jaybird
25
he/they
chinese
tired as fuckgender is none binary with left beefhomestuck fanmild overwatch fandiscourse dni im too old
thanks for clicking im flattered- in n out is good
- fries with mayonnaise are good
- panda express food is chinese food (i did the research)
- vanilla ice cream > chocolate ice cream
- medium rare steak only
- soda water is eghh
- wikipedia articles on food are actually very interesting----
the following are my opinions. i cant claim to be more knowledgeable than others on many subjects but this page exists to list them if people want to see them.
it's very wordy. you can scroll to the bottom for tl;dr.
----- i believe that fandom on twitter inevitably will have, and continue to have, really bad discourse and it is an unfortunate consequence of being on a site not made for separate communities sorted by interest, and rather just mass engagement, whether it is good or bad. it encourages bad takes with no nuance and lots of hostility that run buck fucking wild.
- twitter is a corporation and doesn't really care about users beyond them bringing in that sweet, sweet mass engagement, so i'm not optimistic about the climate on this site improving all that much.
- it is not controversial as people think if someone dislikes or even hates certain content in fandom - that's actually expected, and that's why we have tags and muting/blocking.
it's the terrible generalizations of people who do like that content that is generating so much friction across twitter.
compare "i don't like this content and i find it distasteful. i will block it." to "everyone who likes this content is disgusting and gross and are probably criminals." and guess which one is going to make more people mad and defensive. it's twitter.
- sweeping generalizations of assuming people's traumas, biases, and morals, based on their ships or just interpretations are just really dumb and a waste of time.
- using ships as a measuring stick for someone's goodness or badness is an incredibly flimsy metric, because what someone enjoys doing to fictional characters doesn't always correlate to their feelings towards real people and thus not a good basis for judgement.
- if all it takes for someone to be considered safe and moral is to have the right ships, instead of how they treat other people... i'm sorry, but that gives a lot of abusive people a very convenient smokescreen.
- when people say "it's just fiction" it's because it is. fiction is NOT completely harmless, nor is it a 1:1 influence on reality - but the fact is that it is fiction. Art, drawings, writing, etc - these are parts of culture and affect people in such varying ways that discourse on the topic requires nuance. there's no avoiding it. we cannot make sweeping generalizations on people and fiction because it is such a complex topic that trying to boil it down to a binary just gets more people hurt than it protects.
- good god, it is okay to just say you dont like a ship. you do not need to give me a moral reason. you do not need to tell me how gross you find it, or how it's a danger to society, or what you think about the people who ship it. just say you don't like it, it's fine.
- for those of you who think fujoshi means "gay men are my fetish" despite many japanese speakers clarifying the term to not mean that, here's a handy site with lots of resources.
rottenboysclub at dreamwidth
- you cannot convince me someone is a danger to society ONLY based off their fanfiction and fanart, especially if its tagged and they acknowledge it is fiction. people can write anything for any reason. i need context.this is because i keep seeing completely useless callouts on someone's tagged and warned fanfiction (which exposes it to people who did not want to see it), and when actual fucking predators are exposed, the focus is on whatever fictional character. a ton of this shit is so performative and centers the fictional characters instead of the actual victims."this person is a pedophile!" is both used against people who ship like, bakudeku and actual goddamn predators. what used to be a very serious term for a heinous crime is now just an insult??
- if you're the type of person that sends minors nsfw or suggestive art to disgust them and send them to go report an account they wouldnt have known about if you didn't show them, that is really fucking gross. don't show porn to minors under any context.
none of this "but i was just warning them!" showing nsfw to kids that trust you is predatory.
