#anti idiots who comment on my post and not expect to get a response
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Electric Love - Full Chapters
Want early chapters? Read on Ao3!
Chapter 1: Not What I Expected
Notes: Support me by reading on Ao3! Kudos and comments help motivate me to see multi-chapter fics through to the end! I'll be posting announcements for the updates here. Chapters will come out on Ao3 BEFORE tumblr.
Some shit in this will probably be really OOC, but it's fanfiction so who cares? Enjoy!
Word Count: 6090
It was a day in hell like any other. Flashing cameras, idiots who came to Vox with questions below his caliber, the whole works. The overlord was half tempted to cancel any appointments he had after the current debut he was waiting to go on stage for. The only thing he wanted was to go home and eat an obscene amount of junk food while he zoned out to reruns of one of the shitty soap operas that ran on one of his channels.
He could hear the crowd of anxious paparazzi and ass-kissers just past the stage as he pocketed his phone with a deep sigh. Ignoring the concerned crewman who signaled it was time for him to go on stage, Vox grit his teeth and stepped onto the stage, immediately adopting an entirely different persona with a practiced smile.
Cameras flashed and the crowd got louder as people cheered, shoved each other out of the way and paparazzi rapidly fired questions at him with microphones pointed his way. Vox resisted the urge to roll his eyes. You’d think that any experienced reporter with half a brain cell would know the chances of getting a response to such behavior was zero to none, and yet he was so familiar with the approach that it was boring.
Despite his disdain, Vox waved and grinned proudly as he stepped up to a podium in front of a large screen. "Hello my loyal audience and fans,” he speaks with a clear and confident tone. “Today we at VoxTech have quite the exciting announcement to make. For too long, we have been limited to regular television and radio media, well no more! Introducing VoxTube, the new innovative way to stream content and enjoy it at any time.." the crowd cheered and whistled louder at the sound of the word 'streaming' and then they all gasped at once during the reveal.
Vox paused to dramatically look away from the crowd for a moment, his eyebrows arching and the corner of his mouth curling up slightly, before looking back towards the crowd again with a smug grin on his face. "And now.. for the moment you've all been waiting for... the grand reveal!" Vox said as the crowd grew even louder with excitement.
Just as the screen behind him shifted to reveal the new platform, the screen flickered before showing a logo that was very much not his. In fact, it was the logo of the damned rival company that had been a thorn in his side for the past few months. “Oh for fucks, sake, not this again,” he muttered as he looked to the side to see his production crew scrambling behind the scenes to shut down the takeover.
The large screen was supposed to be demoing the “new” platform that was really just a rehashed regurgitation of an older platform. This was supposed to be just a quick cash grab, but now it was just a problem. Vox glared at the stupid halo logo as an unfamiliar, but jovial voice seeped through his speakers like a virus.
"Tired of being controlled? Tired of not being about to tell if your information is being leaked or if VoxTech is brainwashing you?" The voice asked as it revealed distasteful footage of mindless sinners in front of VoxTech products. "Then try Eternal Entertainment. Your anti-Vox streaming and video platform, completely free of VoxTech networks. Take back control of your experience!"
The crowd was silent as the screen played a jingle before going dark. It took all the self-restraint Vox had not to glitch out on the stage when he knew the cameras were still rolling. Immediately, the crowd had their phones out, downloading the new app. Reporter cameras were flashing as sinners got as close to the stage as they could. Microphones were shoved in Vox's direction as a dozen voices asked him about the new competition.
"Ah-ah-ah... Now, let's not be so hasty, hmm?” Vox turned to the crowd with a strained grin. “This so-called 'Eternal Entertainment' is merely slander propaganda! There’s no history, nor a face to the name of this company. There’s nothing to trust! At VoxTech, we care about users' safety and provide hell-wide coverage that this ‘competition’ simply can’t beat." Vox said, trying to convince the crowd that it was a mistake to download the rival platform.
"What about the rumors of Vox programs being coded with hypnotic influence?” A reporter asked as they shoved down another. “This new rival platform promises protection from the threat of corporate dating mining and influence. What do you have to say about that?" A reporter asked.
"Hypnosis? No no, no.. that’s ridiculous!" Vox scoffed, shaking his head as he tried to sound convincing. "It’s already been proven that any rumors about such malware were nothing more than scandalous lies created to discriminate against the powers of tech demons like myself,” Vox said, theatrically shaking his head as he played the card his PR team had him prepared for at all times.
“Look, you know you can trust and rely on the wonderful VoxTech. We have been nothing but honest and transparent... unlike those frauds at 'Eternal... uhh..'," Vox tried to remember the name of the rival platform.
"Eternal Entertainment!" Someone from the crowd yelled. "It already has 300,000 downloads!"
"See? That’s nothing!” Vox laughed with a strained smile. It was something. Low numbers for a platform overall, sure. But to already have that many downloads mere minutes after the hijacked debut? Yeah no, Vox was freaking the fuck out.
The crowd continued to get louder, and Vox felt anxious electricity thrumming through his veins. Everything was getting overwhelming and he only had so much bullshit he could come up with on the spot before he started contradicting himself. He continued to smile as his magic pulsed through the nearby cables of the stage as he searched for anything he could use as an escape. He found a security camera in an alleyway a few blocks over and put on a professional grin. He just needed a closing statement, and he'd get out of there. Easy.
"Well then," Vox cleared his throat and put on his best, most charismatic smile. "I promise you all, this so-called “Eternal Entertainment”, is nothing but a passing fad! It's just a desperate attempt by the competition to try and take you away from the best hell has to offer. The very best streaming and media..." Vox's eyes narrowed as he looked around at the crowd and his smile slowly faded. "Me."
The chaotic crowd suddenly fell silent as his screen flooded their vision with red and black spirals. The sound of a pin dropping would be deafening compared to the frantic clamoring that had filled the space only moments ago as Vox flooded the crowd’s minds with VoxTech propaganda and affirmations. Once he was content, Vox used the camera to teleport to the alleyway while the crowd was left temporarily mindless.
“F̸̛̫̝̉u̴͑͜c̵̮̀ḱ̷̩̆î̴̩͘n̴̯̬͐g̷̮͌̚ piece of shit m̷̨͙͗o̴̲͎͐t̸͉̜͒h̷̙̃e̶͎̦͋r̵̟͘f̷̱̄͒û̸̥ć̵̙ͅḱ̶̡́ę̷͎̄ŕ̵̠̳ś̶̝͗,” Vox swore as his screen glitched hard the moment he was out of sight. He continued to swear and vent out his frustrations as he kicked an empty paint can on the ground next to a dumpster. Fortunately, there weren’t any sinners passing by to witness his tantrum. He wasn’t in the mood to drop another fucker until they were brain-dead.
Once Vox got the rest of his frustrations out of his system, he collected himself and sighed. He pulled out his phone and opened the app store, cringing as he saw the rival app rising in the trending downloads. He closed his eyes and focused his abilities as his power surged through the network and hunted down the source engine running the app. With so many devices accessing the network, he was able to narrow down the location quickly.
"Perfect,” Vox said with a sinister grin. “Now to take care of this problem once and for all."
Any time he’d tried to hunt down Eternal before, Vox had run into dead end after dead end. He couldn’t track down the sinners running the rival software, nor could he track down any of their host servers. The hubris of his newfound enemy would be their undoing. Anyone in the entertainment industry worth their salt knew how easily things could be exposed upon release. By loudly announcing their debut when they hijacked Vox’s presentation, the company had left themselves wide open for him to latch onto the smallest flaws and hunt them down properly.
Vox wanted to destroy the place and make sure that their platform never gained any kind of popularity or power in Hell ever again. He finally pinpointed the location where the platform was being hosted and was pleased to find it wasn't anything impressive. There was no polish. The building didn’t even look like it was any sort of office or official business. If anything, it looked uninhabited. He pulled up the address on his screen to see what he could find out about the location’s history.
The building was a rundown observatory run by some random sinner he couldn’t care less about before one of the biggest exterminations of the past century. The neighborhood the building was near had been so thoroughly gutted by the angels that the entire area was abandoned due to superstition. Well… as abandoned as any corner of the overcrowded ring of hell could be. It was the perfect place for unsavory types to hide in the shadows.
Vox scanned the exterior and his smirk only grew as he took note of the lack of any sort of security. "This will be easy..." Vox said to himself as he locked on to a computer screen he sensed inside of the building. Wanting to get the drop on his cocky competition, he teleported his way inside the old, abandoned observatory. Vox was expecting a potential fight. Maybe guns. Probably a lab full of desk jockeys. What Vox didn’t expect was for his feet to barely touch the ground before he found himself suddenly in agonizing pain. His vision was clouded over with purple smoke and he heard the sound of glass shattering as his entire body short-circuited hard from the overwhelming pain.
Vox screamed, dropping to his knees as his systems malfunctioned from the icy-hot burning sensation shooting across his skin. His face bluescreened and his vision went dark. The last thing he heard as he lost consciousness was the sound of someone swearing and footsteps rapidly approaching him as he passed out.
----
Vox gasped as he felt his systems finally reboot. He ran an internal diagnostic as he sat up to look around, dazed and disoriented. The burning sensation had faded, but his head was pounding. His vision slowly cleared as he took in his surroundings. It looked like he was in some sort of office.There was a large, overflowing bookshelf by an open window and a desk with an impressive computer set-up on it. Vials filled with purple, sparkling mist were scattered around the entire room, all with different labels on them. The space was messy, yet somehow… cozy. At least, it felt more comfortable than the majority of the sleek areas of hell he was more familiar with.
Vox looked down and quirky an eyebrow as he held up the soft blanket draped over his lap. He tried not to think of what sort of diseases could be lurking in the old couch he was lying on as he processed the situation.
"W... what..? Where am I… How did I get here...?" Vox said as he blinked a couple of times, trying to remember what had happened before he lost consciousness. "What the fuck is this place?"
"Oh shit, you're awake!" A voice startled Vox and he tossed the blanket off of him as the door to the office pushed open. He hadn’t noticed that it had been cracked open, nor had he noticed you waiting for him to wake up out in the hallway.You’d been leaning against the doorframe and scrolling through social media as you waited for him to regain consciousness.
You stepped into the room, smiling sheepishly as you pocketed your phone, “Sorry, I didn’t want you to wake up alone and be confused, but it also felt weird to just sit in here. How are you feeling?”
Vox didn't know what to expect when it came to his new rival, but he couldn't have imagined you. Hell was full of sinners of all shapes and sizes. Vox had seen some crazy shit, but he’d never seen someone as… soft as you. You weren’t dressed to the nines or in some wild costume like most. Instead, you were just wearing sweatpants and an oversized hoodie with your hair pulled back in a messy bun. You looked like a burnt-out college student rather than a sinner trapped in hell.
“You know,” you smirk. “I may not have been the one running the campaign against you, but you may have wanted to take that whole anti-Vox thing a bit more seriously before just barging in here.”
"You're... the owner of the rival platform..?" Vox said as his eyebrows furrowed.
"Yes and no," you cringe. "Normally, I’d be chasing you out of here with a broomstick, but I might have royally fucked up and have no idea what I’m doing," you admit.
“What?” Vox asked flatly. He had been expecting tech bro assholes who would monologue at him in an attempt to piss him off. He’d been expecting the run-of-the-mill hellish power-hungry welcome he’d come to love tearing to shreds any time someone was stupid enough to try to overthrow him. He expected literally anything else but this.
“It… would probably be easier to just show you,” You sigh as you walk over to your computer and wake up the idle screen.
Vox stood from the couch and crossed the small office to look at the screen. It revealed that millions of sinners had already made accounts on Eternal Entertainment’s new platform, and a decent amount of accounts had already started uploading content. To say it was successful would be an understatement.
"Millions..." Vox muttered under his breath, feeling more and more threatened by the platform as he saw the success it was already having. "How the hell did you manage to pull this off?"
You chuckle, rubbing the back of your head nervously. "Yeah, uh, about that... I don't... know."
"You don't k̴n̷o̵w̵?̴" Vox flipped on you with a spark. His eye twitched as he tried to pick apart your game. Were you bragging? Were you about to threaten him? Were you a fucking idiot?
"Excuse, the fuck, me?” Vox growled as he grabbed your hoodie and pulled you forward. “Do you mean to tell me this was just some fucking pet project or some shit?"
"Yes and no?," you cringed as Vox made it clear how fed up he was getting with that answer.
Normally, you wouldn’t let anyone yank you around, but you’d dug yourself into some pretty deep shit. The guilt that came with that kept you complicit for the time being, but you still pushed his hand off of you.
"The truth is, I… made the platform,” you admit sheepishly. You’re quick to defend yourself as you see Vox’s expression fill with rage. “But I’m not the one who released it and I don’t work for Eternal. I swear!”
“You realize how fucking fake that sounds, right?” Vox growled as he felt his claws itch with the desire to rip you apart.
“Yup,” you swallow. “I understand the shit sandwich I landed myself in very much, Mr. Big Scary Evil Overlord Sir.”
“But,” you say as you pull back your desk chair and pull up your browser. “I have proof. If you don’t believe me after you look at it, you can kick my ass to your heart’s content. But I think you’ll quickly realize I do not know what the fuck I’m doing and I couldn’t have made this shit the way you’re thinking I did, even if I tried.”
Vox squinted at you with distrust as he looked between you and the chair. He grabbed the back of the offending furniture far tighter than was necessary and yanked it out of your hand as he sat down with a grumble.
He started scrolling through the history of your browser and clicked through the tabs you’d left open for him. It looked like you had signed up for some sort of coding workshop and had no idea what you had signed up for. What was poorly disguised as a hands-on tutorial for beginner video game coders to learn how to make mock platforms for marketing was a trap to lure in people to do Eternal’s dirty work. It was the sort of thing that would never pop up on Vox’s radar. It was obviously a scam to the trained eye and a weak attempt at throwing suckers like you under the bus.
“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” he said as he looked up at you incredulously.
Your face flushed and you looked away from him with an embarrassed frown as you crossed your arms. “Oh fuck off,” you grumble. “I’m broke as hell and it was a free course in an area I need to learn to make my games. It sounded too good to be true.”
“Because it was, dumbass,” Vox snorted as he shook his head and kept digging. He followed the data trail of the domain the workshop was hosted on and pulled up a few unrelated tabs that you hadn’t already pulled up from him so he could figure out how you’d discovered the suspicious content in the first place.
“Hey!” you gasp as you try to stop him.
“If you don’t want to end up an electrified shish kabob on the floor, you’ll let me work,” Vox said, not taking his eyes off the screen for a second as he installed some of his searching software to run in the background of your system.
You huff, watching him continue to dig through your computer before you turn on your heel and walk out. “Just don’t move or delete anything.”
Vox rolled his eyes as he continued his search. He quickly understood where your worries stemmed from. He hadn’t paid too much attention to your mention of it earlier, but it was obvious you were some sort of video game developer. There were folders filled with concept designs, dialogue chains, and amateur attempts at programming. It seemed while you thrived in the creator side of things, your tech knowledge was severely lacking. A quick invasive peek at your bank account showed that your funds were as well. You had big visions for someone with only yourself as a resource.
He paused as he opened a folder in your files that was filled with what appeared to be pictures of you and what he assumed were your friends. His eyes widened as he recognized several faces smiling innocently compared to the lewd expressions he’d seen them make in Valentino’s films. What caught his attention even more was the multiple pictures of you with Angel Dust and his little cyclops friend who had a knack for explosives.
Before he could dig any further into your personal life, several windows popped up to let him know the diagnostics had finished running the background.
Vox’s leg started to bounce with anxious energy as the reports from the programs he’d run earlier started to flood in. He immediately followed the trail of information and found several other websites connecting to Eternal that eventually led him to a secluded forum with all sorts of shady shit. He opened several threads that related to himself and the other Vees and inhaled sharply as he started to read through everything.
"Anti-VoxTech underground network…?" Vox whispered aloud. An anxious thrum of energy ran through him as he tried not to freak out. What if this person used the platform to spread propaganda against him or to leak information from his networks? What if this person was trying to destroy him from the inside out? His paranoia began to intensify and he felt small sparks licking at his skin when suddenly, a coffee mug was thrust in front of his face.
He looks up at you as you hold out one of two mugs to him. He takes it slowly from your hand as you look at him unimpressed, yet expectantly. “Thanks…?” He says slowly as he is once again thrown off by how much you didn’t match his expectations. He looks down at the liquid in his hand before looking back up at you distrustfully. For all he knew, your weirdly casual demeanor could have all been a trick. Poisoning him in the afterlife wouldn’t kill him, it’d just be a major inconvenience. Even so, he hesitated.
“Oh for fucks sake,” you roll your eyes as you realize why he was hesitating. You stick your pinky in his cup and pop it in your mouth to show him it was safe. “It’s just hot chocolate,” you huff before you take a sip from your own mug. “I was going to make one before you just zapped your ass in here and it felt rude to only make one for myself.”
Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked the bewildered overlord over. “Shit, but your face… Can you even…? Wait no, that’s also rude. Fuck.”
Vox burst out laughing as you verbally tripped over yourself. Yeah no. There was no evil ploy here. You were just a weirdly endearing dumbass.
“I can drink,” Vox grinned as he finally lifted the cup to his lips. His eyes widened as he took in the unexpected taste. While he could eat and drink, he unfortunately had lost his sense of smell with his afterlife form. He wasn’t expecting the slightly sour tinge of raspberry syrup that mixed with the more standard flavor of the drink.
You watch him curiously and his eyes lock onto yours in an instant. Your face flushes and you turn away as you try to not-so-smoothly play over the fact that you had been trying to see how his mouth worked. “S-So, did you find anything?”
Vox sighed and set his mug down as he turned his attention back to your computer. “Yes, actually. Surprisingly enough, I’ve found more on your very shitty and outdated computer than my team has in the past six months.”
