#and they’re SO quick to ‘i’m not racist i’ve never been racist because’

[ickypuppi3]

it’s the way billy’s a scapegoat not only in show but for the duffers too like

people will spend all their time focusing on the actions of a fictional teenager rather than question the fact these two white men were all too eager to have a racial slur used against a literal child and have felt comfortable having racism in lucas’ story without it actually go anywhere all while putting no focus on him as a character

they use it as a thing, as a prop, rather than acknowledging it as the systemic issue it actually is - like they use it, have lucas canonically experience racism and then push his character to the back

it’s so blatant too, there’s nothing subtle about it but because everyone’s so busy focusing on big bad billy hargrove, racism doesn’t get discussed in the stranger things fandom the way it should because everyone’s too busy focusing on the actions of one single fictional character

[project-sekai-facts]

Here's a fun little Project Sekai fact! Almost all of your faves have appropriated other cultures as costumes and some have even done blackface. If you're supporting this game and refusing to make a meaningful statement about it beyond "b-b-but i said it was bad! 🥺", you are fucking racist.

You're either anti-racist, or you're a pro-seka blog. Choose one. You can't be both.

Basically everything is problematic and actually I have criticised the cultural appropriation and racism present in the game multiple times, at no point have I refused to acknowledge it (and you’re not the first person to send an anon in). You can play the game and be anti-racist actually it’s called being critical of the media you consume and having social awareness, we’ve been over this. Everything is problematic you probably like problematic media too.

Yeah the game did revival my dream and that was fucking racist, the costumes are stereotypical and they didn’t research into any specifc native culture they just wanted to make something that would get them money. it’s not princess mononoke put the trained costumes next to each other, the trained costumes are heavily stylised to look "pretty and fashionable" and forego accuracy. I’m aware of that, I’ve said this before multiple times but you wouldn’t know that because you just randomly came here to send me this message.

Then there's also the kamikou sports fes set. Luka's qipao is very obviously altered for the sake of fanservice which is just so wrong, do not sexualise other cultures for money. Rui's I think is meant to be some sort of military hanfu? But quite stylised, which again for someone outside the original culture to stylise a traditional outfit just is a no-go because you will probably get things wrong. Mizuki's outfit seems to be based on Qi-lolita and there's a whole thing surrounding that about whether you should wear it if you aren't chinese.

and then there's the island panic cards which are both orientalist. yes, not just the boys, the girls too. the outfits aren't based on any specific culture and just mishmash different swana and south asian cultures and stereotypes together to make something that looks "exotic".

If you notice a recurring thing is that all of these are in some way wxs related, and wonder why that is, it’s because they’re the theatre unit. They wear costumes, these are just cultures being appropriated as stage outfits, because the devs don’t care they just want a quick bit of money.

all of these are horribly common in idol games and gacha games, not just project sekai, and it's important to recognise the problems rather than just blindly consuming it. If it makes money, devs will continue to include ca, recognise that.

and yeah puchiseka episode 6 happened at no point have i ever denied that. it should have never happened but it did and at the very least the fandom was able to rally together and get sega to take it down. even after they did that sega and clpl should still be held accountable for even letting it be released. while they didn't make the episode, that was entirely handled by an external company (who should also be held accountable for their actions - we're never getting a second season for a reason), sega still released it knowing full well the contents. it wasn't ganguro like people said it was extremely clearly based on a very racist and crude interpretation of african tribes, and for part of a joke no less. It was disgusting. And it’s not ganguro like how people defend it; ganguro is part of the gyaru subculture and the outfits in that episode were not that. there is no defence for what happened. at the very least, it was impressive that the fandom called out the episode and actually got staff to listen and learn. that doesn't happen in other games, and we managed to do it again with rmd. the fanbase is calling the game out and actually educating staff. It’s just critical consumption - fans of the media were able to recognise that the episode was racist and correctly called out management with enough of a voice to make staff correct their mistakes. They apologised, it’s not my apology to accept, and I still hold them accountable for the fact it even happened.

This probably all makes me sound like a white saviour, and I don’t want to speak over the people affected by this, but that’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You probably have me blocked already and never followed me in the first place, but if you really wanted to call out racism, then maybe you should’ve sent this to blogs that do turn a blind eye to the flaws in this game, not one that calls them out. Why just me? Was it because of the username, because you’re not the first person to make that quip. I know you won’t see this anon, but a word of advice. Most media is problematic one way or another, you can enjoy something but still be aware of and acknowledge its problems. Project sekai is not made with the intent of encouraging or funding harmful behaviour, yet it still includes some harmful content. Call it out, educate staff and tell them not to do it again, they listened once they can do it again.

[fitsofdespair]

i have hesitated to say anything before now. in part because i removed myself from fandom discourse and really from actively discussing iwtv a year ago. i consider it all a lose-lose situation.

but also because i’m generally of the opinion that black fans don’t need people to be their white saviors, least of all me. black people have never been saved by white people. they were never just given anything when it comes to strides in equality, they fought for it and still fight for it, against constant violent pushback every step of the way. only instead of the good ole’ days when racists just called those fighting for equality uppity, they’re now “bullies” for daring to call you out on your shit after the repeated condescension and the resulting harassment you’ve exhibited towards them.

in this day and age the word bully has zero meaning anymore. i mean come on, melania trump calls people mean about her husband bullies. elon musk thinks he’s being bullied by twitter users, though he clearly holds all the power and is absolutely the problem. its become a meaningless word that goliaths use to call davids because they won’t use the real word they actually want to say. some of these popular blogs are not being bullied, they’re being held accountable for their own actions.

it’s pretty disgusting the number of you who decided to identify strongly with these users that not only fail to question their own racial biases but have gone so far as to suggest black people don’t face racism anymore. this is so fucked. tbh it can be argued in many ways white people, especially in the deep south where i’m from, are inherently raised steeped in racism, even if its not direct. just because your family aren’t ostensibly racist doesn’t mean they didn’t bake their own little prejudices into your upbringing and being raised in your environment didn’t encourage them. even if you don’t see yourself as racist, you have to unlearn all this shit, even if it never once occurred to you that you are part of it. just cause you believe in equality and don’t hate people for their color or cultural background does not make you free of perpetuating microaggressions against them. this applies to fans across the world of course. (like for you white euro iwtv fans, you may say you have no problem with black people but i’ve heard some wild things some of yall have to say about the turks.)

i understand that probably half or more of you are not usamericans. but no matter what environment you live in, no matter where you were raised, there is no excuse for your behavior. just because YOU don’t see racism in your day to day life or are in the more likely situation, too blindly comfortable in your place in society to notice it right in front of your face, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist as a constant presence in other parts of the world or isn’t deeply ensconced in online rhetoric.

so for you white iwtv fans who can’t be fucked to mention let alone defend people you, in many cases once called friend, against the absolute horseshit your current comrades are spewing wrapped up in their nice safe cocoons of victimhood, i hope you do some serious soul searching to figure out if this is who you are, a person too cowardly to call out a friend because it might cost you their friendship. a person quick to condemn others on hearsay because you couldn’t be fucked to wonder am i on the right side of this? and if you do manage to get wise and change your mind, remember its not unforgivable to say, you know what? i was wrong. i wrote in an old post that the hallmark of being a functional adult is changing your views accordingly when you learn new information or even just ruminate on what you know (i myself was a little bitch about ep 5 when it first dropped until i had to sit down and ask myself why i was actually feeling some kind of way about it). dying on a hill is not all its cracked up to be. being told you’re wrong is not always a personal attack and its often an opportunity for improvement if you can be bothered to genuinely hear other people out. an alarming number from all walks of life never figure that out. for my part, i am still learning and hope i never stop learning.

while that sentiments all nice and gooey (i mean them, but i understand its still sacharine to put out there), i am still guilty for not having directly written anything about this until now. and thats on me and i earned any flack i get for that. again, i am more of the mindset that black people don’t need white spokespeople, but that doesn’t mean they'll mind allies. and as a sidebar, going out of your way to say you are rising “above the noise” or “ignoring the drama” is absolutely your right, but it does not make you superior. it just makes you complacent with the status quo. i mean as long as you get to squee!! about anything and everything who cares about other people, right?

[lyricfulloflight]

That’s the one thing I don’t understand - like it’s totally okay to dislike a ship and the reasons can be varied or as simple as you’d like. No one really needs a reason to dislike something I get that and that’s why the appropriate tags exist.

But like I’ve seen some of the things being thrown around both around BT and BE and I’m like okay guys shipping one thing over another doesnt make you better and being actively mean about it isn’t gonna change anything.

Why can’t we just enjoy what each fandom got? Buddie had some nice (if heartbreaking) scenes and BT had a cute date. I am new to 911 but like I’m surprised by how mean and almost like condescending some people have gotten and how quick they’re to call out one fandoms behavior without being like friend we are also doing that.

And I was in the kc fandom lol things got wild there.

Oooof sorry for the rant. Things just seem really intense since last night and I might have to do some unfollowing.

Assuming were talking the Klaroline kc fandom, I was in that one too :)

And maybe my memory isn't the best, but I don't remember things getting this vicious all the time either.

I do think fandom has changed in the sense that morality has been attached to shipping in such a weird way. Instead of shipping just being a personal preference, its become 'right' or 'wrong', or 'homophobic' or 'racist' or 'infantile' or 'predatory' to ship or not ship certain couples. And I just don't understand that.

I ship Buddie.

I'm pretty neutral on BuckTommy.

Why do I prefer one over the other? I almost always prefer ships with deep emotional bonds, who see something in each other no one else sees. I have never been a rarepair person, or a multishipper because my personal preference is for this deep emotional bond between characters.