- fandom twitter COULD be having really interesting discussions in the ways fiction and reality affect each other, because they absolutely do,
but instead we have "everyone who likes this ship/show/comic/media/nsfw must be a ____phobic, no exceptions or nuance!" and "fiction doesn't have ANY impact at all lol! ill spam you with porn and laugh!" while millions enjoy hannibal, game of thrones, homestuck, and a plethora of other media that have a history of very uncomfortable things and yet they did not change the viewers' universal irl taboos of cannibalism and incest.
it's "video games cause violence" 2.0. this is literally repackaged conservative talking points disguised as queer progression. what the fuck
- we could also be having a lot of great conversations about anime and how its handled in western spaces, but instead i keep seeing the same recycled racist and misogynistic takes about its fans.
are there obvious cultural differences between fans around the world and it has resulting culture clash? of course.
are there a lot of sexual themes in popular anime AND american media surrounding teen characters, and is it worth examining why? yes!
does this mean the entirety of japan is full of immoral and gross people? fuck out of here with that racist shit.
this is a take that i saw under a viral post of someone talking about the tropes they dislike in anime. as if japanese people, especially women, haven't spoken at length about the issues with anime and aren't heavily aware of it.
i know there's a lot of anime out there with dark and upsetting topics, and a lot of it is set up to be titillating rather than upsetting. it's because they are created under the guise of fantasy and fascination, not guides on how to live your life.- again, we could have discussions across twitter about how fantasy and sex affect us and how we deal with it in different ways individually, and how media industry interacts/influences/is influenced by its audience overall, and how sexualization affects us at an industrial and social level... but those don't get the big interaction numbers. 🤷we get general takes of "sexualizing fictional minors is still bad!" and dont elaborate beyond "well its bad in REAL life so its bad in fiction too! if you do that you might get IDEAS." and get hundreds of thousands of engagements.
it's such an obvious tactic to incite moral panic. we can all agree that sexualization of irl minors is abhorrent. you could switch out the subject with "murder" and still get the same kind of general argument.
sex in fanart/fic is a more complex topic to tackle because, indeed, they are not real. fictional characters are objects, which in itself can mean wildly different things to people with wildly different intent. for victims of abuse, especially.i'll reiterate: fictional characters are objects. defending their integrity is a waste of time. but the people who look at them, write about them, study them- they are real. and their approaches WILL clash.intent and context and nuance are fucking important and people constantly leave it out on purpose to get more engagements and truly believe they're Morally Correct and Upstanding Individuals Without Reproach and Anyone who Disagrees is a Pedophile. it's easy to defend the integrity of the fictional character; they can't talk about their own struggles or identity because they are not real beyond each individual person projecting it onto them.- fiction is a tool that is inherently used differently by every person because we all have individual brains. it can hurt OR heal, influence OR inform, to process our own psyche and connect with others, or to reinforce already existing beliefs, or simply just to keep our thoughts occupied.
- many survivors of abuse or trauma use dark fiction as a means of escape, of processing their trauma, of taking control of what happened to them. it is not a method that works for every survivor- there is no one solution that works for every person. one thing i see often (and i wish i didnt) is victims fighting other victims whether it is morally acceptable or not to deal with their trauma this way, and whether or not that is "retraumatizing" themselves. that... unfortunately leads to a lot of victim blaming and willful misunderstanding of others and their situations. again, it is not a solution that works for every victim and should not be treated as such.
just because one victim uses it to process their trauma and another is not able to do the same, neither of them are inherently wrong. it's just a fact that it's used in different ways between each person.
sometimes people just like dark shit without some deep reason behind it. they like exploring it in fiction but don't do it irl. i can understand people liking assassin's creed without thinking they like shanking real people.
i've had to see takes about "well victims shouldnt be putting their coping material online! it should be private so i dont have to see it!" and shaming them for trying to take control of it, or, even worse, fucking putting them on the same level as their abusers. ???
