#Tumblr saying this is inappropriate or abusive content again??? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

qqueenofhades · 3 years

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Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that’s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

#long post #anonymous #ask

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thinking-about-fiction · 3 years

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Literally. It's so embarrassing. And it's not just harassment as in online bullying these people recently doxxed a recent r*pe survivor over false allegations over fiction and she lost her job and income. These self named "antis" celebrated. Someone posted a su!cide note (unconfirmed if they died or not) because of how much antis bullied them an there was a 30,000 note post going around on here celebrating their possible death, saying they hoped more died. They go into the inboxes of CSA victims to tell them they deserved their abuse. I myself have been dogpiled by over a dozen at a time (some get hundreds at a time so I'm lucky) and told "well you ship that nasty ship, you must have enjoyed being abused! I hope it happens again!" There's so much disgusting shit they've said. There's a blog on Tumblr called @anti-receipts that shows just how disgusting the things they say are, saying victims lie about their abuse, deserved it, etc is their favorite thing to say. All over fiction. It's horrifying. they call everyone who disagrees with them a proshipper and assume we're all into all horrible things but that's not true, proship does not mean problematic. Most of us have severe triggers and most of us are survivors. And I don't even label myself proship. I just label myself not an anti, because I would never say the disgusting things they do over fiction.

Whoa. I haven't been part of online fandom for very long so I didn't know it was that bad. That's horrible.

I don't know if I would call myself a proshipper or not. I just think that people don't deserve to get bullied over fiction. I am not personally a trauma victim, but if somebody is, and consuming that specific content is their way to cope, then that is completely valid and I am glad they found a coping mechanism.

Even if they are not a trauma victim, enjoying content in fiction does not mean condoning it in real life.

Maybe somebody loves watching dramas with lots of cheating, or murder mysteries where a friend or family member was the murderer. That doesn't mean they condone it in real life. That's just what intrigues them in fiction. Fiction allows you to consume things with no consequences (well, it's supposed to be with no consequences).

Anyway, I am in no way comfortable with ships involving abuse, rape, incest, pedophilia, or inappropriate age gaps. But if someone ships such a thing, I am not going to yell at them. I'm not their mom. I'm not the ship police.

Plus I know what it's like to be yelled at online (though it was for something completely different, and I kinda deserved it). It sucks. It hurts. If you aren't used to it, it can feel like the worst thing ever.

Doxxing is a whole other level though. And death threats and suicide notes too.

People who do this, answer me this.

Do you really want someone to lose their job or die over what they enjoy in fiction???????

Think about it. An actual life. Someone with a family and friends. Gone/ruined because they ship something problematic in fiction. That whole group of family and friends are now devastated, or the family is now poor. Children could starve guys. The children you were just trying to "protect".

People who don't care about actual lives and livelihood genuinely scare me.

#proshippers #pro shippers #proshipper #pro shipper #proshipping #pro shipping #proship #pro ship #proships #pro ships #anti discourse #anti antis #anti anti

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fuckinsteverogers · 4 years

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Behemoth

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word Count: 2.2k

Rating: 18++++++ Seriously, come on. You know the deal.

Warnings: Dick pic, nudes, size kink, bucky being a jealous beefcake, sam being low key annoying af, steve mentioned, tony mentioned, fluff at the end.

Synopsis: You’re on a dry spell and looking for a good fucking from one of the burely members of your team, and when Bucky notices you haven’t considered him, he takes it in his own hands… Literally, in the form of a dick pic.

Author’s Note: Welp, I’ve got a whole list of fics I should be writing, but this was because I saw a photo that a Tumblr I follow reblogged and well... I couldn’t help myself. It’s kind of shite, but oh well. I hope you guys like it.

EDIT: THIS WAS FLAGGED DURING THE TUMBLR APOCALYPSE AND I AM REUPLOADING IT WITHOUT THE PICTURES THAT GOT IT FLAGGED.

INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT BELOW LINE ;)

You and Bucky have been friends from the moment Steve brought him home, but you’d never considered him as an option, even with T’Challa helping in relieving Bucky of Hydra’s hold on him, knowing his trustworthiness.

Even when you went searching for someone to take away the ache between your thighs, you never looked at Bucky and seriously considered him as someone who could take away every ache, stop your thighs from rubbing to relieve the pressure, stop your fingers from finding your soaking centre and ridding yourself of the uncontrollable arousal.

Bucky noticed your wayward eyes, scrapping across Sam and Steve, even Tony, but never him; not that you noticed him noticing you. The plan was to show you what you’re missing with not considering him, to show you what you’d miss with Sam and Tony, to show you that he can fulfil your primal needs unlike Steve who would only want to ‘treat you right’. Bucky could surely treat you right, but he isn’t going to do that in the way Steve would; cooing over how gorgeous you are, which you fucking are, or holding you tight against him while he fucks you slowly, softly, romantically.

Bucky wants to hold you tight against him, sure, but he wants to fuck you with reckless abandon, give you what you so desperately need... A good, hard fuck.

So, when Bucky noticed Sam’s hand graze to wrap tightly around your upper thigh, sending your body into shivers, he knew he had to work quickly before Sam actually got the balls to do something other than simply touch you and grin about it.

Moving from his seat on the stool, he dismissed himself to his bedroom, keeping the door open until he noticed you walk past towards your bedroom... Alone.

Grinning at Sam’s pussy attempt at flirting, he thinks; what will do the photo justice? What will make her come running to me the moment I send it through?

His eyes flicker up, closing in around the empty bottle of wine that Natasha had left in his room the last time they watched a movie together; clearly not his because it’s a waste of time drinking the shit when it doesn’t do anything to him.

He moves across his room, buzzing with anticipation, the blood from his face travelling down to his crotch, hardening the behemoth to full length. Bucky grins to himself as he shuts his door, pushes his pants to the floor, kicking them off and holds the wine bottle against his erect, throbbing cock.

The contrast is incredible, just how fucking big he is. He wasn’t small before the serum, but now, he was a fucking giant; he thinks that to fit inside your small body he might have to use an entire bottle of lube and loosen you with his tongue first.

Without regret, he takes the photo, snapping it with his free hand, and throws the wine bottle onto a pile of clothing. He attaches the photo into a text message addressed to you, he thinks a moment and then types out the message. His cock throbbing at the thought of being inside you soon, feeling your warm, throbbing wetness, feeling the ridges grind against his steel-like cock.

Your phone buzzes across the room from your position on your bed, your fingers buried inside yourself, moans drawn from your mouth as you try and satiate the desire in your belly.

You’d been ready to fuck Sam the moment he touched you, but he wanted to play hard to get and you weren’t willing to wait, convincing yourself you’ll make yourself cum and then go find your Captain and beg him, even get on your knees if you have to, which surely would make any man’s blood start pumping to his nethers.

The thought makes you giggle as you stand up, your fingers slipping out from inside you as you pull your hand from your pants. You tap the screen of your phone and look at the messages someone has sent you.

Buckinator: Sent a Picture.

He always sends you pictures, of landscapes or of the team, or simply a selfie that he likes, so it wasn’t uncharacteristic.

Another message comes through before you have a chance to look at the picture.

Buckinator: Come get me if you want me.

You scroll up after reading the message and click to download the photo, and what graces your eyes all but makes you faint, your knees get weak and your entire body turns to liquid, because holy fucking shit, he is fucking big.

Will he even fit in you? Will it hurt? Of course, it fucking will, but with how your body vibrates with arousal, you don’t fucking care. He could bruise all the skin on your body and you would not fucking care.

There’s no decision-making process, you had been ready to fuck your superior, but this, you hit yourself for never thinking of Bucky; of course, Bucky. How had you never thought of it? The delicious soldier, the beefcake, the man that could lift you up and down his gigantic cock with ease.

You run to your bathroom, wash your hands and don’t bother to change from your simple cotton panties and a big t-shirt, because you doubt they’re going to remain on your body much longer with how fucking hard he is.

You don’t even knock when you get to his room, you enter and throw yourself at him, earning a pleasantly delicious grunt from his lips.

“Doll,” He says, silky smooth.

“Shut up,” You reply, shoving your mouth against his hand wrapping a secure hand around his length, feeling the rock hardness in your palm. “I can’t wait. I can’t wait. I can’t wait.”

You ramble against his lips, lifting your shirt with your free hand, breaking the kiss to toss it across the room, and shove your panties down and do the same.

“So sexy,” He mumbles as you mount him, sitting on his lap, your thighs on either side of his. His hands roam across your hot skin, feeling, caressing, cherishing the short time he has with you.

You groan at the praise, it sending shockwaves through your body, down to your stomach, achieving in producing more lubrication to help take the wine bottle sized cock you were currently hunched over.

“Lube,” You whimper when the tip of his cock brushes across your clit, swollen and aching to be touched. Bucky passes the bottle he had beside him, clearly knowing you’d come running, and usually, you’d never be so blatant, putting yourself completely in the hands of someone else, but not having a cock inside you almost a year has been driving you fucking crazy.

You squeeze practically half the bottle into your hand and lube him up, wiping the excess on a discarded towel and shift until you feel him scrape against your entrance.

You lift your eyes to look at Bucky’s, losing yourself in the blue, trying to be brave enough to lower yourself.

“Slow, doll. I’ve got you,” He comforts, fitting his flesh arm underneath your ass, supporting your weight which is probably something you won’t be able to do once you feel him enter you.

Nodding, you begin to lower yourself with the help of Bucky’s arm, gripping his shoulders and scrunching your eyebrows up at the stretch.

It doesn’t hurt too bad, just an ache from the large intrusion, but Bucky helps take your mind off of it as his head drops forward, groaning into the valley between your breasts, his hot breath sending shivers down your body as you continue your descent.

“So fucking tight, doll,” Bucky groans, as if you don’t already know, because anyone would be tight around his cock.

You bury a hand in his hair as you feel the tip of his cock hit your cervix; luckily just as you seat yourself onto his lap fully. If this isn’t an indication to you, then you don’t know what is. Though, Bucky vocalises it before you can even start thinking again.

“Made for me, doll. Fuck, sweetheart. I fit perfectly in your tight, little pussy. You were fucking made for me,” He groans deeply from his position between your breasts. His arms wrapping fully around you, the coldness of his metal one incredible against your blazing flesh.

“Help me, Buck,” You reply, squeezing his shoulder. You don’t trust your legs to lift you up and down on him. The ask makes him lift his head, looking into your desperate eyes. He nods shakily, tightening his grip on your small body, lifting you up and down, up and down, until you’re a flurry of tears and screams.

“Holy fucking shit,” You say, throwing your head back as Bucky thrusts up into your bounces, moving in rhythm to send you into a boneless mess.

“Gonna move, doll. Better position,” He says, and the promise is fulfilled the moment he shuffles, still connected to shove you onto your back on the bed, and begins his assault on your body.

Thrusting sharply into you only proves to draw a scream from the back of your throat, your body withering beneath his as he grips your hips in an attempt to keep you still. Your orgasm draws closer the more he thrusts, the harder he smacks into you, the more he groans and spews dirty words.

“I’m so close already, sweetheart. Your pussy is so fucking good,” Bucky is staring down at you with lust blown eyes and you want to feel him cum, you want to cum with him.

You nod, moving to fit your small hand between your connected bodies, and rub against the swollen, abused clit. The pleasure makes you throw your head back and screw your eyes shut, feeling his cock assaulting every inch of your insides and your fingers push against the button that’ll push you over the edge.

“Cum in me, Buck. Please. God, you feel so fucking good,” You ramble, words spewing from your mouth as you get closer and closer to the sweet, sweet release.

“Doll, Jesus. I’m going to cum in you soon. Are you going to cum with me?” Bucky asks. You flicker your eyes open to look at him, a gasp falling from your lips as he wraps his arms underneath your back and lifts you against him in more of a riding position, but you have no control. He’s sitting with his ass against his feet, holding your body securely against him, bouncing you on his cock and thrusting up into your body.

You bury your face in his neck, your fingers still assaulting your clit as the coil in your belly begins to tighten dangerously, and you feel your release move quickly to full-blown euphoria.

