#moth talks

[mothdruid]

Within the past 72 hours the TGM fandom got a fire put under it's ass, for lack of a better term/phrase. Even though I'm not as active in the fandom anymore, it did make me want to talk about a few things. This isn't the first time that I've had to make a post similar to this, usually speaking about reblogs and keeping your fanfic writers feeling wanted within the fandom spaces, but today I'm going to talk more about fandom etiquette and my experiences in fandom spaces. So, if you want to hear my opinion on fandom etiquette, how I learned fandom etiquette, and my thoughts about the doxing situation that has happened, keep on reading.

My Fandom Experience.

The first fandom that I was ever a part of was The Hunger Games fandom in the 8th grade (if you don't include my anime fandoms). I was 12-13 at the time. This was when I was first introduced to Tumblr and being involved within a fandom online. At the time I was super young, barely even knew who I was as a person, let alone in a fandom space. All I did was reblog little gifsets and fawn over Josh Hutcherson. I remember getting my first hate anon, even though I didn't do anything that would generate that to even happen. Even when I was 12-13, I couldn't understand why anyone would send a hate anon. That was when I found out a friend of mine found my Tumblr and actually secretly hated me, so she sent me hate anons. Still, before I knew it was her I didn't understand.

Fandoms were a formative part of my childhood. I think that main one that helped form me though was the Supernatural (yeah, I know, eye roll), Naruto, and The Hobbit fandoms. I had made friends on Tumblr and Instagram through these fandoms. During these times was when I had first started consuming fanfiction. Specifically, destiel and thilbo fanfiction. This is how I started to find the things in fanfiction that I loved, and the things that I hated. Instead of sending hate to the writers for their thoughts and stories that I didn't agree with, I would back out of the story or just scroll past. Not only that, I also started to use the filters on AO3 constantly, ensuring that I was only reading the fics that I knew I'd enjoy. Also, I was careful to read warnings and tags prior to reading the fic. Never once did I blame the writer for something that I knew I didn't like and accidentally read or read for see what it was about.

After high school was when I started getting into fanfiction writing. I've written for a lot of fandoms during this time. The IT movies, Total Drama, Haikyuu, Attack on Titan, Marvel, Bridgerton, Top Gun: Maverick, and currently ASOIAF. As a writer I've never gotten hate, thankfully, but I have had a lot of friends that have. It's sad to see so many people who take the time to write, whether it's enjoyable or not, receive hate. As writers we are simply expressing our creativity for the things that we love. Since posting fanfiction on tumblr, I have experienced a lot of people pestering for new updates and when the next fic is, and so have a lot of other writers on here. Even though people only know us as a little icon and username, fanfiction writers are people. We have lives outside of writing fanfiction. Everyone also isn't the same type writer. One person may easily write multiple fics every week, some of us take longer, and some of us are even just passion writers (me lol).

The TGM fandom has been one of the most negative fandom experiences I've ever seen/had. It is full of some of the meanest people/anons I've ever seen. From writers being attacked for fic ideas, people being sent hate for something that the anon has full control over, and people constantly expecting new stories to read on the daily. Yes, I do know that other fandoms have these issues, but it seems to be almost a weekly, hell, even daily thing within this fandom. A lot of the issues that I see happen in this fandom are from people who don't understand fandom etiquette.

Fandom Etiquette.

If you had noticed there was a few things I put in bold above. These are key things that I learned during my time that attribute to fandom etiquette. So without further a do, I'll list out some fandom etiquette rules that I follow all the time.

Don't send hate anons to people

Block/unfollow people you don't like

If you don't like an idea or fic, don't read it

Read through all warnings and tags that the writer provided

Use AO3 filters

Don't blame the writer/creator for reading things they created that you actively know you don't like

Writers/Creators aren't "content farms"

There are people behind these blogs/usernames, treat them like someone you'd see on the street

Writers/Creators are expressing love/passion for something, don't hate them for doing that

If you see something fandom related that you don't like, scroll past it or ignore it

YOU CURATE YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE (ESPECIALLY ON TUMBLR)

The Doxing Situation.

