only one who feels this way. back in october, every jjk blog i know had something to say on this matter. anons, writers, and many of my mutuals all knew tee was in the wrong, but it's disappointing to see how even then, she still had a platform.

again, if you want to hear the stories behind why your favorite writers left the app, read the reblogs on this post.

and finally, who remembers the post tee made saying that everyone should be "thanking" her for "what she's done" for the jjk fandom?

moment of silence please, let that sink in.

i don't even need to say anything about that, because her words speak for themselves.

moving on, i hate to be this honest (i don't), but how are you gonna be a grown adult and talk like a fourteen year old kpop stan? being a good writer doesn't mean you can be a bad person: you're not a celebrity. we're all a bunch of losers here to fuck gojo satoru, and if you're going to go out of your way to try to be the queen bee of tumblr dot com, then the rest of us have no problem calling you out.

honestly, it's sad that some people on this app can be such amazing writers but, at the same time, such immature people. this includes tee and many of her mutuals. being good at something isn't mutually exclusive. i can be a good writer, and so can you—we can coexist peacefully, but people like tee are what's making that so hard for the rest of us.

again, block users @saetoru and @ctrltoru. tee doesn't deserve your time.

(tagging for reach, because everyone deserves to know about this. sorry for the tag abuse, i know it's annoying.)

#cw discourse #tw discourse #gojo x reader #jjk x reader #gojo smut #jjk smut #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #tokrev x reader #tokrev smut #atsumu x reader #atsumu smut #richboy!gojo #saetoru #ctrltoru

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sgiandubh · 4 months

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As usual you to try connect things that have nothing to with Sam and Cait to prove your fantasy. You have zero direct evidence proving relationship, marriage, children with Sam and Cait. ZERO. You are also admitting if people on screen are involved they are terrible actors. Give it up. As Sam again is off on vacation alone next week, beginning traveling for the next 8 weeks alone for various appointments which have nothing to do with Cait

Dear (returning, I suppose) Beauchamp and Fraser Anon,

Unlike other people in this fandom, I do not need to invent aggressive Anons: you provide the material almost on a daily basis, using the same old, same tired arguments. A very primitive harassment technique, indeed, that pushed many reasonable people in the shadows.

Because this is what y'all want. One of yours had the courage and honesty to write it down, just because a fencer (who should have known better) went on to engage with your faction. She got this response:

Note I did not publish the handle of the person who wrote this. I am only discussing people when prompted or when necessary. I usually discuss problems - and this is a big problem.

In other words, 'believe what you want, but verboten to write or discuss or even question'. I think it says a lot about your degree of tolerance and your democratic values. Or lack thereof.

I did not connect anything. I simply posted something and left it on the table for debate.

And now you invite me to 'give it up'. Because I piss off many, many people on both sides of the Great Divide and I am perfectly aware of it. Exactly what you want me to do, of course. Exactly what I am not going to do, Anon.

So, for the last time:

What really pisses you off is that I always did things my own way. Refused to post funeral pics. Refused to endlessly discuss the number of children S and C might have. Refused to disclose (completely against it) and discuss (unless absolutely necessary to do so) legal documents your side always ends up by revealing one way or another. And you do so usually via Anons, because you have no clue of what they really mean and you think you know (and you don't). Oh, and lest I forget: refused to judge C's attitude or behavior towards this fandom. Because Anon, I honestly don't know how I would react (if I were her) with all the bullshit you managed to ventilate their way and/or the brutal pressure under which she is living her life.

For all these reasons and then some more, you have decided I have to leave this fandom. Because this page, notwithstanding its mistakes, annoys the crap out of you. Because it strives to bring up reasonable dialogue, not circular discourse. Because it took upon itself to answer your insults: usually with irony, something that somehow escaped you. Because it managed to prove that when you deal politely with likeminded people, differences between factions of the same community can be put, if only for five minutes, aside. Because it also brought (or tried to) a new, no nonsense perspective informed by who I am and what I do. And because it is read on a daily basis by people who began to feel encouraged and valued simply for who they are: kind people, sharing a similar point of view of a given situation.

So guess what, Anon? I am not going anywhere.

Live with it. I can live with the daily dose, for sure.

I am also absolutely impressed by the illiterate confidence (I am sick and tired to correct your bad grammar and spelling) with which you suggest to be in the know of S's travel agenda or C's whereabouts. I should also hope someone, somewhere, financially rewards your efforts: if not, maybe you should ask them for a raise, or something. You surely are a very, very dedicated troll.

#anon #fandom #shitshow

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beautifulpersonpeach · 10 months

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A Rant.

A lot of you have sent me asks about how JK's solo promotions isn't the same as Jimin's and other BTS members, about JK's rumoured all-English album, about BTS doing payola (you can read my views 4th paragraph from the bottom), about how HYBE has apparently destroyed the BTS OT7 agenda...

I don't want to answer y'all for two reasons:

Perhaps some of you are newer followers, but I can only repeat myself so many times. Don't you get bored of hearing me say the same thing over and over again? /gen

I don't share the apprehension, worry, or appetite for speculation and theorizing that I'm seeing from many people on Tumblr and Twitter.

It's very possible I'm the one in La La Land and you all have good reason to be concerned. But the way I see it, a lot of hysteria is being driven by two things: (1) a very myopic pov, as though the time between June 2022 and December 2025 is the most defining period of BTS's solo careers, as though this is the best and only time for any member to make a move, leave their mark, and thrive. And that BTS/BigHit is working on the same timeline.

(2) All these conversations are being driven by people who have brought that toxic hyper-competitive feature of k-pop, inwards, into the group, and now see the members as direct competition in the narrowest and most reductive sense possible.

And I just don't relate.

I don't feel sad for Hobi on how his solo roll-out was 'sabotaged' relative to Jimin's, I don't feel angry for Joon on how his roll-out compared to JK's, I don't feel confused at JK possibly having a full English album, if anything I'm even more excited by how he's pushing himself and I think it suits him given his pronunciation is one of the best in BTS. I know he'll be more involved than with Seven given how long he's been working on his album, I just hope he doesn't sacrifice depth in his artistic and lyrical expression for a shallow, wider reach.

In my very honest opinion.

When BTS talk about wanting to be together for a really really long time, I wonder if people have sat down to really think about what that looks like. Because maybe it's just me, but I don't think it makes sense for a company/group that has operated like BigHit/BTS, to shove their grandest plans for seven individuals into a ~3 year window. Right now, it's JK getting the push, he's been very vocal and consistent about his solo ambitions for the last 4 years, and I'm glad he's getting this shot.

