msdowartyheps - Tumblr blog

[msdowartyheps]

Welcome to PotO Secrets! Here you can share the darkest corners of your heart — where you hide your belief that, actually, the biggest dong in PotO belongs to Buquet, and that’s why Erik murdered him.

ALW, Leroux, Cherik, and all others (Wishbone included) are allowed, as are opinions on fandom, fic and other fanworks. Adult is fine, rude and/or offensive is not.

Don’t make me regret this.

[msdowartyheps]

September will be filled with happiness.

September will be filled with blessings.

September will be filled with positivity.

September will be filled with progress.

September will be filled with kindness.

September will be filled with love.

September will be filled with opportunities.

[msdowartyheps]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33590773

[msdowartyheps]

Boost!

Erik and Christine have a college fling that ends in nothing but heartache. Ten years later, he wants nothing to do with her, but fate, or maybe just his annoying music director, has other plans.

Inspired by the song “It’s Not A Love Story”, and the prologue takes lines directly from the song

Me? Starting another multi-chaptered fic? Perish the thought! Please please please read and review

[msdowartyheps]

I wish fandom would be treated like the lighthearted niche hobby it is and not like… a form of political activism which you must use to show off how woke you are

[msdowartyheps]

Lucy St Louis will be the first Black actor to play Christine in the West End. She is the first in the 35(!) years since Phantom debuted at Her Majesty's Theatre.

I may be repeating messaging you've read elsewhere, especially in politics and other "more serious" spheres. But just in case—

Celebrating this news is OK! Celebrating is good. Celebrating victories and milestones is what helps us keep going. And, we can celebrate while continuing to advocate for change.

(For instance: there still hasn't been a Black actor playing Christine on Broadway! And, people of colour are generally underrepresented in major roles! Further: it doesn't and shouldn't stop at one actor, one role—change must be persistent, and diversity and inclusivity must be an ongoing effort. It doesn't just stop at a perfunctory single event.)

It's also possible to celebrate one historic event while being disappointed, angry, upset about another. I certainly am appalled by Mackintosh's slashing of the West End orchestra and his callous response when pressed about this decision. People can feel multiple things at the same time, and just because someone is not currently centering those other thoughts and feelings shouldn't be taken as a statement that they have forgotten or don't care. Let's come back, and work harder tomorrow.

But, again, it's OK to take a moment to celebrate Lucy St. Louis, and to look forward to her Christine. :)

Closing with her words on Instagram:

"To be a woman of colour leading a show of this magnitude, portraying a woman who is strong, beautiful, graceful and desired is an image that I wish my younger self could have seen more of on stage. It is a life changing moment that is so much bigger than me.

I have been blessed with an opportunity that I pray inspires hope, positivity, inspiration & inclusion for the current and future generations to come.

For me and my younger self, this is something that is so incredibly special and monumental on so many levels. A true pinch me moment. I feel so honoured and wholeheartedly grateful for the incredible journey that lies ahead.

This is a reminder to never ever stop believing, striving, fighting for your dreams to turn them into reality. Even if you don’t see a place for you, there is enough room for everyone."

[msdowartyheps]

People aren’t refusing to side with you because they’re transphobic or racist. People are refusing to side with you because you are an asshole who:

1. does nothing but harass people who don’t behave the way you want them to;

2. indiscriminately includes people in your blacklist who are actually trans, non-binary and/or POC;

3. refuses to acknowledge people who have apologized or asked how they can do better;

4. claims to be a voice for phans who are “othered”, but when said phans disagree with you, you mark them off as traitors;

5. portraits yourself as some sort of hero, yet does not confront the one real, actual TERF a lot of people already have blocked/do not interact with;

6. is a bad person in general.

This has been going on for a while now, but people haven’t spoken much about it because a lot of us were deeply hurt. Those who weren’t personally attacked saw their friends having to endure this. Some others who we thought were friends turned their backs on us. Talented, gifted artists and writers, who were a valuable addition to our community, left, or should I say, were chased off. Many of us are still wary of publicly interacting and producing content, whether it be fanfiction or pieces of art.

I do believe, though, that speaking up helps us heal. While I haven’t been personally targeted (yet), friends of mine have and were deeply hurt. I saw loved ones questioning themselves, wondering what they did wrong, trying to give this person the benefit of doubt and in return being lashed out at. But enough is enough.

To everyone who has decided to come forward and speak out, thank you. To everyone who has somehow been affected by the outcomes of this situation, you are not alone, and if you feel like telling your story, I encourage you to share it. Times have been rough, but we are coming out of it stronger and more tight-knit as a community.

As for you, cefantomeenhabitnoir or whatever name they call you now, I pity you. If you cared a little more about hearing what people have to say than about Being Right, maybe you’d be able to understand what an amazing, friendly and inclusive community we have. Try as you might, you can’t take that away from us. Phandom lives, in spite of you.

Fuck you.

[msdowartyheps]

Ain’t nobody got time for checking out mutuals of mutuals of mutuals of mutuals.

Well, nobody except for one person, it seems.

When you take a “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to callouts, you’re the one who turned it into drama. 