“Bucky. Bucky. I’m cumming,” You scream into his skin, your entire body starting to tighten and tense, as the coil snaps and your body begins to clench and unclench around his.

You feel his hands scramble to keep you against him as he slams his hips into yours a final time and bites down onto your shoulder to keep from screaming out his release.

You’re stuck in a world between euphoria and relaxation as your body shakes against him, the aftershocks of your orgasm rattling your body, as you roll your hips down against his cock, drawing it out until the last second, feeling the spurts of his cum release inside of you.

“Fuck,” He says simply. You bury your fingers in his hair as he sits back on his heels and holds you tight against his chest, your legs tangled around his waist.

“Feel free to send more pictures like that,” You say finally, brushing your lips against the skin beneath his ear. He shudders at the words and the action and just secures his arms tighter around your soft body.

“Will it result in this?” He questions, kissing the bite mark he’d left on your shoulder. A warmth fills your stomach at the sweet kiss and you lean back to look at his face.

“Undoubtedly.” And it goes like that, he sends photos at the most inappropriate times, so you sleep with him every day, fucking yourself down on his cock, orgasming and screaming to the high heavens, the team begin to complain about the screaming so Tony gives you and Bucky your own floor.

One day after fucking each other into a state of almost comatose, he asks you if you’d like to see a new movie out. You are shocked, not thinking that was an option. You hit yourself again for not thinking of Bucky as a companion rather than just a fuckable supersoldier.

Two years after your first date, he asks you to marry him. You stare down at the velvet box with his mother’s ring in it, and furrow your brows, never thinking that this was something you wanted, but it’s Bucky and he is everything you’ve ever needed, not only because he satiates your needs, but because he is your need.

You say yes and it’s a flurry of tears and screams from the team. You marry your best friend in the most beautiful white dress and wake up the morning of the first day of your honeymoon in a pair of cotton panties and a big t-shirt, which he rips off of you and fucks you until you scream.

Permanent Tags

REVAMPING THE TAGGED LIST. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TAGGED, MESSAGE ME AND MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR TAGGING OPEN.

Feedback is super super appreciated.

#avengers fic #avengers #bucky barnes #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #avengers smut #filthy smut #bucky barnes smut #winter soldier smut #marvel #fluff #mcu #steve rogers

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spookymeowmeow · 2 years

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okay i think i can properly convey my opinion now. buckle in

i am glad that if manatreed is an abuser he has been deplatformed. obviously. if he is not an abuser i am still glad, because clearly this is not the job for him. i am very disappointed that he left dream to clean up this mess, but i definitely didn't have enough time to form an expectation about him so it isn't like i'm surprised. that's really all i have to say about him.

i've said it a dozen times on my blog but i have to say it again. i am so devastated for the victim of this situation. i really hope they're doing okay.

i hope (maybe naively) this fandom has learned SOMETHING about not spreading doxxed information. the fact that a victim's personal information is splayed out all over the internet now is so garbage. if you shared links of the doxxing while it was happening i hope that you've learned not to do that in the future. that wasn't just happening on twitter or weird corners of tumblr, even some of my beloved mutuals were sharing links that contained the victim's name and social media.

personally i'm satisfied with dream's explanation. i hope he'll speak more about it in the future, but i don't really expect him to. i said all along that i wasn't that bothered by his initial reaction (though i don't blame you if you were!). i think it was a bit inappropriate, but he has spoken in the past about being a victim of domestic abuse. I think everyone had this in mind while the situation was ongoing. i do think that is a valid reason for him to have responded the way he did (and the way he is continuing to respond honestly). we need to keep in mind that when faced with a situation that brings up trauma it is very normal for someone to react in a way that they normally wouldn't. i don't think it's fair to expect anything different from dream just because of his popularity. he is human and he has a right to experience the same feelings as the rest of us.

i do believe him. i am definitely biased though.

(side tangent this is gonna be the most parasocial shit (sorry): obviously we don't know dream personally, but most of us have probably watched hundreds of hours of his content, including things that feel very intimate, almost like being on call with a friend. i feel like one of the more upsetting parts of this for all of us was that we felt like we could trust him, and there was a possibility he had majorly let us down. this was a good reminder that he is human, but he also isn't a human that we know personally. and as much as we all can pretend we do, we don't and we never will.)

i really hope that he has gotten a lawyer. (i don't blame him if he doesn't take legal action, legal issues + trauma can be the worst combination sometimes. but he needs a lawyer even if he isn't going to bring it to court imo).

i also can't blame him for giving this guy a platform. i could speculate all day on the backstory, but ultimately we don't know it and probably never will. i believe dream is a good dude and he would never knowingly lend an abuser his audience.

As a fandom we've all learned a thing or two from this. i saw some good takes and some rotten takes, most being somewhere in between. if you've taken a step back i support you, if you stuck around i support you! i just hope that you're all doing okay and taking care of yourselves. if anyone wants to send asks or messages about this feel free. as always i'll continue to tag this as "manatreed situation" "discourse" "negative" etc. etc., so block those if you would like to be done hearing about it!! i will probably get back to my normal blogging for the most part though.

#discourse #negative #manatreed situation #abuse tw #doxxing tw

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fanfictasia · 2 years

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I'm the anon from the 'you're not homophobic' ask earlier, you're welcome! It's just like, it costs nothing to not be an ass to people because they're strangers on the internet and you can get away with that. Especially here if it is the right topic, or at least the right topic being unfairly conflated.

I don't see anything wrong with the notation! I think it says a lot that you would welcome genuine, as in, not aggressive and nonconstructive, advice, actually. People who are genuinely homophobic, or irrationally opposed to the existence of any type of person for that matter, aren't good at even pretending to want opinions, advice, or constructive comments lmao

Nowhere in that statement do you say there is anything wrong with people choosing to write the things you don't want to. You aren't offering an opinion on any of those things, or being accusatory and hateful about other people as people because they choose to do so. I see a ton of extremely hateful and unnecessary comments added to what people won't write or read, the virtue signaling and argument baiting these days is crazy.

Want to see what it would look like if you did? Tumblr Irrationally Woke Edition!

"Note: We will not write a relationship where the individuals are 1. the same gender because we are not nasty festishizing cishets like the rest of the fandom 2. far apart in age, like more than ten years, because that's ACTUALLY pedophilia and if you think differently you're literally a pedo normalizing abusive pedo ships, nasty freak 3. like family in canon, it's the same as incest and if you ship incest you're a disgusting abuse fetishist who needs to unfollow. "

And since they were clearly trying to pigeonhole this as you being an overtly homophobic Christian, instead of the Tumblr Woke Edition of the first one: "We won't write a relationship where the individuals are the same gender--this is against God and our beliefs !! We love the sinner and hate the sin, we aren't going to contribute to sin and enable sinners in their disgusting 'lifestyle' that leads them away from eternal salvation and the glory of God. If you don't like that, we won't see you in Hell lol but we will be praying for you."

Everything in both those examples is genuinely offensive and inappropriate, they're both openly hostile, intolerant, and gross, it doesn't matter that one is the supposedly "progressive minded" take. It's the same thing!

Maybe it is your beliefs that make you uncomfortable with writing it, but you aren't saying that or using it to be nasty to people. You maturely just aren't giving a reason, and you know what? None is necessary! Furthermore, I have to say it again since so many people have lost the concept, you don't positively impact anyone by misconstruing something and attacking them over it, you do the opposite of that. Great way to push someone accepting who just doesn't want to write that content into feeling negatively about things! Save the hostility for the people who actually are asking for it, there are plenty of them. Kind of like how there are more than plenty of fics for the m/m pairing you want written lol it's the VAST majority, and especially when it comes to things you can request. The options are pretty endless, and you can also both write your own damn fic and simply not engage with what doesn't appeal to you. It doesn't have to be a righteous battle every time something doesn't cater to you just because it is the internet where you can more easily make demands, shame people, and in some places and fandoms, are the majority like you aren't offline.

So, you're not making offensive statements about anyone based on the fiction they want to consume or create. You're not giving reasons why these things are limits for you guys, which is unnecessary anyway and even if it wasn't a popular thing you didn't feel comfortable doing, it'd still be opening a can of worms for someone out there. You're not going off in posts or reblogging posts that are offensive, accusatory, homophobic, or that express personal opinions on real life matters. You interact with a good range of people, and I've seen you be open to contrary opinions and suggestions/corrections. In your note, you're not waving around charged phrases/terms like "imbalance of power," incest, pedophilia, and whatever, and you could get away with that here and probably be praised for it.

I'm just not seeing it lol all I see is you establishing boundaries with what you'll write, and you should! If someone isn't comfortable writing anything at all and they take requests, that's necessary to say before it comes up. It's the responsible thing to do, and tells people right up front so that they know what they're getting into, instead of you having to individually decline people. With the possibility of those people not taking it well, people generally don't like being declined. It's negativity both sides can avoid this way. Boundaries are good!

I think the only thing in the notation you could alter at all is just the phrasing of the addition at the end. "(PS. We don't feel comfortable writing same gender ships, but if someone else wants to do so, then I have no problem with it. It's their choice. :)" I can see, if I try very hard, how that might come off to someone as you specifically picking out that number on the list to address as a preoccupation with it instead of you trying to make it clear you aren't being judgmental because it's not going to be a popular decision and will be picked at. Maybe put at the end something like "Just because we're not comfortable or interested in writing something doesn't mean we care if you do. We're all just here to enjoy ourselves our own way!"

Thanks for this ask! I don’t have a lot to say about it, but I definitely agree with everything you’re saying.

As long as I’m not hurting anyone or discriminating against anyone, I don’t see why it should matter what I (or anyone, for that matter) believes. It’s not like anyone ought to need the approval of a random stranger online for their personal life and choices. Lol.

And thanks for the suggestion of what you think we should change the note to! I didn’t have it in the beginning, but I added it after someone did request a same-gender relationship fic (which was a little awkward, but they had an alternative option… so it could have been worse lol). I’ll change that asap. :D

#anon ask #anon answered #this is why i still have faith in humanity #there are still good people out there who are open-minded #:D

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myficrecommendations · 4 years

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FLUFF

Long Distance - Falling in love with an Army Captain just weeks before he had to leave again, wasn’t something she had planned on. And Sy didn’t even know how much he wanted to have a family until she told him she was pregnant 2 months into his deployment.

new additions added 14 Nov:

Happy - Dancing with Sy at night at a gas station

MULTI CHAPTER/SERIES

homecoming by @henrycavell

Syverson has been medically discharged from the army after a suicide attempt. He’d been able to hide his deteriorating mental health for years from the men around him, but now he has to face it head on. Hopefully not alone.

homecoming (1/?)

homecoming (2/?)

homecoming (3/?)

homecoming (4/?)

Cuts & Bruises, Wounds & Abuses (WIP)

A war correspondent, you are embedded with Captain Syverson’s Special Forces team. [SOULMATE AU: You feel the physical pain of your soulmate.]

Chapter 1/?

Chapter 2/?

Chapter 3/?

Chapter 4/?

Chapter 5/?

Chapter 6/?

Chapter 7/?

Chapter 8/?

Chapter 9/?

Chapter 10/? (new addition)

Chapter 11/? (new addition)

Chapter 12/? (new addition)

Chapter 13/? (new addition)

Chapter 14/? (new addition)

NSFW/SMUT

Feral Collision - Age gap (female character is over 18), inappropriate relationship, fingering, choking, unprotected sex, creampie

on tumblr’s algorithm and supporting content creators

on how to leave comments and what to say

#henry cavill characters #masterpost #captain syverson #captain syverson fanfic #captain syverson x reader #captain syverson fluff #captain syverson x ofc #captain syverson imagine

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nothlits-archive · 3 years

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I told myself I was done talking about this unless something urgent came up, but this whole situation is pissing me off so much, so here's my big (hopefully final) explanation of the situation I have unfortunately found myself in. If you know, you know.

I mod a very small, very quiet server for the persona series. At its height there was maybe 10-15 active members, many of which were creators of some sort. Most of the most active members were people I'd known for years, including my boyfriend, and my roommate at the time.