He ignores your offended protests about the quality of your setup as he looks through one of the forums. He ignores the way you lean into his personal space as you look over his shoulder and read the comments yourself.
“I just don’t get why there’s this large of an interest in working around my products,” Vox grumbled as the two of you read through the conversations.
You raise an eyebrow and peer down at him. "You and the Vee's don't exactly have the best rep with lower-class sinners. It may be hard for a big powerful dude like you to comprehend, but believe it or not, some people like their privacy."
Vox frowned as he begrudgingly sipped on his drink. He would never admit out loud how much it was soothing his nerves. “We’re in hell,” he reasoned. “Surely dating mining which pornos the average sinner watches to increase ratings and production quality isn’t the top concern these idiots have.”
You roll your eyes and sigh as you sit on the edge of your desk. Your hips carelessly pushed some things back, but you paid it no mind. “It goes deeper than that and you know it. Hell, I know it and I think this entire experience has proven how much of this shit flies over my head.”
Vox’s eyes drift to the vial you bumped with your hip and he pauses as he considers just how harmless you really were. While it was clear you weren’t the most program-savvy, Vox hadn’t forgotten the abrupt welcome he’d gotten when he tried to sneak in. Whatever that mist he’d been enveloped in was bottled and stashed all over the place. He still had more digging to do.
Sensing the shift in Vox’s attitude, your eyes follow his gaze and you cringe as you tuck the vial out of sight.
“So you’re not a complete idiot then,” Vox said as he placed his empty mug on the table and stood over you.
“That’s different,” you mutter as you shrink in on yourself and avoid looking him in the eye.
“I’m not so sure about that,” Vox hummed as his eyes sharply searched your features like a shark drawn to blood in the water.
His clawed fingers wrap around your jaw and he slowly makes you turn towards him. His grip was firm and the sharp edges threatened to break skin, but he was also somewhat gentle, after all, you had gotten him this far. A looming threat if you suddenly decided to stop cooperating.
“You deleted your visits to those forums in your browser history before you let me access your computer,” Vox said slowly as he watched your every expression carefully. You were avoiding his eyes, which meant you knew what he was capable of. “Why?”
“It doesn’t matter,” you say slowly as you try to keep your breathing even. You couldn’t afford to panic. “I probably just accidentally cleared it when I was wiping my cache or something. Aren’t you supposed to do that every now and then, or something?”
Vox quirked an eyebrow, looking completely unimpressed. “You’re not a good liar.”
“Oh fuck off,” you frown as you look up at him without thinking.
Vox grins and his eyes immediately spiral as he tries to pull you under his spell. You gasp and for a moment he thinks he has you… only for the spirals not to reflect back at him from your own eyes.
“What…?” Vox blinks as his grip on you loosens.
You smack his hand away and dive out from under him as you try to get away. Vox growls, whipping around and grabbing your arm before you can slip out of the office. You let out a startled yelp as he slams you against the wall and twists your arm behind your back.
“What the hell is going on? Who are you, really?” he interrogates as he twists your arm harder.
It didn’t make any sense. You were a walking contradiction. He genuinely didn’t sense any malice directed at him from you. Your search history barely skimmed anything relating to him. If anything, you had done more research on Velvette and Valentino, which he had to admit, in any other scenario may have bruised his ego a hair. You accidentally helped a rival company launch an attack against him and let him search your system without any hesitation, yet the second he locked in on those vials, you changed your tune completely.
Not only that, but you were somehow able to resist his hypnosis. He’d seen the faintest flash of connection in your eyes that told him you weren’t immune. Yet you had somehow managed to slip out of the hold he’d tried to cast over you within seconds.
“Let me go, asshole!” You shouted as you tried to slip out of his grasp. You hiss in pain as his sharp claws dig into your arm and draw blood.
“I don’t think so,” Vox growled as he tightened his grip and drew more blood. “What the hell is in those vials? And why were you on those forums in the first place? Tell me or I’ll rip your arm off.”
You bark out a laugh despite the fear, “With those fucking twigs? I’d like to see you tr-AH fuck! Alright alright!” You relent as he slams your head against the wall with his other hand.
Vox loosens his grip ever so slightly, but watches you like a hawk.
“Everything I’ve told you so far is true,” you start with a sigh. “I don’t know jack shit about most of your area in things, but I only found the workshop because I was on the forums.”
“And why would you be there?” Vox frowned. “You don’t have anything my company would care about on your systems. You’re a shit liar, but get any ideas of telling me it was for privacy out of your head.”
Your eyes dart and he can tell you’re trying to think of a way to weasel out of telling him the truth. Whatever it was, you really didn’t want him to know. Which meant he needed to know.
“Tell me,” Vox growled as he pressed you harder into the wall.
“V-Valentino,” you whimpered as the pain started to wear down your willpower. You weren’t exactly accustumed to this sort of experience despite your time in hell. You kept your head down as much as you could. You only dared to kick up dust for one reason and you’d done your best not to get caught for it up until now, but you had been careless.
“What?” Vox blinked as his grip relented.
“I,” you open your mouth, only to cringe. You really didn’t want to tell him, but if you double died without at least trying to pull something, it would only leave the very people you were trying to protect in deeper shit. Vox would figure it out after killing you anyways. Spilling the beans and trying to figure something out in the process was your only hope.
“The mist wasn’t mean to hurt you,” you say slowly. “I’ll talk, so fucking let go first.”
Vox watches you distrustfully, but releases your arm and steps back. He stands between you and the door, so he’s willing to play along if it means he’ll finally have the full picture.
“I don’t… pay much attention to hell’s politics,” you sigh. “I don’t care about power, I don’t care about overlords, but I do care about my friends.”
For the first time since Vox had gotten here, he saw something familiar flash in your eyes. The dark twisted bloodlust he’d seen in most sinners. “I don’t use my powers much,” you say as you walk over to your desk. “I’m not really trained to fight like most people down here. I’m cooped up in here most of the time, so it’s not like I’ve ever really had a reason to start shit.”
You pick up a vial and hold up your other hand as a small portal opens above your palm. “This is about all I can do,” you say. “I had a buddy who liked to research sinners abilities and I didn’t really care if he looked into mine.”
You had to bite down the fond smile at the memory of Baxter’s pestering. “He discovered that at low enough levels of activation, magic could be collected like a liquid or a mist with all his fancy tech shit. Again, you know how much of that flies over my head.”
Vox looked between your hands and nodded silently, watching you carefully as he waited for you to put together the pieces for him.
“Using the residue of my abilities, he tried to replicate that love potion shit you guys sell. He wanted to see if he could recreate it and then make a repellent.”
Vox’s eyes widened as he looked at the vial and it finally clicked. “It’s a repellent against Valentino’s magic.”
You wave away the miniature portal above your hand and nod with a frown. You hated every part of this, but at least he hadn’t killed you yet. “Like I said earlier, there's a high demand for slipping out under the Vee's control."
“Is that how you resisted my hypnosis as well?” Vox asked carefully.
“No,” you shake your head. “That’s something else entirely. No schemes or any fancy shit like that involved there.”
“Then why did the mist hurt me?” Vox frowned.
“Well, for starters,” you smirk at the memory. It had freaked you out pretty bad in the moment, but after the shit Vox just put you through, you kinda loved that he’d gotten his ass handed to him. “The guy I told you about was here and was trying to make a new batch. You literally teleported in the middle of us making the shit and knocked over the batch we’d been producing so it was heavily concentrated.”
“Secondly, you’re around Valentino all the time. When is that guy not blowing his slut smoke all around you?” You cross your arms.
“That…” Vox thought back to how often Valentino smoked his pipe around him. How used to seeing the pink smoke around him he’d gotten. He didn’t have a sense of smell so he was entirely immune to the effects. So much so, he had no reason to notice how it was completely seeped into his clothing and probably coating his entire body in an unnoticeable residue.
"Yup," you sigh. "If I had to take a guess, then that’s why.”
"And the reason you’d help your friend make this…” Vox trailed off as he remembered the pictures he’d found on your computer. You were friends with a lot of Valentino’s sex workers, including Angel Dust. Vox was a business partner, a friend, and sometimes a lover of Valentino. Valentino was notorious for the abuse of his sex workers. An abuser of some of your closest friends.
You frown, turning away from Vox, your body language acknowledging him as a proper enemy for the first time since he's broke in. "You get it now.”
He knew about Valentino and his history of abuse towards sex workers. He had seen his behavior first hand and knew the moth’s behavior was vile and repulsive. But the worst of it was never directed at Vox himself. Some of it, yeah, but… Vox hadn't really cared about anyone else. He had better shit to think about.
"I see…,” Vox hummed as he picked up another vial off the floor and twirled it between his claws. You really could benefit from some basic cleaning around the office. “So you’re planning on beating him at his own game." Vox said, his eyes narrowing as he looked at you with a mix of suspicion and admiration. "Clever... very clever.."
You cross your arms, watching him sharply as you wait to see what he'll do about it.
"You got the information you wanted." You say flatly. He knew who was attacking him with your software now. The Eternity shit he’d found on your computer was a solid lead. However, he now knew of your efforts against Valentino. You weren’t a fighter, by any means, but you were prepared to protect yourself if you had to.
Vox's eyes narrowed as he looked at you in a new light. Your lack of personal interest in politics and the standard hell powergrabs had him intrigued. He wondered just what you’d be capable of if you did play the same game that everyone else did. It was clear you were resourceful and crafty, yet you directed those efforts towards something so… mundane.
"You’ve proved useful enough so far, and I thank you for that. Depending on your next answer, I may even let you keep your insides where they belong. So, let me ask you this..." Vox said, continuing to look at you with his eyes narrowing. "If those experiments are unrelated to my influence entirely, then how are you able to resist my hypnosis?"
Whether he meant to or not, Vox just handed you the key to your survival on a silver platter. Your eyes widen and you try to hide the excitement at the opportunity as you level your best poker face. “It’s pretty simple actually,” you say as you inspect your nails nonchalanetly. A bit too theatric, perhaps, but you were trying to play it cool. It didn’t matter that you weren’t actually succeeding.
“Hypothetically, I may or may not have discovered how to counter your hypnosis,” you hum as Vox’s eye twitched. “Hypothetically, I could sell that information or simply just post it to the Eternal forums. I’m sure everyone would love to know how not to get sucked into your marketing schemes.”
"You want to make a deal," Vox realized, the corners of his mouth curling up slightly and dead pixels flickered to life under his lip. This just got so much more interesting for him.
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i think so much of writing respectfully and inclusively is being aware of what you’re putting down on the page. what do i mean by this? what better author to focus on than sj///m, right? i’ll start with CCity on this, since it’s the one where it’s most obvious she’s trying so hard to fix her mistakes, but the problem always comes back to her fundamental misunderstanding of why and how her shit is problematic in the first place and what she must do to fix said problematic shit.
i’m sticking this under a cut bc, surprise surprise, i rambled 😌
take, for instance, Hunt: i think it’s pretty widely-accepted he’s coded as a MOC, (potentially an Asian-coded man) since he’s given “golden-brown skin” and “angular” eyes. sj//m was trying to be more inclusive by writing him in such a way that he shouldn’t be perceived as white, but what she failed to realize is two big things: 1) the fact he’s a slave of centuries who is constantly tortured, mutilated, and manipulated by his oppressors, and 2) the fact he lusts after and is demeaned by Bruce, a white girl. furthermore, Bruce constantly makes comments about how Hunt should fight back, shouldn’t allow himself to remain a slave, and taunts him into either disobeying Micah (the man he’s enslaved to) or killing for her. it’s made clear time and time again that Hunt doesn’t like that he’s an assassin for Micah, and yet there are so many instances of him wanting to kill or hurt someone for Bruce, which not only makes his characterization inconsistent, it plays into the problematic trope of the dark-skinned aggressor (a trope that sj///m seems to be particularly fond of, what with the Illyrians).
(on the topic of Hunt, a quick side-note: the idea of the “alphahole” that comes up again and again in CCity and that antis have critiqued up the wazoo (though not with the “alphahole” colloquialism until CCity came along, but i don’t think many antis actually use “alphahole” as anything but a joke when talking about her obvious love of the hypermasculine alpha male). sj///m is clearly trying to call out her past mistakes and work to rectify them going forward, but she completely fails bc she only succeeds at 1) mocking her readers, who are often fans of hers bc they like the alpha male douchebag sj///m is infamous for, and 2) making herself sound like an idiot when she calls out “alphahole” behavior while actively writing “alphaholes” and making them (possible) endgame love interests (i say possible bc it’s anyone’s guess if sj///m will actually subvert everyone and their mother’s expectations by making Hunt endgame). Hunt is an “alphahole,” even if he’s not quite as bad as riceman or rowboat and even if sj///m thinks she’s not actually writing an “alphahole”. with his aforementioned behavior toward anyone who’s mean to Bruce (aka wanting to kill them for her), he still falls under the “alphahole” category.
but i digress.)
another example of sj///m writing without being aware of what she’s actually putting on the page is her inclusion of queer rep. sj///m queerbaits quite a lot with Danika, thanks to lines she has involving Bruce and her relationship with Bruce, not to mention how many times others wonder if Bruce and Danika are “just” best friends and not actually lovers. we have Hunt wonder about it, after all, several times iirc. one that stands out the most is when he says that they have to be more than “just” best friends because Bruce doesn’t mourn Danika like someone mourns “just” their best friend, thus implying that Bruce is mourning Danika like a lover and/or spouse (bc obviously people can’t be torn to pieces over losing their best friend in a horrific attack, right?).
here’s some lines that have romantic connotations bc i am nothing if not a historian who likes citations:
page 38 of my ebook:
Danika just said it. “If he grabs his phone to check his messages before his dick’s barely out of you again, please have the self-respect to kick his balls across the room and come home to me.”
page 45 of my ebook:
But it was Danika’s added “Love you” as [Bruce] slipped out into the grimy hallway that made her hesitate with her hand on the knob.
It’d taken Danika a few years to save those words, and she still used them sparingly. Danika had initially hated it when [Bruce] said them to her—even when [Bruce] explained that she’d spent most of her life saying it, just in case it was the last time. In case she wouldn’t get to say goodbye to the people who mattered most. And it had taken one of their more fucked-up adventures[...]to get Danika to utter the words, but at least she now said them. Sometimes.
page 258 of my ebook (aka the line of Hunt’s i referenced above):
The silence pressed on [Hunt] enough that he asked, “Were you and Danika lovers?”
He’d been told two years ago that they weren’t, but friends didn’t mourn each other the way [Bruce] seemed to have so thoroughly shut down every part of herself. The way he had for Shahar.
[...]
Hunt turned in place as [Bruce] padded around the other end of the kitchen island, flinging open the enormous metal fridge to examine its meager contents. “No,” [Bruce] said, her voice flat and cold. “Danika and I weren’t like that.”
page 696 of my ebook:
[Bruce] swallowed, looking at the ground that was not earth, but the very base of Self, of the world. She whispered, “I’m scared.”
Danika grabbed her hand again. “That’s the point of it, [Bruce]. Of life. To live, to love, knowing that it might all vanish tomorrow. It makes everything that much more precious.” She took [Bruce’s] face in her hands and pressed their brows together.
page 700 of my ebook (and i was torn on including this one, but it’s from Danika, so i think i should):
Danika had whispered, “I love you,” before fading into nothing, her hand sliding from Bryce’s.
page 703 of my ebook (also torn on this, but it does sound a little queer, so):
But it wasn’t okay. Not even close. What had happened, what [Bruce had] done and revealed, the Horn in her body, all those people dead, Lehabah dead, and seeing Danika, Danika, Danika—
Her breathless words turned into pants, and then shuddering sobs.
also, not for nothing, but the fact Danika dies without an actual male love interest to make Her Straightness Obvious kinda also implies she’s queer, but *sips tea*
furthermore, there’s the way sj///m writes Fury and Juniper: we see the two women together in one scene, in which Juniper is fetishized and goes to sleep with some random guy. for the rest of the book, they never interact on-page and thus we are never given the chance to see their dynamic, which would provide crucial context clues to what their relationship really is by the time this exchange happens between Fury and Bruce on page 494 of my ebook:
“And yet you can still talk to Juniper?” Bryce’s throat closed up. “I wasn’t worth the risk to you?”
Fury hissed, “Juniper and I have something that is none of your fucking business.” Bryce refrained from gaping. Juniper had never hinted, never suggested—“I could no sooner stop talking to her than I could rip out my own fucking heart, okay?”
