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garbageday · 6 months

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By now you have, no doubt, heard all about the dangerous new TikTok trend sweeping the nation. China’s great and powerful cyber weapon has convinced the innocent teenagers of America that Osama bin Laden was actually a pretty cool guy and now they’re all sharing his 2002 “Letter To America”. Well, first, just to get it out of the way, Osama bin Laden was actually bad. Also, a nepo baby.

After spending most of yesterday digging into this, I’m pretty convinced that this was never a real thing on TikTok. Even though it has since snowballed into a full on moral panic that is beginning to feel dangerously unstable. The Biden administration released a statement about the supposed trend and alarmed big-name creators and actors also reportedly met with TikTok this week to discuss the rise of antisemitism on the app.

Baseless generational in-fighting, aging millennials who refuse to accept the new status quo of the internet, easily monetizable rage bait, lazy TikTok trend reporting, and bad faith political actors swirled together to create a perfect storm this week.

The story has morphed from what should have been a weird curiosity — and perhaps even a moment to reflect on America’s post-9/11 legacy — into a full-blown national scandal with dumb-dumb headlines getting written about it, like CNN’s “Some young Americans on TikTok say they sympathize with Osama bin Laden”. I mean, I haven’t even had time in this piece to point out that a lot of the people I saw sharing the letter were millennials! But, yeah, teens fucking love Bin Laden. They’re saying 9/11 just hits different now no cap fr. Gen Z wants Baby Gronk to lead Al-Qaeda in a victorious jihad against the western imperialist hegemony gyatt!!

We have invented a version of TikTok that simply does not exist and now many people in power are ready to tear apart the foundation of internet to prove it does. And what’s worse here is that there are very real issues with how TikTok works. It is a major source of misinfo and disinfo. It still has a terrible bullying problem. And, ironically enough, it’s also one of the most oppressively censorious social platforms that has ever existed. To the point users had to create a puritanical version of leet speak to communicate on it. But we can’t even begin to address those issues unless we start to look clear-eyed at what is actually happening on the app. And it is most certainly not the digital hub of a large-scale Gen Z Bin Laden fandom. Be fucking serious.

The internet is an extremely chaotic living ecosystem and it’s constantly reacting to itself and all you accomplish by amplifying something like this is give more ammo to those who want to who want to take that away. You turn bizarre discourse into something bigger than it was ever meant to be. You pointlessly villainize normal people who aren’t public figures and don’t deserve this kind of scrutiny. And you help conservative political movements continue their culture war. You also just look like clueless boomer to anyone even slightly younger than you.

[Read more over on Garbage Day]

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artbyblastweave · 1 year

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Recently a post has been doing the rounds about military propaganda in the latest COD, yea yeah, sky’s blue, fork in kitchen, et al et al. This got me thinking about the shooters I actually play, and one thing that strikes me about the multiplayer shooters I play is that a lot of them dodge that same major discourse bullet by expressly grounding themselves in amorality and Kafka-esque dysfunction- a structural fingerwag towards their own content, acting as a paradoxical green-light to enjoy the game with no sense of moral injury. And there’s a big example of one that didn’t do this that kinda winds up with egg on its face as a result.

To start with, I’m thinking about Team Fortress 2. The original Team Fortress, inasmuch as it’s possible for a game where you shoot each other with real firearms to be apolitical, was fairly apolitical. The soldiers had no markers of identity beyond their arbitrary team affiliation; the fighting was over no discernable real-life resource or point of political tension; the environments were decontextualized labs and facilities. It was platonic violence.

Team Fortress 2 rolls around. Now that the general novelty of a 3d multiplayer class shooter has eroded, development stalls out on the following aesthetic problem; you can’t have semi-realistic militaristic character models rocket-jumping themselves across the map in the early 2000s. The cartoonishness is too dissonant when you’ve got similar semi-realistic militaristic characters in much more “grounded” games. Eventually they resolve this by taking the other tack, leaning into the cartoonishness, crafting character models so completely bombastic and over the top that no action taken in gameplay, no matter how absurd, will ever feel dissonant. This philosophy extends into the map design; the environments are farcical. Military instillations built mere yards from each other, with paper-thin pretenses of being civilian facilities despite the constant gun battles occurring inside. It’s self parody. And when the game extends to the point of having lore and worldbuilding, the idiocy becomes diegetic. This is a conflict fought on the behalf of idiots, by idiots, over idiot-goals, in spaces designed by idiots. It’s completely amoral, but it’s also contained amorality, since the fighting doesn’t spill out of these Helleresque Designated Pointless Fight Zones- and that leaves the mercs sympathetic enough that you can play them as protagonists in stories that take place “off-the-clock” without a ton of tonal dissonance. I can’t stress enough that the TF2 protagonists are amoral PMCs who work for callous megacorps. In a vacuum, this is not a well-regarded Kind Of Guy around here. There is some implementation of this broad concept that would invite a shitload of discourse that I’ve never seen materialize!

A lot of hero-or-character-based multiplayer games do this, abandoning any pretense of player heroism or productivity in the conceit in a way that shields them from a lot of moral and logical criticisms. Apex Legends and Monday Night Combat are explicitly in-universe bloodsports. Atlas Reactor and Rogue Company are cyberpunk corp-on-corp warfare. Dirty Bomb is about loosely affiliated mercenaries picking over the remains of an evacuated city. I think that Valorant is PMCs in a resource war (Not completely sure on this one.) The never-released Battlecry was expressly tied to actual nation-states, an alternate history where great powers fight wars via singularly-powerful champions instead of via traditional warfare. And in Battleborn the PCs were a hastily-assembled coalition of smaller hastily-assembled coalitions, which means that it makes perfect sense that any combination of these people might be fighting alongside or against each other, at any given time.

Here we see commonalities. Amoral participants. Larger governing bodies delineating clear fight zones centered on specific, if deliberately silly or petty, goals. Most crucially, PCs that are very loosely affiliated with each other, such that you’d see them in different configurations, fight to fight, day to day, as they’re contracted or shuffled around by the powers that be.

You know a game that doesn’t do any of this? Overwatch.