I had previously written a long, plot-heavy (imo) fic for a rarepair in this series, and there weren't many of those in existence. I don't claim any sort of credit for creation of this ship, but I would be lying if I said my fic didn't popularize this ship somewhat. Because of this notoriety, several people who joined my server were aware of the fic's existence and would occasionally compliment me on it or tell me they'd read it. At no point would I have considered myself "popular" by any standards, as the fic itself is by no means well-known outside a small circle, and I have around 280 followers on tumblr and no public presence anywhere else due to being typically reclusive.

I was newly friends with someone who I invited to join the server because I valued their presence and wanted to get to know them better. They created content for the same ship, and I'd actually read their work and commented on it on ao3 before becoming mutuals here or speaking to them. However, things went south pretty quickly. Seeing that my fic was receiving attention, they began making very public posts on Tumblr, where we were again mutuals, that were obviously targeted at me. They were posts about how long fics were filler, how they hated "popular" (how they saw me) creators, among other things. They would directly say things to me like "I didn't think you struggled with anything" with regards to writing, which felt to me like they were simultaneously putting me on a pedestal and trying to knock me off of it. I let all of this slide because I valued their friendship.

It became clear after some time of this that they had developed some very negative feelings towards me, or at least towards my work, and their complex about their own writing became too much for me to handle. I had to have private conversations with them outside the server more than once because they were becoming so outwardly upset about some perceived favoritism or ignorance towards their work, which they constantly tried to pit against mine. If any of my friends made a reference to my work, this person would go off the rails, and then the public posts would start popping up. This person used some emojis I'd made specifically for a promo post for my fic, and a friend I'd known nearly a decade said something referring to my fic, and they lost it completely and still use this incident as proof that everyone was intentionally treating them as if they were inferior to me in some way. This is just one example of the sort of behavior that was rampant until their voluntary leave from the server.

As far as I know, they did not ever actually read the fic in question, and they also refused to read my boyfriend's work and then lied to him about having read it. Despite this, they expected constant response to their own work from everyone involved and seemed incapable of accepting that they could not get all the attention all the time and that it was not a personal reflection of their worth.

They later joined my private friends only server (which I invited them to) and had to be kicked because of their refusal to stop posting about detailed accounts of child abuse. I've heard this also happened elsewhere very similarly.

I cut ties with them around the time of the child abuse incident because I had finally reached a limit where I just could not handle putting myself around someone who so blatantly disregarded other people's boundaries only to focus on how other people's pain affects them instead. This on top of several instances of calling them out both publicly and privately on inappropriate behavior compounded into a boundary violation I could no longer stomach.

Since cutting ties, they accused both me and my boyfriend (who isn't white) of white supremacy and alignment with nazism over literally nothing but their own anger at us, and continued to spin the story that their experience with not receiving the same exact mirrored attention I received in a group of people who knew me personally was so terribly upsetting to them that they have no choice but to beg for pity and comfort over it. Repeated insistence that there was no favoritism and that I could not enforce a rule to force server members to interact with their work has been ignored in favor of a victim complex.

Their boyfriend has posited that I was responsible for their work being ignored and that I fostered an environment similar to a teacher playing favorites with students, which is ridiculous. I was modding a small server and was not in a position of real authority over a bunch of anime fans.

I'm only making this post because I'm sick of the misconceptions and knowing they have a larger sphere of influence than I do to turn this into whatever they'd like however they'd like. Because of their behavior towards me, I have struggled with my ability to work on or conceive creative projects, especially in the public eye, and their repeated insistence that I or people close to me are responsible for the reception of their work has damaged my self worth tremendously. I harbor a lot of guilt and shame surrounding all of this, because I was made to believe I had inherently done something wrong by publishing my hard work and enjoying the praise I felt was well-earned.

The short version is: their unfinished fic did not receive the same amount of praise and attention that my completed fic did, and they've decided to make it my and everyone else's problem for some reason. I'm tired of dealing with this.

#long post cw #drama cw #dont know if anyone blocks that but just in case

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the-weird-bisexual · 3 years

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Here For You

Synopsis: Leah comes home from work in time to help Billy through a tough spot.

A/N: I don’t own any of the characters used in this story besides my OC, Leah. This small story is from a long WIP I’m writing of season 2 and 3 of Stranger Things. I feel like a few things should be explained about my OC and her story with Billy.

Leah Cameron is 18-ish, she lives alone, works at the police station, and lives next door to Billy. She was apart of the lab experiments. She has multiple abilities including telepathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, and empathic abilities. She goes through the entire story of Stranger Things and by Season 3, Billy knows of her abilities and that is why in this small story he is aware of what she can do.

Also comments and anything else is much appreciated! This is the first time I’m posting something I’ve written on Tumblr and I’m anxious to see how this goes!

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x OC

Genre: fluff, a bit of angst, honestly a little sad too

Warnings: Swearing, abuse, mentions of injuries, suggestive talk but nothing much further than that. Underage drinking. An excessive use of Billy calling Leah Princess (because yes this needs to be a warning). If there’s anything else, please let me know :)

Word count: 1584

One night I came home late from working at the station, it was a good day filled with lots of paperwork but also a bit of fun with everyone that worked in the police station. It was a mellow day and I lived for those kinds of days. I drove home slowly jamming out to rock music with Chinese food that I just bought in the backseat.

I pulled into my driveway and almost instantly I felt a tense kind of air around me. I quickly grabbed my things and went inside my house. I could hear yelling coming from Billy’s and I cringed as it got louder.

“Ignore it, Lee,” I repeat over and over to myself. I could feel my palms becoming hot. “Calm down.” When it comes to Billy’s home situation, everything could get me heated. It was becoming harder to breathe because of how much I was trying to resist the urge to go punch out Billy’s dad. I couldn’t understand how a father could treat his kid so horribly. It appalled me every time I tried to even comprehend his thinking.

I set down the bag of food I had in my hand on the counter and then went over to the kitchen table and set down my purse.

Eventually, the yelling became so stressful for me that I had to go up to my room and try to actually calm myself down. I drew a bath and right as I did the yelling stopped. I walked back downstairs and looked out my kitchen window, which was aligned with Billy’s kitchen window, and saw him walk out and into his room. He was limping and I could feel some of the pain.

I sighed and waited until he fully got into his room to walk out of my house and towards his window. Once I got there I made sure that no one else was in Billy’s room but him. Once I determined that he was alone, I silently unlocked his window and slid it up. Billy looked out of the window at me and I smiled gently. He moved away and held open the curtains so I could come in. Once my feet touched the floor and I saw how actually hurt he was I went to grab one of his bags and put a couple pairs of clothes and other essentials into it. He stared at me from his bed and watched as I walked around his room and collected his things.

He whispered, “What’re you doing?” and tried to get up to stop me. I held out my hand and he looked at me weird as his body sat back down on the bed.

“Packing, what does it look like? You’re staying over for a couple of days.” I grabbed his backpack and threw both bags out the window. I turned to him. “Are you ok walking or do you need my help?” He looked at me confused. He wasn’t really processing what I was doing. I assumed that he just wasn’t used to someone giving him as much support and care as I was trying to give him. He stared at me for a couple more seconds and held out his hand. I grabbed it and helped him get out of his window and walk to my house.

Once we were inside, I led him upstairs and into my room. Setting his bags down, I led him into the bathroom and set him down on the sink. I went to take off his shoes but he stopped me.

“Princess,” He grumbled. I stood back up and leaned into him a little, not enough to hurt him. “You’re hurt and you need help, B. Just let me help you.” He looked at me with a sad look. He had pain coming from his back and other places on his upper body, I assumed there had to be bruises. His left eye was also beginning to get purple around the edges. I tugged his boots off and assessed his clothes. They weren’t bloody or anything but something told me they just had to be washed.

“I’m fine.” He tried to stop me again. I pushed his ribs and he grabbed my hand roughly letting out a hiss. “You’re not fine. Get undressed and get in the damn tub. This isn’t up for discussion.” I ordered. He bit his lip and smirked at me. “Whatever you say.” He replied softly with a small chuckle. Slowly, he tried to pull his shirt off but let out a string of curse words and looked at me defeated as he asked for help.

I obliged, of course, and kept myself in check as I ogled a bit too long at his built chest (that didn’t have any noticeable bruising btw). He was honestly the hottest guy I’ve ever seen and damn it was getting really hard for me to keep it in my pants at inappropriate times. He chuckled at my face that was breaking into a beat red blush. As usual, I had inflated his ego just a bit.

“Like what you see princess?” He teased. “You wished.” I choked out hurriedly and turned away from him. “Can you give me a hand here too?” He pointed to his pants and I swear I was beginning to regret offering to help him out at all.

Long story short, everything came off and he was in the tub. I sat beside the tub on the floor while he sat back and closed his eyes in bliss. He didn’t know the last time he could really enjoy a bath like this, maybe California? He also couldn’t recall the last time he had felt safe around anyone the way he did with me, he felt welcomed and wanted whenever he was around me. He never thought he could feel like that again, after losing his mom and everything. He held out his hand from the bathtub and grabbed mine in his. I sighed in content as he traced circles on the top of it.

“Thanks,” He mumbled. I looked over at him for a second as he opened his eyes slowly to meet my gaze. “I mean it. You’ve done so much for me and sometimes I can’t understand why.” He admitted. I pulled his hand up to my lips and kissed his knuckles.

“Sometimes I can’t understand why either, you’re a handful.” I joked. He laughed at that and squeezed my hand. “I stick around you, Billy Hargrove, because I like you. But being good looking also has its perks.” I laughed. He nodded his head. “I’ll keep that in mind.” He commented. As I held his hand I healed some of his injuries. He sighed and his eyes drooped shut. The bruising hurt like a bitch on my back but I knew it’d be gone in maybe an hour.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Billy mumbled as he kept his eyes closed. “I know.” Is all I responded with.

After his bath, and after he changed, I led him out to the kitchen where there was food still waiting to be eaten. “Did you have dinner?” I asked as I started to pull out the different items inside the bag. It was a good thing I bought the dinner for two special.

“No.” He rasped out. He was beginning to get upset and I understood why, I had seen him a few times at his lowest and have felt what he has. If he was honest to himself it was all of the toxicity he’s experienced being with his father for so long and the compassion, intimacy, and warmth that he’s felt from me, clashing together that was making him so sorrowful.

I didn’t really know whether to talk to him about it or ignore it so I chose the food first and an explanation later method. As I set food on plates I could feel the internal battle within him worsen. Once I was finished plating the food, I handed him a plate with a fork and then pulled out a beer (Hopper had brought them over a while back and forgot about them) from my fridge and handed it to him.

“I’m not going to ask you to explain how you’re feeling if you don’t want to talk about it but I want you to know that you can let it all out here. This place,” I motioned all around us. “Is your safe spot, where you won’t be judged for what you say and what you do. This is my safe spot and I’m offering a place for you if or when you need it.” I set my hand on top of his and he held onto it tightly. Tears started to fall from his eyes and landed onto the table as he stared down at it.

I walked around and he turned in his seat as he met my hug. He cried into my shoulder as I hugged him close. I whispered reassurances into his hair and after a few more minutes of crying he calmed down. “You deserve the world, William Hargrove, whether you believe that or not.” I guided his head up to look at me and wiped away stray tears. I smiled at him and pulled our faces closer together, kissing him with a peaceful reassurance that I wasn’t going to go anywhere and that I was with him for the long run.

#billy hargrove #billy hargrove x oc #billy hargrove one shot #billy hargrove fic #stranger things #stranger things fic #stranger things season 3 #fics #oc #oc fic #writing

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wherevermyway · 3 years

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the FiVE:RACHA project (1/7) // black mirror AU // 18+

chapter one: freedom series navigation: [desktop] [mobile]

⚠ POTENTIAL TW: READ WITH CAUTION! ⚠ pairings: lee minho x kim seungmin | hwang hyunjin x lee felix x yang jeongin | bang chan x seo changbin x han jisung rating: explicit! 18+ warnings/tags: creator chose not to use archive warnings, descent into madness, horror, thriller, technological implants, blood and gore, alcohol abuse, some sexual content in later chapters but it’s not, like, smut. word count: 3,101 also on AO3

PS: i made a carrd for this. check it out if you’re interested!

originally posted: 26 december 2020

Several years ago, five men created a website for South Korea's international rap sensation, 3RACHA. The website, The FiVE:RACHA Project, was almost as popular as the group themselves. About two years after the website went live, FiVE:RACHA had the opportunity to meet 3RACHA.