“I get it, I get it,” Bryce said. She blew out a long breath. “Love trumps all.”
i’ve talked about this scene to death, but this is written in such a way that it can be read as “just” best friends or as two women in a romantic relationship, depending on the reader. the fact that Bruce “gapes” (which faerug also does to Mor, and which i talk about below) implies that being openly queer isn’t accepted in this world, that it’s not very likely you’ll see two women holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk or kiss at a romantic restaurant. it also implies that Bruce, no matter that she says about “love trumps all,” might not be as accepting as sj///m would like us to believe. maybe sj///m has never had a friend come out to her before, but if i came out to someone and they gaped at me (and i’ve come out to several people several times now, both about my sexuality and my gender, so i have some experience here), i don’t think i would be very happy with them/want to remain their friend.
on the note of queer rep in sj///m’s work, Mor is another fantastic example of trying to be inclusive through a response to criticism without sj///m being aware of what, exactly, she’s writing. Mor comes out because faerug all but forces her to by not shutting up what a good guy Azriel is and that Mor should just give him a chance. that right there is fucked on so many levels, not just because Mor is a lesbian, but bc she’s supposedly faerug’s friend. no one should ever force their friends to date someone they don’t want to (i’ve had this happen to me! i had to literally snap at my friend to get her to back off bc i wasn’t going to go to the dance with this one guy who ignored my every rejection and bought us tickets to winter formal, just bc he’s a nice guy and i might like him if i gave him a chance), but i don’t think sj///m could figure out how else to write Mor’s coming out scene, largely bc she has no fucking clue how disgusting the scene we’re given is. the problem with Mor being a lesbian is threefold: 1) she’s a woman who was tortured by her father and left to die bc she was no longer a virgin; 2) Azriel spends centuries lusting after a woman who makes it clear time and again that she does not reciprocate his feelings and yet he cannot take the fucking hint, so much so that sj///m has to now dangle Elain in front of him like a piece of meat to get him to let go of Mor; and 3) sj///m was obviously setting up Mor and Azriel to be an endgame couple in ac0maf, as evidenced both in canon and in her pinterest board:
even stans picked up on it, what with their vocal outrage over how Mor “led Azriel on” for centuries instead of just outing herself to a man she obviously does not feel safe around, and posts like these:
and fanart like this:
the tl;dr of this ramble is this: if you want to write inclusively and respectfully, you have to be 100% aware of everything you’re putting on the page. when people ask for advice on this kind of thing, my first comment is to always say they’re already on the right track bc they’re already thinking of this, rather than being unaware of problems bc a state of unawareness is where the problems begin to appear. Hafsah Faizal has talked about this before on her twitter (i wish i could find the tweet, but this is from eons ago), but if you write a character of color when you yourself are white, you have to be wholly conscious of how your white character talks to this character of color. if the character of color is constantly yelled at or ordered around or ignored by the white character, that’s a big problem. if you write a queer character when you yourself are straight, you have to be conscious of how your queer character comes out, is perceived by the reader, and is treated by the straight character. if the queer character comes out by comparing their bisexuality to forced prostitution, as is the case with Aedion and Lysandra in t0g, that’s a big problem.
the moment you share your work for public consumption, it no longer matters what your intentions are (something sj///m has a lot of trouble understanding, hence why she over-explains everything in her interviews and on tours, not to mention why she force-feeds us her opinion of her characters in canon so we’re forced to share the exact same outlook on them) bc all that matters is what you’ve put down on the page. your words, at that point, have no choice but to speak for themselves, and if they do any of the above, your work is going to come under warranted critique, and unless you learn from that critique and do more than half-assed jobs to write more inclusively and respectfully, you’ll run into the exact same problems that sj///m has with CCity.
#anti sjm#anti ccity#anti acotar#anti tog#long post#stans being stans#writing advice#writing tips#sorta
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Ooooh my god. Read the whole thing it's mind boggling and written by a TRA that doesn't actually know what oppression is
Last month, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon posted a heartfelt video statement online.
She said that she would make a stance to address transphobia in her party, outlining that it ‘is wrong and we must treat it with the zero tolerance we treat racism or homophobia.’
I – like many other Scottish National Party members who left in January – watched in tears.
Yet, I fear that Sturgeon’s words have come too late to undo the SNP’s slide into becoming one of the most concerning hubs of transphobia in Scotland.
When I, a non-binary person, joined the SNP In February 2019, the party felt like a beacon of hope. Scotland had a great LGBTQ+ equalities rating, and Nicola herself, as a life-long feminist and LGBTQ+ ally, was a role model I held in deep respect.
But at just three months in, I felt first-hand the party’s disregard for the safety and wellbeing of trans people.
After I appeared in a short social media video for the SNP’s official student wing, I became the focus of a disproportionately large hate campaign launched by anti-trans activists online. They pored over screenshots of my body shared over Mumsnet, mocking my features, which they found unfeminine.
As I watched the party fail to act as the same activists who attacked me sent thank you cards to SNP politicians like Joanna Cherry for her opposition to trans rights, I never took it upon myself to report what had happened. I was aware of other complaints that had received no response.
That was until I came to a crisis point in 2020 when I was subjected to coordinated, planned abuse by anti-trans activists at a branch meeting I had been invited to.
The leaked branch meeting minutes were seen by The Herald describing, ‘At one point photocopies of men taken from the internet were passed with the comments that they had all been convicted of predatory and paedophilic behaviour against women and girls while self-identifying as women’.
In shock at their actions, I did not look at them all but one picture stood out to me, of a well-known UK trans public figure.
This trans woman had experienced abuse online for her appearance not fitting the patriarchal ideal of what ‘woman’ looks like. Yet they compared her to convicted rapists and paedophiles, just for being who she is.
I couldn’t help but compare it to what happened to me over the SNP Student video; the sheer disgust at our bodies – objects to be ridiculed.
As the night went on that room devolved into a den of transphobia. The minutes detail that anti-trans activists ‘shouted comments of men getting access to women/girls in toilets and changing rooms and raping them and the infiltration of LGBT information in primary schools encouraging children to identify as gay or trans.’
I was too scared to say anything although the branch executive apologised for these activists’ actions and ushered me to safety; it took me three months to summon up the courage to talk publicly about it.
And my fear was justified. Six months after I formally complained, nothing was done. I felt hurt and betrayed when I did not receive the support I should have been able to expect.
I emailed the new National Secretary Stewart Stevenson MSP, setting my intention to leave unless an update on my complaint was provided within two weeks.
He said nothing. And so, I left.
The sad part is many other instances go unreported due to the survivors being too scared to come forward out of fear of harassment. I was not the first trans person to come forward about being abused in the SNP.
Emma Cuthbertson, the former convenor for the party’s official LGBTQ+ wing, said she sent ‘at least 21 complaints’ outlining instances of transphobic abuse she received from other party members to SNP HQ, the national secretary and even Sturgeon herself. She said no one responded and subsequently left to join the Scottish Greens.
The rumbles of bigotry and party inaction came to a crescendo on Tuesday January 26, the day before Holocaust Memorial Day, as prominent SNP MP Joanna Cherry appeared to defend an anti-trans activist whose Twitter account has been suspended for violating its ‘hateful conduct’ policy.
Cherry tweeted claiming that ‘Twitter moderation policies are a violation of #FreeSpeech & your hateful conduct policy does not protect women…As a Member of Parliament I’m calling you out on your sexism & your #HumanRights violations’, which was to me insinuating that sexism led to the account being banned rather than acknowledging the discriminatory remarks aimed at trans and Jewish people.
Last week, the SNP had a reshuffle and dropped Cherry from the front bench – Anne McLaughlin MP has been appointed instead as the party’s spokeswoman on justice and immigration.
Recently, Justice Minister Humza Yousaf submitted highly controversial proposals to the Hate Crime Bill, which seems to enshrine in law the demand of anti-trans activists to be exempt from hate crime regulations when criticising trans people’s identities.
This accumulation of stories shared over social media, to significant outrage, meant it was understandable that a sliver of recognition from Sturgeon in her video was enough to make mytears start.
Watching her was like having two years of fear and silence finally be put into words. I cried out of pain, mourning and exhaustion because I feel this has come too late to heal the harm done to trans people both inside and outwith the party.
At this time, I don’t think the SNP support trans people on our road to an equal and inclusive independent Scotland at all. Trans healthcare was already at crisis levels prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Now, waiting times are at such severe levels that some trans people wait up tothree years just for their first appointment at a Gender Identity Clinic.
Trans women are experiencing an epidemic of Intimate Partner Violence, including domestic and sexual abuse from their partners.
I’ve watched as close friends’ lives have been ruined by these problems, but they seem of little interest to a party in which the mere mention of trans rights acts as a lightning rod for amplifying transphobia, and distracts from the mission of independence. Trans people are tired of having to ‘wheesht for Indy’ (‘wheest’ meaning hush).
It’s a horrible situation. Young people joined the SNP out of hope for a new Scotland and now many are regretting that decision.
Sturgeon has promised change and I believe her to be an ally but until change happens, I cannot see the SNP as a safe space for already marginalised trans people.
The onus is on all of our allies to pressure the SNP leadership to launch an independent, external review of its transphobic culture, with a focus on many ignored instances of discrimination and abuse, before a generation of its activists are lost.
‘We hope our efforts will reaffirm the status of the SNP as great supporters of the LGBT+ movement. The door remains open for Teddy, other trans people and trans allies, should they wish to re-join the party at any time.’
Joanna Cherry QC MP said: ‘I am not aware of anyone in the SNP who wants to undermine the rights of Trans people. As a lesbian, a feminist and a veteran of the struggles for equality I believe that everyone deserves equal protection under the law and I am very proud of the fact that in Scotland we have very good rights-based protections for Trans people.
‘There is currently a debate about changing the Gender Recognition Act in Scotland. Some people have advocated for a policy of self-identification of gender. In response Women have raised legitimate concerns about the impact on their sex-based rights enshrined under the Equalities Act. It is concerning that in this area it is difficult to express a viewpoint without being labelled a transphobe. The Scottish Government’s proposed amendment to the draft Hate Crime bill was designed to ensure that people who wish to discuss women’s sex-based rights would be protected from charges of transphobic hate crime. Without such protections Scotland will end up in breach of Article 10 ECHR which protects the right of free speech.‘
-End of article-
You read that right folx, this idiot is actually saying that women being able to congregate and speak about issues that affect us is hate speech and wants it to be enshrined in law. The trans movement couldn't be any more anti-woman if they tried
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Before anything else, I would like to ask my brothers and sisters in Christ, IN ALL HONESTY, whether I erred in any way in the reply which I offered to this original post (there was also an intermediate reply which I did not include into the screenshots; either way it was OP who replied to me). (@ignorant-against-christians @anscathmarcach @doctorbluesmanreturns @bagheadautist @a-quiche-in-med @anotherpointlessargument @strawberry-milktea and anybody else who might need to chime in, please feel free to PM me if you prefer that to reblogging all this mess.)
And while I'm awaiting that, let's dive right into the last reply and give OP a much-needed reality check. (Translation: let's try to set some things straight for anybody who is willing to listen, since OP has already declared themselves sinless, infallible and above reproach.)
Where are my children growing up that you think they’re not going to be interacting with Christians and being exposed to Christian theology on a daily basis? Hell, my children will have multiple Christian family members, as well as several queer Christian honorary aunts and uncles. Also, you know, a Catholic-educated mom.
It isn't all that much of a good sign when literally the first paragraph in your reply is a mile-long appeal to false authority.
First of all, it is completely inane to consider my response as personally addressed to you. I didn't even reblog it from you or tag you.
Secondly, please accept this PSA: Having Christian friends does not make you an authority on Scripture. Nor does having a Catholic-educated (not even practicing Catholic) mum. In fact, if the state of millennial liberal "Christianity" online is any indication, it is very much a possibility that your "Christian friends" might very well be teaching you that "Yeah, basically atheists are right in all that they say about Christianity, but I'm a good Christian and I love Christ and I don't believe any of that outdated stuff that's in the New Testament!" in which case, yeah, the fact of the matter is that you WON'T be getting an accurate image of orthodox Christian theology from your friends, or from your mother who might very well have prayed her latest Rosary when she graduated high school.
You have completely misunderstood the point of this post if you think the above beliefs (which are overwhelmingly held and spread by Christians and ex-Christian atheists, not Jews) have the same negative effects on Christians that harmful beliefs about Jews have on us.
Right. So, in other words, you didn't want to draw attention to and decry anti-[whatever religion] slander and, in the course of that, also spread awareness of common anti-Judaism lies. You just wanted to compete in Oppression Olympics, and to virtue-signal your victimhood. Yeah, how dare I assume that you wanted the former just like any virtuous human being! HOW DARE I assume that you're not an intellectually dishonest SJW! THE HORROR!!!
Also, nice job pretending that you're "fair" and "not bigoted" when you try to blame CHRISTIANS for the ANTI-CHRISTIAN bigoted lies which are commonly propagated.
And again, the only reason that you think I blamed these beliefs on Jews is, as it seems, because you want me to mean that. Because you want to score oppression points. In reality, I made it perfectly clear that it is of no importance whether the person peddling anti-Christian slander is Jewish, atheist or whatever else; but that is something which either you missed entirely or you deliberately refuse to acknowledge.
Christians might not be uniquely bigoted, but you damn well are uniquely powerful in western countries, and with that comes unique responsibility, to paraphrase Uncle Ben.
Why didn't you just go the full "Check your Christian privilege, we live in a Christian hegemony, one can't be bigoted against Christians, a minority cannot oppress a majority, PREJUDICE PLUS POWER!" route from the get-go so we can know where we are standing, then?
This is a perfect example of why I shall always insist that
At the Oppression Olympics, nobody wins.
Because you looked at my response and you immediately saw not a complementing opinion (which it is), but a competing one. You saw an opponent, and in your mind you cannot be anything short of 100% right a priori, because of course it's a competition. Of course oppression and injustice are a zero-sum game.
Only in real life, THEY ARE NOT.
Any rational Christian, and any rational Jew, is horrified both by anti-Christian and by anti-Jewish bigotry. You, on the other hand, insist upon trying to find the "bigger victim" at all costs. And from your reply, it seems fairly certain that you had no rational reason to do that. You just wanted to downplay the injustices and slander which is aimed against Christians. It almost reads as if you vehemently refuse to even remotely sympathise.
By the way, I think that Devin Kelley, Chris Mercer, and Floyd Corkins (among others) might be some names which ought to debunk your opinion that anti-Christian bigotry has no tangible real-life effects.
Oh, but I forgot. "Prejudice plus power"...
I have every intention of teaching my children about different religions, but this reply was obviously in bad faith and just about jacking off your persecution complex as part of the poor, downtrodden 80% majority.
THERE WE HAVE IT!!! THERE IT IS!!! I F***ING CALLED IT. HEAVEN FORFEND IF IT DOESN'T HAPPEN ONCE. "A majority cannot be oppressed!!!! PERSECUTION COMPLEX!!!"
At this point, your rhetoric is barely distinguishable from an "AtheiSJW bingo" of sorts, or from the inane hate asks that we get at anti-christophobia...
I don't know why I expected any better. Maybe because I DARED to assume the best about you. Yeah, what a heinous thing to do...
And OF COURSE it must be true that I came into this in bad faith. Of course. Why? Because you say so. Because it's a JACKPOT for you. You've found before yourself the perfect chance to set the scene with me as "Le Mr. Evil Bigoted Christian" and score brownie points, and BY GOLLY you aren't going to let such an opportunity go to waste!! I mean, WHO EVEN CARES about such trivial technicalities such as TRUTH...
..........and in the wake of all this, you have the gall to accuse ME of playing Oppression Olympics???
Can your projection and intellectual dishonesty get any worse?
And the PERFECT FINALE of inimitable intellectual and moral superiority:
Do not interact with this post further.
Classic pigeon chess strategy. No comment needed.
-
Again, for what I have done amiss in this whole story, I apologise sincerely. My mistakes, however, do not bar me from calling out the errors of others and defending myself against unsubstantiated charges or pointing out their bigoted behaviour.
As for the potential few idiots who shall hasten to accuse of antisemitism (for whatever contrived BS reason their sick brains might conjure), do not even bother. Antisemitism is one of the many kinds of bigotry which I have decried in the past and shall continue to decry, and thus I do not automatically become guilty of the same bigotry just because I do not self-flagellate for being Christian and I refuse to bow down to your short-sighted, sociopathic cultural Marxist dogma of competitive victimhood.
God bless you all.
UPDATE: A few mere hours later and OF COURSE another Bingo square was checked off: I have been blocked. Should I pretend to be surprised?
#teamblocked#oppression Olympics#pigeon chess strategy#christophobia#anti sjw#personal post archive#muh persecution complex#muh bad faith
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Divulge Your Secrets To Me, Starkson
Parkner Week 2020, Prompt 2: “And I said, ‘no’, you know, like a liar”
Available on: AO3
SUMMARY: Harley can’t stand Peter putting himself in danger constantly, so he puts on a suit. As, expected, Peter finds out his secret very quickly.
Although not easily visible, Harley doesn’t have better impulse control than Tony. Harley regularly spends consecutive days in his lab unless Peter is around to bully him into bed.
But Peter isn’t around always, not with his responsibility as a stupid teenage vigilante. Harley hates it. How he has to see his best friend get to work and handle shit that it way above his pay-grade, just because the avengers have gone rouge and Tony can’t handle everything on his own.
Harley lets his frustration spur him on, even though it’s 3 in the morning and he’s only had a few nutri-bars in the last six hours, with infinite cups of coffee.
Harley hates that Peter isn’t here to take him back to his room. He hates that his best friend has to go out even when he should be at home recovering from his last fight with some stupid evil scientist.
Harley finally puts down his interface and staring at the finalised schematics F.R.I.D.A.Y. complies and pulls up.
The design looks nice. It’s a sleek suit, much lighter than Tony’s suit, mostly to be used for canvassing and running disturbances.
The blue and gold colour is Harley’s favourite thing. A mix of Peter and Tony’s suits.
Then, he hears Tony’s thrusters outside and quickly packs up his work and heads to Tony’s landing point.
Tony’s carrying an injured Peter. Harley tries to hide his flinch, but Peter’s situation is not surprising. The idiot had gone into battle the newest threat, some weird insects that make out of the sewers, with recently fixed ribs.
Harley clenches his fist at his side. He feels helpless, unable to take care of his best friend and it hurts more than he’s willing to admit.
Tony nods at him in passing before walking down to the med-bay, to take care of Peter. Harley takes a few deep breaths and follows the pair after a moment.
----x----
Peter is sleeping, having been dosed with a strong mix of specially manufactured sleeping pills.
Harley takes Tony to the lab.
“I’ve done something.”
Tony quirks an eyebrow in mirth, “Oh, what have you fucked up now?”
Harley shakes his head, “This is serious, Tony.”
He pulls up the schematics. Tony stares at them for a moment before asking softly, “Let me guess, you haven’t told Peter?”
Harley doesn’t answer, which is an answer in and of itself.
Tony pulls up different screens to look at the subtler parts of the suit.
“It’s for running interference?”
Harley nods, “Small, compact, fast. I can distract whatever’s running around long enough for Pete to get back on his feet.”