Overwatch gets 80% of the way to being a superhero universe; it falls short primarily because Blizzard chose not to explicitly market it as such, but it’s got everything short of the purposeful brand designation- powered heroes, super science, codenames, Faceless Hydraesque terrorist groups with shadowy, powered enforcers. There are specific allegiances implied by this; specific policy and interpersonal goals implied by this that aren’t really reflected in six-on-six grudge matches in a smattering of inexplicably depopulated civilian environments. There are roughly half-a-dozen villains associated with Talon, four or five independent villainous mercenaries, and everyone else is a would-be superhero. Why is most of the core roster of the world’s premier superhero team performing some kind of terror attack in London? Why is a woman who murdered a civil rights leader trying to stop them, with the help of two avowed anti-Omnic mercenaries and three Omnics? Why did a cryogenics researcher weaponize her tech and come along for the ride? Why are a dozen envoys from tech conglomerates, grassroots movements, and paramilitary defense forces throwing down over a Gazebo in a charming Greek resort? Fuck if I know. Fuck if the writers know!

So, to round it out, I think that there’s a structural difficulty for multiplayer shooters to stand for something, or advance a philosophy, or whatever. The smart ones embrace this by shielding themselves in ablative nihilism, preemptively deflecting criticism by painting the gameplay as hollow and barbaric, but fun! But Overwatch- Overwatch 2′s tagline is “Get back in the fight.” What Fight? Why? Against Who? Call Of Duty might be a horrific mouthpiece for militarism and imperialism, but when it valorizes the military, it’s at least picking a side! Overwatch is just so strange to me because it’s somehow got the worst of both worlds- it uses these heroic, aspirational language and visuals to hype up a gameplay loop that’s ultimately the exact same kind of cynical, aimless abattoir as the games that are smart enough to explicitly be about amoral paid killers!

#thoughts #meta #I don't think any of this is new #but it occurred to me #video games #media analysis #team fortress 2 #tf2

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clementine-kesh · 1 year

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Excerpt from Haunted by the Narrative: Fictional Fiction at the End of the Early Internet Era, by H. Ma and T. O’Neill. Published in the Journal of Digital Archeology, Issue 43, pp. 87-93, May 2094:

In late 2022, a surge of posts on early social media site Tumblr (2007-2029) appeared discussing a film entitled Goncharov, supposedly directed by Martin Scorsese and with a tagline that called it “the greatest mafia movie of all time”. While references to this film exist on movie review sites such as IMDB (1990-present) and Letterboxd (2011-2036), they all appeared after the creation of the earliest posts discussing the movie on Tumblr. Despite the fact that Goncharov appears to be completely fictional, Tumblr users collaboratively generated a cohesive narrative for the movie including characters, themes, and story beats (Figure 3). The vast majority of these elements were communicated through the creation of fictional analysis, discourse, and memes reflecting the popular modes of discussing media on Tumblr during this time period. In Figure 4, a post from user “lesbiancousingreg” references in a derogatory manner fans of Goncharov who ignore the deeper meaning of the film in favour of focusing on “shipping” the various main characters together, a common complaint in online fan spaces at the time (Aiken et al. 2091). Exemplifying the ways in which the self-referential nature of Goncharov’s creation was used by those participating in it to hold up a mirror to themselves in a form of light-hearted self-parody.

#goncharov #cw unreality

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rat-rambles · 27 days

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Ok Alastor shippers of all sorts, I'm going to put in my two cents and before I get into I'm a pro shipper all around just don't be mean to each other and tags are there for a reason.

My credentials: I'm an gray ace, aro person who's been around Fandom a very long time. Personally I've been initiated with the “but al is ace aro so you can't ship him” discourse and first off that's not true both because we can date -I Have a long term Partner- and because I've explored a lot of my queer identity through Fandom and fanfics and I think others should get the chance to do the same. I'm sure a lot of people will learn they’re ace aro because of alastor. That being said ik a lot of you writers out there aren't ace aro and are new to the topic so I'm going to go over some of my personal suggestions of how you could make Canon compliant works. (And if you do any or find any please send to me I'd love to see it)

Oblivious Alastor

Canonically this man doesn't know he's an ace in the hole. And I don't believe an egomaniac like him would assume that there's anything “different” about himself. ik when I was a baby ace I thought everyone was just being dramatic basically before realizing I was the exception. I can see this going 2 ways.

Radiostatic (pre show): vox is obviously completely smitten with al and al sees dating a more powerful overlord as an advantage(which vox in the past was the more powerful of the two). And Al starts getting slowly more and more uncomfortable and vox gets pushy in a very manipulative way.

Radioapple: enemies to friends to lovers? After Al and Luci become close friends, Luci starts to catch feelings for Al and Al agrees to date him seeing as he is fond of him and he's a very powerful ally so why wouldn't Al date him? As the relationship progresses they’re both confused by Alastor's behavior. Luci tries to be respectful. You know maybe he's just very against pda. And al doesnt understand why he's not feeling the things he's meant to.

I can see Al reverse heteronormativity- ing his way into assuming he's gay because he's NOT straight.

Malicious intent

Same as the last one except Al knows he doesn't have feelings for them like that and is trying to be toxic and uses them. IE what if Al was a gold digger actually.

Maybe I am in love?

Al actually thinks that he MUST be feeling a romantic connection because this is the closest he's ever been to someone and once again, gets steadily more confused as he realizes what he and his partner are experiencing is different.

All of these can end in nice queer platonic bliss and I think any story where Al and his partner discover he's ace after establishing the relationship is inherently interesting.

Last note some ace vocabulary

Ace and aro are a spectrum. Typically with ace people they will self identify as either sex positive, sex negative, or sex neutral. With Al it's generally head cannoned that he's sex negative but that's not explicitly Cannon and sex positive and neutral aces are valid.

Sex negative: is self explanatory it's what everyone thinks aces are; I don't want sex ever the idea grosses me out ect.

Sex neutral: is when someone doesn't have the desire for sex but isn't repulsed by it either. If they are in a relationship and their partner wants to have sex they’re open to it but don't expect initiation on their part.

Sex positive: people have a hard time understanding this because it's the seperating of the need for sex from the want. Typically if a sex positive ace were to never have sex again they'd die happy but if they have a willing partner they are happy to participate. It builds intimacy. It feels good, it's nice but it's not the same as being allo and having that cardinal lust.

note: please know what type your head cannoning Al as in your works when writing it, although people of course can change which they feel they align with, it's important to know how he's feeling about it.