- dark themes, especially those of a sexual nature, in media is... imo pretty much always going to exist. time is better spent pushing for better blocking and muting functions rather than controlling the existence of that content.
and eradicating only the problematic icky content through law is not going to work. the whole thing will just be thrown out instead.
example: people can discourse all they want about the levels of sexualization in anime and what should be allowed, but what happens is that all anime just gets banned bc no one at the top is interested in dissecting the topic. see: australia- fandom was created out of a desire to be able to explore things the mainstream didn't provide. it's a niche hobby. it is only natural that people are not going to find every other thing their cup of tea.
what's important, and the best tool someone can have when first engaging with online fandom... is being able to curate your own experience. block liberally. mute all those terms you find triggering. it is pointless to change the minds of those committed to misunderstanding you, but you can take steps to clean your own timeline.
and most importantly, education on basic internet safety and etiquette. double that for young teens on twitter and instagram. expecting adults on the internet to act in your best interests because you are underage and it is "their responsibility" to do so is not only idiotic but can be very dangerous. most reasonable adults are not here on the internet to talk about their nsfw content with teenagers, they are here to talk about that with other adults. if an adult approached a minor on here saying that they are a "safe" adult, and engage in with them by showing them a porn artist's work to disgust them... they're not the safe adult here!- eradication or censorship of dark fiction will not stop predators from hurting their victims. they will simply find another tool to use. 'unproblematic' fiction can be used as a tool to abuse so long it fits the predator's narrative to establish control over their victim.
- i do think that there are some very valuable conversations and actions to be had on the separation and filtering of content that people want to see on social media in terms of fandom. (ironically, tumblr was better at doing this before management of it went to shit.) but all we do on this site is fling accusations until everyone's blocked and upset.
- there are also some complex points we can criticize about the overt trend of sexualization, normalization, fetishization, and etc, but these things have been watered down to the point where no one understands what they mean anymore and just used as buzzwords to look for a moral reason why they dont like a ship.-----now for the elephant in the room------ "pro-ship" and "anti" are terms that i think is pretty much proof that co-opting labels to prove your own morality inevitably get twisted because of bad faith actors and misinformation is so easy to spread, and people are not willing to do their research. i was on tumblr in its heyday, i've seen it all go down.this is why when i look at someone's carrd and they go "proshippers dni" i have to wonder if they mean that sincerely and support harassing people instead of blocking, or they were told by someone else that it meant pedophile and believed it immediately."anti" was a term from tumblr that was shorthand for "anti-ship", a sentiment born from people who were adamant in expressing their disgust for ships they did not like to the point where they made blogs for it. ("anti-sheith" etc.) this kind of behavior was mocked all the time on tumblr, and they had to find ways to be taken seriously, so they made a lot of moral reasons for what they did. Sheith as a ship is infamous for this, being called 'incest' and 'pedophila' despite it being neither of those things."pro-shipping" and "anti-anti" were terms coined to oppose this sort of behavior. it was built on an ideology that making so much negative noise about ships was dumb. as a natural side effect, people that are proship tend to be more open about exploring and enjoying darker, 'problematic' topics. this gave a general look and reputation of pro-ship people as enjoyers of ALL problematic topics, but that's really not true. it's a broad ideology sprung to oppose anti-ship blogs spamming the tags.all it ORIGINALLY meant is "pro minding your own business, it's fictional."when this started all moving to twitter because of tumblr's ban in app stores and subsequent nsfw purge, the terms all got muddled because twitter is a misinformation hotbed just like tumblr.'anti' started to be coined as "anti-pedophilia/abuse/incest". again, this is an easy tactic for inciting moral panic. these are universal taboos. if you didn't opt the term for yourself or asked questions, you'd be labeled as a condoner of those things.(labeling yourself as anti-pedophilia automatically becomes very suspicious to me. you don't need a special name to be so. it is a universal taboo and has no chance of being normalized irl.
plus this is a tactic used by conservatives to attack queer artists all the time, and it is tiring to see repeated by queer people.)"pro-ship" started to be labeled as "pro-incest/abuse/pedophilia", by people spreading misinfo about the term, making the problem worse."proship" has never meant pedophile. it's never been a replacement for "MAP". MAPs are still openly calling themselves MAPs, they didnt go anywhere.it is literally just a broad term for a loosely defined set of beliefs that ships aren't a metric for someone's morals. it has its own problems within its own community to the point where people have left behind that label for something else.the term has also been co-opted by assholes who took proship to mean that they can spam loli art under people's posts because "it's just fiction" and conveniently ignoring the "anti harassment" message that proship originally had.
some are literally just pro-harassment if it's someone they don't like. great job, idiots.proship and antiship- the first are several subgroups under a loosely defined ideology whose only common requirement was "ship hate is dumb" and has been used by very different people and has its own glaring issues, and the other is a cultlike moral grandstand around trying to combat social problems by thinking that abuse of real people is the fault of fiction.i don't consider myself as either because i hate how all of this has become an "us vs them" argument instead of actual constructive change.