Tony nods, “So, you aren’t going to focus on the feelings that are making you do this?”
Harley looks away, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Tony huffs, “Alright, fine. I won’t tell Peter about this.”
---x----
Thankfully the new alerts they have come only after Peter has healed fully and had a few days of rest. Though close calls, Tony and Peter are able to get out of the situation with almost zero damage, Harley doesn’t go out to help them.
Then, a threat shows up, which is much worse than the worst Peter has tackled. Some sort of wizard magic voodoo cult that’s making buildings turn in on themselves.
Harley only waits for a moment after Tony and Peter have left, to suit up. He asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. to link him up to their comms and flies out.
The cultists send flattening waves of orange energy at whatever crosses their paths, making even humans look like characters from Minecraft.
Tony is tied up by a thick iron post on the corner of a crossing.
Tony tries to tie them up in his witty smart talk as Peter hides in the corner and webs up the different members who are standing a little further from the group.
Harley circles around the crossing where the cult leader is walking towards Tony calmly, his lack of emotion scares Harley more than his weird magic.
Peter yells into the comms, “Tony, there’s another suit here!”
Tony replies gruffly, between trying to distract the cult leader and break free of the iron post, “Yeah. Welcome the new avenger, kid.”
Peter has effectively neutralised all the other cultists. But he isn’t as discreet while trying to web up the leader.
The man turns around just as the web makes contact with his body. He grabs the web which is attached to his shoulder and pulls it clean off.
The web has hardened by now and only Steve Rogers has been able to break out of the webs with his strength.
What the fuck kind of a man is this guy?
He emits a soft orange light and manipulates the web before Peter can let it go. Harley looks on in horror for a moment as the man uses the manipulated web to throw Peter into a wall.
Just as Peter gets thrown in the wall, Harley flies in and blasts a repulsor at the man. What happens next freaks Harley out.
The man keeps a hold on the web that’s holding Peter and turns his head around like an owl. He glares at Harley, who shoots repulsors at him, which bounce off a weird shield he puts up.
The man lets go of the web and turns to face Harley fully. Harley circles him, blasting repulsors at him, hoping to buy both Tony and Peter sometime.
But the man is quicker than Harley. He waves his hand around and makes sparks fly which throw Harley into the wall right next to Tony.
Harley only registers the fact that this new hole in the wall allows Tony to break free of the iron post.
Even keeping his eyes open hurts. Harley tries to get comfortable in the rubble best he can. The interface of the suit keeps flashing lights.
Almost everything in the suit is broken. Harley sighs sullenly. So much for helping Tony and Peter.
A thundering sound jolts Harley awake. When he’s aware enough to focus, Harley realises that the previously AWOL Thor is back.
The man starts throwing his hammer at the cult man, which actually starts to cause some damage.
Even though he’s failed, Harley breaths a sigh of relief. He’s about to close his eyes again when Peter crawls into his hole in the wall.
Peter asks softly, “Are you Harley?”
Harley groans internally. He couldn’t even make it one full day without being caught out.
He hopes that his voice interface is working well as he answers in the most confused voice he can manage, “No.”
Thankfully it works. Harley sounds more like a middle-aged suburban dad.
Peter shakes his head, “Nothing. Sorry, let’s get you out of here.”
Harley groans out loud then. God knows how many bones he’s just broken. This is beginning to feel like a comfortable place to spend the rest of his life.
Peter slowly helps him come out of the hole, carrying most of his body weight.
When they finally come out of the building’s side, the cult man is tied up in glowy magical ties and Thor is loudly and profusely apologising to Tony.
Peter softly asks him, “So, then what is your name?”
Harley doesn’t know how to answer that, but, unknowingly Thor comes to his rescue.
The god yells at him, “Oh, Tony you have a son! There now an Iron Lad. Congratulations Tony!”
Harley looks at Peter and replies with a fancy accent, “I’m Iron Lad, of course!”
Maybe it’s because of the mask, but Harley thinks that Peter doesn’t smile fully at his response.
---x---
When they reach the tower, F.R.I.D.A.Y. scans him from outside the suit. Harley tries to sell his need for a ‘secret-identity’ to them.
Peter nods shortly and walks out, giving an excuse about fixing his suit. Harley heaves a sigh of relief.
As soon as Peter is gone. Harley asks F.R.I.D.A.Y. to stop recording wherever he is till his suit is put away and to tell Peter that he’s sleeping in his room.
Then, Harley goes into the medbay, which is thankfully empty. He doesn’t have any broken or cracked bones, just a lot of cuts and lacerations across his body.
When he had been thrown into the building, he’d gone into the glass wall first, which had cracked into tiny chips that had entered his suit.
Even though Harley’s muscles ache, he likes how well his suit held out.
Harley’s in the middle of cleaning out his cuts when the door to the medbay opens without any warning.
He hisses in pain and looks up. Thankfully it’s just Thor, but Harley doesn’t trust the man to keep his mouth shut.
Thor starts the conversation, “I know you wanted solitude, however, I wanted to congratulate you on how protective you are of your beloved and how well you took care of him.”
Harley rolls his eyes, “Yeah, if you call him dragging me around good protection; then sure, I gave him the best protection.”
As the words leave Harley’s mouth, he realises what he’s admitted to. Harley adds uselessly, “But he’s not my beloved or anything like that.”
Thor chortles, “As you would call it, this is a lmao moment.”
Harley cringes, “Never say that again.”
Thor’s laughter dies down. He doesn’t speak again till Harley’s putting away the bottles of anti-septics and the cotton.
Thor comments rather seriously, “I know you are under a lot of pressure, Starkson, be assured that if you decide to open up to me, I wouldn’t divulge those secrets ever.”
Harley wants to make a snarky comment about not being Tony’s kid, but he grabs the opportunity. Thoe is serious enough to not make fun of him or say I told you so, unlike all his friends and Tony.
So, he starts from the beginning. The day he met Peter at the penthouse when they’d come together to get Tony out of his lab and make him feel better.
Something almost like guilt passes over Thor’s face at the revelation, which Harley files away for right now.
He tells the god about how he knew at that moment that Peter was going to be someone special for him.
---x---
Even though he’s been ranting for what feels like hours, Thor doesn’t seem bored. Maybe boredom becomes different when you’ve lived a thousand years.
Harley sighs and continues, they’ve reached the end of the story anyway. Harley continues pacing the medbay, his back to the door.
“So, he climbs in, and asks me, in his softest, introducing-myself-to-strangers kind of voice, ‘Are you Harley?’. Ughhh, man, I hated that. How is he so quick? And I said ‘no’, you know, like a liar...”
When Harley looks up, it’s to see Thor surprised and apprehensive face. Harley rolls his eyes, the last thing he needed right now.
And his gut feeling is right. Peter is standing in the door of the medbay, eyes flashing in anger.
Thor gives some excuse that Harley doesn’t even register, before booking it out of the room.
Peter walks forward, “What the fuck is this?”
Harley cringes internally. Hearing Peter swear is always uncomfortable, because even Peter’s discomfort is visible on his face.
Harley ignores the dread in the pit of his stomach and snarks back, “What the fuck is what?”
Peter motions to his body, “This. The cuts. Don’t act like you didn’t just lie to me.”
Harley clenches his jaw, “So what if I did?”
Peter shakes his head in anger, “We don’t do that, Harley! We don’t lie to each other-”
Harley interrupts because he isn’t taking the blame for this shit, “Oh really then tell me, what is it that we do? Am I always supposed to wait for you at the tower while you fight some weirdo and get hurt in the most horrible ways?”
Peter sighs and runs his hand eyes his eyes, “Nobody’s asking you to stay here Harley...”
Harley yells in reply, now he’s on a track, “Oh really? Peter look me in the eye and tell me that if I’d have told you, you wouldn’t have tried to bully me out of it. I need to protect you, Peter. I need-”
Peter snaps, “Oh shut up. You need this and you need that. What about what I need from you, huh? I need to keep you safe, you doofus. You’re not some enhanced person. I can walk away from being thrown head-first into a building,” he points at Harley’s bruises and cuts, “You can’t.”
Harley rolls his eyes, “Why do you need to take care of me, Peter?”
Peters huffs, “Because I love you, okay? I don’t care about anyone other than you, Tony, May and our friends. I know it’s sudden and I know it sounds crazy, but I love you. Again I can’t be the one who gets my family into trouble or gets them hurt again, okay?”
Harley thinks his heart is about to beat straight out of his chest, “Y-You love me?”
Peter sighs, “Yeah, I know it’s awkward, you don’t need to let me down or anything like that.”
Harley asks softly, “But what if I don’t let you down?”
Peter replies with a confused question, “What?”
Harley huffs, “Why are you so sure that I’m going to let you down?”
Peter flounders through a response and Harley can’t take it anymore. He removes the space between them with two swift steps and pulls Peter into himself, giving the short brown-haired boy a soft kiss.
Peter kisses him back.
They only let go of each other when Harley starts to lose his breath. Peter smiles like an idiot, but Harley isn’t sure that he’s not doing the same thing.
After a moment, Harley asks him. “Does this mean you won’t crib about me being in the suit anymore?”
Peter shakes his head, “Oh? Was this cribbing? You don’t know what you’re in for next.”
Harley groans, but pulls the shorter boy into his side, “Okay, I’ll listen to your lecture, but after a good night’s sleep.”
Peter nods, “Alright, let’s go.”
The pair make their way up to the penthouse and flop onto Harley’s bed together, fast asleep as soon as they hit the bed.
#parkner week 2020#harley keener#iron lad#peter parker#spiderman#tony stark#ironman#harley keener x peter parker#parkner
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Flamethrower’s Alleged Harassment
What’s going on?
deadcatwithaflamethrower has suggested she is the victim of a targeted campaign of harassment, and along the way she’s used some antisemitic dogwhistles, which would be problematic on its own, but is especially insidious IMO given the topic of the alleged harassment.
I am positive that I am one of the people she says harassed her, though I maintain I did no such thing.
I’m going to attempt to provide the fullest accounting of these events possible, with the caveat that I simply don’t have copies of a few key pieces of evidence.
If you’re going to follow along, I ask you read all the screenshots and quotations carefully, because the details do matter if you want a complete picture.
The first two sections are background info for those unaware of a few relevant facts. The issue of alleged harassment follows.
Jewish Snape
Flamethrower has written a long, serial HP fic called Of a Linear Circle. In it, Severus Snape is portrayed as Jewish. While his Jewishness is touched upon in multiple chapters across multiple parts of the series, this is how it is introduced:
“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”
Severus rolls his eyes and taps the bridge of his nose. “It isn’t obvious?”
Nizar gives him a baffled look. “What does your nose have to do with it?”
“It’s a…stereotype.” Severus grimaces at Nizar’s continued look of confusion, but he still meets older adults who’ve never heard the word used that way. “Racism.”
“Oh. Idiots,” Nizar mutters. “Besides, if you wanted to see some truly horrific examples of nasal protuberances, you’d find yourself a Viking who’d had their nose broken four or five times.”
I applaud including Jewish characters in fic, even in the case where they are not Jewish in canon. Positive portrayals of Jewish characters should be encouraged throughout fandom.
Picking Snape to be the character from Harry Potter to reframe as Jewish is a complicated choice, because of the vile and enduring antisemitic stereotype relating to Jewish people having large, ugly noses.
Consider the following quote spoken by the Marauder’s Map in POA:
Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business.
Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.
Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.
Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.
Leaning into a stereotype is a difficult choice. It’s not bad, but it should be handled with some thought. IMO you either need to ignore the canon association with Snape’s nose, or you need to deliberately deconstruct it.
Flamethrower did neither. This by itself I would not say is antisemitic, merely clumsy. She went to great efforts to portray Snape’s Jewishness positively, and I honestly applaud that.
But I know I’m not the only person who encountered it and was uncomfortable with the antisemitic stereotype being on display so clumsily. Not that I thought it meant flamethrower or her fic were antisemitic, just that this particular use of a stereotype was uncomfortable.
A Thread about Hebrew
Of a Linear Circle is heavily concerned with linguistics. It features discussions of many languages, including Hebrew. One of those discussions contains an error, a faulty transliteration. This is a minor mistake, and in a fic with so many linguistic discussions, some mistakes would happen for even a true polyglot.
The problem is that when a Jewish fan commented with a polite suggestion of a fix to the error, flamethrower proceeded to Goysplain both Hebrew and the Shoah to her.
It’s not a good look. It’s arrogant and condescending. By itself, though, it’s not antisemitic, just an author being a little too defensive and overbearing. But it’s there, and more than a few Jewish fans noticed it because flamethrower has promoted the fact that Snape is Jewish in this fic.
Where the Harassment Supposedly Begins
At some point, a Jewish fan (who implicitly identifies herself as such later), leaves a comment on the chapter of flamethrower’s fic with the potentially upsetting antisemitic nose stereotype.
The request is for a tag or warning of some kind for the comment, just so it doesn’t take readers by surprise. Perhaps requesting the fic as a whole be tagged with “antisemitism” is a step too far and would seem bizarre, but the gist of the comment is a request for a content warning. Flamethrower could have sorted out a note or a less inflammatory tag if she cared to do so, but she never replied to this comment.
The fact that she didn’t reply to this comment doesn’t matter really. She gets a lot of fic comments, so the idea she missed one or didn’t feel like replying isn’t the issue.
But this comment was left on August 10, and when it received no response for a week, I believe the same fan sent flamethrower an ask on the same topic, which is where the saga of supposed harassment begins.
The Ask
The text of the ask was as follows:
HI! I LEFT YOU A COMMENT RECENTLY ON YOUR FIC OF A LINEAR CIRCLE, BUT I CAN SEE YOU WERE VERY BUSY AND PROBABLY DIDN'T SEE IT. I HOPE YOU DON'T MIND ME ASKING, BUT WOULD YOU MIND TAGGING IT FOR THE ANTISEMITIC HUMOR IN IT? I KNOW IT WAS MEANT IN GOOD FAITH AND YOU HAD A JEWISH FRIEND CONSULT, BUT NOT ALL JEWS ARE COMFORTABLE WITH JOKING ABOUT STEROTYPES, AND FOR THOSE OF US THAT AREN'T, A LITTLE WARNING WOULD BE VERY KIND. THANK YOU!— queried by heatherly84
I consider this fairly innocuous and polite. As I said above, perhaps the reasonable outcome wasn’t the exact tag suggested, or even a tag at all--maybe a note in the intro notes of the chapter warning for it would have sufficed.
But this is how flamethrower responded:
So, because you had a single moment of twinge due to a child character’s self-consciousness regarding their appearance and their religion as they struggle to come to terms with stereotypes they face every day…you want me to add a tag to my fic that will see it immediately black-listed as anti-semitic even though it’s absolutely nothing of the sort.
No. No, I will not.
I am not here to gatekeep your internet experience. If that moment made you uncomfortable, you should a) think about what the character was going through instead of expecting it to be the author being a dick, and b) click your back button.
EDIT: No, wait. I’m not done.
What really gets me here is that you are asking me to tag a scene as anti-Semitic when this underconfident Jewish-born child, already dealing with horrible stereotyping, is promptly reassured by an Adult that there is nothing wrong with his faith or his appearance, and said child shouldn’t put stock into the people doing the stereotyping.
You want me to tag something as Bad that is meant to be enouragement for anyone in that position, a common theme in YA lit.
Are you sure it’s the perceived anti-Semitism that’s the problem, or is it something else entirely?
I saw the ask and flamethrower’s response shortly after it was posted on her tumblr. To say I found the response troubling is an understatement.
Flamethrower condescends to a fan asking, not for any substantive change or edit to the fic, but to a mere content warning.
Flamethrower presumes to tell someone how they must feel about the handling of antisemitic stereotypes in a fic, which would be bullshit even if she didn’t handle this particular antisemitic stereotype so clumsily.
Flamethrower accuses the fan of some secret and malicious motive because she, the author, is overly defensive.
Particularly considering the topic of antisemitism, I found the response wanting, so I decided I should say something.
The Submission
In an attempt to convey to Flamethrower that the concerns about the antisemitic stereotyping of Snape’s nose wasn’t the concern of a single fan, and to try to open a dialogue and point out some other missteps I felt she had made in the general region of Jewish representation in fandom and antisemitism, I decided to send her a submission.
I am an ancient member of fandom from the days of usenet and livejournal, and to be honest I just never got tumblr, so I had to create an account solely for this purpose. I’m sure that makes me sound like a bizarre dinosaur, but it’s the truth. And I created this account and wrote up a submission to flamethrower and sent it in.
Admittedly, my tone was a little sharp in a few places due to very genuine frustration, but as I tried to make clear, I was trying to appeal to her to do better, not simply condemn, and definitely not harass.
The following is the full and exact text of my submission to flamethrower:
I feel that you're being deeply disingenuous. You introduced Snape being a Jew in your fic with the following lines:
“I didn’t know you were Jewish.”
Severus rolls his eyes and taps the bridge of his nose. “It isn’t obvious?”
And a Jewish person rather politely asked you to mark it as referencing antisemitic stereotypes, because holy fuck you made a character whose nose is remarkably large in canon Jewish and leaned into that in. Sure, you followed it with a joke about Viking noses, but that's not the deconstruction you seem to think it is. It's just a handwave that accomplishes nothing.
That, by itself, I could maybe give a pass, but then there's this comment thread: https://archiveofourown.org/comments/113294382
Someone tells you they're Jewish and gives you a bit of helpful advice about a bit of Hebrew linguistics that you have absolutely and totally wrong; it's not something, as you suggest in your replies, that varies with regions. It's universally understood, but you talk over the person whose cultural language you're using as if you know better.
But the part that really crosses the line is that you say the following in your scramble to throw shit against the wall to insist you could be right:
Then there are the parlances common to specific groups that are just fucking GONE because of the Holocaust, and we don't have any way now to know how they might have said certain words.