I'm not as familiar with aro terminology but like with ace it's more about the drive the need the anguish. Al wouldn’t in cannon crave romantic connection.

Like with ace it's not actually cannon what type of aro he is some aro people are completely repulsed by the idea of romantic relationships or they only like it in theory (which playing around with the idea of Al liking a relationship in theory but not in practice could be a lot of fun.)

The gray romantic umbrella are aro people who can have romantic attraction to some degree. They’re still aro you can head cannon Al as it but please do a little research into which one you think your version of Al would identify with there quite a few so I'll spare the list here.

Demi romantic is when someone can develop romantic attraction for very specific people, very rarely. These people won't be on Bumble but might fall for someone after knowing them for a few years (or an indeterminate amount of time, my timeline was a year and a half I shit you not) a lot of you are looking for that.

As for kink. Lots of queer people especially are into kink because it's intimate, it's physical, it requires trust but it's not actually inherently sexual a lot of the time. And we do know that Al likes torturing and being dominant so yeah he'd be kinky that's completely canon compliant.

At the end of the day Al is ace aro in the show and that's what counts. Have fun be creative, explore the depths of your queer little minds and please be nice to each other.

(and if any of you make works related to this please please please send them to me thanks)

#hazbin alastor #alastor #radiostatic #radioapple #radio silence #acespec #ace #aro #arospec #aro pride #hazbin hotel #ace alastor #aro alastor

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polaroidcats · 7 months

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Ugly crying & the marauders generation - a pseudo-scientific approach (my marauders crying PhD abstract)

Abstract

In recent days, there have been a variety of claims as to who the prettiest and ugliest crier in the marauders generation could be. This paper aims to address the recent surge in opinions on the matter, and categorize different approaches as well as add a new approach to the scientific examination of ugliness/prettiness when it comes to crying. I hope to provide readers with an overview of the current state of research and encourage all marauders scholars to add their own and I intend to make a contribution to the discourse by committing to the bit and writing a pseudo-academic paper about it instead of actually working on my thesis.

Introduction

In the following paper, the discourse about 5 marauders era characters will be examined in regards to their various levels of perceived ugliness whilst crying. Scholars who may ask why Peter [Pettigrew] is not included in this analysis are advised to refer to acclaimed marauders ugly crying scholar @lynxindisguise's (2023) original poll on the popular blogging website "tumblr.com" which did not include Peter, but rather two non-marauders characters named Lily and Regulus. This paper will follow that approach, since Peter is the nastiest skank bitch I have ever met, I do not trust him and he is a fugly slut. The characters included in this approach are as follows: James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Regulus Black.

Following the scientific criteria for ugly crying, as stated by lynxindisguise et. al (2023), the question of the ugliest crier can be answered by observing the crying person and assessing their ugly-levels on the following parameters: (1) unbecoming facial expressions, (2) facial swelling/blotching, (3) unsettling noises, (4) snot factor, (5) tear volume, (6) general loss of dignity, (7) glistening eyes/lashes, (8) Victorian heroine factor, (9) elegant tear-wiping, (10) post-cry glow (ibid).

Criteria (1)-(6) can be categorized as the ugly crying parameters whereas (7)-(10) are pretty crying parameters, creating a false binary between ugly and pretty crying, which may be problematised and addressed in another the paper. In contrast to lynxindisguise’s original 10 criteria to measure the aesthetics of crying, this paper proposes to add (11) explosiveness of cry as another ugly crying parameter, in order to get a more clear assessment of where on the ugly-pretty crying scale a character falls.

The ugly crying parameters

(1) Unbecoming facial expressions

James Potter is mentioned in this category by several marauders scholars: @jaylienpotter talks about his red face and ugly sobbing, @artbyace mentions his “scrunched up cry face” and @sectoren claimes “james (…) is that one handsome guy that when the waterworks get going becomes like. Cartoonishly ugly”, raising the question of upkeeping toxic masculinity in order to avoid having to witness more of James Potter’s crying “mug”.

Though James Potter features heavily in this category, another character who is also mentioned just as often is Remus Lupin: @kaaaaaaarf, @appreciatedmoron and @http-starboy all emphasise that Remus Lupin is the one with a red and blotchy face.

(2) facial swelling/blotching

While there is a definitive overlap between the categories of facial swelling/blotching, unbecoming facial expressions and snot factor, Sirius’ and Regulus’ victorian heroine complexions, which give them an advantage in the homonymous category, may be to their disadvantage in the “blotching” category. This will require further research by other scholars.

(3) unsettling noises

James Potter is mentioned in this category by Jaylienpotter (2023), claiming he not only hiccups when crying but also that “his cries are one of the most heartbreaking things you’ll ever hear” and similarly, artbyace states that “James loves and feels so loudly”, whereas “Sirius is silent”, both sentiments are reminiscent of znelda’s (2023) statements that James “was allowed to feel his emotions freely in a loving household” and “Sirius (…) [is] used to hide [his] feelings and [has] become stoic”.

With several other scholars, among them also @jamesunderwater (2023) raising the point that James may be the ugliest crier due to him being “the only one well adjusted enough to have access to his feelings” this raises the question of possibly introducing another category, maybe of emotional awareness/stability to be able to measure this parameter more efficiently, though emotional vulnerability may also just be a part of the unsettling noises parameter, suggesting that there is a correlation between noisiness and the existing environment being welcoming to and accepting of various expressions of emotions.

(4) snot factor

The most popular winner in the snot factor category seems to be Remus Lupin, with several scholars agreeing that his sobs are the dampest and snottiest out of all the candidates. kaaaaaaarf (2023) writes “he turnes all red and blochty and snot drips out of his nose (…) he cant (sic) not cry with his mouth open as well so there is a lot of spit”, and appreciatedmoron (2023) agrees with kaaaaaaarf on this.

It only seems right to me to include spit in the snot category as well, seeing as they’re both crying-related bodily fluids that add to the ugly-cry factor. http-starboy (2023) also mentions snot in regards to Remus Lupin, which compared to both their comments in (1) opens up the question of how unbecoming facial expressions, more particularly redness of the face and snot factor may be related, as several authors seem to write about both specifically in relation to each other. Whether this is just pure coincidence or not would need further research, for which we currently do not have enough funding. This is only one of the many research gaps in the relatively new field of marauder’s ugly crying studies, which cannot fully be addressed in this paper.

