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chaifootsteps · 5 months

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Hey Chai, I know the Hazbin leaks are the main talk right now and I'm sorry to bring it up again but I am so conflicted about Jane's document you mentioned a bit ago.

I read it all, and at first I was believing every word, felt so bad for Jane, all these horrible endless turmoils that happened to her. Then when I went back through and started reading the screenshots I started seeing contradictions. They'd be like:

Jane is just saying the claim to someone else on Discord (which provides a likely timestamp but not necessarily definitive proof)

There's not much present that actually backs up Jane's claim

Context appears to be missing

The proof occasionally contradicts itself

Jane says one thing in one screenshot while saying something different in another. (One Example: In one she lies/downplays what she told people about Avery and tells Karli she just "saw him giving people massages" and "never said he got me drunk .. only that I wondered if he wanted to try to" then in her conversation with Avery's ex she literally tells her "he was awfully touchy with women at the party" and "he tried to get me drunk.")

(Another example was she claimed Steven was abusive, but you read all the screenshots she provided and it's just her talking at Steven and occasionally trauma-dumping, with him responding in either supportive or neutral/blunt ways or requesting reasonable boundaries considering that she's living there rent-free and with free groceries. She titles a few screenshots "Steven being weird about my d*ck" then the screenshots just show HER bringing up her d*ck and him asking Jane to avoid making a mess when she pees and offers she could try sitting down because he does that to avoid making a mess too.)

I'm not trying to defend Ang, or anyone else in the doc, and I'm not trying to say Jane's a liar that shouldn't be trusted, but maybe to caution people to go back and re-read it with ALL the screenshots and make more careful judgement when not just Jane but anyone comes out with a long list of extreme claims.

I also think Jane might've misread some situations considering how young she was at the time + her trauma + C-PTSD + her DID. That is not me trying to say she didn't suffer, or that some of her claims aren't true, or that some people mentioned in the doc didn't make poor decisions, and it's possible for some of them Jane just made poor choices in the screenshots she included or something.

( And outside of the doc Jane recently claimed on Twitter that Ang faked their su*c*de and went on about how that affected her but... we all know Ang was publicly open about their declining health and that they were ready to leave socials to succumb to it because they had no medical care and no money to get it and were getting worse. And then people assumed that meant A. Instant Su*c*de, B. Ang is now dead, and spread that around like wildfire until people involved had to be like "Ang isn't fucking dead they're approaching EOL what are y'all talking about." Idk if Jane misunderstood that, or if Ang truly did additionally fake their suicide behind closed doors, I find the latter less likely, but food for thought I guess. )

If you're open to it I can send you a few more main points in the screenshots that felt contradictory to me, if not I'll just leave this ask as it is, and thanks for reading it, it's okay if you don't post it.

It's...a tangle, for sure. I honestly don't know what to make of it myself.

I will say that if Ang isn't dead or dying I would like more solid proof of that, because when I talked to them years ago, they were in frighteningly poor health. Their spinal fluid was leaking to the point where they could taste it in their mouth, and when people had said they'd died, I wasn't surprised. Not even the slightest bit.

#Anonymous #actual blog post #ang vondra

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beevean · 1 year

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1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 for Sonic <3

On one hand, thank you so much for asking me about Sonic, it's like everyone forgot about my main fandom :(

On the other... why tho.

the character everyone gets wrong

Shadow, easy. Sonic and Eggman too... and Amy... and Tails... yeah pretty much everyone... but poor Shadow is the unfortunate victim of being hugely popular and hugely misunderstood due to inane takes that spread like wildfire.

Shadow is not an edgy boy (okay his game pushes it). Shadow is not a poow widdle blorbo who only needs to cry. Shadow did not suffer like a dog on the ARK. Shadow is not "Vegeta". Shadow does not monologue about who he is and what he thinks (neither does Sonic btw, coughcoughidwcough). There should be a law that you cannot analyze Shadow's character if you haven't at least read his script in Sonic Battle.

3) screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

How am I supposed to choose????? Have you seen this fandom D: (no, you haven't, lucky you. well i did.)

Among all, I get the urge to stab myself in the spleen every time I read something about Muh Mandates and Sonic Should Be Allowed to Cry and Eggman is Such A Good Dad to Sage. Or the majority of posts gushing about IDW, especially if the topic is Sonic's Principles :^)

6) which ship fans are the most annoying?

Sonadow, one of the main reasons it annoys me so much. Although some Sonamy fans push it, and I like that ship.

7) what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

hahahaha

Well, I used to dislike Shadow precisely due to his popularity, but nowadays I've warmed up to the guy. He's cool. Just... I don't get the hype.

I guess Surge is a better example. She's very annoying in canon, but what really ruins her is the amount of adoration she garnered. Y'all like her simply for the aesthetic, I checked, because she has a pitiful amount of fanfictions that actual star her as a character. (one of them is mine, and I don't even like her. Just sayin'.)

Oh, and I will never be objective about Sage. Sorry. She's bland and on her own inoffensive, but her association with Eggdad ruined her for me.

8) common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

That ShTH is a bad game >:( it's funny y'all are just mean.

Again, I can't choose. This fandom has just... so many Takes. I guess I'll go with "Shadow was turned into Vegeta", which is... factually untrue, outside of the Boom series.

9) worst part of canon

Can't choose, honestly. Maybe splitting Classic Sonic into a different character, instead of simply keeping him an older design for Sonic. Boy, the discourse that it caused...

12) the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Hmm. To be fair I mostly like popular characters. I'd say that now I like Elise much more than I used to, but then again she's becoming more popular. So... Infinite, maybe? I like the dude, he's both cool and pathetic and I have no idea how he manages to do that. Sick theme too. And he's voiced by Liam O'Brien and his horniness for violence shows :'D

And you know what? Zor. Zor is the funniest of the Deadly Six. He's self aware and that elevates him. Y'all are too mean to the Deadly Six in general, but Zor is the one who deserves it less.

13) worst blorboficiation

Shadow, again. This poor dude just isn't seen for who he is.

15) that one thing you see in fanart all the time

Can't think of anything, because I'm not stupid and I don't go look for fanart :'D I dunno, worst thing I'm seeing recently is Eggdad content.

16) you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Why do you need Sonic and Shadow to be crybabies. Emotions aren't only expressed through tears. Don't blame SEGA for a perfectly normal writing choice. You don't need to shove angst up their asses to fulfill what's essentially your preference.

18) it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

KNUXAMY. THEY'RE SO CUTE. THEY HAVE LESS THAN 30 FICS ON AO3. WHY.

19) you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

Sonegg, except I've been liking it for so long that the shame has simply become resignation. I know why it's a common nOTP and I absolutely respect the people who think it's vomit-inducing, but I will defend it to my grave as being not as bad as commonly thought.

... does being an unironic ShTH enjoyer count, too?

20) part of canon you found tedious or boring

Frontiers. I swear that that story is completely useless, nothing happens except getting beaten over the face with pointless references and Ian Flynn self-sucking over how better he is than Pontaff, no I'm still not over "then I'm wildly inconsistent" :') and while '06's story is better because at least shit happens (until the game erases itself from existence), it's still a dull, boring, confusing mess to sit through, especially in English because they all sound bored out of their skull.

21) part of canon you think is overhyped

Frontiers :') at least, even though I don't like SA2, I can understand why it's so popular. I can even understand why people nowadays are warming up to '06. With the exception of some cute Sonic/Knuckles interactions, I can't find a thing to like about Frontiers' story.

