#i just think (like most everything) this is complex and nuanced because it's a *human* experience

[nohoperadio]

That cool bee book I was talking about a while ago mostly refrains from philosophical digressions (which I think is a strength, I appreciated how the author had total confidence that just clearly presenting the facts about his subject would be enough to make a fascinating book without the need for any "...and here's why that should blow your mind" editorializing, and he's totally right), but there was one towards the end I've found myself thinking about a lot, which is: he wants people to stop using "self-consciousness" (i.e. the concept exemplified by the mirror test but used implicitly or explicitly in tons of other contexts) as a criterion for which animals can be considered sentient/morally relevant/having significant inner lives/however you want to describe it. Not, as you might expect, because he thinks it's an unreasonably high bar to meet, but because it's such a low bar that it produces no distinctions: he argues that basically any animal with any kind of developed central nervous system has to have some kind of self-consciousness almost by definition.

The example I remember best is: imagine you can see an object in your visual field getting closer to you. No matter the specifics, it's obviously always going to make a huge difference to how you evaluate this situation whether the cause of the object getting closer is a] the object is moving towards you, or b] you are moving towards the object. If a, then something might be pursuing you or falling on you or a thousand other things that are just not even worth considering in the case of b. But visually the two cases are indistinguishable; if you're going to be able to track the difference, your brain has to be putting at least some work into keeping tabs on what your own intentions are and what choices you're making as you move through the world, predicting the expected consequences of those choices, and maintaining a fairly tidy mental separation between stuff in the world that you're making happen and stuff in the world that's just happening of its own volition. Otherwise, every time you walk towards a rock you'll freak out and think the rock is rolling into you, or vice versa.

And it's not hard to see how this applies to your entire sensory world right, it applies to sounds and tactile sensations and even feelings internal to your body to some extent, if you're going to both perceive the world and take actions in the world then it's mandatory to mentally separate yourself and the world before that's going to yield even an ounce of helpful information, you just can't function successfully on the most basic level if you're processing stuff that you're doing on the same level as stuff that's happening, if you're in that state then you simply don't have a usable model of the world at all, you just have chaos.

So you can very easily eliminate a certain seductive narrative about the evolution of consciousness, which starts with very primitive animals who are mentally processing nothing but basic sensory inputs, then as you rise up the chain more complex animals are forming concepts of objects and building up a more nuanced understanding of the world, until finally you approach humans and the mind becomes so subtle and sophisticated that it gains access to this special advanced meta-level of thought where it can even understand itself! No, the self is precisely the one idea that has to be in place from the very beginning, before any of it has even the most rudimentary practical value. Self-consciousness isn't the pinnacle of the mind's evolution, it's one of the lowest, most basic foundations that everything else builds off of.

I think this is really cool stuff! I don't know enough about the relevant academic philosophy of mind debates to say how far all this does or doesn't speak to that, maybe someone will tell me the "self-consciousness" concept being attacked here is a strawman somehow, I don't know. But it's definitely impacted the way I (just a dumb guy who likes creatures) think about our small small cousins and what their lives might be like and I think it's super interesting. If you think it's interesting too then maybe you wanna buy The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka and read it. It's mostly not about this stuff, as I say it's light on philosophy and heavy on bee-life immersion, but if you actually read this whole post then you're probably in the market for that I feel like.

#creatures: they've got a lot going on #I think we'd better just let them get on with it #nohopereadio #uninteresting

[uncanny-tranny]

Basically, my philosophy around disability fakers is: I would rather a thousand people fake a disability than have one disabled person suffer without care, aids, compassion, or any help.

#disability #disability advocacy #and there's a difference not many people seem to recognize between faking and realizing you don't have [x] problem... #...such as realizing you don't have [x] disorder because it is instead [y] disorder... #...or you haven't completely understood your care needs/your symptoms/what helps you... #...and some people see ANY change in your understanding of your disability as proof of maliciously faking... #...when i suppose in my personal experience people don't *maliciously* fake disability... #...i'm not saying it could never happen but that i don't think it's the *only* thing motivating people called fakers #i just think (like most everything) this is complex and nuanced because it's a *human* experience #like for me personally i /know/ i still have a lot to learn about my disabilities... #...like... i realized recently that my hands shouldn't be in AGONY when warm water is ran over them when it's SLIGHTLY cold inside or out... #...and i realized that i likely have a Noticable limb difference that needs checking out. does this sound like i'm faking... #...or that maybe i just didn't really explore my own needs and body because of a variety of factors? #i can assure you it is because i haven't really thought before about how i deserved to understand how to best help myself

[homunculus-argument]

One of my favourite finnish words, which is somewhat of a neologism, is sääntöuskovainen. A lot of finnish nouns come from verbs with different suffixes, and the word "religion", uskonto, is one of the -nto ones, like

asunto - apartment - from "asua", "to live [in a place]"

keksintö - invention - from "keksiä", "to invent, to come up with"

lausunto - statement, verdict - from "lausua", "to pronounce, to speak out, to recite"

avanto - a hole which has been cut into ice - from "avata", "to open"

käytäntö - custom, convention, policy - from "käyttää", "to use"

So the words with the -nto suffix are somewhat of a flexible collection of "a thing which exists for this purpose, or was born from this action/activity". And the word uskonto comes from "uskoa", to believe in. Finnish has a handful of different verbs for believing something, but uskoa is the one for trusting in something, having faith in it, relying on the knowledge that something is the way one believes it is. There's a different word for not being sure of something, but suspecting that it might be true (arvella), and believing something that is wrong altogether (luulla).

So the word uskovainen, religious person, literally "believer", doesn't strictly clarify that the thing one believes in is a matter of faith, save for that being the most common and conventional use. The word "sääntö" simply means "rule" (and while it looks like one, it is actually not one of the noun-from-verb types mentioned earlier), so the word sääntöuskovainen more or less means "rule-religious". And while it could be interpreted as "person who practices their religion by strictly committing to the religion's rules", I've mainly seen it used the other way around: A person who commits to any given rules with the same reverence as a religious person practices their religion.

My sister used to have a rule-religious dog. A shepherd breed, highly intelligent, with the kind of ridig sense of righteousness and duty that medieval ideals of chivalry could only aspire for. Sirius was wasted as a family dog, to be honest. He could be set loose to the yard with no leash to go pee and play because you could absolutely trust that he would not leave the premises, he Was Not Allowed to do that with no leash on. He could do his business and throw some toys around with someone just standing at the door to supervise. Once called back inside, he could be trusted to drop everything and obey.