You Goysplain the Shoah to a Jew.
If you actually care as deeply about positive representations of Jewish characters in fandom as you say you do, maybe listening to actual critiques from actual Jews should be a thing you do, instead of reacting defensively and shutting them down.
Also, please never refer to a person as "Jewish sidekick" again, as you did in that thread. Unpacking the baggage there would take a separate submission.
I'm taking the time to write this out, perhaps foolishly, because I hope you're sincere about caring and will actually listen. Shutting down the voices of Jewish people is not a part of portraying Jewishness positively in fandom. I hope you can see that and will listen and do better.
She posted and responded to this. I don’t have a screenshot of her response, nor do I have the full text because of how quickly she deleted it, but I do have a partial quote of her response:
However, you did accuse a Jewish woman by proxy of Goysplaining, which I find incredibly insulting on my best friend’s behalf. (She wants her name left out of it for anxiety reasons, and given how this is probably going to turn into a huffing and puffing Drag Down The Evil Witch Goyim thing, I don’t blame her.)
This bit of rhetorical gymnastics on her part served an interesting and infuriating purpose. I objected to her refusing to listen to actual Jewish fans trying to tell her things on multiple occasions, and I also criticized her use of the “I can’t have done anything wrong, my best friend is Jewish,” defense. Here she doubled down on that defense, essentially saying the person she has referred to on multiple occasions as her “Jewish Sidekick” insulates her from all possible problematic statements re: Jewishness.
The rest of her response was equally inane, but as I can’t quote it directly in her own words, I can’t justify saying more about it.
A Second, Unpublished Ask
As I mentioned above, I’ve never really used Tumblr. The difference between submitting posts and submitting asks confused me. I knew the original request for a content warning tag was an ask and that I’d done a post. I was afraid I should have sent an ask instead.
I was also rereading her response to heatherly84, and I was annoyed that she didn’t get why the joke about Snape’s nose wasn’t okay.
So I sent in an ask before my submission was posted and responded to.
I don’t have the text of my ask, but I give flamethrower permission to post it in full if she chooses. I recall saying two things:
1) In the form of a question, I tried to walk her through understanding why the joke about Snape’s nose could still read as antisemitic.
2) I acknowledged I’d sent the submission, and said I would prefer she respond to it, since it was more detailed.
Perhaps I committed some terrible tumblr faux pas in submitting a post and an ask on the same topic closely together and that constitutes harassment.
I suspect the former is true but the latter is not.
Flamethrower Deletes Posts and Claims Harassment
In a matter of minutes after flamethrower posts my submission and her response, she deletes it. A new post goes up.
I have to assume the combination of two asks and a submission is what she is saying is harassment. You’ve seen the text of one ask and one post, so hopefully you’ll agree one ask was very polite and the post was slightly terse but A) not harassment, B) not an ad hominem attack, C) and a list of reasons why she was wrong to do certain things, not a list of reasons why she as a person was awful. I maintain the unpublished ask is in the same vein, and she is free to publish it in full if she chooses.
Then she begins posting more, and her claims about what she was sent escalate.
Here we have what is called a dogwhistle: she’s not saying evil Jews are conspiring against her to make her look bad. However, in response to criticisms of potentially antisemitic behavior, she falls back on the trope of “devious” Jews in a malicious conspiracy. This is problematic, and I will say flat out it is antisemitic.
She also misrepresents what was going on: Jewish fans asking her to listen to them without being condescending. Jewish fans asking for a single content warning.
I believe at this point I sent either another ask or submission, with the gist being, “If you’re going to post about things I submitted to your tumblr and characterize them a certain way, I would appreciate it if you reposted them so viewers could judge for themselves whether what you’re saying is accurate.”
Continuing to engage was a mistake, clearly.
Her vague posting with the context hidden continued.
And she ends by going full non-sequitur.
She never raised not wanting to attract white supremacists and Nazis as a reason to avoid a warning tag.
She condescended and attacked and told a Jewish fan her reactions were invalid.
If flamethrower cared about Jewish representation in fandom, opposing antisemitism, and Jewish fans, she could have compromised with some sort of warning in some fashion.
Even if she were absolutely opposed to a warning of any kind, she could have not condescended and invalidated the experiences of Jewish fans trying to speak with her.
Even if she couldn’t do that, she could have avoided deleting all context and then going on a posting spree that suggests an evil Jewish conspiracy is harassing her.
The only conclusions I can draw from all of this are as follows:
1) Engaging with flamethrower as a person who cares about Jewish fans is a mistake, because she cares more about presenting herself as an authority on Jewish experiences to non-Jewish fans than she does to listening to any critique, no matter how minor or polite, from a Jewish fan.
2) Flamethrower is happy to oppose antisemitism in the shallowest possible way to pat herself on the back and seek congratulations from others, but the second she’s in conflict with actual Jewish people, she resorts to vague and just barely deniable antisemitism herself.
3) Flamethrower is unable to accept anything she perceives as criticism, no matter how kindly it’s presented, because she’s too invested in presenting herself as the absolute expert on every topic she has passingly researched for a fic. Her defensiveness over a trivial topic is merely odd, but on more serious topics, it becomes problematic.
4) No one has harassed flamethrower, and nothing she is construing as harassment is part of a “setup” or conspiracy.
5) I probably don’t know how to use Tumblr properly.
Edited to Add: What I Think Is a Lie
I have been refreshing flamethrower’s tumblr nearly non-stop since this began, as have several people I know. Unless the offer of a different tag occurred in a private message, I am confident in saying it is a lie, particularly given her instant negative reaction to the very idea as shown above. If screencaps are provided, I will of course retract this and apologize.
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you clearly know NOTHING about homophobia. look up "anti sodomy" laws. none of them EVER condemn penis in vagina sex.
Hello anon. I actually have no idea what you’re talking about, but that obviously makes two of us, because you clearly don’t know what you’re talking about either.
So, let’s go through this one point at a time.
To begin... “you clearly know NOTHING about homophobia.”
Firstly, that’s a massive assumption to make about someone you don’t know. It’s also utterly incorrect. I’ve been called ‘faggot’, ‘homo’, ‘queer’, ‘freak’ ... etc etc etc in anonymous comments on here so many times I’ve lost count and I no longer waste my time responding to them. I’ve been told things such as ‘your blog should be banned’ because I ‘have no moral standards’ and apparently I am ‘normalising’ homosexuality. Laughingly, many of these comments were the result of me posting photographs of flowers and tagging them with things such as ‘oh look, more flowers! I’m gay, what did you expect!?!’ Yeah, I know, I was really pushing the ‘gay agenda’ with that one! Others were because I wrote a long, supportive reply to an anon who was struggling with coming out as gay to their family. One of those claimed ‘whats worse is you use your photos to make them [the children] admire you and then you preach your faggot filth’. As back-handed compliments go, that’s a particular favourite of mine. :) Others still were in response to comments I’ve made in which I’ve mentioned I’m gay, comments in support of other gay people, etc etc. The list goes on, and that’s just on here.
In the world away from tumblr (yes anon, there really is one!), I’ve been openly gay since I was in my teens. I’ve been physically and verbally attacked for it so often that while I’m still saddened by people’s behaviour, I’m no longer even remotely surprised by it.
I grew up in one of the less salubrious areas of London. While there were open minded people who were accepting of everything and everyone, sadly they were far more of a minority than the one I found myself in the moment I came out as gay. More often I encountered ignorant, violent, cowardly people who derived some sort of sick pleasure from discrimination. Racist, homophobic, transphobic, sexist, discriminatory bullies. Recently a group of men on a London bus attempted to make two gay women kiss one another. When the women refused the men beat them up. Sadly the only thing that makes this attack stand out from any of the many others that happen every single day was that this one got some news coverage.I get called ‘faggot’ so many times I’m surprised my dog doesn’t answer to it (maybe he’s not read any Pavlov). I can move the bridge of my nose from side to side because it’s set that way after being broken so many times by people punching me in the face (for being openly gay). I’ve been spat on for holding my boyfriend’s hand. I’ve had to leave a restaurant and several pubs, not because of the way my friends and I, or my boyfriend and I were behaving but because those yelling insults at us were frightening the other patrons and the staff were less afraid of throwing us out than standing up to them. My motorbikes and my car were vandalised so many times it was cheaper for me to rent a garage than to keep paying for repairs to the bodywork.
That’s just some of it. There’s more; there’s much more, but I’ll spare you the rest. What I’ve said there should be enough to give you a general idea of how much NOTHING I know about homophobia, firsthand.
I work as a counsellor. Many of my clients are similarly discriminated against. Many are going through far worse than anything I’ve mentioned here. Despite your assumptions regarding my lack of knowledge of homophobia, one of the things I’ve learned about it and about any form of discrimination is that it says far, far more about the person doing the discrimination than it does about the person, people, or group who are being discriminated against. Discrimination is a hate-crime that cannot be justified. I’ll say that again.
Discrimination is a hate-crime that cannot be justified.
It is one thing to have an opinion (even if that opinion is a negative one); it is a whole other thing to feel the need to use that opinion to make others unhappy or afraid simply because of their sexuality, their gender, the colour of their skin, etc etc. To do so is to spread hatred and fear, and more hatred and fear is the last thing society needs. If you can’t offer acceptance, then you’re the one who’s lacking in understanding, empathy and decency; you’re the one who ‘clearly knows NOTHING’ about homophobia or any other form of discrimination. If that’s the case? Please do everyone (yourself included) a favour and if you’re truly unable to let go of your hate, at least keep it to yourself.
Moving on... “look up anti-sodomy laws.”
I don’t actually need to; I have done, many times, for a variety of reasons. What’s your point?
And you finish with... “none of them EVER condemn penis in vagina sex.”
Anon, were you drunk when you wrote this? Are you really of the opinion that this wonderful piece of contradiction proves whatever it is you are attempting to prove?
“look up anti-sodomy laws. none of them EVER condemn penis in vagina sex.”
Oh. My. God. Where do I even begin? Probably with stopping laughing, because it’s making it difficult to type.Ok... so, sodomy is (by definition of most dictionaries) anal sex. (Anal sex between men and women, men and men, etc etc.) It can also refer to oral sex and can even be expanded to include bestiality. To sum it up: sodomy is any sexual act that is not engaged in for the purpose of procreation. It is not specific to homosexual men. I am definitely a homosexual man and I have never felt the need to get it on with my dog, or any other animal, for that matter!
So (and I can’t believe I am having to explain this to you), obviously it is not going to include penis in vagina sex UNLESS it is possible to prove that the penis in vagina sex in question is not for the purpose of procreation, ie to beget or generate offspring. (That means having babies, by the way.)
Your brilliant piece of ‘logic’ there is like saying ‘look up the laws on drunk driving. None of them EVER condemn walking home drunk.’ No shit, Sherlock!
So um... thanks so much for that brilliant bit of insight you felt the need to share with me, Anon. My life is so much richer now. I see the error of my ways, and it’s all because of your genius.
Thank you so much.
PS: what exactly did I do to deserve you sharing your wisdom with me? Honestly, I feel as though Ghandi just came back from the grave to have a deep, meaningful and spiritual conversation with me.
Was it because I said that if I dated a transguy it wouldn’t make me straight? If it was could you take your utter stupidity and your transphobic hatred somewhere else, please? You might have more luck with people who are more stupid than you (if you can find any, of course) or with other transphobes who are so relieved to find idiots that agree with them that they’ll overlook your IQ and welcome you into the fold.
Thanks again Anon, (I always appreciate a good laugh!) Have a good night.
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Why Internet Justice is NEVER fair: An example-
TikTok, basically Vine and Musically’s derpy lovechild, yet as of recently, a place of rising tension, drama, abuse, and constant “My POV of the situation” videos.
Mob mentality: prevalent in society both on and offline, basically whatever you do, say, see will be sliced into a number of pieces and divided amongst hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions and whether you were right, wrong, innocent or guilty, those people, will have an opinion and either take your side wholeheartedly or be against that side or even just not care and be on their own island of “Leave me the fuck out of it”. Can’t blame them, I’m the same most days, unless it’s juicy or I’m just bored and need something to read/judge because as you can tell by my blog, I do not get out much, even before Corona.
The reason for this post? Because I’m pissed.
Why? Because the internet, as always, well, social media, well, TikTok, Well, life generally but we can slap that ass later.
Over the last week, I’ve seen posts about abuse, cheating, manipulation, harassment, all that, and while watching those coming out to present their evidence, I looked at the comments and saw all these people, dismissing them, their evidence, their physical proof/snapshots/convos/pics/etc, these users, were getting laughed at, brushed off, told they wanted/encouraged said abuse/harassment because of what they did for a living, what they didn’t, how they acted and spoke and dressed, even for characters they cosplayed, and I was just sat there, wanting to smash through my ipad and address these idiots because god knows if it was them, they wouldn’t be saying shit like “What do you expect when you make ‘insert character here’ content?” if it was them, and I get that, everyone can be a hypocrite but we do so much to help and support victims of abuse/harassment/assault to come out and get justice, that people thinking this response is fine is just, utterly astounding, it blows my mind how the internet can be so pro, yet also, incredibly, violently anti to anybody, anybody, ironically, mostly those trying to actually get help/support.
The internet is as dangerous a place as it is amazing, and I guess, that’s the thing, pros, and cons, good and bad.....fair and unfair.
Now lemme say a thing, lemme tell you a story that adds to this whole theme:
A few years ago, I was a blog on here, left for so long and came back late last year after being away following a military-grade assault on my account via a bunch of rad stans who decided I was annoying/outspoken enough that they needed to get rid of me whatever way possible, which lead to me being hacked, accused of being a pedophile, assaulting one of their friends (On the other side of the world, even tho I was beyond broke, anxious af and could hardly stand human touch by anyone, including my own family), being a racist, gay fetishist, using my gender identity/sexuality to avoid justice, lying about my parents being dead (They liked to call me adopted/a runway/kicked out because nobody wanted me, lots of lovely things), sexualizing everything (Minors, animals, etc), these people went after my friends, some of whom, were victims of abuse/assault/violence themselves, they received messages similar to the comments in the Tiktok posts, one who was even a victim of child abuse, received sickening messages about how they wanted/deserved it, someone who simply refused to listen/be apart of the drama caused by these people and kept to themselves, they were attacked as viciously by so called “Justice bringers”.
As the arguments went on, any post I made was cut up, repasted and turned into something entirely different, or used in alternate context when literally I could be talking about something made for lunch and somehow it would become sexual/racist/disturbing, I couldn’t sneeze without it being policed.
Eventually, and not all that shocking, I left, after being broken down, hunted, mocked, abused verbally and dropped by people once known as friends, there were even threats of doxxing, which as you can imagine, did not aid my already shattered mental state.
Despite no real evidence, and scraps the radical Stans tried to use against me being debunked quite quickly thanks to my depressed butt never going anywhere or doing anything other than posting online, people turned, a lot of people turned and treated me as though I was guilty, some even demanding I block them because of how disgusting/troublesome I was, despite everything my harassers had being proven as bullshit and obvious lies, their side was taken, users excused their behavior as simply “protecting other tumblr accounts”, doing the fandom a favor and stomping out trouble makers, defending those who couldn’t defend themselves.
As you can understand, that event caused me lots of issues with trust and posting online, some I’m not over today, and even making this post scares me despite best efforts to laugh off everything with dark humor and a smug attitude.
When I was accused, few took my side, those few I’m still thankful for today and cherish because it showed me who my friends were.
But despite being innocent, I was treated as guilty.
And on TikTok, those guilty are being treated as innocent, defended, supported while the sufferers of their abuse are attacked, mocked, treated like the criminal despite having evidence to back up their claims.
Seeing that just hits a sore spot and so, I wanted to make this post.
The internet isn’t fair, but speak up anyway, demand to be listened to and don’t let those who’ve hurt you get away with it, you’re loved, you’re special, you’re wanted, you’re going to be okay, and if someone doesn’t believe you, keep shouting, keep making noise, keep believing yourself.
Get your justice. Nobody should go unheard.
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Here & Now - Chapter 14
Pairing: Yoongi x OC
Genre: Fluff; Chill romance
Word Count: 2,240
Warning: None.
Banner Marker: @dee-ehn
For the twentieth time that afternoon I opened Twitter up and began to type up a post, but halfway through stopped myself and threw the phone to the side. The urge to respond to people being dumbasses was so strong.
"Do I need to take your phone away?" Yoongi asked.
He wasn't looking at me, just typing away in the notes app on his phone. Something about lyrics he needed to get out and not being in the mood to go look for his notebook.
"Maybe."
Without missing a beat or stopping his typing he extended on of his hand out to me. I picked up the phone and was going to place it in his hand, but snatched it back at the last moment.
"Wait, no. I'll just lurk on Instagram. I'm sure making myself hungry looking at food pics will make me forget the antis and the fans defending your virtue against me."
He scoffed, eyes flickering over to me finally. "Defending my what? There is nothing to defend. I'm an adult who can live their life how I please. I'm allowed to whisper to my friends and not automatically be in some secret relationship."
'Tell them that' is what I wanted to say out loud in a very snarky voice, but refrained. Instead, I just went to Instagram and scrolled through the posts. Nothing to piss me off, because I refused to look at the comments under my most recent posts. I'd done that like an idiot the day the news dropped.
And it was so annoying because it wasn't news. It was some "fan" sneaking a high-quality camera into the show and finding the right angle to snap pictures. They'd gotten quite a few, mostly of the boys. Some of Halsey. Some of me talking and laughing with the boys and Halsey. But that hadn't mattered at all, because even though I'd had Joon and Jungkook whisper things to me at different times, it only mattered that Yoongi did. Because goodness forbid we be seen together being comfortable twice in the span of months.
Most didn't care, but the vicious little circle of toxics that always tried to start shit were laying it on thick. And they easily roped in the trolls of who gave a shit about piling onto k-pop drama and not the music itself. Even worse were the newer and naive fans who just listened to what they were told with no fact-checking.