Immediately after they meet, the members of FiVE:RACHA and 3RACHA go missing. The FiVE:RACHA Project website is down. Their Twitter account has been deactivated, and 3RACHA stops posting. A few months after their meetup, it was announced that 3RACHA had disbanded. Nobody knows what happened to either group.

Nobody knows, until now.

For some, modern day fame comes at a price that is too high to pay.

disclaimer: this is a work of fiction! any reference to persons in this work of fiction are purely coincidental. the characters referenced from Stray Kids are interpretations loosely based on their personalities in the group and do not represent the real people behind the personas. if this, or any of the content included in the warnings above make you uncomfortable, please stop reading now.

// note: with other darker stuff i post, i’m not totally sure i’ll post the entirety of this fic on tumblr. if not, i’ll do a little notice post for people interested to keep following it on AO3.

...Do you wish to proceed? To learn the truth of FiVE:RACHA and 3RACHA?

What is the true price of fame?

A Foreword:

Several years ago, there was a fan site, The FiVE:RACHA Project, dedicated to South Korea’s most famous rap group, 3RACHA. One day, it went down without notice. The site, as well as their Twitter account with over four million followers, was almost as well-known as the rap group itself.

3RACHA mysteriously disbanded several months after FiVE:RACHA went down. Nobody has seen or heard from the members of either group since the disbandment. There are several theories and myths surrounding the disappearances of both groups, but most of them are incorrect.

Be aware that, no, FiVE:RACHA did not go down because the site moderators were bored of 3RACHA. No, 3RACHA did not disband because Supreme Entertainment was about to collapse due to widespread fraud and their political scandals within the Korean government.

The stories of FiVE:RACHA and 3RACHA are very much deeply intertwined within each other, and the truth is uncomfortable to witness.

This novel’s authors, comprised of some of the most loyal fans of both groups, will remain anonymous and stay in hiding due to fear of being caught by the one responsible for the disappearances. An individual outside of our group found a Shinyu of someone involved in this, someone discarded in the Han River many years ago. How the implant survived with no living host for so long is beyond remarkable.

In case the Shinyu is defunct or replaced by the time you’re reading this, allow us to explain. The name comes from “close friend” in Japanese, likely as a play on words for how close the implant gets to its host, both physically and socially. The Shinyu was created in Tokyo in 2025; it is a small technological implant embedded under the skin of the right side of everyone’s temples.

Everyone has one placed at thirteen, and it encodes all of our visual, tactile, and auditory data, syncing it to our phones and uploading it to personal servers in the cloud. The data is encrypted, and requires access from both the Shinyu and the phone to decipher. It allows us to integrate technology into our daily lives, records our memories and important moments, but there is a price we all pay for this. Critics have been outspoken about this since its inception, but the governments never listened.

Alas, we digress. The Shinyu is vital to uncovering so much information that has been hidden and speculated on after all this time. Regardless of our personal opinions regarding the ethics of the device, we are grateful that we were able to obtain one of the implants. It has been vital to connect a lot of the missing pieces of the greater picture.

The authors have spent years decoding the information from this implant. Thanks to an anonymous source, we were able to obtain the personal computer of someone in FiVE:RACHA, personal cell phones of both groups, access to the database of Supreme Entertainment and its defunct myIdol data, some declassified legal information, and archives of both FiVE:RACHA and 3RACHA’s Twitter accounts.

Why have we chosen to extrapolate all of this data in the form of a novel? Perhaps we would like it to serve as a modern day parable for the plights of technology being so intricately interwoven between us all now. We, as humans, are now one with technology. Technology is literally embedded into us. It is astounding that technology allows us to interact so closely with famed idols now, beyond some barriers that critics have denounced for being inappropriate or unhealthy.

Some of us may pay the ultimate price for this.

Some of us, unfortunately, already have.

However interconnected we are with technology and how close we can get to those of which we idolize in society, though, humans will still crave entertainment. That is why this was written almost as a work of fiction. Those that pay attention to the story will be rewarded. Maybe not immediately, and maybe only after self-reflection, but readers will be rewarded. That much can be promised.

Above all else, we cannot stress enough that modern day fame and convenience comes at a price that is too high for some to pay. Stay safe, err on the side of caution. Disconnect from your Shinyu if you choose to proceed any further, because you never know who is watching.

— Curators of The FiVE:RACHA Project

One: Freedom

Nobody really knows who exactly manages FiVE:RACHA, just that it’s a group of five fans that run a fansite for the popular rap group 3RACHA. Their website is the most well-known and widely used out of the millions of fans that are out there. It always has live updates for the members: Bang Chan, Seo Changbin, and Han Jisung. There are daily paparazzi photos of at least one of them slapped up on the front page, embedded social media posts from each of the members updated as soon as they post, and hard-to-find facts about each of them.

Hell, one of the FiVE:RACHA members went through and coded up a section of the site dedicated to decoding natal charts for each of the members. Again, like most things about FiVE:RACHA, the source of this information was a mystery. Nobody’s sure exactly how they obtained 3RACHA’s birth times and locations. Some had speculated that it happened the same day the government had announced that there was a security breach of some of their databases, because the timing was oddly convenient.

To most casual fans, it sometimes felt really fucking weird to have so much information on idols readily available at their fingertips. However, to 3RACHA’s most dedicated, most obsessed fans, it was perfect. Exactly what they wanted. Their work seemed well-appreciated by the broader community, since the amount of Twitter followers FiVE:RACHA had was comparable to 3RACHA’s following, nearly half of their total count: 4,100,000 to 8,500,000.

There was nothing else that could compare to the controlled insanity that The FiVE:RACHA Project had to offer.

The FiVE:RACHA website was an international sensation, known to most 3RACHA fans, even those that opposed it. There was even a small, but growing, fanbase for the members of FiVE:RACHA, something that was slightly worrisome to them, but they had remained anonymous for so long, they weren’t really overtly concerned over it.

“This article is bullshit, man. ‘Controlled insanity’? None of this is controlled, it’s just insanity.”

Idle hums and trills of various electronics thrum in a dark room. Two young men stare at several computer monitors in a daze, lost in their own worlds as a ticker tape-like feed of coding and statistics flew past them on screen.“Let ‘em talk, dude,” the younger-looking man with blue hair scoots away from his computer and sighs. “Fuckin’ gossip rags. Anyway, I can’t stare at this CSS anymore. I can’t figure out why the embedded feeds are busted. Can you take over on this, Seung?”

The slightly older man with short, shaggy black hair rolls his neck, snapping some joints, not bothering to look away from his screens. “Yeah, yeah,” he stops poring over the article written about them on one screen, tabbing away to another. He cracks the knuckles in his fingers, and waves his hand in the air as he taps a couple of keys on his keyboard. “Go take a break, Jeongin. Hyunjin was looking for you, anyways. Probably got something good from a source of his, since he’s in one of his giddy moods.”

As Seungmin settles into his work, Jeongin chuckles as he stands up and stretches. He takes a couple steps over to the other computer desk and pats the older man on the back. “Thanks, dude,” he says with a smile and walks out of the server room, out into the hallway that leads into the open living room of their flat. The ambient humming of the room stops as he shuts the door, now replaced by the sound of his feet shuffling, the muffled noises echoing against the hardwood floor.

Five men all lived and worked in this large apartment together: Yang Jeongin, Kim Seungmin, Hwang Hyunjin, Lee Felix, and Lee Minho. Collectively, this was where they lived and breathed The FiVE:RACHA Project. Running the largest, most extensive fansite for South Korea’s most famous rap group, 3RACHA, was more than a full-time job. They all equally poured their hearts and souls into maintaining the website and their Twitter account. It proved to be almost too much for five people alone to handle as their shifts sometimes went from twelve hours and bled into sixteen, sometimes twenty-four hour shifts.

Minho, the leader, didn’t trust anyone but the original five to the project, however. Jeongin could hear the oldest man’s airy voice echo in his ears: “I trusted the four of you with this. Now, it’s devolved into something I don’t even recognize. There’s no way anyone deserves to see what we’ve done. Imagine if it got out that we were the ones in charge of this monstrosity?”

Jeongin glided into the kitchen, and pulled his phone out of his back pocket, eyeing the time. 13:36. He had another hour left of his shift, and he was exhausted after yesterday’s all-nighter. 33 hours of work, with only a small nap in between was rough on anyone, and he was starting to feel it, physically. His Shinyu Implant would ping him once every hour that he was very low on sleep, reminding him that it was unhealthy to go without sleep for so long and that he would not be able to drive. As he slinked his way to the fridge, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and yawned. He opened the fridge, the contents in the shelves of the door clattering as they abruptly shifted around.

The first thing he saw was a bottle of unsweetened coffee and, while he knew he shouldn’t drink caffeine within a few hours of hopeful sleep, Jeongin went against his instincts and reached for the bottle anyways. As he opened it, the cracking of the seal reverberated against all of the hard surfaces and sounded much louder than it should have, startling the man awake a bit.

He hated unsweetened coffee, but there was no way he would make it through another hour or so of coding maintenance without it. Jeongin polished off the entire bottle within seconds, grimacing in disgust the entire time. He tapped his right temple twice, and grumbled. “Set reminder, after work: grocery shopping. Have Hyunjin drive. Add to list: energy drinks. The good kind, none of that berry-flavoured shit.” A very faint, nearly inaudible ding responds after he’s done speaking, and Jeongin moves to discard the bottle into the recycling bin.

“Innie?” Almost as if the devil himself heard Jeongin’s request, a familiar voice rounded the corner of the kitchen. “Oh, good, I thought that was you. Anyway, you won’t believe the content I got from Yeji at Seoul Scoop, dude,” the lanky, beacon-like blond grins wildly at Jeongin, walking into the kitchen. “I actually got a photo of Chan and Changbin looking awfully close at KNECT’s backstage event a couple days ago. Think they were celebrating their recent win a little too hard.”

Hyunjin proudly slaps a grainy photo down on the countertop, where Changbin is sitting in Chan’s lap, arms wrapped around the older man’s neck. Sure, it could easily be explained away as friendly closeness, since everyone knew that all of the guys were very close friends, and the area was cramped. The photo, however, would cause a lot of panic within the community.

Jeongin smirked as he eyed the photo, taking it into his fingers and bringing it up close to his face. “The shippers are going to have a field day over this, you know.”

“I know,” Hyunjin shakes some of his hair out of his face as he arrogantly places a hand on his hip, shifting his weight to one side. “It’ll be great traffic for the site. I’ll have Seungmin put it on the front page later.” He takes a couple of steps closer to Jeongin and pulls the younger man to his chest, stroking his hair down. “I love you, but you look like shit. Why not call it a little early today?”

Jeongin shook his head, burying his nose into the older man’s shoulder, letting his eyes flutter shut with a sigh. “Seungmin and I are trying to fix a string of broken code that’s causing the social media feed to bug out a little bit. Definitely wanna have that fixed before we upload this.”

A clattering of keys startles both of the younger men, causing them to look behind Hyunjin. “Don’t worry about it, Jeongin,” a third voice speaks from the entrance of the kitchen. “Seriously, you worked really hard yesterday, and I’m sure we’ll manage. I’ll be sure to wake up Felix a little earlier and we’ll fix the coding.”

“You’re home early, Minho,” Jeongin chuckles once as he nods. “Figured you’d be stuck in the office for a few more hours.”

“Nah,” Minho dismissively waves his hand in the air as he walks over to the sink, rinsing his hands. “Seungmin called me earlier and said you were nodding off at your desk, asked me to come home early.”

A look of guilt washed over Jeongin’s face. “Shit, my bad.”

“Don’t apologize,” Minho smiles as he towels off his hands. “I appreciate all of the work you did yesterday; completely revamping the social media section was hard. But I can’t have you possibly miscode something and have it break the site because you’re running low on sleep. You’ve started getting pings, haven’t you?”

Jeongin sheepishly nods his head and mumbles an affirmation.

Hyunjin rolls his eyes and elbows the young man in the side. “I thought I told you to take a nap, dude?”

