#fandom was too toxic for me sorry

[felicitea-art]

hello animatronic fandom it's been awhile...

[honeycreammilkshake]

Reading your anons and your answers I think the problem with those fans is that they only accept a character if it's involved with satoru.

Like, apparently you are not allowed to like Sukuna anymore nor like both yuji and sukuna, but you were only allowed to like AND analyze Sukuna when he was fighting Satoru loool

I'm sorry but Sukuna is more than that, sukuna doesn't need THAT fight to be a character in his own, Sukuna also kept analyzing and having cool moments with other characters, just because your favorite character was dead doesn't mean other things stopped existing. This is one of those cases where fans keep thinking the manga is about some secondary character

hi, anon. thank you so much for this ask. i'm going to follow this up by making an unnecessarily long and ranty post nobody's going to bother to read, but i felt the overwhelming need to go in-depth for this anyways. apologies for the length of this.

to start off, i'm going to point out something that will probably get me a lot of hate or at least criticism from gojo fanatics, but i think it should be said for all those out there who keep twisting jkk to fit their own problematic concept of morals.

so we all know sukuna is the big bad of jjk. he's the main antagonist, the evil cannibal monster, a god of chaos and apathy and murder. i'm not here to argue against this, though. it's been clear from the beginning sukuna is a true villain in all of his actions and beliefs. however, we really need to look at the contexts behind how he became such a monster and consider if he's actually the most "evil" sorcerer/curse in the jujutsu world or not.

i'm going to address the underlying problem with the pro-gojo/anti-sukuna fans who twist the story to suit their own views first.

so gojo was born with a tremendous amount of power, so much that he's been branded the strongest jujutsu sorcerer of the modern age. he literally shifted the flow of cursed energy and from the start was set apart from others. it's truly terrifying how much power he has...

so it's a good thing he's a real sweet and caring guy, right?

if only.

gojo is irredeemably self-absorbed, unhealthily egotistical, obsessed with his own abilities, demeaning and insulting to others, brutal to his students and dismissive of their safety, and more than willing to commit mass murder.

when fighting with jogo, for example, he doesn't seem bothered at all by the massacre of innocent people during their battle, and is even willing to sacrifice bystanders all in the name of winning.

he's displayed this same kind of general apathy for the lives of others in his past as well.

in his past arc, it was geto who saved gojo from becoming an actual villain and instead managed to set gojo on the path of becoming the slightly less evil antihero he is today. however, after riko's death, the experience turned both of them on each other as they settled on opposite sides of "good vs evil."

without geto there to guide him, though, gojo would have easily lost his way and turned evil .... so where was a person like that for sukuna?

the jujutsu world is extremely heartless and obsessed with strength. the jujutsu higher-ups were willing to kill yuuji - an innocent teenager who just happened to become dangerously involved with the world of curses and the host of sukuna - as well as risk the health and safety of countless others, sorcerers and normal people alike. the whole jujutsu world is full of corruption and cold, cruel people.

but this is just in the modern world - during the golden age of jujutsu, in the heian era, conditions were even harsher and crueler than they are now. during this time, existence for regular people in japan was demanding, quality of life was very low, and so many died of sickness and starvation. the amount of curses that arose from all this suffering was immense and required the extreme powers of sorcerers to balance it out.

this is the context of sukuna's birth. he came into this world as a child of a starving mother and he himself would have starved if he didn't consume his twin in the womb.

during his conversation with kashimo, who asks if sukuna was born with that much power or if he gained it throughout his life, sukuna himself seems to not know. all he can say is... he was an unwanted wretch.

societal demands and religious fights back then would have led to an overwhelming stigma and dehumanization of anything that people feared or didn't understand... which probably means that sukuna, who was able to be born from the act of eating his own unborn twin, was seen as monstrous from the day of his birth on. and if he was indeed born with such strength and a body merged with that of his twin's, or at least the compacity to become that, he was also most likely villainized for his nature as well.

where gojo was more embraced and highly coveted by the jujutsu world, the world sukuna was born into most likely shunned him and led him to adapt the kind of mindset he has now.

sukuna sees strength as the only means of survival, rising above the cruelty shown to him to become the cruelest himself. this philosophy, which a lot of people at this time believed in - especially in the jujutsu world - shows us that sukuna probably saw his own really option to endure was to become a monster. those at the top are above all the weak feelings and suffering of the ones beneath, after all, or so he believes.

and it seems like so many of the strongest sorcerers still believe in that concept as well. both yorozu and gojo thought they could reach sukuna by challenging him, but in the end... only yuuji ever connected with the king of curses.