That doesn't make my preference better or worse than anybody else's. Its just a personal preference. The same as I prefer the colour blue.

Other people might prefer couples with intense sexual chemistry, or who tease each other a lot, or who argue and have lots of passion, etc. Some people have a favourite character and ship them with everyone.

All of these are valid preferences.

Did I find the BuckTommy date in last night's episode a bit awkward? Yes. Was it because I'm a judgmental homophobic asshole? No. Daddy kink jokes wasn't my favourite thing, but I was fine with it. Two people in an adult relationship can flirt and and be kinky and that's totally fine by me. I have read and enjoyed way more explicit things in fanfic.

Personally (again just my opinion not a fact), I just found that the tone of the date and the joke fell flat as part of the episode overall. It was trying to break some of the tension and it didn't work for me.

Also, I tend to put more value on emotional connection in establishing relationships, so for me personally I would have preferred the conversation to stay in the more vulnerable place it started - Tommy offering Buck support due to Bobby's injury. If they had boned over having having difficult dads, or if Tommy had reached out and held Buck's hand to offer comfort, that would have been more meaningful to me, as opposed to the Daddy kink joke.

Again, nothing wrong with a Daddy kink. I too think Tommy calling Buck 'pretty boy' or 'good boy' in bed is hot.

Just kinky sex doesn't make for a meaningful relationship for me and I love Buck and I want him to have a deep meaningful relationship.

Since I haven't seen that with Tommy yet, I'm neutral on the ship.

I don't know why fandom has decided that who you ship or don't ship is some reflection of your moral values or lack thereof, but as someone who's fandom old, I find it weird and distasteful.

What people enjoy in fiction is not a reflection of who they are as a person at all times!

I don't generally block on unfollow people in fandom because I am very good at just letting things go and not spending too much time on things that upset me, but I have unfollowed people in the 911 fandom because of this overt judgement and moralization and (let's be honest) shit stirring, that some people engage in.

Fandom is supposed to be fun.

Let's make fandom fun again.

[ashratfox]

Gonna preface this with: keep scrolling if you don’t want to read a kinda pessimistic rant about Henry Creel and serial killers and if you don’t want to interact with fandom drama (because that’s understandable have a nice day).

So this might be a very bad idea, but I’ve decided to give my own opinion on the whole Henry Creel debate. The easy answer is that both sides are right, and I know that sounds like a cop out, but it’s true; stuff like this isn’t black and white, and just because you want there to be one correct answer, doesn’t mean there is. But generally I tend to agree more with people who are less forgiving of Henry rather than more. That’s not because I think he was born evil, I don’t think anyone is born evil. But that’s not the question, the question is, has Henry Creel passed the point of no return, and is there even a “point of no return” at all?

Honestly, I think there is. In a perfect world, everyone would live happily ever after together singing and holding hands and bad people would be taught the error of their ways and would listen and become better people, and then they would be released back into the world to sing and hold hands just like everyone else. But this isn’t a perfect world. Lots of people who do bad things, if set free, will do them again; it’s a big trend with serial killers that have been let off easy by the law before, to go out and do more and even worse crimes. It’s not because they’re incapable of being good, nobody is. But it would be extremely difficult to convince them otherwise. They believe that they are right, and while some people can change, I think most people would agree that a guy who has killed many, many people, including children, is not going to change now. And even if he could, it’s not worth the risk that more people could die. One person’s potential for doing good isn’t worth denying the guarantee that his potential victims will live. 

I would not be happy if Stranger Things ended with Henry Creel becoming a good guy. It’s not logical. After all he’s been through and all he’s done, I don’t think he’s going to change his entire world view now. He was not born evil, but he has done many, many evil and unforgivable things. He does not deserve a second chance when all the people he killed will never get a second chance. If you don’t think that’s fair, well. I don’t think all those people dying is fair either. 

Some of this applies to Billy too, but I do think it’s a bit different in that Billy never killed anyone; still, he was racist towards Lucas and abusive towards Max, so I don’t think him sacrificing himself forgives everything. But I do think it was very easy for him to be influenced by his father and end up hurting Max in a similar way. I’ve never watched the play, so maybe if I had I would be more sympathetic for Henry like I am for Billy, but if so, that’s kinda stupid; if you really want fans to sympathize with a character, it should be in the show, not a separate production. Either way, both of them are bad people, and saying that doesn’t mean you don’t understand nuance, it’s just the unfortunate truth.

Maybe I’m going to get hated on for this, but I don’t know, just before you say anything about someone else’s opinion, realize first that issues like this aren’t black and white and just treat it with a little respect, because there are real life victims of real life serial killers, and while Stranger Things isn’t exactly super realistic, this is still a topic that brings to mind actual real events, and I have a feeling some Henry apologists would not be so quick to forgive actual real serial killers. 

(I feel like I've rambled on for too long and usually I don't like speaking on drama because I think it just fuels more stupid infighting when we should be able to just respect one another's opinions and move along,, but this whole thing was pissing me off so take this or leave it I guess)

[tentakilly]

Hello! Because of the new TikTok ban scare alota people might come here in another exodus(it’s like the 3rd or 4th). It’s probably not gonna get banned but I would like to tell any new comers about Tumblr etiquette anyways! TLDR at bottom!

Ive been here since the quarantine(this is just a new account) so I know a bit(I’m also an internet history nerd so that helps). If any veteran tumblr users wanna chime in feel free to do so! Also please ask questions if you’re confused about wording or anything.

1. Porn bots:

This site has been plagued with porn bots for a long time but during an exodus you’re gonna see a lot of them. There accounts that are mostly empty for a while but then out of nowhere start posting porn and links to very sketchy sites and clog up tags. They’re very annoying to deal with and most users will end up blocking and reporting empty accounts and moving on. Unfortunately new users get caught in the crossfire and will get blocked and reported. Unlike sites like Twitter and TikTok were you can just not post and no one will bat an eye, people will see an empty blog start spam like posts and block them. You absolutely cannot have an empty blog. What you wanna do is fill your blog with posts related to your interests and reblog post you like. Not only is it helping you find your niche of weirdos but also signaling you’re not a bot. The most common first posts I’ve seen are intro posts and art dumps! Also decoration and blog customization also tells people you’re not a bot. Simply changein the pfp and header is enough for most of us tho.

2. Competition vr collaboration:

Unlike most socials tumblr is a collaborative site that loves creative bits and adding onto jokes rather than competition. It’s actually one of the main reasons tumblr and reddit are so intertwined. Competition and followers are not gonna get you anywhere. You’re better off finding a group of weirdos you like and befriending them. If people like you they’ll find you naturally. Also being tumblr famous is like getting buried alive. You don’t want to get famous here, the hate mail game is insane. Quick tip! Turn off annon asks if you don’t want some insane shit in your ask box or are more sensitive to weirdos. I have it on because I’m brave. The SCP community and other collaborative communities and fandoms all thrive here.

3. Tags:

I’ve seen newer users complain about “stolen tags”. You have never been able to “steal” a tag on any social media site I don’t know what they’re talking about. But anyways! Tags are one of the main ways you communicate on this site. Puns, comments, conversation, and more happen in the tags. It’s no longer a system of just finding posts you like. You wanna add something to a post but it doesn’t fit with the rest of it? Add it to tags. You wanna continue a bit or conversation? Tags. You just wanna goof off? Tags baby. It’s not the only communication of course but you will see conversations in the tags. Another tip! Tags will bleed into each other when looking for a super niche topic. Example: The Dr Glass, Glass Doctors, Dr Who, and Glasses tags will all bleed into each other but only when you are specifically looking for new Dr Glass content.

4. Ai:

Here Ai is very frowned upon unless under specific circumstances. Like reclaiming Ai adopts, actively mocking it, and chat bots. If you do post Ai “art” be cautious but you will end up getting mass blocked if we find you.

5. Fandom:

Like I’ve stated before this a collaborative site and as such you’re gonna see a lot of fandom here. Please be careful because mis info, interpretation, and bad faith spread like wildfire.

6. Don’t interact lists:

If you’re not aware a Do Not Interact list(DNI) is a list of groups or people who you don’t want interacting with your blog(s). It depends on the user but the most common ones in the lists are Homo/transphobes, Pedos, racists, sexists, and generally bigots. But remember for the life of however long your on this site not everyone is gonna listen to your DNI and they will interact anyways. It’s just as simple as blocking someone you don’t like.

TLDR:

No empty blogs, you don’t compete you collaborate, tags are important, Ai is generally frowned upon, fandom gets wild, and a don’t interact list won’t always work and just block people you don’t like.

I hope this helps anybody new or returning and please ask questions or chime in if you need to!

