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rotationalsymmetry · 3 years

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Long post about how justice needs to be about the people harmed, not the people causing the harm. From justice for individuals to social justice. Some non-graphic discussion of rape. Behind a cut, partly because of the rape stuff but mostly because it’s really long. Somewhat rambly.

I’ve got one more in me. At least. Hang on.

My brain will fan out in one of a thousand arbitrary directions and then not want to go back. I can do this.

Ah, right, “as usual this isn’t about being a bad person.” The US and I’m assuming the Western world in general, has a really skewed idea of justice. We think it’s about the person causing harm.

Let’s say someone rapes me. Let’s say it’s one of those mythical rapes that almost never happens: a stranger in a dark alley relying on physical force. OK. That’s bad. That’s not a stealing baby formula kind of crime, it’s not something that just shouldn’t be illegal in the first place or something that wouldn’t be an issue under a more fair economic system, that’s really bad.

(A massive percentage of the prison population is there for nonviolent drug crimes, and in general illegal is not the same thing as wrong.)

Is putting the rapist in jail going to help me or other people? I mean, maybe I’ll feel a little bit safer, maybe?

Except that’s not how most rapes happen. The guy who actually raped me wasn’t a stranger who physically overpowered me. He was my boyfriend. And he didn’t need to overpower me because I trusted him and thought that since I’d said that I wanted to do some things and not other things he’d respect that and, well, turns out I was wrong.

There is no way in hell I would have gotten a conviction, if I’d even contacted the police, if I’d even seen it as rape at the time. I’d have to prove, in a court of law, beyond a reasonable doubt, that it wasn’t consensual, and how do you do that? And most rape victims can’t. Because most rapes are committed by someone the victim knows — a boyfriend, a spouse, a friend, an acquaintance — and they’re not committed using physical force. (Alcohol/drugs are really common, although not in my case.)

How do you prove it was rape? You don’t.

That’s the bad news. The good news is, you don’t have to punish the rapists to create a world with less rape in it, or to support people who have been raped. You can tell the truth about rape and dispel the myths. You can make therapy widely available, and medical care including abortion widely available and cheap or better yet free. (In spite of what a certain Republican politician has claimed on the record, there’s no special magic that keeps people with a uterus from getting pregnant if they didn’t want the sex.)

Oh, and including generous support for parents who don’t have a lot of resources, for victims unlucky enough to get pregnant who choose to not go the abortion route.

You can promote consent culture (talking about what getting consent looks like) and fight slut shaming (slut shaming is always also rape victim shaming) and promote bystander intervention and make certain kinds of “locker room talk” socially unacceptable and spend an inordinate amount of time talking about “It’s Cold Outside”.

You can address the myth that false accusations of rape are common. You can impose social and economic consequences on accused rapists without waiting for or requiring legal confirmation. You can bring “missing stairs” out into the open. You can decide this isn’t a good time to talk about the Rule of Three when a rape victim asks for a curse in your online pagan group. You can believe victims and support victims and not ask a bunch of weird “ok, but you must have done something to make him think you wanted it” type questions.)

(Um, I’m mostly using male perpetrator/female victim language here, but rape absolutely happens in queer contexts and women can sexually assault men or boys, and believing male or nonbinary victims and people who have been victimized by women or other not-men is important too.)

Hmm. I don’t think this is exactly what I wanted to talk about here. But I guess I’ll roll with it?

Anyways: if my rapist was in prison that wouldn’t do a danged thing to help me. What helps me? Project Unbreakable. Yes Means Yes. Other people who have been raped talking about their experiences. A lot of people being very emphatic that it’s not a “misunderstanding” thing and it’s not the victim’s fault. People talking about what the emotional fall-out of being raped can look like, and how there’s no “wrong” way to react to being raped. People who make it possible to talk about this stuff without getting a lot of weird ass reactions.

And, you know, health care and stuff.

And this is what justice should look like: what helps people who have been harmed, what mitigates the damage, what promotes healing. Which pretty much always starts with speaking truth and dispelling the myths.

It’s really, really, really not about the perpetrators.

And it’s the same thing with all oppression related stuff. Racism isn’t about white people. This anti-immigrant xenophobic stuff going on in the US, isn’t about white US citizens who are overly fond of weird candy metaphors, it’s about immigrants and their families and what they need.

Fighting the patriarchy fundamentally isn’t about punishing men or doing anything with men at all, and taking the focus away from men is a really important step in fighting patriarchy.