(yes i will fit sukuita in here... even if you don't ship them romantically, it's an undeniable fact that their relationship is much more complex than it seems and that yuuji does in fact care for the very monster he's supposed to destroy.)

when sukuna's dying in chapter 268, yuuji makes it clear that he's willing to serve the kind of caring, understanding role in sukuna's life that was most likely never given to him.

instead of dehumanizing sukuna, yuuji actually accepts that sukuna turned out to be the monster he is and says it was all a matter of chance how they became like this.

this a level of empathy, intimacy, and compassion that someone like gojo (and pretty much the vast majority of jjk characters) could never show. sukuna himself seems at a loss for words for this unbelievably caring treatment from yuuji - he's even surprised enough to use the brat's full name.

and i dislike that fans are starting to twist this interaction between them to make it fit their own views of sukuna and gojo.

look, i like gojo objectively. he's a fine enough character and serves an important role in jjk. i'm not against him or his fans, and i certainly don't want to hurt or make light of other people's feelings towards him. however, i do want to point something out that some fans should really know better. so many antis are against us sukuita shippers and/or sukuna fans and their main argument, over and over again, is how evil and monstrous sukuna is and that gojo is obviously better in every way. they claim that because gojo is on the side of good, it means sukuna is the worst in terms of morals (when villains like kenjaku are arguably just as terrible if not more so but dismissed so easily) we are delusional or wrong for sympathizing with sukuna.

so i would like to say to these people... please stop using these pallid, baseless arguments against us sukuna lovers because they're just so inaccurate and keep misunderstanding the whole story. it's more than okay to have your own headcanons and depictions of a fictional character, whether they're sukuna or gojo or any of the others - but do not force that depiction on others and do not force your interpretation of the source material on us just to appease your own opinions.

please be more respectful to others, please keep your own dislikes to yourself instead of lashing out at other fans you could instead just avoid, and please stop being so mean to gege. whether or not he makes gojo return should not be a reason to spread such hate about him. it's disrespectful towards both him and all writers who work so hard to make the content you treat so harshly.

thank you.

[quietwingsinthesky]

see my brain just doesn’t register the idea of anyone having a ‘one true love’ which is why the common fandom tropes of making canonical love interests terrible in order to justify why your ship is better always bugs the shit out of me. it feels like the only reason you would do that is if the idea of the characters in your ship having any other sort of romantic relationship that was important to them, even in the past, is a threat to their current one, therefore all their past relationships need to be demonized in order to make them ‘not real love’ so that they remain pure and chaste and ready for the True Love of the endgame ship.

[thebestusernamepossible]

Literally going insane, might have to write fanfic for the first time in 2 years because the people™️ do not get my favorite female characters like I do and I feel the insurmountable urge to write her. I’m going to bite drywall why don’t ppl see her complexities. PLEASE STOP WRITING HER ETHIER AS DOMICILE MOM OR BITCH (or just for shipping) she is so so cool please guys please.

Also while I’m here, fandoms tendency to shove women in the ‘pure powerful goddess who can do no wrong’ box and then proceed to never give them an actual narrative role other than like ‘supportive’ or ‘took out a few background guys’. Like why DOES this incredibly badass and complex female character just get shunted into doinging some cool flips, getting praised about it (she’s the strongest fighter, so feminist wow) then never getting actnowleged as a 2 dimensional character.