“I did!” Jeongin whines. “It was, like, a half-hour, though.”

Both Hyunjin and Minho roll their eyes at Jeongin. “Get out of here,” Minho scoffs, walking towards the server room. “Go to bed. I don’t wanna see you back in the server room until tomorrow morning.”

Jeongin opens his mouth to protest, but Hyunjin drags him away, up the stairs towards their bedroom. A ping comes from his implant, a transparent box popping up in the lower right-hand corner of his vision. The soft voice of the AI reverberates against his skull, allowing him to hear it as if it were a real voice whispering into his ear. It reads off the notification from his display.

“Movement away from workplace detected. Reminder: grocery shopping later, have Hyunjin drive. Would you like me to pull up your list?”

“No.” A low grumble comes up from Jeongin’s throat as he taps his temple twice to dismiss the notification. “Hyunjin,” he sighs, “we’ve gotta go grocery shopping.”

“You’re too tired,” Hyunjin shakes his finger without turning to look at Jeongin. “The grocery store will still be there tomorrow.”

“I’m out of my energy drinks, though,” the younger man protests.

Hyunjin smiles, opening the door to their bedroom and whispers. “I’ll be sure to get some for you. Go cuddle up with Felix and get some sleep.”

“Hyunjin, I—” Jeongin is cut off as the older man grabs his wrist, pulling him into his chest. They share a brief kiss before Hyunjin guides him into the bedroom.

“Shh, Lixie is sleeping.”

There’s a shuffling that comes from the bedsheets, and a sleepy voice grumbles. “Not anymore.”

“Aw, mornin’, babe,” Hyunjin says with a smile. “Sorry to wake you. Minho’s probably gonna come ask for you in a bit, anyways, though.”

Felix rolls over, sitting upright as he runs his hands through his brassy blond hair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Jeongin sighs as he makes his way over to the bed, bringing an arm up to the blond and wrapping him in a lazy hug as he pulls them down to the bed.

The blond lets out a soft laugh. “Don’t worry about it, man,” he turns his head to face the bluenette and offers him a quick peck on the lips. “I couldn’t sleep much, anyways. Finding out about that myIdol rumour yesterday had my brain going kind of wild.”

“You heard about it too, huh?” Hyunjin says, colliding down onto the bed opposite of Felix. “Someone at Seoul Scoop told me about it this morning. It lets fans connect with their idols, like they’re actually directly messaging them.”

“That’s weird,” the bluenette sleepily grumbles into Felix’s shoulder.

“I think so, too.” Felix says with a frown as he nuzzles his head against Jeongin’s forehead, staring up into the ceiling.

Hyunjin shrugs with indifference. “I dunno, I think it’s pretty interesting.”

Jeongin lifts his head and stares down Hyunjin with a smirk. “You just want to pretend like Changbin cares about you.”

The older blond frowns as he flips off Jeongin. “Like you wouldn’t want Jisung to send you a ‘Have a wonderful day, bestie!’ message?”

The youngest member flops back down onto the bed. “Okay, that’s fair. It’s still weird, though. Seems so artificial and fake, I guess.”

“Well,” Hyunjin sits up, offering a hand out to Felix, “I’ll have more information on it tomorrow, probably. Why don’t you let yourself sleep for a while?” Felix takes the hand offered to him, and both men stand up. “Lixie and I will go out and get some groceries and get you those nasty energy drinks you like so much.”

Jeongin grumbles as he wiggles his way up to the pillows, half-asleep and irritated from the loss of warmth from Felix. “Just not the berry ones, okay?”

“I’ll see what we can do,” Hyunjin says with a smirk before he spins on his heel and walks out of the room. “Love you, Innie!”

“Don’t worry,” Felix leans down to kiss Jeongin’s forehead, “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get the kinds you hate. Let yourself actually sleep, too. We’ll make it all work out, okay?”

Jeongin mutters some sort of incoherent affirmation as he lets his heavy eyelids flutter shut. Seungmin would be able to fix the CSS by himself, he figured, trying not to worry too much about how broken small parts of the site were. He heard Felix say something else as he quickly faded off into sleep, but it didn’t register fully as he sank into the abyss.

There were a lot of sleepless nights ahead of them, whether FiVE:RACHA felt it coming or not.

#the fiveracha project #the five:racha project #skz fics #black mirror au #horror #technological horror #i'm not tagging the ships because they're not really important #wherevermyway

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morningflames · 4 years

Text

a word of warning

well here’s a post i never thought i’d be making

it’s come to my attention that a Certain Someone is planning on making a comeback to WrA soon and it fills me with nothing short of dread. i spent the day yesterday warning people he terrorized and manipulated that this was happening. you know it’s bad when there’s a literal network of people who share an abuser that have remained in contact for years in the event this happened again.

i am not going to lie and say that making this post does not terrify me but i cannot in good conscience sit back and let him worm his way into the rp scene again and do what he did to me and at least half a dozen others all over again.

to summarize: tarcanus aka tarcanus frostborne is a manipulative, emotionally abusive and predatory individual that should be avoided at all costs.

i am the player behind lyrinel, a former officer of his and someone who was on the receiving end of nearly a years worth of abuse and manipulation. my experiences pale in comparison to those of others who dealt with him and came forward to me after i left his guild, and i cannot speak for anyone who does not feel comfortable coming forward. if you do want to let your voice be heard, feel free to reblog and add your own anecdotes.

my story below the cut.

tw: manipulation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, coercion, grooming

i first joined coram populo in early 2014 after my best friend and fellow survivor (i will refer to her by her character’s name of thradia from here on out) joined the raid team in december of the previous year. we were both just looking for a social place to park our characters and maybe start role playing again, as we hadn’t had a guild or dedicated rp group in a while. things were fine and friendly for the first couple of months, though it’s worth noting that a large part of the office corps had just left or was in the process of leaving when thradia and i joined. we were both 18 at the time.

i made the mistake of reaching out to tarc in the spring, when i noticed him posting to his tumblr about how busy he was. i offered to be an IC assistant of sorts to his character and he was more than happy to toss me into an absolute whirlwind. we still didn’t know much about each other, but in the span of a couple weeks we went from casual contact in guild chat to immensely long (sometimes between 10 and 12 hours) skype calls, constant DMing, and an almost uninterrupted stream of conversation. i was struggling to finish high school at this time (spoiler: i failed to graduate) and found myself suddenly caught in an all-consuming relationship with this man and his guild. from the moment i woke up to the moment i finally hung up and crawled into bed, my time was taken up by tarc and the guild and the game.

i was promoted to officer less than five months after joining the guild. this was overwhelming for a number of reasons, chief among them being the fact that i had never been an officer in a guild like this before and i was very quickly escalated to tarc’s “inner circle.” this was a circle that he evidently didn’t even include his most senior officers in, as he didn’t seem to communicate with them to the extent or abundance that he did with me - and later, when she was ALSO promoted to officer, thradia.

within a few weeks i found myself at the center of dozens of micro-confrontations and venting from tarc about other members of the guild, raid team, and even fellow officers. every time, i would tell him he needed to take it to his co-gm and talk it through with her. she, like him, was a grown woman with a lot more experience and better people skills than me, a teenager barely out of high school, but tarc insisted on beating me over the head with his frustrations and then proceeding to guilt me and tell me i was a terrible friend when i didn’t agree with him or expressed i was uncomfortable being in the center of a vent session that i felt was unwarranted.

tarc was never wrong. he did not apologize. the words “i’m sorry” did not exist in his vocabulary, and if they did, they were almost always followed up with the word “but.” constantly he would be sending multiple messages to me or thradia while we were running events and raids for the guild, ranting about a few particular members that he disliked at the time regardless of how we felt about said members. thradia and i would both be reduced to tears and/or anxiety attacks by his outbursts that all but demanded we take his side even if we didn’t. his feelings and circumstances were paramount. everyone else’s were just inconveniences.

tarc was always the victim. no matter what was going on, no matter who had instigated whatever vein of conversation we were on that had gone awry, he had a way of making you feel like utter shit until you grovelled for his forgiveness, which he rarely gave. instead he would move on without giving any closure or allowing you to discuss your feelings at length. if you tried, you were the insensitive one who he couldn’t go to with his “unfiltered emotions,” which was the entire purpose of his inner circle to hear him say it. i was not allowed to just be his friend or just be an officer, i had to be both and neither at the same time, and it still was not the right course of action. nothing ever was.

tarc was openly manipulative and antagonistic, always citing it as an “inside joke” when called on it. i opened up to him once about my father’s alcoholism and how i was uncomfortable with alcohol culture and being around drunk people. regardless, he would constantly call while drunk (or maybe he was pretending to be to get a rise out of me, i honestly do not know what was genuine and what was put on with him) and make me stay on the call with him for hours. when he was (allegedly) diagnosed with an inability to process certain alcohols that could be life threatening, he continued to drink (or claimed he was drinking) dangerous amounts, which lead to me begging him to stop as i feared for his life. one of the worst anxiety attacks i have ever had was over him endangering his health and me believing i was going to see a friend die. he knew how much this upset me and he did not stop. he held me as a captive audience to his self destruction (or the playacting of it) and let me cry and beg and plead with him to take care of himself.

tarc loves to promote a clean, “family friendly” persona online. he will go on and on about the positive atmosphere his guild provides and how progress and accepting he and his “safe spaces” are. as soon as you are inducted to his inner circle, however, you learn otherwise. he will gladly engage in sexually charged conversation with you, even if you are ten years younger than him as thradia and i were. we were both legal adults, yes, but just barely. i can’t count the inappropriate remarks and jokes made about us, our friends, and even minors all in the spirit of joking “what if” conversation. he has a history of making young LGBT+ people uncomfortable, making their sexualities and identities about him and how he can relate to them.

tarc was the most two-faced and divisive guild leader i’ve ever seen. he would rant to me mercilessly about wanting to kick one of the junior officers and raid team members in private while never saying a word to their face or bringing it up with the co-gm. he would start schisms between people, telling each what they wanted to hear and encouraging both parties not to confront each other about it, allowing the resentment and distrust to grow as he fanned the flames on both sides. he wanted people to stay in the guild and continue to basically work for him while also putting him above anyone else in their friend circles. he told straight up lies to thradia and i, claiming one of us had said things about the other that we never did, driving a wedge and distrust between us.

tarc treats his guild(s) like a business. he is entirely capitalist-minded even in an MMORPG that people play for fun, churning out “content” and keeping up appearances like a machine. he treats his officers and guild members like employees, not people. any time irl would demand attention away from the game, forcing someone to miss or cancel an event, he would subtly guilt them about it until they apologized, even if it was a dire situation or a family emergency.

when tarc wanted to start a wow roleplaying podcast, he approached me about cohosting. he wanted a female voice, and since i was out of school and had no job lined up due to not graduating i was the perfect candidate. i came on to narrate and research the lore segment of the looking for roleplay podcast, which was little more than me paraphrasing a wowwiki article, but i was held to a “professional” standard. i had to have my research done by a certain day, my recording done in advance, etc.

the podcast was a spot of contention for several reasons, one being the mysterious emails tarc would allegedly receive about it. the podcast had a shared email account that all three of us could access and look at, but tarc claimed that people sent emails directly to him since “everything’s under his email.” he would use these strawman emails as indirect criticism of turwinkle and i, reading them aloud or typing up what they supposedly said but NEVER producing a real screenshot or address to verify them. i’m convinced he only did this as a way to make turwinkle and i feel badly and work harder “for the listeners” to appease things tarc didn’t like about our segments. he also insinuated he got inappropriate emails about me specifically at this account but, again, i was never allowed to see them with my own eyes, just hear about them secondhand, which is why i believe they did not exist.

around this time, tarc began recording conversations without mine or thradias consent. he would start recording random sections of calls and taunt us, playing back out-of-context lines and joking that he would make “podcast commercials” out of them. they were often embarrassing, personal, or just wildly out of context lines that we didn’t want played to the public, and i heard only a fraction of what he possibly recorded of me. i have no idea what kind of material he has of me and thradia that was recorded without us knowing or consenting. it felt like blackmail. it still does.