Fighting ableism isn’t about temporarily abled people at all, and I have to say as a formerly temporarily abled person (or at least formerly able bodied person) that term resonates with me hard. It really is a fundamentally unreliable state of being.

Anyways: it’s about disabled people. It’s about being clear on the differences between what our conditions do to us and what a human-made world does to us. It’s about taking our voices out of the margins and putting them in the center. It’s about resources and support and challenging the idea that worth is connected to productivity or independence. It’s about being real and upfront about how while work often needs to be done, work isn’t worth. It’s about acknowledging that sometimes what happens to us isn’t caused by us. It’s making space for seeing people who are sick or injured who aren’t getting better, ever. It’s about representation in media, it’s about accommodations, it’s about addressing stigmas. It’s not about abled people at all.

So: I’m disabled, ableism is (partially) about me. (Definitely partially though — there’s some forms of ableism I don’t experience, and other forms I rarely experience compared to others.) When we’re talking about a type of ableism I experience (like...doctors assuming you’re not really that sick because you look healthy) my voice is important; when we’re talking about another type of ableism (like...people with developmental disabilities being treated as less than human) I need to get into ally mode and support.

I’m white: that means my opinion is intrinsically less important when the conversation turns to racism, because it’s not about me. My role is to support, to not get in the way, to use my privilege to amplify people of color’s voices. Mostly to step back. To listen. To not make it all about me.

Idk, I don’t want to act like different forms of oppression are interchangeable, and I think sometimes I do fall into that way of thinking. They’re not, there’s significantly different issues and concerns. But there’s also some extent to which ideas about one form of oppression can be transferred to other forms, some extent to which generalizations can be made. It’s easier for me to “get” racism if I think about the ways I’m marginalized. It’s not a substitute for listening though.

Anyways. I think people mess up on this a lot. Like, so much of oppression talk would be easier if there weren’t so many people whose immediate reaction to hearing oppression words like “classism” or “racist” or “patriarchy” or “transphobia” was to think “you’re telling me I’m a bad person” or even “you’re saying all men are bad” or whatever. That’s not what it’s about.

You can be really clear that that’s not what you’re saying, and people will hear it anyways because that’s what they’re primed to hear. That’s how they’re primed to think about justice. Which is one heck of a barrier to actually getting justice.

#justice #restorative justice #social justice #oppression #rape cw #political #bolding for readability #long post

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rimalupin · 7 years

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50 More Interesting Questions

Rules: fill this out and tag at least one person you’d like to know more about! Or just fill it out! Or don’t! Answer only some of them! Make up your own questions! “What kind of requirement is that”, you ask? A reasonable one! Who am I to tell you what to do? Anything goes!

Thank you for tagging me @theempresskaizer & @kakihoden! :D <3

1. What kind of food can’t you stand?: Anything fermented. Like, ew. Also brussel sprouts (Then again, I have yet find someone who can cook brussel sprouts “well.” :b)

2. If you could choose one minor inconvenience to never have to deal with again, what would you pick?: Public transit schedules. They’re so darn inconvenient (And yet I’m commuting for the remainder of my uni career. At least I’m saving money..?). -.-’

3. Have you got any useless talents?: I try to make use of my talents, so I’m gonna say no. :b

4. If you could be really really good at one thing, what would it be?: Taking (good & worthwhile) risks because I’m always so darn careful so I end up not trying new things sometimes.

5. Name a few people you think are extremely good-looking: ALL THE FRIENDS AND FAMILY I KNOW AND LOVE. <3 Oh, also Emma Watson, Gal Gadot, Shawn Mendes, Tom Holland, and all the other celebs I tend to fangirl about (I can’t name them all rn, haha sorry~. :P).

6. What was your favorite way to pass the time as a kid?: Singing all the Disney songs (Which I still do nowadays, haha~.). I would also read books, write my own stories, and act as if I was on a Disney Channel show (I was quite the Disney fangirl back in the day. xD)

7. What is something you’re proud of?: My friends who are just starting college/uni this year. Most of them are already setting up their dorms and getting ready for classes. They’re growing up so fast! :’)

8. What’s one character flaw in people that you just can’t tolerate?: Dishonesty. I don’t associate with phonies.

9. Do you consider yourself to be more of a leader or a follower?: I’m a bit of both. Then again, being a follower makes you a kind of leader: you essentially lead people to follow your leader, if that makes sense Okay I’ll shut up about leadership theory sorry y’all. :P

10. What kind of student are/were you?: The diligent one (but people often claim I’m the overachiever even tho I’m not always a straight A student lololol).