Also,

While I feel BigHit has become bloated and inefficient, the boys are still capable handling their affairs and I feel very comfortable not having all the answers for a business and career that isn't mine.

I have my opinions about how things could be done differently, and I think if people want to voice their dissatisfaction to the company that's obviously fine, but I don't feel sadness, anger, or pity for any of the guys in BTS in Chapter 2. Not for my biases, not for Jungkook, and certainly not for Jimin. And it's getting tedious repeating my unpopular sanctimonious opinions to people who have already made up their minds and really ought to be more honest with themselves.

Speaking of Jimin, it continues to amuse me how the top group of people who just do nawt rate this man, is his solos. It's like dejavu for the discourse around OSTs circa 2018 - 2021 all over again. PJMs complaining about how BigHit was holding him back from doing OSTs, just for Jimin to say he wasn't interested at the time. Or how in 2022 people were fretting in my inbox about how only Jimin hadn't done any solo work/promotions yet and I would put out gentle reminders about how he operates and his tendency to leapfrog the rest when he's ready, then we started getting the producer pics.

Jimin has always been a 'bigger picture' kind of guy so how can anyone blame me for not taking this latest outcry seriously when that man continues to do what he's always done: work in silence, and wow with the result.

(Does anyone really think a man with no plans would be airborne every 2 weeks, and that a company with no desire to market him would be paying for and managing those plans?)

Not to be dismissive of people who wanted a stronger American push for Jimin's debut, while I agree he would've benefitted from a more targeted push, I genuinely think Jimin has always been better suited for Europe anyway.

I mean, look at him.

Anon from yesterday said they envisioned Jungkook doing a song/video like Troye Sivan's Rush... I didn't comment on it yesterday, but Anon, personally, I've never seen Jungkook as capable of making a song like that. Jungkook will never make anything like that. The only person in BTS who has the range for that sort of provocation and subtext, is Jimin. And the market that will fully embrace that sort of art isn't America, it's Europe. In my opinion.

We'll see what his plans are.

Anyway, I'm not sure how more tactfully I can say this, but my blog isn't the place to be if you feel some type of way about seeing Jungkook succeed like this relative to your bias, if you think his promotion and success is at the expense of your bias, and so on. It's not even that I care about some vague OT7 ideal, it's that while I understand the anger and heightened emotions a lot of you feel, I just cannot relate to it. And it won't be enjoyable for either of us if you come to me with asks about it because we think very differently about the group and our relation to BTS.

You can mark this post to revisit in 6 months so we can compare notes.

#...if you're still in the fandom #maybe later after I've had some coffee I'll be feeling more up to answering all those asks #bts #bangtan #jimin #park jimin #jungkook #jeon jungkook #jikook #hobi #kookmin #bang pd #bighit #bts fandom #bts army #fandom behaviour

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wingzie · 3 months

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Hi.

Your experience as a Jikookers is the same as the experience of Taekookers. Extreme shippers fighting and having meltdowns on the TL make a lot of people equate the unit name with these behaviors.

Sadly the first thought that came to my mind when Jimin mentioned JK is that tkk would make a scene about it. Instead of just feeling relief they are doing well, or just comfort we're getting news, I felt dread. And the worst is I was right.

I'm really struggling with the state of the fandom now, especially twitter fandom. People say you just have to curate your online experience and most sane armys are just taking a break from SNS and everything will get better once the guys start coming back from MS. I'm not this optimistic.

I've been thinking finding fellow ARMY irl could be better. But there's still a good chance to meet someone you would block straight away online.

I'm not a very social person. I used to come online to find people remisniscing, celebrating, sharing.. There's always been hating but now it feels like it's only hating (and comparing numbers). There was a clear shift from COVID on. It's not just solo endeavors and MS. You said it, how the way to handle things has changed.

I don't know how to fend off all the negativity any more than I know how to casually meet ARMY offline. I dream of an ARMY community manager, of a campaign about mental heal, abusive relationships (how many think they know better than the members what's good for them and think they are actually showing love and support when they are just being abusive), how to make the parasocial relationship a positive thing, etc.... A lot of these people who make ARMY spaces unbreathable actually need help.

Hi Anon! I'm sorry you feel this way. I feel like some Army experienced feelings of anger or betrayal since the Festa Dinner, which has made them unfairly lash out on the members. Some cannot cope that we lost an aspect of control, but this has always been the members decision and we have to accept that with respect. As I said in my other post, the heart of Army is massively the same. Just this morning I saw a Tweet about the Purple Ocean from Muster and it reminded me of the Flashlight project during PTD. There will ALWAYS be discourse online. That is the reason for it's existence. I am in other fandoms and they all suffer from the same issues since Covid and Elon. However, for every "bad" person or post, there are plenty of good ones out there. If you look for then. I mentioned to someone yesterday that it's like when people always leave awful reviews for a bad meal, but very rarely mention when they have a good meal. That's why I always try to find a balance. Both Jimin and Namjoon have told us over the years to not engage with negativity and I have always taken those words to heart. Things in online spaces have changed, but I guess I am more of a fighter and optimist. For each negative post I see, I spend more time posting/repositing posts that spread positivity or praise. I see no point in boosting some random February 2024 account sprewing hate. We have to be responsbile or our own spaces and I DO think things will improve once Jin returns. There's still that shared joy and excitement whenever a member posts or content comes out. It's just that the negative is less contained than it used to be. As for events offline. My first event was for a local screening of one of the concerts. I then attended a few events for members Birthday's. With the HYYH anniversay coming up, maybe you could look into seeing if there's any events for it? It's also Sope's Birthday soon and I plan to go to events for each of their Birthday's, so that could also be an option. However, if you dont' feel comfortable going in person, then that is perfectly acceptable. I'm sure there will be no judgement! We all have our own ways. For example, I always buy a mini cake for each members' Birthday haha. Though I had some negative experiences offline, there have been some really good ones. That's just how things are and then you can take the steps to protect yourself afterwards. I'm actually going to another event with the same group I mentioned before. If it doesn't go well, then I will just leave. If things have improved, then I will stay and enjoy myself. I understand it's not easy though, especially when we have certain expectations. Please do look after yourself though and feel free to DM me if you wish to discuss further. Much Love Wingzie/Becca

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walkawaytall · 9 months

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Oh no, I’m participating in Star Wars discourse.