22) your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

Some of the endings of ShTH, especially the Dark ones. I think they brim with potential :)

23) ship you've unwillingly come around to

Knuxamy. A friend of mine started shipping it, then I was sucked in. (it helps that Knuckles/Amy in SAd3 kicks ass :D) look, they're cute and they have a fun dynamic going on.

24) topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

WAAAAAAAAH WHY DO YOU WANT SONIC TO KILL VILLAINS????

shut up. shut your entire fuck up. i am so sick of this. it was never our argument. idw is the plague of the fandom.

25) common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

MUH

MANDATES

no. You go and actually listen to Flynn's words. Even he's sick of this discourse. (also, yes he confirms that Shadow comes with many notes, but also dude just. doesn't understand him. "can you hear the fatigue in my voice" my entire ass)

#sonic the hedgehog #thank you for skipping question 2 #i don't want to think about sonic characters topping or bottoming lmao #ahhh now i have enough salt for my popcorn <3 #fans don't look

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zealouswerewolfcollector · 11 months

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3, 6, 12

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

When I stumble upon a terrible take (which happens from time to time), I argue with that person in my head for a while and then usually forget about it. So I don't remember seeing anything as crazy as blaming Celebrimbor for his torture (seriously, what? I think that might be THE worst take I've seen), but I have come across your usual Elwing abandoned her children, Indis is a homewrecker, the Feanorians were justified in attacking Doriath and Sirion and (rarer but still terrible) the Teleri are to blame for the first kinslaying. And then of course, there is rewriting the entire book to make Morgoth and Sauron misunderstood woobies and everyone else evil and uncaring.

I've also seen a few terrible takes in fics like Elrond slapping Elwing (immediately noped out) or two characters being in a relationship that is incredibly unhealthy but is presented as normal.

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

Russingon? Haha. At the very least by virtue of it being the most popular ship. If I didn't ship it, I might have been annoyed too by how pervasive it is, but I do ship it, so sorry for being annoying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Maybe it's because I haven't gone looking for it, but I haven't noticed big ship wars in this fandom, which is a major cause of a ship and its fans becoming annoying.

I also get annoyed by most Finrod ships, but that's just a question of a personal preference and not the fans being annoying.

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

Thingol. Yes, he is an asshole. Yes, he did some questionable things. But so did almost all of the characters in the Silmarillion, yet Thingol doesn't get the same grace and understanding that others are allowed. Maybe it's because I read CoH before the Silm, but I've always liked Thingol.

He accepted Turin, raised him and loved him. I know some people have found issues even with his treatment of Turin, but I believe that he genuinely loved Turin and wanted the best for him. After Turin left, he also accepted Morwen and Nienor. He had a great redemption arc after the quest for the Silmaril and people always ignore it. I honestly don't think he seriously meant for Beren to bring him the Silmaril. It's a common fairy tale trope when the King sends his daughter's suitor after an impossible thing, believing that he won't do it. Thingol never intended to get the Silmaril. He just said something he thought was impossible to get rid of Beren. It is an assholish thing to do, but it isn't overly malicious.

He admitted his mistake and accepted Beren when he and Luthien came back. He grieved for him when he died. I think this also gets forgotten when people talk about Thingol.

He is also one of the few characters in the Silmarillion that makes a joke. It's such a humanizing moment. His joke isn't even at someone's expense. It makes Nellas feel at ease and she's able to speak to him.

Thanks for the ask <3

ask game here

#ask #welcomingdisaster #ask game #silm

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darkx-the-dragon-kn1ght · 8 months

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Chapter 2- Part 9

Let’s move on to the people at the desks.

This must be the in-universe explanation for why this game has all Pokémon from Gens I-VII. But like, throwing so many varying kinds of species together like that…doesn’t that seem kinda ecologically dangerous? I dunno, it just doesn’t seem like that’s how that would work-

And even then, we’re gonna catch some anyways, sooooo tough luck.

That’ll probably be our next stop then, after we see as much of the Opal Ward as we can. Surely the cops and debris from earlier will be cleared out by now, right? And who is the first Gym Leader gonna be? Is it gonna be Julia? She’s the first Gym Leader we’ve actually met, and she mentioned being at the Gym when the train exploded so it couldn’t have been that far from Grandview Station…

Hm, this is interesting- is this, like, a method for training/level grinding? That’d be nice if so, but I don’t think I’m gonna be using that right now.

That’s…definitely a very long and specific metaphor, but eh- it’s a reference.

Still interesting, but - where are the Trainers, though? It’s Saturday (as of the time of playing for Chapter 2), so there should be more according to this person. I saw a ton of NPCs when Victoria was walking Xera in, was that them? In that case, I probably shouldn’t talk to any of them right now…

(Note from the future: Reading back over this conversation while cropping down screenshots for these posts, I don’t think this is what they meant, I think they just meant the free battle Trainers aren’t available to players right away, but past me misunderstood this dialogue. I blame the extended “new Trainer with Lv. 5 starter” metaphor.)

I did already know that, actually, but points for effort.

This guy’s not special enough for us to talk to apparently, the geometry itself denies him a conversation.

And here’s the Poke Mart! We don’t start out with a ton of money and beating Cain and Victoria didn’t give us much more, but even still-

I bought a couple Potions, Antidotes, and an extra Poké Ball.

And now we’re half broke! It’s fine though, maybe the other Trainers will be able to pay a bit more.

But speaking of buying stuff, look who’s down here!

Yup, the certified Magikarp Salesman is here too! As much as I wouldn’t mind having a Magikarp, I think I’ll hold off for right now until Xera’s just a little more financially stable.

#pokemon reborn #pokemon reborn spoilers #pokemon fan game #pokemon reborn screenshot let's play

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silverjojo08 · 5 months

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I'm Sorry Women (an Ace Attorney retrospective)

Don't worry, this is going to be much shorter than my FE Engage essay. Also this is more of a personal piece than anything else.

With the upcoming release of the Apollo Justice trilogy (AA456 collection) I've started going through my old tweets to reminiscence about me playing those games. This will be spoilery for some aspects all three of those games I think, so this is your warning to turn back if you haven't played through Spirit of Justice.

Eat Your Hamburgers, Apollo

Ok this part might be obvious, but because I am an American gamer who played the US localization I will be using those names, locations, etc in this discussion.

If you are at all generally curious about localization and Ace Attorney, Janet Hsu has been one of the main localizers on the franchise and has spoken about some of the process (this interview is about DGS/GAA but there's tidbits on their work in general) here: https://www.polygon.com/interviews/22519215/great-ace-attorney-chronicles-interview-translator-localization-japanese-western-audience

Update: AA456 specific interview with Hsu as well: https://kotaku.com/ace-attorney-apollo-justice-janet-hsu-interview-1851226695

Other Preliminary Info

So unlike my Engage essay which was set in a more fantasy world, I do feel the need to state that I'm not an expert on the subjects of: adoption, teen pregnancy, teen marriage, cross-cultural adoption, political strife?, etc.

I haven't done any reading in prep for writing this. I'm not trying to present myself as any type of authority. I'm not calling out anyone specific in the fandom besides myself. This is meant to be an analysis of me and my previous beliefs with maybe a little commentary on how the fandom at the time may have shaped those thoughts (but the only examples I will provide will be my posts and screenshots from the series).

And as like in my Engage essay, I'm not a professional story analyst or anything and this is not meant to be a literary criticism. I'm not even using fully proper grammar or anything. Sorry if it's unreadable lmao.

The Essay

I was going through my old tweets to see my old thoughts as I was playing through Ace Attorney games 5 and 6 in particular. I don't believe I livetweeted AA4, but if I did I can't find my hashtag for it. I went back mainly to see the funny and dumb things I posted when I was younger and to relive some moments from the games to hype for the new release of the Apollo Justice Triology as I had not played them in a while. There's some funny stuff in there, especially the AA6 one where I predicted at least one thing accurately.