---------tl;dr:
i aint proship and im DEFINITELY not antiship, but i will never be okay with telling someone to die over ships and making moral calls based on what fiction they make instead of their actual fucking actions towards real humans
dni:> standard dni's: if you're racist, lgbtqia phobic / exclusionist, a MAP, pedo, TERF, don't support BLM> if you think that if something dark/gross/dangerous depicted in fiction is okay to do in real life> if you attack, belittle, insult, or make others look bad for dissenting opinions on fictional characters or ships, and thinking that behavior is acceptable> if you think ANY kind of harassment will actually accomplish anything positive, no matter how vile you find the other person> if you start fights with people that make content you find problematic, especially if they're tagged and have warnings> if you intentionally spread misinformation, harmful rumors, or perpetuate harassment campaigns> if you say that anime, manga, or east asian media in general is "full of pedophilia/incest culture", or in any way imply that asian cultures are "problematic"> if you say "fujoshi" means "fetishizing gay men" despite many japanese people clarifying the term to NOT mean that> you have a problem with older fans in fandoms of adult/mature media> you think it's acceptable for minors to go harass nsfw artists / anyone they think is dangerous> you're a minor that thinks you can harass nsfw accounts all you want and they can't do anything back to you--details down below.i really dislike discourse
and i try my best to not engage with it, it causes me a lot of anxiety and frustration.a lot of it is super pointless and people almost always use it as power over others on social platforms, even if they think they're in the right and morally superior.but here we go, here's my shit pile of opinions:> if you're the type to attack, belittle, insult, or otherwise make others look bad for having dissenting opinions over interpretations of characters or ships instead of just muting/blocking, i will distance myself from you as much as possible.example: giving people trouble over depicting either john or june egbert (i.e. threatening violence, name-calling, guilt-tripping, doxxing, harassment)example 2: giving people shit for shipping anything you're not into (implying the ship is bad, or people are bad for shipping it, or "people just ship this because they don't like this superior ship!")example 3: failing to recognize that not everyone will agree with you and that badmouthing them isn't going to make them align with you OR make you look goodi try my best to stay away from people who think one interpretation is the only "right" interpretation. that way of thinking has a very high chance of turning into "people who don't agree are [insert negative trait]" while ignoring nuance and complexity of the issue at hand.i believe everyone's allowed to have their own opinion.i don't believe in trying to force others to accept opinions.not even through harassment or insults, but also through presenting opinions as the only correct one and putting people on the spot to agree or else face being ostracized.that shit's broke and tired. curating your own space is important but trying to force other spaces to conform to yours puts a huge red flag on you.> if you think ANY kind of harassment will actually accomplish anything positive, no matter how vile you find the other personthis is something that i'm constantly watching from the sidelines as a bystander in HS twitter and it's... it's a fucking mess.i also think that it's a shame that people online have some really bad or concerning takes, but... reply-spamming, harassment, and etc in response is... even more confusing. what's that going to accomplish? that tends to make the harassment victim even more rooted into their original view.if you can tell that they're not willing to budge on their original viewpoint... then harassing them about it is not going to do anything but make you look like the asshole.harassment doesn't do jack shit and really isn't funny.> if you're the type to send insults or start fights with people that make content you find "problematic", no matter the reason, i will distance myself from you.this includes sending gore, porn, and other distressing content to someone you think "deserves" it. it's not a joke. it's harassment.it doesn't matter how distasteful you find that content, if your reaction is to "call it out" - i.e. send a lot of insults and make a callout post so others can harass the creator, or invade their private spaces such as locked accounts or private discord servers, then you're not the mature or superior one here.i promise it's fine to dislike or hate commonly 'problematic' content, or just... content in general. in fact it's reasonable and quite understandable, not everything is for everyone. it's a good strategy to make good use of the block feature and put DNI's in your bio/carrds about such content.what's shitty is the policing of other people on the internet, as if that's going to make anyone do anything but dig in their heels further.