It was annoying and less stressful than I thought a "scandal" would be. Probably because they were stupid rumors and most were telling them to lay off. Most ARMY, other fandoms, and multis seemed to get it.
But I had to admit the racism and comments about my appearance or quality of work were pissing me off. And were the main reason I was ready to go on a rant, but I didn't want to make things crazier because I went on a rampage.
"So...," Joon said as he entered the room.
He'd been sitting on the couch beside me, but then vanished for twenty minutes when he got a phone call. When he left he'd looked stressed, but now he seemed calmer; though the phone was still clutched in his hand.
"What's up?" I asked.
"So, I know you've wanted to rage at the world for the past day and a half. And you are also free to do whatever you please, no matter what anyone says. And that you haven't for our sake, but Bang PDnim said he wouldn't be upset at all if you addressed it. He welcomes it, actually." He spoke so slowly, as if testing the waters, that I'd gotten annoyed halfway through.
For a moment I weighed my options because I'd honestly been more worried about the backlash on them and Bang being upset with me more than them being trash to me. They wouldn't affect my job as a producer at all, they didn't have that power. And if they hate bought my books to do whatever with them it would just be more money towards me getting royalties.
In the end, the energy didn't seem worth it, but then the option to go live on Insta presented itself and a smile formed. "How does a live sound? Haven't done one in a while for my normal few people who care. I know they'll be lurking there."
Joon put the phone back to his hair and asked, after a few seconds he said his goodbyes and hung up.
"Go ahead," he said.
Without a word, I got up and headed to the kitchen, it was where I did most of my lives. Which made me happy that we'd (Hals) had chosen my place to hang out, I didn't want those questions about where I was for the first half an hour as people appeared.
Propping my phone in its usual spot I got the live started and moved off-camera to grab a can of pop from the fridge. When I returned there were about thirty people present and the number was steadily climbing.
"Yeah, I think the last live was like a month ago. Probably something book-related too," I said in response to a question.
A few more minutes ticked by and the number reached several hundred and then I knew it was time.
"Hello, my people. How are you? I hope you're good or not as shitty as you were the day before. Thought I'd do a live because it's overdo and for another reason. Though today won't be music or writing focused, just us talking. And then me going into a monologue at some point."
The chat flooded with responses and asking me how I was. A second later came the first asshole, which didn't surprise me. In fact, I'd expected they'd appear faster than ten minutes in, they were slipping.
"I'm good. Tired, but I'm on a tiny break from all my work. No music to make and ahead of writing-related deadlines. This weekend has been me being forced to relax until things ramp up again next weekend."
Where is the music? It's so quiet. Someone commented.
"Oh, shit you're right. I've been around people all day and can still hear them in another room, so it seems louder to me. Alexa play Always and Forever playlist."
A few seconds later and the sound of Missy Elliot's Lose Control was filling the space.
The number had climbed to the thousands in the blink of an eye and there were more people with k-pop profile pics. Some of them were familiar from other streams, some of them asking me a thousand and one BTS questions. The few were those that were obviously by trash and or trolls; who were the ones I wanted there the most.
What are you working on music wise?
"Well, I'm mostly finishing up projects. I'm going on a half forced, half chosen break for a month. So no new projects as of last week. I'll be finishing up most of my stuff in a week or two and then I'll still have other things, but they aren't as pressing."
But what specifically?
"You know I'm not answering that one. I never do."
There were a few requests for a tiny hint and some all capped ones about if any of those projects were SUGA related stuff.
"Maybe," I said, giving no context to what I was answering.
In my teasing, I hadn't noticed Yoongi until he came in and bumped me to the side with his hip. He took up half the screen and his head blocked me from being able to read the screen at first. I had to lightly shove him to the side.
But even without looking I knew that chat was losing its shit.
"So, you do have a break after all?" He asked in English, his tone accusing.
I rolled my eyes and tried to focus on finding the questions where people weren't excited. His appearance was sending the viewers into numbers I'd never hit before, I should have started the live with him there.
"I never said I didn't have a break coming up. All of you just started scolding me without asking other questions."
WHAT IS YOONGI DOING THERE?!!??!!!!
SHSJSKSKSKA
She said all. Is all of BTS there?
skskskksks what is goign on?
Told you they were dating.
I made a face at the last one, turning to him with a 'what the fuck' face, one he also returned.
Then I turned my attention to the screen. "We aren't dating. We're working together. We're friends. That's it. You all have literally seen pictures with Hals so in my face we're almost kissing and not one dating rumor has appeared. And that would also be false."
"Why didn't we get any dating scandals when we worked together?" Joon asked in Korean off-camera, slowly moving closer.
"Because we obviously radiated big sibling energy," I responded.
Yoongi chuckled beside me, a smirk on his face.
"See, even Yoon agrees."
Joon opened and closed his mouth, probably trying to find a response to that. But then he just huffed. I thought it was over after that, but then he mumbled something.
"I don't give off sibling energy."
From there on it just the three of thus talking about how he does, reassuring him that it's only with certain people and just otherwise talking shit.
"Pay attention to you live people. You have everyone confused and only like 20 people understand what you're saying," Halsey shouted from wherever she was.
We'd gotten so caught up I had forgotten about the live and didn't realize we'd speaking purely in Korean. Turning back to the screen I read the comments that were now zooming by faster than I could read.
what are they saying?
She speaks Korean?
HELLO PAY ATTENTION TO US
Was that Halsey?!??!?!
"Yes, that was Halsey." I turned towards the doorway and yelled, "Bring your butt out here."
There was shuffling and one set of footsteps turned into multiple and soon the kitchen was flooded with people. The space felt smaller as they all tried to bunch in where we stood at the island. At some point, I just picked up the phone and moved it around so they all could look and or wave.
"They have invaded my home and I don't know how to get them to leave," I teased.
"You love us," Hals said.
She'd worked her way up next to me, knocking Joon to the side a little. Her eyes were trained on the phone, now propped up where it had been before.
"Hey, guys. We're all tired and decided to hang out indoors instead of going out. Jungkook and Tae are teaching me how to play Overwatch. Ken tried months ago, but said I was a lost cause."
I scoffed. "The lies you tell."
Before anything else could be said the doorbell went off, but Jin stopped me and went to go check himself. A few seconds passed and then there was a shout.
"Food's here!"
That's all it took for everyone to scramble out of the room, leaving me with Yoongi who was standing off to the side and kind of out of sight.
My stomach grumbled and I sighed. "Okay. This did not go down the path I meant it to, but whatever. I'm going to eat and then I might just post what I wanted to say on Twitter or something."
Just as my finger moved to the button that would end the live so I could say bye, it was snatched out of my hand.
"What are you doing?" I asked Yoongi.
He held up a finger to me and continued to stare into the camera. After a moment he spoke in English, taking a moment to get the right words out.
"Recently rumors about Kendall and I have happened. This is the second time and the rumors while not true would be fine, but attacking her is not. We are not dating. We are friends. And ARMY or trolls attacking her based on her race, appearance or in general are not cool. She's a great person and friend who I've grown to know over the months. We met because we are working together and our friendship grew from there. I would hate for this fun time we have creating music together to be ruined by people being rude. So stop. If you consider yourself my fan and ARMY and treat her this way then you are not my fan or a real ARMY."
Yoongi then proceeded to hand me the phone, which I almost dropped in shock of his little speech. I had not expected him to deliver the message himself, but it was nice.
After a moment of the camera facing the ground, I pulled it together and readjusted so I was looking into the camera.
"Uh... maybe I don't need to post that thing after all, but I still might." My words were slow as I was still recovering from shock.
"Come get food before someone else tries to take it," Jungkook yelled.
"So, yeah. Gotta go. Have a nice day. Bye."
With that, I ended the live and turned off my Instagram notifications, because I knew they'd be a shit show. Yoongi who was smirking simply grabbed my hand and dragged me out to the living room with the others.
#min yoongi#yoongi#suga#min suga#original character#oc#sugaxoc#yoongixoc#producer!oc#writer!oc#bts fanfic#bts fanfiction#yoongi fanfic#suga fanfic#kpop fanfic#kpop fanfiction#fanfiction#fanfic
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JSE Day 24: Clues
Day 24 of the JSE artists prompts by @septic-bella
**All previous entries are available on AO3 under the title “Mayhem” with my same username.**
Chase yawned as he reassembled his gun, putting it back in the case and closing it. It was strange to hold it again, and somehow feel alright. He’d tried to kill himself just days before, and yet now a gun was sitting on his desk, and there was nothing. Of course, if Anti was telling the truth, the hallucinations had been purely withdrawal symptoms, and thanks to Jamie he wasn’t having any of those anymore. He made himself stand up and stretch. He had responsibilities beyond not shooting himself in the head again.
The recording room was dark and cool with the machinery turned off; Chase sat in his rolling chair and turned on the computer, his only link to the fans whose theories had proven useful before. He read through social media, trying to cover as much ground as possible without missing anything small. He hadn’t mentioned any of this to the others, afraid that he’d just end up looking like an idiot, but some of the fans were making valid points ever since he’d started dropping Anti hints in hopes of stirring up something. What is Anti, what is his connection to Jack, are we feeding him with our attention?
Chase played the part, leaving reactions and cryptic comments here and there, trying to guide them to something useful. It wasn’t easy, and he wasn’t as smart as Marvin. Marvin could have really gotten them talking. He rubbed his eyes and switched platforms, skimming through relevant tags. What if Anti lives in electronics, and every time Jack records or streams, Anti gets stronger?
“A little hard to worry about that when he’s outside stabbing your friend,” Chase muttered.
There were several other things, fan arts and kind messages that he paid special attention to, responding and reacting; for a moment, while doing this, he was Jack, and the ugly parts of his past went away. He smiled as he scrolled through, settling into the role like it was made for him—perhaps it was. What with the stream coming up, and Jack now settled safely in the lab, maybe this was his identity now, his mission. He was reminded of Anti again when his comments started to catch traction, skittering along and then bursting into flames the way they always did. Chase was briefly reminded of how Anti had bounced over the top of Henrik’s car, and he chuckled. If only he’d been able to record that for a video. It would have been a hit.
Things were getting stranger and stranger online, glitches and lag and crashes, but that was to be expected as the outside world grew more and more distant. It was more of an annoyance than anything. Chase hadn’t been able to watch Netflix for days. He and Jameson had settled for DVD’s for a while, but they had rapidly lost their charm. Who the fuck watches movies on disc anymore? Chase chewed his thumbnail as he scrolled through the last of the posts that he’d set aside. He reached for his bottle of whiskey. It was half full, and he reminded himself to ration it. He couldn’t go over the line. He had to be careful. Otherwise he’d get Jameson in trouble and he’d stop being able to be Jack—being able to help Jack. “Fuck, Chase. Get ahold of yourself, buddy. You’re just tired.”
You’re just Jack. Confused? You’ve been playing around with these egos for too long. You’re slipping, Jackaboy.
Chase rubbed his face and sat back in his chair, “Ok maybe that’s enough internet for today.”
Don’t forget to set up the stream. Don’t forget to queue the video for tomorrow. Don’t forget to-
“Right,” Chase muttered. “Right fuck. I got it. Lots to do, Jackaboy.”
Lots to do. Can’t let the fans down. Have to keep the mayhem going. Have to tease Chase’s return. Have to ask where Schneep is. Have to-
“He’s in the lab,” Chase said. “Fuck he’s… he’s right in the other room. He’s right here. I’m right here. What am I saying?”
You need sleep, Jack.
“I need sleep. Right. I’ve been working too hard.”
You need a lot of sleep.
“Like a coma,” Chase said, snorting. “Like… what? No. I have to finish this tweet. I have to finish this fucking… where’s Schneep?”
Wish you were here.
“Wish you… were…”
Jack. It’s Chase…
“Time is broken.”
Chase ripped the headset off and threw it, jumping out of the chair, “Fuck this! Fuck I have to sleep. Shit!”
He rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Jameson was sitting on the floor in front of the couch where Jackie was lying. They were both asleep. The lab light was on and Marvin’s door was open. Everybody was fine. Everybody was here. Chase went to his room and fell into bed without even taking off his hat, and sleep grabbed him like a pair of clawed hands, dragging him under.
You have to wake up.
#chase brody#antisepticeye#jackieboy man#jameson jackson#fanfiction#JSE artist prompt#mayhem 2019#egopocalypse 2019
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Biden’s “Impossible Dream”
Along with the other eighty-million Americans with an IQ over five, I too am doing backflips at the prospect we’re just weeks away from flushing this unprecedentedly corrupt and incomprehensibly cruel administration into the cesspool of infamy where they belong. However, as ecstatic as I am at the thought of an actual human being once again occupying the Oval Office, one must still be realistic as to what to expect going forward. Sadly, it seems, to the contrary of our president-elect.
President Biden’s statement that he intends to be a president ‘...to all Americans’, while admirable and more than a welcome change from the incoherent ramblings of the Mad King, seems to be more than a bit out of touch with what’s actually going on in this country in 2020, and beyond. While he may indeed devote every ounce of energy to this seemingly insurmountable task, unity is still a two-way street. Last we checked, there’s a massive concrete divider in the middle of this one. A concept that the president-elect inexplicably doesn’t seem to fully have grasped. Especially, considering, as a former vice-president, he lived through eight years of Senate Republicans sticking it to his boss every chance they got. I mean, “Hello, McFly?” Do you really believe Congressional Republicans are just going to snap out of their near twenty-year trance because you’re friends with them?
Exhibit One: Leader McConnell.
If you’re old enough to remember the Obama years, you’ll have no trouble recalling the now-infamous line uttered by that bastion of Honor and Ethics, Mitch McConnell. That being, “My only goal for the next four years is to make Obama a one-term president.” Aside from being borderline treason for a Senator to openly admit he’s going to spend every waking moment betraying his oath in order to achieve his despicably anti-American goal, “Moscow Mitch,” as he’s now affectionately known, hasn’t changed a bit. In fact, he’s gotten worse, and, thanks to his miraculous re-election in a state that had him at just an 18% approval rating, more emboldened.
After shamelessly defending our Russian-asset POTUS at every opportunity, including predicting the outcome of an impeachment hearing before it actually took place, the worst leader in the history of the United States Senate spent the past four years doing NOTHING, but filling an unprecedented number of conservative judgeships; including, surprise, the Supreme Court, where the louse seemed to actually revel in reneging on his own call to wait until after the election to choose a replacement for Justice Ginsberg. No policy. No compromise. No nothing. Nothing, that is, but increasing the deficit by trillions and making sure his corporate cronies are exempt from responsibility due to their shameful response to the pandemic. I guess that’s something.
Thus, unless our incoming president is suffering from severe amnesia, he should have no illusions that, following the Georgia runoffs (should Republicans maintain the stranglehold they currently enjoy), there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell McConnell, the demonic amphibian he is, will allow any dissenters to side with the president, on anything. Not a bill to curtail the amount of robocalls one gets on a daily basis, nor a motion to change the ketchup dispenser in the congressional cafeteria.
Exhibit Two: Trump’s Minions
If, after witnessing 126 House Republicans sign onto what is nothing short of a statement supporting the overthrowing of our Democracy, as well as several Republican Senators coming out in support of objecting to the States’ already-certified electors, anyone who thinks president Biden will somehow get these cockroaches to join hands singing Kumbaya, is living on another planet. In fact, from what we’ve seen in the last six weeks, alone, it’s fair to say Congressional Republicans are now more of a threat to our nation than ISIS. Yes, that ISIS. At least, the Islamic State have the decency to tell you to your face exactly what their objective is: The total destruction of American Democracy. Period. Modern day Republicans have proven they have the same exact goal; they just do it from within, disguised as “patriots.”
Exhibit Three: Seventy-Million Idiots
In spite of the Deplorables on The Hill, the biggest hurdle the president, and vice-president, have in front of them may very well be the American People, themselves. While there’s got to be a few million in the human Chernobyl’s base of seventy-million-plus who aren’t full-blown, racist psychopaths, there are still way too many who’ve shown they’re fully committed to the cult of Trump. Even now. Even though their government led them into a year-long nightmare of misery and misinformation: even as their apathetic leaders choose to bail out their billionaire buddies, while sending them a $600 slap in the face, they continue to support them. Unmoved.
Even though Benedict Donald has spent the past two months proving he has zero interest in/reverence for this Democracy and in a peaceful transference of power, truth is, outside of maybe a handful of ‘awoke’ individuals who’ve finally seen enough, he’s most likely not lost a single one of his hardcore supporters. In fact, many of them have doubled down in their support of the village idiot - going as far as to organize a “parallel inauguration” on Universe Two - the fantasy world where Trump will still be president (Most pundits refer to Trump supporters as living on ‘Earth 2,’ but their thinking is so alien to facts/common sense, IMO, they deserve their own universe.). These sad, sorry fools fell hook, line and sinker for the president’s claims of “fraud”, to the tune of stocking his post-election war chest with a cool quarter-billion dollars. Translation: you’re looking at an entire sect of people who have no basis in reality. So, who’s worse? The Trump supporter? Or the one who tries to reason with the Trump supporter?
These Trump-described “suckers,” who, in spite of everything they’ve seen, in spite of the fact we have a president who’s golfing while millions can’t even put food on their table during the holidays (those still alive that is) are still so consumed with hate for the other side, they’d rather see their nation brought to the brink of civil war than be governed by a Democrat. They’d rather elect a corrupt, bottom-dwelling QAnon conspirator to Congress, than an honest, sane liberal whose major crime is refusing to believe Tom Hanks and Bill Gates are partners in a global kiddie porn empire. Case in point, the more than dozen House seats that flipped red this past November, and, with them, some who actually believe the above. This kind of unhinged, spiteful, masochistic thinking suggests the hate modern day Republicans have towards liberals is greater than the love they have for their own children. Good luck overcoming that type of home-grown martyr, Mr. President.