In my reminiscing, I came across this one in particular which immediately gave me pause:

I understand why I said that. But still I couldn't get it out of my mind. "Why did I say that? What led to me holding this type of honestly heartless belief? Why was I like this?"

Thalassa married Jove when she was 18 and had Apollo when she was 18-19. Yes, at the time I typed that I believed she gave Apollo up willingly, which turned out to not be the case as later revealed in AA6.

But looking at it even from that lens now, even if she had given him up herself, so what? No decision she could have made at that time could have been wrong. It's insane that I thought otherwise. That was an impossible situation for her.

And yes, the specific scene is from Apollo's perspective. He doesn't know the context of him becoming an orphan. Even as of AA6 (which goes into his early childhood) he only knows the circumstances of how he lost Jove and why he ended up in the US, but not all that happened with his mother.

He is not wrong to feel as he does. And there are people irl who have been adopted and spoken on their experiences and all. I'm never going to tell anyone how they should or shouldn't feel about that because I've not been on either side of that situation.

But I completely misunderstood even just the basic context of the scene. This was a flashback scene where he was a young child (stated to be about middle school age) trying to give advice to help his friend.

I went back to the scene to get screenshots for this. And it wasn't even about him as much as it was about him helping Clay in the only way that he could, as one little kid to another:

This is a cute scene about two kids in an orphanage working through their emotions and bonding while also dropping lore on where Apollo's catchphrase comes from.

There was no need for me to take this opportunity to speak on Thalassa at all. Especially when she literally did nothing wrong at all.

I do generally remember back in the early 2010s at least in AA fandom there was a bit of an angsty thing regarding how he may have felt towards her not raising him especially after she went on to get married again and have Trucy. I cannot remember all the details, but I assume some of that rubbed off on me. But even if that's the case, I still should have known better. A lot of stuff that happens in fandoms shouldn't be internalized.

In Conclusion

TL;DR I was a dumbass using a touching scene to slander a girl put in an unimaginable situation, and they should revoke my feminism card.

Less flippantly: It's always worth revisiting old opinions to challenge your past assumptions. Everyone grows and changes over time. And even people who believe themselves to be well-meaning have some rotten stuff to worth through. It takes work to become a better person.

#ace attorney #essay

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marlinspirkhall · 2 years

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Happy ten year anniversary to whatever the hell 13 year old me had going on

[ID] Three screenshots of an email read Wed, Aug 29, 2012 at 6:33 PM, [name] <[name surname]@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:

Hi [friend's name]. I started writing this story. Tell me if its any good. Did you have a good holiday? C u online.

XXX [name]

The Chronicles of God.

Introduction: You must read this.

Some people have exciting lives. They normally spend large proportions of their lives battling monsters and other exciting stuff. Most people have normal lives. People who lead normal lives spend large proportions of their lives doing regular stuff like going to work and school. Some people get famous by writing books and staging plays, the main subject frequently being used in these plays being fantasy worlds and magic schools. This is usually because made-up lives are more exciting than regular lives by a long shot. Who wants to read about how Dennis Croswell from IT got dumped by Shona Levesque? They'd much rather read about nights in shining armor battling dragons and maybe even rescuing the princess from the tallest tower as an added bonus.

Sometimes the story begins with a normal person who then goes on to discover their best friend is an alien and spend the next few years of their life trekking through space. At other times, the seemingly normal person encounters old men in the desert with long sticks of light, who take them through space to meet their highly misunderstood father, a walking carpet, a man-with-a-gun and a pretty girl. The story usually ends with them saving the Galaxy while they're at it, and lots of teddy bears having a celebration... With some kissing along the way.

And sometimes, very occasionaly, a wonderful story comes along. One of those stories you very rarely find. If you are wondering where to find one of those books, the answer is: Welcome. I think you've arrived.

Chapter 1: In which the introduction finishes only to be replaced by something very similar.

In the beginning, there was a button. One big, red button that had: "DO NOT TOUCH UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES" written across the top in big, yellow writing. Underneath this, written in tiny letters was: "Even under adult supervision. Warning, contains small parts. Not suitable for anyone under 36 months of age." This big, red button, was also mounted on a polished black podium, and was rather shiny. The button sat there, untouched for many aeons. Well, I say many aeons, but as it was in the beginning, the very beginning, the beginning of everything(apart from buttons, of course, but thats another story), it was also the beginning of time itself. That means that nobody knows how long the button sat there. It could have been years. It could have been mere seconds. Countless wars and arguments have been fought and debated on this one subject. But thats not important. whats important is that: The button sat there, undisturbed for... however long it sat there.

A small, wrinkelled grey hand crept towards the button. It stopped, and wondered how it was going to get to the top of the podium, then it seemingly flew - but don't worry, because it was attached to an arm, which was hopefully attached to a body. The hand paused, with its forefinger hovering over the button. Then, it plunged down, and pressed the button. The hand dived clear, and ran for a minute or so, until it was a suitable distance away from the button. then it turned, and watched the button closely. A big, multicolored spark launched itself into the air. Color. It hung there, as if unsure what to do, as a second spark emerged from the button. Time. The two twin sparks Smoldered in the air, as another spark shot into the air like a rocket. No-one knows what the last spark introduced into before, but this was the final spark. Then, this spark also hung there with the other two. All three sparks immediatley swirled round, mixing into one multi-colored swirl of light, twirling faster and faster, until it looked like a big blurr.

P.s, i started a new one about a spy school. Want to read that to? [End ID]

#writing #screenshots #this is so surreal it's like reading something from a different person #but it's ME #just heavily overconfident and mediocre at spelling and grammar #btw my friend's reply to this was 'good apart from the spelling errors' and then she sent me a spelling corrected version akdjskjdl

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futuregws · 1 year

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idk if youre being illiterate on purpose but olivia clearly said she didnt play alicent like a woman for trump. if you cant even bother to read or listen to what she said cause if you did youd know that when she talks about the fans shes talking about the deranged extremists and unless youre one of them idk why anyone would take offense to what she said cause all shes doing is defending herself against the crazies. sounds to me like youre just jumping at an excuse to dislike her

This is what I said on my first post about this, I think it's pretty clear what I'm asking there, and this ask is not IT sweetheart, so you can not so kindly fuck off, bc as you see in that screenshot I was open to being corrected bc yeah maybe I misunderstood but this nasty ass attitude is why more than half of the hotd fandom is turning on team green fans/Olivia's fans.

If you also missed the parts where I said (more than once) that I do like Olivia this was just something that bothered me, let me know and I will show you a screenshot I'm always open to educating some people, maybe I could also teach you some respect and manners it would do you some good.

And yes I do mean all of this in the rudest way possible bc yall are being nasty for no reason

#You would think based on the way they are acting that I punched someone or something #I guess people just can't have opinions now and stuff that bothers them #And the fact that I even asked to be corrected if maybe I was misunderstanding and all I got was assholes attacking me #Instead of actually telling me so that I could actually understand #House of the dragon

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ilickedyoursaltlamp · 10 months

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This post is a message in a bottle. The person it’s for doesn’t want to hear from me, and I want to respect him by not reaching out again. These are just some thoughts I want to get off my chest, and if he ever sees them, good. He deserves to have these.

Tw: vent, mentions of self harm, suicide

Who remembers middle school doing anything but sucking, right? You in your house, but not home, me with my freshly uprooted life. I don’t know if we were fated to meet, but meet we did. Lonely teenagers taking solace in online chatrooms and community events. And lonely we were. We hit it off! You, me, and our other friends, once I got my head out of my ass and actually worked the nerve up to talk to you all.