James Potter is also mentioned in the snot category, namely by the marauders scholar artbyace (2023).

(5) tear volume

Artbyace (2023) claims James Potter is “full on bawling” which can only be assumed to refer to tear volume, but the most convincing argument for tear volume comes from the acclaimed marauders scholar @fruityindividual (2023), stating that “tsunami warning tones go off in sirius’ brain anytime remus is close 2 (sic) tears” which already indicates high levels of tear volumes. The author then goes on to specify the volume by claiming that “indeed the ocean wishes rj lupin would jump in and help contribute 2 (sic) rising sea levels”, further emphasizing the volume of Remus's tears.

(6) general loss of dignity

@pastaplatypus (2023) writes about James Potter not being able to do a Melodramatic Bollywood Cry, which is perceived as inherently racist by the crier.

I would like to argue that Sirius Black also deserves to be mentioned in this category. While as of today, with less than 1 hour left to vote, 15.5% of voters agree that Sirius is the ugliest crier, the more outspoken voices all argue for different ugly criers. Due to their upbringing, I am tempted to name both Black brothers in the “loss of dignity” category and look forward to reading future contributions to this discussion.

The pretty crying parameters

(7) glistening eyes/lashes

Undoubtedly Sirius Black deserves to be mentioned in this category. I believe his dark lashes and glimmering eyes are part of what makes him the prettiest crier. Whereas Remus’s eyes also sometimes glisten or appear red, and it is usually attributed to be caused by drug consumption, which more often than not is a wrong assumption, but he happily goes along with the pretense of being a weed-smoking bad boy in order to hide his ugly crying damp tendencies.

(8) Victorian heroine factor

It almost seems superfluous to even mention Sirius (and, to a lesser degree, Regulus) Black in this category. This category was made for Sirius, as is apparent when reading lynxindisguises (2023) description of the victorian heroine factor, in response to a question by the scholar @plecotusauritus:

“the Victorian Heroine Factor is a deeply scientific assessment of the Vibes. Is this person giving tragically beautiful, windswept Victorian Heroine, sobbing gently into their hands while sprawled across a boulder or a well or a fountain of some sort? When they look up at you, do their tear-plumped lips part elegantly as a single tear slides down their cheek?”

(9) elegant tear-wiping

There hasn't been a lot of research in this area, but I would like to propose handkerchiefs with embroidered initials and family crests as another potential factor in favor of the Black brothers scoring high marks in this category as well as the Victorian heroine factor.

(10) post-cry glow

Artbyace (2023) claims “lily is always beautiful (…) even when crying”, which is echoed by znelda’s (2023) earlier claim that “Lily (…) [is] a woman and no woman is ugly when crying.”

Sirius is the other popular choice by marauders scholars for this category, with @in-flvx (2023) stating that he “handsomely handsomes while dying after 12 years of torture hell and another year in shackles”, which would mean that “a few tears would[n’t] stop him from being the hottest person in the room at all times” (ibid).

Additional parameters

I am suggesting to introduce an additional metric in order to further specify and better assess the ugly-crying levels:

(11) explosiveness of cry

@felixantares (2023) introduces the idea that Remus “is the type that very few people have been seen cry because he ignores every difficult emotion hes (sic) ever had (…) and it all explodes at once and its horrible to watch when he breaks down”, a sentiment shared by several of the other authors mentioned above in various other categories.

Further opinions & conclusions

The most popular consensus seems to be that Sirius cannot be the ugliest crier, sometimes also in direct comparison to his brother: @spindrifters (2023) answers the question of the ugliest crier with “obviously it’s regulus”, elaborating that “at least [it’s] definitely not sirius bc (sic) reg is canonically less handsome in all ways” which brings up the question if regular beauty plays into ugly crying. This is contrasted by lynxindisguises argument, that Sirius may be an ugly crier because he’s so gorgeous, and his ugly crying subverts the expectations of beauty:

“the most beautiful man alive looks hideous while crying, and his deeply awkward and perpetually damp bf (sic) is literally in his element while crying – dampness becomes him, you might say.”

This statement raises yet another question – does regular crying make the crier more or less ugly? Can an ugly crier become a pretty crier by practice or are we all born either ugly or pretty criers, condemned to this fate for life?

While this paper has given an overview of the current state of research to ugly crying/pretty crying, it has also raised many more questions. Other topics which may be addressed in future papers also include the philosophical question whether ugly crying is in the eye of the beholder and if it is possible to ugly cry without being perceived, and if it is possible to ugly cry if the person perceiving you doesn’t find it ugly. Since the research field of ugly crying is a relatively new one, we can only hope to read many more opinions on these and other topics in the future, and I look forward to reading different scholar’s approaches to these highly relevant topics.

#marauders #idek what to tag this as lol #i don't write fic i only write pseudo scientific papers on fandom analysis (apparently) lol i had so much fun writing this #even if just 1 person reads it i'll be happy i know it's ridiculous #scientific analysis of ugly crying #akso i tried to tag everyone i mentioned to make it feel more like i'm actually quoting them (which i am) but if anyone doesn't want to be #tagged in this lmk and i'll remove it haha #anyways okay i'll post it now #this is what happens when i go on tumblr during work hours and then keep thinking about how much more fun editing papers would be if they #were about the marauders instead of the things i have to read/edit at work #hp #remus lupin #sirius black #james potter #lily evans #regulus black #(this thing has almost 2k words and i wrote it in 2-3hours)#idek what that says about me #that this is how i chose to spend my tuesday evening #but i love it

