#putting them all together bc yes I don’t want to clog the blog more than it is

[harapeveco]

Eve Harapeco truly invented lesbians huh🏳️‍🌈

[hobidreams]

This is the beginning of a long ask bc i have so much to say! I found your tonight MLT randomly but as soon as i realised you were the author of MOTH i had to follow you immediately. You make the most amazing intriguing fanfics i have ever seen and MLT is one of the best examples. I am in luv w the fic you don’t understand. I come to your page almost everyday to see other’s questions, your answers, your announcements and even get happy when you get complements YOU DESERVE THEM 🥰🥰 okay let’s get into the matter now. Yoongi is my ultimate bias wrecker and when i tell you MLT is breaking my heart i mean it 😭😭 why is he so complicated. Oc really out here giving him chances when i would give him the middle finger every time he opened his mouth bc of the way he treats her. It’s so obvious they both love each other but yoongi UUURRGH. The last update gave me so much hope i just want them to be happy 😭😭 pls rain stop breaking my heart (PLS CONTINUE I love the pain 🤪) Also going back to 2nd chapter you mentioned oc has rumours about her being a whore. I was hopping you would expand on that. Does yoongi know? If so what does he think? I mean he removed all concubine from the rooms close to him so it was obvs that some rumours would start but to the extent the king would hear? Also don’t the advisors be on his neck for not looking for a queen? Or to have an heir? You said she is from the a lower status in the series but is there a way yoongi can make her a concubine? I want them to be together so much but so far I can’t see how😭😭😩 Lastly you said the fic will have 45 parts. If by any chance you have to leave tumblr for whatever reason (many of my favs left bc of the fandom and to take care of their mental healthbc of tumblr. Feel free to do so if needed you should put yourself first before anyone!!) do you think you might end it short, leave it unfinished or finish the series completely and then leave? I get extremely anxious whenever i start a new series on a big page bc ik they get stressed out bc of the hate, deadlines and trying to cope w outside life and life in social media so they end up disappearing without finishing them and i get worried something happened to them or they are having a hard time so pls take care of yourself especially now more than ever ❤️-🐬

hi babe this is such a sweet ask 😭💗 i will put my answer under a cut so i don’t clog dashes!

wahhh seriously i’m so glad that this blog is a space that makes you WANT to come back so often. i’ve never really run any type of blog like this (or at least never on this level) before i joined tumblr & i’m delighted to have found a space here. everyone’s questions are so fascinating & i love answering!!!!

hahah yes, i think an inherant part of my interest in historical fiction is all the regulations/rules that result in SO MUCH PINING. i love yearning, and MLT is no exception. RE: your questions... some of them will be addressed in the series so i won’t spoil them now hehe. but i will mention that in december 1868, Yoongi removed the concubines that “remain” from Hamhwadang Hall. maybe think about the implications of that word 👀 though it won’t be too clear until... probably after drabble 16. normally, OC could not be made an official concubine because of her/her mother’s rank, but we’ll see how the story shapes up, hm? ;)

& thank u for worrying abt me! the chances of me leaving Tumblr before the series is done is very low, but i can't promise that the series will be uploaded on a weekly basis until. my motivation wanes as the school year goes on so we'll have to see ;; but i made a commitment to start it so i'm determined to finish it! i've actually never gotten any anon hate on this blog before, which makes me so happy that this can be a kind space, so you don't have to worry abt my leaving bc of that. more like i lose motivation altogether 😅 but kind comments like this charge me right up!!! if, in the worst case scenario, smth does happen, i'll probably make a post detailing how the story would have ended. so at least u would know how it would have gone!

[azuremist]

So, this post will dip its toes into some of The Discourse™, because today, I will be talking about something I found in the Professor Layton fandom that made me want a Burger King pissy meal. This may not be entirely coherent, as I am a very emotional person, but then again, neither are any of my posts, really. In case any of you are wondering, this is 100% okay to reblog, but if you aren’t an abuse survivor or have PTSD, don’t clown around on this fucking post. This is under a ‘read more’ because, believe me, you do not want this to be clogging up your dash. As many of you know, I’m autistic, so when I’m passionate about something, I tend to infodump, so this may be quite long.

 This post will also be covering possibly triggering topics, so please read at your own risk.

 Now, this post will be about a blog entirely irrelevant to this, except for the fact that it is where this whole thing is happening. I will not be tagging that blog, because I do not think the moderator of the blog is at fault or anything, they just happen to be a confession blog where people put their opinions on; opinions which I will be talking about today. But for anyone interested in seeing the posts, they’re @/professorlaytonconfessions. Obviously, don’t witchhunt, but I’d hope you all would know that by now.