Eventually we got tired of the buggy and disorganized nature of our first chatroom, so we moved to grayer pastures and roaming wumpuses, so we could just have our little group. The time seemed to fly from there. You all made middle school… palatable. It was never gonna be good, but if I hadn’t had you to chat with at the end of the day when I got my phone from my locker? I might have just lost my mind entirely.

We grew closer. Our group came and went, interests changed and we had some fights, but you were still there. You and I were a constant, thick as thieves, the best of friends. I wonder if that’s the reason it all went wrong? Maybe it was a long time coming, and I never wanted to notice. You told me one day that you had a crush on me, and I was in the middle of figuring out my orientation. You were a man, and had told me as such, and trusted that I’d see you as one. And I did, and I do. I thought I was a cis girl and a lesbian at the time, when we were 15. I don’t know if you were ever still carrying that torch. I know you had for a year, when you called out Single People’s Day, a few weeks after I’d started dating my first partner and come out as nonbinary. If you were hurting because of it, I never knew. That was how you were. You encrypted your messages behind base64, and deleted them right after. Just long enough every time to grab a screenshot and translate the message, painstaking, by hand on my iphone 5. Anytime you wanted to reach out, you made sure it was fleeting. I know it was scary, to trust people whose faces you’d only seen a few times with your troubles. I don’t fault you for it, I just don’t understand why you played that kind of game with us anyways. It always led to you and I on the phone, me sobbing and begging you to stay just a little longer. Promising things would get better. One of these days, just you wait, we were gonna hug and celebrate that you survived.

Regardless, you grew out of that and got so much better. I could see it as we went through high school. Around our ups and downs, you healed, and you opened up to us more and more. To me, too, as we had become closer than we were to the rest of our friends. As I was starting my homestuck phase, I called you my moirail. Diamond is an appropriate symbol. You were a diamond in the roughest times of my life back then. I called you my brother, and I truly meant it.

Maybe we didn’t talk all the time anymore, but we were there when we needed each other. I’m sorry if my teasing you was one of the reasons you broke things off, by the way. You know it’s hard to read tone over text, and we never used tags, so I thought you were playing into the bit when you grumbled about me calling you baby brother. With a three week difference in our age, I have no idea how much it really mattered to you.

Maybe that was another mistake? We had been friends so long we never thought our communication would ever need a tune-up. Maybe the lead-up to our fight was full of missed cues and misunderstood barbs meant to be playful. Whatever. Do you remember May 10, 2022? I can never forget it. Years of swearing we’d meet someday, failed attempts to cross paths, et cetera et cetera, and we finally DID it. We met. We hugged. We went shopping we went to build a bear. We made matching Mews, only yours wore a shirt and mine smelled like bubblegum. After we inevitably said goodbye, we shared pictures of them buckled into our respective vehicles. We’d have pieces of each other, now, always. Do you still have yours? You named him Bingus and took him with you to college. I couldn’t bring mine with me this year. It hurt too much to hold him after the things you said. My eyes got misty for a moment now, too, but you’re not getting any more of my tears.

And COLLEGE, how can I not talk about college? We were finally, finally going to art school! Not together, but at the same time, at least! I was so proud of you, your portfolio was spectacular. We were so excited. This was just last year, and then everything changed for me. I don’t know if I ever told you about it, it was always a sensitive line to cross. I lost a friend of mine, the same way you always swore you’d do one day, the same way I’d so diligently tried to protect you from at only fifteen years old. We were fifteen, man, and I was talking you off the edge. And I couldn’t save my friend this time. There wasn’t anything I could have done, and suddenly it hit me like a train that I cherish you. I cherish your life and the ways it’s touched mine, even if you never believed me when I tried to tell you. Shit, that event probably impacted me in ways I’ll never realize. I twitch at self deprecation, at jokes that once never bothered me.

But I bet you noticed them. They were probably unpleasant, even if you never knew why. Trying to explain myself so late in the game probably would have pissed you off, that I didn’t tell you sooner. Or maybe it would have upset you or pushed you or something. Sometimes it felt like eggshells. The line between your normal and your breaking point was paper thin sometimes. I couldn’t weigh you down with something you struggled so much with. If I told you, if it hurt you, I’m so sorry. I truly can’t remember anything around it. It’s a blur that plays back in fuzzy grey in my mind with such an empty feeling, and it still fucking hurts.

I hope you’re okay. Because I still love you. I hope you’re still out there, because you deserve that love. You were my best friend, K. I’m sorry it ended the way it did, and that I may never understand why. That’s probably why you-know-who dropped me, too. They had said I was too stupid to notice when I was upsetting them, and I’d never give them the satisfaction of being right, but man, I do struggle.

I just don’t get it, K. I fucked up, sure. I pushed a boundary and couldn’t tell when I had. I couldn’t read the difference between the bit and the border. I’m so sorry, but I can’t let myself believe that our fight was truly the reason. It was such a stupid argument. I wish it hadn’t happened, so you’d have had to find another way to get rid of me. I hope my worst fears are wrong. Because if you really did shove me away just so I couldn’t stop you anymore, I’ll never forgive that. And if you ever see this post, you can get as mad as you want in the tags or the comments. At least I can breathe knowing you’re safe, because it’s the uncertainty that’s fucking terrifying.

The real point I want to get at is that I do love you. Maybe not the way you wanted, but I love you. I will always, always cherish the time we had as friends, and I may be mourning the loss of our friendship for a long, long time. I hope you’re okay, and I hope you’re healing. You deserve it for the shit you had to go through.

You remember it from way back when

Stay determined, K.

- L

And to all my friends who read this far and are worried about me, I wouldn’t exactly say I’m FINE, but this post isn’t a reason to worry. I think it’s important I finally put this out there, so it can stop festering in my heart. I love you all, and I’m alright because of you. Thank you for worrying about me.

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alexstorm · 1 year

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Wow! You’re really questioning my memory. You can gladly go back in my archive and re-read the discussion. / I guess you misunderstood, I was talking about the fact that the video wasn't published but the photo of the story that's why I said that!

Yes and I meant that I personally saw the Story and did not imagine it. I don’t know why nobody posted a boring 15-second video of a bed. It’s beyond me. I think to remember that some found it particularly creepy and personal so maybe they deleted the video.

Guys, it’s kinda difficult for us that have been there to show you who come in later something that wasn’t worth documenting. Not everything has a screenshot or has been posted everywhere. Sometimes you have to trust us. Sorry.

#asks

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mybrotherinkarkat · 2 years

Text

The Overlooked Ableism of Jane Crocker

The relationship drama within the alpha kids’ group has been subject to a lot of speculation by the fandom. Even within the text you get conflicting reports about who the “bad guy” was in that situation, so it makes sense that the fandom would be divided on the issue. However, I always felt like there was a dimension that was lacking. No one seemed all that interested in pointing out Jane’s ableism

This might seem like an odd claim to make since none of the alpha kids are obviously canonically disabled, but I’m going to make the case that Jake is neurodivergent and that ableism is the root cause of Jane’s anger at him. If you like Jane as a character, that’s fine. If you disagree with my reading of the text, that’s also fine. I’m sleep deprived and probably a little manic and also the kind of person who writes sourced Homestuck meta in 2022, this is just for fun and catharsis

This thing is long, so strap in and click the readmore

The first thing I need to prove is that Jake is neurodivergent. I read him as being autistic and ADHD, but the specifics are up to reader interpretation. My proof of this comes via Caliborn. Andrew Hussie (the character) explicitly states that he has a learning disability

[Image description: a screenshot of black text on a white background. The text reads: Think of all you've done in spite of your learning problems. You don't let your disability hold you back, do you? End ID]

Later, Caliborn says this to Jake.