Uh, so there’s a post floating around that I’m not reblogging mainly because it’s just this person’s headcanon and, whatever, people can have headcanons, but the main points they make in the midst of talking about their headcanon that I’ll be addressing are:

Leia and Han getting married and having kids is the most boring thing you can do with Leia

Leia should be a Jedi like every other dang Skywalker because somehow continuing an assumed dynasty isn’t the most boring choice you can make for her

Leia is more cut out to handle lack of attachment than Luke which we know because of her lack of response to Alderaan being destroyed

Leia and Han shouldn’t get married or even be around each other much because Han is a wandering soul and needs to travel and go places

Leia never expresses a desire for marriage or children in the OT, so removing these things won’t contradict George Lucas’ canon

And, look, these are just…missing the point of the character growth that occurs in these two during the OT.

(there's just a whole-ass essay below the cut if anyone cares to read about the many thoughts I have on Leia Organa and Han Solo.)

So, I'm not saying existing or past canon/EU has done it right, but I disagree with the statement that having them marry and live kind of basic lives is the most boring choice. If that's all there was to it, sure, but those two choices by themselves show a monumental amount of character growth for both Leia and Han. (I mean, frankly, I think "Skywalker = Jedi every time no matter what" is a pretty boring choice storytelling wise, but I also think the Jedi on the whole are incredibly boring characters, so, uh...I'm biased.)

Leia was never going to live a quiet life even if Alderaan hadn't been destroyed. Like, she did not have that option, period. She would have either remained in politics or taken over as queen, may or may not have had to marry for political reasons, and may or may not have been involved with the Rebellion. Her life was chaos starting as a teen and she had no reason to believe she wouldn't die living a hectic and chaotic life.

And then she loses everything. This isn't emphasized in the movies obviously because they are fun family romps and not gritty dramas, but, good night, in a single second, she loses every family member, nearly every person she knows, every place she finds most familiar and comfortable, everything and to top it all off, the guilt that it's happened because of her unwillingness to give up the Alliance will probably always be there. She was tortured, they lost lives in battle, and, yeah, they destroy the Death Star, but at the end of that day, literally all she has left is the Alliance and those three pilots who managed to unlock her cell door without too much trouble.

I don't know about you, but I'd be straight-up shut down emotionally at that point. Like, I don't think PTSD even covers what Leia probably has going on in her head. And I think that's kind of what we see in ESB (I know the filmmakers weren’t thinking in terms of PTSD, but there are still hints of it there regardless). She's angry, she's afraid of losing people (she's obviously pissed Han is leaving after he said he'd stay, but also, there's a scene that was cut -- a good move in my opinion because the dialogue is beyond dramatic and Carrie seems out of it, but it stands that this was the intended source of Leia’s frustration -- where Luke is telling Leia he's leaving the Alliance for Dagobah and she is extremely upset that both he and Han are leaving, goes on a whole rant about how she should know better than to trust anyone but herself, etc.), and when she finally lets Han in, she promptly loses him and nearly loses Luke.

And then the events of ROTJ happen and she finds out that the man who tortured her, who stood idly by while her entire planet was destroyed, who tortured the man she loves and handed him off to the space mob to be murdered, who cut off her brother's hand and nearly allowed him to die, who has terrorized the Galaxy in general, that guy is her bio dad. And that guy is the entire reason she's Force-sensitive.

Leia stopping her Jedi training in the new canon was for a dumb reason, I agree there. Leia not wanting anything to do with the thing that, from her point of view, nearly ruined her life and the lives of those she loves about a thousand times over...I dunno, I think that's way more interesting than her just going, "Ope, I'm a Skywalker! You know what that means! Gotta be a Jedi!" And as far as her being more of a natural at it...do we know that Leia is better at healthy non-attachment than Luke? Like, any response to a planet being destroyed could easily just be a trauma response. Is shutting down like that good, actually? Or is it just going to cause problems down the road, Anakin-style?

I don't know, I just think that after living through all of that as well as a freaking war, girly might want a quiet life -- that she gets to choose -- with a husband -- who she gets to choose -- and kids -- who she gets to raise without the threat of the Empire or her nightmare of a biological father looming over their lives. And the very fact that she's able to open herself up to that sort of love and affection when the fear that it might all be ripped away from her is likely ever-present is a big deal. Her having kids knowing they'll likely be Force-sensitive even though that aspect of her biology terrifies her is a big deal. And as far as her not expressing a desire for marriage and kids in the OT...I mean, Leia isn't given the opportunity to express her desire for much in the OT, let's be real (she also never expresses a desire to become a Jedi in the OT either. We can't use what Leia didn't express in the OT to dictate whether she wants or doesn't want something is what I'm saying). They're at war. She's a military leader. She probably can't even hazard wishing for anything beyond waking up the next day. But that's not to say she didn't want such things or grow to want such things once she felt it was safe to do so. We literally don't know, but I don't think the absence of that expressed desire is indicative of anything.

As far as Han goes, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure in every iteration of his story, his itchy feet weren't like...a part of his personality. He had a highly traumatic childhood that left him with few options and ended up living a transient lifestyle out of necessity. He actually seems remarkably easy to keep around if you don't treat him like garbage. I mean, he's given exactly one day of friendship, and he sticks around with the Rebellion for three years before some run-in with a bounty hunter makes him realize he needs to take care of his debt with Jabba. He's not leaving just for funsies or because he's bored or just really needs to be a smuggler again...and he seems legitimately sad have to leave when he's not busy getting pissed at Leia for not having the emotional response he wants her to have (first half of ESB Han is being a big ol' baby and I'm perfectly fine admitting that). And what character growth to see Han "I'm in it for the money" Solo learn to care for his friends, learn to support a cause, learn to love Leia when he's spent so much of his life unattached. Han making boring life choices is indicative of character growth and learning to care about others more than himself. What a lovely thing for this man to learn.

The call for Leia and Han to remain living separate lives but still committed to one another kind of demands that they move backward in character growth in my opinion. We have two people who are in rough places due, by and large, to trauma, who eventually open up to one another and seem better for it and then they...just go back to what they were doing before except they occasionally see each other? Why would they want that? They've grown as people, they've won a dang war, and they're finally able to live somewhat securely. Why wouldn't they want to live basic lives when they were denied the privilege of such choices for so long? And how is them making choices based on their love for another person — love that they had a heck of a time coming to terms with — boring?

#leia organa #han solo #star wars #star wars meta #star wars discourse

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lajikookbolala · 11 months

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Some thoughts on this shipping discourse

I have already expressed MULTIPLE times how much I hate drama, so this is probably gonna be my last post on this topic. In the future, I might post less, not at all, or often but with only positive stuff. I just don't know if I can mentally handle being on here for much longer. Anyway, here are some thoughts:

Trying to convince Tkkrs they are wrong is not going to work.

