#HOPEFULLY please don't be mad if this takes a decade or if we end up abandoning the project

[chaoslynx]

holy shit. y'all you aren't gonna believe what the pals and I are working on

[preraphaeliteknight]

I've spent a few days thinking about what to do moving forward. It's not the breakup of a celebrity couple that's affected me the most, it's the feeling of losing my safe space in the Tumblr Swiftie fandom. Every time I've logged onto this app in the last few days I've flinched and quickly exited the dash to get away from yet another take mocking and ridiculing Joe. Or minimizing his very valid fears. "Unbothered 3.0". Rewriting history to make the last 6 years seem insignificant. Comparing him to CH as if petty jealousy is the issue here and not years of harassment. Celebrating the return of Taylor Swift, The Brand, no matter what that means for her future happiness. And circulating pressers that make it sound like Joe was a therapy dog who's no longer needed. All of which is making me feel physically ill. For both of them. And even when this stuff isn't coming from the people I follow (who for the most part have nuanced and fair takes), it's coming from their anons. And no matter what I do I can't get away from the outright cruelty and shocking lack of empathy for the person Taylor has credited with saving her life. Even though swifties know better than anyone what Joe has had to put up with for over half a decade. Given that treatment, I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that this is how he's being discarded. But fuck it hurts. So where does this leave me? This blog was never supposed to be an update account or an ask blog. I just wanted a space to fangirl over my favorite actor. But in the last few months this has become a space for Joe fans to be excited for his upcoming projects and clown over castings (remember a few weeks ago when we were giddily figuring out his next movie because of insta follows? yeah, take me back to that please). And I know some of you rely on this blog as a space to both appreciate Joe and vent your frustrations with his unfair treatment. I have 70+ asks in my inbox right now, the vast majority of which are well written, thoughtful takes on what's been happening. And I agree with pretty much all of it. Thank you for taking the time to send me your thoughts. But the truth is, I simply don't have the emotional capacity to reply to them right now. I can't do it. I can't talk and think and dwell on this. To quote a song that's too painful to listen to right now: "I'm just too soft for all of it." So I feel like I have two options if I ever want to be able to be active on Tumblr again: 1. Unfollow all swifties. Because just seeing pictures of Taylor (especially from the pap walk) makes me feel ill. And it's affecting my opinion of her even though I'm mad at her fans, and not her. And I don't want that to happen or the music to be tarnished. But I also don't want to break mutuals and hurt someone's feelings. And I want to know what's going on with Taylor. I'm a huge fan of her too, and I want to be excited for tour and the re-recordings. So that's why I'm going with option 2: Take a proper break. A real one, this time. Hopefully this all won't feel so hard with some time and distance. I don't know if it will solve anything, because swifties will get back to talking about Joe in the future (whenever she makes art about this) and then I'll probably have to flinch every time I open this app again. Because he will have been reduced to yet another ex swifties can make fun of. So maybe I have to go with both options in the end. If I do, I hope any mutuals out there know not to take it personally. I wish more than anything that I could return to the days of being a casual fan who wouldn't have thought twice about any of this. And maybe that's what I need to try to get back to. For my own sanity's sake. I'm sorry to any Joe fans out there who need a place to vent. I feel like I'm letting you down, but I just can't do this right now. Maybe I'll be able to in the future. Maybe I'll leave this blog and go back to my main instead where the subjects will be more varied. I don't know. I'll always be a Joe fan though, and no shitty presser or swiftie narrative is going to change that.

Please just be kind to each other, and to Taylor and Joe. Let's hope the best for both of them, and please please please don't tarnish all the good that this relationship gave them. And all the beautiful music it gave us.

All my love

[bellsyafterdark]

Please tell us more about Din's pregnancy cravings... I'm dying to know his mate's reactions. I feel like Paz would indulge his every need. Boba would do what he thought was best for Din rather than listen to him all the time, forcing healthy food down his throat and making him get up to stretch his legs every once and a while, even if this does make Din pouty. Fennec is not good with dealing with moody Din and tries to keep her distance, only to find that she misses him too much.