The dogs we had at the time had outdoor toys and indoor toys, and an understanding that they can't take inside doors outside, or outside toys outside. But this one time when I was letting him out, he managed to smuggle an inside toy out with him. I figured that screw it, he's already out with it, might as well let him play with it out there just this once. When his time was up and it was time to call him back in, he dropped the toy. I gestured him to pick up first, and bring it back inside with him.

Sirius halted, staring at me. I don't think I'm stretching it much to say that he hesitated. He had understood and followed commands more complex than that before, I have no doubt that he understood perfectly what I wanted him to do. I repeated my words and gestures, pointing at the toy and telling him what to do with it. He looked at the toy, and then back to me. Very rare dogs have the capacity to understand human gestures as nuanced as pointing at something, some even claim that no such dogs exist, but they do, and Sirius was one of them. He understood exactly what I wanted him to do.

I wanted him to break the rules. Outdoor Toys do not go indoors. He had already broken the law once by bringing it out with him, and as far as he was concerned, it had now become an outside toy. And in his heart full of canine concept of justice and righteousness, The Rules were absolute, and would not be compromised. Not even to follow a clear and explicit human command to go against them.

I had to put my shoes on and go get the toy myself.

[cipheramnesia]

The Menu, to me, is such a fascinating movie. I'm going to come back to it and watch the way it's filmed more carefully. but the first time through is such a tantalizing and layered discussion about work, wealth, and inevitably life under capitalism.

What I particularly love about it is that at a very surface level reading it offers a sort of "introduction to systemic inequality," an easy to swallow metaphor of humanity literally consumed by exploitation to the point of annihilation, wrapped around a peppy little survivor girl finale. For me, stripping away all the tasty deeper subtext, it still fulfills the most basic component of a popular film, which is "having a good time." You do not need to try and "get it," you can simply enjoy it by itself if you like.

However, as soon as we get into the finicky details of the movie, especially our "final girl," it starts to get really interesting because the initial surface metaphor starts to fall apart and demand a more complex level of thought. (This will feature some spoilers.)

What I find fascinating is that our protagonist is a sex worker. The entire grand metaphor proposed by our chief antagonist, the chef, is you can divide the world into the served and servers. He has arranged what he thinks is a perfect and flawless illustration of this grand truth, and one unforeseen change fully undermines his entire thesis. She's a worker who provides a service, she's someone getting served by workers in the process of that service. Her job and her life weaves between both worlds and although it's possible to make some larger sweeping generalization, to do so would take the nuance away from the lived reality of most people who are at once point or another both things. This undermining of the chef's thesis is very much the point of the movie, not to suggest there is no class or wealth inequality, but rather as an entry into moving past the surface level binary view of "haves and have nots" into a more complex idea of how wealth and power affects people in different places of the hierarchy.

The movie itself presents each new act as a new item on the menu, which is a well-considered choice, as each step forward reveals more information that builds the complexity of the ideas in the movie and whets your appetite to consider it further. The plot, the characters, and the action in the film progress in a way that mirrors the kind of experience the menus title cards before each segment are describing. The restaurant itself being totally isolated, with every employee committed to their jobs with a cultish intensity lays a groundwork for the production of the idea that individual lives are disposable not just in the literal sense, but metaphorically, a quick sketch of the modern expectations of a workforce by capitalist society to consider their personal lives as disposable in comparison to their jobs. Ralph Fiennes' casting as the chef adds a kind of metatextual level to the proceedings, as he himself is an aspirational actor for many other working actors in the film industry. The way he is worshiped by his devout employees while viewed as someone meant to perform on demand by his employers is the kind of deeper exchange that our modern hierarchy expects from us. You can find a higher place in the world so long as you are always willing to trade yourself to anyone who can afford to purchase you.

This level of exchange, where we as individuals are the actual consumable goods in some way is more at the heart of the Menu than a simple binary division of class. It is also the reason to have a protagonist who is, in a literally sense, her own medium of exchange. The surface metaphor of everything as transactional and finite is deliberately broken time and again, because the antagonist, a chef, is unable to see a world more complex than his own route of understanding it, through food and cooking. He sees everything as abstracted, consumable without any possibility of restoration, resources as something which can only be exchanged but never increased or distributed. He is not the villain in the movie, that role remains with characters like the stockbrokers, the old wealthy gentleman, and our protagonist's date for the evening. But he is the antagonist because of his fundamental idea of the world aligning with the villains (even while ostensibly there to kill them) and in conflict with the fundamentally reasonable position of our protagonist, that she ought to live.

I would enjoy dissecting The Menu scene by scene because there's simply so much going on in it, for me personally. I think there's something excruciatingly interesting to be said about the protagonist being a sex worker, in particular because the movie itself does not chose to view this in an exploitative way, but rather uses it to serve the larger idea that humanity cannot, in fact, be broken down into a consumable resource alone - that giving of yourself does not mean a loss to yourself. I also believe there is a distinct turning point in the movie where Ralph Fiennes sits down at a table, which is to me a huge change. It is the movie making an effort to draw a line under the real thesis, that even the antagonist who insists throughout the movie that he exclusively exists as one who serves, who gives himself up one bite at a time until he is exhausted, even he is someone who cannot exist in his own idea of a false binary.

The chef here is not wrong in recognizing the existence of exploitation, or even necessarily incorrect in his ideas of addressing it through violently usurping those in power. I would argue that overall the conclusion of The Menu doesn't disagree with the notion of hierarchical exploitation innate to modern society. If anything, it serves to illustrate even more how much this trend is ultimate a downward spiral of inevitable and total destruction.

However, it is a movie that is meant to be optimistic, a movie about hanging on to our human connections even when we have some exchange between each other. It's about caring for other people, caring about what they do for us, or caring about what we do for others. The conclusion, and our survivor girl, are a recognition of that hope and that potential which still exists.