I would like to challenge anyone here to think of a time when someone ACTUALLY changed their opinion on something after an online argument. Can't think of one? Exactly. Humans are stubborn, it's just part of who we are. Especially online, nobody is actually open to changing their opinion on things. We argue just for the sake of arguing.

And, we have to remember that Tkkrs are JUST as confident that their ship is real as we (Jkkrs) are. It may be stupid, but as a former Tkkr I would know (I had just joined the fandom and I was young, don't blame me for falling for the Taekook bs). Anyway, when I say I was confident in my belief that's an understatement. Eventually, I did stumble across Jikook, and the story is actually very funny. Again, I had just joined the fandom and hilariously, my mom was starting to get into BTS too. One day, she stumbled across a Jikook video on youtube, called me in the room and showed me, saying "look how in love these two are". I was hesitant at first (still being a tkkr at the time), but I watched it with her, because she was my mother; someone that I knew and trusted. If some random person online had sent me the same video and told me to watch it, I wouldn't have. I would be pissed and ignore it. My point is, to convert me from a Tkkr to a Jkkr, it took my own mother showing me a video, and explaining to me that with her almost 60 years of life experience, she could tell they were in incredibly in love.

Nobody's gonna listen to a random person's opinion on line. At least, not with an open mind.

2. We're just giving toxic people the attention they want.

More than 50% of what I see on Jikook Tumblr recently is answers responding to toxic people's posts, whether those people are tkkrs, antis, or solo stans. Because we answer all their stupid questions, more of these people are coming out of the woodwork to share their own stupid opinions. And then it's just a toxic circle.

Even though it may give you some satisfaction to roast random strangers on the internet (I even enjoy reading roasts by jkkrs sometimes), it's really not worth it. We're just giving them the attention they want. If we just ignored them for a while and didn't answer their questions or respond to them, they wouldn't go away, but we would definitely see less of them on here.

Also, aren't we kinda being hypocrites? When tkkrs leave hate on Jikook posts we all get together to hate on them (which is justified) but we seem to have no problem when jkkrs leave hate on Taekook posts. I know it's different because Jikook is real and taekook isn't, but again, we're not going to convince them by leaving hate comments. We're just gonna piss them off more. Honestly, I think the only thing that would shut tkkrs up once and for all is if Jikook came out with their relationship, and we all know that's not going to happen, at least not anytime soon.

Ok, I think that's the end of my rant. Please let me know if you agree with me or not. If you disagree, I totally understand. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I'm just sharing mine.

ALSO 3 more things:

1: please feel free to send me asks! I will respond to ALL of them as long as they are not toxic.

2: does anyone know any platforms where the Jikook community is welcoming and nice? It may sound stupid but I think that's what I really need right now. I have no BTS friends and would LOVE someone to talk to about them.

3: let me know if you would like me to stay on here. I'm almost definitely not gonna post any more stuff about this drama, but I will 100% post more cute and wholesome Jikook moments if y'all want me to.

I love you all, thank you so much 💜

#jikook #kookmin

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narrativelysignificantturtleduck · 1 year

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anytime there's harry potter discourse i think about the many times over the years that the veil was pulled aside, that the illusion of the books being a fun escape was shattered. bc jkr's transphobia isn't the first time this happened, it's only the most recent and the biggest. one of those moments that i remember wasn't really a specific moment - it was just a new thread of analysis about the series. specifically, it was about how dumbledore was actually kind of awful and manipulative, basically orchestrating harry's life so he'd be willing to sacrifice himself to stop voldemort. as kids, dumbledore was this cool wise mentor, but as adults, people looked at the text and saw an adult manipulating a child. though we are meant to see more depth in dumbledore over the course of the series, this realization shattered the illusion of comfort in a way i don't think jkr intended.

it's interesting to compare this to the treatment of iroh, another character from kids media who starts out as a kooky sweet old man and is later revealed to have depth and a great deal of power over the world. but realizing that iroh actually has an agenda, that he's working secretly to make sure zuko plays the role he wants him to play, doesn't feel as much like a shattering. it all comes down to the way the two characters handle abuse.

dumbledore places harry with the dursleys ostensibly in an attempt to give him a normal childhood, away from being treated as a celebrity in the wizarding world. but he's keeping tabs on him enough to know that he's sleeping in a cupboard, and yet he does nothing to remove him from that abusive situation. in fact, mcgonagall warns him in the first chapter of the first book that the dursleys are not good people, and he still leaves him there. the only implication we can take from this is that the dursleys' abuse was the normal childhood that dumbledore wanted harry to have.

meanwhile, iroh's machinations are all about getting zuko free of his abuser. yes, iroh has this grand plan of zuko defeating azula and becoming the new good fire lord who will end the war, but that can only happen once zuko's free of ozai's influence, and so that's most of what iroh does. he keeps offering zuko fun, pleasant things, like tea and good food and music nights, and he sabotages zuko's quest for the avatar by falling asleep in a hot spring and pretending to lose a pai sho tile. he's trying to show zuko that having fun is more important than a quest from his abusive father. he poisons himself in the earth kingdom so that zuko is forced to seek help, forced to interact with people of the earth kingdom and see that that the way the fire nation treats people is wrong. everyone in the earth kingdom will assume that a burn scar like zuko's is a sign of fire nation abuse, even if they're wrong about the details, and that could make zuko realize they're right.

neither iroh nor dumbledore are super upfront with their intentions, but iroh's playing it subtle because people trapped in trying to please an abuser can be resistant to people trying to remove them from that situation, while dumbledore doesn't tell harry because then he might not want to be the sacrifice he needs to be. iroh's secrets are because he cares about zuko and wants to help him as best he can, dumbledore's are about using harry as a tool.

it also reflects a more nuanced understanding of abuse. iroh can't directly remove zuko (or azula, for that matter) from their abusive situation because they are caught up in loyalty to their father and ozai wouldn't want to give up his control over them. dumbledore can't remove harry from the dursleys because...he doesn't want to? harry was pretty willing to leave and they seemed like they'd be pretty happy to be rid of him. plus, ozai has power over everyone - including iroh - as fire lord, while dumbledore is far more powerful than the dursleys. if a muggle authority had tried to intervene with harry, the dursleys might have resisted, but if a wizard wants to fly their nephew away, they can't physically or legally stop him. we're left to wonder if perhaps dumbledore has some old-fashioned "experiencing hardship is good for the soul" mentality, or if maybe that he thought harry would be more likely to sacrifice himself for the wizarding world if it was his escape from abuse.

but of course harry potter wasn't going to address the reality of what keeps people trapped in abusive situations. it was constantly marketed as an escapist fantasy - that you could be whisked away from your abusive family to a magical world where you were loved and powerful. getting out has to be easy, but we also have to keep going back to the abusive situation so that the wizarding world keeps seeming magical.

atla, meanwhile, is its own magical world, and the show is about bringing hope and childlike joy back to a world ravaged by war and colonialism. depicting the reality of abuse, how hard it is to break the cycle but also how essential it is to do so, reinforces the themes of the show.

and so the mastermind adult, orchestrating the defeat of evil and the breaking of the cycle, does it out of love for a child.

