[milfmacbeth]

To Whom It May Concern

It has come to my attention that some of you have been enjoying media that the OAF (Organization Against Fun) has deemed Problematic™.

This is unacceptable.

The frankly appalling behavior in question is exemplified by, but not limited to, engaging with themes not suitable for five year olds, speaking about or writing complex characters without constantly emphasizing how evil they are, and creating fanworks that do not appeal to me personally without asking for my permission or begging for my forgiveness.

Since you people do not possess my superior intellect, you have thus misinterpreted the phrase "thinking critically" to mean "analyzing and interpreting a work" instead of the correct definition "nitpicking perceived flaws". Fear not, you will be re-educated.

Aditionally, certain individuals, who shall remain unnamed, have displayed shocking amounts of empathy towards morally grey characters, or worse, developed a fondness for villainous characters who were written to be charming and dramatic. When confronted with my lecture about how villains are evil, these individuals responded with "and that's very sexy of them."

The OAF cannot let this stand.

Instead of shipping Woke™ ships with a far less interesting dynamic, there have been various attempts to normalize, romanticize, fetishize, realize and caramelize illegal ships, which should be punishable by death as it is tantamount to a war crime.

Sadly, the AO3 (Archive of Our Own) responded to my reasonable demands for censorship by telling me to "fuck off or learn to use the tagging system for its intended purpose."

I must ask all who are currently having fun in their fandoms to cease and desist.

Won't somebody think of the children.

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

people on this website be like “it’s actually school’s fault that i don’t know how to read because i wanted to write my essay on the divergent trilogy and that BITCH mrs. clarkson made us study 1984 instead. anyway here’s a 10 tweet thread of easily disproven misinformation about a 3 year old news story and btw, who is toni morrison?”

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

i KNOW most of y’all are lying about being in the gifted program as children because none of you could pass the basic reading comprehension assessment they give third graders today

[themself]

this post is mean and I never read divergent or whatever the fuck but 1984 sucks and is rape apologism so if somebody wanted to write about divergent or whatever good for them

[westenra]

this reply is like literally exactly what op is talking about lol. like firstly ops point isn’t “1984 is good”, ops point is that analysing complex stories teaches you how to form opinions and think for yourself. and like secondly in 1984 you’re supposed to think damn it’s fucked up that he’s thinking that way about her, i wonder if this ties in with the central theme of “a society like this will fuck you in the head”? (this is the thinking for yourself part). like do you think orwell just put that in for fun? do you think that just because winston is the protagonist you’re supposed to agree with everything he does?

[lunaescribe]

You know I feel like this post just gave me an epiphany for what is wrong with how Tumblr Fandom/Internet Fandom responds to media-or not *wrong* but makes it very hard to respond to anything but a morally correct, and heroic protagonist. 

When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective. 

No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream. 

A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’ 

You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions. 

I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior. 

I think if internet culture could learn to view stories as small insights into other lives or single takes of one perspective instead of purposeful moral inspirations we’d be a lot less worried about how toxic or not toxic they are. 

[potato-dumpling]

But also, if a child in school doesn’t want to read about rape, they shouldn’t have to in order to pass an English class.

[kendallroy-deactivated20210425]

sure! and if they don’t want to read about racism, they shouldn’t have to read the fire next time or the bluest eye! oh, and the grapes of wrath could be really troubling given the parallels to the way migrant farm workers are still treated, so just to be safe we shouldn’t teach that either. and macbeth portrays a really toxic marriage so we shouldn’t make anyone read that. and some people are afraid of bugs, so kafka’s out. or, maybe, high school students are not “children” who can’t be expected to read and engage with material about serious and troubling issues

[guerrillatech]

[emmaharwoods]

here is a twitter thread and constantly updating, currently active google doc that contains the gofundmes, paypals, cashapps, etc of victims of anti-asian hate crimes, asian-owned small businesses, and asians who need financial aid. please consider donating & boosting and adding more donation links if you have them.

[whitepeopletwitter]

[conceptadecency]

Just a reminder that Frederick Banting, discoverer of the process to synthesise insulin, sold the patent for $1 because it was so important to him that it be widely available and easily mass produced. Yes, you should be angry.