-Lynn

[crimsun-n-clover]

i graduated recently. forgot to post about that.

not really much of a difference.

my parents have been off work for christmas which has sucked major ass. i’ve been sleeping until 5 just so i don’t have to leave my room and interact with them. the amount of times i almost started crying randomly today?? fucking pathetic. i REALLY hate christmas man.

met a hot girl at the record store on saturday. she has my insta now and i wished her a happy birthday so i’m winning at hot people social interaction.

maggie stayed over one night this week and we both sobbed our fucking eyes out watching mamma mia. what happened was she has never seen it, and the previous week my parents were gone for the evening so i got tipsy and watched it (bc i was gonna audition for donna in a local production and also it’s a good fucking movie) and bitched to her that slipping through my fingers SHREDDED ME. and then when she agreed to spend the night when my parents were away AGAIN we both cried during that scene. it wasn’t as bad sober.

i applied for a freelance captioning gig so i can do it from my computer without my parents knowing. i finished my application today and only had to lie a little bit.

mom and dad got me a new car for christmas. i don’t want a new car. i’ll take it, but it was upsetting to have them not listen to me. “what’s your dream car?” “my car” because i LOVE my car. charlie, maggie, daisy, mickey, and i all say that she has a personality and opinions. i can tell when she doesn’t like the music because the air conditioner stops working. i can tell when she’s upset because the engine sputters. i can tell when she’s happy because the acceleration is smooth and quick. i talk to her and treat her like a friend, because she IS. when i was making emergency plans, almost all of them involved hiding out and living in my car. i survived a bad accident in my car and rebuilt her. she gets me away from my parents. she’s my baby. she’s past her engine’s expected life span but i love her and she loves me. there are all sorts of little tricks to make things work, and that makes it a hostile environment for my parents which is FANTASTIC. they don’t feel welcome in my car.

and one day my parents drag me out of bed and there’s two of the same car in the driveway. because i didn’t want a new car, they got me the SAME car with less miles on it, leather seats instead of fabric, no accidents, all that shit. i don’t understand how someone can miss the point so hard. “i don’t want a new car” “okay so we’ll get you the same car with slight upgrades and spend several thousand dollars on it because WE think your car is cheap and shitty and we don’t care what you think”

i wish they just let me have the money for a down payment on a trailer. it’s not like i’m ungrateful, i just don’t understand. the new car keeps needing parts and they’re all upset that they can’t get rid of MY car faster.

whatever. i know it’s a strange thing to complain about, but it summarizes my parents.

“i like this thing and it makes me happy and comfortable” “we may have lived through poverty and addiction and other things that people look down on us for but we’re still judgmental assholes and think it’s cheap or weird or some other thing because we’re old conservatives” “that’s ridiculous why would you say that” “i don’t KNOW stevie we can never WIN WITH YOU you’ll understand when you’re OLDER and also KEEPING UP APPEARANCES RAHHH IM FUCKING RACIST”

[grant-obrien-eating-an-apple]

Conservativism is not about stagnation, it’s about not rocking the boat. Abraham Lincoln was a conservative. He didn’t want to make a declaration and free all the slaves, he didn’t want to take peoples slaves away from them, he wanted to phase slavery out over time like most northerners did. Conservativism does not mean being racist, or sexist, or homophobic, or anything else, it just means wanting gradual instead of radical change. You can be conservative and not hate gay people, you can be conservative and not be against gun control, you don’t need to keep siding with these reactionary assholes who are just as radical as their democrat counterparts to be conservative. Being conservative is about thinking rationally and coming up with solutions that bring about change in a way that doesn’t disrupt everything too much. Want an example of a conservative solution that did suck? The Netherlands used to be as car centric as any other European country, but then they slowly phased out their car centric roads with better, more pedestrian friendly ones. They did this by updating the codes and then changing roads to fit the standard when they needed to be repairs anyways, instead of changing everything all at once. There are still plenty of places in the Netherlands that aren’t the most friendly to pedestrians, and it’s not because they were forgotten about in a big change, it’s because the change was conservative and isn’t done yet. There were no massive traffic jams from mass construction, there were no shortages from messed up transport lines, there were no angry people yelling about the radical change (people were still angry but there were far less and they were radicals themselves). This is a great example of good conservativism, and it’s something you need when changing massive amounts of infrastructure in a major way. Imagine shutting down a whole country to fix roads, nobody would be able to get anywhere for months, it would kill the country, potentially permanently. Being conservative doesn’t mean sucking MAGA dick, it means thinking things through and it’s the idea that radical change will be bad, not that change is bad. I’ve said before that it’s about preserving the current state of things, but that’s not really it, it’s about conserving stability.

Conservatives and liberals can work together if they agree on one fundamental thing, that I think we can all agree on if we take a minute to think calmly about it: we need change. How that change comes about, how fast it happens, that’s not up to any individual but rather all of us. We’re never going to get things done if we can’t agree that we need change, because conservatives and liberals can work together, but you can’t work together for change when your opponents think everything is okay. Everything is not okay, we can all see that, so we need change.

Personally, I’m in favor of liberal social and economic change right now, because I think the current state of the USA is not conducive with conservative change. We need to do too much to do it slowly, we’d fall apart before them. Conservative approaches naturally take longer to show the fruits of their change, which would anger liberals who want massive and quick change, and any change is too much for the right wing radicals who want stagnation and reversion. But that doesn’t mean that all conservatives suck, they’re just thinking the way they do, and their idea that preserving stability and slow change isn’t insane, it’s been effective before.

[gendercensus]

On fae/faer pronouns and cultural appropriation

HOW IT STARTED

I had a handful, a very small handful but more than two, responses in the Gender Census feedback box telling me that fae/faer pronouns are appropriative. The reasons didn’t always agree, and the culture that was being appropriated wasn’t always the same, but here’s a selection of quotes:

“Fae pronouns are cultural appropriation and are harmful to use“ - UK, age 11-15

“I’m not a person who practices pagan holidays but, my understanding is that pronouns like fae/faeself are harmful because the fae are real to pagans and is like using Jesus/jesuself as pronouns“ - UK, age 11-15

“I know you've probably heard this a million times, so has everyone on the internet, but the ''mere existence''of the fae pronoun feels really uncomfortable for some of us. I'm personally not against neopronouns like xe/xim, er/em and the like, I am a pagan but apart from the, imo most important, reasoning of that pronoun being immensely disrespectful, I worry as an nb about people who banalize the usage of pronouns ''for fun'', and I'm quoting what some people have told me.“ - Spain, 16-20

“I don't agree with fae/deity pronouns just from a pagan perspective it's very disrespectful to the cultures they come from. Like Fae are a legit thing in many cultures and they hate with a fiery passion mortal humans calling themselves Fae to the point of harming/cursing the people who do it“ - USA, age 16-20

“only celtic people can use far/ faers otherwise it’s cultural appropriation, many celts have said this and told me this“ - USA, age 16-20

So that’s:

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

❌ Someone who definitely isn’t pagan.

✅ Someone who is pagan.

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

❓ Someone who doesn’t say whether they’re pagan or Celtic.

So, just to disclose some bias up-front, I am English so I’m not Celtic, but I do live in Wales so I am surrounded by Celts. The bit of Wales that I live in is so beautiful in such a way that when my French friend came to visit me she described it as féerique - like an enchanting, magical land, literally “fairylike” or thereabouts. Coincidentally I have also considered myself mostly pagan for over half of my life, and I can’t definitively claim whether or not the Fae are “part of paganism” because paganism is so diverse and pick’n’mix that it just doesn’t work that way.

To me the idea that fae/faer pronouns would be offensive or culturally appropriative sounds absurd. But also, I am powered by curiosity, and have been wrong enough times in my life that I wanted to approach this in a neutral way with an open mind. Perhaps what I find out can be helpful to some people.

So since we only have information from one person who is definitely directly affected by any cultural appropriation that may be happening, the first thing I wanted to do was get some information from ideally a large number of people who are in the cultures being appropriated, and see what they think.

~

WHAT I DID

First of all I put some polls up on Twitter and Mastodon. [Edit: Note that this post has been updated with results from closed polls.]

I specified that I wanted to hear from nonbinary Celts and pagans, just so that the voters would be familiar with fae/faer pronouns. I asked the questions in a neutral way, i.e. “How do you feel about...” with “good/neutral/bad” answer options, instead of something more leading like “Is this a load of rubbish?” or “are you super offended?” with “yes/no” options. I provided a “see results” option, so that the poll results wouldn’t be skewed as much by random people clicking any old answer to see the results. And I invited voters to express their opinions in replies.

Question #1: Nonbinary people of Celtic descent (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and Brittany), how do you feel about non-Celtic people using the neopronoun set fae/faer? [ It's good / No strong feelings/other / It's bad ]

Question #2: Nonbinary pagans, how do you feel about non-pagans using the neopronoun set fae/faer? [ It's good / No strong feelings/other / It's bad ]

The Twitter polls got over 1,100 responses each, and the Mastodon polls got over 140 responses each. With a little bit of spreadsheetery I removed the “N/A” responses to reverse engineer the number of people voting for each option, combined those numbers, and recalculated percentages.

Obviously this approach is not in the least scientific, but thankfully the results were unambiguous enough and the samples were big enough that I feel comfortable drawing conclusions.

Celts on fae/faer pronouns being used by non-Celts (561 voters):

It's good - 42.5%

No strong feelings/other - 44.0%

It's bad - 13.5%

Pagans on fae/faer pronouns being used by non-pagans (468 voters):

It's good - 47.2%

No strong feelings/other - 39.5%

It's bad - 13.3%

Here’s how that looks as a graph:

The limitations of polls on these platforms means that we have no way to distinguish between people who have more complicated views (”other”) and people who have “no strong feelings”, so we can’t really draw conclusions there. If we stick to just the pure positive and pure negative:

Celts were over three times as likely to feel positive about non-Celts using fae/faer pronouns than they were to feel negative.

Pagans were over three and a half times as likely to feel positive about non-pagans using fae/faer pronouns than they were to feel negative.

So Celts and pagans are way more likely to feel actively good about someone’s fae/faer pronouns, even when that person is not a Celt/pagan. That’s some strong evidence against the idea that fae/faer pronouns are appropriative, right there.

~

CORRECTIONS

To be clear, I haven’t done any research about the roots of fae/faer or the origins of the Fae and related beings, but my goal here was to get a sense of what Celts and pagans think and feel, rather than what an historian or anthropologist would say.