[Image description: Lime green text on a grey background. Text reads: uu: WHILE TO CASUAL OBSERVERS YOU MIGHT APPEAR. TOO STUPID TO KNOW HOW FAR PANTS ARE SUPPOSED TO GO DOWN YOUR LEGS.

uu: I KNOW THAT IT'S QUITE POSSIBLE. YOU ARE JUST MISUNDERSTOOD.

uu: IT IS POSSIBLE THAT YOU JUST HAVE A SPECIAL MIND.

uu: LIKE ME. End ID]

So Caliborn is the one who points out that Jake is probably neurodivergent. Jake goes on to agree, and to say that he thinks he’s probably having trouble with his friends because there’s something about him they don’t understand

[Image description: Forest green text on a grey background. Text reads: GT: That maybe there is something special about me that nobody can understand. And maybe thats why i always seem to be botching things up the wazoo with my pals. End ID]

So Jake being some form of neurodivergent is canon, and he himself links it to his friend group drama. Why autism and ADHD, though? Well it’s partially because I relate to him, but I do think there's a canon basis. Jake has a tendency to ramble on without realizing the other person isn’t interested (ADHD), has difficulty picking up on social cues (autistic), doubts his own interpretations of those cues (autistic), has strong interests that his friends think are odd (special interests/hyperfixations), talks in a very particular way, and generally feels out of step with everyone around him. His arc from being happily goofy and fun-loving to being folded in on himself and blaming himself for not navigating a tricky social situation well is also the quintessential ND adolescence. We learn, like Jake did, that our ND traits are “bad” and we need to suppress them or earn the ire of those around us

But I digress. Let’s move on to the main event: dissecting the alpha kids’ relationship drama and addressing the ableism. Jane has a crush on Jake, but hasn’t worked up the nerve to confess yet. Jake has picked up on this, but isn’t sure if he’s reading the situation right, so he asks her outright

[Image description: Forest green text on a grey background. Text reads: GT: Maybe its just my imagination but ive picked up on certain lets say hints.

GT: So i have to just come out and ask. End ID]

So Jake isn’t actually as oblivious as his friends frequently joke about behind his back, but he’s not sure if he can trust that he’s picking up the social cues correctly. This is very much an autistic mood. He’s probably been getting signals from his friends for years making it clear that he’s missing something, so he now second-guesses himself

When Jake asks if Jane likes him, she explicitly says that she doesn’t. He’s a little confused, but takes her at her word and believes he misread her friendship as romantic feelings. He doesn’t realize that her replies are so stilted because she’s lying and overwhelmed, and when he points out that she’s being a little odd she brushes him off. She also repeatedly affirms that she wants to be there for him as a friend, and responds with what Jake interprets as genuine interest.

Now, this sets a precedent in Jake’s mind. Jane just told him, outright, that she isn’t interested in him and is okay with him talking to her about his (at the time potential) relationship with Dirk. In the future, when she responds with that same sort of stilted disinterest, he reads it as genuine interest because she told him to

And it’s not like Jane doesn’t know Jake struggles with social cues. As I stated above, the other alpha kids regularly talk about how “oblivious” Jake is behind his back. They all know he struggles to understand them, and they all chalk it up to Jake being weird instead of trying to communicate with him in a way he understands. So Jane knows Jake doesn’t understand that she’s only being polite, and lets him believe she’s okay with this kind of conversation in the future

Meanwhile, in the future, Jake starts up a conversation with Jane that ends in disaster. The first thing that goes wrong is that Jake has forgotten Jane’s birthday (ADHD brain, babey). When she tells him he apologizes profusely and offers to come over right away, but Jane brushes him off and asks why he wanted to talk. He shelves the Dirk angst and tries to just have a friendly conversation, but Jane isn’t interested in his long-winded ramblings and stories he’s told her before (the ADHD vibes are off the charts). When she asks him to get to the point, he then begins telling her about his relationship drama. Jane eventually gets fed up and yells at him to shut up, and this is his response

[Image description: Light blue and forest green text on a grey background. Text reads: GG: Shut up!!!

GT: Errr.

GT: Did i say something wrong? End ID]

Jake has clearly misread the situation, but it’s built on the same misunderstanding of social cues that Jane had previously reinforced. Jane continues to yell at him, and he repeatedly asks her what’s wrong and tries to get her to calm down so that they can talk about it. Instead of that, Jane berates him for talking a lot (ADHD trait), being “clueless” aka missing social cues (autistic trait), not realizing how long it’s been since they talked (ADHD trait), and talking about Dirk a lot (which she previously said she was okay with)

When she finally tries to drop the fact that she used to have feelings for him, she isn’t very clear, and Jake thinks she means she had feelings for Dirk. Remember, she explicitly said that she did not have feelings for Jake. Jake immediately blames himself for not realizing, and insults himself, then apologizes for not realizing their conversations were upsetting her. When she realizes he’s misunderstood again, she screams and flips a table, cancels her birthday party so that he won’t have a chance to talk to her about this in person, and destroys her headset

So let’s recap. Jake stays calm and tries to understand why Jane is upset, apologizes for screwing up, and makes multiple efforts to clear things up between them. Jane throws a tantrum because she got fed up with Jake’s neurodivergent traits, and the misunderstandings that she caused. Granted, she’s dealing with a lot of stress, but they all are

After this, Jane yells at Roxy for a bit and then leaves. Jake has the conversation with Caliborn mentioned above, and not too long after we start the trickster arc

Skipping over those shenanigans, we move to the post-trickster alpha kid conversations. Dirk and Jane talk about their mutual former feelings for Jake now that Dirk and Jake have broken up. Unlike Dirk, Jane doesn’t really acknowledge that her actions might have harmed Jake beyond just jeopardizing their friendship. Jake, for his part, blames himself entirely for everything

Crockertier bullshit aside, this is more or less where things are left with them. Jake’s self esteem ripped to shreds, and Jane relatively unscathed. Obviously this isn’t all Jane’s fault. All the alpha kids (and yes I include Lil’ Hal as an alpha kid) are ableist to Jake to some degree, as well as Vriska (because of course Vriska bullied the disabled kid with self esteem issues, that’s what she does)

So, is Jane being ableist to Jake. Well, she likely doesn’t know he’s neurodivergent, so she’s not doing it with any intentional malice. However, the things she yells at him for are all traits of neurodivergence. Traits that he displays shame and self-loathing for having. The fact is that it doesn’t matter whether or not Jane knew he was ND, or meant to be ableist. Her actions were ableist. She thinks Jake’s ND traits are character flaws, that they make him self-centered and rude, so she feels justified in chewing him out over it

From her perspective this isn’t really a big deal. Jake was obnoxious for a few months, she yelled at him out of frustration, and then she moved on. But from Jake’s perspective this is clearly devastating. He feels like he’s doing everything wrong, that he’s alienating his friends, that he’s a douchemuffin (his word), for… being autistic and ADHD?