[earthmoonlotus]

“There’s a very binary view that people tend to take of characters in genre fiction, where they go like “Is this character redeemable or not? And if they’re not, I’m gonna cheer while their head gets squashed, and if they are, then every bad thing they’ve done is forgiven and they’re my best friend now.” And that is a wildly binary way to think about how people get to where they are, and the complexities of human behavior. One of the biggest takeaways I had from studying ethical philosophy is the idea of “what is redeemability in theory, and what is it in practice?”, and the idea that a character, or in fact a person, can be “theoretically redeemable”. A person can be “theoretically redeemable” in the way that, like, I can take a hammer and smash a mountain into gravel. Like, I’m gonna be alive for another 70 years, I’ll find a small mountain made of weak stone, and I have a hammer, so I’ll just break it apart with the hammer. Theoretically, if you’re willing to devote most of the rest of your life to the task and you’ve got multiple hammers to go through as you do it, you can smash that mountain apart with that hammer. Is that *gonna happen*? My point with this around the “redeemability” of characters is that certain things can be theoretically true, but are still never gonna happen. Like, when you’re thinking about human beings, it’s like, does every human have the capacity to change? Sure. Are they *going to*? Do you know how to change them? Could you go up to the bad bad man and say the perfect thing to make the bad man anymore? If it’s theoretically possible to say something to change someone’s mind, does that mean that someone’s actually gonna say it, and that it’s gonna happen? Is it gonna happen in five minutes, or is gonna take five years, or fifty years? All of this is to say is that the conversations around whether characters are “good” or “bad”, and by extension whether *people* are “good” or “bad”, get boiled down in a way that underlines how easy people would like for the conversation to be, and that there is a deep ethical desire for simplicity that I fundamentally disagree with.”

— Brennan Lee Mulligan

[autcore]

I'm sorry but if you think the etymology of "queer" being related to weirdness/otherness/strangeness is a bad thing, I simply cannot vibe with you.

[socialworker-rebecca]

If it’s too hard to think positive, think neutral.

I’m no better or worse than anyone else.

I deserve the same things in life as anyone else.

I’m a human being.

Right now, I am feeling ________(fill in the blank).

I don’t know how I’ll feel in 5 minutes, or tomorrow.

I can’t predict the future.

Life is full of painful, pleasurable, and boring moments.

The world is full of good, evil, and gray areas.

[fullmetalfuck]

This is literally what I tell myself everyday! I dont have to be the best! I cant just be me and that's enough!

[nonasuch]

argh argh argh I just wrote a VERY long reply to a post about thrift stores, because I keep seeing the hot take that boils down to “rich people are ruining thrift stores and stealing from the Deserving Poor” which is incorrect on SO many levels, but tumblr OF COURSE ate the post and I do not have the energy right now to type it all out again

shortest possible version:

actual rich people do not spend 6 hours digging at the value village. they buy online or from stores that are already curated.

the person who thrifts for midrange designer pieces to resell on poshmark or whatever is not your enemy.

the vintage seller looking for clip earrings and pillbox hats and novelty salt and pepper shakers is not your enemy.

they are shopping from the same functionally infinite pool of used goods as you, and there will be a fresh truckload tomorrow.

your actual enemies are the corporations who dismantled the unionized garment industry in the 70s, and kept wages flat as cost of living rose so that ethically-made good-quality clothing is unaffordable even for the middle class.

[fullmetalfuck]

somewhat bittersweet update post coming soon

[fullmetalfuck]

been away for a while why is everyone screaming

[fullmetalfuck]

Yesterday's discourse was very frustrating. Rape survivors were invalidated by the virtue of thinking the "wrong" things. Antis refused to listen to other survivors, and refused to use google like always. So, I used it for them.

Here are some articles about why rape fantasies are nothing to be afriad of, and why women and rape survivors develop rape fantasies. Reading or writing rape fic is not wrong, it is not condoning IRL rape, it is simply something some people have, survivor or not. Obviously trigger warning for sexual assault.

"I don't believe that women in general, or sexual assault victims specifically, are retraumatizing themselves by revisiting these experiences and fantasies. For many, I believe that, like any fantasy or daydream, it is a way for a person to mentally assert control over a situation in which they were powerless." (X)

"Decades ago, psychologists believed that dreams and fantasies (daydreams) were subconscious wishes, therefore, women who had rape fantasies actually wanted to be coerced into sex. That view has been thoroughly debunked. Fantasies don’t necessarily reflect wishes... Women who have rape fantasies don’t want to be sexually assaulted. They feel comfortable with their own sexuality  and are happy to embrace their erotic fantasies—wherever they may lead." (X)

"Recent research indicates that between 31% and 57% of women have fantasies in which they are forced into sex against their will... Having fantasies about being raped also doesn’t mean you’re pro-rape or a terrible feminist. It doesn’t mean anything about who you are, actually, and as long as you’re enjoying those fantasies in your mind, there’s no cause for concern. ‘There is no evidence that fantasising about forced-sex (or any other type of sex) says anything about our personalities, mental health or wider sexual preferences,’ Michael says." (X)

[styrke-deactivated20240722]

you are allowed to be proud of the victories that no one else can see. like showering without completely hating your body, not breaking into tears at the thought of the future, talking yourself out of a dark mindset, calming yourself down in public, or like waking up every single day and choosing life. be proud of the progress no matter if it is visible for others or not. you’re doing great, keep up the good work!