On the anti side, here were the replies that suggested fae/faer either is or might be inappropriate:

“I only worry that not everyone understands the origin of the word outside of modernized ideas of fairies.“ - pagan

“As a vaguely spiritual Whatever (Ireland), I think a mortal using "fae" as a pronoun/to refer to themselves is asking for a malicious and inventive fairy curse (on them, their families and possibly anyone in their vicinity, going by the traditions). I have not heard of this term before, so this is an immediate reaction from no background bar my cultural knowledge of sidhe/fae/term as culturally appropriate. My general approach is people can identify themselves as they want.“ - Celtic

So we’ve got a pagan who’s wary that people who use fae/faer (and people in general) might not have a fully fleshed out idea of the Fae. And we’ve got a Celt who doesn’t mind people using fae/faer personally, but based on what they know of the Fae they wouldn’t be surprised if the Fae got mad about it. No outright opposition, but a little concern.

There were not a lot of replies on the pro side, but not because people weren’t into it, judging by the votes. There were a lot of “it’s more complicated than that” replies, many of which repeated others, so quotes won’t really work. Here’s a summary of the Celtic bits:

“Fae” is not a Celtic word, and Celts don’t use it. It is French, or Anglo-French.

“Fae” can refer to any number of stories/legends from a wide variety of cultures in Europe, not one cohesive concept.

There are many legends about fairy-like beings in Celtic mythologies, and there are many, many different names for them.

The Celts are not a monolith, they’re a broad selection of cultures with various languages and various mythologies.

And the pagan bits:

Paganism is not closed or exclusive in any way. It might actually be more open than anything else, as “pagan” is a sort of umbrella term for non-mainstream religions in some contexts. A closed culture would be a prerequisite for something to be considered “appropriated” from paganism.

From my own experience, pagans may or may not believe in the Fae, and within that group believers may or may not consider the Fae to be sacred and/or worthy of great respect. (I’ve certainly never met a pagan who worshipped the Fae, though I don’t doubt that some do.)

And then we get into the accusations. 🍿

“this issue wasn’t started by Celtic groups or by people who know much about Celtic fae. It was started primarily by anti-neopronoun exclusionist pagans on TikTok.“

“[I’m] literally Scottish [...] and it’s not appropriative in the least and honestly to suggest as such is massively invalidating towards actual acts of cultural appropriation and is therefore racist. Feel like if this was actually brought up it was either by some people who seriously got their wires crossed or people who are just concern trolling and trying to make fun of both neo-pronouns and of the concept of cultural appropriation and stir the pot in the process.“

“It wouldn't be the first time bigots falsly claim “it's appropriative from X marginalized group" to harass people they don't like, like they did with aspec people when they claimed "aspec" was stolen from autistic language (which was false, as many autistics said)“

“It's been a discussion in pagan circles recently ... People were very quick to use the discussion as an excuse to shit on nonbinary people.“

“I think it would be apropos to note that the word "faerie/fairy" has been a synonym for various queer identities for decades, too. The Radical Faeries are a good example.“ (So if anyone has the right to [re]claim it...)

A little healthy skepticism is often wise in online LGBTQ+ “discourse”, and some of these people are making some very strong claims, for which I’d love to see some evidence/sources/context. Some of it certainly sounds plausible.

~

HOW DID IT START?

I had a look on Twitter and the earliest claim I can find that fae/faer pronouns are cultural appropriation is from 18th February 2020, almost exactly one year ago today. Again, tweets are not the best medium for this, there was very little in the way of nuance or context. If anyone can find an older claim from Twitter or Tumblr or anywhere else online, please do send it my way.

I have no idea how to navigate TikTok because I’m a nonbinosaur. (I’m 34.) I did find some videos of teens and young adults apparently earnestly asserting that they were Celtic or pagan and the use of fae/faer pronouns was offensive, but the videos were very brief and provided nothing in the way of nuance or context. For example:

This one from October 2020 with 29k ❤️s, by someone who I assume is USian based on the word “mom”?

This one from December 2020, that says “I am pagan and i find it rather disrespectful. It’s like using god/godr or jesus/jesusr.” That’s probably what inspired the feedback box comment above that refers to hypothetical jesus/jesusr pronouns.

If anyone is able to find a particularly old or influential TikTok video about fae/faer pronouns being appropriative I’d really appreciate it, especially if it’s from a different age group or from not-the-USA, to give us a feel for how universal this is.

For context, fae pronouns were mentioned in the very first Gender Census back in May 2013, though you’ll have to take my word for it as the individual responses are not currently public. The word “fae” was mentioned in the pronoun question’s “other” textbox, and no other forms in the set were entered so we have no way of knowing for sure what that person’s full pronoun set actually is. This means the set may have been around for longer. The Nonbinary Wiki says that the pronoun set was created in October 2013, as “fae/vaer”, later than the first entry in the Gender Census, so I’ll be editing that wiki page later! If anyone has any examples of fae/faer pronouns in use before 2013 I would also be very interested to see that.

~

IN SUMMARY

Obviously I can’t speak for everyone, as the Twitter polls are not super scientific and they only surveyed a selection of Celts and pagans within a few degrees of separation of the Gender Census Twitter and Mastodon accounts, but I can certainly report on what I found.

For a more conclusive result, we’d need to take into account various demographics such as age, culture, location, religion, race/heritage, etc.

As far as I can tell based on fairly small samples of over 400 people per group, a minority of about 13% of Celtic and/or pagan people felt that use of fae/faer pronouns is appropriative.

A much higher number of people per group felt positive about people who are not Celts or pagans using fae/faer pronouns. The predominant view was:

It can’t be cultural appropriation from Celtic cultures because fairy-like beings are not unique to Celtic cultures and Celtic cultures don’t call them Fae.

It can’t be cultural appropriation from pagan cultures because paganism is not “closed” or exclusive in any way, it’s too broad and open.

~

If your experience of your gender(s) or lack thereof isn’t described or encompassed by the gender binary of “male OR female”, please do click here to take the Gender Census 2021 - it’s international and it closes no earlier than 10th March 2021!

[revenge-of-the-shit]

Writing Chinese characters set within Western worlds

If you don’t want to read it on tumblr, go check this out on medium or go follow me on instagram at @annessarose_writes!

Alright. You know what. I’ve seen plenty of stereotypes in fiction (and in social media) that are so incredibly pervasive I’ve seen many Chinese people within the western world internalize it themselves. So here’s a rough guide on writing Chinese characters in an English-speaking Western setting, written by me, a Chinese Canadian woman.

If you’re here to say something racist fuck off. Otherwise, welcome! This is not a comprehensive guide by any means. This is merely a brief overview based on my own experiences. My experience (as someone in North America) will differ from someone living in, say, Europe or South America. I’m not representative of every Chinese person because everyone’s experience is unique. So here were are.

1. Our names

Chinese names are usually written as follows: [family name] [name]. Let’s take a Canadian historical figure as an example: 黃寬先. In Chinese, it’s pronounced “Wong Foon Sien.” On Canadian documents — which are written [First name] [Last name], he’d be called “Foon Sien Wong.” He went by “Foon Sien” for most of his life. That’s his full “first name.” Nobody would call him Foon because that’s just half of his name (unless given permission). It’d be like meeting a stranger called Alex and calling them “Al” right off the bat. Sure, they could go by Al, but you don’t know that.

For those of us living in the Western world, some of us have both a Chinese name and an English name. In these cases, our Chinese name becomes our middle name in English (e.g. a character could be called John Heen-Gwong Lee).

For some people who immigrated to the Western world but were born in China, their legal name would be their Chinese name. Some choose to keep that name. Some choose an English name as their “preferred” name but keep their Chinese name on legal documents. It varies.

2. Parents & Stereotypes

There’s two stereotypes which are so pervasive I see it being used over and over in jokes even within Chinese (and, to a larger extent, asian) communities:

The [abusive] tiger mom and the meek/absent dad

Both parents are unreasonably strict/abusive and they suck

I have yet to see any fiction stories with Chinese parents where they’re depicted as kind/loving/supportive/understanding (if you have recommendations — please do send them my way). Not all Chinese parents are tiger parents. Chinese parents — like all parents — are human. Good god. YES, they’re human! YES, they have flaws! YES, they are influenced by the culture they grew up in!

That isn’t to say there aren’t parents like those tropes. There are. I know this because I grew up in a predominantly Chinese community where I had many a friend’s parent who was like this. Parents who compare their kids to the best kid in class. Parents who force kids into private lessons and competitions that the kid despises because the parents think it’s for the best. Parents who have literally called their kid a disappointment because they didn’t get 100%.

But please, also consider: there’s parents who support their child’s goals and who listen. Not all parents force their kid into the stereotypical trifecta of lawyer/doctor/engineer — I know of a good number who support their child in choosing the path they want. There’s parents who make mistakes and learn and try their best to support their child. So please, for the love of god, if you write a Chinese character, don’t reduce their parents to stereotypes.

3. Language & Learning

When I first read The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan, I was so excited to see a Chinese Canadian character in Frank Zhang. Finally, there was someone like me. Finally, there was representation in well-known western media.

While I do appreciate that RR added in Frank Zhang, it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t really know how to write a Chinese Canadian character. One of the most glaring examples: in The Son of Neptune, Frank reveals he can’t really read Chinese. In like, the next book (I think — it’s been a while since I read it), Frank is suddenly able to read Chinese because he “learned” it in two week’s time.

