#my inbox has been almost nothing but srt and fandom discourse for years and i am TIRED

[bluerosesburnblue]

You guys are all way too nice, holy shit. Seriously, I’m flattered that you all sent such nice messages my way and that some of you really benefited from the SRT debunk. Really, when I listed out the pros and cons, there was a reason the top two pros were that I got a lot of messages like some of these and I am, genuinely, glad that it helped a lot of people be more comfortable in the KH fandom. The only reason I bothered to do it all the way until the end was because I knew that some people really needed it as a safe space in the fandom at the time

That said, I think some of you kiiiiiind of missed the point I was trying to make (in the nicest way possible, you’re all very sweet). I don’t regret the good that came out of the SRT debunk. I am, however, also aware that projects like that tend to bring out my more competitive and bitter argumentative side, which I’m not proud of and I’m trying hard not to feed into unless I have to. That, and I’m now more acutely aware than ever of how polarizing and aggressive the fandom can be. I still adore Kingdom Hearts (some recent plot decisions notwithstanding) and I doubt that’s going to change or that I’m going to stop talking about it altogether, but the fandom drama exhausts me and I’m the type of person who feels compelled to get involved to set things straight. So if I get involved, I get into an argument that frustrates and exhausts me. If I don’t, I get stuck in a headspace where I’m constantly repeating the arguments that I would have made on repeat because my dumb anxiety brain wants validation that it’s a good argument. The easiest way to avoid that is to just stay away from the greater fandom

Which can be really difficult to do when I have this little precedent set up that I am, apparently, pretty good at arguing against fandom bullshit and a lot of people want me to “go full SRT” on things that bother them. But if someone sends me stuff and I don’t respond, I feel guilty. You see how that all builds up?

And it’s not like I’m going to stop doing other, original stuff either. But you have to understand that it takes effort for me to make posts on it, and if nobody shows that they care about those posts then I’m simply going to stop sharing. What’s the point of going out of my way to write 45 pages worth of an AU summary if half of the people who asked to see it don’t even look at it, and the other half don’t tell me what they think of it? Now, am I going to stop making the AU for myself? Hell no. But I’m not going to shout about it on here if precedent shows that no one’s going to listen. Creators and even debaters thrive on response, on that interaction. Lack of reception indicates that no one cares and I’m not going to waste my time sharing if the one thing that I’m looking for when I post, that interaction with the ideas I’m putting out, isn’t going to be there

You guys know you can just... talk to me about things, right? I would kill for half of the passion that I got for being bitter about the SRT to go towards pretty much anything else that I do. Seriously, ask me about my original projects and OCs. Talk to me about other fandoms besides KH! Kingdom Hearts isn’t the only thing that I’m interested in, and I’m sure plenty of you have other shared interests with me. If you see me mention a series that you’ve never heard of but you’re curious, you can talk to me about that, too! You think I won’t ramble on forever explaining why I like that thing?

I reblog my own content to try and get extra attention and I’m lucky if it gets three notes, I try to promote my buddy’s stream that I guest starred on and nobody shows up, but the second that I so much as mention in the tags of someone else’s post that I read a document that was SRT adjacent, suddenly now my inbox is blowing up with people who want to talk about it and the SRT again after being mostly dead for a while. You see what kind of message that sends me?

Doing the SRT debunk got me pigeonholed as a KH Discourse/Lore Discussion person, but I’m a lot more than that. That’s the real issue here. Not that I regret doing the debunk and don’t think that doing it was the right thing, but that whenever I try to move on from the view of me that people got during it and try to be something more, nobody feels like talking anymore. So, really, yes I’m so glad that you enjoyed the SRT debunk. But it’s also been almost two years since I finished it and yet I’m still just ���the SRT debunk person” to a lot of people even when I don’t bring it up on my own at all. So, please, can we all just move on a little from it? I know that’s what most of you first came for, but that’s not all I am