(edited from bad casting memory)

#the menu #horror movies

[solmarillion]

i know there's some people out there who think that silvergifting, specifically sauron falling in love with celebrimbor, is out of character for him. i'm gonna rant about that a little and talk about why it's not true.

we are told sauron didn't start out as evil. tolkien doesn't believe in inherent evil. and there is something human about sauron, in how much of a perfectionist he is, the way that he grew frustrated with all of the disorder in the world. these were things that he couldn't control, supposedly- but what if he could? he never would've been satisfied just working for aulë, not when all of the imperfections he saw became an obsession for him. and here comes melkor, giving him all of the power he wants to make that dream a reality for him. sauron is said to have "adored" melkor.

these are actual human feelings that real people experience. i have autism, ADHD, OCD, bipolar disorder and multiple anxiety disorders and a lot of the feelings sauron experiences about perfectionism, wanting to have control over things you just can't- these are feelings i deal with every single day!! it's just that sauron, being 1.) one of the ainur and 2.) a villain, takes these feelings to such an extreme that it warps him, and it shows how damaging you can be to yourself if you don't have a good support system, if you don't have people in place who genuinely want to help you and understand you. it's pretty clear to me that sauron is capable of experiencing human emotions, so by extension he is absolutely capable of love.

with these things in mind, it is PERFECTLY in-character for sauron to not only fall in love with celebrimbor but also to feel guilty about torturing and killing him. because celebrimbor is just another one of those things that he can't control, but he loves him. even if he wanted to just be annatar, he couldn't- celebrimbor would find out the truth eventually, and most likely reject him. and he couldn't just abandon all of those plans he sacrificed everything for. he left aulë and betrayed him, left melkor behind after so many years serving him, everything was building up to this moment. sauron was too transformed by all of his experiences and to just give up on everything would be giving up on who he had become. melkor became a part of him. but celebrimbor did too, and that's why it hurts so much. sauron is literally killing off a part of himself when he kills celebrimbor- the part of him that could've become annatar. it's fascinating to think about, what could drive someone to kill the person they love, and even more interesting when it's someone with as much potential for character exploration as sauron.

the rings of power would not have been made without celebrimbor. annatar and celebrimbor worked together in close partnership for 300 years, and the act of subcreation is said to be intimate. celebrimbor is part of the story of the one ring, and there's something special about celebrimbor and sauron's relationship, so much potential to be explored, even if you don't ship them romantically. i'm so tired of people shutting down the possibility of sauron experiencing love and being emotionally vulnerable just because "he's evil". tolkien didn't write a whole essay on sauron's motivations and complexities only for them to be dismissed like that. let's embrace the nuances in tolkien's villains instead of ignoring them.

#silvergifting #sauron #celebrimbor #annatar #mairon #silmarillion #silmarillion headcanon #i guess there's some meta in here but i'm not tagging it as such. i don't post meta #and this is also slightly disorganized rambling #this is also very personal to me as an autistic person with OCD #so i'm biased here #but i'd like to think i'm right about some of these things lmao #soleil.txt

[azrielgreen]

Do you ever worry that writing dead dove fic could negatively impact your writing career in the future? I'm kind of struggling with this, I've seen so many authors careers ruined by doing much less "problematic" things than writing non-con in a fic. I'd be devastated if by some miracle I managed to write a book that actually got popular just to be canceled by someone digging up my fanfic. From what I've seen the book community is even more harsh than fandom, there's no nuance or room for discussion whatsoever, when the hammer falls that's it and no one wants to be seen as being on the wrong side so they won't read your book. I don't want to limit myself creatively or have to be secretive and paranoid, I'm here to make friends, but I also don't want to shoot myself in the foot. I'm just curious if you've thought about how you'd handle a situation like that.

This is a really sad way of looking at things and I'm really sorry that the absolute state of fandom has people feeling so down and so heavily policed.

I don't ever worry about this.

One of the first messages I ever got about 'You're Divine' was someone telling me that it meant so much to them that I was open about who I am and upfront about writing fic because it made them believe one day a fanfic writer might break into the publishing industry.

There are THOUSANDS of professional writers who also write fanfic, many who are very open about it. I will be one of them.

This Dead Dove "Panic" isn't new, it comes and goes. This discourse is old as shit and just about as interesting to anyone except the people who are eagerly learning puritanical ways to bully and harass.

I always write for myself. I write what I want, how i want and I will share that with the people who want to read for it for as long as I can. I will content warn and create as many safe barriers for readers as I can. I will always write with empathy and nuance and authentic curiosity and i will always stay open to the changes i can make to be more open minded, more inclusive, to broaden my horizons and explore with an open heart.

I will not censor myself.

I will not stand on a pedestal and loudly decry others to detract attention from myself and my own works.

I will not stand for bullying and I will NOT quieten my literary voice because there are those who think that depicting rape is endorsing rape. I won't bow to those who seek to remove the context every single time and I will never bow to purity culture.

If I sell 10 books in my life, I'll know that's 10 people who really wanted to read my work and they did. That's amazing to me.

I have nothing but respect for those who choose to shield their identity, who write with pseuds, who protect themselves.

But if I can make one fucking person feel better about themselves and their interests, about writing darker material... if i can make ONE person feel unashamed and confident enough to write what they want to, then that'll be worth everything.

I'm always going to write what I want and publishing will be the same. I have no intention of watering myself down for mainstream approval.

The literary world cannot be made up of only ONE type of story. It cannot be censored. It must not be purified and sanctified. Some stories are ugly. Shocking. Horrifying. Brutal. Provocative. The expanse of human emotion of vast and complex. As humans, we sometimes have a need to experience complex, ugly emotions within a framed narrative of safety. We read and we write for so much MORE than moral virtue signalling. It's tiring to see some of the most important stories being blanket labelled as "problematic" just for existing. To see people ignore warnings and context and thoughtlessly embodying the modern puritan.

I'll never stop being who I am and writing for myself. Everything else is secondary. Once you start writing for other people, bowing to purity culture, diluting yourself... it's already over.

Fuck that.

Love, Az.

💜💜💜

#askaz

[danmeiconfession]

MDZS fans on tumblr act as if they never read other genres of fiction than kids' lit,the way they go on and on about how nuanced and morally gray MXTX's world is. Please read other genres too?

It is nuanced and complex. It is also pretty straightforwardly moral. MDZS is for the dreamers who like the macabre,tragedies,a dash of politics,and social criticism. Not for those who ONLY like politics,and have an allergy to heroes,or to systems of values other than opportunistic.

It annoys me to no end. These people,because they like the villains more,lie with their whole chest about the themes of the novel. Then get offended and call everyone who is not in their camp as 'lacking critical thinking'.

Nope,intellectual dishonesty is not critical thinking. The fact that WangXian are the main charaters makes this an idealistic story where following your moral code even if society is against you matters. Jin Guangyao is complex,and very human. Even if you relate to him more,it doesn't automatically turn MDZS into an 'everyone is equally morally gray' kind of narrative.