Nope. Nuh-uh. Learning Chinese is a pain, let me tell you. There’s thousands of different characters and it is something you need to devote a lot of time to learning (especially if you’re progressed past the best childhood years for learning a language). So if you’re writing about a Chinese character living in the western world, here’s what you need to know:

A character who was born and raised in the western world does not necessarily know how to read/write in Chinese.

If they were raised by their own family, the character would very likely know how to speak their own dialect. They’d be able to understand the language used in movies/TV and they sound like a native speaker, but they may not know how to use language outside of certain contexts (the term for this is heritage speaker).

They probably went to Chinese school. They probably hated it. Chinese school is usually universally hated and does not teach you jack shit other than a hatred for the place and a vague memory of learning how to read the language without actually retaining knowledge of what you learned.

Most of my friends who know how to read/write in Chinese learned from tutors, parents, or were born in China.

There’s two main types of written Chinese: Traditional (used by Cantonese speakers) and Simplified (used by Mandarin speakers).

There are MANY other dialects (which I don’t know much about). The most common ones are Mandarin (usually spoken by people from the mainland), then Cantonese (usually spoken by people from Hong Kong).

4. Fitting into the community

Usually, the story is one of two things: they’re the only Asian kid in the entire school, or they grew up in a predominantly East Asian community. Things to consider for both of these when you’re writing:

Growing up the only Asian kid

They’re “that Asian kid.” They’re different. They walk into a class and feel weird and out of place.

They bring food from home (usually ethnic cuisine) to school. Other classmates stare at it, make fun of it, demand what that strange food is.

“Where are you from?” “Here.” “No, like, where are you really from?”

“Your name is funny.”

People literally never getting the character’s name right.

And that horrible, horrible feeling: wishing that they were white so they could avoid all of this.

Growing up in a predominantly East Asian community

It’s not uncommon for Chinese cuisine to mix with other east Asian cuisines. For special occasions (or just for a casual night out), your character could very well go out to get some sushi, or go for some KBBQ, or get some Vietnamese noodles.

Screaming “AIYAA” at/with their friends unironically if they’re annoyed (I’ve done this a lot with Cantonese friends. Less so with Mandarin friends).

Slipping into Chinese for like, two words, during a mostly-English conversation to talk about food or some other topic that can’t be adequately conveyed in English.

Reading books by white authors and learning about white history and growing up thinking white names, white books, and white history is the norm and standard even though the community is surrounded by East Asian people.

When the character leaves this community, there’s a brief culture shock when they realize how sheltered they’ve been.

Things in common for both of these:

The character has grown up on ethnic cuisine. Yes, Chinese people do eat rice with many of our meals. Yes, boba (bubble) tea is extremely popular. No, rice isn’t the only thing we eat. No, not all Chinese people love boba (though as a Chinese person I admit this sounds sacrilegious to say…)

The character likely grew up watching film/TVthat originates from East Asia. It’s not uncommon to watch Studio Ghibli films. It’s not uncommon to watch Japanese or Korean shows with canto/mando dub (examples: Ultraman, Kamen Rider). If you want to see a classic Chinese film from Hong Kong that’s fucking hilarious, watch Kung Fu Hustle.

The character has felt or been told that they’re “too westernized to be Chinese, but too Chinese to fit into the western world.” They’re torn between the two.

5. General portrayal

It’s quite simple, really. We’re human. We’re regular people. We have regular hobbies like all people do. We’re good at some subjects and bad at others. We have likes and dislikes like all people do. So here’s a list of stereotypes you can avoid.

STEREOTYPES TO AVOID BECAUSE WE’RE REGULAR HUMANS AND WE DON’T FIT INTO A SINGLE COOKIE CUTTER SHAPE, DAMMIT.

The character is a maths whiz and perfect at all things STEM.

The character is a straight-A+ gifted/IB/AP student.

The character is the next coming of Mozart and is amazing at piano/violin.

The character’s free time is spent only studying.

The character is insanely good at martial arts.

The character is either meek and submissive or an explosive, dangerous force.

I’m not going to mention the other stereotypes. You know, those ones. The really obvious ones that make fun of and demonize (sometimes through multiple untruths) how we look and how we live our lives. You should know.

Of course, there are people who fit into one or more of these. That’s not the point. The point is: molding all Chinese characters to these stereotypes (which white media tends to do) is harmful and reductionist. We’re more than stereotypes.

—

6. Conclusion

We need more diversity in portrayal of Chinese characters. Reducing us into one-dimensional caricatures has done nothing but harm us — look at what’s happening now. This guide is by no means comprehensive, but I hope it has helped you by providing a quick overview.

If you want to accurately portray Chinese characters, do your research. Read Chinese fiction. Watch Chinese films/TV. Initiate a conversation with the community. Portray us accurately. Quit turning us into caricatures.

[misnomera]

On racial stereotyping of the Haans in TMA...

Right so as someone who is ethnically Chinese I have NO FUCKING clue how I didn’t notice this more distinctly in my initial binge of tma (going too fast and not paying closer attention to character names and descriptions, probably) but the Haan family storyline is, all horror elements aside, pretty fucked up in terms of racial representation re: stereotyping. This got long as hell, but please please please take a moment to read through if you’ve got time for it. thanks.

To start off, the Haans are one of the few characters in tma with an explicitly specified race and ethnicity—Chinese—and pretty much the only explicitly Chinese characters in tma, other than the mostly unimportant librarian (Zhang Xiaoling) from Beijing. But like, Haan isn’t even a properly Chinese surname, at least not in the way that it’s spelled in canon (it should be Han, one a. A quick google search tells me that Haan as a surname has...Dutch origins??).

Of course, that could be chalked up to shoddy anglicization processes within family histories, which certainly isn’t uncommon with immigrant families, so I’m not going to dwell on names too much (although I also find it interesting that John Haan’s name is so specifically and weirdly anglicized that he changed his own surname?? Hun Yung to John Haan is a very big leap of a name change and frankly not very believable. ANYWAY, this is not that important. I don’t expect Jonny, a white Englishman, to come up with perfectly unquestionable non-Cho-Chang-like Chinese names, though it certainly would be nice. Moving on).

What really bothers me about the Haans is how they almost exclusively and explicitly play into negative Chinese immigrant stereotypes. I don’t even feel like I need to say it because it’s like...it’s literally Right There, folks. John Haan (in ep 72) owns and operates a sketchy takeout restaurant. They’re all avatars of the Flesh—and John Haan is Specifically horrific and terrifying because he cooked his wife’s human meat and fed it to his unknowing customers. Does that remind you of any stereotypes which accuse Chinese people of consuming societally unacceptable and ethically questionable things like dog/cat/bat meat (which, if it’s not already crystal fucking clear, we don’t. do that.), which in turn characterize us as horrible unfeeling monsters? John Haan’s characterization feeds (haha, badum tss) directly into this harmful stereotype that have caused very real pain for Chinese people and East Asians in general. 

And Jonny does nothing to address that from within his writing (and not out of it either). And, speaking on a more meta level, Jonny could’ve easily had these flesh avatars be individuals of any race (like, what’s Jared Hopworth’s ethnicity? Do we know? No? Well then). Conversely, he could’ve easily, easily had a Chinese person be an avatar of any other entity. So why did he have to chose specifically the Flesh?

(This is a rhetorical question. You know why. Racial stereotyping and invoking a fear of the other in an attempt to enhance horror, babey~)

On Tom Haan’s side, Jonny seems weirdly intent on having other characters repeatedly comment on his accent (or rather, lack thereof) in relation to his race. Think about how, in ep 30 (killing floor), the fact that Tom Haan had spoken a line to the statement giver in “perfect English” was an emphasized beat in that statement, and a beat that was supposed to be “chilling” and meant to signify to us that something was, quote-unquote, “not right” with Tom Haan. Implicitly, that’s saying that it was unexpected, not “normal”, and in this case even eerie, for someone who looks Chinese to have spoken in fluid, unbroken English. Mind you, the line itself was perfectly scary on its own (“you cannot stop the slaughter by closing the door”), so why did Jonny feel the need to note the accent in which it was spoken in? Why did Jonny HAVE to have that statement giver note, that he initially “wasn’t even sure how much English [Haan] spoke”? 

This happens again in episode 72 with a Chinese man (and again, his ethnicity is Explicitly Noted) who we assume is also Tom Haan. This one is rather ironically funny and kind of painfully self aware, because the statement giver expresses surprise at Haan’s “crisp RP accent” and then immediately “felt bad about making the assumption that he couldn’t speak English,” and subsequently admitted that thought was “low-key racist.” Like, from a writing perspective, this entire passage is roundabout, pointless, and says absolutely nothing helpful to enhance the horror genre experience for listeners (instead it just sounded like some sort of half-assed excuse so Jonny or other listeners could say “look! We’ve addressed the racism!” You didn’t. It just made me vaguely uncomfortable). And again, having other people comment on our accents/lack thereof while assuming we are foreign is a Very Real microaggression that east asians face on the daily. If Jonny needed some filler sentences for pacing he could’ve written about Literally anything else. So why point out, yet again, that the crazy murderous man was foreign and Chinese? 