I saw this a lot when I was in the Batman fandom, particularly with Cassandra Cain. She is a highly complex and interesting character, but in fandom she’s kind of shunted to ‘Badass therapy dog who takes care of the men’. Because even on the slight chance her backstory is brought up it’s always never delved into and mostly used to make her etheir more tragic and in need of support on a surface level or to let her be compassionate with the men characters who get their actual problems foucused on. It’s a unqiue kind of frustrating because it’s like almost letting the cool female character be cool, but it’s more like the idea of a badass women is shoved in your face, maybe joked about (or if we’re lucky she gets to beat up a few bad-guys), but ultimately treated like a cardboard cutout. Interestingly this actually isn’t entirely a female character thing, it’s also common with like old grandfather/grandmother characters and the elderly in general. But it’s usually badass women from what I see. :/ Why can’t fandom explore their stories (people do but why is it so much less), why can’t they be the prtags of cool AUs or time-travel fix-its, or crossover events

Idk I think I’m just frustrated, and I typed out more than I thought I would. Also Ive seen what happens to some other posts complaining about fandom misogyny, so please know if you’re a TERF, fuck off you have no place in this discussion. We will never agree, and frankly all of these points apply to canon Trans Women characters. Don’t say shit ill fucking end you.

[rewritingcanon]

[jegulily] worse than jegulus but somehow less annoying idk how to explain it

dude this is so real! like it's hard to explain but it captures those feelings perfectly. like it is worse in a sense that it directly romantically connects an oppressed woman with her oppressor and that's gross, but it's also less annoying because of how fandom acts, they at least try to act like they don't completely erase Lily? I guess? so it's more palatable to 'see' rather than the complete erasure or demonization or downgrading that happens with jegulus, though you can still tell that she's treated like a third wheel and the lesser one in that poly and the only posts you see about the ship not working cause one of them feels like they don't fit in are always about Lily lol. but in the end both still bad in a sorta same way, cause they both only serve one character, Regulus irrelevant Black and that's it, they only exist for one character, cause neither James or Lily or their fans gain anything from these ships, they're both deliriously happy with each other and don't give a flying crap about the new twink of the month and don't 'need' him in their ships. yet still one of those camps is at least trying to fight the misogyny allegations while the other is just blatantly misogynistic.. so like there are layers and levels to the badness and annoyance here lmfao

im literally dying over “regulus irrelevant black” and “new twink of the month” because thats exactly how these new death eater babygirls feel to me all the time and we seriously need to retire the image. and i really said “idk how to explain it” and then you came and explained it perfectly.

it sucks because i do wish there was more love for polyamorous ships in fandom in general but did the popular had to have been jegulily?? youre also completely right about how jegulily shippers (from what i’ve seen) are mostly regulus fans, because the whole ship does seem to center around him in some way. it’s so funny how often lily would feel shoved into the ship absentmindedly when in reality the third wheel would be regulus. and there would be a third wheel in this scenario because canon lily and canon james wouldnt want to touch regulus within a ten foot pole. lily, who dumped her childhood best friend over his prejudices against muggles/muggleborns (that extended years of her having to look the other way) would want to voluntarily put herself in a relationship that could so much as entail the same sort of bullshit. james, who joined a whole ass war to defend the rights of the oppressed and had probs a million bitching sessions with sirius over how shitty his family was (including regulus) would want to date said character? mmm uh huh okay. fanon is getting out of control its time we curb stomp a lot of it.

ive yapped too much too long im not gonna even get into the jegulus part. it makes me too maddddd

[nicolibbyquotes]

“Other lives, other existences, it didn't matter. They were polarities, and wherever they went, his half would always find hers.”

- “The Atlas Complex” by Olivie Blake

[phatcatphergus]

Why are you so up in arms about some people not being comfortable with a (rather edgy and potentially offensive) joke? The posts I've seen are just talking about how the casual homophobia whenever Tubbo is around makes them not want to watch any streams that Tubbo is showing up on.

I understand that you don't find these jokes offensive or harmful, at least in comparison to some of the other rp that has been done on the server (and I am genuinely very glad for it!! I hope they never become so), but different people have had different experiences, and to some people homophobia will be genuinely more upsetting than themes of self harm, to name an example you used.

