Alcorsnightmaresheep - Between Weird And Beautiful, Jellyfishes Are

I’m glad you’re here just the way you are

I am really baffled by the people attacking AO3 for hosting stories that involve rape, incest, pedophilia, and other dark things. Have…have they never been to a bookstore or library? People write stories about all manner of dark, horrible things. This is not remotely new. And at least on AO3 and other fandom platforms, the dark things are generally tagged. In bookstores and libraries, not so much.

V.C. Andrews was freaking popular when I was in jr. high and high school. Her books were in the school libraries. They needed to be stamped with trigger warning: EVERYTHING, but mainly things from the fun list of rape, incest, pedophilia, and child abuse. Her books are still sufficiently popular that there are new ones coming out despite the fact that she’s been dead for years!

Her books are in the library I work at. Her books are in most bookstores. Her books are probably still in the libraries of the jr high and high school I went to. Does that mean anywhere that has her books supports rape, incest, pedophilia, and child abuse?

That’s not how it works. Yes, there are occasionally things that a store or library will decide they don’t want to carry, no matter what. The first bookstore I worked at wouldn’t even special order The Turner Diaries. A lot of bookstores won’t even special order The Anarchist Cookbook. I’m sure there are other books out there that people are reluctant to touch, even with a ten foot pole. But, barring those few exceptions, most bookstores and libraries are not in the business of policing the content of the books they deal in.

Not because booksellers and librarians are all monsters who should be reported to the FBI, but because there’s a long history of censorship going very bad places very fast. Also, free speech is considered an American value. Hell, let me just link to the ALA page on censorship.

I don’t pretend to know why stuff like V.C. Andrews’ books, or the fics on AO3 that some people want to report to the FBI, are popular. I don’t get it. It doesn’t appeal to me. Yet I recognize that different dark things are in kinds of fiction that I do like - violence, murder, torture, war, other things that most of us really fervantly hope never to experience in our lives. I don’t know whether fiction is an outlet for whatever darkness lurks in everyone’s hearts, whether it’s a way of dealing with our fear of bad things happening, whether human culture just finds bad things fascinating, or what. Maybe humanity is just super fucked up and Pluto really is a warning buoy telling other civilizations not to go near the planet with the creepy mammal infestation on it.

But I don’t think going after fic platforms because some of the fic hosted there is disturbing is a solution to anything. (And if the people doing so are not also on an equivalent campaign against bookstores and libraries, I suspect that what’s going on is not what they claim is going on.)

If you are even a small part of the MSPA Homestuck fandom reblog this now.

everything will be explained later

Spoiler, you can’t

“Smile! Our god, among other things, is watching.”

Getting back into WTNV. Kevin, you wonderful mistake of nature. You scary.

You have an older brother. He's more charismatic than you, handsomer than you, always surrounded by a big circle of friends. When you follow him in school, all of your teachers know you only as an extension of him. "You're Kaito's brother," they tell you when they hear your surname. They expect you to be him and you just can't measure up. Even when his choices ruin your life, much of your family take his side.

And then one day you die. It's tragic, but at least you don't leave behind a wife or children. At the memorial, how many people there are just a little bit relieved that it's you and not him?

You come back to life in a new world, and make a new start. There's nobody there to overshadow you. You gain confidence, and power, and a big circle of friends. Every time you rank up in power you get handsomer. Every time you rank up in power you look more like your brother, until your face is more his than yours.

Then you come home. The world turns upside down with the revelation of monsters and magic, and now he's the one running to catch up. He gets a job with the magical society you introduced him to. He's helpful and well-liked, but in these circles that only makes him average. His coworkers know him as an extension of you. "You're Jason's brother," they tell him when they meet him. They expect him to have your audacity, your proprensity for miracles.

And then comes the day that you step out of a portal and find him dead.

His funeral is widely attended. You come in secret, because your presence could upset the whole event. His death is tragic, but not world-shaking: in that crowd, how many people there are just a little bit relieved that it's him and not you?

When you rank up high enough, a friend tells you, you'll look just like his twin.

rb w/ a controversial food opinion

As an aro bi, aces? Cool as hell. 10/10, would befriend

PSA

its nearing the end of pride month but dont forget that transmen and nonbinaries face more sexual violence than any other transgender group.

according to the 2015 survey of violence against transgender people (with the titles those people identify with) provided by transequality dot org and the human rights campaign, this survey was promoted and distributed by over 300 LGBT organizations in the united states with an accumulated 27,715 transgender respondents to this survey.

the charts for each poll of highest rate of sexual violence resulted in these graphs

this is a reminder to cis people (cis women in particular) in the LGBT community to please stop leaving out transmen and nonbinary folk in your activism. we dont have the rights that you assume we do just because of our pronouns. and us non-passing or non-transitioned afabs are at a higher risk for sexual violence than our fellow trans sisters. being sexually assaulted is still horrible and awful to experience. 

we still face sexism and are demeaned and belittled for being afab and cis men still treat our bodies like it is their property to own just as they do to cis women. we routinely place ourselves on the back burner to give transwomen spotlight to sit in and be supported by the LGBT community instead of turning them away, because they deserve the love, so why dont we get the same treatment. why is it that he/him or they/them suddenly makes us less valid for protection or opinion? why is it that cis women were the ones deciding which transgender group was more valid than the other based on who was going by she/her. 

why is it that yall think just saying “youre a boy!” or infantilizing us is, like, all we transmen need in order to feel accepted or better about ourselves? like we’re fucking hamsters in a cage and we’ll take care of ourselves if you just change the water once in a while ??????

stop pushing transmen and nonbinary folk away and pretending like we dont have problems in the LGBT community, or outside of it, and like the harassment that society gives us ends just because we arent using feminine pronouns anymore.

trans allyship for transwomen started out really great and amazing but somewhere along the way yall decided transmen were horrible and undeserving of any type of sympathy or acknowledgment for our issues. thats just wrong.