No like seriously, what did he actually do wrong? Jake is struggling to keep his head above water in a friend group that sees him struggling and laughs it off instead of helping him fit in. They don’t realize how much this is hurting Jake, or that he needs them to meet him in the middle. Even when they’re nice to him it tends to have an air of pity or amusement. Jane happens to have the most blatant ableist actions, but it’s not all on her

So why is this overlooked? Well, because it’s supposed to be. Jake struggling to communicate is played for laughs, and this is never given the gravity or seriousness that it deserves. While we do see John and Tavrossprite making an effort to help him feel welcome and accepted, there’s never really an examination of how Jake got to this point. Typical Homestuck, especially that late in the comic, but because the comic treats it like a joke the readers treat it like one too

Anyway this was a long and rambly way of saying that Jake English deserved better. Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day/night/timezone

#jane crocker #jake english #homestuck #hs #meta #anti-jane crocker #not really but i know some people blacklist tags like that so im including it #just casually writing nearly 2k words of homestuck meta #on four hours of sleep in nearly 48hrs #anyway this has bugged me for so long and now i am releasing my thoughts into the world to infect your brains #have fun

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eyedelater · 2 years

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this is the post i have written while reading pluto by urasawa naoki

what a good recommendation. thank you for sharing.

i am very tickled by the fact that this is a spinoff of astro boy, i'm reading it without ever having consumed ANY astro boy media, AND astro boy himself dies in it (for a time.) every one of these factors is *chef's kiss*. i love the idea that someone will put their whole heart into creating a spinoff like this and not hold back whatsoever.

i will note that everyone having a large nose makes it a little difficult to distinguish characters sometimes. like haas and gesicht. but it's also refreshing to have a manga artist who does not hold back when drawing noses. and i'll admit the noses are powerful.

i'm reading a scanlation by stephen paul and mangascreener and i think they've done a great job (insofar as i can say that without having seen the raws). i mean there's no foolish grammatical errors or anything. well, very few. i have no sense of how long ago this translation occurred. might've been when the manga was coming out.

the themes around AI and emotion and humanity are compelling… i'm just absorbing everything without forming thoughts of my own.

i notice robots are hetero. i'm sure there's nothing stopping them from falling in love in non-hetero ways though. and they can raise human children…? i want to see a family with three robot moms and one human kid. the luckiest kid in the world with her amazing strong three robot moms.

the idea of making strong robot cops and soldiers that look like normal middle-aged white men. and not even really sexy ones. maybe if they were too sexy it would be distracting?

the idea of a world with sentient AI robots who can be easily destroyed and are irreplaceable. the mind itself can't be backed up and stored somewhere? you have to just accept that it can't. [note added after reading the whole thing: they address the idea that a mind can be copied and put into a new robot body and that it then becomes a new being. this must be the school of philosophy the author adheres to with respect to duplication of minds)

when pluto stopped possessing the park guy's body and the other guy was like "now come to your only TRUE body…" and pluto emerged up from something wet. robot bodies are usually the opposite of wet. that's how you make a killer robot extra scary. have its body be wet.

tenma is just gendo ikari with a pompadour… right down to the glasses shape. says his son hates him. wife's dead

of course you will think an AI is a failure if you're creating it to try to replicate a certain person…

all these anti-robot microaggressions oh my god

pluto's true form is revealed with no explanation as to why it had to be wet earlier

it switched to a different scanlation group and the quality immediately went down haha… and some chapters later, this new group translated it as "gejihit" instead of "gesicht." they misunderstood the (ostensible) protagonist's name. the guy whose face is on the cover. they didn't bother to learn that guy's name before taking on the translation project.

i wonder if gesicht was so named not because of the significance of the german word Gesicht (which just means "face") but because of how it sounds transliterated in japanese, as gejihito, where "hito" means "person" and "geji" could mean "command/order" (as in taking commands or orders). also "gejigeji" means "house centipede" (irrelevant)

i guess atom did have to come back to life… since he's astro boy…

been a while since i took any manga screenshots to comment on but i had to for this one: https://gyazo.com/edf86995592bc2a56bfec0f94ad9ddf8 i want a math person to tell me how many words it would take to express that formula verbally. this is a human guy saying a big stupid formula out loud to a robot. if the recipient is a robot, you can give him a microsd card or have him visually scan a piece of paper. formulas like those are hell to say out loud, right? dumbass tenma. this is my unhelpful commentary.

you could hold some of these people's noses in the palm of your hand like a small apple.

lately i've been paying extra attention to how facial expressions in manga portray emotions. the range of facial expressions shown on characters tends to be kind of set within one manga (you rarely see an established mangaka bust out an expression the likes of which you've never seen in their work), but each mangaka has a distinct way to do it. it's their take on the breadth of human emotions. the faces in ranking of kings are very unique and full of heart and also often endearingly clumsy and also sometimes confusing and vague. but they work! the faces in pluto are in a completely different style and also seem to encompass different emotions, but they also work and are clearly full of heart. there is POWER in well-executed facial expressions. it is narrative power and emotional power. it's COMMUNICATION. and one manga where the facial expressions do not communicate well with me is stupid jujutsu kaisen where if someone is in a tense moment they just make a face like 8| and it's like, that face doesn't mean anything. that face isn't showing anything. and that's one reason i have mercilessly declared that jujutsu kaisen is lacking in heart. jujutsu kaisen never made me fuckin cry! (maybe it did. i forget.) it's got nothing but Coolness. you can't build a whole good manga solely on Coolness. it's not a matter of genre or technical artistic skill. this has been the obligatory shitting on jujutsu kaisen of this post.

they really gave pluto a cute design. i'm very satisfied. he's got teeth, and i like that. still no word on why he is or was wet. he opened his mouth and it made saliva strings. machine oil? or still wet?

astro boy gets powered up by the power of hate…

when you don't read manga for a while, you lose track of the approximate scale of how many mangas there are and what proportion of them might be very good. i'm very pleased to find there is a manga this good that i had never heard of. (except maybe once. i do have a vague memory of seeing a tumblr post about naoki urasawa's noses.)

it is very like a president of the united states of ******* to become willingly ensnared in the machinations of an entity that clearly only ever had bad intentions

bora appears and it yells HOGAAAH and BORAAA

i had true doubt as to whether the world would end, right up until the middle of the last chapter. i can appreciate that. i also couldn't have predicted that final panel. but i appreciate that unpredictability too.

i hate the adjective "gritty." maybe because in my mind the connotation is of a "gritty reboot" that takes something good and turns it into something stupid by trying to make it edgy and morally dubious. like… have you read the unreleased early draft movie script for louis sachar's Holes? forced edginess to the point where it's ridiculous and it doesn't Hit. "gritty" is like imagine dragons (diss). i don't want to describe this manga as "gritty" because i don't want to insult this manga. it doesn't have any of the surface-level manufactured darkness of something "gritty." it has proper darkness and proper philosophical and moral quandaries. and it has beauty.

how do i decide which mangas to write posts about as i read vs which to let simmer without putting my thoughts into words? i dunno.

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literaphobe · 2 years

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I know you haven't seen the purpled clip yet but personally it did seem to be in good fun to me? Like its the kinda thing i hear a lot of other mcyt say to each other. I swear I've heard sapnap, punz, dream, etc make jokes like that plenty of times before.

And the clarification that he did about the joke wasnt only about that? Apparently he tweeted something that he claims was misunderstood (as in the tweet was not about dream or any other specific cc) and taken out of proportion. But he also admitted that he did not think too deeply about it before making it and that in retrospect it was a stupid tweet.

I went looking for the tweet to see the context but nothing on either of his accounts seems like it has anything to do with dream so he might have deleted it. Maybe someone who has a screenshot can share it?