If you want your main characters to be Jin Guangyao-like,look into a different genre please. If we're talking western counterparts,MDZS has perhaps similar intended audience as the Silmarillion? The character drama and the villains are the type that makes you want to analyze them and sympathize with them,but the genre is actually fantasy,not politics. It has overarching themes about life,death and everything in between that are more than just 'character x was justified or not'. You are supposed to admire and root for the hero. It is a genre where it is INTENDED to be cathartic to see some form of justice being delivered. Also most good people meet tragic ends. That does not translate into 'morality is absolutely relative,in this novel and everyone who says differently is an idiot,because,I,a JGY fan,said so'.

Tumblr MDZS fandom is really pushy and aggressive about claiming (ironically) that it's nuanced thinking to paint literally all nuances as gray and that that is the only correct way to enjoy this particular novel. Please open your mind a little.

.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wangxian #jin guangyao #the grandmaster of demonic cultivation

[wildpeachfarm]

Thank you for being such a level headed blog in a time it is much needed while providing much needed relief today with the dnf omega verse posting 😂

While I agree with everything being said, I do think people are missing a big point trying to claim Caiti is an adult woman just bc she turned 18. Talk to most 21 year old and they say 18 is a baby, 25 say 21 is a baby so on. 18 is not some number where magically you stop having childish feeling and emotions. Humans are still developing and maturing all the way into their 20s

It’s about experience and adulting. she wanted to take adult actions while not making mature choices. It is a nuanced thing being 18 because you are still a teenager but also legally an adult but you just left high school but have a job but you can’t drink but but but

I just think people need to be very careful about saying…well she is 18, she is a fully fledged mature adult., cable of adult decision making and rationalization of complex feeling they may be feeling for the first time. That is something you’ll see predators use especially when grooming their victims where the second they turn 18, they go public with their “relationship” (this was something forever q/smp did, claiming the age of consent is lower in Brazil so it was okay)

The point is: Caiti was aware of the choices she was making, cognizant of her options (despite drinking), and choice to remain in a situation that made HER uncomfortable. If she cannot communicate her feeling in a situation like this, she should not be going to parties. She is of an age where she SHOULD be mentally mature enough to recognize some of this. This is not infantilizing her but stating a fact that she is immature and her actions have shown that. She needs to grow the hell up. And she better get used to being uncomfortable because that’s part of what being an adult is. It’s dealing with the uncomfortable-ness of situation and dealing with them in a mature and reasonable way. This is coming from a 30 year old touch adverse person who has to navigate a friendship with someone who is very touch affectionate and knowing not every touch is malice even though it makes me extremely uncomfortable to people to touch anywhere that isn’t my hands…so like I get it but Caiti can’t take this high road without taking personal responsibility that she was irresponsibility and overreacted. (I also think her ‘friends’ gaslit her into believing it was something it was not and she truly needs therapy to sort though all these feelings and emotions to even hope of having a functioning adult life with relationships)

I can only hope her vacation gave her time of reflection and she can see how far she has caused this to spiral and apologize to George in private at least. Because she just started and lead a hate campaign against a man who took responsibility and apologized for how his actions made her feel even if it was not his intentions. Her feelings are valid but that does not excuse her actions which were very malicious (side-eyeing her initial statement and subsequent responses). This is something that never should’ve been made public and should have been handled between the two of them and no one else

-sorry for the word vomit, it wasn’t sitting well with me seeing multiple platforms saying 18 year old are adults and can’t be treated like children. I hope those people are all under the age of 25 bc many adults reflect on how wrong they were when they thought they knew everything at 18-19 and were convinced they were emotionally intelligent. Hell I look back at 25 and realize how stupid I was and readily admit that. I worry for the youth growing up with social media as their morality benchmarks

thank you for adding your thoughts very appreciated :)

#ask #anon #anti drummyache tag

[metvmorqhoses]

Although I wasn’t expecting a completely faithful adaptation, since it is just that—an adaptation. I was expecting at least a coherent narrative that followed what season 1 gave us. Even though s1 diverged from the books particularly in terms of characterization it wasn’t something I was upset about since Ben and Jesse’s versions still had substance and incredible chemistry. This season hurt because the bad writing had Ben doing his best to salvage Darkling in his acting choices alone, all while Jesse’s Alina was completely stripped of nuance. It was such a strange choice the way the writers handled their relationship since bad writing aside, their scenes were still intriguing just based off their on screen chemistry alone. Which is why it was such a disappointment that instead of utilizing that, along with book canon to create a complex and enthralling mutual connection we instead got…this lol A big thing was always how despite their fundamental differences, they understood each other. I could see Ben’s Darkling trying to emphasize that part but when you have Alina absolutely not having it, it just comes off as pathetic on his part, which is what the writers wanted I suppose. I would say the ending is hopeful that this isn’t the end for them and a way for Alina to bring Darkling back but if the writing is anything like this season then that might just be wishful thinking.

Not being fond of the books, I didn't particularly care about plot faithfulness either. The real, terrible problem is that the dynamics and the characters' être weren't respected in the slightest, everything meaningful stripped of nuance and complexity for no apparent reason if not a huge dumb woke flex.

The crux of this disaster resides in the fact the writers seem to have completely forgotten (and I too was absolutely astonished by this, because in season one it absolutely wasn't the case) that actual human beings don't feel in black and white and half a dimension, at least not the ones without psychopathologies? And I swear that everyone but the Darkling and maybe one or two Crows this season acted like unfeeling robots or caricatures of themselves with a plot task to complete.

You know, as not fond of the concept as I am (since I don't really think the Darkling to be the villain of the story or so guilty of everything he is angrily accused of by the supposed "heroes"), they could have totally pulled off the darkest and most twisted interpretation of him imaginable and still respect his character and dynamic with Alina, since love, core understanding, admiration, hatred, violation and betrayal are not mutually exclusive and can actually be felt at the same time.

One splendid example of it is The Great. I don't know if you are familiar with the show, but it is the epitome of enemies to lovers to enemies to lovers and the things the two protagonists do to each other are way worse than anything the Darkling has ever done to Alina, but the deep connection between them is never denied, cannot be denied, no matter the terrible actions they inflict upon each other.

Alina could have been convinced the Darkling didn't deserve to live (no matter how fairly or unfairly), she could have decided to kill him and still recognize their unique connection, the nameless thing she feels, the deep affinities they share, maybe even be scared of it all, maybe even wishing none of it was there, but without outright denying what they fed us for the entirety of season one just out of a minor deception, appearing nothing but a petulant, close-minded child. Not only this made Aleksander appear as a delusional, desperate, weak stalker, but it made Alina honestly appear a dumb idiot without a single brain cell, if not an outright psychopath.