Consider calming the fuck down and talking to people next time before you make a blacklist of people that don’t even know you exist. You made assumptions because I guess you thought that everyone on tumblr carefully vets every single blog they ever come into contact with but buddy, that’s just you. 

[msdowartyheps]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33379186/chapters/82907101?show_comments=true&view_full_work=false#comment_459594379

[msdowartyheps]

hope this clears it up!

[msdowartyheps]

Today is August 23rd, but as it is, these are appreciated everyday ❤️

August 21st is Fanfic Writer’s Appreciation Day  💕

Let’s be honest - we all forget to leave a comment sometimes. We don’t always go out of our way to click the “come talk to me on tumblr” link on AO3 to scream about the fic in the author’s inbox. On August 21st I encourage you to take a moment and show fanfic writers that you appreciate them!

How can you do it?

leave a comment and kudos on every fic you finish reading. Doesn’t matter how short. Doesn’t matter if you’re just repeating what other people have already said. Just be kind! Keysmashing, Caps Lock, and live commenting appreciated! (Bonus points if you leave a comment on every chapter)

ideas for what to put in a comment: one | two

floaty review box for ao3 (super useful for commenting as you read + it has a ‘review tips’ button if you feel stuck)

reblog ficlets, drabbles, fics, fic rec posts, etc. Put a nice comment in the tags. Remember that likes, while appreciated, don’t give the writer any exposure, meaning the posts don’t reach more people

go to your local fanfic writer’s inbox and talk to them about their fic of your choice. Let them know how long ago you’ve read it and what story point/sentence/scene still makes you smile when you think about it

send thank you messages to fic writers. In a world where you have to pay for almost everything, they’re supplying you with countless hours of free entertainment. It can get quite lonely without getting messages acknowledging the hours they spend writing stories - let them know their time and effort is appreciated

make fic rec posts and @ the authors whose fics you’re recommending! (believe me, fic writers love to see their stories in these posts)

create something inspired by a fic! You can draw fanart, make a moodboard or aesthetic post, or even write a song for the fic you love. Whether you’re a beginner or a pro doesn’t matter - the thought alone is what counts more than anything <3

buy the writer a coffee if they have a ko-fi page and you have some change lying around c: Caffeine keeps most fic writers awake when they struggle with a particularly slow draft or a difficult scene. More coffee, more content.

These are only some ideas out of the sea of possible ways to appreciate fanfic writers. On August 21st show the writers in your fandom(s) some love <3

[msdowartyheps]

@asianphancollective really thinks they're out here doing something while immediately diving in to go after fans of color with a different experience than them. Way to prove the point. The exclusionary radfem energy is palpable and honestly gross.

[msdowartyheps]

The Phantom of the Opera fandom is going through it this week. There is a Google doc created and circulated by a white trans man which accuses dozens of artists and fic writers of being terfs, racists, and orientalists. One issue, aside from the inherently unethical nature of blacklists, is that the list includes trans fans, fans of color, many of whom are Asian. So there's this strange dynamic of a list that was supposedly written to protect fans who are from these communities that is actively them instead. And this racist dynamic of a white person calling POC racist, and Asian fans specifically orientalist.

I'd love your take on any angle of this. What are your thoughts on these kinds of block lists? Do they happen in other fandoms? Thoughts on the racial dynamic of this situation? Thanks!

--

Oof. Yes, I was thinking of saying something about this, but I hadn't gotten around to vetting posts for reblogging yet. When I first saw your post, it passed my sniff test, but I'm not very familiar with PotO fandom (Phandom? Hah! I thought that was a reference to Dan/Phil stans or Danny Phantom or something!), and I like to have a better grasp on what's going on before I reblog. I see more people have weighed in by now though.

My take is that this often happens with blacklists. I can't think of another exact parallel to this one off the top of my head (mostly because there are so many fandom wanks that the details get fuzzy), but every time I hear of a fandom blacklist something of this general type is wrong with it.

The sad reality is that the most vulnerable community members generally won't have time/confidence/assurance of their safety in a way that would make them likely to make a public one and spread it around. People with a lot of experience and perspective who have a good handle on what their group overall thinks is beyond the pale and who could reasonably speak for the whole group don't have time for petty shit like this either and are more aware of the downsides of a public list.

The sorts of people who spend their time on public blacklists are the opposite of the people you'd want to be making them. They're either chasing clout or they've gone off the deep end with "my ship/character is literally me, and when you write them wrong, you are literally committing crimes against me" lunacy.

It makes perfect, if horrible, sense that it would be a white person calling Asian fans orientalist. What we've seen time and time again is that outrage mobs come from a dominant culture. (So in English, in fanworks fandom, that's usually a US cultural context, even if many individual members aren't from the US themselves.) That's who has the numbers and the smug self-assurance of their holy righteousness.

It's very easy for a faker or a manipulator with bad intentions to imitate a Good Minority for this kind of mob. A Good Minority is scenically exotic and primitive and tells quaint stories about granny living in a hut or whatever other bullshit the listeners have internalized. A Good Minority doesn't like Bad Representation™, whether that's characters who were orientalist in their original form or badwrong kink or the wrong dude on top.