11. Butterfly effect question! Has there ever been a seemingly minor decision you’ve made (at the time) that ended up having a profound influence on your life?: Ohhhhh yes. This kind of thing has happened to me many times (In like the best ways possible, thankfully.).

12. Name your most irrational fear/aversion: Being alone/left out (Even though “I’m never really alone” ((Which I know I’m not. Hence the “irrational” part of this particular fear/aversion.)).)

13. Are there any fictional characters you find especially relatable?: Yup. Plenty of ‘em.

14. If you drink, what kind of drunk are you? Alternatively, what sort of person are you at parties?: I don’t drink... Yet. My Canadian friends are trying to get me to drink with them since I’m now legal in Canada but I’m scared heeeeeelp. :b I’m usually the wallflower if I don’t know anybody too well at a party. However, if I find people I’m comfortable hanging out with, I’ll stick with their squad throughout the event, talking, eating, dancing and taking pictures/SnapChats to our hearts’ desires~. ^-^

15. Do you fall in love easily? Or does it usually take a long time for you to trust someone?: Nope. I have to get to know the person before I “fall in love” with them, let alone having a crush on them. Which is why the biggest crushes I’ve had were on some of my closest friends. But I’ve never told them because I didn’t want to risk our friendships IDK I’M A NOOB WHEN IT COMES TO LOVEY-DOVEY THINGS. :b

16. Would you rather have one close friend or 100 casual friends?: One close friend. <3

17. Do you consider yourself to be more of a slob or a neat-freak?: Neat-freak. Definitely a neat-freak. xD

18. Describe a place (imaginary or real) that you would find incredibly cozy:

Both of these locations are places where I’d have more than enough room to move or think. ^-^

Outdoors: Somewhere near the sea, where I could feel the sand on my toes, hear the waves splashing onto the shore, smell the ocean breeze, and watch the orange sunset glowing along the horizon.

Indoors: An empty practice room. Wooden floors, large mirrors in front of the room, dance barres along the side walls, a few windows displaying the outside world, and a speaker/stereo system perfect for blasting the music around the room.

19. Do you have kids? If not, do you want them someday?: No kids atm, but I love working with them! Yes, I’d like kids someday~.

20. What was your favorite book as a child?: I read many books as a wee child. But one book I can clearly remember is Stellaluna. It’s an adorable story about a bat who discovers who she truly is thanks to both her adoptive and biological families (The former being a family of birds and the latter being a family of bats.).

21. Name one thing you just don’t get what all the hype is about: Fidget spinners. I’m still seeing people freak out about those things. Didn’t the trend die a month or two ago?

22. Name one thing that you think is tragically underrated: Myspace. *evil laughs despite the fact that I never had a Myspace account* :P Sorry I couldn’t think of anything else bahaha~

23. If you had to be glued to a person for a month, real or fictional (who you have never met), who would you choose?: I mean, I’ve never met MYSME’s 707 IRL, so I’ll stick with him And we can visit his space station, haha~ ^-^

24. What’s something you’d like the chance to do someday?: Act in a theatrical production. I haven’t done theatre in a year and I already miss it. T.T

25. Do you typically speak your mind when you have a controversial opinion? Or do generally prefer to not rock the boat?: I’ll definitely speak my mind if I’m well-versed in the topic and if I’m passionate about it. If I want to present a controversial opinion, I have to be sure that I can articulate my POV eloquently and professionally. I’m also more than willing to listen to the other side, as long as they fully know what they’re talking about (Frankly, I will not take any B.S. if I suspect B.S.).

26. What’s the dumbest fad you’ve been caught up in?: I’m blanking... Yeah, IDK, but I’m pretty sure I got caught up in some kind of dumb fad back in middle school. *shivers b/c I don’t want to relive those years*

27. What’s something you thought was cool as a kid/adolescent, but now cringe at yourself for?: When I was younger (like elementary/middle school-age), I dreamed of becoming a singer. In order to accomplish that dream, I joined my school and church choirs: however, that turned out to be a pretty toxic experience since almost everyone I was singing with treated every single practice and performance as a singing competition. Like, c’mon you guys: we aren’t on Glee. -.-’

28. What’s a trait you consider to be very admirable?: Honesty: I admire people who are genuine and true.

29. Is there a particular kind of item people always tend to give you as gifts? (For instance, people always get you things with ducks on them because you like ducks, etc.): Books (people know I’m a huge bookworm), clothes (b/c I’m usually too lazy/don’t have time to shop for my own clothes, LOLOL), stuffed animals (I’m a child at heart and I love cuddly & cute things), sweets (especially chocolate).