Not feeling any form of emotion or compassion for someone you had romantic feelings for (feelings she was even forgetting her great love Mal for, just saying) just ten minutes prior is not badass behaviour, is just not normal. Hell, not showing any emotion or compassion for a human being who is trying to show you an abyss of sorrow (that you are destined to share by the way) is not normal, not even in terms of old-fashioned villain/hero dynamics. Usually the hero is the one to have pity for the villain, the one with the moral high ground. Here not only this isn't the case when the two are balances of each other, connected cosmically and previous lovers, but basic human decency is also completely dismissed and Aleksander is the only one to show any.

I am as astonished as you by all this. I hope this whole season was in truth Alina's slow descent into madness, her power corrupting her from the start. I hope this is the reason they chose to feed us this soulless drivel, it's honestly the only way they could redeem the series at all, but who knows at this point.

#darklina #the darkling #alina starkov #shadow and bone #shadow and bone s2 #anon #asks/replies #one and one thousand stories lis told #the grisha trilogy

[olderthannetfic]

Honestly, a lot of this could be clear up if the people behind End Racism OTW would be more clear in what they want, how they want to get it, and answer questions beyond shrugging them off, dismissing them, or repeating the points that brought up the questions in the first place.

I want fandom to be a safe place, and have experienced far too much racism in it. I've been called racist for including things about my own life and experience by white people, and once I've disclosed why I wrote it, I STILL got attacked for depicting my own experiences "wrong" or in a negative light. There's no winning.

The way they're going about it may be drawing some attention to things, but the way they're also ignoring very genuine questions by people who DO support them but have reservations on the nuance and detail is very telling they don't actually know what they're doing, what they want, or how to implement things.

There's a lot that troubles me about this (much of which has already come up and been discussion here, such as HOW to define what is racist or not in a global context), but what I keep coming back to is how on earth will any of this be implemented?

Bringing on a diversity consultant will help, but that brings up other issues, in that (I think an anon brought this up?) no one person is an expert in everything, and a diversity consultant would likely be American (or perhaps Brit or Canadian), and they're simply not going to be able to understand all the nuance, and why would they? No one can be an expert in everything.

Something another anon brought up: How to train volunteers to scour through fics reported for racism? How do they know all of the nuance. Sure, some fics are obviously terrible, but a lot need more cultural understanding. Even if there are black and white rules, a human is still going to need to check over all of these reports, and not everything will be a perfectly clear choice.

And lastly (and most importantly, I think)...... AO3 is an archive. Even typing this makes me feel odd given harassment I've received, and how I want fandom overall to be a safer place. But it IS an archive. Removing works, even horrific and cruel and racist works, isn't something I'm sure I'm comfortable with. I don't want books pulled out of bookstores, or out of libraries, regardless of their content. There's a lot I don't want to see, let alone read, but an archive is made to house EVERYTHING. I know End Racism OTW is claiming it's not wanting anything to be censored, but removing works from an archive, even for genuine well meaning reasons, IS censorship. There's no denying that. If someone can let me know how it's not, please do. But even "they want obvious racist works to be taken down" is a form of censorship. It just is. It may be one a lot of people agree with, but that doesn't change what it is.

And while people may be okay with censoring works that are genuinely terrible, doing so then opens the door for more. "This work is racist because of X" turns into "this work is racist because of (issue with a lot more nuance and complexity", which turns into "this isn't racist but this work as this OTHER issue" therefore needs to be taken down to protect people.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, and don't actually know where I stand because fandom IS racist in so many ways (something I've experienced far too often), but there's no world where this isn't a form of censorship, and no world where the organisers aren't dismissing real and valid concerns.

I don't know what the solution is in regards to AO3 and fandom. It's a behemoth of a site, and there are very much issues with it. But the proposed solutions here? Don't seem well thought out, and they don't seem to care that real people (volunteers) are the ones that will have to deal with the fallout, while they get to be high and mighty over how anti-racist they are. And that's not even touching on how censoring things from an archive.... is in fact censorship.

Sorry for dumping all this here lol

--

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they're not malicious... but that leaves me with the conclusion that they're naive bordering on incompetent.

Maybe some improvements to the search features are the way forward. IDK.

[controversial-blorbo-bracket]

Controversial Character Tournament Round 2: Jaiden from The DSCP, A 17776 Roleplay vs Rose Quartz from Steven Universe

(remember that these characters are fictional and your fellow tumblr users are real. i will block you if you harass others in the notes, please consider sending your unhinged harassment to my inbox instead)

Propaganda under the cut, may contain spoilers:

Jaiden:

HATE: - "OKAY SO. This is Jaiden. In a world thousands of years in the future where humans are immortal and spacecraft are beginning to wake up and become people on their own, Jaiden decides *she* wants to be the catalyst to wake one of them up. For years and years she tries and fails, until she finds CHIPsat, quietly shut down a while ago rather than decommissioned and.. well. taken out of the sky. CHIPsat isn't her first attempt at this, but they're her first *successful* one. She asks the newly-awakened satellite one thing: "Hey little buddy. How are you holding up?" The two are close friends for awhile, and I'm not about to spill ALL the details about EVERYTHING she did but let's just say: in a world where machines are literally people, hacking is NOT the most ethical skill ever. Jaiden's a BITCH nobody likes you jaiden (rusty if youre seeing this dont worry shes a VERY cool character. i just also want to crush her like a bug. hope this helps) also here's the image rusty used for the dani profile: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/783126743191519252/785258702188970014/unknown.png or the image rusty used for the jaiden profile: https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/783126743191519252/914301198994116619/1306309_f0CiRxGx-1.png"

Rose Quartz:

LOVE: - "She was the example in the intro post I'm so proud of her. <3 I saw this bracket and I was immediately like "rose quartz my favorite character rose quartz" and lo and behold I was Correct. "UwU space mom victim" is a little simplistic, she has the range. She haunts the narrative. She taught me how hiding yourself because you're afraid that people won't like who you really are leads to continued self-resentment and avoidance. Loving her teaches me that even if you did do something completely irredeemable, even if you did do something worthy of all that hate you hold for yourself, people can still see the entire you and decide to love you anyway. I think even the other diamonds are better-regarded than her, which... incredible pr stunt from them tbh. I don't dislike the other diamonds but come on they made no independent effort to change w/o Steven—there's literally no question in the "who's the better person" department. Of course the "who's the better character" department will always be incredibly subjective but she is so complex, and multi-facteted, she screws up so so much and yet somehow her biggest mistake of all might be her own self-degrading. "What an incredible power... the ability to grow up," said with such longing. Girl look at Jungle Moon, you really think you're still the same gem? You grew so much and you never saw it. She's so selfish and selfless and self-destructive all at the same time and it's captivating. I want to put her in a jar and study her like a bug." - "did she do a lot wrong? yes. do i think she had good intentions at heart but just majorly fucked it up? also yes" - "she has so much depth oh my god" - "look idk I just want to make sure she gets submitted to the bracket because you’re so right that she belongs here" - "Rose gets a lot of shit because we saw her character arc in reverse. The situation is very messy but it’s also very nuanced, and regardless on how the discourse hammer judges her, I will always love her." HATE: - "Yeah" - "Anti : I'm not one her biggest hater but I can't forgive her for what she did to Pearl, and the other crystal gems. I've read some interesting defenses of the character but I can't get past all the lying, leaving and (accidental) abusing." BOTH: - "Is there a proper way to say that I loved her for a while in the show, but the showrunners kept piling blame onto her with less and less justifiable and more and more abuse of power things (without including counterbalancing reminders of how much she loved the planet and helping people) and so I kind of. Love early Rose Quartz, the complicated war leader with a messy past that she's escaping from, but hate Pink Diamond?"