#iroh #nina's personal log #wow past me you were so right for this why did you let this languish in the drafts for nearly a year

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absolutebl · 7 months

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Hi ABL!! This is more of a data question then anything but it might not actually be answerable.

How does the world of BL define a successful show? Is it money made on ads revenue? Streams? Trending hashtags??

Granted in North American media I also couldn’t answer this question, but I could gage based on…article reviews or critical acclaim. Or something.

I see soooooo many people saying something flopped or was massively successful, but truly. How on earth are we making those benchmarks?

I figure you might have at least a tiny sliver of insight into how this works! Or at least a key word I can take to google LOL. Thanks as always!!!!!

Hum.

Well for GMMTV et al, it's YT views. So that's easy. We can see those eyeballs outright.

The streaming platforms obfuscate data (that is one of the reasons SAG is still on strike) but we can see things like where it's ranked on their internal leader boards (what's "popular on Viki" for example). How many reviews something has. How many collections and lists it's on. How many people on MDL have it listed as "currently watching"

More key is how much chatter a show is getting. How many comments. But also...

Literally when you do a Google search for that IP:

How are the hit returns?

How many top spots does it hold above the fold on Google main (using private or incognito mode).

Are people blogging about it? Think pieces?

Are there reaction vids?

FMVs?

Reddit chatter?

BTS's?

Interviews with actors?

The amount of fan content generated around an IP tells you a lot about the number of viewers - since it is all a numbers game. Commenters (those who visibly/trackably react to content) are more common than (content) creators. Ghosts (passive consumers) are more common than commenters.

There are those in EntDA working on formulas for predictive fan base numbers sourced in the ratios of these.

Lemme try to explain...

In other words, the fans who create content for IPs (fanfic, art, meta analysis, FMVs, etc...) are the rarest. Those who interact with the content, leave star reviews, comment on the above fan-made content, engage in discourse, leave YT comments, are the second rarest. Those who tend to do nothing more than ... well, ghost (maybe have a subscription, maybe save the vid to a playlist or on MDL, maybe read this on Tumblr but don't react to it). They are the largest contingent but hardest to track.

If we could get a good handle on the first 2, there's usually a predictable ratio that can be drawn for the fan base as a whole, the largest number 3 - ghosts.

For example:

For every 1 creator there are 100 commenters and 1000 ghosts. Something like that. However the nature of this ratio is dependent on venue and vocality of the fan base (often a generational thing). So like, most Kpop stans are vocal, but 4th gen stans tend to be more noisy online, even though 3rd gen groups tend to have bigger overall fan bases. (Superstars, like super hits, are non-viable non-predictive outliers. There can never be another KP, or 2g, and we can't use their numbers to predict anything. Just like Taylor Swift or BTS can't be used to predict/estimate the success of a new pop venture).

back to the BL fandom

Here on Tumblr you can tell what's popular by which ones are getting the most gifsets.

That's how we know Only Friends is out performing Dangerous Romance. (I mean I could check the numbers on YT but I don't really have to.)

Also, I bet you good money Kiseki is garnering more eyeballs than You Are Mine. Again, I can say that with confidence just based on the content that's being created for that IP in this one venue.

On a practical level, in the ET industry, if there is chatter about a BL outside of BL circles (as happened with KP) you know it's gotten HUGE (by BL standards).

The moral of this story, incidentally, is if you like a thing, doesn't matter how shy you are, if you want it to continue, get a second season, whatever, you gotta NOT JUST WATCH IT BUT TALK about it. Online, where careers are made and broken. Squeaky wheel and all that.

Entertainment is about attention. More money is always thrown at the thing getting the most attention.

Just like politics.

Okay, I done now.

#asked and answered #probably more than you wanted #ABL dusted off big data #in the end it's a numbers game #and we here us on tumblr we're some of those numbers #congratz you asked a question you're being tracked!#yay!

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edenfenixblogs · 3 months

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Idk if you're still interested in knowing about this stuff, but drawfee tweeted about the pcrf stream today

Yes! I have seen this. I’m really glad they mentioned they won’t tolerate antisemitism.

It seems like they’ll be allowing the spamming of FtRttS, flags, and watermelon emojis. But if they actually manage to encourage the participants to to not just demand a ceasefire but to ask them to call on their representatives to demand a negotiated ceasefire in which both sides actually cease to fire, then I’m happy enough.

I have said repeatedly that I don’t think the folks at Drawfee are bad people. I think that there is some unexamined antisemitism that is not unique to any member of Drawfee and is common in basically anyone who has not actively engaged in antiracist work about antisemitism specifically.

I trust that they want to do good.

I think in general this statement is really good because it addresses a lot of the main concerns that people brought up online about how silence encourages antisemitism.

But I also think that it will leave some Jews feeling alienated for understandable reasons. I’m not going to detail those reasons here in this post or in any post I tag with “Drawfee,” because I’m not in the habit of trying to hurt people who are trying to improve themselves and grow.

As for me personally? Idk. This statement really helped a lot. I love the gang. I have all three of Julia’s drawtectives posters on my wall. I have the Trans Rigs keychain and pride rights shirt. I have the post cards framed in various places around my home. I even have the book!

It actually made me ill to look at them before this statement—not because they owe me anything. I want to emphatically state that none of them owe me anything. But I won’t pretend it didn’t have an affect on me when I saw them engaging with blatant propaganda sources—knowingly or not. Speaking for myself and only myself: I just couldn’t emotionally handle that I had spent so much time supporting creators who might actively hate me. But now I’m back to being happy to see the Drawfee merch around me home. It reminds me of the enjoyment their content brought me.

NGL, though. I’m still pretty wounded by how nasty things got for no reason, so idk if (again, just speaking for myself here and not encouraging anyone to follow my lead in any way) I will be able to engage with the content anymore.

I want to! But I also think they probably do NOT want me to. I’m just one fan and I think my interactions, however well intentioned, caused them stress and anxiety.

I feel wounded that they interpreted my actions in a manipulative way despite my repeated attempts to make clear they were in good faith. They likely feel wounded because I (unintentionally) inspired controversy in response to what they felt was an unambiguously good deed.