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spacexseven · 1 year

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sorry for the late reply! And to answer some of your questions in the tags, it’s actually all three. A “final girl” is a basically a trope that means a character (usually protagonist) that is “pure, feminine, and the victim” during a horror film. They’re usually a victim of chance or have a distant past connection to the killer. Be it their intelligence, connection, or simply pure luck, the final girl is able to avoid death until the end where: 1) they survive to the end and defeat their killer 2) they escape or 3) they die regardless. I was thinking of killer! yan bsd, but I was also intrigued with a victim/final girl! bsd. An example of an idea that’s currently plaguing my mind is Final Girl! Nikolai. I liked the idea of a serial killer targeting magician/or whimsical (maybe ability users) people and choosing nikolai as target. cat and mouse chase, and they end getting the drop on him (how? idk). Its kinda a slow burn horror, but regardless nikolai fights back. this is a gist and example. Tuna, i’m so sorry about throwing this ramble dump at you. 🙈 this is just an idea, nothing you actually have to do. im just happy sharing this with you - 🦄

ahahahaha....there was a lot i had to say about this, but i kept it as brief as i could because i Might...might do a series/oneshot w this au. Maybe </3 thank you for sharing this gem of an idea i am very excited to dig in nomnomnom. tagged under 'sk reader au 🐟'

gn! reader, is a serial killer & implied to have an ability that can 'collect' other abilities. can be read as a yandere reader.

cw: stalking, murder, violence

ability users are fascinating little things.

especially when they try everything in their power to stay alive. it's a wonderful sight, to see those that always stood above regular people, to see those regarded as gifted, desperately attempt to survive. there was something intoxicating about holding power above the same ability users that were feared by all.

but your interest was less in the users and more in the ability itself.

there was a lot you hoped to learn about abilities, regardless of the type. there must be a reason as to why some were sentient, why some were so much more powerful than others, why some were uncontrollable, and the best way to learn, was of course, through the ability itself. you were willing to do anything to satisfy your curiousity, even if it meant the user had to die for their abilities to join your collection.

you had fond memories with all of them; flawless made for an exhilarating fight, always a step ahead until you sunk your claws into the frightened figure of a dark-eyed ability user, rashōmon was unique, the dark mass almost besting you, but, in the end, you stood victorious over a sickly body—even if you hadn't gone after it, this was an ability that wasn't meant to survive for long, and you liked to think that it was for the best that it joined you instead of disappearing with its user. and of course, discourse on decadence was unforgettable. you remembered it belonged to some goverment agent who was hot on your trail—it was the closest anyone came to stopping you—and your most recent kill.

usually, you didn't like picking favorites. each ability was fascinating and unique in its own way, but it was undeniable that one in particular stood out to you.

the overcoat was an interesting ability. at first sight, it appeared quite simple, but you had viewed it in action too many times to know just how frightening it was. how easy it was to turn it into a lethal weapon—to reach in and twist out a limb or to drain out the blood from a vein. the seemingly unlimited potential of the ability, however, was only one of the aspects that intrigued you.

generally, you've never cared for the users as much as you did their abilities. while you enjoyed the brutal torture you made them suffer, and you liked hunting them down, they always came secondary to their abilities. you didn't care to know their names or their personal stories. despite all that, a name—nikolai gogol—had made his way on your list of targets, scrawled next to his ability.

it'd only take you a minute to identify nikolai in a sea of people.

whether he had the scar over his eye showing or hidden, whether he was wearing glasses or colored contacts, no matter what wig he wore or how ordinary he tried to look, you would immediately be able to point him out. no disguise, no false identity could hide him from you—you know this because he's tried, many times now, to fool you. but you've always known it was him, from the slightest strain of his voice when disguised, the unsettling blankness in his gaze when he looked at you, the subtle upturn of his lips when he approached you. you knew it was him from the way he titled his head when asking you a question, the way he said your name, and even the syllables he stressed when he spoke.

he approached you first as a police officer, then as a detective, a local politician, and even an assassin. You had already noted down each encounter you had with him, the details of each false identity, and what you had learned from it. it was a feat in itself that nikolai had survived so many encounters with you. perhaps it was because of your growing obsession with him,

(somehow, you always knew that your last victim would be nikolai. he'd be a fitting end for your legacy, as the ability user who had been watching you from the very start. the only ability user you could see as more than a shell for his powers. the only one who escaped you once.)

initially, you believed that nikolai followed you around for self-driven justice, to punish you for your crimes. (the policeman getup convinced you of that much), but instead of lunging at you, he watched, enraptured, as you stole the perfect crime, and he followed you closely as you stalked the user of falling camellia, doing nothing to stop you either time. and every time after that, be it walking past him in the busy streets of yokohama or meeting him as your taxi driver, nikolai had yet to try and expose your crimes and exact revenge. he never held a blade up to your throat, never used the very frightening ability of his on you.

his passivity, however, did nothing to quench your bloodthirst.

it was you who attacked him first.

you're no stranger to hunting down your prey. it was something you anticipated now, the sound of footsteps making their way around corners, the sight of shaking shoulders and trembling hands as they hid behind walls, the way fear consumed them when you finally cornered them; you relished in the hunt as much as you did the result.

nikolai doesn't make it much of a hunt. he's quick, with his coat fluttering around him. his footsteps, you remember, are light and quick, his breathing staggered as he laughed wildly. he snatches up your gun with a hand through his coat, and shoots blindly. there is despair consuming his mind, no panic climbing up his spine. his heart rate accelerates not out of fear, but out of thrill, and he looks at you with unrestrained elation. this was no hunt, nikolai wasn't hiding from you—this was a chase. just as you approached a dead end, and you think you can finally, finally, shove him into a corner, nikolai turns to smile at you one last time, before disappearing into a flurry of his coat. as you stand alone, a dark glove laid on the floor ahead of you catches your attention; his glove might have caught on a jagged end and fallen, you think. after cleaning up his mess, you silently pocket it, still haunted by that uninhibited look and that devilish grin.

nikolai is everywhere after that, taunting you.

he sits across you from the train, he takes your order in a restaurant, he applauds you from a distance, after watching you drag away yet another body, congratulating you on another successful kill.

"next time," he smiles at you, all coy and enticing, "i hope it's me."

you hope so too, but you don't let him have the pleasure of knowing that. the scowl on your blood-streaked face sends him spinning away in giggles.

it wasn't the next time, but after a few more dead bodies and many more warnings about your work are played on the news, you meet nikolai again. nikolai gogol is no easy prey, but you're not one to be bested twice. this time, you don't let him run. you're finally on top of him, blood pooling out of where your knife was stuck in his thigh, his coat ripped off him and abandoned somewhere else. it would be so easy to kill him now, so easy to watch him bleed out and claim his ability as yours, but for the first time, you hesitated on delivering the killing blow.

this time, it's not the ability you're after, is it?

