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O-okay, let’s get into this, shall we?

*grumbling* Would you rather work for Lex Luthor or the Joker- *shouting* Lex Luthor, by like, a fucking mile!

Yes, yes, working for Lex Luthor is basically like being an Amazon employee that makes weapons of mass destruction, which is bad. Lex is like Donald Trump mixed with Mark Zuckerberg mixed with Jeffrey fucking Bezos, it’s not a great mix. He does not treat his henchmen well. Their lives still suck, and they are probably monitored on how long they take piss breaks for.

But let’s analyze what working for Lex Luthor is like versus the fucking Joker. With Lex you probably get a dental plan, a health plan, a paycheck, and the guy that you’re fighting really cares about human life. Superman will hit you just long enough to knock you out, so you’re not a treat, so he can stop the problem.

If you work for the Joker, your payment is you’re not fucking dead. You say one wrong thing? Bang. You don’t laugh at his jokes? Bang! You do laugh at his jokes? Bang! You think Joker gives a fuck about a henchman?

Who’s Lex Luthor’s right-hand-man? It’s a woman, you sexist, her name is Mercy, she’s awesome. Who’s Joker’s right-hand-man? Bob? Nah, he’s dead. Harley? Tried to kill her multiple times. Slappy? Who the fuck is Slappy?

The best case scenario of working for the Joker is that you fight the fucking Batman! And that presents its own fucking list of problems. If you stop Superman as a Lex Luthor henchman, Lex’ll be pissed, but he’ll be at least happy that Superman was caught. If you stop Batman as a Joker henchman, you better have a fucking coffin picked out yesterday.

This isn’t a fun hypothetical question, this is a screening technique that the doctors at Arkham use to determine your mental health! There is a right and a wrong answer to this question, and the correct one is Lex fucking Luthor. Thank you for coming to my fucking Ted Talk, have a nice day.

I am concerned about this culture of combing through years of people’s social media accounts, looking for “problematic” shit they’ve done. I am concerned with the whole culture of using “call outs” as a tool to harass and ostracize users large and small. I am concerned about the malice we spread behind people’s backs, in screenshots and posts they aren’t able to see. I am concerned with this culture of demanding apologies for things said years ago, things already outgrown and regretted, and of ignoring those apologies even while pilling on more censure. I’m concerned about this whole culture of accusation and misinformation, where the most outrageous claims and holier-than-thou performances are rewarded with notes and views, even as facts are ignored and context removed. I am concerned about the lack of accountability, the way the accused is given no opportunity to defend themselves from the onslaught, the way their responses and explanations go ignored, the way any charge can be made at any time on any evidence, with no ability to appeal or exonerate. I’m concerned about the way this culture targets minority users and turns their own communities against them. I’m concerned about the actually harmful and predatory behavior that gets lost in the bog, and how we have lost the ability to distinguish between shades of gray with any level of sanity. And I am concerned by the sheer number of people who fail to realize they are perpetuating bullying and harassment.

I am enormously concerned with the way people who are “called out” are never forgiven, never allowed to make amends, never allowed to grow, how their efforts to learn and do better are ignored even while strangers callously repeat and reblog and retweet the same criticisms ad nauseam.

And I see this everywhere, happening to anyone. And yes, this applies to larger accounts and youtubers and “influencers,” and a bunch of content creators who may or may not be making a decent living off of their work, but who are certainly not “rich and powerful celebrities.” (Because apparently we spend so much time in online microcosms that ya’ll can’t tell the difference???) Christ, my blog isn’t nearly as large as some people seem to think, it’s obscure by most measures, and still I’ve been the target of mass harassment for years. I’ve seen bad and watched others go through worse, seen users with far larger and far smaller followings driven off of this and other platforms—driven off with a violence and bloodthirst that had nothing to do with making a community safer and everything to do with a toxic culture gone wrong. Fucking fix this already.

...and then they were attacked by gnomes lol

This is what I cleverly entitled "Six-point comic" (AKA Dipper discovering journal 3 in a universe where Mabel also has polydactyly)

The inspiration was this over on Ao3 by @wickerss-s (hope you don't mind being @'d)

Bonus:

STOP-