i internalized all of this. i thought this was normal. i thought he was an excellent guild leader and a role model for leadership. i had begun to treat world of fucking warcraft like a goddamn job and i thought that was fine. my life revolved around coddling and entertaining him, socializing and promoting and recruiting for the guild, raiding, running pvp entirely on my own, keeping up IC connections and attending events, recording for the podcast, all of it. i ate, breathed, and slept wow and coram. it was insane. i had been talked into having no boundaries for myself and my time, and any time i tried to correct that and build a boundary i was attacked for it until i backed down. i have never felt worse about myself than i did while i was in this guild. i trusted no one. i was worn thin.

i finally had enough early 2015. at this point this man was trying to get me to come live with him hundreds of miles from my family so that i could attend a technical school in his area. i am still 18. he was 28. i had been trying to step down from my position as an officer, citing if i was going to be LIVING WITH HIM that it was going to give me an unfair bias in my standing in the guild. this set him all the way off. he was planning a trip to atlantic city for me, himself, and thradia, who i had a ticket to visit for my birthday. he was getting frantic because he had been pursuing thradia for months, and i was no longer cooperating.

when i threw this wrench in everything, our relationship devolved in the span of a few hours. within the day i left the guild on all of my characters and pulled myself out of all of his projects. within the month i had frantically faction changed several characters and eventually unsubscribed from the game for two years because i lived in fear of him. he had always alluded to “knowing people” who could hack and track IP addresses and kept tabs on everyone who visited his blogs and websites. i didn’t know what i thought he was going to do - all i knew was his thinly veiled brags and threats were at the forefront of my mind. i have played this game since 2006, but for the first time in my life i couldn’t enjoy it out of fear and exhaustion caused by him. he had ruined my favorite game in less than a year and made me paranoid about my entire online presence, to the point where this blog was abandoned for months before i turned it into what it is today.

and the thing is, tarc’s not a creepy or abrasive guy when you first meet him. he’s funny and charismatic and outgoing. he loves to tell you about his world travels and show you pictures of him petting baby tigers at rescues in southeast asia and go on about these crazy winnings he would have in vegas. he’s larger than life - at least online. he came to visit me twice in the year that we knew each other. the first time was also the first time i had ever met thradia in person, and we had been friends for six years at that point. he has met my family, and that of several other members (both my age and older). no one ever questions why he’s there. no one ever thought it was odd that for a week he hung out with three teenage girls exclusively.

this horrifies me to this day.

thradia and i are still best friends. we compared notes and were sickened at how we were played against each other. slowly, i returned to the game. i reached out to people who had left or been on their way out when i first joined the guild, curious to see if there was a common thread. there was. everyone i spoke with had similar stories: being made to feel like shit, nothing they ever did for the guild was enough, they weren’t allowed to miss events or raids no matter what the reason, they were questioned and joked about inappropriately and made to feel uncomfortable and preyed upon, etc. i was not the only one. thradia was not the only one. at least half a dozen other former members and/or officers had these stories, and tarc just kept getting away with it.

he cannot keep getting away with it.

i am being open with this for the first time in six years because i don’t want to see it happen again. because i don’t want to know that, had i said something sooner, more people could have been protected. i was 18 when this was going on. i had no real world experience. i had no standard for how i should be treated, much less by someone almost ten years my senior and who claimed to be my friend. but he knew better. he should have had boundaries and space and lines he refused to cross. he did not. he crippled my trust in people for a very long time. i have only become comfortable playing wow on horde side again in the past year or so. i finally stopped looking over my shoulder, /who’ing him and his guild, avoiding rp hubs. but now i feel like i can’t do that anymore. the safety i have worked so hard to achieve for myself is now threatened.

i understand my experiences are mild in comparison to what some offenders on this server have done. but at the end of the day, this year was the worst year of my life. to this day, the skype ringtone literally triggers me because i associated it with him and his endless calls that i never knew what to expect from or how to get out of. i can’t look at certain parts of the game without feeling fear. for months i held my breath going online or logging into wow because i was waiting for him to pop up and start accusing me of things or trying to guilt me into coming back.

tarc ran coram populo, a guild that, as far as i know, still staggers along with a few members who can’t be bothered to leave. whether or not he’s planning to return there, i don’t know. he organizes and runs (from what i can tell) the azerothian trade federation (whatever the fuck that is). i don’t know what his plans are. i don’t know what his online presence looks or will look like when he comes crawling back. but i beseech you, do not give him the time of day. do not give him a platform, no matter how nice and “woke” he makes himself out to be. he lures you in with humanist ideals and then sucks the absolute life out of you- and that’s if he doesn’t want to pressure you into a relationship on top of it.

to tarc: if somehow you’re reading this, stay away from me. keep my name out of your mouth. i do not want an apology and a string of half-assed, gaslighting excuses. i have records of past conversations. i have screenshots. i know what you fucking did to me and to my friends. i do not want you back. i do not want you here. i do not want to share space with you. i want you to go away and never come back.

you alone made it so hard to trust myself and other people. thradia and i both have had to seek therapy due to you. and now, you have the audacity to come riding back into the scene on a white horse, being self righteous about abuse and predatory behavior online, and have the utter gall to condemn behaviors you yourself emulated without apology or second thought. i know you think you’re a good guy. that’s what makes you so fucking dangerous. you genuinely don’t think you’ve done anything wrong, and if you do, you’ve buried it and squirreled it away and have covered it up to the point where you can turn any accusation back on the claimant.

do not attempt to contact me. do not try to threaten or appease me. go back where you were. i am finally at home again, and you will not take that from me. go. away.

#wrymrest accord #wra rp #wra community #okay to reblog #i am going to basically go dark on here now and not check on this #i have gotten ohysically ill from dredging this shit up #i will not be engaging past this point so whether you believe me or not i do not care #i know my truth and i know what happened to me even though i was gaslit to hell and back

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terresdebrume · 4 years

Text

The Witcher - Favorite Reads Masterpost

So, the previous one was getting really super long and Tumblr refused to save the latest update three times, which I’m taking to mean I’ve reached some kind of length limit. In view of that, and with a poke to @nyliekeo who asked to be tagged, here’s the second volume of my Witcher fic-reading adventures!

(Pretty much all Geraskier, because I’m only a multishipper in the sense that I have many ships across many fandoms.)

Volume 1

Last updated: April 10th, 2020.

Non geraskier fic

Her Current Is Pulling You Closer - TheMarvellousMadMadamMim

Specs: 1 900 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Eist/Calanthe - Swimming, shameless flirting

Summary: After nearly three years of marriage, Eist Tuirseach realizes there are still things to learn about his wife.

Becoming Water - Orockthro

Specs: 3 456 words - Mature - Trans woman!Geralt, curses, happy ending

Summary: When Geralt was a child his mother kissed his forehead, wove flowers in his hair, and let him dance around the campsite they shared with the other druids. He loved dancing, the way his body moved and flowed; he was like water.

And then she left him in the road, spilled water on his feet, and a faint trail of dust where she and the cart were no longer. And a man came and took Geralt and made him into something new.

“Were you short? Waifish? Did those witcher mutagens turn you into, you know, the hulking sexy man that you are? At least they gave you such male perfection, what with the stubble and the jaw and the--”

“Shut up, Jaskier.”

(Or, Geralt is cursed with a female body during their travels. Only it's not so much a curse as a gift she didn't know she so desperately desired until now.)

of cockroaches and men - Potrix

Specs: 1 442 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Yennefer & Jaskier, Getting to know each other, BAMF Jaskier

Summary: As if being stuck waiting for her supplier in this sorry excuse for a town full of narrow-minded, superstitious simpletons isn't already frustrating enough, the first familiar face Yennefer spots when she walks into the grubby tavern is that of her least favourite bard.

Or, alternatively; sometimes you misjudge people, but there's nothing some badassery and booze won't fix.

all cooped up - alittlebitmaybe

Specs: 4 205 words - Mature - Polyamory, Pandemic 2020, Non-explicit sex, instigator Yen

Summary: Geralt's old university roommate, Jaskier, needs a place to ride out the pandemic. Geralt and Yennefer conveniently have a couch and Geralt, inconveniently, has a crush.

Cover it over and write it out - TheArcheologist

Specs: 3 214 words - Mature - Dyslexia, implied child abuse, Dandelion is a noble

Summary: There is something Geralt has noticed, after traveling so long with Jaskier. It is nothing major, nothing world ending or even warranting bringing up, but it is there, nonetheless, a funny little habit he can’t unsee.

“You’re better at this stuff than me, Geralt, you read it.”

Geraskier fics

pride - Besully (Briar_Elwood)

Specs: 737 words - Teen & Up - Trans Jaskier

Summary: Geraskier Week Dealer's Choice

He only manages to get the shirt untucked from the bard’s trousers when Jaskier’s smile disappears, and he scrambles backwards, holding the edges of his shirt down.

Do It Again - thisgirlsays22

Specs: 6 771 words - Explicit - Time Loop

Summary: By the twentieth time Geralt has gone through the loop, he decides to just throw himself off the cliff’s edge after Borch.

He wakes up to his twenty-first attempt.

“Fuck.”

Interlude; The End of All Things - TabbyCat33098

Specs: 3 496 words - General Audiences - Growing Old Together

Summary: Geralt realizes Jaskier is growing old and tries his best to return the rest of Jaskier's life to him. If only Jaskier would cooperate and take it.

How much longer will Jaskier be content with weathering the elements and contending with the uncertainty of mercenary work? How long until Jaskier realizes that in devoting himself to crafting a legacy for Geralt, he has forgotten to create a legacy of his own?

After all, he does not have a wife or children, for their nomadic lifestyle is conducive to neither. He has no home to return to between stints with Geralt, whether a sprawling mansion vaunting his wealth or a comfortable cottage replete with souvenirs from his varied exploits. How many experiences has Jaskier sacrificed because some contract or irate nobleman drew them elsewhere? How many untouched fields of snow has Jaskier never seen; how many harvests at Novigrad has he yearned to celebrate from halfway across the Continent—

“You’re staring,” Jaskier points out.

“You wanted to go to the Kovirian coast,” Geralt responds.

a tapestry of scars - splendidlyimperfect

Specs: 7 688 words - Mature - Modern AU, Birpolar disorder, self harm, references to previous suicide attempt and car accident.

Summary: Jaskier comes into Geralt's life on a sunny afternoon in May - wide smiles and baby blue eyes; breathtaking stories and half-written song lyrics. He's mesmerizing and full of life, and Geralt can't look away. But sunshine doesn't last forever, and when Jaskier disappears, Geralt learns that beautiful things have dark and broken pieces, and even damaged people can help fix them.

Summer Mornings - The UnamazingTrashKing

Specs: 3 241 words - Mature - Fluff

Summary: Geralt and Jaskier are sort of a couple. They definitely wake up together and talk about spending the rest of their lives together.

An Incomplete Happiness - BlossomsintheMist

Specs: 22 497 words - Mature - Serious injuries, injuries recovery, unresolved sexual tension, unresolved romantic tension

Summary: Jaskier is traveling with Geralt when a hunt goes badly wrong and Geralt ends up injured. Geralt soon realizes that the bard can take care of Geralt better than he'd realized, in his own way.

Hide Behind The Mound of Dead Bards - Bones (Doctorbones)

Specs: 17 296 words - Explicit - Temporary character death, Graphic depiction of violence

Summary: Jaskier is really bad at two things: shutting up and staying dead. Luckily, he can do both at the same time...for a while.

faith in transience - unconscious

Specs: 12 532 words - Explicit - Monster of the week, Service top Jaskier, attempted mind control.

Summary: “I learn stuff about you to enrich my songs, thanks very much.” Geralt starts.

“Like what?”

Jaskier strums a chord. “Plenty of things. You always ask the contractor if they want the head or not instead of just showing up with it, because you don’t want to shock people. You eat normal amounts of food when eating in public, instead of your usual awe-inducing giant amount. You sleep more when you’re hurt, but that’s the only way I’d ever know. You’re a bit weird about your potions and you count them a lot.” He glances up and grins. “Shall I continue?”