At this point, you might say, right, but yknow, it was just that the statement givers were kind of racist! It happens! Yeah sure, ok, that’s a passable in-universe explanation for descriptions of Tom Haan (though not John Haan, mind you), but the statement givers are fake made up people, and statement’s still written by Jonny, who absolutely has all the power to write overt discrimination out of his stories. And he does! Think about just how many minor (and major!!) characters are so, so carefully written as completely aracial, and do not have their ethnicity implicated at all in whatever horrors they may or may not be committing. Think about how many lgbtq+ characters have given statements, and have been in statements, without having faced direct forms of discrimination, or portrayed as embodying blatant stereotypes in their stories (though lgbtq+ rep in tma certainly has their own issues that I won’t go into here). Jonny can clearly write characters this way, and he can do it well. So why, why, am I being constantly, repeatedly reminded in-text of the fact that the Haans are East Asian, that they’re from China, that they’re Chinese immigrants, that they’re second-generation British Chinese or whatever the fuck, and that they’re also horrifying conduits for blood, gore, and general fucked-up-ness? It’s absolutely not something that is Needed for the stories to be an effective piece of horror; the only thing it does is perpetuate incredibly harmful and hurtful stereotypes.

And listen, I love tma to bits. It’s taken over my blog. I’ve really loved my interactions with the fandom. And I am consistently blown away by Jonny’s writing and how well he’s able to weave foreshadowing and plot into an incredibly complex collection of stories. But I absolutely Cannot stop thinking about the Haans because it’s just. It’s such a blatant display of racial stereotyping in writing. And I’ve certainly seen a few voices talking about it here and there, and I don’t know if I’m just not looking in the right places, but it certainly feels like something that is just straight up not on the radar for a lot of tma fans. And I’m disappointed about that. 

Just, I don’t know. Take a look at those episodes again and do some of your own thinking about why these characters had to be specifically Chinese (answer: they didn’t.). And in general, PLEASE for the love of god turn a critical eye on character portrayals and descriptions whenever they are assigned specific races/ethnicities (Some examples that come to mind are Jude Perry, Annabelle Cane, and Diego Molina), because similar issues, to an extent, extend beyond the Haans, though I haven’t covered them here. 

You shouldn’t need a POC to do point out these problems for you when they’re so glaringly There. But for those of you who really didn’t know, hope this was informative in some way. I’m tired, man. If some of the only significant Chinese characters you write are violent cannibalistic men with a perverted relationship with meat, just don’t do it. Please don’t do it. 

EDIT: Since the making of this post Jonny has acknowledged and apologized for these portrayals on his twitter and in the Rusty Quill Operations Update, which went up September 2020. A long time coming, but better late than never. This of course doesn’t necessarily negate the harm done by Jonny’s writing, and doesn’t make me much less angry about it, but is appreciated nonetheless. For more on this topic there’s a lot of productive discussions happening in my “#tma crit” tag and in the notes of this post

[airiustide]

The last few months, I have encountered a lot in the zutara fandom. A lot of which had me contemplating on my own personal issues with it and how often I’ve been silent in serious situations in an effort to keep my bubble safe. Because this fandom is my escapism and I desperately wanted to keep it that way even if it meant sacrificing my voice and just isolating my feelings. After having discussions with others who are in the same position as me and when also mentioning these to people close to me in the fandom, it dawned on me just how severely different some of us are treated. I’ve thought over a lot before proceeding to make this post and I’ve determined that I’m tired of staying quiet.

Im doing my best to rely all this as best as I can, so I ask you all to bear with me. What I want to bring up includes why POC most likely don’t reveal their identities. What I personally went through at the hands of other zutarians who made assumptions about me because they didn’t know my race. How I’m treated when bringing up issues about my race in fandom. The disturbing way white people use POC as shields in discourse. And how I and a few others of my race have been treated in the fandom among POC.

I’m black, which is something I don’t state in my bio. If I happen to mention it publicly, it’s very little. Otherwise only those where I take part in private platforms are aware.

Reasons are:

1.) because I have had racist encounters on tumblr and other public platforms before.

2.) because I’ve often felt isolated in the fandom due to my race

3.) I’ve always feared my opinions or interpretations of fandom being criticized because I’m black.

These were also the reasons why it took me almost 10 years being in the zutara fandom to gain the courage to create content or interact with others.

The good part is, keeping my race private I managed to get tangled in very little discourse or hate. The disgusting part is that in doing so I was placed in situations over the last few months where horrible claims and assumptions were spread about me by certain groups including mutuals that are not in my immediate circle. I was shocked and torn. This forced me to reveal that I am black and reveal my own traumas directly to the persons that started it. Granted they apologized and made corrections on their end after confronting them, the harm was done. This confirms how one sided this fandom always is while not fact checking, and how quickly the fandom I eventually trusted were willing to agree with a white person over verifying these claims first.

After seeing many POC openly interact and actually have a voice and share amazing content over the last few years, I was thrilled. I felt like I could finally be a part of something without worrying about my identity. I could be part of a new side of fandom and actually be heard as a POC. But here’s where my issue also lies; even among POC, black people are still treated differently in the fandom. Now, this isn’t me saying that black people have it worse in fandom than any other POC. This is what I, and a few other black people I’ve spoken to (not just in zutara) have experienced.

It always seems where topics surrounding POC issues are treated as serious discussions, mentioning any issues regarding specifically what black people go through in fandom is ignored. This has always happened to me, especially when mentioning topics like this to any of my non-black fandom friends. I don’t know if it’s because they don’t want to listen or if no one knows how to react but oftentimes I just drop it and begin to feel like subjects like these are treated with exceptions. Which is disappointing after I assumed there was improvement with inclusion for all POC. Years ago when I would express my opinions or disagreements, I would always get a response claiming I was just being a typical angry black woman. I’m not oblivious to the fact that this still goes on- though not as vocally as it used to- it’s clear in how the people around me react to black voices that shows there’s still a long way to go. I don’t think it’s always intentional but that’s something that bothers me. Having these concerns ignored has created this environment where some of us are afraid to openly take part in fandom.

It shouldn’t be like this for me, or anyone for that matter. I’ve also noticed how quick those in the fandom are to defend a white person who says they’re speaking for POC while ignoring actual POC voices when they don’t share the same views. I also noticed how non-black people have way more support when expressing their personal feelings in fandom than the black people I know of in the zutara fandom.

I don’t think I’m asking for much, not when it comes to a fandom that claims how inclusive they are. I would not say any of this if not for hearing other black people out as well (this in itself confirmed I’m not misinterpreting my observations). This isn’t just me venting or feeling disappointed and isolated in the fandom. This is me sharing something I want people to take with them.

And what I want people to take away from this is:

- Don’t pick and choose POC opinions about fandom while simultaneously ignoring other POC’s. You don’t come off as an ally, you come off as a leech who’s only purpose is to use our voices to justify your agendas.

- Stop treating black people in the fandom like our opinions have lesser meaning and actually listen. If you have a black friend within the fandom, make them feel included just as much as any other POC regardless how uncomfortable you are about the issues we present to you.

- Quit making assumptions about blogs that don’t reveal their identity when it comes to discourse. Chances are they are a POC like myself who are afraid of being criticized of their part in the fandom specifically because of their race.

I’ll admit I never felt so small in the fandom until recently and I hope whatever content creators that are POC who come after me have a better and healthier experience than I did.

[silkycub]

Can I talk about something really quick, being a POC?

I have spent countless years of my life being told that my 3B/3C curly hair is bad, ugly, “too big”, etc. along with racial discrimination, micro aggressions, etc. from friends, family, strangers. As a result of this, I grew up hating my hair. I was led to believe that only having silky, straight hair would mean I was “beautiful” or “good enough” for society’s standards.

I’m recently seeing a movement for curly people, feeling liberated and free that they’re finally able to embrace their curls to the fullest...which is AMAZING! But I’m seeing yt people talk about this. I’m confused...?

Their hair “texture” (not curl pattern) is silky smooth and always has been- they’ve always had the chance to wear their hair “curly” (it’s mostly waves) but they just chose not to. Some of us didn’t have a choice, because of the social pressure and discrimination we faced growing up. THAT, is why it’s liberating to finally be able to fully accept and embrace your curls now.

It’s really angering me that these yt people are making things about themselves and their experiences with their “curls” when I know damn well they’ve never faced racial discrimination or injustices growing up. Curls or not, they’re fully yt. It’s like they’re trying to oppress themselves and I’m stressed.

Thanks for listening to my rant. I hope I’m not coming off as insecure or racist. I’m neither of those things. This is just very frustration to see knowing what I’ve been through. I’m not even FULLY black, so I can’t imagine what black people have had to go through and still go through.

[belfrygargoyles]

*whispers* I would like to hear what you have to say on reader inserts in the SW fandom because I too have a problem with them and I feel like not enough people are calling it out 👉👈

I’ve made a few posts about it in the past but I think it’s high time I actually Do This and really get into it.

Before I start: 1) This will be in specific reference to fanfiction written for the Star Wars fandom, particularly tcw and the mandalorian eras, 2) A lot of the issues come down to racist fetishization of men of color by white women; I am white, so there is much that is simply not my place to make statements on. What I can speak most on is my take from the gender side of things.

I’d honestly recommend reading this post by @nibeul with addition by @clonehub first, as they discuss the core issue with reader inserts in the Star Wars fandom.

And 3) some of this will involve discussion of sexual acts (as they relate to fanfiction) and sexual fantasies. These discussions will be non-explicit, and no pornographic text or content will be displayed.

Also. I’m GNC and nonbinary. I’m also a very feminine looking person that falls under the generalization of “small and petite.” I don’t have dysphoria, I like my body and the traits I have, and treating them like inherently female sends me into a blind fury. This is, unfortunately, important.

For the sake of making sure I come across as clearly as possible, I will be writing as though the reader of this post has never read or is broadly unfamiliar with reader-insert fanfiction.

Without further ado.

Hey, Star Wars reader insert fic writers? Please get your shit together.