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beanghostprincess · 3 months

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thinking thoughts about yamato being wano's guardian deity due to his fruit/wanting to protect and love wano due to his admiration and looking up to oden (and just generally being a cool guy but yknow ehat I'm talking about). and him being kaido's son. i just. THE FACT THAT THE SON OF THE MAN WHO BROUGHT THE COUNTRY TO RUIN IS THE MAN WHO BOTH BY DESTINY AND CHOICE IS THE PROTECTOR OF THAT PLACE.

i could go on for hours about this they make me sick poesia portada al 100000% imo

Yamato is such a beautifully written character. I will never get tired of saying that. He's so, so well developed throughout Wano and I love every second we have of him. People keep criticizing it because they always turn his admiration for Oden into a discourse (something that is just dumb and people keep making transphobic comments about it when the story makes clear he's man, but okay) and I'm tired of them ignoring the poetry of it all. The son of the man who brought Wano to ruins, a kid who has never been free, finding hope and his destiny in the man his father despises and killed because he wanted his country to be free. It's just beautiful how Yamato goes against his abusive dad's desires and decides he wants to follow freedom instead, having Oden as a reference so much he wants to be him. Not to mention the conversation he has with Ace about not having to follow his father or loving him if he doesn't want to. It's such a powerful message, honestly. You don't have to love your blood or follow its steps if you don't want to. You can be free. Yamato literally goes against everything Kaido is and wants to be the man he despises the most. That's like, the peak of freedom when it comes to abused children. I understand why he wants to stay in Wano because it needs protection and because he wants to do what Oden did, but I can't wait for Yamato to actually join the Strawhats (because I'm confident he will someday) and start his journey. He means a lot to me and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way.

#yamato my beloved i love you #he's such an enjoyable and interesting character #one piece #yamato one piece

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emilover-1 · 3 months

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Mori Ogai; kindness and philosophy.

Mori is a very interesting character, and with that it comes the complexity of the character, since he is a complex character and not too much is known about him, its pretty often people in the fandom mischaracterizes Mori, so let’s talk about his kindness first.

In the official BSD guidebook, it is said that his strength is kindness and that his weakness is that he is uncertain whether he truly has the confidence of his subordinates.

Kindness is being selfless, caring, considerate and generous, is mori any of those things…? Actually yes. First let’s go with the selfless definition.

Selfless is being more concerned with the needs and wishes of others than with our own, unselfishness. Mori has shown to be concerned about Yokohama and the port mafia more than being selfish by just focusing on own needs, he has textually became the boss and therefore slave of the own organization, everything he does is for the better of Yokohama and the pm, Mori even helped Atsushi in his debut appearance despite it not giving any benefits to himself, there was no need to save Tanizaki and help Atsushi at all, yet he did.

He is caring towards those who are in the pm, even though some may die in missions he sent them to, he is shown to be sad when they die WITHOUT a reason, more than a hundred of his subordinates died because of a mission and he griefs over them because there wasn’t a good reason for them to die, after all mori is called “He who fell out to the optimal solution” isn’t he?

He is considerate towards (surprise) the pm and Yokohama, he puts Yokohama above EVERYTHING, even above personal wishes or needs, not to mention that he was generous to Higuchi admitting that Higuchi wasn’t suitable for the job but yet let her stay.

Now that the kindness topic is off the table, let’s go with his mindset and philosophy.

The philosophy that would suit him the best would be Niccolò Machiavelli’s philosophy. Niccolò Machiavelli thought that the end justified the means fully, he also thought that it was best to be both loved and feared, yet the two rarely go along, and anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in loved, but why? Because if people love you, they can still do things against you or your ideals, but if they fear you, they won’t.

Despite Niccolò not mentioning the word ‘philosophy’ in The prince or The discourses the word philosopher does appear (once) in The prince and 3 times in The discourses, Niccolò is seen as a philosopher himself by a lot of people, lets dive into his philosophy.

Niccolò thought that it would be excellent if a ruler had morals and all good things and none of the bad, but since it’s the nature of life that you cant have or practice al those qualities all of the time, a ruler must take care to avoid the disgrace that goes with the kind of failings that could make him lose his position, just as Mori thinks; the end justifies the means, if a ruler had morals it would be good, but it can’t be possible or it will lead to failure, it just isn’t possible, it isn’t affective.

Mori isn’t good on terms of morality, which may be contradictive to the first part where we were discussing kindness, however Mori is kind not because its just natural and no other intentions than good, he manipulates those people he is kind to, though not always, most of the time he manipulates. This is related to another thing Niccolò thought, was that you could be good, have morals, but not too much because its ineffective, you cannot be good because for you to be a good leader most of the time you have to be cruel, going back to the love and fear, you cannot control how or who people love but you can control who they fear. Have goodness is good, its good but its simply not affective, no matter how much people love you or claim they do, they can always lie, so why not lie to them too? Its better to be feared than lied that they supposedly love you but hate you and start conspiracies. People are cruel, selfish and deceiving, so why not be too?

A lot of people in bsd fear mori, others admire him, but almost none hate him, that shows how good of a leader mori is, and despite dazai and yosano hate him, yosano still fears him, and dazai didn’t always hate mori, dazai just started to hate mori because of what mori did with oda, yet dazai recognizes that it was the most logical solution, the only reason he ‘hates’ and I don’t think it can even be defined like that, I would say that its resentment, dazai wouldn’t kill mori, dazai has no wishes to become or even come back to the port mafia, and again that shows how good of a leader mori is.

Thank you for reading my analysis!

#bsd #bsd analysis #mori #how do i tag this #idk how to tag this #bungou stray dogs #niccolo machiavelli #mori ogai #mori analysis #is it obvious i like mori?#chuuya nakahara #ozaki kouyou #bsd dazai #philosophy #mori is kind #literary stray dogs

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vergilsfavoritebee · 2 years

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I made this just to gauge what people think. Is this accurate?

tumblr eras

2010: beginning of mainstream

true microblogging platform

fuckyeah! blogs

there were actual celebrities on tumblr

2012-2014: twee “tumblr girl” aesthetic and peak fandom (superwholock & homestuck)

“sides” of tumblr (i.e. “science side of tumblr, explain!” and hipster vs. fandom sides of tumblr)

I feel like viria’s and burdge’s PJO and HP art was especially big

“I like your shoelaces”

2014-2020: peak “tumblr discourse” (think Steven Universe and the rise of TERFs); kinda faded out after the kinning wars and that whole rabies thing

2015: John Green/fishingboatproceeds C*ck Monologue and end of post edits

2017-2019: peak musical theater fandom (Hamilton, Be More Chill, etc.), Voltron fandom

2018: p*rn ban and mass exit

2020: ATLA revival (fr that’s all I remember from 2020 tumblr)—jk remember November 2020? election results, Stacey Abrams, destielgate/superhell, et. al.