 So lately, as anyone following that blog may know, the hot topic of discussion is how Luke’s parents are portrayed as abusive in the Professor Layton fandom so that Luke can be portrayed as having PTSD/being adopted by Hershel, and how that is apparently a bad thing. Which, allow me to clarify: if you do not portray Clark and Brenda that way, that is totally fine. What is not fine is the way that these people react to an abuse survivor saying that they portray Luke’s parents that way to cope.

So, here is the original post in question:

 (“Luke’s parents are not abusive. Clark and Brenda Triton ARE NOT ABUSIVE. You can say Luke was adopted by Hershel or whatever but the Tritons aren’t and never were abusive.”)

 This, from what I can tell, appears to be the first post on this matter. And, while it isn’t as bad as some of the stuff we’ll be seeing later, there is some stuff to unpack. Mainly, their language in saying that people can do one thing (say Luke was adopted by Hershel), but can’t do another (portray them as abusive). Can it be frustrating if a fandom misrepresents your favorite characters consistently? Of course it is!! I’m not saying it’s not! But what I am saying is that you can’t tell people how they can and cannot portray characters. It’s their choice. If you do not like it, then look for content of the Tritons elsewhere. Or, make it yourself! Everyone has the power to make the exact kind of content they want to see, if they just make it themselves. And if you don’t think of yourself as talented, commission somebody to write or draw it! Freelance artists need the money, you want the content… It’s a win-win.

 However, a different anon replies with this confession:

“You guys can say that Clark wasn’t abusive in canon, and I guess I’ll agree. But fictional characters can be whatever we want, and some people want to project onto Luke and his relationship with his parents. Don’t make abuse victims feel bad for projecting themselves onto fictional characters.”

 And this? This is a perfectly reasonable statement. It is true that abuse survivors can project onto Luke’s relationship with his parents, and it is understandable that, as such, they may get upset when seeing a post that (as we just covered) tells people what they can and cannot do with these characters. People, especially people with trauma, project onto characters so much that it has become practically a meme, of sorts, especially in the artist/writing community. I would know, as I do this a lot, as well. So, while the tone of this post reads to me as slightly more frustrated than I initially was upon reading the original post, it’s honestly not a good feeling when somebody criticisms your healthy coping mechanisms just because they don’t like how you portray a character; especially if, like me, you struggled for a long time with unhealthy coping mechanisms before finding this one.

 And while I wish this was the end, and this could just be a nice post about how traumatized people cope, someone decided to send in the coldest, most brain-dead take here today, in my opinion:

“my good dude, a fictional character may be a fictional character but they are still a… character. that’s literally the meaning of the word. they’re not blank slates. as someone who really adores luke’s parents, this is just really awful and pretty dismissive, please just move your projections elsewhere.”

 Now, this is so much to unpack that I feel tempted to throw away the whole damn suitcase. But okay, sure, let’s take a crack at it. Someone replied, to an abuse survivor, saying that projecting onto these fictional characters to cope with their literal trauma, by saying that their healthy coping mechanism is ‘just really awful’. Why? Because they really adore the characters, of course! That’s more important than an abuse survivor learning to heal from what horrible thing traumatized them! Of course! Yes, perfectly reasonable. (For those of you who have trouble reading it, that was sarcasm.) And then, immediately followed that insensitive remark with an almost doubly insensitive remark: ‘Just move your projections elsewhere.’ This truly shows how much this particular person cares about how two characters are portrayed over how a trauma survivor feels. The utter lack of respect to say, ‘Just move your projections elsewhere,’ to a real person with PTSD trying to cope, just because they dislike seeing fictional people get portrayed as bad people, is lacking empathy in every sense.

 For those who do not understand, allow me to make a comparison. Imagine a soldier with PTSD, who has a service dog to stop them from having a panic attack in public. Their service dog helps them cope with their trauma, and makes them feel safe. Now imagine that they took their service dog to their favorite public place. Perhaps a diner they went to when they were younger, someplace that comforts them… And someone in the restaurant came up to them and said, ‘As someone who hates dogs, this is awful and pretty dismissive. Please just take your canine elsewhere.’

 Now this may seem like an extreme comparison, but let me tell you, as someone who has both PTSD and a service dog: it’s not, really. Either way, you’re calling the way someone copes with their trauma awful for wanting to exist in a place (the diner, the Professor Layton fandom) where they can feel safe.

 Now, let’s just move on from that bordering-on-ableist post, because there are still more things to go. Here is the next post:

“This isn’t aimed at abuse survivors… it’s more that there are so many artists in the fandom (a lot of popular ones) who push for this headcanon that the Tritons were horrible parents and Luke should stay with Layton instead. (Some artists outright refuse to draw the Tritons??? What?) As a fan of the Triton family, it makes me feel bad… no one ever projects these kind of headcanons onto a character who deserves it, like Descole (the one who ACTUALLY tried to hurt Luke) or Randall ect.”