Anyways this is just my opinion. I'd be interested in reading what you have to say especially after you watch that clip.

still haven’t seen the clip but based on the transcript this is my opinion:

- purpled didn’t have context re dream having a bad mcc so him being excited that he beat dream, one of the best players in the event, prob exciting to him, not necessarily malicious when u consider everything

- sapnap, punz etc would not have ribbed on dream for that, its one thing to laugh at someone losing to u when ur both performing at ur peak (aka 1st vs 5th like when sapnap and punz had that mcc15 bet), its another thing to kick a guy while he’s down. dream got screwed in battle box and sky battle because of various circumstances and the fact that both games changed maps/mechanics, when cpk brought up the fact that zeuz placed higher than dream for instance, sapnap was quiet

- yeah the thing he was justifying was clearly the tweets and not what he said about dream not being on the leaderboard… ultimately *shrugs* im not gonna lose sleep over any of this, i’m sure dream doesn’t hate him and he doesn’t HATE hate dream but i don’t see him in the same light that i see dream’s inner circle and on that front everyone is always Lightheartedly on Thin Ice at the very least because that is the dramatic thing to do and i’ve been in theatre for half my life

#ask

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fasterthanmydemons · 3 years

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(possible spoilers for WandaVision?) OKAY SO I was so hyped about Pietro being mentioned in WandaVision, I tried to find out more, I checked ATJ's Wikipedia page and in english it says nothing, BUT I checked it in spanish, my first language (I'm from Canarias hi lol) AND his spanish Wikipedia page has WandaVision in his filmography as Pietro!! I mean anyone could have edited it and I don't wanna set myself/the mun/people for disappointment but GUYS- my fingers are crossed I love ATJ's Pietro.

{out of breath} Not the day this blog is scheduled for replies, but I couldn’t leave this bandaid on... gotta rip it off and get the pain out of the way. Potentially big WandaVision spoilers ahead!

I’m... going to dash a lot of hopes here, including my own, but I am 99% sure Pietro is returning for WandaVision..... and also 99% sure he will NOT be played by ATJ. Instead, he’ll be played by Evan Peters, the actor who played a mish-mashed-up version of Quicksilver and a another super hero, named Peter Maximoff. Sorry to all ATJ-version lovers. I love his version of Pietro too. But... it’s just not going to happen. =(

How do I know this? Aside from ATJ’s own admission in multiple interviews that he has no intention of ever returning to the MCU (which he seems very serious and adamant about), I have read in several different articles from several different sources (here is one of them if you would like to read it for yourself) that a recent leak has pretty much confirmed that Evan Peters will be playing Pietro in WandaVision. What happened was... the voice actor who dubbed the Spanish-language version of the X-men show that Peter Maximoff is in posted a tweet that basically said he’d be reprising his role for WandaVision and it would be the second time he did the Spanish dubbing for Quicksilver, and he attached a picture of Evan Peters. Shortly after it was posted, the tweet was removed, but by then it had already been shared and screenshotted.

Which then makes perfect sense as to why you would see the character listed for the Spanish version but not on ATJ’s filmography. So... It seems we are getting Pietro the character back (or maybe he’ll be called Peter now? Because everything in WandaVision is Americanized?), but he will be played by a different actor.

I... could almost be okay with this... if it was maybe someone going into Wanda’s little dream bubble (the same way Geraldine/Monica did) to maybe pose as Pietro to get Wanda to remember things. OR... if it was some strange alternate version of Pietro. I mean, I still hate it. So much. And I wish they would just leave the character alone rather than screwing him up. But I could almost see this and be able to deal with it...

...what I really hope doesn’t happen... but it’s looking more and more like it is... is that they recast the original Pietro and essentially retconned that Evan Peters was him all along. That would piss me off on so many levels and just honestly ruin a lot for me with regard to the character. Imagine Wanda acting like EP was her brother all along? Nothing against EP’s version if you like that one at well, but ATJ’s MCU version is soooo different in style and background and just everything. If this is what they’re going to do, then I am going to have serious problems with it and have to really sit down and figure out what I’m going to include in my own version of Pietro’s canon and what I’m going to just basically ignore.

Of course none of us actually know what is going to happen until it actually happens... but this leak I talked about combined with what you’re seeing listed on the Spanish Wiki pages seems to confirm our worst nightmare for Pietro. It’s such a shame, and I wish they hadn’t done this, but we’ll just have to muddle through it. Maybe we’ll get lucky and all of this will turn out to be wrong/fake/misunderstood. I guess that’s our last hope at this point. =(

I am truly sorry to everyone reading this whose bubble I just burst. I guess I would rather not see people get their hopes up super high when I had information to the contrary. I hope I’m wrong. Let’s all hope for that.

#wandavision spoilers #pietro maximoff #{don't worry guys}#{if disney does pietro wrong}#{i'll do my best to write him better if i can}#{for myself and all Pietro's fans out there who just wanna see him come back the way he was}

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hi-i-try-to-be-kind · 4 years

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A letter to tumblrstake

When I first got a tumblr at 13 years old, I had no idea that there would one day be a CJCLDS community on this site. I didn’t find it until years later, if I remember correctly about the time that I made this specific account. Now, in my 20s, I’ve come to love this little community, even when the rest of this site has been so, so harmful to me and my growth as a person. I really love this community—I must stress this. Even though I’ve mostly been a viewer who didn’t interact, this community has meant a lot to me, especially as a late teenager, and has positively impacted the way I interact with people. I truly believe that everyone here is doing their best.

But now I’m leaving tumblr completely. And a huge reason for that is certain patterns that have started to encompass the tumblrstake community. And I believe that if I don’t say anything, no one else will.

Before I go on, I ask that you please try to listen. I know it’s hard—there’s even a Harvard (I think it’s Harvard?) study that shows that in the middle of an argument, someone cannot change their own mind. But while writing this, I practiced something that I hope you will too. I asked myself, ‘Lord, is it I?’ And while I certainly have plenty of responsibility for how I view the comments of others and how they affect me, I also believe that there are some serious problems that almost no one is addressing.

This community, especially at conference time, has become spiritually poisonous. Yes, part of that is how I look at comments, but I’ve come to believe that it’s not just me, but also that the comments are thought of and posted without any consultation with the Spirit. Today, I felt the Spirit during the talks given by Elder Cook, Elder Oaks, and Elder Rasband, up until I got on this site.

With Elder Cook, there was a lot of criticism of how he didn’t acknowledge that the church had a racist past—but he did. It was brief, but he said something that I don’t think could have applied to anything else. But this was ignored. From my perspective, his argument was using our spiritual ancestors (specifically our non-racist ones) as an example for how we should pattern our lives. But I’ve seen no one mention this interpretation. It seems clear to me that, in argumentation terms, he was not shown the ‘principle of charity’ (1). Maybe this is because he didn’t use the vocabulary that people on here associate with what he meant to say, I don’t know.

With Elder Rasband, there was criticism that he was trying to make a legal process within the church into something spiritual. But when I was listening to the talk, as someone who has struggled with being worthy to hold a temple recommend, it meant a lot. It gave me a more thorough understanding of my goal. And it can also be applied to general temple worthiness—and my belief is that anyone who didn’t need the words about temple recommends and still gave his words the ‘principle of charity,’ would see past his plain words and to the spiritual meaning beneath. I didn’t even understand why people thought of his talk the way they did, until I realized that he came after Elder Cook—in other words, because people were already primed to take his words badly, they did.

Last of all was Elder Oaks, who stood up strongly for what he believes, and what he believes that God had told him to say during the months of preparation he spent for this conference—and when I listened to the talk, I heard equal condemnation of racism and violence. My friend heard a more direct message against racism. Yet in this community, people criticized him for it. Specifically, people criticized him for being America-centric when he opened the talk by acknowledging that it was going to be so. With Elder Oaks, of course it has a history. He’s very direct with what God tells him to say, and at times that has led to people, especially members of the LGBT+ community, being hurt. But when I went back and watched those talks about the LGBT+ community, without the angry comments of this community to distract me, I saw how much he spoke of loving the members of the LGBT+ community, those very same people that this community perceived him as only speaking of hating. And in this latest talk, I have no doubt that the difference between perceptions comes from the fact that people who believe his previous talks were harmful refuse to give him the ‘principle of charity.’ When he says that we should love our enemies, they see it as condemning only their side, while not realizing that if they truly listened, it would not only be a condemnation of both extremes, but also, and I don’t know how to say this more gently, a rebuke of their own unloving actions within this community.