Oh my god why did I take so long to respond to this, you are right on the money. I think I've spoken previously about this so I hope I don't repeat myself, but also hopefully that 'cw pregnancy' tag is working for reference. I'm going to work backwards through this:

Fennec is the most uncomfortable with emotional intimacy and unfamiliar terrain. Further, she doesn't like being a learner at things, so rather than expose this insecurity, she goes for avoidance. It's not so obvious at first: when Din gets in a mood is a continuum of all sorts of things, Fennec initially asks one of the others to step in ("hold on, baby, let me get Boba"). This isn't too difficult, they're rarely far away. It gets harder when Din, not quite recognising she's uncomfortable, gets frustrated with her and/or starts crying-- Fennec is Not Good with tears. She goes into stoic mode which is also impatient, she can't help a lifetime of habit. This can make things worse. She doesn't want to make Din miserable, she loves him. She starts trying to make sure Boba or Paz is always around when she's with Din. This can mean she doesn't get home til late or leaves early in the morning. She gets nervous if Din asks her to lie in with him in the morning, just the two of them, finds herself making excuses. Din starts to worry, he can be dense at times but he is hypertuned to being ignored or avoided after The Miscommunication. Thankfully, so are the others. Boba is the one to approach Fennec first, he's also hyper vigilant; after all, he's still making amends in his own mind ("tell me if I'm imagining things: are you avoiding Din?") and Fennec almost crumbles immediately, she's missed him so much, and she knows, they all promised to do better, to talk but damn it, it's hard and she doesn't know what's wrong so she doesn't know what to say. Between her, Boba and Paz, they help her find the courage to share with Din.

Boba is the good/bad cop who is going to keep Din healthy whether he wants it or not. Din finds him a little tricky and eventually exasperating, despite knowing it's coming from a place of love. It's especially annoying how hard it is to be mad at Boba when he can be so damn charming, but it builds into a problem through Boba's priority of their baby over Din's explicit wishes for things ("the medic says if I stay sub-light in the fighter it's perfectly safe", "I can't eat that yam, I'm nauseous just thinking about it"). Din has a small outburst at him one day. Let the Manda witness, he's a grown ass man and he hasn't lost his capacity to make decisions just because he's now eating for two. But with his hormones going haywire and Din, we know, didn't really grow up with the most practice at expressing his feelings, the outburst is not so little. Then the inexplicable tears follow. Boba is horrified, somehow he's done it again, he's disregarded Din's capacity which he's been trying to make overt amends for but it's just damn hard when he can see on the other end of the spectrum--

Paz. He is a different breed of a problem. HE HAS WANTED A FAMILY FOR DECADES and he can, subconsciously, recognise that Boba is taking care of all the health regimens, so he feels it gives him permission to enjoy the fun parts of the pregnancy. He indulges Din, almost anything he wants or a close alternative to it, and he helped the midwives back in the covert, so he knows a lot of tips and tricks. But it creates a false impression of what Din could also ask for from Fennec (who then gets nervous and scuttles away) and sometimes directly contravenes what Boba tries to do ("he said he's tired, let him rest today"). With Paz's greater knowledge about supporting someone through a pregnancy, Boba and Fennec feel they need to defer to him more often, but Paz isn't always making objective decisions because he's dumb in love, while Boba is still more rational and resents being pushed into this role of the stern no-fun riduur.

BUT-- despite all this mess and minor drama, they have learned from last time. Din calls a family meeting 😂😂 everyone comes clean with what they've been thinking and feeling. They apologise to each other for the parts that hurt, and make some changes:

Paz promises to ally with Boba on the recommendations from the medic and share the responsibility of gently supporting Din

Boba promises to keep doing what he's doing but gentler and ultimately leave the decision up to Din

Fennec promises to stop avoiding Din but to also be upfront when she needs direction or is uncomfortable with a situation

Din promises to do his best to take better care of himself and remember that his partners all have different strengths and he can't expect them all to give him the same things

Sorry I completely forgot to talk about his actual cravings 😂😅

[scripttorture]

You likely don't follow Dream Smp but there was just a reveal that one person (Character A) is torturing another (Character B, former villain, now in prison) for info on necromancy while the warden of the prison gave CA the equipment to do it and is ignoring CB's screams for help. And half the fandom is trying to justify it with "oh, CB deserves it for threatening to kill a child, killing (1/2)

another child (who he then revived, not justifying /that/ though) and manipulating/abusing the latter." Not only that, but so many people are telling off anyone who pointing out how messed up it is (and don't worry, the story itself so far is showing that it's messed up and won't work) with "it's just fiction, get over it." Like I am legit concerned over how many people are claiming it's cathartic and the character deserves it for their actions. Rant over I guess (2/2) (Dream smp anon) And I forgot to add that this character was /already/ being tortured; he has been in complete solitary confinement for upwards of 2 months and is being starved) and was actively self-harming and destroying items in his cell in a bid to get the warden to come replace them (looking for social interactions, even if it was negative) and people STILL thought that wasn't "enough of a punishment"

-

I have no idea what this show? Comic? Piece of media is but I’m happy to give my opinion on the general situation and use of violence in fiction*.