It feels very shitty to see you and some other tubblings vehemently defend these jokes, as it can be extremely jarring to go from enjoying happy gay roleplay to homophobic jokes (yes, even from an openly gay man, the mouthpiece doesn't make the content less jarring).

So I guess I'm still wondering, why? I get being defensive of your streamer, but I guess I'm struggling to reconcile the "queer-smp" with people invalidating others' experiences with, and reactions to, homophobia

Okay well the main thing is that it’s really not that deep. Don’t like the jokes don’t watch, log off, touch grass ect.

People can be upset about whatever they want, but to say that the admin team, his fellow streamers and his community need to “talk to him” about it is insanity. The jokes themselves aren’t even something that isn’t already said in queer spaces irl (again go outside) and the fact that people are so up in arms about their picture perfect straight men playing make believe they’re in a gay relationship and having one actually gay man say “I hate happy couples” is insane.

Really, it’s shows how little the space cares for real queer people and relationships that don’t adhere to their internet filled fantasies of gay people.

At the end of the day, it’s a gay man joking about his own experiences and to get upset about it is fine. But don’t write emails telling him he’s inciting hate crimes, don’t tell the admin team to “talk to him” (ableism and infantilism much), and don’t try to get him cancelled for making jokes that YOU yourself don’t like.

If you don’t like a gay man making mildly homophobic jokes (something he has experienced!!!) but are okay with two straight men playing a gay couple and getting paid for it only to log off and not deal with any irl consequences then you’ve lost the plot I’m sorry.

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

Sorry to be a hater but this is how I’ve been feeling recently

[katyspersonal]

I know we don't talk and there's stuff we may not agree with. But I am truly sorry you've dealt with a lot of drama over fictional crap. And I'm sorry if my posts in the past ever contributed to that. Hope you have a better day.

Hey... That's all fine, don't worry! After all, it takes a lot of time and Insight to realise that Gehrman is a very gentle and respectful man and Godrick is an absolute gigachad kdkdkshdffhhgfds /lh /lh

But yeah, on a serious note. It was quite frustrating to find out the real motivation under all that... mess was something so pathetic, but at the same time this is what happens when people make engagement with media and fandoms a moral, political act. Not necessarily a problem, after all, I was the one who concluded that the way a fan judges fictional characters and other fans will very well reveal how cruel they are to real people who do something bad, or how much they will forgive based on personal sympathies. And my mad ravings about caring about female characters! I think the problem comes when a fan is so insecure that they have nothing else besides this defence of ideals through fandomry. If your only way to assert yourself is to be a good guy punishing the bad guys, and that mad raving loredigger discovers there is NO bad guy, what is left of you?

This is why it is crucial to have passion for nurturing rather than for undermining! I think if you speak like this, you've found this truth too? This is true that I don't know you very much (mutual-in-law thing), but to be honest.. you didn't poison my fandom experience at all? I tend to never be aware about discourse until someone basically calls me for help fhdhgsdgdfs Can't scout the fandom tag regularly!

But not only it actually was a quite long ago I saw a "negative" post from you, but also I've seen through the posts that my friends liked or reblogged from you that you've actually became very eager person to defend people's passion and interests! I think the post that particularly got stuck with me was when you resented seeing someone's light die after some Redditor asshole "well aktualy"'d a thing they were excited about creating (not exact wording but maybe you remember too)? Like... you are fine, man. At that point I realised that you were a good fan and in the end valued people's creativity and passion over personal preferences. That you never wanted to be THAT guy, even if your interpretation could not be further from someone else's. Coming to terms with what actually matters in fandomry is very mature and I am happy to see this attitude!

I am still glad that you messaged me about this though; I did not expect this, but thank you! I think I will continue getting involved in fictional discourse because my autistic senses cannot ignore factually incorrect takes with a clear insidious motive, and.. eh, sooner or later, I'll piss off the wrong guy again. Don't feel bad for me when it inevitably happens :p I've accepted the shortcomings when I decided to be the debate guy. Simply laughing at some gremlin starting a discourse with the girls in DMs and not stressing over it is only funny until I realise that newer fans could get misinformed right off the bat.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

I'd love to see Lotura get a happy ending.