30. Do you speak multiple languages? Which ones?:

English is my mother tongue.

I apparently used to speak Tagalog fluently when I was very young, but then I stopped speaking that language once I started preschool; however, I’ve picked up some terms over the years, so I can sort of dissect my parents’ conversations w/ the other adults (”Yes, Mom, I knew that you were talking about my uni stuff with Tita *insert name here*.” :P), plus I’m going to take a Tagalog 101 class in Autumn Quarter, so I’ll (hopefully) learn how to say complete sentences instead of just the names of foods, holidays, and Filipino Folk Dances. xD

I learned Spanish throughout my high school career, so I’m okay in that department even though I haven’t practiced speaking/listening/writing in that language recently. I’m still fluent enough to help my sisters with their Spanish homework, so that’s something. :P

I tried learning some French, Japanese, and Korean through various language learning apps, but to no avail. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

31. Would you rather live in the big city or the countryside?: Can I choose like a little town instead? Big city: the countryside would be MUCH too quiet for me (Plus I’d be much too tempted to run atop every hill Sound of Music style and start singing at the top of my lungs - which would probably annoy a lot of people, myself included. :P).

32. Has there ever been something you were certain you’d hate, but ended up loving?: Giles Christophe a.k.a my Midnight Cinderella bias. Ironic, huh? xD <3 Also Jumin Han from MYSME. :P

33. Do you mind being the center of attention, or do you prefer the spotlight to be on someone else?: I will hide from the spotlight like I’m a friggin vampire unless there’s a damn good reason for me to be under it.

34. Favorite holiday?: CHRISTMAS!!!

35. Are you a more go-with-the-flow type of person, or do you need to have things planned meticulously?: If I’m in charge of scheduling something, then I MUST have everything carefully planned. If I’m leaving the scheduling to someone else, then I’ll just go with the flow~.

36. Is there something you loved so much you wish you could forget it and experience it all over again? (A tv show, book, series–anything.): My first trip to Hawaii: I’d love to explore the islands and swim in its oceans again.

37. What hobbies do you have?: Reading, writing, singing, dancing, listening to music, playing the guitar or ukulele, checking social media (JKJK :P), drawing/arts & crafts (If I’m EXTREMELY bored), playing video games, watching TV/YouTube, exploring places both old and new Yeah, I do too many things, haha~

38. If you could have a superpower, but it was only mildly useful, what ability would you want to have?: “Mildly useful?” (O.o) I guess the ability to learn things VERY quickly - like, master an activity on the first try. I actually have a friend with that ability, which has allowed him to almost effortlessly master almost every sport he’s ever learned: he’s basically a superhuman and I admire and envy him for his “superpower.” :P <3

39. Something people are always surprised to learn about you: My age: people think that I’m much younger than I actually am, mostly because of my shorter-than-average height and my baby face. I’m basically an adult stuck in a teenager’s body. xD

40. Something that took you way too long to figure out: How to apply the Unit Circle to various math problems eff you precalculus and calculus never again ugggghhhhh.

41. Worst injury you’ve had?: My broken heart (JKJK, sort of. :P) I got burned by the metal tip of a very hot glue gun. Thanks to that, I have a tiny scar on my upper right arm.

42. Any morbid fascinations?: Does watching playthroughs of horror games through YouTube count?

43. Describe your sense of humor: Clever/witty, sarcastic, sassy. Oftentimes unintentional: jokes will usually come to me naturally through conversation. If we’re close, plenty of embarrassing stories, inside jokes, and horrible puns will be part of our daily doses of humor.

44. If you had to be born in another era/place, which would you choose?: I’d want to be born in Canada, mostly because I’ve got a lot of family living up there, plus I’d love to live in a place that isn’t completely messed up rn. #SorryNotSorryAmerica *crosses to the Canadian border like a badass*

45. Something you are irredeemably bad at: LOL, WHAT’S A SPORT? :b

46. Something that sucked but you’re glad you went through: Freshman year of high school. I first moved to my new home that year, so being the new kid sucked for a while, but I eventually made some friends and found more opportunities to grow as a person (through writing and theatre).