 But I’m not here to take sides in fandom wars and the aim of this blog is not to tell people they can’t write about violence or abuse. It’s to make people think about how it’s used in stories and hopefully create something that’s more realistic and respectful to real survivors.

 At the end of the day the reason I’m interested in fiction is because it effects our perception of real survivors. When so much of our popular media is unrealistic in ways that demean survivors that has an effect. I want to remind people that while the violent acts we write about are fiction, similar acts are happening to real people today.

 Torture survivors are real. They’re human and they deserve respect.

 Here’s the thing Anon, the people you’re mad at are real too. And the characters that sparked this are not.

 There’s nothing wrong with having a strong emotional respond to fiction. There’s nothing wrong with getting frustrated with how pigheaded or outright bigoted fandom can be. But it is worth questioning whether responding to this kind of thing is worth it.

 Arguments over fictional characters can become extremely heated and result in real world harm. And so long as you’re engaging with stuff in a purely fictional context… well I think the chances of being dismissed, belittled etc are significantly higher. (Note however that being dismissed and belittled still happens when you’re dealing with torture in the real world.)

 This is not fair. That does not change other people’s responses or the cultural climate.

 I will be blunt; if you are writing and reading in English the majority of fans you deal with will be Western and white. I have personally found this intersection very likely to treat violence as something purely fictional. I have found them unlikely to consider torture as a reality unless they are prompted to.

 And from my side of things that prompting is often like dropping an anvil on someone’s foot during the conversation.

 Believe me I get it. It is infuriating to see real, deadly torture techniques interpreted as harmless. It is hurtful seeing torture victims blamed for their own suffering. This happens on the news as often as it does in fandom so the fact these feelings are being set off by something fictional doesn’t make a lot of difference. Because these arguments are used in the real world against real people.

 Seeing torture apologia touted as this weeks hot take is something you are allowed to be mad about. I’d be a hypocrite if I said otherwise.

 But educating other people is hard work and you are talking about a piece of media aimed at children. You are probably talking to children. If you’re a teenager yourself it might be hard to hear it put like that.

 It’s still true.

 If you really want to have these conversations in your fandom then you need to centre the reality. Underestimating or dismissing the damage solitary confinement and starvation do to people is serious because it props up real world systems of abuse. Because it justifies ‘tough’ sentences to level of isolation that leave people mutilated by their own hand, or unable to function in society. Or dead. Because it leads to doctors ‘prescribing’ diets used in death camps.

 Here’s the thing, talking about that reality to children is a fraught process. Especially when they’re children who don’t have any experience of seeing this stuff. And unless you’re their parent or teacher educating them is not your job.

 Sending them down an internet rabbit hole that leads to photos of real injuries, real torture, real mass graves… I think that has the potential to go very badly.

 Enjoying something and then discovering that the fandom is toxic is unpleasant. But my impression is that’s the problem here: the fandom interactions are leaving you feeling like shit.

 Disengage.

 You do not need the fandom to enjoy uh… whatever Dream smp is. You do not need their permission and if the fandom is a negative space for you, you are allowed to leave.

 If some of these people are your friends then by all means try to privately explain why their words hurt you and use this blog as a resource. But ask yourself how much you want to be friends first because that is a long painful process that might not work.

 Torture apologia is everywhere and fixing it is going to take decades.

 Accept that you can not control other people’s actions. Accept that some people will always be assholes.

 If seeing torture apologia hurts you then… you probably need to find a piece of media without torture to enjoy. Because apologia is so present that I think that’s the only way to completely avoid coming across it in fandom.

 Once again I understand. I’ve volunteered to be bombarded with this stuff every day. It is upsetting. It is also embedded our global culture and the popular media exported to every single nation on the planet.

 Constantly being confronted with it and stewing in that anger and hurt is unhealthy.

 Step back. Do something else for a while. Take a look at this post I made last week. You might find some of the advice on dealing with these feelings helpful.

 You can not make people care. Hopefully most of the people you’re talking to will grow and learn and become more compassionate people. But you can’t force that process.

 And you don’t have to deal with their bullshit while they’re still growing.

 Shouting at other people isn’t always helpful and it isn’t activism. If you want to do something constructive there are a lot of organisations that would gladly accept your money and your time.

 Here’s a couple that seem relevant:

Just Detention

Solitary Watch

The World Food Programme

Amnesty International

 I hope that helps. :)

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Disclaimer

*I asked a friend to explain what Dream Smp is and I’ll be honest I still don’t understand it. But hey I got an idea of the target audience which helps. Please don’t explain Minecraft to me any more let me rest.