Hi, anon--SAME. Although what if I told you...a version of one exists in old Voltron canon? In the DDP Comic of Voltron, called A Legend Forged, Lotor and team Voltron accidentally travel 1,200 years into the past and ally to defeat the evil regime run by Lotor's great-great (lots of greats) grandmother. In it, Lotor helps to save Allura from being corrupted by an evil magical entity, and his love for her helps to save the day and Voltron too!

I know it's not the same as the lotura setup in VLD, but it was fun to see Lotor ally with Team Voltron and have it all end well. Lots of snarky, sassy Lotor too. If you're still feeling down, maybe it could help!

Lotura fandom's also got some great art and fics that explore different AUs of what a happy ending could be. I hope exploring those can help as well.

Thanks for the note!

[rebelcliche]

i'm really wondering if i should just remake nancy bc i'd like to write on here but my brain short-circuits and i get overwhelmed even tho it makes no sense. and i'm wondering if starting fresh would help??? but idk lol

[dont-take-this-art-seriously]

The two shows that occupy 80% of my mind these weeks.

[gaffney]

I really admire how you're able to ship every duck with Charlie lol

LMAO. look. is it my fault that charlie has chemistry with everyone on the team? no!!! heart of the team etc etc 😌 idk, i just love love. i love the idea of different types of relationships with different types of people, and the possibilities that come with each type of love. i love the idea of finding a 'true love' in different people (platonic or romantic). and i just love exploring different dynamics!!! like, for ex. charlie/jesse is a completely different dynamic from charlie/adam, so it's fun to be able to write that. HOPEFULLY i'll add to my growing charlie/duck collection in the future

[samwinchesterakgae]

idk about you but the only good deancrit i’ve seen comes from people who don’t hate his character (usually dean girls, sometimes cas girls but unfortunately i’ve had to disengage from samgirl crit of dean bc a lot of it completely removes the context in which events happened) - samcrit i’ve seen has been pretty decent but the bad crit often seems to come from like a reactionary perspective - like people are upset about disingenuous dean crit so all their samcrit is disingenuous as well? idk i do have a lot of people blocked tho so maybe ive not seen the really awful opinions. the worst part about crit meta on here is that a lot of people treat it like a reflection of your own morals and that if you’re a sam or dean fan then you’re automatically a bad person if they don’t like that character and it’s ridiculous.

Honestly I think this is a fair assessment, and I’m definitely mostly surrounded by the samgirl/samdean side of the fandom (I have a handful of deangirl/destiel moots whom I cherish though). I don’t think it’s impossible to provide valid criticism of a character you dislike, but there does have to be a level of understanding. Really, with a fandom as large as this, it all depends on which corner you day venture out towards. A lot of it is definitely reactionary too, and I think a part of that has to do with the misunderstanding of what media criticism is. It’s not hate, it’s analysis. If I made a post saying, this brother did this shitty thing and here’s my interpreted reasoning for why, that’s not hate, that’s analysis. From what I’ve seen, a lot of fandom crit comes from a place of thinking, well nobody calls out this shitty thing a character did so now I’m going to because this character is so clearly a bad person.

Like you said, it’s a cycle of mess: someone posts disingenuous dean crit, so another person defensively posts disingenuous sam crit, so someone gets defensive right back, and the cycle continues. Not to mention a lot of crit too is attempting to untangle fanon interpretations of a character, which is a whole nother can of worms (like erasing dean’s toxicity or painting sam as the saintly helpless victim). The worst part is, there’s some kernels of truth to these types of criticisms, but the conclusions are always so wild and taken out of context. It’s not a crime to dislike a character, but I do think it is a bit unfair to misrepresent that character. People are better off sticking to their own circles and curating their dash, instead of feeding into fandom toxicity.

[alittleemo]

doing my annual check in on my ancient wattpad account and its lowkey crazy to see TOO has 15k views like hello . so sorry abt all of that btw.

[starlooove]

Dickbea JayDana timtam I will always love u