47. Would you rather have a really godawful ugly tattoo in a place that is only slightly inconvenient to conceal with clothing (upper arm, thigh, etc.), or the coolest, most beautiful tattoo ever in the middle of your face? (Neither tattoo can be removed or concealed with makeup, and the ugly tattoo will deeply offend anyone who sees it.): Ugly tat. At least I’d have a place to hide it. xD

48. Are you more of an optimist or a pessimist?: Realist. Leaning on the pessimist side. However, I do try to believe that things will get better, that there’ll be more bigger and better opportunities out there, etc. etc.

49. What would be the most flattering compliment someone could give you?: That I’m a hardworking and genuine person. Then again, I don’t do well compliments anyway: I’ll definitely blush and stutter and try to hide behind some kind of an object while complimenting you back. xD <3

50. Something you feel people often misunderstand about you: I’m often quiet and reserved when I’m meeting new people. Some may think I’m naturally calm and composed, others take it as slightly intimidating. But I’m just quiet because I’m awkward, plus I don’t usually start conversations. :b

Tagging: @princessofwysteria, @sukio-sakamaki, @allforthecrown, @o0w0o, @widzzicles, @rizosrojizos, and anyone who wants to do this! (I would’ve tagged more peeps, but I didn’t know if they had been tagged already. So please join in if you haven’t done this already~.). ^-^ <3

#wheeee #more tag games!#^-^#tagged #50 more interesting questions

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cookinguptales · 7 years

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Omg with TokyoPop 😂 Please share the early 2000's anime days this is new to me and sounds hilarious.

they were dark-ass times, my friend

TERRIBLE AMERICAN PUBLISHING (idk how it was in other countries; I went to Paris many years later and was impressed with their...everything when it came to different kinds of comics but) Tokyopop which was basically run by people who only half knew what they were doing, Viz which mirrored manga for a long time bc they assumed Americans were too stupid to learn how to read the other way (which was particularly annoying in comics where like a right arm or something was important), ADV which probably couldn’t actually release an entire series if their goddamn lives depended on it (yes, I’m still mad about MaLoki), and various other publishers that would publish like one title ever

No legal streaming!! Which meant you either had to buy super expensive DVDs or pirate them online. (BACK IN THESE DAYS, CRUNCHYROLL WAS A PIRATING WEBSITE. NEVER FORGET.) This was right at the end of VHS days, though, so it could be worse!! If you got a VHS, it would be subbed or dubbed. When I watched Evangelion it was on bargain bin VHS tapes so it was like 70% subbed and 30% dubbed and it was a painful time.

Fansubs online were a huge thing. Legit companies had pretty slow turn around (you were lucky if something like the Anime...Network? I can’t remember. or Toonami or Funimation picked it up, bc they had tv channels -- though you’d usually have to put up with a shitty-ass dub) and you’d usually have to wait for a large-chunk release. If you wanted to watch something as it aired, you had to watch it raw or depend on fansubs. These were uh. Of varying quality. They’d usually have a 2-24 hour turnaround depending on the size of the group, with Shounen Jump titles having the fastest turnaround. Those were anime that were already published in manga form in the US via Viz, so they were already mostly familiar with how they’d go, plus...lbr, a lot of those shows were....easier to translate. If you catch my drift. (They tended to be dumb and repetitive. That is what I’m saying.) Also a larger fandom, so greater pool to get workers from and a greater reward re: downloaders. (And people usually torrented new fansub releases bc there were fewer online streaming sites, so popular shows downloaded faster.)

So like, picture if you will, a group of tween-teen nerds sitting around a computer watching fansubs of suspicious quality and shrieking the theme songs in unison because a fansub wasn’t a fansub without bouncing karaoke at the top. We got a DVD player that could play avis at one point and that was kind of mind blowing. Otherwise, you could use an AV cable or buy a DVD.

You bought things legit if you wanted to really support the industry or you really loved a show, not because they were always better quality. I’ll leave it at that.

There were also a lot of scanlation communities, which were basically fansubs but for manga. These were also of extremely variant quality, and there were a lot of rules for a very weird online translation subculture. I always kind of got the impression that most of them hated each other. A lot of these groups required IRC use, which was confusing af, and I honestly believe that’s the biggest reason why most of these ended up getting put on online manga reader sites. There were fewer of those back then.

Most anime fandom was very strongly demarcated. Most of the fandom I engaged with was on livejournal, which meant it was like...maybe 95% female. You’d get more men on forums, which is why we all fled the forums and went to LJ. lol. Trash spaces. Trash.