Of course, they might not know or care about me specifically at all, which is fine! Who knows‽ Only they can.

Either way, whether they are indifferent to me or angry with me or annoyed at me or whatever, I feel a lot of complex ways about everything that happened during this particularly stressful time.

So, idk. I’d love to enjoy their content again. And depending on how well they curb antisemitism in the stream (which is dependent on whether or not the mods educate themselves enough on what antisemitism even looks like, which seems to be one of the main issues at play in modern discourse), I might feel safe enough to watch their content again.

It’s hard to imagine feeling that same kind of comfort that I used to though, given everything. But that’s ok. That is a personal boundary for me based on my own needs. It’s an unpleasant feeling, but it doesn’t make them bad people or me a bad person. Everyone is gonna have their own boundaries and limitations about topics this sensitive.

Thanks for the message @theres-so-many.

#Drawfee #only tagging it cuz my last post caused an unintentional stir and i wanna make clear this #was only ever about trying to find safe media for me personally as well as providing information to fellow Jews in the same boat #idk man #it’s been a lot #but I want it to be enjoyable again #¯\ (ツ) /¯

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bagsysworld · 11 months

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Some Thoughts on the Black Brothers, Dysfunctional Family, and the Good Kind of Hurt.

TW: abusive households, sibling separation, childhood trauma

I’ve been seeing some discourse about the Regulus and Sirius situation (specifically Sirius leaving Grimmauld without Regulus) and as someone who has lived through a very similar situation, I wanted to (project and over share) explain some of the intricacies that I don’t see talked about a lot, particularly in regards to the effect that this kind of trauma had on me and my brother’s relationship. Hopefully this can serve as inspo for people who are writing the Black brothers if you haven’t lived this dynamic and/or don’t have siblings.

Background: I am the youngest sibling. I have a brother who is two years older than me. We were raised by our mother, in a household that was difficult and tumultuous. Our parents are separated and my dad lived far away.

My mother was raised in a very abusive household. I don’t say this to excuse her behavior, but for the sake of the conversation, I want to make note of this generational trauma. The Blacks are chock full of it. As a result of her trauma, she is volatile and quite emotionally reactive when she fears she is losing control. She has a very specific vision of the type of people her children should be, and if we defied her, and threatened what (in her mind) she had worked so hard to build, she lashed out. To my mother, she wasn’t as bad as her own parents, so we were weak if we couldn’t handle it. She viewed her behavior as normal.

Also, regardless of how difficult things were at home, it was VERY important that, to the outside world, everything looked perfect. Public perception was real to her, and whatever went on inside the house was just a means of keeping up that façade. Who we were wasn’t as important as how other people saw us. For anyone writing Walburga into their fics, this is helpful to keep in mind. Rather than just writing her as evil for the sake of being evil, understand this motivation, and you may find a bit more depth in your depiction of her.

But, like my mother, her vision of perfection was just that: a vision. It was unrealistic. It was unobtainable. Nothing would have ever been good enough.

My older brother was always the family scapegoat. Like Sirius, he is outgoing, charming, impulsive, witty, often unpredictable. He loves to have a laugh. He always speaks his mind. He doesn’t like to lose. As you can imagine, this put him at constant odds with my mother. If she was angry, he fought back. He questioned her, disagreed with her. Like Sirius, my brother knows who he is, and he wasn’t going to compromise that to live some life that didn’t even appeal to him.

I, on the other hand, didn’t talk back. Not when I was younger, at least. I was anxious, studious, a perfectionist in every hobby I took up. I didn’t know how to let myself have fun. I never felt like I had earned it. My mother was so loving when I had her approval, and so I chased it. I thought love needed to be earned. I had to be good enough. This is how I view Regulus, especially in their younger years.

As for the sibling dynamic as children… it always gives me a little chuckle when I read a fic where Sirius and Regulus are constantly soft with each other. Imagine them how you like, I don’t want to be condescending to anyone. But there’s no way those two didn’t fight like cats and dogs. Pun intended. My brother loves getting a reaction out of people for fun, and he knew how to press every button to make me mad. I look back on this fondly now, though. He’s my big brother, of course he thinks it’s funny to piss me off. asshole.

But when I was upset, he always knew just how to cheer me up. Not with some tearful heart-to-heart, or a long loving hug, or any of that. More like, he’d force his way into my room, I’d tell him to get out, and we would have an interaction in which he pestered me until I cracked a smile, then he would be ridiculous until I was laughing again and was sufficiently pulled out of my own head. He made it bearable, all the pressure. I didn’t realize how much I needed him until he wasn’t there. But more on that later.

My brother and mother were constantly screaming at each other. But when I got yelled at, I got distant and quiet, and I just said whatever I thought I needed to say to get the hell out of there, so I could lock myself in my room where I felt safe. It scared me, the yelling. And I didn’t understand why my brother always yelled back. It’s not like he was going to change our mothers mind about anything. And it made me angry at him, because he was always looking for a fight, and I always ended up feeling stressed and scared. Our mothers mood would be so sour after they fought, and the floor would be eggshells. It was misplaced anger. But I was a child.

To my brother, this anger made it seem like I was siding with my mother. I was not. I just wanted the fighting to stop. I don’t think Regulus would have been on Walburga’s side either. He was clearly aware of her abusive tendencies. I don’t know anyone with an abusive parent who is like, actually on their side and not just appeasing them so that they can be left alone. But who knows, maybe you know someone like that. There’s a lot of people in this world.

I often see people say that Regulus should have defended Sirius to their parents. Maybe. But also, it wouldn’t have really made any difference, other than both of them getting in trouble. In my experience, my brother knew me, and he never would have expected that level of confrontation from me. I think Sirius would have been the same way. I think he would have preferred Regulus stayed out of it, because he would have felt guilty if Regulus got hurt fighting his fight.

After my mother and brother fought, I would do my best to put him back together. But I wasn’t as good at it as he was. He always knew just how to cheer me up. I always felt like I was falling short. I think that he was hesitant to let me take care of him. I think it made him feel guilty, like he was failing somehow.

He would cope in other ways. Blow off steam at a party, get drunk or high or both. I’d stay awake to make sure he didn’t get caught, didn’t wake up our mother and cause another fight. And he’d let me take care of him then. Simple steps. I gave what I could. It never felt like enough.

He left when he was 16, after a huge fight with our mother. She made me stand in the room, and they both tried to get me to back them up. I clammed up, torn in two. I paid the price for it later.