A handful of contracts go sideways. Recovering is easier with Jaskier there.

when midnight breaks their sleep - SummerFrost

Specs: 16 736 words - Mature - Modern setting, polyamory, polyamory negociation

Summary: The first Snapchat that anyone ever sends Geralt is a picture of his own irritated face.

shrike_princess: can u believe this dumbass finally got a snapchat bc a cute boy asked him nicely

"It wasn't even that nicely," Geralt says flatly.

AKA: The one where Geralt is a bartender and Jaskier sings karaoke.

he, who i love - kinneyb

Specs: 1 279 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Established relationship

Summary: Jaskier looked forward to these nights the most; he was playing in a rundown tavern in a small town near the coast, coins gathered at his feet, knowing that at any moment Geralt would come bursting through the door.

He spun on his heels, strumming his lute with nimble fingers, the mark of a practiced player.

Jaskier had thought he’d reached his peak when he was younger. He had been proven wrong, of course, practice truly did make perfect. He was getting more attention than ever, and only half of it probably had to do with his new songs, all depicting the Witcher’s love story with a bard of the human variety.

He never directly mentioned himself, but the people had made the connection fairly easily, anyway.

Near the Coast - IantoPace

Specs: 2 164 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Dresses

Summary: Geralt finds out some of the feminine things Jaskier likes. This is inspired by the images of Joey Batey & Madeleine Hyland in the woods wearing each other's clothes.

Shoot First, Ask Questions Later - Ladivviniatravestia

Specs: 3 427 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Defining the relationship

Summary: Geralt and Jaskier fuck, then try to define their relationship. Too bad Geralt has no idea what he really wants and Jaskier has been hiding something.

parry, riposte - plutoandpersephone

Specs: 5 230 words - Explicit - Established relationship, competence kink, power dynamics

Summary: "How about it?"

Geralt looks at Jaskier like he’s just started to speak in some long lost, foreign tongue.

"You want to take me on in the sword ring?"

Jaskier challenges Geralt to a bout in the fencing ring. They both get more than they bargained for.

The Coast - NinjaSniperKitty

Specs: 1 856 words - General Audiences - Established relationship, overly protective boyfriend!Geralt

Summary: Geralt takes Jaskier up on his offer to get away and go to the coast for a while. While Geralt sees danger hiding everywhere along the coast, Jaskier hasn't been to the sea in years and only sees a good time!

Sweet, Silky, Soft, and Shiny - Girl_in_Red_Crossing

Specs: 3 251 words - Mature - Inappropriate use of candy

Summary: Just a couple of bros, sucking on sweet things... sharing silky things... lying in soft beds together... (kissing)...

The Witcher Wolf 2: Geralt’s POV - im_fairly_witty.

Specs: 15 338 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Animal transformation

Summary: It's been two weeks since Geralt drove Jaskier away from him on that mountain top and Geralt's been doing his best not to think about it by accepting every contract he comes across. But when a job goes badly he find himself cursed into the form of an injured wolf and is then saved by none other than Jaskier himself, who has no idea that the animal he's taken under his wing is his own witcher. Geralt must now try to alert Jaskier to his real situation and adjust to his new life traveling with the bard, learning several hard but very much needed lessons along the way.

Shadowplay - sospes

Specs: 26 539 words - Mature - BAMF!Jaskier, Espionnage

Summary: Geralt returns to Oxenfurt on a bright May morning to find flowers laid outside Jaskier's rooms and a fresh grave in the cemetery.

Except, as Geralt is about to learn, in Jaskier's world things are never quite what they seem.

An Old Man’s Tale - NotebooksandLaptops

Specs: 1 448 words - General Audiences - External POV, Old age

Summary: At the edge of the village, in a house surrounded by wild-flowers and weeds - re-built from its former crumbling foundations – there lived the Old Man. He’d earnt the rights for the capital O, capital M off of the rest of the villagers barely a week after he’d moved into their humble world. For he had not grown up here, like everyone else did. Yet he settled and settled as if he had always been there. He wandered the cliffsides, the beaches, the streets. He strung shells together and gifted them to the ladies of the village with a wink that betrayed the charming young man he once must have been. He bought the little ceramic pots Alicja sold on the market, and he filled them with weeds as if the weeds were flowers worth showcasing. And – most importantly – he sang.

-///-

Or, Jaskier settles in a costal village towards the end of his life.

For The Joy Of It - vvitchering (Witchering)

Specs: 848 words - Teen & Up Audiences - self esteem issues, body image

Summary: After spending years on The Path together, Jaskier and Geralt finally settle down. Jaskier notices one day that his new sedentary lifestyle has changed him in ways he fears Geralt won't accept.

The Silence Between Heartbeats - anarchycox

Specs: 7 969 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Jskier knows Geralt better than anyone

Summary: Geralt faced off with a sorceress, only instead of her magic killing him, it stole his voice. But this should be an easy fix, he knew many women who could heal this. But that would mean anyone noticing something wrong. He knew he was quiet, but seriously, did no one wonder why he wasn't saying a single thing? Months he traveled silent, no one noticing and it was driving him mad.

Until he runs into Jaskier, who notices immediately that something is wrong.Because of course it is Jaskier.

Who else in the end would it be, who properly saw the White Wolf?

tailored - jeannie_tangerine

Specs: 4 874 words - Explicit - Geralt has a kink and Jaskier is absolutely into it.

Summary: in which Jaskier finds out that Geralt has a kink and is more than glad to indulge it.

oh darling please be mine - kickassfu

Specs: 749 words - General Audiences - Introspective, fluff

Summary: Geralt’s head turns to him just as he’s jumping into his arms. Obviously, he catches Jaskier, in his very strong, very big arms. Still probably processing what’s happening, Geralt’s body is tense, unmoving. Jaskier doesn’t care.

New Monsters Stories - Kathkin

Specs: 20 209 words - Explicit - Urban fantasy, mutual pining

Summary: “So do you have a name?”

“Yeah.” The man who had saved his life less than an hour ago – the white-haired, absurdly buff, weirdly sexy man Jaskier might have called taciturn if he was feeling charitable and surly if he was feeling less so – dug into his second burger.

Jaskier waited. “Are… you going to tell me what it is?”

The man paused mid-bite, and looked at him reproachfully as if to say how dare you. How dare you interrupt me. Can’t you see I’m enjoying my cheeseburger. Can’t you see this cheeseburger is the most important thing in my life right at the moment. He swallowed, and said, “Geralt.”

It turns out almost getting eaten by a werewolf can make your whole life go careening off in a new, terrifying, wondrous, artistically flourishing direction. Who knew?

Professor Pankratz - martistarfighter

Specs: 1 147 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Established relationship

Sumary: “Come teach my class with me tomorrow.” He whispers in the witcher’s ear. He’s sporting a neatly trimmed beard these days, and it tickles Geralt’s neck in the most tempting way.

Geralt chuckles dryly, but the lack of an immediate quip tells him that Jaskier is serious. It’s a little scary how often they can read their minds by now.

“Don’t think so. You’re the teacher, Jask. I’ve got nothing to tell them.”

“But you’re the reason I’m still alive and teaching in the first place. Besides, you can just sit there, look pretty and answer some questions. My students have heard a lot about you, they’ll adore you.”

As someone pointed out, there's too much 'witcher watching out for his idiot' and not enough 'the witcher is a himbo who loves his college educated bard husband, who is qualified to teach' content out there. So I'm fixing it with a self-indulgent ficlet!

and i plan to be forgotten when i’m gone (yes, i’ll be leaving in the fall) - Stockholm_Syndrome

Specs: 18 083 words - Mature - Discussion of assisted suicide, discussion of suicide, depression, curse, no MCD

Summary: “That was more emotional than I expected.” He finally said “I didn’t think I’d have time to share this with you, and I.” Jaskier interrupted himself, as if unsure if he should continue. “I suppose I didn’t think it would upset you so.”

“Jaskier” Geralt growled, not able to express how ludicrous that idea was.

“Yes, I suppose I was wrong there.” Jaskier replied with a helpless shrug.

---- Or, Jaskier is cursed to turn into a monster. He doesn't think this is important information to mention.

Chopsticks - thisgirlsays22

Specs: 12 175 words - Explicit - Piano teacher!Jaskier, friends to lovers, modern setting

Summary: “Yennefer sent me a check for eight lessons for you,” Jaskier said the following weekend, wearing a beige button-down with--

“Does your shirt have owls on it?” Geralt asked, caught somewhere between amusement and horror.

Jaskier looked down and tugged on the front of his shirt as if he had to remind himself what was on it. He beamed at Geralt. “Yeah! Do you like it?”

“Not particularly.”

The smile swiftly disappeared.

“It’s not terrible,” he amended, stepping back to let Jaskier inside the apartment. Then Jaskier’s initial words sank in. “Wait. Yen did what?”

Hanging up on Yennefer was always a mistake.

what’s in a (pet) name? - janie_tangerine

Specs: 1 415 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, pet names

Summary: "So," he clears his throat one evening, having just rinsed Geralt's now clean, soft white hair, and damn how he wishes the man would just take care of it somewhat decently, "I was wondering."

"What?" Geralt says after he doesn't go on for a bit. It didn't sound particularly annoyed. Right on.

"This is a very broad question, but I was just curious, no need to answer if you don't want to -" Jaskier starts, having learned that giving the man a way out is always a good bet.

"Just get on with it, won't you?"

Jaskier clears his throat, leans down, puts his elbows on the rim of the tub. "How do you feel about pet names?"

Or: in which Jaskier has a question for Geralt. It doesn't get answered the way he had assumed.

As Long As You Were Mine For A Little While - whisperedstories

Specs: 12 815 words - Explicit - Friends with benefits, mutual pining

Summary: It starts with Jaskier offering a helping hand when Geralt needs to let off some steam. The thing is, Jaskier likes taking care of Geralt—however he can—and Geralt lets him, so he just keeps doing it.

And as long as they never talk about how he's in love with Geralt, they're both happy with the arrangement, right? Right.

Of Debt and Debtors - sp_oops

Specs: 5 136 words - Explicit - Semi-public sex

Summary: Two bros, chillin' in a ta-vern, five feet apart ‘cause they—fuck, they really missed each other, not that Geralt will ever admit it—and anyway, in a minute here, they're gonna have to get closer than they ever thought possible. (Or, sometime after Episode 6, they meet again, Jaskier’s in trouble again, and Geralt saves them. Again.)

This One I Shall Choose - DorkMagician

Specs: 3 751 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Quiet pining, the exact moment Geralt falls in love

Summary: Geralt falls in the river fishing for a djinn and winds up soaked. Jaskier sees the opportunity to do as his mother told him a long time ago and takes the first step when he offers Geralt his handkerchief.

Skin Deep - Sospes

Specs: 8 935 words- Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, getting together, non consensual tattooing, implied/referenced rape, implied/referenced childhood abuse

Summary: “What’s that?” Geralt asks.

Jaskier blinks. “It’s a tattoo,” he says. “Have you never seen a tattoo before, Geralt?”

Geralt fights the urge to roll his eyes. “I know it’s a tattoo,” he says. “What’s it a tattoo of?”

They say there are 5 ways to show your love (and I don’t know any of them) - Mayathelittlebee

Specs: 5 989 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Fluff, humor

Summary: May be if Geralt stopped being so dramatic for a moment he'd finally realize that loving Jaskier is not as hard as he thinks.

I don’t mind if I’m with you - janie_tangerine

Specs: 11 152 words - Explicit - In which Jaskier has to quelle his murder instincts concerning how much Geralt’s life sucks

Summary: or: five times plus one in which Jaskier finds out that Geralt is missing on good life experiences and promptly sees to fix it.

Fill Me Up - Mysticmajestic

Specs: 402 words - Teen & Up Audiences - Romance

Summary: Geralt only knows how to give, and give, until he's empty. What is he to do with Jaskier, who only wants to give back to him?

Little Things - QueenForADay

Specs: 3 315 words - General Audiences - Domestic fluff, Ciri ships it

Summary: In the first few months of knowing the Witcher, he experienced first-hand how shut-off Geralt could be with the world around him and those within it.

At some point, and he can’t pinpoint where, that shroud started to slip away. He saw how much Geralt could, and does, actually care. It’s as fierce as the way he fights.