For those who are unaware but decided to read this anyways, recently there was a writer (Mama Mayhem) on here who got doxed from another writer in the fandom. Mayhem has since lost her job due to the doxing. This was apparently from her breaking HIPAA by posting a picture into a private groupchat/discord. This picture was posted almost a half year ago. Meaning that the person who reported/doxed Mayhem had known about this picture for months and only recently decided to do something about it.

I'll start by saying that I also work in healthcare, and know many other people here who do. I understand that a HIPAA violation is 100% an offense that gets you fired. I'm not excusing the HIPAA violation if one did occur.

Some people have brought up the idea that maybe the person that reported the picture, and doxed Mayhem, was doing it out of the goodness of their heart. Due to the timeline of it all, that doesn't seem likely. I had a previous coworker get fired for HIPAA violations and it took a total of a week from the initial report for her to be gone.

The biggest thing I want to convey is that TWO WRONGS CAN HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME. Yes, if Mayhem violated HIPAA, it is wrong. But at the same time, the person held onto this information for months only to use it out of spite, pettiness, and cruelty, is wrong.

My Thoughts.

Due to Mayhem being doxed, a lot of people have decided to leave this platform, take indefinite hiatuses, stop writing, or move to AO3 exclusively., and I don't blame them. I'll be honest, I'm thinking about moving to AO3 exclusively now. AO3 feels a lot more rewarding in my experience. I already only post my fics for ships to AO3, so why not just post everything on AO3 (which I usually do).

I think a lot of people have forgot what it feels like to feel shame in something they say or do. When I say this, it's directed towards people who send hate or do other malicious things in fandom spaces. Fandoms were never this clique-ish and mean. I think it has to do with the pandemic, meaning that a lot of people who would have never joined a fandom did because they weren't allowed to do anything outside of their house. So, those mean girls that made fun of fandom girlies (g/n) previously, joined the fandoms and decided started bullying the people within them.

This situation is super shitty and people are now scared. It makes complete sense, especially after seeing someone, that many of you were close to, be doxed. A lot of people are scared of it happening to them now. I don't think this fandom will be the same after this situation, but who knows, maybe everyone will just forget and move on. Either way, I think I'll be taking a step back from the TGM fandom. I'll still be here, but until further notice, I won't be posting any TGM fanfiction. Maybe a gifset/picture here and there, but I don't think this is a fandom I feel comfortable writing for anymore.

If you've read all of this, thank you.

[thornymoth]

Just received my second plushie and pendant from @a-magpie-in-gravesfield, and I'm so happy right now! The plushie is unbelievably soft and huggable, and it’s now hanging out with the first one.

I meant to finish and post some art before making this post, but I got too excited. Couldn't resist sharing how thrilled I am that everything arrived safe and sound yet again, and just on time! I’m still as in love as ever with the letter and the wax seals it came with, but could we talk about the bag? It’s the most beautiful bag I’ve ever seen. /lh

He flopped face-first onto the bed after his long journey, and honestly, he looks so goofy like that. He’s just so husband and precious to me, I'll keep showering him with kisses and love forever.

[halfmoth-halfman]

maybe people would be more willing to spend money on this website and tumblr wouldn't be in such financial trouble if @staff actually listened to what their userbase wanted instead of continuously rolling out unnecessary updates that only serve to clutter the dash with no way to change it back. if we wanted a website that looked like twitter, we would be on twitter. i get the push to try and make tumblr "easier" for new users, but how well is this site going to function when it's doing its hardest to alienate and drive away their long-term userbase?

[hotmothsummer]

autism be damned my boy can train a dragon

[rottenjirai]

I hate that people make me sound crazy after they disrespect me and I lash out accordingly why must I be pliant so that you feel good about yourself?

[hog-o-mine]

talking about the locked tomb to people who have not read the locked tomb is almost impossible. like i wanna get to the juicy stuff about how god and his two angels or whatever had a threesome with him to steal his jizz and make a baby that would unlock the box that contains his death, but it takes two books to get to that reveal, and I wouldnt even get to talk about my favourite asshole: lesbian jesus

[moth-flowers]

more trans butch werewolf doodles :))

inspired by @acentrics's art. their stuff is really good, please do give them a look :))

[moth-time]

thinking about dungeon meshi (as you do) and something that has been increasingly bothering me is how many people call Laios 'stupid' or similar. Often even as they are trying to pitch the manga to people.