The whole yaoi/shounen-ai/BL situation was very different. LGBT stuff was considered more niche and still something you needed to “warn” for in most environments. For a long time, the only legit published stuff was like. FAKE and Gravitation and CLAMP and maybe Eerie Queerie or Loveless or something. So basically, it was shit. lol. (As a young teen, I was particularly attached to CLAMP/Kaori Yuki stuff. Thank god my parents never caught on.) Anyway, to get to scanlated BL works, you usually had to go to special communities/sharing circles online or figure out the prominent scanlators and follow them. Very, very little doujinshi was scanlated. Very few (English-speaking) people ventured onto pixiv. There were a lot of arguments about the differences between yaoi, shounen-ai, and BL. Don’t let anyone nowadays fool you. When I was a teen, 90% of all “yaoi fangirls” were queer, and half of that annoying sex-focused excitement was because it was the first gay sex we’d seen in any publication anywhere. It was a different time in the media landscape. BL has a lot of shitty-ass tropes, but we were basically starving in a desert. We took our Gravitation and we liked it. F/F manga was very rarely translated, and I guess that’s still the case today. There’s less of it, and I think we’ve all been trained to prioritize male sexuality. (Plus most of the shoujo-ai that got posted online was like uber-innocent schoolgirl stuff.) People make fun of “yaoi fangirls” and “fujoshi” and all that now, but I can honestly say I would have never understood my own sexuality without that subculture. Like the anime clubs were full of obnoxious little weebs, but let’s be straight about something, no pun intended. They were full of obnoxious little gay weebs. People are all about gay (western) cartoons nowadays, but when I was a teen, they were all about that anime.

Because almost all published anime/manga was in hard copy, you’d get mini congregations of fans in stores. See: hordes of manga fans sitting in the manga aisle of the book store, fans chatting with each other in...suncoast, or wherever they could find DVDs/VHS. The level of social skills in these areas was...not high. Also, a lot of fuckin creepy predatory dudes going after girls. Hooooly shit. I was so glad when they started releasing anime/manga online. Y’all livestreamers on Crunchyroll don’t know how good you have it. You used to have to deal with the fedora bros who were a good 10-20 years older than you but still following you around in stores, conventions, etc. any time you wanted to get new stuff. Like it was a legit problem.

LIKE I’M TRYING TO CONVEY HERE THAT JUST GETTING ANIME/MANGA WAS A PAIN IN THE REAR END. not as bad as the dark days when people had to physically mail each other shit, but it was still definitely a subculture and you’d definitely be thrown in with a lot of people you wouldn’t want to be around. (Similar to how things are in modern western comics fandom...)

Fandom itself was basically a tire fire. In every possible way. Like I’m nostalgic for it in some ways, because in some ways I really miss how text-based it was. There was a lot more meta and conversation, and fanfic was much better supported. Comment culture was a lot stronger and you’d become friends with people who read your work and/or people who wrote stuff you liked. But on the other side of that, there was a lot of weird fanfic gatekeeping. Sporking communities and flaming and fic rating communities were much more of a problem back then. You release stuff to crickets nowadays, which is demoralizing, but back then there was a solid chance you’d wake up to an inbox full of hate mail, especially if you wrote slash. It definitely happened to me a few times as a kid. I think they really targeted teens, too. So writing fic could be shitty. There was less fanart in American spaces, too.

I do agree that to some degree things have gone too far with the whole virtue-signaling/issuefic thing, with a lot of people yelling very loudly about things they may not always understand very well, but you gotta understand. Fandom was a hateful place in many ways back then. Sexist, racist, homophobic, you name it. Female characters are still ignored now, but they’re typically treated less horribly than they were back then. People try to be more educated about other ethnicities and sexualities and such now. You’re less likely to get bullied because you were gay. I think the big problem is that sometimes people hijack important movements to be giant dicks, and a lot of people, especially younger people, get swept up in that.

There was a very specific kind of anime badfic back then. I could write literally an entire post on that. Like god. Where do I even begin??? The bluenettes? The super kawaii fangirl nihongo? Script fic? “Tell me what to write next!” fic? lolololcrack fic? I mean, there were a lot of varieties of suck back then.

Weird subcultures. Like...really weird ones. Things got kind of cult-y relatively often. Just say no to cults.

if you want more details on anything, I’m having particularly painful flashbacks right now. ugh, the free hugs signs.

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