[wolveria]

[salt-for-everyone-deactivated20]

> This is especially alarming when those fandoms are 18+, with shows and content especially aimed at adults.

You know what I threw this into my queue without a second thought because I agree with it, but I have the perfect example of the second sentence in this tweet and when I remembered it automatically made my blood boil and now I have to make a post about it

“Boyfriend to Death”

“Boyfriend to Death” is an 18+ computer fictional dating sim/visual novel series that involves heavily explicit/sexual/dark themes, some of them triggering. (I’m not gonna go into detail about it on this post because holy fucking shit but look it up at your own risk.) This game was developed BY ADULTS, FOR ADULTS, AIMED at a specific demographic of ADULTS, and NONE of the adults who created it want minors interacting with them about BtD (like sending fan art or fan fiction). They actively block users who turn out to be minors, and they’ve been sent hate over it. Minors have thrown absolute bitch fits over being denied interaction by adult fans, being told they shouldn’t be consuming the content in the first place, or being removed from BtD fan spaces because they’re rightfully dubbed 18+.

But minors nowadays just don’t give a shit. They’ll find workarounds for shit that was never meant for them in the first place or they’ll barrage and harass other adults until they get their way. Social websites left and right have either changed their ToS to cater more to minors or just outright banned explicit content, completely ruining the space for adults who have been there long before. It’s not just ridiculous and it’s more than alarming. It’s horrifying. There’s a clear gap of morality, critical thinking, and life learning in these minors. The extreme levels of self-entitlement, selfishness, and disregard are staggering.

How did we even GET here?

[socialjusticefail]

I would not be surprise if we can blame the parents or that current internet culture is encouraging this behavior.

[bluephoenixprincess]

Id guess because parents dont teach internet saftey or stranger danger, combined with the culture of places like twitter, little shits never learned how to hide or lie and just expect the online space to be tailored yo them, when it should always be the other way around.

With it being overall easier to find info on who your interacting with and kids these day being distressingly open and unsupervised with the info they give out online, its the perfect shitstorm.

[xxcherenkov-gremlinxx-deactivat]

They’ll weasel their way into adult discussions and often bring up sex related topics and then when people defend themselves and call them out on it they’re like “bUT I’M JUST A KID I’M A MINOR WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT SEX YOU PEDO”

[ytphobia-deactivated20210908]

corporations are actively convincing us the reason behind global warming is that you, personally, aren’t reusing your pasta water to make tea and eating the teabag for lunch #vegan and we just let them

[ytphobia-deactivated20210908]

no seriously the amount of ppl I see who are genuinely trying to do the right thing and who think global warming is their fault because they have a car or turn the fan on in the summer or eat a goddamn buger is astounding. people are truly brainwashed into thinking anything we do as citizens has an effect on the environment that’s somehow more important than the actions of corporations.

in 2020, when everyone was isolated at home, fossil co2 emissions in the US only dropped by 11%. think about how insane it is that when almost every person living in the second largest GEG emitter was at home for months, the effect they had was a reduction of barely 11%. and yet that fucking carbon footprint calculator is shoved down our throat all day long. a whole 4 years ago when that article came out saying only 100 companies are responsible for 71% of global emissions, everybody just blinked and went “no, thank you. now have you bought enough metal straws?”

and i’m not even addressing the blatant racism, ableism and classism that coats every single one of these “personal responsibility” arguments.

[grendelsmilf]

ngl jews are already at an advantage in a xtian society when it comes to having critical thinking skills bc judaism fundamentally encourages critical thinking and xtianity fundamentally discourages it. like I can’t speak to other cultures, but as a jew growing up in an incredibly conservative xtian country (god bless america) i always found it easier to question dominant narratives than my (culturally) xtian peers. so there is that

[velvetvetiver]

[lubefairy]

Celebrating “saving democracy”. Cant save what u never really had