Exhibit Four: Biden, Himself:
The welcome, sorely needed public comments seeking to reunite a hopelessly divided nation, notwithstanding, by stating what the New York Times calls “no interest” in pursuing any type of retribution/Justice, re: the myriad of crimes committed by this horrific administration, IMO, the president-elect has already stepped in it. Especially after the Georgia phone call.
It’s never a good idea to address your supporters, many of whom feel they’re owed some form of payback after being forced to watch helplessly as their Constitution was consistently used as toilet paper by a mob boss POTUS for four, long years, and, right out of the gate, say you’re just going to forget the whole thing. After all, this isn’t Nixon we’re talking about here. This is a thousand Nixons... on steroids. This is treason in all its forms. The attempt to “find” 11,780 votes, just one more than Biden, is the most egregious crime ever committed by a U.S. President. Yet, the president-elect continues to spew this type of disappointing, non-confrontational rhetoric. While hopefully just said for the cameras, it definitely gives many of the incoming president’s supporters, including Yours Truly, night sweats.
In fact, IMO, SDNY aside, letting these, spineless, racist, anti-American miscreants sail off into the sunset, with free health care for life and full pensions, on us, would be worse than all their crimes put together. As it will not only show the next corrupt bunch of lawless idiots to come down the pike they can do whatever they want and they’re guaranteed a free pass from the next guy, it will end our experiment in Democracy as we know it; as it will have all-but-proved the president is, in fact, above the law. I really hope I’m wrong. Fingers crossed Biden is just doing his job and saying all the right things, while privately working to nominate Sally Yates for A.G. IMO, should Ms. Yates get the nod, she will see to it Justice is served on all fronts. If not, you can bet there’s a damn good reason.
Mueller made the fatal mistake of playing fair with Trump and Barr, and their legion of sycophantic sheep in Congress, and wound up looking like a timid, outmatched eunuch. After living through the Obama years, after living through The Trump years, after seeing the literal definition of treason on a daily basis, it appears Biden is choosing to ignore these screaming red sirens and walk down that path, as well, at least with his words.
How much more proof does the president-elect need to know these individuals on the other side of the aisle are only interested in one thing? Total Dominance, by any means necessary. Even if it’s a flagrant violation of their oaths to defend The Constitution. Every single low-life choosing to join a wanna-be fascist in his reprehensible attempt to overturn our national election are only Americans by birth. That’s where it ends.
In Alan Parker’s classic film, Mississippi Burning, there’s a great line in the scene where the two FBI agents, played by Willem Dafoe and Gene Hackman, realize playing by the rules with these racist bastards will never get them the Justice they seek. Straight-laced Dafoe says, “Don’t drag me into your gutter, Mr. Anderson.” To which, no-nonsense Hackman replies, “These people crawled out of a sewer, Mr. Ward! Maybe the gutter’s where we outta be!” Here’s hoping there’s more of Anderson than Ward in our next president.
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So I’ve been seeing some frightening developments regarding North Korea that I have to get off my chest so I might as well write it down in this small place I have for myself.
The first thing that would come to mind is the recent nuclear developments in NK and Trump’s inflammatory comments. But that’s not the thing that chilled me, sure the situation is scary but not as scary as when NK was actually shelling the South and I have good faith that Kim and his party cares too much for their sport cars and life of absolute power that they’ll back down once things get too hot as they did multiple times whenever there were signs of push-back from their bullying.
What really scared me was some of the responses to the recent incidents. Specifically responses that painted NK as the victim. It’s just... baffling and frightening at the same time. How one could view NK as the victim with their history of unprovoked invasion and multiple acts of aggression after the stalemate is just beyond me. So I’ve thought hard and managed to think up of three possible reasons.
1.The responses are actually posted by North Koreans and Chinese.
This is a trend that I’ve been seeing within Korean media with increasing frequency. I haven’t actually seen cases of North Koreans posting comments myself and have only seen screen caps of them (in some of which the NK in question displayed fluent English) but I have seen Chinese people posting comments painting NK as victims and the US as ‘imperialist invaders’ in Korean comments sections.
Yet... as much as I would like to believe this is the case, I find it the least likely scenario of the three I’ve thought of.
2. People who are so blinded by their hatred of Trump/Republicans/US that they would side with anyone who is against their hated target
As far as US politics go, I couldn’t care less for neither Trump nor Hillary. Go support or hate whoever you like, it’s not my business. Besides, Trump is basically asking for all the hatred directed at him. But getting so deep in your hatred that you would go to lengths far enough to support the position of the likes of NK would be a sure sign of not being in control of your emotions. Which also happens to be a mindset that a lot of scumbag politicians reaps benefits out of.
I mean, I’ve seen these kind of stances supporting the clearly evil shit China and Russia had been doing and it was chilling even then but supporting NK is a whole new level of creepiness.
This case I find to be the most likely and at the same time would alleviate my fear just a little bit because it means that this is temporary. It would mean that as long as a Democrat president is in office, there won’t be any need for a sentiment that sides with NK just in spite of a Republican President.
BUT the most frightening scenario is that
3.People are starting to buy the blatant lies NK has been spewing for decades.
I heard a phrase something along the lines of ‘say a lie enough times for long enough and it becomes the truth’ and have always known the general human populace is extremely dense but, holy shit if the blatant lies the NK has been repeating that their actions are justified is actually starting to work and people are believing it, then humanity has exceeded my expectations once again.
This is the scariest possibility because there is no end to this. As time passes the effect will just build up and up until the world will start to sympathize more with NK and start to wish that mean ol’ US would just stop bullying the small pipsqueak.
So once Americans voters start to think that and South Koreans who are already in an anti-US military stance add up, it would mean the eventual pulling out of US military forces and that would mark the end of South Korea.
"Oh don’t be over-dramatic” one might say “South Korea isn’t defenseless and has an army of its own”. Sure I know that, I really should considering that I’ve served two years in it. Although South Korea’s army is vastly outnumbered compared to NK, the military of RoK is technologically superior to the NK of which barely has enough fuel to wage war for a few months. But a few months is all NK needs.
NK only needs to deploy their vast special forces ready to hit behind the front lines to cause havoc and destruction to important infrastructure while their artillery (which had been ready for decades) shells Seoul in to nothing. And that would be the end of it. They don’t even have to use their nukes since the point of it all was to cut off any aid to South Korea.
Also, technological superiority meant jack shit nothing for South Vietnam when it was tearing itself from the inside which is exactly what’s happening in South Korea right now.
The only reason NK couldn’t jump the gun was because of the US military presence in SK. Which is becoming more of a possibility these days. As long as NK holds Seoul hostage with their artillery and South Korean politics is in turmoil, there is no hope for SK without US intervention. Which is why the recent developments I’ve been seeing chills me. Sentiments siding with NK have been a rare happening in the past that I would occasional see and go ‘WTF’ at. But the frequency of that has been growing to the point that in almost any post or article I see regarding NK these days I can find at least one comment painting NK as the victims and the US as the aggressors.
You know.. when I’ve been looking at this issue just at a national scale within the Korean peninsula, I’ve only been reminded of the Vietnam war. But now that I’m looking at this situation at an international setting along with the developments in China and Russia, the image I’m seeing is World War 2 out of all things with Kim Jong Un being our age’s Hitler.
Because there’s this rising voice of “Maybe if you (the US) would play nice with him and try to talk then he would behave himself!” and that worked so well with Hitler right? In fact, ‘talking’ had been working so well the last twenty years that NK had all the time to build a nuke while experts will say “They have a nuke, not a method of delivery” then NK launches a missile “They still didn’t break threshold A” NK breaks threshold A “Oh, but they still need to overcome threshold B” then NK breaks threshold B “Well they still haven’t passed threshold C” and on. But let’s keep making jokes about NK’s past launch failures because the Allied nations’ propaganda of ridiculing the Germans in World War 1 while the German propaganda was centered on painting the Allied nations as a menacing evil brought wonderful results for the Alliance in the battlefield.
Oh, and I should mention that the ‘blubbering incompetent idiot North Korea’ image is the exact same tactic they used in the past before starting the Korean War.
So North Korea is given all the time in the world to make advancements in their nuclear program but the world on the other hand has limited time because, at some point, the thresholds are going to run out and NK will have the capacity to aim their nukes where they want.
But yeah, let’s keep defending the NK regime where the people of North Korea are suffering under because the US is eeeevil
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okay, so late ‘90s, early ‘00s badfic 101
A lot of fic was either on fanfiction.net or private archives. People would also post things to fic communities or private journals on LJ. (Which was a whole...thing, with some people friends-locking their work because they were afraid of sporking/flames or they were just pretentious.) ff.net had a whole HOST of problems, like a variety of terrible ways your formatting could get borked (like you couldn’t use repeating characters, which made line breaks hard; that’s why you’d get increasingly “arty” line breaks that could be...cringey), policies against allowing any fic of media created by people who didn’t like fic (see: Anne McCaffery, Anne Rice, other crazy Annes, etc.), puritan anti-smut policies which often got applied to slash fic more than het fic, and just...in general, terrible fic. Private archives were often manually curated by their owners, which could be fine or it could lead to cliques and circlejerks. The Harry Potter archives seemed to get especially crazy with this and some truly epic wanks came out of that. You’d also see people hosting fic on their own sites (usually angelfire or something) with big slash warnings and IF YOU’RE UNDER 18 GET OUT warnings. A lot of fic archives wouldn’t host slash or porn, and you were liable to get in trouble in fandom or otherwise if you didn’t strongly label LGBT/18+ themes. Especially if the fic in question contained both. Like. I don’t like the OTW for many reasons, but I have to admit that AO3 is basically a godsend. We lost a lot of fic to purged LJs/deleted websites.
SUPER purple prose. Older fic in general tended to be a bit more “literary” and purple and it sometimes read like J.R.R. Tolkein was having a stroke. By the time the ‘90s/’00s rolled around, you’d just get this sort of halfway point where people would have generally unornamented text except for things being thrown in like this character’s cerulean/azure/periwinkle eyes. The shade would change by scene, and you’d always know because there’d be a lot of stuff like “the cerulean-eyed man shook his head”. EVERY CHARACTER IN THIS SCENE KNOWS HIS NAME, USE HIS NAME. Or they’d refer to a character’s glimmering green orbs or something. It was painful.
In anime fandom especially, you’d get a lot of these epithets that referred to their abnormal hair colors. People saw “brunette” and were like “shit, I can adapt that” so you get ravenette and bluenette and silverette and pinkette and kill me now. Some people got pissy about like -et/-ette endings re: gender, but after you’ve gone to the bluenette place, it doesn’t even fucking matter anymore. Grammar is dead.
Anime fic also tended to have a lot of so-called “fangirl Japanese”. Writers would just sprinkle in any Japanese words they knew for no goddamn reason, which would usually end in glossaries at the end like *kakkoi means cool! *aoi means blue! and goddamn guys, these are all words than have legit English translations.
Script fic. Just... script fic. More on that at the bottom bc I had to use some special formatting.
“Crack” fic. This would be fic that was purposefully OOC (out of character) for comedic effect. Tended to utilize “omg so random!!” humor. It usually was pretty much only comedic to caffeinated 13-year-olds. This was literally all Invader Zim’s fault and you know I’m right.
The “disposal” of female love interests in slash fic. Used to be much more of a problem than it is now. Now, I’m not talking about fics that just don’t talk about female characters or retcon a relationship or are like “they broke up!!! moving on!” I’m talking about fics that turn all female characters into shrieking homophobic harpies that would probably rather their canon love interests be dead than fuck a dude. This was applied even to like the nicest characters in the world, or even to characters who weren’t in canon romances with the male characters but were deemed to be threats. They often got smacked around or died or whatever. Things were a lot more sexist in fandom back then. There was a yenta trope that kind of arose as backlash to this but was really just as annoying in a different way. That usually involved a canon love interest going full yaoi fangirl (for some reason) and shipping her love interest with another guy, then involving herself in their love lives to a truly creepy extent so she could hook her boyfriend up with another guy. These were also sexist. Both situations tended to make the female characters incredibly OOC and prevented them from having any real human reactions/emotions.
Mary Sues. Now, the term has lost a lot of its effect in recent years. Mary Sues (or Gary Stus) used to have a really specific meaning. They were OCs (original characters) that were the prettiest, smartest, most powerful, popular characters in the whole world that had glittering orbs for eyes and usually had some kind of special magical power that made them better than all the canon characters. These were self-insert characters -- in other words, even if they didn’t have the same name as the author, they were wish-fulfillment characters wherein the character was used as a stand-in for the author, who could then write all the canon characters loving them. Now people just use the term for any female character that’s powerful and central to the plot, so...it’s not a useful word anymore. As for the old school Sues, well... I don’t necessarily think they were bad, but I will say it’s a hell of a lot more fun to write a Suefic than to read one. That really goes for most fanfics with OCs that have been elevated to a prominent status. People generally read fanfic because they want to read about the canon characters they love, not shallowly-written OCs that take over the fic. I don’t think OC-driven fic is bad to write... But again, yeah, it’s usually much more fun to write than to read. I think it’s helpful to be cognizant of that.
Reviewer participation fic. Mostly an issue on ff.net. It used to be that there was no way to reply to comments on ff.net, and as I’ve said before, there was a strong comment culture back then. Just not replying to reviews could be interpreted as very rude. (It would be unfathomably rude on LJ, which was more community-driven.) So to get around this, people would include a section to reply to reviewers at the beginning of the next chapter or their next one-shot or whatever. So you’d get long interminably long fics on ff.net with like 40 chapters in which nothing happened, and to get ideas, they’d ask reviewers. Worse, sometimes people would try to incentivize readers to review by offering to put their loyal reviewers in the fic. So you’d have this long section at the top of the chapter which might have a conversation that’s been going on between them and a reviewer for the past 8 chapters (and hell, they might’ve made a new chapter just to reply to them) except multiplied by however many reviewers there are, and then the reviewers worm their way into the fics, too! Oh my god.
Passive-aggressive fic. This was especially an issue on LJ as a personal response, but would show up on ff.net as response to wider fandom tropes. These would be fics where a character is like “WOW I WOULD NEVER DO X, THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING I’D NEVER EVEN CONSIDER DOING. WHAT KIND OF IDIOT WOULD THINK I’D DO THAT?” And X is usually (a.) something a reviewer told them would be more IC than what was in their previous fic, (b.) something another writer just put in their fic, or (c.) a ship they don’t like. (This would also extend to fics where characters would be like I’M NOT GAY, I’D NEVER FUCK A DUDE, EWWW!! as anti-slasher rhetoric.) Back then, you could reasonably expect that people in your fandom would at least see, if not read, your new fic. On LJ, you saw basically all the fics because they were posted in wider communities, and fandom was, as a whole, more community-driven back then. If you insulted another member of the community via fic, they’d know in about ten minutes. It was throwing down a gauntlet. lol
The crack fic genre also extended to crack pairings. It wasn’t unusual for people to dare each other to write weird pairings (often characters who’d never met), the more bizarre the better. This was the era of Hogwarts/Lake Squid. These fics were often sporked, but in a more delighted way than usual. There really was more of a sense that people could and would write anything. Some people came to actually ship these pairings like legit and ship wars would ensue. And sometimes some cracky pairings just became really popular for assorted reasons and that made other fans really mad. This still happens, honestly.
Ship wars now are often dressed up in social justice terms, which is a trend that I find frustrating bc I feel like it denigrates important issues. Ship wars in the ‘90s/’00s, on the other hand, were just balls to the wall insane. I still refuse to engage in ship wars because damn, man, the shit I’ve seen. People were much more open about the fact that they hated people who shipped other pairings because they just shipped something else or were squicked by the pairing or whatever. The Harry Potter shipwars got particularly fucking weird. So it wasn’t generally a slash vs. het thing, like some people will have you think. Some of the worst ship wars I have ever seen were het shippers at war. Never again the harmonian times.
Frankly a lot of other things that my mind is rebelling against remembering.
Script fic (often with author interludes) was eventually banned from FF.net, which kind of killed it in fic because that was the main posting venue back then (unless you wrote slash or porn, which could be taken off if people reported it; technically slash wasn’t against the rules unless it was explicit, but they didn’t often check the reports carefully). What I mean by script fic is like
Karamatsu: wow I sure like these sparkly pants
Chibita: I don’t
(A/N: I do!!!!111 I have a pair like them at home!)
Karamatsu: let’s fuck now
Chibita: but offscreen because we want to preserve our soft M rating!
The A/Ns (author’s notes) could get really in-depth sometimes, with an author often RPing the characters OOC or using them as their “muses”. So sometimes you’d get a mess like
Karamatsu: gosh it sure does suck that everyone treats me like dog shit
Chibita: true
(A/N: serenaxkittyx755: That’s not true, Karaboy! Choromatsu: Yeah, we like you less than dog shit. Ichimatsu: Way less.)
Except my example was honestly more IC than most of these tended to be. You’d often get “muses” saying “ewww” or “that’s hot” during romance scenes, even when this made no sense whatsover. Or offering commentary on some random non-karamatsu character’s fashion choices or something. Purposeful “crack” was considered not just okay but in fact desirable back then.
basically, badfic was hell.
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Last , Last Thoughts on That Issue/ Why I'm just Disappointed in Both Sides
Disclaimer before I get stared: yup, I’m going back to THAT again. If you just want to see art on the Glitchtale tag and are sick and tired of this issue like I am, sorry for making you scroll a bit more so you don’t have to see this. I probably should just let this die because we’re pretty much off this, but I still see the occasional comment on twitch or on here, so I need to get this off of my chest. I’m going to try to not take a side, but if you’ve seen my other posts, you know I do believe that word could be seen as offensive, though not in context, but that it should be treated more carefully, and that I also do not hold much Ill will towards Cami (still slightly peeved) I will also have a section of this where I talk about not liking the use of SJW or triggered. But again, I’ll try being non-partisan here besides that.