INTRODUCTION

I’ve been reading reader-insert fanfiction since I was a grade schooler waking up early to check Quizilla. I love it! It got me into fandom, kept me engaged, helped me make and develop some of my oldest OCs, and it’s just fun to read and write- it’s like a self-indulgent little gift you can give to a bunch of people all at once. Because who doesn’t like the idea of starring in their own little adventure, usually alongside some of their favorite characters? It can be fun, immersive, get you attached in ways other ways of fandom interaction may not, make you feel just a little bit special, or be a way to express some feelings you might have about canon and the way the story went.

Like any form of fiction, it ends up saying more about the author’s feelings than anything else, whether the author realizes it or not. For many, many authors of reader-insert fanfiction, the primary enjoyment comes from writing “themselves” into the story- before the readers, the author most often makes the “reader character” someone they, themselves, can relate to and substitute for themselves. They write to live out a self-indulgent fantasy they have, and their readers can come along for the ride.

Some writers do actually try to write as diverse or as vague of a reader character as possible- as few details about the body, identity, etc. as possible so anyone could superimpose their image without the narrative directly contradicting it. This is not the kind of reader insert author I will be discussing.

The kind of author I will be discussing is the one most common in the Star Wars tag on Ao3: White, AFAB, cisgender, gender-conforming, able-bodied women who assume all of their readers are also White, AFAB, cisgender, gender-conforming, able-bodied women. Yes, you can tell.

ISSUE: fetishization of men of color

Again, this post puts it in the best words, but there is a rampant problem with Star Wars reader-inserts, particularly those involving the clones, Boba Fett, and Din Djarin, fetishizing characters played by men of color as either “physically aggressive and threatening, hypersexual and dominant, big strong men who are scary because they do violence and fuck constantly when they’re not” or “completely inexperienced baby who doesn’t know anything about things and needs a gentle nurturing guiding touch to introduce him to the mere idea of a vagina.” The former is common across all of them, the latter most common among clone trooper fics or Din/Reader.

I went into the Boba Fett/Reader tag on Ao3, because I like him and hoped to find something alright. Here are some stats I tallied up (give or take some) based solely on tags, summaries, and warnings:

There are 284 works in the Boba Fett/Reader category as of the time of this post.

198/284 are rated E for explicit sexual content. 69.7% of all Boba Fett/Reader works are sexually explicit.

259/284 are in the F/M category. 91.2% of all Boba Fett/Reader works involve an explicitly female or AFAB reader.

24/284 are tagged with or mention “Age difference,” “Older man/Younger woman,” “Innocence kink” or “Virginity kink.” 8.4% of all Boba Fett/Reader works are written explicitly with an age gap, with Boba Fett as the older party

26/198 E rated fics are tagged with or make reference to “Daddy kink” or involve the reader being called some variation of “little girl” by Boba. 13% of all E-rated works under Boba Fett/Reader are daddy kink fics, or allude to Boba Fett being a daddy dom/sugar daddy.

102/198 E rated fics are tagged as, make reference to, or suggest in the summary that Boba Fett takes a dominant sexual role with a submissive reader involving rough or painful play, or make reference to Boba Fett being frightening, physically intimidating, having a power dynamic over the reader, or being possessive or violent. 51.51% of all E-rated works under Boba Fett/Reader portray Boba Fett as sexually dominant and/or enacting use of physical force or pain play.

Just using this as an example, because it’s the easiest stats I can gather and also what made me realize there was a pattern.

The problem isn’t even necessarily that people write explicit fic about Boba- it’s that 1) over half of all fics in the category are explicitly pornographic, and 2) the way those pornographic fics are written. The two things compound on each other. They’re dominance fantasies projected onto a character of color in which he becomes extremely sexual, physically rough with the reader, possessive, and demeaning towards a reader character who is always written as White, AFAB, and petite.

This brings me to the next issue.

ISSUE: The way sexual relationships are portrayed.

Let me clarify so there is no chance of me being misunderstood: sex is good. Liking and wanting and enjoying sex isn’t bad. It is not bad if you are AFAB and have submissive fantasies. It is not bad to be sexually attracted to a man of color. You can write about sex even if you haven’t had it. Writing about sex can be a good way to express some more complicated feelings you could have about certain things. It doesn’t even have to be realistic. It has its time and it has its place.

This being said.

Sexual relationships as they are portrayed in the vast majority of E-rated Star Wars reader inserts are… not great.

The reader is always AFAB. I can think of maybe one fic off the top of my head where an AFAB reader was written with they/them pronouns and not just she/her.

The reader is almost always submissive, the dominant character is almost always portrayed as cis male. Even when the characters are supposed to just be having spontaneous casual sex, D/S or BDSM aspects will be introduced with no prior discussion or talks about it afterwards. Sometimes characters will start using dirty talk and it just does not fit at all, but it’s what the author thought was hot.

Sometimes, it just reads like a quick smutty oneshot. More often than that, it reads like the author doesn’t realize that sex… isn’t always a dom/sub thing. Or that someone can take the lead in sex and that doesn’t automatically make them a dom.

It’s not bad to be inexperienced. It’s not bad to have preferences or kinks or specific turn-ons.

But it gets… tiring to read, over and over and over and over, because that’s all there is.

That and… I dunno, it just has me a little worried? It doesn’t make me feel good knowing so many people can only portray a sexual relationship if it’s dom/sub. I don’t know why it makes me so uneasy.

Vanilla sex isn’t a bad thing I promise. It's this feeling of insistence that something "spicy" absolutely has to happen for it to be worth writing that gives... some weird vibes.

I’m going to move on to the next Big-

ISSUE: Every “reader” character is exactly the same

By which I mean the following:

Always cis AFAB female

If a character is written with gender neutral pronouns they will always be AFAB and written like Girl Lite

I have never seen an explicitly stated nonbinary/gnc reader character unless it was a request specifically for a nonbinary reader

I have never seen a gender neutral reader insert fic where the reader was AMAB

I have seen a grand total of 1 cis male reader fic and 1 trans male reader fic. The trans male reader fic was about dysphoria.

The reader is allowed to have one of the following backstories: slave/runaway, mechanic, medic, ex-Rebel, secret Jedi, bounty hunter.

The reader is allowed to have one of the following personality traits: throws knives, babysitter, completely civilian, WOMAN, says curse words.

The reader is never written with any narrative agency- things only ever happen to the reader character or around the reader character, they are never written to take charge and actually affect things on their own. Essentially the sexy lamp trope.

Remember when I said the majority of people writing Star Wars reader-insert fanfic on Ao3 were White, cisgender AFAB women who are gender-conforming and able-bodied? This is how you can tell.

It’s at this point where you can tell they’re really not meant to be reader-inserts, but author-inserts with the names removed- they were only meant for a very narrow selection of readers.

I’m nonbinary, I’m gnc, and I’m a very feminine looking person, generally speaking. I’m used to people looking at me and assuming oh, girl. I’m at peace with that.

I can barely stand reading some of these fics just because of how much the author emphasizes that the reader is FEMALE shes a WOMAN with BOOBS and a VAGINA and FEMININE WILES. There’s barely ever even a chance to give myself room to mentally vault over all the “she”s and “her”s because then I’m getting hit with Din or someone calling the reader “girl” or “the woman.” It’s unbearable, and I even fall into the general description every fucking fic author uses for their generic protagonist!

Even with the “gender-neutral reader” fics, it is just. Painfully clear that they just wrote a female character and changed the pronouns- no, there is no such thing as “male behavior” or “female behavior,” and I quite heartily rebel against the concept of gender essentialism. And honestly, I can barely even begin piecing together how I know it and what it feels like, because it’s just one of those vague conglomerates of cues and writing patterns I can’t consciously pick up on but I know it’s there- it’s frustrating, it’s demeaning, and it feels like you’d have to threaten these authors at gunpoint to get them to write a reader character who was any major deviation from the same three cutouts they use every time.

It seems like they can’t possibly force themselves to write a reader character who isn’t meek and submissive or has the sole personality traits of “mean and can hit things”- you can actually strike a balance between “absolutely no personality” and “fleshed out oc” you know? And you don’t actually have to tell the reader what their hair looks like or how full their figure is

It’s like 2:20 AM and I started this at like 8something PM but.

I’m someone who loves reader-inserts. I enjoy them. I still check for new ones regularly. I’ve been reading them for well over half my life now.

So many of these authors are just locked in on exactly one way to write things and it fucking shows. It’s like a self-feeding loop, they just keep writing the same things and the same dynamics because they see each other doing it and they never think about taking a step back.

It’s… exhausting. I’m exhausted. If you’re a reader-insert fic writer and you want to improve your reader character inclusivity and have also read this far, you can DM me or shoot me an ask.

[river-bottom-nightmare]

Hey I read this somewhere idk a fic or something maybe idk if its canon, that like brucie Wayne is Bruce's public, tabloid persona, dicks is Richie grayson and only people who knew him, family or friends call him dick

hmmmm. see, here’s where it gets a bit tricky babe.

so, it’s very clear that bruce has 3 different personalities: “brucie wayne,” the over-the-top borderline alcoholic playboy who throws money around like it’s nothing and over the years, has become (not canonically, but accepted by the fandom as) a kind of dull but doting father. then there’s batman, the gruff professional legend that actually acts as more of a legend than a human and drives everything for the sake of the mission. and then there’s just bruce, who is a little more relaxed and caring version of batman that’s only let out around his family and a few close friends.

but dick,,,,doesn’t really have that?

now as far as i’ve seen and read, dick grayson is,,,,dick grayson. the public calls him “dick,” (or probably, as i headcanon, “dickie grayson”). he’s seen as a cute little kid that bruce took in during the early years. i’m stopping myself from screaming and saying a bunch of words because jesus christ is high society racist. then later on when he grew up, people started treating dick as a mini-bruce: a fun, flirty playboy. 

the thing is, there isn’t,,,,that stark of a difference between dickie and dick. with bruce, you get whiplash, but for dick, it’s almost as if a couple pieces fall into place? they’re both cheerful, exuberant, funny people who are freely affectionate and loving. 