I remember years ago (I’m sorry I don’t have the post saved so that I could show you proof of this), there was a post going around that many people took to be pro LGBT+, and included some sentiments that indicated that people shouldn’t listen to the prophet above what they personally believe to be true. A member of the community took issue with this, I believe voicing that it was extreme. They were jumped on by many other members of the community who took their comment to mean that they were anti-LGBT+. As I recall, the comments were not cruel, but they were certainly not understanding or kind. The member who was jumped on only said something in the tags along the lines of ‘Hmm. I believe I have been misunderstood,’ because if I recall correctly, they were pro-LGBT+. I believe they left tumblr, or at least tumblrstake, not long after that. (If I’d taken a screenshot, I could show you—let this be a lesson in keeping your sources lol)

After all of the things that I’ve outlined above—and these are only examples, not the whole story—I don’t know how to say this gently while still being direct. This community needs Elder Oaks’ talk. This community does not love its enemies. This community does not give anyone the benefit of the doubt. In some ways, what I just said is untrue—ex-members are not pushed away or mocked. People who have problems with the church are not dismissed. And what wonderful attributes these are! I adore this community for how universal these attitudes at least appear to be! But the very prophets and apostles that God directly tells us, in the scriptures, are to look out for our spiritual welfare—the very prophets and apostles that love and worry for all of us—are the people that this community has decided are its enemies. If they are your enemies, and you truly believe in the gospel of Christ, you need to treat them like Christ told you to treat your enemies, to love them by giving their words the benefit of the doubt, to show them the ‘principle of charity.’

When you dismiss the prophets and don’t treat them with the same civility that you justly would an ex-member, or dismiss members of the church that don’t treat the prophets the same way you do, you cannot expect to create a spiritual environment. Especially during conference time, when spiritual strength can be found in actually listening to what the prophets are saying, and not just straw-manning them and assuming that they say either exactly what you want them to say or exactly what you don’t want them to say.

I hope, even in this criticism, you’ve been able to feel the love that I have for this community. I believe that every member in it is a good person, who truly seeks the Spirit and to do what is right. But just as the church continues to grow and change to become more in line with God’s will, this community must change too—and with every year I’ve been here, there has only been a steady decline towards hatred and straw-manning. And this community can be so much more! I’ve seen it be a great place for people to grow spiritually together. I’ve seen it be a refuge for LGBT+ members of the church! But at conference time, whenever a speaker steps up and people perceive (sometimes objectively correctly) a disagreement with their own beliefs, it stops being that place.

I’m leaving now. Love you all.

TLDR; I love this community, but it is slowly becoming a spiritually poisonous place that does not give the prophets the benefit of the doubt or seek for spiritual meaning in talks they disagree with. I’m very bad at TLDRs, so please read the whole post.

(1) I’m using the term ‘principle of charity’ to mean the concept of listening to someone’s argument as the strongest version of their argument that it could possibly be—giving the benefit of the doubt, basically the opposite of straw-manning, etc.

P.S. I wanted to get this out before the second session but editing bled into the second session, so I delayed it so that people could have no interruption in their spirituality if nothing happened in the second session. That’s why I only addressed things in the first session.

P.P.S. Whoops I meant to schedule this. Sorry!

#tumblrstake #ldsconf #cjclds stuff #cjcldsconf #general conference #Genconf #religious

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rythuliansoup · 4 years

Text

Please read

English Assignment

•

Please read this. It is long, but it is, in my opinion, important.

I am disguising this as my English essay, as my parents do come around and check every so often on what I am doing.

Here’s the lowdown.

So there’s maths class, right? (I’m Australian, we say mathSSSS)

Our teacher does set us a good bit shit ton of work, but he says we don’t have to do all of it. Now my mum came to check on my work, and I explained that.

Then she goes like oH mY LoRd HoW CoUlD yOu I aM sO SiCk oF yOu lYiNg tO Me AbOuT yOuR wOrk

And tells me to delete all my social media apps and games.

This includes Sky.

I’m using the online version of tumblr, so that is how I am writing this.

I will go into a bit more detail and backstory about how this event came to happen.

So I asked my mum if I could download Journey. Journey costs money, and I did not have enough money on my iPad. I was going to ask her if I could buy a gift card for my OWN money, to buy the game. My mum misunderstood that, and put her PayPal account onto my iPad so I could get it right then.

Don’t get me wrong, I was really damn happy. None of my money was wasted, and I was able to get the game right away.

A day later, I remembered that my mum did not remove her PayPal from my iPad. This filled my mind with a lot of possibilities.

Long story short, I used about $16 to buy seasonal candles (the season was ending soon, and I was short on candles and desperate to complete it).

My mum got the invoice for BOTH purchases (I bought two packs of 15 candles, each for $7.99). She was angry, lectured me on stealing and deleted Journey. I was very close to finishing the game, but I had not gotten quite as attached to the game as Sky.

This is where things got ugly.

I am not justifying or validating my actions. I know it was the wrong thing to do, but my 14-year-old brain ran with many plans and ideas, some of which not too good, like this one.

Then came the mathS work thing, which I explained at the beginning.

So I was forced to delete everything that wasn’t school related, which meant that games, editing apps and social media went YEET out the window.

I re-downloaded Sky at school. I have taken my last screenshots, and I did my last Eden run.

I took screenshots. Videos. Memories.

I was two items away from completing the Forest constellation.

I was two items away from the manta cape.

I might not even get to see those things again.

For what it is worth, I will continue re-downloading Sky at school and deleting it before I go home. I do not know if this will continue.

And for the sake of that, I ask each of you, if you wish, to submit, DM, or send as an ask your first memory of Sky. (Submissions and asks will be public, DMs will remain private unless asked otherwise.)

It doesn’t have to be a photo.

It can be a written memoir, of your first feelings and impressions, spilled from the soul.

These photos or small written pieces I will print and put on a big piece of cardboard. This project will be called ‘Ode to Sky’, as the printouts I will be pasting will surround a personal remake of the famous poem ‘Ode to Joy’.

To honor this ethereal piece of art they call a ‘game’, I will be starting a small, yet steadily growing project, or maybe a few.

It is called First Memories, and it is...

Not a comic. More like a series of wordless images, describing my first ever journey through the kingdoms. They will be sketched, in pencil, without colour, as a testament to how fast these moments fade without memory. Each day, I will be posting a single image, in order, of this artwork.

The final part of this project, which might just be the most important.

I will be making a new blog, @sky-honor-project.

All asks, submissions and messages for the project Ode to Sky are to be submitted to this blog. The project First Memories and other upcoming projects will also be posted onto this blog.

To me, Sky: Children of the Light is more than just a game. It seems insulting to even call this piece a game. It is art, it is wisdom, it is euphoria.

Sky got me out of a dark period in my life and made me truly realize how many emotions were trapped in my heart. It actually made me appreciate life more.

I cannot thank the creators, Thatgamecompany, for this.

It has truly changed me.

And I know I am not alone.

Please, I ask of all of you.

You do not have to.

But seeing other Sky content and others playing is what gives me a good chunk of joy in my life.

I ask you.

Share your memories.

We all have them.

We all treasure them.

And mine are in danger.

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