And it's been bugging me because it's just. Absolutely not true? Laios is socially inept to a fault, that's like half the driving reason for the plot. But beside the obvious 'he knows a shit-ton about monsters and this is very helpful to their dungeon adventuring', he's also shown to be a good strategist, and pretty decent at magic once he actually puts his mind to it. He's a competent team leader who knows his teams strengths and weaknesses well despite being fairly bad at people. He can be silly, but to be fair so can most of his team. And he does make poor/stupid decisions (like eating raw parasite) mainly because of his hyperfixation sometimes. But he's far from stupid.

Idk man I am obviously annoyed because I think calling the heavily autistic coded guy 'stupid' is a bad look, but it annoys me doubly because the story makes it pretty obvious that he is not. That's a pretty essential part of the story actually!

[halfmoth-halfman]

a smaller part of my thoughts on the mw3 campaign that i think is important enough to need its own post:

(there are spoilers below)

i've seen many cod creators on here talking about the situation going on in the middle east right now, and a lot of posts condemning the ethnic cleansing and genocide happening in palestine. i think it's great, especially coming from a fandom based on games that are first and foremost military propaganda. what i don't think is great is that soap's death seems to be taking priority over the blatant terrorist storyline that happens with samara and the changing of the no russian mission.

a middle eastern woman - the second one to get a shocking, and brutal death (more brutal than soap's, might i add) - is taken hostage by a group and forcibly made to hijack a plane. she is forced to wear a bomb strapped to her chest and dragged to the back of the plane where more civilians are. when she tries to fight back we get this exchange:

hijacker: are you a terrorist?

samara: no!

hijacker: you look like one.

she is then handed a gun, shoved into a crowd, and we are forced to watch her struggle to get a phone against a crowd of people who think she is a terrorist before the plane blows up.

i see a lot of people in the fandom saying to reject canon as a way to cope, which i fully understand - canon is really really stupid sometimes. however, i'm also seeing a lot of people saying to pretend this campaign just doesn't exist, and i take a lot of issue with that.

this fandom, in particular, does not get to do that. you can be upset with soap's death, the thrown together storyline, the half-baked combat, whatever else you don't like about the game, but we do not get to ignore the purposeful mistreatment of a middle eastern character while also being vocal about palestine. we do not get to ignore that activision chose to change this mission from makarov shooting up an airport, to forcing a middle eastern character to blow up a plane while he escapes. we do not get to ignore that the cod games are military propaganda, and that just because we may enjoy playing or watching these games, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking at these games, their storylines, and their characters critically.

i need people to understand that it is an immense privilege to be able to turn them off and "ignore the campaign" while casually reblogging the occasional post about palestine. you are allowed to enjoy these games, and you are allowed to be angry and hurt over soap's death. these games are allowed to be a form of escapism for you, but i am begging you all to think more critically about the choices activision is making here, and understand that escapism doesn't mean you can disregard and ignore those choices.

and i think a lot of people, those who post about palestine in particular, should think about why this fandom is placing more importance on a white character's death than the blatant and egregious islamophobia and military propaganda.

[strangecritters]

[I.D. A crochet doll of an alien known as a Knight. The alien has a living helmet with its own separate eyes and spikes on its head, and the host "wearing" it is all white with much smaller eyes. The alien is wearing a long blue and teal cape like garment with two pockets on each side. It is also wearing a neck brace. /end I.D.]

My gift for a discord secret santa event for @styllwaters! I made a sketch of a Knight OC a while ago but I decided to bring her into the 3D realm. She's an Aikka polar with a Fejga mountain helmet. Since the weight is a bit much, she wears a neck brace during day to day life. I also hope to make a wheelchair for her as she doesnt have any back legs.

Most of this is my own design with the base body and head from a su lion design. Making patterns has never been so fun.

Bonus close up pics under the cut

[rottenjirai]

I have to become pretty how else will I matter to others.

[uhhhhhmaybe]

Yes I'm thinking about mercy and its gorgeousness. No I will not stop thinking about pup.

[mmothmanners]

It has been one of the hardest weeks I've ever had to experience in a long time. I had to say goodbye to my dog of fourteen years suddenly - it was especially draining as I had been the only one there with him until, luckily, my brother & SIL was able to be with him and I at the end.

I figured this update was necessary as I'm a little off kilter and will be for the next bit.