I’m disappointed in both sides here. For people who found the use of the r-word offensive or troublesome, I’m disappointed in the lack of trying to peacefully reach out to Cami. It was clear she meant not to insult anyone mentally disabled and that she had no idea the word had a negative connotation in some parts of the world. Now, that wasn’t entirely clear when she first said the word and people might not know the word had no offensive connotation in Chile, but still, anyone who knows it as a slur should also know that some people use it like a standard Insult to mean idiot (such as younger kids do in America) because they are not aware of what it’s been turned to, and that the user is not trying to insinuate someone is a lesser being because they were born with a mental disability. So it was not right to say things like Cami was ableist (someone who hates the disabled) or that she was trying to be rude to anyone other than that kid. It also doesn’t help to get super angry and toss out other swear words like “fuck” or “bitch” left and right because it makes you harder to take seriously when you swear like a sailor while arguing with someone, and they are less likely to understand or want to compromise with you when you insult them. And finally, it doesn’t help to either a) try to act surperior or Talk down someone who you think is being a jerk because it makes you look egotistical, and b) don’t specifically insult Cami’s friends (however, overall being annoyed with people supporting Cami is understandable, which is what my next thing is about). Overall, if you act to rudely or intensely in trying to make your point or change someone’s mind, you only guarantee that people are less likely to agree with you, which means you are shorting your argument in the foot. And as someone who was making that argument, I’m really freaking angry at the people who made it impossible for the argument to go anywhere pleasant, and I feel sorry for anyone else who wanted to be civil while still disagreeing. While civility may not have changed anyone’s mind, it would have been better than what did happen, because now Cami’s probably never going to understand or empathize with people who don’t like the word.
Now, here’s my other point. I feel like Cami and some of her supporters got kind of–and yes, I will use this word despite the fact that it seems to piss off people on here–rude. Rude for understandable reasons, but still rude. It feels like, because There were people who were being equally rude at a stressful time in Cami’s life, she was too angry to be willing to compromise or be understanding. I just am bothered by the fact that everyone seemed to say stuff along the lines of “the word isn’t offensive at all to me/ check the context/ check the definition” and write it off there. And that’s what bothers me. People didn’t seem willing to understand that word really was seen as offensive to a decent amount of people. It seemed like Cami and a lot of her supporters felt that, if they couldn’t see offense in it, no one had a reason to get offended. And it’s fine that they Don’t get offended or see any problem with the word. But it would have been nice to see something like “okay, I still don’t think the word is offensive, but I understand why people are bothered by seeing it.” Instead, it felt like anyone bothered by that word was being treated like a baby who was calling Cami Hitler and saying the kid was better than her. So that led to some people immaturely using the word when being asked to stop, which feels like the verbal equivalent of a baby tossing their peas in their parent’s face when asked to eat them in terms of behavior. (I am not referring to Cami herself using it more because I get she only used it once, I’m referring to the fact that I saw other people saying that as if it made them comedic geniuses) there was also a few people saying stuff like “stupid Americans trying to make the world about them.” Forcing you to adopt the death penalty, use English, eat my food, or use the imperial system of measurement would be arrogantly forcing my culture on yours. Getting offended by something seen as an offensive word in my country which I have been taught not to use is the result of naturally carrying my national baggage onto an international stage. I’m not saying that means the American view that r-word is offensive is right, but if Cami makes the honest mistake of assuming the rest of the world doesn’t find it offensive, why can’t we make the honest mistake of assuming the rest of the world does find it offensive? Heck, asking “why is it like that in this country” instead of saying “this country is stupid then, because I know the way I grew up with is right” would allow for some discussion that lets us open to each other and increase our worldview. It would help you understand we don't just choose to get offended because we want to. Heck, maybe you have actually read about how the word became a slur and still think we're stupid. Fine. But at least don't write it off as us having no reason .
And here’s where I get to the part that I do become partisan. Why the hell is anyone who gets offended even when they aren’t personally insulted deemed an SJW these days? What the hell is wrong with worrying about someone else? I guess people would say “if they aren’t part of that group, they are misrepresenting it by trying to talk for them. Heck, I am a part of this group and I’m not insulted.” Five things: 1) what about people who actually, legitimately, understand the issue and want to defend that group. 2) how does not being part of that group stop me from having an opinion? 3) is it wrong of me to defend other people (and before you say “I could defend wrong” reread 1) 4) great if you aren’t insulted, but there are others who will be insulted. 5) defending a group does not mean you want attention, you can legitimately have feelings on an issue. This isn’t just applying to what happened with Cami. This is almost any freaking time I see someone use SJW, and I just happen to be here while I’m venting. SJW should be used for someone who is taking an issue where nobody has complained ever anywhere, making it an issue, and bringing nothing to back up their argument. That’s someone who you can be legitimately pissed off at because they want to make themselves a hero out of something truly meaningless to anyone.
Oh, also, for People who make the “Triggered” jokes. You know, that word refers to people who would actually have PTSD if they saw something that reminded them of an uncomfortable experience, like a soldier with PTSD hearing a gun or bomb. I get that a small number of people might appear to act that extremely. But getting offended by a word is not the same as that 99% of the time. And generally those people who get offended actually have a reason that it might help you listen to, instead of saying “lol, that person is upset, so I’ll make fun of them by doing something I know bothers them.”
Still I understand that she was angry, and already at a stressful time, and that there were people who were being too rude in their responses to her that word. They did not have the right to insult her like they did or act like surperior dickheads. And I understand why, emotionally, she would be unwilling to be less angry in her responses if a decent amount of the opposition wasn’t civil to begin with. And I get that I’m probably generalizing her reaction and I’m mistakenly assuming she didn’t literally mean people were calling her hitler. I was just bothered that some of her and her defenders counter responses seemed pretty rude and Inconsiderate. And that people who got angry at her were also inconsiderate by insulting her so rudely or acting like their position made them morally superior. It was stupid off them, and what lead to Cami insulting them in the first place.
And I don’t mean to imply Cami was weak for having an emotional response. Emotions are part of who we are. Obviously not everyone will be able to stay calm and fine at all times. Heck, I have one of the shortest fuses on the planet. I brought up emotions because I think people who chose to insult Cami were at fault for why she would be somewhat hostile.
TL;DR I feel like both sides here were not professional in how the r-word issue went down. I am Not expecting pure civility or happiness on the internet, and I understand not all arguments can be handled calmly and orderly, or that polite argument leaves everybody satisfied. I’m just disappointed because we could have still had that debate without drama or angriness, Even if we ended upcoming to the same conclusion as we did a few days ago. And sorry for anybody I might have thrown under the bus with a generalization, or if I assumed to much of the meaning behind what someone said. Also sorry if I ended up using loaded language in my argument or subconsciously made it anti-r-word usage despite trying to remain neutral.
Finally sorry for bringing this up if it starts the whole mess over again. If it happens, put the blame on me and my inability to not let shit die.
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Fang! Opinion on the pewdiepie shebang? You had such a well thought out opinion on the septiplier shenanigans, id love your thoughts on this... If you want
(The following opinion may not be your own and that is okay. If You wish to unfollow me for this, I understand and don’t hold you ill.)
I’ve been asked a few times to give myopinion on the whole thing with Felix and Disney and the slander. Ihaven’t said shit, though, because I was afraid – in the earlystate of all this happening – I wouldn’t be able to give a wellthought out and fair response. I’m very big on being fair. Or as fairas one can be about shit. Can’t do that for everything, I know… Butthis is Felix. I’ve been following him since 2010. He got me throughdepression in college. Hell he still does these days… I wanted tobe fair to him but also to what was going on. Because it’s not alight topic to just half-ass reply on. This isn’t some shipping warplayground war… This is a serious topic.
So I’ll give the most basic opinion onthis whole thing. Although you all know me. I’m a rambler. So just…Give me a little patience to explain my thoughts because they may getall over the place. And also know, yes, I know not a lot of peoplewill agree with me. If you have a differing opinion, cool. Share itwith me. Say what you feel. Be honest to me. Everyone is entitled totheir opinion. No matter how I feel against it, it’s their opinion.Opinions can change and grow. So I won’t judge you on that. So try togive me the same courtesy, okay? I like debates anyway. They’re agood way to get shit off your chest.
Anyway, lets start with me saying thatmy first initial response to everything was pretty superficial andpetty. I was mostly just made that Scare PewDiePie Season 2 was beingcanceled. I had been all prepared to get ready to buy YouTube Red atthe end of February so I could watch this without tracking down theepisodes like I had to do with season one. I huffed like a child anddidn’t take into account exactly why everything was getting canceled.I’m human. I can be selfish. And that’s what I was being… Then Ifound out exactly what the fuck was happening, and I was indistraught.
For those that don’t know what’s goingdown and what’s happening, I’m not going to explain everything that’shappening because it would take too long and fill up this post to belonger than I want it to be. But I highly suggest watching h3h3’svideo and Philip Defranco’s video on the whole ordeal (Linked for you. Seriously I would watch thesebefore you go on with this if you don’t know what I’m talking aboutat all). Or if you want more of a basic and outside opinion check outScarce and DramAlert. To get an opposing opinion on everything, checkout Casey Neistat. Seriously a lot of YouTubers are talking aboutthis.
So if you decided to watch all these,cool. If you get what’s going on already, then let me be to the pointand say that yes, I stand with Pewds but I’maware that he did mess up a bit. As I’ve said, I have to be fairabout this whole ordeal because this is a pretty big topic to notthink through. You can’t just gut jump this kinda thing.
I hadto do a lot of research into things as I was reading all the newsarticles and looking through the facts and opinions. I literallyspent a whole day off of work to research what I was being fed byeveryone. I don’t like to not be informed on shit. I like to know abit about what is going on before I jump throats. It’s why I neversaid anything during political debates because I didn’t want to soundlike an idiot ranting about something I didn’t look into. That’s justasking to be verbally smacked down.
Thepeople that are comparing Felix to Hitler… No. Just.. No Really?Why? Second, this whole thing is media manipulation and I know for afact everyone is far more aware of what the fuck that is since thebig media fight after the whole election cover and with fightingagainst the media manipulation of the Dakota Pipeline incident andeven the very obvious media scandal against the POC community! I knoweveryone knows that the media will stop at nothing to make a quickbuck by turning against someone to cover up another incident or evenbecause they were paid undercover of the public eye. I know we areway more aware than that, everyone.
Yetthat doesn’t seem to be the case this time. Pewds has been left as asacrificial lamb to the slaughter house and no one seems to beremembering that this is all happening at a rather convenient time.For awhile, the media was skimming away from Trump trouble – thepossibility of early impeachment coverage hasn’t been covered and Iwasn’t even aware of it until it was pointed out to me during mediaresearch. The Shay Carl incident – which is covered again by allthe above YouTube news coverage and can be found about in multiplearticles – has basically been forgotten. I mean I feel like that’sa little too convenient. Which, hey, it could just be acoincidence… But something about all this doesn’t seem like it is.All lines up too well.
Idon’t trust the media. I’ll say that now. I don’t trust the media andI have to do my own look into things. So everything I’m seeing beingsaid about Felix is just a bit fucked up. I’ve watched all thosevideos that they used to “point out how anti-Semitic” he is. Andthat’s not even right at all. Those clips are clearly edited andimposed with emotion jerking music to promote manipulation! Nevertrust everything on the internet! Rule number one they teach you whendoing research or just goofing around. That’s the first rule Ilearned in my early digital media classes in middle school.
It’slike people forget that manipulation is a thing. Also, to top thingsoff, how wrong is it that so many people were just happily willing tobe like “Oh it’s PewDiePie so it has to be accurate because I hatethat guy”… Seriously. Felix has the largest channel on YouTube.He’s basically the king of it… But he also has such a huge fuckinghate group too. So how fucked up was it that it was easy for peopleto just be like “Sure I buy that” and not even really listen orstop and thing? It’s like the best example of how easy it is forpeople to fall into media traps and that makes me cringe. Becausethat’s one reason Trump is our President right now. Media traps. AndI’m not ashamed to say that because it’s the truth. Hilary and Trumpwere put in Media traps and used media traps. Both did. Equallyfucked up.
TheThird Crusade, Hiter’s anti-Jew propaganda tactics with theholocaust, or the wiping out of over five hundred Jews during theearly 1900s because of false blame of Russia’s peasantry are examplesof extreme Antisemitism. An example of some that is anti-Semitic isHitler. Extremist skinheads are examples of someone anti-Semitic.Hell! Even Walt Disney himself is an example of someone withanti-Semitic behavior.
Thisis not Felix.
Now!Here’s something to keep in mind. Felix isn’t without theshit he’s done in the past that can be considered / is wrong.First off, examples of shit Felix has done in the past is drop theN-Word (Not a fan of that at all and I don’t forget he’s done that),made fun of people with serious disorders like turrets or downsyndrome (granted he was trying to be funny, but even I was like“Okay Felix you’re dragging this out” and “You went from FamilyGuy to Oh That’s Cringe, dude”), and using the term of Gay as a bitof an insult (That’s his much older videos and he fixed that up a bitbut it’s still pretty much there). And he’s even had the occasionalrude comment that can be taken pretty insensitive, on his Twitter. Soyeah, he’s said and wrote down some pretty wrong things. But he hasadmitted to them (Most. I’m not sure if that N-Word shit was coveredbecause I can’t find more on it, but I know it fucking happened) andhe has stepped away from messing in that area.
Thiswhole Fiverr thing is what started it. He set out to do anexperiment. He wanted to show the idiotic things people would say anddo for a quick buck. He was not expecting a response. Even in thevideo – the true video – you can tell he was very much in shockand disturbed by what he was seeing and hearing. That someoneactually went through with this kind of thing…
Itwas a joke, an experiment, that went down south real quick and it’svery obviously not what he was expecting to happen. And much of usjust saw this as a fucked up video and that it was proof that, yes,people will say and do shit for money like some kind of brainwasheddog on puppet strings. All for five damn dollars – I believe thatwas the amount anyway – these guys said and did these things. Ifanyone should be talked to, it’s also the people in the damn video.Not just Felix.
Now Ialso have to say that Felix is a giant – well known – publicfigure. My parents even know who he is, and they don’t watch YouTubeor even mess around on any social sight besides Facebook (my momdoes, dad refuses a FB). Kids in kindergarten know who he is. Thelittle kids I watched at my daycare have Brofist shirts and love him.He’s a well known face. Some even call him one of the faces ofYouTube next to iiSuperwomanii or Tyler Oakley.
Sowith that, yes. I feel like Felix does need to watch himself better.When you’re a public face like he is – like any of these YouTubers– you have eyes on you. You have people ready to string you up forthe execution gallows because of one wrong move. Because apparentlyit’s cool to hate and attack people. It sucks and it’s wrong, but atthe moment it is how it is. We live in a digital media where yourmistakes and fucks up are forever on display. Where you can dig intoanything if you know how and where to look.
PewDiePieis in the wrong for stupid shit he’s done in the past. But those donot defy him. If that’s the case, then every bad and horrible thingyou’ve ever said or done is who you are. No rules. You said somethinga bit racist in the past – even if you truly didn’t know it wasracist – doesn’t matter. According to this logic, you are nowforever a racist. You stole something when you were like six – apiece of candy or a sticker – you are now a thief by this logic. OrHell, say you got drunk one time in your life and made a dufus ofyourself – drunk dance on bar and fell off it or something – youare now forever a drunk because you pulled one stupid.
Thatis the way the world is acting. Felix has acknowledged the shit inthe past. He spoke up and admitted that, yeah, what he said in thepast was insensitive and wrong. He admitted it. And he stepped awayfrom a lot of it… But he’s a comedian, you guys. Hell I think hesaid it best in his video. He pushes the boundaries. THAT’S WHAT YOUDO AS A CONTENT CREATOR! You push to see what does and what does notwork. Obviously this didn’t fucking work for Felix. He learned.That’s that. That’s all it should be.
Andjust today, as I’m finishing typing this up for you, Mark posted avery important video. Now I agree with Mark to an extent. I’ll be thefirst to say that some things he said I kinda have to go “Ehhhh”because there’s a very black and white painted imagery around some ofthe stuff he’s saying and that’s not the case. There are gray areasin life and they do matter. You can’t be extreme one way or anotherwithout it eventually crossing over and becoming a gray spot.
Do Iagree that we are all humans and we all will fuck up? Yes. Do I alsoknow that even though we are humans and we fuck up, we still must beheld accountable for cases such as murder or rape or childpornography or etc etc? Yes. And as far as labeling people, yeah thatshit is obnoxious. It puts too much pressure on someone to be thisimage that has been slapped on them.
Istand with PewDiePie. I stand with the fact that he made an error.But I also am not ignorant enough not see that the media is straightup fucking with him and slandering him.The full proof is right out in the open for everyone to see. He saidwhat he said but he did not say it like they’re trying to play it as.I’m sorry, but as someone who has been in journalism and multimediaclasses, I can straight up say that this is slander all over it. Fakeand degrading news.
That’swhat I think about all this. I don’t agree with the fact the WSJ didthis. I think someone was trying to cover tracks and used Felix asthe lamb. I think it’s beautiful how much of the YouTube community isstanding with him and backing him up, even the YouTubers that don’tlike him. And I think the WSJ needs to be punished and needs to admitthat they lied and made this whole bullshit scandal out of thin air.
Now.If you don’t agree with me, talk to me. Don’t come at me with a rudeattitude. I’ll smile and look away. I don’t do rude anddisrespectful. Be an adult. Have an adult conversation with me. Tellme what you think and why. You may open my mind to something I didn’tthink about. There could be things I’m ignorant about. Enlighten me.Be a teacher. Teach me. I’ll listen. Fair and square.
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