Unfortunately, actual members of whatever ethnicity or culture are rarely convenient stereotypes. It's a lot harder to get an outrage mob to care about them--or even to believe them about their identity--because they don't fit into some unconscious white savior or noble savage narrative.

It's like when "fujoshi"-hating fuckfaces whine about how m/m fanfic is bad rep but ignore that lots of cis gay men love stuff ten times more problematic and couldn't care less about AFABs' art and its supposed appropriativeness.

Masturbatory obsession with "authenticity" represses actual authenticity in favor of respectability politics and stereotypes

Among other reasons this is so is that minority members who disagree with the clout-chaser's version of things are a threat to their power. They're always first on the chopping block. We saw it in TOG. It's no surprise it's there in PotO.

Fake anti-racist activism doesn't incidentally harass POC: that's intentionally one of its main applications.

Public blacklists are grudgewank, this time and every time. The creep who made it sucks, but as with the situation in TOG fandom, it seems to me that a lot of the harm is coming from useful idiots.

If more fans would remain skeptical and make up their own damn minds about each person they block, these bullies wouldn't have such power.

Trying to be a better person is great. It's not an excuse for outsourcing your critical thinking. If we would stop reaching for easy answers to be Guaranteed Not Orientalist or whateverthefuck, we wouldn't fall for these transparent power grabs.

[msdowartyheps]

TFW your block list is 20 accounts long and 14 of them are the same person telling you how easy it is to cut out people you don’t want to interact with by blocking them while they actively block evade.

[msdowartyheps]

I’ve been watching the Old Guard fandom deal with a toxic person in their community and I’ve been inspired by how much people are openly talking about what happened and how it affected them personally. The Phantom of the Opera fandom has two very toxic people that are causing a lot of people pain. And no one ever talks about it. 

@filthybonnet regularly weaves hateful, dehumanizing terf posts into her PotO blogging. More recently, she has made numerous disgusting comments that Lucy St. Louis’s hiring is mere “virtue signaling.” Few people challenged her on it, but when they did, she doubled down. She isn’t alone - other fans have made similar comments, letting their hatred for Cameron MacIntosh become racialized criticism of Lucy. There has been a general insensitivity towards Lucy: comments about her wig, complaints about the inclusive lyric changes, racist asks being published over and over. This should be challenged publicly. If you see people in the fandom making racist posts, call them on it.

People in our fandom seem reluctant to deal with these issues and as a result they fester. What we think is a “nice” place isn’t actually that nice if it tolerates terfs and racists. And on that point I agree with @trans-flint/@cefantomeenhabitnoir. Despite that my saying so before has landed me on his list a third time, I do actually believe this. 

The list is another thing we don’t talk about. I have never addressed the accusations made against me publicly. I don’t want it to seem like I don’t talk about it because I don’t care about being called a racist. I was called some disgusting names after reblogging this post on critical thinking after phandombigotryarchive’s call out of Madame Faust. I reblogged that message because I disagreed with what PBA did. I do think it’s important to call out racism in fandom, but I don’t believe PBA’s goal was ever to actually address racism in fandom, otherwise she would be active today, posting about the racism against Lucy St. Louis. PBA was out to destroy another author, and I don’t agree with that. I did not respond to PBA’s accusations against me because they were absurd. She had no evidence that I am a racist person - because there is none. She knows nothing about me - she couldn’t even get my nationality right (I am white, but I am not Brazilian, and have never pretended to be something I am not). She was clearly angry and nothing I could say would change that, so I kept quiet.

But the list continuously harms people in the PotO fandom and I think by not talking about it we are making it worse. This list of “transphobes” and “racists” includes both trans people and people of color. The list is managed and promoted by @trans-flint/ @transphandom/ @cefantomeenhabitnoir, who is white. So there is this very messed up dynamic of a white person accusing fans of color, many of them Asian, of being racist. Pharoga creators in particular were singled out as being racist and writing “Orientalist” fics even while many Pharoga writers and artists are themselves Asian and actually have lived experience with Orientalism. A white person doesn’t get to tell Asian creators they are being Orientalist. Especially when that white person has also written Pharoga fic. They seem to have deleted it all. So, @trans-flint gets to delete their fics without consequence, while the majority of people on their list are there permanently, without evidence, without opportunity to defend themselves. This is wrong.

The result of this list is not a safer phandom. The result is writers and artists of color leaving the phandom because they do not feel safe, because the list affects their mental health. It means less Pharoga content, less PotO content with a canonical person of color, and less LGBTQ+ content. If posting support for trans rights lands someone on the list again, the result is fewer people in the phandom willing to reblog trans fics and art and support for trans rights. You know who probably doesn’t care about being put on this list? The actual terfs and racists.

I don’t see how this list is helping the phandom become a better place. But then, the creator of the list also states on their blog that they’ve been “destroying phandom since 2020”. How can you say you want to protect people while trying to destroy their fandom at the same time? 

[msdowartyheps]

Happy Birthday! 🎂

Hope you are having a lovely day and wishing you all the best!🥳

Thanks!