> if you intentionally spread misinformation, harmful rumors, or continue to perpetuate harassment campaigns against someoneno matter who's being called out or being talked about having done something bad, i can't take any of them seriously anymore because clowns on the internet thought it was useful to make callout posts about people that made content they didn't like.i was around when callout posts actually meant calling out someone that was actually doing something harmful like sending death threats or scamming people. now the callout posts ARE the harmful things for shit like "this person made art of this gross ship, therefore they're a criminal! report them!"misinformation and misuse of callouts have muddled them to the point where the internet at large think they're all a bunch of jokes. way to go.> if you think that anime/manga/japanese media/east asian media in general is full of 'pedophilia/incest culture' / claim that asian culture is more accepting of that shit,you are racist, straight up.i don't care how right you think you are.please stop using western cultures as metrics to measure east asian cultures with. that's ethnocentrism and framing other cultures as superior to japanese/east asian culture, which is, you guessed it, racist.> if you think that "fujoshi" means "i fetishize gay men" ...that word has been constantly explained by japanese people and japanese speakers to NOT mean that and they're just always ignored by people who want to twist the meaning for their own entitlement.there's plenty of resources out there to actually tell you what the word means from actual queer japanese people who are far more informed on the subject than some american teenager with their glacial takes on a culture they're not part of.> if you have a problem with older fans in fandoms of adult/mature media ...i dont know what to tell you. ive seen minors complain about adults in fandoms of... adult / mature media. what? minors shouldn't even be engaging in a fandom that's not for them. not only is it potentially dangerous for that minor to be so loudspoken in an adult fandom, it puts a lot of unnecessary strain on something that shouldn't even be an issue.it's really weird to see people with takes of "ew adults in fandom!" as if they don't realize that adults... make the published content. that the fandom is based on. which was made... for adults.????????> if you think it's acceptable for minors to go harass nsfw artists / anyone they think is dangerousthat's just a huge red flag. i would love for minors to stay away from anyone that's a potential danger to them. but instead, i've seen them encouraging each other to go harass adults they think are dangerous? to send them DMs of gore, porn, and other upsetting images?what is the logic? this is wildly unsafe. minors, please stay away from artists making adult content, or any adult you perceive as dangerous. DON'T engage with them. most of them will probably just be uncomfortable and tell you to fuck off, but there's the off chance that someone could ACTUALLY BE DANGEROUS.dangerous people on the internet don't just come in the form of people posting art you don't like. it's also people who use you as an attack dog, or convince you that they're the "safe" adults who you can totally talk about nsfw stuff with, people who gaslight you into thinking like them, or making you feel unsafe if you happen to disagree, etc.
not every villian has a mean face.plus, sending upsetting images to someone and calling them a pedophile puts you on legal grounds for harassment.> you're a minor that thinks you can harass nsfw accounts all you wantlook, it's not cool to harass anyone, no matter how much you think they deserve it. you can't insert yourself into conversations or accounts that's explicitly age restricted / for adults and then throw a fit when they tell you to stop.this is really immature behavior and really only makes you look like a hysterical crybaby that can't handle the fact that adults are on the internet.the internet has NEVER been a completely safe space for minors and i highly doubt it ever will be. this doesn't mean i think teenagers shouldn't be on the internet, i just think there's some major lessons that need to be taught on internet safety.it's basic knowledge to not interact with people that you think are dangerous, or give too much information about yourself. inserting yourself into adult spaces as a minor and trying to boss them into more "acceptable" behavior is only going to get you pushed out and get nothing accomplished.----this is my personal opinion, but- most of your life shouldn't be spent on the internet, ESPECIALLY discourse twitter and instagram.it's easy to attach too much of your personal satisfaction and happiness to stuff on the internet, which has always been something very out of an individual's control. if sending mean comments / ratioing twitter posts / spamming / other negative interactions / is your outlet to deal with that, please understand that doesn't do shit to protect anyone or solve any problems. it just makes the entire environment worse.it's easy to be mean and be a bully on twitter, but stuff on here can reflect back onto you in very negative ways, and a lot of the time you won't notice until it's too late.-i'll close off with this:> a fictional character doesn't need people to defend them as much as real people.> using 'problematic' fictional content as an indicator of real life issues is not as effective as people claim it is.> it tells me volumes if someone treats fictional characters with more respect and compassion than actual human beings.