#poll #round 2 #1 submission #8 submissions #jaiden #rose quartz #steven universe #su rose quartz #the dscp #17776 football

[stormyoceans]

monica im gonna need you to verbalise what the birthday scene did to you because i've been on the lookout for your reaction.. i know youre barely human rn so whenever you feel like it ofc 🥰

PETRI IT'S SO VERY SWEET OF YOU TO WANT TO KNOW MY REACTION TO THE MOST INSANE 20 MINUTES OF TELEVISION EVER PUT TO FILM BUT IM AFRAID I WON'T EVER BE MENTALLY FIT ENOUGH TO PUT INTO WORDS THE AMOUNT OF PAIN SUFFERING TORMENT AGONY ANGUISH SADNESS DESPAIR DEVASTATION DESPONDENCY HEARTBREAK AND DIVINE WRATH I WENT THROUGH WATCHING THAT ENTIRE SCENE LIKE I WAS GENUINELY WHITE KNUCKLING MY WAY THROUGH IT JUST GNAWING ON FURNITURE TO PREVENT MYSELF FROM GOING ON A KILLING SPREE AND PETROL BOMBING THE GMMTV HEADQUARTERS

i also feel like most people came out of the episode bawling their eyes out for mork and wanting to talk about him, and of course im no different, but at the same time im literally genuinely truly sincerely honest to god fr not kidding when i tell you i could spend the rest of my life talking about day and how good (and underrated) of a character he is. the frankly insane amount of thoughts and feelings i have about him basically overshadowed everything else EXCEPT FOR THE MURDEROUS RAGE I FELT TOWARDS AUGUST. and like.. the thing i appreciate the most about p’aof’s characters is that they’re all incredibly complex and nuanced, there are no heroes and no villains in his stories (despite what night says), so i do think that august cares about day and didn’t have any malicious intent, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions and august’s ones were wrapped up in so much ableism and selfishness since the very beginning, because he never really tried to understand day or think about what would actually make day happy, he just tried to lessen his own guilt for all the times he made day wait hours for him to show up, for all the matches he made them lose because his temper flared up, for all the forgotten birthdays, for not returning day’s feelings. i don’t want to hate august but the pity he feels for day and the guilt that stemmed from it ended up making day’s deepest fear come true and hurting him in ways august can’t even imagine AND IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY

mork’s anger was so relatable because mork, just like the audience, knows. he’s the only one who knows, not just about day’s heartbreak, but also about august’s words cutting much deeper than a simple rejection. this is exacly the reason day isolated himself and begged his mom not to tell anyone about him losing his sight, and the worst part is that august said all that to mork as if day wasn’t even there, as if he was invisible. honestly i could write a whole other post just about this scene and mork’s anger and the tear running down mork’s cheek not for himself but for day and day taking mork’s hand to stop him from hurting august and mork LETTING HIM and the hug but im sure other people already did better than i ever could and this is already getting way too long so let’s just say that the mental health crisis intervention team that’s always in the room with me when i watch this show had their hands full trying to sedate me (and to think that this was the better outcome too like.. imagine if mork hadn't come back. imagine if august had just walked away leaving day alone with no explanation whatsoever and no way of getting home by himself. KILLING AND MAIMING AND BITING AND TEARING AND RIPPING AND CLAWING AND STABBING AND PUNCHING AND KICKING AND MURDERING)

this mess with august is also making me both appreciate and hurt for day and gee’s friendship because she’s the only person from day’s past who isn’t treating him any differently and who is genuinely trying to understand him, and day TRUSTED her, when he needed someone and mork wasn’t there she is the one he called out for, which is HUGE, but he still isn’t ready to fully open up to her and you can tell this is hurting gee a little because she just wants to be there for him, especially after not being able to for an entire year. unlike everyone else, tho, she respects day’s boundaries and is gonna wait for him to come to her when he’s ready, so it pains me to think that what happened with august might push day towards isolation again (like i know mork isn’t gonna let that happen, but i think day is gonna have a hard time hanging out with other people again, at least for a while) WHICH IS WHY I NEED GEE TO DO WHAT DAY STOPPED MORK FROM DOING AND SLAP SOME SENSE INTO AUGUST

AND OKAY LIKE LET’S TALK ABOUT MORKDAY EVEN IF THINKING ABOUT THEM FOR TOO LONG MAKES ME WANT TO THROW MY WHOLE ASS SELF DOWN A WELL AND DROWN IN 5 CM OF WATER AND ALSO AS WE’VE ALREADY ESTABLISHED IM CLEARLY VERY BIASED TOWARDS DAY EVEN IF I DO TRY TO BE AS OBJECTIVE AS POSSIBLE BUT ALSO LISTEN. people out there blaming day for not falling at mork’s feet right away and hurting mork’s feelings by preferring august (which is not entirely true btw) can meet me in the pit and i don’t wanna get into this here since im just rambling and digressing from what you originally asked way too much, but the point is. people look at this as if emotions are completely clear cut and day can’t both have residual feelings for august and some blooming ones for mork that he isn’t fully aware of, and also everyone seems to forget that day can’t see and mork is his caretaker and he has no idea how much of mork being nice to him is mork actually liking him or mork just doing his job. all of this to say that MY BOY DAY WAS THRILLED AT THE IDEA OF SPENDING HIS BIRTHDAY WITH MORK OKAY??????? HE WAS HAPPY AND EXCITED AND GIFTED MORK HIS FAVORITE PERFUME AFTER SPRAYING IT ON HIM (i could act like a 12 years old and make a joke about day spraying himself on mork since the name of the perfume is ‘day time’ but i won’t because im better than that) [no im not] AND COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT EVER KNOWING SOMEONE NAMED AUGUST. so to hear mork say that he went there as a matchmaker probably was yet another thing that confused day so much about mork’s intentions (and it also had me on the floor recreating the collective wailing scene from midsommar but that’s a different matter)