(and part of that playboy persona is actually dick’s.

there’s an absolutely disgusting trend in comics that i’m sure almost all of you have noticed of dick being objectified, catcalled, and sexually assaulted by a lot of people in the dc universe, mostly women. and dick’s shown to be very uncomfortable with all this unwanted attention from people he doesn’t know or doesn’t know well. we all as readers are also uncomfortable with this.

but it’s also shown that when he’s with his friends, he does act playful, fun, and flirty. this is because there’s already a foundation of mutual trust and respect, along with a relationship built on years of friendship. once dick knows, is familiar with, and comfortable with someone, his naturally fun and flirty side comes out, and it’s usually mutual bantering on both sides. and dick’s okay with it. he enjoys it because it’s a way of him relaxing and playing with his friends, and it isn’t at all affected by his appearance or anything because he’s known these people for years, because knows that the mutual appreciation of each other comes from friendship.)

so there’s that: the fact that dickie grayson and dick grayson’s personalities aren’t all that different.

but then there’s the fact that dick grayson is a performer. and he has a lot of masks. it’s almost like there are minute personality changes every time dick’s company and position in the team or duo changes. this is partially due to evolving times, character changes, and of course different writers. but this is something i’ve seen happen with the same author, and if i’m wayyyy off-base, then this can just be a hc of mine that explains the way dick’s core personality changes from writer to writer (ignoring the few writers that just completely obliterated him.)

when dick’s with the titans, he steps up as a leader. he’s commands respect and gives respect in return, issues out orders, sometimes has some control issues but he works through those and learns to listen to his team. when dick’s with the original fab five, or kori, or babs, he lightens up a bit. he’s more easygoing, relaxed, and goofy. he’s still committed to his job and has a strong work ethic, but you can tell he allows himself to chill a little bit in the presence of people that he knows has his back. 

when dick’s with the batfam, he acts as sort of an authority figure. this came after jason, once dick started assuming responsibility for tim, but it continued on with each addition. bruce has obviously been the figurehead and sort-of patriarch of the batfam since the beginning, and alfred and babs are people the bats love and respect and give credit where credit is due. and trust me, it’s a lot of credit. but dick’s become their emotional anchor, someone they know they can rely on, someone they fall back on when they need it. he’s their safety net. (although i have to say. recently jason has been turning into the batfam team mom. idk what that’s about but i am thoroughly amused and kinda enjoying it.)

when dick’s with bruce, he becomes,,,,,,,i don’t want to say more childlike because dick’s gone to great lengths to make sure bruce respects him and treats him as an adult. and bruce does, for the most part. but there’s years and years of history between the two of them, and you can’t just wipe away the years of bruce raising dick as his own kid. too much has happened for them to go back to the easy dynamic they used to have, but too much happened in the past for them to ever pretend like they don’t mean as much as they do to each other. so,,,yea dick takes on a little more of a childlike role and bruce acts a tad more paternal than he normally does in the suit.

and when dick’s allied up with people to defeat either a greater or common enemy, his demeanor changes once again. allied, or fighting against people he has history with. this includes shrike, deathstroke, and tiger. when he’s with them, the nightwing mask drips into his entire personality. he’s chatty and witty, but each word is carefully calculated and has a purpose. he makes barbed jokes, fights with 110% of what he’s got, and pushes himself to his limits without ever letting anyone else know.

this is probably how the public never figures out he’s nightwing. (,,,,,,,most of the time.) dickie grayson is probably just different enough from nightwing that no one puts it together. going back to my point of dick being a performer, he probably holds himself differently, moves his body differently, styles his hair differently, has a different resting face, etc. these subtle changes are what people absorb easily, and are what throw people off. dick also probably uses this in the other masks i mentioned above, depending on how approachable, easy, or cunning he needs to appear. 

there are constantly thousands of masks that dick’s putting on and taking off. so to sum up my own, person opinion and very long, very wordy, very rambly answer to your quick question: no, dick doesn’t have different drastic personalities like brucie wayne and batman. but dick does have a bunch of masks, and he slightly shifts his personality depending on his company. 

[infinitecrime]

Just a quick statement in case anyone was wondering where I have been/will be. I've been taking, and will continue to take, a short Tumblr break until the SCU (Sebastian Cancellation Universe) wears itself out and goes on hiatus. I deleted Tumblr off my phone a few days ago and realised immediately that all this vicious, misinformed discourse pretty much solely exists on here and twitter, and if I want to avoid it, I can simply remove myself from the space.

I'm certainly not going to be gone forever - the head Canceller has made it quite clear that her sole intention was to "bully Sebastian off the internet", and presumably his fans too, while using POC and social issues as pawns/collateral damage. To quit the fandom feels like letting them win, but taking a break feels necessary at this point.

I like to listen to others who have different perspectives and value their opinions - but at the end of the day, I form my own and do my own research. And so far, I have seen absolutely nothing to change my opinion that Sebastian is a kind and well meaning man who sometimes doesn't think through every conceivable perspective before his does something - in other words, a flawed human. I'm not going to call for the end of a man's career and/or life, or withdraw my support of him, because 4 years ago he (accidentally, for all we know) liked a video of a man being called out for rapping the N-word and being told to censor himself, or because he smiled weird next to a statue while playing a Buddhist character. We can criticise him for his own actions, but these are willfully disingenuous interpretations specifically designed to harm not just him, but also POC fans who look up to him. I won't let myself be lied to, gaslighted, or dragged into a herd mentality. A disturbing number of people are not actually angry at him, but are simply scared of being harassed if they dare to question what they're being told or form their own opinions, so join the herd. The pursuit of the moral highground is addictive but futile, and you lose it as soon as you stoop to bullying, abuse, harassment, stalking and running dedicated, deranged hate accounts.

I'm not going to cancel him for a handful of bad jokes or mistakes made years ago that have been profusely apologised for and learnt from, either, and I'm not going to cancel him because of the years old actions of people he is associated with that he had nothing to do with. This isn't fair, proportional or helpful, at all. It's not activism, and it's not social justice - in fact, the constant malicious attempts to cancel him are only making it harder for him to see legitimate criticism or respond without setting a precedent that death threats will get his attention and a grovelling apology for things he didn't say and views he doesn't hold.

If your whole life was on tape and available to comb through with the worst intentions, and you weren't hiding behind anonymous accounts, I could construct equally terrible narratives from every bad joke, misspoken word, ill thought out comment, accidental like, dubious friend, mistake, genuinely hurtful moment or show of ignorance that you have ever made, but apologised for, grew from and forgot about instantly. You have that right: but you don't grant it to him, because he isn't truly a human being to you. So many of the blatantly and demonstrably false accusations I have been seeing would have been dispelled through the most basic level of fact checking and critical thinking, but through herd mentality and what I can only describe as moral bloodlust, they've gained serious, dangerous traction.

For someone who was raised in a deeply insular, conservative, traditional, orthodox environment, he has done a genuinely excellent job of freeing himself from that cycle of ignorance and using his platform in a positive way, as well as responding when he genuinely has misstepped. He will likely never be on the same level of educated/woke as a ~25 year old American who was literally raised knee deep in social justice twitter discourse, because he didn't have that privilege, but we are all on a journey and progress is not linear or with a clearly defined end.

The ironic thing is: the current state of the fandom is a direct result of how nice and willing to listen and learn Seb has been! The level to which he used to engage with fans and respond to criticism and feedback has created an expectation that he will ask how high whenever he is told to jump, and if he doesn't respond to every little thing, this means he doesn't care or hates us. His willingness to own up to mistakes, apologise and grow publically has created the strange idea that if he's not doing something publically, it's not happening, as if he only exists while we can see him, like social media peekaboo. His openness and willingness to act on criticism of those in his social and professional circles has led to the belief that we can demand he cut anyone we dislike out of his life immediately instead of helping and supporting them in making amends and learning, if only we can dig up some old dirt on them. It's entitled, parasocial nonsense. This is a total stranger who owes us nothing, is not actually accountable to us, does not have to ever respond to us or meet our demands, and has a complex and private inner life that we ultimately know nothing about.

I feel immensely sorry for the fans, especially POC, who have been wrongly led to believe that Seb hates or is discriminatory towards them on the basis of lies, hyperbole and some serious reaching. I feel deeply sorry for Seb's friends and family, who have been subject to an enormous amount of abuse and harassment (much of which has been racist, sexist, bodyshaming, xenophobic and cruel in nature - all in the name of social justice?) merely for being friends with him, and who recently had to see #RIPSebastianStan trending. Mostly, I feel immensely sorry for Sebastian, who has not been allowed the same basic rights everyone else in the world gets: the right to learn and grow, the right to forgiveness and freedom from harassment, and the right to be judged on things that *you* actually *did* rather than fictional narratives.

I cannot imagine the mental toll thousands of people calling for your death must take. I cannot imagine how it feels to have hate accounts dedicated to abusing you and critiquing your every move, and that of everyone you love. I cannot imagine the impact of obsessive doxxing, stalking and harassment. I cannot imagine all of this happening when you have been quite open about your mental health issues and serious struggles. There are truly only so many messages telling you to kill yourself that you can take, and I just hope he has people in his corner to remind him who he truly is and what he truly stands for.