 Okay, so first. ‘This isn’t aimed at abuse survivors, it’s more… so artists’. Implying that artists can’t be abuse survivors? Yes, this even includes ‘a lot of the popular ones’. Just because someone doesn’t say they have PTSD does not mean that they do not have it. You are not, and never will be, entitled to personal information, and that includes diagnosis. The exact artists you are making this vent about may very well be an abuse survivor, but you just don’t know. You shouldn’t have to know to decide whether or not someone is ‘valid enough’ to portray a certain character a certain way. Same goes for people who refuse to draw the Tritons all together. I’m going to say it again: you are not entitled to personal information, and that includes why someone may not want to draw a certain character.

 And, you feel bad? How bad do you think the traumatized people who are drawing this stuff feel? This is just like the autism moms who say stuff like, “But their autism is so hard on me!”

And, as for why they don’t project these headcanons onto Descole and Randall… Maybe it’s because they were abused by their parents specifically, and want to make Luke go through the exact same thing they did. Maybe they just like Descole and Randall more than the Tritons. But then again, as I’ve said: you are NOT! Entitled! To personal! Information!!

“people’s headcanons, preferences and interpretations are not a personal attack. people like and dislike the same things and that’s okay. don’t take someone disliking something you like personally bc I can guarantee it’s not personal.”

 This one is easily the most tolerable of everything we’ve seen, but there are still certain things I’d like to point out. Particularly, ‘Don’t take someone disliking something you like personally.’ Because, for abuse survivors, it isn’t as simple as a matter as ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’. It’s how you cope. It’s how you feel safe. Fictional characters mean so much to people with mental illnesses and/or disabilities, so of course we may take it personally if you decide to tell us how we can enjoy them. And calling coping mechanisms ‘liking something’ seems to be infantilizing the issue quite a bit. But with that being said, again, this isn’t too terribly bad. Unlike this next one, which is, yet again, just a god-awful, brain-dead take.

“i feel like an issue in this fandom is that often artists who get popular have these awful headcanons (like luke’s parents being abusive.) and because those artists are popular it feels like their hcs are EVERYWHERE and people copy them just to get in their good books. when in truth they’re probably just a vocal minority’

 And here we have, again, the return of the assumption that artists (even these ‘popular artists’ that you are trying so desperately to blame) do not have PTSD. Just, assumptions everywhere. We also see the return of the descriptor ‘awful’ to describe how abuse victims cope, which is just… Well, you know. And this particular post leaves me with so many questions! Most of them of the ‘how do you know who and who isn’t traumatized’ variety. “How do you know that artists, even popular artists, aren’t abuse victims?” “So, is what you’re proposing that abuse victims just don’t ever make vent art involving these characters? Or, at least, not post them anywhere?” “How do you know that the people presumably ‘copying the popular artists’ aren’t abuse survivors, either?” There are quite a large amount of assumptions being made here, and it’s just frustrating to see. Anybody can be traumatized, anybody can be trauma victims trying to cope. But, also, say it with me now: YOU ARE NOT ENTITLED TO PERSONAL INFORMATION, TO SEE WHO AND WHO ISN’T ‘VALID ENOUGH’ TO PORTRAY A CHARACTER A CERTAIN WAY.

 And, with that final post, we are up to date with all of the current posts on the matter. Now, allow me to remind you that ALL OF THOSE POSTS WERE IN RESPONSE TO AN ABUSE SURVIVOR SAYING THAT THEY USED LUKE AND THE TRITONS TO COPE WITH THEIR TRAUMA. Every time someone insinuated that no artists had trauma, called the headcanon ‘awful’, all of that, was in response to a literal, real-life traumatized person. Because… What? They portrayed a character in a bad way? So they should just find a whole new coping mechanism, and ditch this one that works, just because you, a stranger on the internet, told them to?

 So you may be asking yourself, “Azure, I have read 2,000 words of your ragetyping. What is the point of all of this?’ Well, my friend, besides just getting all of this out of my system, I think the point of this can be summarized quite concisely by a post made by @/your-fave-has-ptsd: “It is far more important for us (people with trauma) to see ourselves in the media than it is for us to stay true to canon.”

 So, if you put how a fictional character is portrayed over abuse survivors’ feelings (and, again, I must reiterate: you don’t know who does and doesn’t have PTSD), then maybe you should really reevaluate your priorities. If you don’t like how someone portrays Luke’s relationship with his parents, maybe just make the content that you want to see yourself, and block those who make the content you do not want to see. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.