They spend a great deal of time watching each other; when they finally fell into a bed together, they spent most of their nights learning what the other liked, mapping the plains of skin and muscle underneath the other.

But it’s the other things, the little things, that Jaskier thinks about the most.

O, Empathy - almostnectarine

Specs: 32 624 words - Mature - Body swap, friends to lovers, questfic

Summary: “How did you manage,” asked Geralt, with infinite patience and only a desire to know the facts, and not at all a little meanhearted glee, “to insult a sorcerer while his tongue was down your throat?”

“Don’t make me recount the entire sordid affair, Geralt,” said Jaskier, with a surprising note of desperation breaking through his gruff monotone. “I’m already having a rather shit day and all I’ve done so far is wake up.”

“In my body,” said Geralt.

“Yes,” said Jaskier, with the insolent cadence that was unmistakably Jaskier’s, but in Geralt’s voice, emerging from Geralt’s face and frame.

“And I’ve got yours,” said Geralt, from Jaskier’s.

and for that love to be with men - sebviathan

Specs: 6 734 words -Mature - Emotional constipation, self discovery, self acceptance, geralt is a whole ass gay man who doesn’t know what being gay is

Summary: Something's not right about what I'm doing but I'm still doing it—living in the worst parts, ruining myself. My inner life is a sheet of black glass. If I fell through the floor I would keep falling.

The enormity of Geralt's desire disgusts him.

at last, at last, at last, oh I thought you’d never ask - elegantwings

Specs: 15 040 words - Explicit - Arranged marriage, slow burn, trans!Jaskier, in this house we love Yennefer of Vengerberg

Summary: Geralt is given firm instructions from Vesemir: He is to get married to a Redanian noblewoman in the hopes of improving relations between witchers and the rest of the world. Once the ceremony is over, he plans to drop his new spouse off at their new home and carry on with his life as he always has. Little does he know, his future wife is not a woman, and not so easily left behind. He's not really sure he'd like to get rid of Jaskier, either. Over the next several years, they learn to navigate their new relationship, first while Jaskier completes his degree, and then when Jaskier insists on accompanying him on the road. And no matter what anyone else has to say about it, Geralt is absolutely not in love with his husband.

it’s what my heart just yearns to say - chasing_the_sterek

Specs: 1 071 words - Teen & Up - Slice of life, Jaskier: what if I found a way to make Geralt admit when he needs things

Summary: "If you could have one blessing," Jaskier says, eyes lit green by the fire between them, "What would it be?"

Geralt looks at him. The whetstone is smooth and friction-warm in his palm, edges rounded from use. It's been with him for a long time: almost four years.

Jaskier has been with him for even longer, but he's never done this. Geralt squints at him, but only thing different to this morning is the yellow firelight changing the colour his eyes appear.

"What," he says.

not a goodbye, a thank you - Potrix

Specs: 2 915 words - Mature - Graphic depiction of illness, near death experience, talk about death, found family

Summary: Somewhere further in the courtyard, Lambert yells out a colourful curse while Ciri cackles maniacally. Eskel is taunting the former through his laughter, and Vesemir’s voice joins in with barked commands and corrections once the clang of steel against steel continues. Somewhere above them, on one of the balconies overlooking the yard, Geralt can hear the scratch of quill against parchment as Yennefer works on her correspondence, interrupted every now and again by the tapping of nails against an inkpot.

He realises what’s wrong an instant before everyone else grows suddenly, eerily still; Jaskier is quiet.

After Summers of Fasting (I Feel Hunger At Last) - Artemis_Unbound

Specs: 3 793 words - Teen & Up Audiences - A six pack you can see is not a good thing, Jaskier tricks Geralt into Not Being Starving anymore, Love confessions

Summary: Defined six-pack abs are a sign that someone has been starving and dehydrating themselves, not a sign of incredible strength. It's just not healthy.

Jaskier sees Geralt shirtless for the first time, sees all that defined musculature, and is Horrified. He's slept with enough warriors and soldiers to know what that means. And he decides, this stops now.

Tunes Without Words - foxy_mulder

Specs: 22 021 words - Mature - Self-esteem issues, past abuse, miscommunications, misunderstandings

Summary: The plan is this:

He will note all the things that annoy Geralt, and he will stop doing them, and then Geralt will want him around. It will work.

It has to work, because Jaskier cannot be left behind.

The Path Not Taken - sospes

Specs: 40 149 words - Mature - Extraordinarily bad misunderstanding, Idiots in love, Explicit sexual content

Summary: Jaskier comes across an injured witcher in a backwoods town, months after the events of the dragon hunt. It all just sort of escalates from there.

#The Witcher #Geraskier #Geralt of Rivia #Jaskier #My Posts #Witcher Fic #Fic Rec #Masterpost #100n #150n #200n

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jynzandtonic · 3 years

Note

hey so I’m the anon who sent that ask in about the abusive boss. I just wanted to thank you for your kindness in your response. I also wanted to say I’m relieved that no one appears to have been physically harmed/assaulted but I won’t lie the amount of victim blamey, ‘he was too nice for this to ever happen’ mentality amongst some people here is really eye opening and due to my past experiences with these sorts of sentiments I just don’t know if I can come back here fully yet and consume 1/2

(2/2) consume content, as this is a safe space that I didn’t think would include that kind of rhetoric. I just wanted to thank you though for all of your content and kindness you put out there. It is so appreciated and if I decide not to come back to this community and consume content I will always remember yours very fondly as well as your amazing attitude! Thanks for being so great :)

...............

Anon, you deserve nothing but kindness. You deserve to feel safe. If tumblr isn’t that space for you right now (or ever), you should absolutely take care of yourself first. I love and support you, friend. I so appreciate your sweet words, too <3

I feel the exact same way about the “he was too nice for this to ever happen” rhetoric, as we’ve seen that attitude systematically weaponized against victims time and time again.

In this case, I am so happy to know that AD did not commit any sort of inappropriate acts toward LF and that all parties are safe and well, but I, too, hold deep concern for the ways that the victim-blaming mindset reared its head in the community.

#ad discourse

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batfam-big-bang · 4 years

Text

Batfam Big Bang Official Statement Regarding Recent Issues

We have seen the post made in regards to concerns surrounding this bang. We stand by our previous statements (x,x,x,x), and we regret only that the post created in issue with the mods caused so much anxiety for those tagged in it. Fortunately, the tags have now since been removed, so we are hoping to move on from this and carry on our event with the positive environment we have continued to aim for.

We would like to add that we are not professionals armed with an entire trained PR team and are doing our very best in a situation we are not properly prepared for. We are very human, and frankly we are just comic books nerds—all of us young and new and trying our best. We implore you to see us as we are, and not as what River is painting us out to be.

Despite this, we are trying our best to be as professional as possible with no training and limited experience. Here are some of the measures we’ve put in place to ensure the utmost safety for our participants (some of which we’ve had since the beginning, some of which have been in response to River’s initial concerns before the public post was made, and some in response to the post itself): we have created channels for each team to use as they please to communicate during our event with the mods available at all times; adults can specify if they don’t want to work with minors, and vice versa; we have made our open door policy explicitly clear; the over 18/under 18 roles are used to protect minors from adults bringing up inappropriate topics in front of them + nsfw content is not allowed in our server; we have marked writers who are minors in our spreadsheet to keep track of who is an adult writer; we just implemented the rule that minors can’t work on M works with adult writers. Many of these things are unique to the Batfam Big Bang and are not seen in any other big bang events.

Our bang will protect those participating by ensuring there is mod supervision for every team. It is not and never was our intention that minors would be left alone with adults; teams are provided channels within our server for communication, and any writer that wishes to create a separate server will now be required to include a mod in the invite. Our mods will continue to be around if anyone has any questions or concerns. You can contact us in the official bang’s askbox, through the server, or direct messages on Discord.

We will provide more specific responses to the points made in the “call out post” below the cut for those interested.

“Minors in the group were forcibly outed by the mods on Discord.”

We were asked to include the above/under 18 question in a previous bang, and we figured the issue would come up again and so preemptively included it. We also asked for names and pronouns so that people could feel safe and welcomed. We did not think we needed to specify that pseudonyms were fine. These roles, on the whole, were never required, although they were encouraged. Anyone who felt uncomfortable disclosing any of that information would not be forced to.

“Sign of cult-mind: Repeating the same phrase almost verbatim in response to unrelated questions.”

Many questions asked were related, and many of our “rote responses” were our mods attempting to stick to the same answers and policies. We had blanket responses for similar questions so as to ensure that our lines did not get crossed. All the mods responded similarly because we all communicated on the issues raised. Every question goes through the entire mod group.

“She added that the mods did not want to publicly address potential predator safety issues because they did not want to ‘plant the seed’ in someone’s mind. NEWS FLASH: Pedophiles are always actively seeking out new victims. Always. They are especially looking for groups and communities where they have easy, unsupervised access to children. Discussing safety protocols does not ‘plant the seed’ to abuse in their minds - it deters potential abuse because predators realize that the community is on guard and actively seeking to protect their children.”

We are very sorry that what we were trying to say was misconstrued, so we will try to be as clear as we can now: we do not want to “plant the seed” in minors’ minds and make them paranoid and anxious about interacting with adults in a safe and fun event. We were afraid that making an announcement as such would do little but cause anxiety. We were not incorrect, as River’s post has now caused many of our participants anxiety, which we were trying to avoid in the first place.

“participants will be pm’ing each other” + “adults being alone”

Participants will never face a situation that calls for one on one interaction. Groups will be between 5-7 people, and as this is a collaborative event all will be in contact with each other together. It was never our intention that adults + minors would be alone. Communication would always be done in groups, and we were always planning on providing places for that to happen within our server. We, of course, cannot guarantee 100% that it will never happen by choice, but that can happen in any server where two people click and want to take a conversation to dms. As far as we know, we are the only big bang event that hosts the team chats in the main server instead of having all teams make their own private chats (the only other being the Percy Jackson Big Bang, which is run by two of our mods, Jay and Shelby).

“*Note - I received no response to this message, despite the group announcement on Tumblr stating how open the mods supposedly are to any and all concerns” + “My notes in response to the above blog announcement, which received no response from mods.”

I did not respond to River’s last message to me as I was leaving for a trip the next day. I wanted time to formulate a response and so did not respond immediately, and then was preoccupied with travelling. So, my apologies, River, for not responding promptly, I suppose that is on me. Our other mods were available if you were particularly anxious. - shelby

The day after that final direct message was sent, mod Shelby went on vacation. They were not particularly active in the server at all in the period following, between that DM and the post. And the replies pictured were at that point what we considered crossing the line into harassment territory, and therefore we did not want to address it with River in an effort to not invite more argument on her part against us.

“* Notes - What concerns me first of all is that the mods are treating children as if they are adults. Children are not adults.”

Children are not adults, but they are deserving of respect and trust, just like any other human being we encounter in a collaborative experience such as this. Just like it’s expected of minors to respect adults in turn, it’s expected of adults to respect minors. And there is a wide spectrum of an eight-year-old minor versus a sixteen or seventeen-year-old minor. It would be reductive to treat one the same as the other. We tried to give both minors and adults the respect we felt they warranted, as people used to dealing with and navigating the internet and fanfiction communities.

“At the very least, know that this is not a community that takes your safety seriously. I also encourage adults to leave the event, too, because say someone gets abused - do you really want to be identified with a group that happens in? Uh, no.”

Minors, we take your safety and you as a person seriously. And adults, if you don’t trust yourself to act appropriately around minors, then yes, you can go ahead and leave. But our event is meant to foster an environment of content creation and collaboration, and we think that it is important that minors have healthy interactions with adults. Minors having those experiences can be incredibly beneficial, as touchstones to compare unhealthy and predatory interactions against, and both parties are people. There is a wide range within the title of ‘minor’ and wide range within ‘adult’. Yes, age of legality matters, but there is a grayscale. Isolating one group from another takes away the good impact that can come from adults and minors having healthy relationships, and, simply, is impossible.

We want you to be safe. We want to respect you. So we are respecting you in our trust that you know to, and will, tell us when your safety is in question, so we can help address it.

#batfam big bang #batfam big bang 2020 #updates

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