and like don’t get me wrong, i have no doubts that letting day go with august was probably one of the hardest most painful things mork ever had to do and that the only reason he was actually able to go through with it is because he thought that august was where day’s happiness laid. it was also extremely painful to see mork alone in the background throughout the entire episode, unsure of where he stands in day’s life and feeling like he has no right to claim a place next to him, and day definitely had some part in making him feel like that but i also think that mork was so wrapped up in his own emotions (understandably so) that he didn’t really listen to all the times day was asking him to stay. "not a boss. let's just say im a friend", "why didn't you join us for dinner?", "so will you tell me now what you're going as if not my caretaker?". day may not be sure of his own feelings or how to define his relationship with mork, but he does know that mork belongs right next to him, and seeing day looking for mork and not finding him was just as painful as mork once again not being able to give the damn sunflower to day LIKE SERIOUSLY HOW MANY MORE SUNFLOWERS ARE WE GOING TO GO THROUGH BEFORE IT FINALLY GETS TO DAY STOP THIS MADNESS

AND DON’T EVEN LET ME GET STARTED ON THE SYMBOLISM OF IT ALL AND HOW - JUST LIKE AT THE BEGINNING THEY BOTH WERE THE UNHAPPY PRINCE AND THE UNTAMED FOX IN NEED OF A FRIEND WHO WOULD TAKE THE TIME AND EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND -THEY NOW BOTH ARE THE SUN AND THE SUNFLOWER CHASING THE LIGHT THAT MAKES IT VISIBLE BECAUSE THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO CAN TRULY SEE EACH OTHER AND HOW ALL OF THIS TIES WITH THE KISS HAPPENING AS THE SUN RISES OR I WILL START MAKING RABIS-RIDDLED CREATURE NOISES

im very likely forgetting so many things i wanted to say and that are worth mentioning but this already enough of a mess and i’ve also reached that point of insanity where i need to go meditate in a sensory deprivation chamber to come down from the sheer manic energies that thinking about this show has me going on SO. let’s just leave it at that

IN CONCLUSION. RIP ME

#NOT A SINGLE COHERENT THOUGHT FOUND THIS IS BASICALLY JUST STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS AT ITS WORSE #AND THIS FRIENDS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER LET ME TALK ABOUT ANY JIMMYSEA/VICE VERSA/LAST TWILIGHT RELATED MATTER #CAN I APOLOGIZE FOR THIS UNSUBSTANTIAL MESS NOW #last twilight the series #petri 🩵 #m: ask

[uncanny-tranny]

As someone who suffered from Munchausen-by-proxy I don't think you understand what happens when people fake medical conditions for themselves or their children. Some of us die. You'd rather a thousand people risk dying from medicine or treatments they don't need than someone point out that their self diagnosis doesn't make sense?

I'm not sure if you were taking what I said in that post in bad faith, but what I was saying in that post, essentially, was I would rather people be actually treated rather than assumed to be guilty of faking until proven innocent. I would rather it come out that somebody was faking than risk a truly disabled person suffering or worse because they were assumed to be a faker. In fact, I also outlined my thoughts further in the tags (which I don't blame you if you didn't read them):

[Image Description: A screenshot of tags I left on my post (plaintext): And there's a difference not many people seem to recognize between faking and realizing you don't have [x] problem, such as realizing you don't have [x] disorder because it is instead [y] disorder, or you haven't completely understood your care needs, your symptoms,what helps you. And some people see ANY change in your understanding of your disability as proof of maliciously faking. When I suppose in my personal experience, people don't *maliciously* fake disability. I'm not saying it could never happen, but that i don't think it's the *only* thing motivating people called "fakers." I just think, like most everything, this is complex and nuanced because it's a *human* experience. (End Description)]

I get where you're coming from, but I think that's a different conversation. What bothers me about this ask is that this isn't treating the topic of faking with nuance, either. Not everybody who will fake a disorder will have Factitious Disorder, and not everybody who would abuse another through medical means would have it, either. People have been abused by people through medical means, yes, but that is absolutely not necessary to fake disorders and why someone would fake one in the first place.

People tend to apply the "faker" label very loosely in order to deny care to people they think "don't need" or "don't deserve" care. I'm sorry, but that is needless suffering, too. I never fucking said people deserve to risk dying or actually die, and I would appreciate it greatly if you wouldn't shove those words into my mouth. I'm trying to be understanding toward your point of view, but it comes across as though my words are being twisted into the worst faith possible in order to condescend to me as to why I don't understand this topic at all.

#ask #anon #disability #described images #image description in alt #long post #hopefully this is understandable #i'm just kind of frustrated about this because that is not 'faking' in that case. it's abuse (when done to another)... #...people who self-endure Factitious Disorder are also suffering though!!!!!!!!! and deserve treatment!!! #but when you're talking about those cases wherein somebody abuses another or WORSE... that is abuse #and it just feels... odd to me to compare that with what i was talking about? maybe i'm wrong

[tzthrowbacks]

I agree with you. I wish they had done more with tashi or gave us insight in to some other aspects to her character like her being mother, the script/ film doesnt develop her character as much as the two boys however the lack of tashi is both a detriment and a gift. Its detrimental b/c we lose some interiority but it also loses a dimension of why she makes the choices she does later on. At the same time its gift in the sense it highlights why zendayas performance stands out and why Luca is an amazing visual/subtle storyteller. The two of them fill in the gaps for us basicially through looks and camera angles.