My brother went to live with my dad. He didn’t ask me to come with him. I don’t think Sirius would have asked Regulus either, though I see that depicted a lot. I think he would have just wanted to get the fuck out. Completely understandable. Plus, even if my brother had asked me, I wouldn’t have gone. What, I was just going to move in with my dad and get on with it all, knowing that my mom was somewhere angry with me, disapproving of me, disappointed in me? It would have eaten me alive. Honestly, him asking me to leave with him never even crossed my mind. And I wasn’t mad at him for that. Devastated, sure, but more so because he was gone. I felt hopeful for him. I wanted him to be happy.

This is where things get tricky, and where I see a lot of people villainize Sirius unfairly. My brother built a new life at a new school. He leaned heavily into the new safety and acceptance that he had found, which he so desperately needed. Just like Sirius when he moved in with the Potters and began considering them to be his real family, and James to be his brother. He was traumatized from his past and didn’t like to think about it, so he built up a wall against us so that he didn’t have to. He was a child, reacting to trauma.

My brother thought that I was against him, because I hadn’t vocalized my support when he asked me to. So I got cut off as well. It fucking sucked, and it pissed me off so much at the time, especially because I had also gotten into trouble with my mother when I didn’t back her up either. And then we were both just pissed at each other. Hurt, and scared, and angry, and stubborn.

All of those feelings felt so grown up at the time, so righteous and justified. It’s funny now, looking back, seeing how immature it all was. If we had just fucking talked to each other, we could have saved ourselves so much misery. We could have saved ourselves.

But I was not encouraged to talk to him. And I had my mothers undivided attention. My brother always commanded the attention of everyone in the room (so Sirius Black coded of him) and suddenly he was gone. It was all on me now. My mothers expectations had been raised unimaginably, to compensate for the loss. I think that this was her insecurity coming in to play. She needed to prove that she didn’t fail. And I needed to be perfect. I had never wanted her undivided attention, just her approval. I never got her approval in the end. Like I said, unattainable. And I eventually reached a breaking point. Not quite as dramatic as defying a dark wizard, stealing a horcrux, and being drowned by Inferi, though i’m sure it did feel like it at the time. I survived though. Bagsy- 1, Regulus- 0.

I talk to my brother now, and we’re healing. We have had a few drunken heart-to-hearts. We love each other. But there’s an ache there, when I think of that time we spent apart. A mistrust that we’re both trying to unlearn, I think. It sucks, because I want to blame the whole thing on our shitty experience, but we were still part of it. It’s still part of us.

I think that even if Regulus and Sirius had reconnected, it would be very touch-and-go. They would remind each other of a very difficult time in their lives, an environment that they are both products of, even if they denounce it. They need each other to get through it, because no one else could understand what they’ve been through. But they hurt each other because of it.

And there’s a grief there, for the relationship and the trust that you want, need, but which feels so out of reach. It feels like it got taken away from us, and (petulantly, I often think) it’s not fair. Sometimes we fight, and I’m scared that we’re too broken by it all to ever be good for each other. I’m scared that I’ll only ever remind him of things he’d rather forget. Then we make up, and I’m reminded: despite the pain we cause each other sometimes, my life is so much better with my brother in it. And I know he feels the same. We’re so young. We have so much time.

Regulus and Sirius didn’t get that time.

tl,dr; call your sibling. go to therapy.

#regulus black #sirius black #black brothers #black brothers angst #marauders #sorry for the long rant but hopefully this can help someone #or better yet #make someone out there feel seen #I’d love to hear other people’s thoughts on all this as well because i am FULLY projecting and I am one human in the cosmos

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lipglossanon · 4 days

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you totally don’t have to respond to this i know you don’t like posting about fandom discourse but i have a rant- a lot of “vanilla” or palatably kinky readers (kinks that don’t outwardly make someone who isn’t hardcore kinky uncomfortable) have the mindset of “i have an understanding of this character and want content that fits this idea of the character i have in my head and i can’t comprehend why people would characterize a fictional character in such a taboo/dark way or a way that’s outside of my realm of acceptable” so they complain in this echo chamber of people who validate what they’re feeling about not wanting dark content and everyone is entitled to an opinion but all it takes is one interaction to start a witch hunt for a specific creator and [un]intentionally create a ton of hate towards accounts and people who are just doing their thing in their corner of the internet and the “vanilla” or palatably kinky readers who choose to attack those creators of darker stuff get so up their own asses about these works getting traction and pushed when they’re the reason for all the engagement because algorithms do not differentiate positive or negative engagement that’s why blocking tags and blocking accounts and not engaging is recommended instead of hate anons and comments and mass reporting, not just that but the inconsideration of the people who don’t consume dark content who vent about it being out there and not putting warnings for the content they’re talking about or even posting screenshots with no warning is so disgusting, i’ve never read a darker work of anything and not been met with tags or warnings. for people to say this content is ooc, i can accept and have agreed with some posts about a characters backstory being ignored or changed to support dark content but it gets bad when people demonize others for taking a darker route with how they view a character because it’s usually this character who has a history of experiencing some type of abuse or some large trauma that took place at a point in their life which is why they chose to do what they do or it’s why they are the way they are but it’s rarely delved into how they coped or how they handled the situation leaving it up to consumers interpretation so it’s immersive for everyone and that’s where these issues arise in the blending of people in a fandom space when “vanilla” or palatably kinky people look at a character with a trauma and see people say they want that character to do something darker to them and it makes them uncomfortable because they can’t comprehend someone having that response to any trauma because they assume everyone responds the same way they do so they seek out emotional validation to feel seen for being made uncomfortable by something they interacted with instead of seeking to make themselves comfortable by blocking and ignoring these works, they seek out this validation even demonization of things outside of their realm of perception based off what they’ve experienced to make themselves feel like they’re right instead of aiming to make themselves comfortable and lastly, people saying dark content should move to ao3 solely is blatantly ignoring tumblr pre the adult content ban because most fic writers started on tumblr and got their following on tumblr and it’s the app/site that’s changed for the worse to appease this ultra purity culture sect of their site to get more ad revenue and its fucked the larger community of people who’ve been here since before the ban because we don’t really have the access to grow our platform or share our work anywhere else and still have the amount of community engagement we can get on tumblr which is why most authors share fics- to engage and be a part of a fandom for a thing they enjoy and in my opinion ao3 is very impersonal in the interactions you can have with people and i think that’s why some people want dark content creators in fandom spaces over there because they can feel distant from a creator on ao3 in a way they can’t on tumblr if that makes sense

- 💀

(i got got by the text allotment it was like 1k words lmao sorry for any typos <3)

💀 anon 😮 i am shook you got by the text allotment ��

But exactly; I was around tumblr pre purity clean out 🙄 but I left until 2013 and then left again til 2022. It’s a different world now. Same thing happened with livejournal back in the day too; which they never recovered and eventually fell to the wayside.