my favorite characters are pretty much all the striders. dave, dirk, davesprite, hal, alpha dave, and bro. they're a bunch of idiots but i like them so, so much. they live in my head rent free. i think about them constantly.i think jade's really badass and honestly deserved more from homestuck proper. i used to identify with her a lot when i was younger. she went from the princess in the tower to the all powerful witch that could crush entire planetsrose is great and i love her character complexity and how absolutely feral she can be, and i think roxy is awesome and has the best personality out of all the alpha kids. i also love the variance of gender interpretations they have, it's beautifuljane's great and there's lots of great stuff to read about her character. when i think of her i think of "aren't you tired of being nice? don't you just want to go apeshit". i simply think jane is allowed to go apeshit. (just not super comfortable with her characterization in postcanon stuff, but that's simply personal opinion)jake is the biggest walking mess of self doubt and repression i've ever seen. from the blatant symbolism of brain ghost dirk to the way he assumes different kinds of personalities depending on his mood, and running away from any real responsibility, is possibly the best kind of character i've ever seen. i have a soft spot for characters like that (a good example is Katia Managan from the PREQUEL comic). he's smart and perceptive but simply just chooses to keep putting on masks of personality until they're literally crumbling away and he's left with nothing. relatable is what he is. [slaps roof of jake's house] this boy can fit so many self identity issuesi like june egbert and think she should be allowed to kick ultimate dirk's ass. to be honest i was pretty lukewarm about john - i still think he's okay and everything - but hearing about june and reading into her development and reading was like opening my third eye. she's beautiful and i love her a lot, and has a lot of Layers. i feel like homestuck proper had sort of watered down john's personality near the end of the story (just a personal opinion, fan stuff does a great job at filling in blanks tbh), but i feel like getting june from candy was by far the best thing to come out of the... whatever the hell the epilogues are.-generally my feelings and views on the characters of hs are really fluid. i'm really into multiple interpretations on every one of them and there's not really any headcanon / interpretation / canon reading of characters that i'm put off by or particularly attached to, even if they contradict each other. i like to think them through and ponder the different ways the differing interpretations can work in certain settings.homestuck is, after all, a story with infinite timelines and alternate universes.(it's just tiring to see people fight over which interpretation is more correct.)(i promise it's just fun to stick with what you like and not have to listen to any dissent.)i'm especially partial to trans readings / nb interpretations, and i think it's really interesting how myriad people's views on these characters can be and i think the variety is extremely beautiful. gender is such a unique experience to each person and it's really quite something to see manifest in differing interpretations.
my thoughts on the homestuck epilogues and homestuck 2: beyond canon:
...yeah.i'm of the opinion that homestuck should have ended in 2016. i understand why people like the epilogues and hs2, but... personally i can't enjoy it that much. June is cool and Roxy's gender journey was cool but that's about it.I know homestuck is all about characters not having to progress in a positive manner and the subversion of expectation / challenging what "canon" means and just meta on the characters in general, and i appreciate the work that goes into it, its just that i'm not having as much fun as i used to.i'm just really tired of the discourse that is just so prevalent in hs fandom. i know it's always been there, but now it kind of rivals the fun stuff instead of being kind of a backdrop/something to keep in mind.so yeah i'm not really all that happy with hs2/epilogues. i'm not going to combust if i see it, but i'm just not into it anymore.