what up

The younger you are, the more something will influence you, yes. but even if you’re 60, You WILL get desensitized to it. And when i say “desensitized” i don’t mean seeing fanart of an a fictional minor shipped with a fictional adult and not caring at all. I mean you start to hear of real life scenarios of incest or pedophilia and start to care less, or think, “oh maybe it’s not that bad.” And the worst part is: most of the time, you change without even realizing.

I think it is a slippery slope to say that someone is automatically going to become a pedophile when someone seeks out pro-ship content, but it is very much real that pro-ship content WILL make you numb to real life scenarios that happen to real people, and things that might happen to yourself.

And this isn’t just with pro-ship content either. The same goes for things like gore. Now videos of someone getting murdered and minor x adult fanart from a tv show are VASTLY different, but just hear me out on this. Both types of media ARE addictive. They not only change how you think in terms of morality, but affect you mentally as well. There ARE cases where someone who watches gore ends up committing terrible acts, and same goes for pro-ship content. This does NOT happen to everybody, but you genuinely never know, because every person is different.

Someone who is addicted to drugs didn’t take their first dose wanting to be controlled by substances for the rest of their life, they took that first dose thinking nothing bad will come out of it, and the same happens when you seek out pro-ship content. I need to clarify that censorship is a HORRIBLE thing. But it is very harmful to call every “anti-shipper” you see on your dash a fascist. Abuse of that word causes it to lose its meaning, the same way terms like narcissist and delusional has lost their meaning. It is not fascism to say that you shouldn’t look at fictional CSAM media, because it makes you desensitized to what happens in real life.

anyways my point is, fiction very much DOES affect reality. This is what propaganda, fables, cautionary tales, and literal grooming has been doing since forever.

If I saw the clues and caught the hints then yes! I am clever and me and the author/creator/artist etc were in on it together the whole time!

If I didn't notice the clues or got fooled but can clearly see them in hindsight then "Ha! You won this time storyteller! I am delighted by this game we play!' and then I enjoy putting the pieces together afterwards and enjoying how clever it was. I feel like the creator respects me as an audience

If there is a "twist" that comes with 0 clues or foreshadowing at all I'm annoyed. I'm pissed off. I feel like I'm being condescended to and patronised. It's not clever or interesting and makes me annoyed I ended up caring about characters and plot points that ended up meaningless.

Because it's not that these stories don't have foreshadowing or plot clues. They just abandon it for a "surprising twist"

A story that pays off the clues is letting me into the fun and makes a participant in the story

Random plot twists that don't connect to anything in the story are not clever. If we don't see it coming because the writer didn't provide any clues, they aren't clever and it's totally unsatisfying (and I will NEVER read this writer again). These clues need not be lit up in neon with a parade of elephants and showgirls. But they need to be present

"etymologynerd" is at it again and this time i do feel i have to say something. the disability advocates have it covered on addressing the impact, but there's also a serious problem with the linguistics.

in a video shared on may 16, adam aleksic begins by saying: "i think we have to accept the fact that the 'r-word' [retard/retarded] is permanently coming back and it's functionally changed meanings to no longer directly refer to disabled people."

this first sentence alone betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of language change in several points.

this word never went away. what we're seeing now is an attempt at re-normalization by people who sense that they will not be socially punished by openly using this term.

we actually don't have to "accept" its return to mainstream use. for decades, disability advocates have worked to inform the public of the harm caused by casual use of this term. the harm has not disappeared, and neither will this advocacy and its impacts.

now i'm just mad. how tf does it NOT refer to disabled people? the entire point of a pejorative term is that it negatively invokes comparison to a person, group, etc. the assertion that the r-word has changed meanings is categorically false. at most, its primary context has changed from clinical to casually pejorative, but the insult fundamentally rests upon the original reference.

he goes on to refer to the "euphemism treadmill," another concept he misrepresents by extending the metaphor to say that terms which have been sufficiently distanced from their original reference are no longer pejorative. to quote: "...once we sufficiently distance a word from its historical usage, it stops taking on the same offensive power and just becomes colloquial instead."

which... what? what the fuck is he talking about? the words he uses as examples – idiot, imbecile, and moron – are definitely still offensive, if perhaps less impactful. "just becomes colloquial instead" is a nonsense phrase. are offensive words not colloquial? the only english word that comes to mind as having changed so much in definition as to no longer be offensive is "nice," which has been shifting in meaning for more than 700 years and was never a weaponized clinical term.

he ends by saying, "it is undeniably true that the people who are afraid to say the r-word right now are going to get old and die out, while younger generations keep saying it with no knowledge of where it came from." again, fundamentally misunderstanding language change in society over time. it rests on the assumption that we're all going to start or re-start using this slur and never have a conversation about its harms, which just completely ignores both the abovementioned disability advocacy and the fact that people tell each other not to use offensive words. you think i'm just not gonna teach my kids that using slurs is bad??

the whole video is devoid of both empathy and an understanding of long-term semantic change.

It's hard to find villains/antagonists that are simultaneously aggravating and sympathetic at the same time, usually they're one or the other. Either sympathetic enough that I can just like them despite their flaws or they're so aggravating that I don't care what's sympathetic about them.

But Lorelai genuinely makes me switch between both feelings mutually. She's truly frustrating and so horrible to Molly and so irresponsible that I can mentally angrily rant about her for half an hour.

but also when she cries I cry, her sad moments and her reasons for being this way hurt so much and she has so many moments that are endearing and relatable to me.

I love her and want the best for her but also I sincerely want to crashout at her.

I always carry the sentiment with villains that I can like them but also not excuse their actions, but with Lorelai my feelings actually match the sentiment. I equally want her punishment and redemption.

Unless your tablet or monitor has some kind of fancy "paper white" lighting option (is that even a thing?) I need you to STOP DRAWING ON A WHITE CANVAS. You are essentially STARING AT A LAMP FOR HOURS.

Save your eyes and use a middle grey canvas instead! My default is hex #8A909B, but you can find what works for you!

Dad girl Donald dad girl Donald.

In order it’s June, May and April, the little one is his arms is Lena.

10 years later :]