2021-present: collective memes that are only important on tumblr (e.g., horse plinko, it’s me i’m the ps5, slug reacts, blorbo, bug ass)

lots of general celebration of queer media (very different from early tumblr where it was all speculation and shipping)

Elon bought twitter, so kind of a new era for tumblr

also, of course, Dracula Daily

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blogalreadydoesntexist · 8 months

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if i see you comment shit on a post about trans women and go 'well males with experiences of transgender dysphori-'

im going to personally fucking skin you you ratty ass piece of bitch fuck. I'm going to shit into your mouth, give you laxatives, and make you into a goddamn one person human centipede.

transphobia is gross as shit. i dont care if you think youre supportive or what, im going to call you a piece of shit for being a piece of shit.

vice versa goes as well. transphobic shit will not be tolerated, and i DONT CARE for pieces of shit.

ps: terfs cry harder :3

dual ps: if you want a nazi sucking terf blocklist just head down the reblog and comment notes DAMN you guys get no bitches

#al's general discourse #i find it hysterical that if terfs see women being disliked for toxic traits they piss themselves then they see a trans woman being praised #-for good traits and start shitting and sobbing.#like bitch i just???? fucker im white and privileged and shit #yet i still understand that discrimination is fucking gross. wonder how you guys react to black women #pieces of shit probably think that black people can only be guys. wouldnt be surprised; jkr asses.#cw #tw #abuse cw #cw homophobia #cw violence #cw abuse #cw transphobes #tw transphobes #tw homophobia

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researchgate · 6 months

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i'm an ethiopian jew (born first generation american after my parents moved to america from israel) and the "all jewish people are white!" discourse drives me insane because it's clear those people have never heard of sephardi, mizrahi or beta israel. i've had people say to my face on here it's impossible for me to be black AND jewish because that's a white person religion and that in the 1% chance it were possible then it was probably forced on us by evil israeli jews, and these are the people who claim to be these all-knowing experts on zionism and israel??? it's really hard to take most goyim seriously when they're so confidently wrong all the time 🙄

it's really hard to take most goyim seriously when they're so confidently wrong all the time 🙄

Reallll!!! Theyre like "get educated" when their "education" on the topic is tiktoks and Tumblr infographics by extremely biased individuals who read (if at all) middle east monitor, al jazeera, etc.

i've had people say to my face on here it's impossible for me to be black AND jewish because that's a white person religion and that in the 1% chance it were possible then it was probably forced on us by evil israeli jews

That's so fucked up, especially given how rabbis in the chief rabbinate in Israel made so many comments about whether or not beta israel are even jewish. Like how uneducated can you be? This is just so dumb. Not to mention the fact judaism is, for all intents and purposes, the opposite of wanting to force itself. Conversion is tedious and difficult.

it's clear those people have never heard of sephardi, mizrahi or beta israel.

They only know about them when it comes to shitting on Israel (which is not bad per se) but not when it comes to recognizing how Jews are not white regardless of where they ended up in the diaspora, for their ancestors are from the middle east.

#anonymous #nf #asks #jewish #antisemitism #antisemitism on the left

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not-terezi-pyrope · 10 months

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"Fun" watching the creative professions experience the violence of capitalism and immediately turn on tech workers/hobbyists like vengeful hounds as if they are not also workers.

"Fun" watching people who are reliant on the fruits of an industrialised society discover for the first time that the ladder of progress that gave us that society has been runged by an iterative process of capital-holders discarding the welfare of the previous generation of workers, and decide that the problem is industrial progress itself rather than that system of power and inequality.

"Fun" watching people in creative professions experience this for the first time and rehash tired discourse that society was doing in the 1700s, because while it is of course natural and necessary to mechanise food production, manufacturing, medicine et al., redundancies within the arts are a novel threat to the soul of humanity, because they are doing Art instead of silly manual labour busywork.

"Fun" seeing people decide that, rather than the iterative development and deployment of new technologies and tools having been a human constant for millennia that has allowed us to reduce scarcity and hard labour, to bolster happiness and health, the violence of the ruling class means that that process has to be stopped, by violence if necessary. That whole industries should be burned to the stake to protect the status quo, the comfortable version of capitalism where they are not being personally crushed, but can peacefully rest atop the bodies of those crushed before them.

The idea that the creation of new tools is a fundamental human trait and a net good, and that the target of their ire should be the wealth-hoarders that use it as an excuse to enact the violence of capital holding? That the violence is at the hands of these ruling classes, in their stockpiling of resources that diverts them away from improving lives, rather than those of tech researchers and hobbyists online? This is not considered.

Fight the right damn enemy.

#not-terezi-speaks #politics #ai

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palestinegenocide · 15 days

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Establishment voices express fear of a rogue Israel

Two weeks after Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, assassinating top Iranian commanders, Iran responded with drone strikes last night, and the world is asking, What will Israel do next?

The question is posed with anxiety. Israel has defied all western appeals to moderate its conduct in the last six months in Gaza, while the Iranian attack is seen as restrained and “performative” (per BBC and CNN coverage today). Indeed, the news behind the news this week is that Israel is approaching the status of rogue state even in establishment discourse.

A New York Times editorial called for the “pausing of the flow of weapons” to Israel – at long last – because Israel is destabilizing the region and the U.S. is “beholden” to an unaccountable leader, in Netanyahu.

The eroding international support for its military campaign has made Israel more insecure…. Mr. Netanyahu has turned his back on America and its entreaties, creating a crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations when Israel’s security, and the stability of the entire region, is at stake.

Jeremy Ben Ami of J Street also concedes that Israel’s onslaught in Gaza is “a serious setback for the interests and values of the United States.” A longtime Israel lobbyist, Ben-Ami says that Israel has surely committed “significant violations of international law”– thereby undermining Israel’s “legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the world,” as well as “creating undoubtedly a new generation of terrorists, not just in the Palestinian population but throughout the region and around the world.”

