hi bowie

it's bad with dnd players especially. there is a wildly popular community in-joke in which players befriend or "adopt" hostile wildlife and monsters. alongside this, the common target for "haha isn't this spell/mechanic fucked up" jokes are, unsurprisingly, bandits and robbers. you "adopt" the man-eating murderwolf, you roast the bandit alive by heating their armor or magically compel them to strip or brainwash them to murder their friends. more dignity is afforded to literal animals than criminals

dino saurs were not scary monsters they were mamas with eggs and when they drank water they were like fuckk yessss waterrrr

Everything is gonna be so simple for now on

I've noticed in recent years that, at least within mainstream usamerican culture, the sympathetic petty criminal archetype has largely fallen out of favor. you still have plenty of stories of noble nights, benevolent aristocrats, sympathetic mercenaries, but the idea of a thief with a heart of gold is increasingly rare. often petty criminals are just used as uncomplicated cannon fodder, so the protagonist has something human-shaped that they can kill or mutilate without remorse. you see this with dnd players often. the wicked king or the cruel dragon can be reasoned with, but a highway bandit robbing caravans to eat is perfectly fine to torture to death with sorcery

this is no less common outside of fantasy, either. god knows how many books, films, games, about sympathetic soldiers, police, even mercenaries. sometimes they try to reckon with the inherent violence and cruelty of these careers, but they rarely have the fangs for a message sharper than "sometimes good people have to do bad things." but a thief? a mugger? god forbid, a drug dealer? uncomplicatedly evil vermin, all. again, just used as cannon fodder, purely to provide something human-shaped to hate and brutalize without conscience

there is an obvious racial angle to this, as people grow more leery towards "those people are evil and inhuman because they look different," the message shifts to "those people are evil and inhuman because they are criminals," paired with heavily biased (and significantly more publicized) criminalization of racial minorities to achieve the same goal of publicly condoned repression and violence

I just felt a white person go to hell

Imagine a bladeless knife with no handle. Now put the handle back. Now put the blade back. Yaaaay! everything okay! Yaaaaaaay!

ngl kinda hate that "this has been discussed extensively you're just 21" tweet cos it was directed at a trans woman who was getting dogpiled for saying that the "dangerous man in a dress" horror trope is shitty

she was born in 2005, the right wing culture war against trans people has been going on for half her life, if she independently arrives at a correct take then how is that something worth mocking?? you got flowers sprouting through concrete, water them dumbass

new mychart message! aw damn....doc says my reality and existence lab work was wayyy off so she's referring me to an Ontologist

When his finger comes back smellier