It’s really dumbfounding to me; I just don’t know why polite fandom culture has took a nosedive. If you don’t like, don’t interact.

It’s like they’re never interacted with a irl human being or been presented with working with a coworker who you might dislike every single thing about them but you can’t let that affect your job.

Idk at this point people are more online than ever before it’ll probably get worse before it gets better to the detriment of those with cognitive thinking skills.

#ask box #💀 anon #lipglossanon #lipglossanswers

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pobopolybius · 1 year

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Not going to lie chief the way usamericans, brits, and canadians expect every single queer person from different cultures to behave the exact same way they do and have the exact same culture they do is grating and annoying and makes me want to peel my skin off

The amount of times I had to explain to usamericans, as a brazilian, that many people from different languages use neopronouns out of necessity because there are NO GENDER NEUTRAL FUCKING PRONOUNS in languages like portuguese, spanish, french, etc only to be met with "well they're speaking ENGLISH so they HAVE TO do things OUR WAY"

The amount of times I was told to kill myself over having ele/dele in my bio, for being a "cringe neopronoun user who is making a mockery of REAL trans people", when that is just "he/his" in portuguese. Having to take their hand and explain how to put two and two together with the ele/dele, my posts in portuguese, and the brazilian flag in my bio, only for me to be told "how was I supposed to know? This is the internet. Speak english."

How many times have I seen latino transvestites and transexuals get harassed to the point of deletion over you gringos getting angry and upset over THEIR OWN IDENTITIES. Because you are all fucking nosy cunts who expect everyone to behave how YOU want them, expect them to exist how YOU want them to.

You're no different than the homophobes you claim to hate if you can't just leave people the fuck alone and hate them for being something your discourse poisoned brain can't handle. You fucking idiots need to learn to mind your god damned business and realize people are allowed to do whatever the fuck they want with their identities.

Sorry someone you never met using labels that make you "uncomfy uwu" to the point you need to cry about it and mock them online. You're a pathetic loser. Sorry someone being queer in a way that isn't up to your americanized standards isn't good enough for you so they're fake queers who need to be ostracized and dealt with. You're pathetic.

I fucking hate the usamericanization of queerness. You're all fucking boring.

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donnerpartyofone · 5 days

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At the risk of overstating the obvious, people are so weird on the internet. Like what do they want? Actually I have a personal system for understanding this, in which internet users (by which I really mean social media including anywhere you can leave comments) are grouped by apparent motivation, like:

seeking community

seeking fights (sometimes trolls, sometimes just anger issues)

seeking performance platforms (bloggers, ahem)

seeking information (including media)

seeking opportunities to provide information (blowhards, know-it-alls, discourse warriors, etc)

...those are some basic ones and I think I can usually tell an individual's main motivation, especially if there is more than one example of their behavior. Once you have a grasp of the motivation, even really annoying behavior can become easier to tolerate, or at least to dismiss without worrying about it. Not necessarily EASY, but easy-ER.

Some people are just mysterious of course. I often think about this anon years ago who would do this thing: I'd make a very particular, detailed post about some movie I disliked and exactly why it didn't work. Anon would send me a totally mindless message like "I saw that on HBO the other night, me and the wife loved it! Great acting, awesome story, four stars!" There was nothing argumentative about it, he wasn't trying to debate me or ask a question or add information or even call me stupid. It was so confusing to me, like why tell me about it? I'd post the asks like "This random stranger on the internet has a differing opinion of Movie X." I mean what did he want me to do? I've had people get really pissed off at me because I don't like their favorite thing, and those people are idiots but like, I know what they want. They feel threatened and insecure and they want me to say "I surrender, you're right and I'm wrong," or they want me to agree to have an exciting fight with them. But I really didn't know what this one guy wanted. After I did this a few times, just posting like "Here's an anonymous stranger's opposing viewpoint I guess," he got REALLY MAD and sent me these angry, pained messages about how I'm being really mean and immature and I shouldn't use the internet if I can't handle different perspectives...which was like, not a good description of what was happening. He was coming to my personal, individual blog to file his own opinions as if it were an open forum or something; maybe he didn't understand how Tumblr actually works? It was very strange.

Sometimes when I post an opinion about [x] I'll get replies from people who don't agree, and the people and their replies are essentially civil, but there's that undercurrent of insecurity; they're uncomfortable enough hearing someone hate on something they like that they cannot prevent themselves from pressing the button on "Aw, but I like it!" even though they already know exactly what I have to say in the matter. I find that annoying but I can forgive it because it's so clear that deep down they wish everyone agreed with them, or they perceive judgment of their taste as judgment of themselves, and they can't help acting defensive. But then sometimes someone chimes in to contradict me about something and I just have no idea what their mission is. The entire reason I'm thinking about this right now is that I made this post recently about my dumb ol' movie collection--mostly I was just trying to be funny after a long day of chores--and for some reason when I put it on Facebook, this acquaintance/colleague I don't really know replied with this rebuttal specifically to the part about how I keep multiple editions of things because I might need the extras. I've been in a few binds with formal research where I really needed some interview or documentary packaged with a certain release, and it's not fun to have to source something now-rare that I used to own...and for whatever reason this guy had to leave this sober commentary about how his physical space is at a premium and he never unwisely keeps duplicates of anything because if it's really that important he'll just find the video hosted on the internet somewhere, etc. And I thought...I don't get what this guy wants me to say. I mean first of all we're not in the same category, he doesn't write academic papers that have to be thoroughly cited. But like...why does he want me to know this about him? Am I supposed to apologize for giving bad advice (it wasn't advice)? Am I supposed to thank him for his superior insight? Am I supposed to say "YOU ARE VALID"?

That's probably what I should actually say, every single time someone leaves a reply on my stuff that's strictly about themselves and has no real application for me I should say "YOU ARE VALID!" But truthfully, whenever I get angry or fixated on someone's internet behavior, it's rarely the content of the behavior that bothers me--I know there are people out there who are different from me, and also people I don't like, and many overlapping variations of the two. What bothers me is my own inability to understand why they act the way they do. My question is rarely "Why are you like that," it's usually "Why tell ME about it?" This is why the motivation-sorting approach is so helpful to me in processing people's weird statements and actions, but there are still days like today that I can only deal with by writing four paragraphs to the tune of, "But what does that guy want me to say?"

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