Like think of the scene by the tree. Tashi never explicitly says how she feels when she gets injured rather through the slow moving shot that leads into a close up of tashi at the tree through zendayas facial expressions we see grief, rage and sense of resentment of the fact that everything she worked for has instantly disappeared right before her eyes. Thats just one example of many of them ( luca and z) filling in the gaps and being able to convey so much despite the script failing to develop tashi. The lack of tashi inadvertently actually gave zendaya more freedom convey something more complex which actually is testament to her growth as an actor but her ability utilize details to create some more emotional nuance. I think thats what they wanted, to present a cold and calculated tashi who uses tennis both as a way to orient herself in the world but also as a way to emotionally close herself off from the rest of the world. Its through the details and subtle gestures that they wanted to create something more human and grounded. Zendaya really had the most difficult task imo.

yeah really good points. her "silent" acting moment were great, when the actual dialogues failed to give her something, her presence and what she conveyed with her face said it all. the scene on the bed with art resting his head on her thighs for example, it's heartbreaking

i still think they could've done a little more, maybe a scene of tashi discussing with a "third party" that isn't art or patrick because what she's going through goes beyond the relationships she has with the two ? or something else idk

#spoilers

[doberbutts]

as a fellow south asian woman, those posts make me deeply uncomfortable. seeing terfs that are woc is always sad for me because..... radical feminism has never included us and it never will. they want to use woc to act like they aren't racist but their fight for us is conditional on us suppressing our lived experience as poc. we don't fix misogyny and patriarchal beliefs in our communities by turning to that rhetoric.

i also feel like there's a certain dehumanization required of men for radfems. they can't see them as complex human beings, they need to see everything in these black and white good and evil binaries. but that experience, especially for marginalized men, is so out of touch with reality. i've watched the way the men in my family have been abused by white people - often white women - and so it's like. yes, they can perpetuate misogyny and reinforce the patriarchy, but they're also harmed by racism. it isn't as simple as man bad woman good. this idea that gender based oppression is the ultimate form of oppression and everything else stems from it just feels so imaginary. we can't separate the "marginalized" and "privileged" parts of our identities into neat little boxes, that's not how it works.

and i don't really get the logical leap to go from "marginalized men can face discrimination in how their marginalized identity intersects with their manhood" to "marginalized men can't perpetuate misogyny" they can. it's just not a 'they are wholly evil beings and only exist to oppress women'. it's reductive, and that feels like the point, because nuance would destroy the whole argument.

Ah yes good food but you see that's nuance on the no-nuance piss on the poor I think coolsville sucks website.

Speaking from the black experience, where I have seen the disparity between the power black men can have over black women vs the power white women can have over black men, I think too many times these pieces of radical feminism try to create a clear-cut us vs them scenario that frankly has no bearing in real life.

Especially, as you said, when trying to discuss how someone may actually experience discrimination and oppression in one scenario that also allows them privilege and power in another, we keep ending up back at "so you're saying they're the most oppressed!?!?!?" and "how can I, an oppressed person, ever oppress someone else". Of course men of color can perpetuate misogyny- and often do! Just like how white women can perpetuate racism by leaning in on racist stereotypes for men of color! The whole system sucks, that's the entire point!

[bloggingboutburgers]

Hi, I know you're catching a lot of flak right now for your comic, and I just want you to know that it's justified. Saying that you need a seperate pride without kink to "feel safe" is actively homophobic. Everything you described happening at the "good pride" also happens at normal pride just alongside the parties. Gay kinksters CREATED pride, we literally wouldn't be allowed to celebrate it without them. You can't give conservatives even an inch on this. "there should be prides without kinks for people like me" may be the extent of your thoughts but it is so easy for others to jump off from there into "all prides should be without kink" and other measures to control queer bodies in public. Please do some research into the origins of pride and see if you can still stand by your mistake

I'm actually not catching a lot of flak, I thought I was gonna, but people are being understanding of what I'm trying to mean, and I'm very grateful for that!

I didn't want to picture any specific pride as "good" or "bad", sorry if it came across this way, that means I did my drawing job badly. All I wanted to do was give visibility for my own experience.

Apologies also if I came across as homophobic – please know that wasn't my intention either, although I've kind of got that before – being called homophobic for being asexual and having my own needs be about... Welp, not needing sex, and not needing romance, while the goal of most other orientations is to show OTHER kinds of sex and romance. I want to believe these aren't incompatible goals, but I guess sometimes they can be.

...What I should say is, if we're going there, saying an asexual person doesn't have the right to want to feel safe and included in SOME LGBTQIA+ events seems pretty aphobic to me.

I 100% agree with your point that sadly there will definitely be conservatives who'll take this need as "all prides should be without kink", or take comics like these the wrong way. But I think if you're accusing me of saying exactly that, instead of the nuanced and more neutral message I'm trying to give, you're basically falling into the same mentality as they are. I believe for there to be intelligent progress for human rights for everyone, people should be able to read between the lines and understand that there are complexities that should be taken into account. If they can't take into account these complexities without ruining it all for everyone, then that leaves me with little hope for any of us to begin with.

As far as the origins of pride are concerned, I'm not denying that at all either, and that should be recognized. Again, like – I think it's absurd that we live in a world that's so explicitly heterosexually kinky on a 24/7 basis (in our movies, our TV shows, our ads, our societal habits, ALL of it) and that some people are trying to say LGBTQI+ people shouldn't be allowed to be explicitly kinky in the same way. All I'm saying is – for sex-repulsed asexuals like me, not being kinky IS what feels safe, and if I can't find events where I can feel that kind of safety, and where I have to force myself to smile and nod to stuff that makes me feel unsafe no matter where I go, I'm pretty much in the same self-repressed situation as I'm in every day in a heteronormative world. Hence why I said I'm glad pride has come so far that some of them can be inclusive even for people like me. That such things can coexist. That I believe they should.

I should also note (I might be wrong on this, please anyone correct me if I am) that asexuality as an orientation started actively being coined in the US only in the 70s (and that came much later in a majority of other countries), and we got our first flag only in 2010. Which means the first prides by nature could not be inclusive for us because we were too scared/repressed by societal norms to even have come out yet. And just like (in my country at least) what was formerly called "Gay pride" is now called simply "Pride", and just like the pride flag has evolved to include more minorities and realities of experiences within the LGBTQIA+ community, I believe it's a good thing if prides can also evolve in that sense. It has become our tradition by now as a community largely speaking, and I think traditions ought to know to evolve as well – if they didn't none of us would be allowed to exist at all and we'd all be still stuck in hetero norms. Maybe in the future things will evolve to the point where there's a variety of prides that cater more to some orientations than others (I think that may be already happening?). And maybe, hopefully, someday in the future, prides as a way to raise awareness won't be needed at all anymore because people already know and accept it. Though sadly we're still not at that point now...

...With that said, to conclude, I ought to give the Paris Pride another chance again focusing on like, before the parade begins, or after it concludes, to mainly attend the conferenes and speeches and whatnot and find what works for me in those those. Maybe that's the better way for me to experience this.

#welp i hope i was able to be understandable in this way #i hope i didn't hurt anyone but i probably accidentally did #am most likely gonna have to come to regret replying to this #scared again #but it's my bad for not being able to keep my mouth shut ig