(Time was when only the left was accused of delegitimizing Israel…)

H.A. Hellyer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace echoed Ben-Ami in an interview with NPR. Israel’s wanton destruction of Gaza has left the U.S. “incredibly isolated”. He described Israel as in essence a rogue state:

It’s escalation upon escalation. And I think that we in the international community, particularly in the United States, but also other allies, just need to recognize, you know, that’s the Israel we’re dealing with, and that’s the Israel we’re likely to keep on dealing with going forward.

Hellyer pointed out that Israel has “no interest in a two-state solution.” And the consequence is:

I’m afraid that it looks like a very destabilizing force in the immediate region.

Israel’s contempt for Palestinian rights is a theme echoed by the president of the Center for American Progress—the leading Democratic Party thinktank – who told Politico that Israel is not a democracy. Palestinians must have equal rights, and let’s drop the piety about two states, Patrick Gaspard continued.

We need to talk about whether the two state solution continues to be the sole pathway to peace Palestinians — if we are going to solve this problem — need to exist in an Israel that is inclusive of their full rights.

Israel and its cheering section here deny that it’s possible for Jews and Palestinians to coexist. “I think that taking out the possibility of coexistence is, in itself, really cynical and tragic,” Gaspard said.

Even Nancy Pelosi is calling for the US to stop giving Israel bombs. While Elizabeth Warren at last called the Israeli actions “a genocide.”

And Rand Corporation security analyst Karen Sudkamp, who spent 10 years in U.S. intelligence agencies, says that Israel is heedlessly repeating mistakes made by the West in the “war on terror” in its contempt for the hearts and minds of Palestinians. It thereby undercuts security for all.

The New Yorker echoed Sudkamp in an article saying that Israel is embarked on a “forever war.” It has no strategy beyond heaping punishment on Palestinian civilians. And this undermines the United States.

Finally, this week we published an important investigation. Tareq Hajjaj reported on the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civil/government employees at al-Shifa Hospital who were accused of being affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hajjaj’s sources said these victims were not military operatives.

The army then brought out a huge number of men from the group of suspected Hamas and PIJ members and employees, gathering them in the center of the [hospital] courtyard. It then proceeded to execute them, one after the other.

The article has gotten wide pickup in media that are supportive of Palestinian human rights. The U.S. mainstream has so far ignored the massacre, typically– because Palestinians still don’t count for most editors. “The idea that Palestinians have a stronger claim to the ‘right to defend themselves’ never enters their minds,” as our commenter Donald Johnson wrote.

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strawberrybananasblog · 6 months

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questions

i'm antiship, almost pro para/paraneutral, anti c but i have many questions about those things and i was wondering if someone could answer these for me..in comments/asks i suppose, or dms if you feel like letting me annoy you with additional ones - though these are rather nsfw so no minors would be a disclaimer here, im an adult myself...

im not sure if im comfortable with rbs on this, because of overwhelming amounts of notifs i usually get with rb-based interactions.

english isnt my native language, some things might be worded badly. and of course cw for nsfw, SA, discussion of pxrn, common discourse topics in both communities(from anti side), general triggers. and again, since im anti/paraneutral, I will say things that might tick you off, and i'm not sure how to juggle with it - i'm using examples, stances, and personal thoughts to be able to get more clearer examples, stances and personal thoughts in reply, if that makes sense.

FYI i know those things are different and not directly connected, you can be proship and not propara vice versa.

proship:

fiction isn't reality, though i've been of the belief that it can affect it. Such as effects of porn on violence or worse during sex; The brain not seeing difference from fabrication/reality itself; desensitizing et al... which is half the reason I'm antiship, and i wanted to know if there are any counter arguments to that be it studies or something you'd just want to ramble on?

personal experience question: why are people proship? what interests them in this kind of fiction? dynamics?

is there any misconceptions or something alike you see from the general public when it comes to proship? be it from anti, pro, or clueless people

are there any scientific studies you'd like to share that in general talk about the usage of taboo in fiction or morbid media?

propara:

when it comes to paraphilias, are they something that just..happen to ya? random attraction that isn't happening by will, be it mental illness (paraphilic disorder) or not (just paraphilic)? I know about attraction=/= action, but the inner details of what a paraphilia is itself sometimes confuses me or maybe the research isn't that good about it for me to find info on it.

this is something i have trouble being 100 supportive on - how does usage of fiction or fantasy help, or prevent harm when it comes to paraphilias? such as for ex. usage of fantasy or realistic toys if one has one of The Big 3 paraphilias, etc. Though of course there are More paraphilias associated with attraction to Harmful things if acted upon but I hope yk what I mean

whats complex consent?

is there any misconceptions or something alike you see from the general public when it comes to paraphilias? be it from anti, pro, or clueless people

are there any scientific studies you'd like to share that in general talk about paraphilias, how they are coped with, and other stuff alike?

silly ramble ended with another question:

personally, some of my lack of support for bits of both of those things has to do with my personal view of morality, and discomfort.

raised with a high sense of morality + unfortunate experiences/trauma leading to sour feelings about some communties (proship et al) also played into it. in general, since i was a tween i was around people who said if you like fictional xyz, then you're xyzphile (-phile term used wrong too, meant someone who is willingly attracted/seeks out attraction to xyz and/or attempt at sexually offending them) so that also lead to me just following the flow. though as of right now i feel there is still a difference.

Like, yes, this person likes fictional morbid content, but it does not mean that that interest is sexual, and even if it is it does not mean they will commit a crime of those morbid styles in real life. Its just that that interest is....problematic, i guess. so question

While I still believe that being attracted to fictional likeness of something morbid to be a tad problematic on its own, even if the person doesn't do much or think much about the IRL counterpart, i want to know if there are counter arguments to that too?

I see that a lot of my personal feelings about this are "kinda weird, kinda not into excusing it as just fiction" i guess i still want to know or read more of the Pro argument variation of this stance? i think im repeating myself

I hope all of that made sense despite being rambly, thanks for any responses

#proship #pro para #anti contact #what else to put #questions?#discourse #ship discourse #am i done #maybe

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