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onelinemanytimes · 3 years

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To all people who enjoy content:

There is a HUGE issue that needs to be addressed in how people react to things online and how they decide to deal with perceived issues. Specifically, in regards to content creators online, and the content they create.

I want to clarify, this post is talking for the most part about creators who did something multiple years ago that they currently don’t agree with. I’m not talking about people who are CURRENTLY horrible people, but if you want to know please do ask.

Basic synopsis: Purity culture is being used to shame people for their interests and to actively control and manipulate what people are “allowed” to like, which is often harmful and toxic; it is also being used to condemn people for the entire rest of their lives over doing something in their past, with no regards to if an apology was offered- which is harmful to people trying to unlearn toxic mindsets and be better people in the present day.

So, let’s talk about Purity Culture. I don’t know what else to call it, so if someone has a better name for it go ahead and say it- but, essentially, “The idea that every piece of media you consume must itself be good, AND has to have been made by a “good person”,” with no exceptions. This belief means that if a creator is seen as a bad person, or the media itself has a troubling aspect, you are NOT allowed to like it, DO NOT INTERACT, YOU’RE PROBLEMATIC AS HELL TOO IF YOU LIKE IT!!!!

That may sound like an exaggeration, but it’s only mildly so. There is, however, a much more harmful part to this mentality: Judging people for things they did years ago, and not allowing them to apologize and be forgiven, and USING this purity culture ideal against THEM as well. The idea that people can’t be forgiven, can’t change, and have to have been perfect always to be valid is extremely, extremely toxic and harmful, full stop. There are so many underlying issues that can both lead to someone being “problematic,” but that is so much less the issue than the fact doing this discourages real change.

People DO change over time. And if you find out someone did something in their past, you ARE allowed to not forgive them! However; That does NOT mean you should condemn them and everything they do as problematic horrible and unforgivable, and ATTACK other people and make WARNING posts in the tone of them STILL being “””Problematic”””! That is in some cases, BLATANT MISINFORMATION, and in most cases, encouraging the mentality that people don’t change.

Now, who is this a problem for? Because someone saying horrible things about minorities of any kind is legitimately harmful in its own right, and can hurt people who find it, which deserves to be addressed. (Again, YOU are not required to forgive them, and you have the freedom to not engage.) Purity Culture hurts People with RSD (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria), and people who cannot control what they hyperfixate on. It can ALSO harm people who are struggling to get past toxic mentalities for any reason, and people who are trying to improve themselves and be better., and people who HAVE improved themselves and gotten better after being a person with (arguably) horrible views.

For people who experience RSD, seeing people denounce a piece of media for “””Something problematic””” (creator or otherwise), and in some cases seeing people ATTACK those who enjoy that media, can be physically painful and extremely, extremely stressful. Especially with the prevalence of this mentality right now, it makes engaging with anything a VERY stressful experience, because if what you enjoy isn’t perfect in every way you will be shamed for it, and rejected for it, and actively hated for it, and there is NO compromise on that point.

This is twice as volatile an issue when you ALSO cannot wholly control what your brain hyperfixates on. Hyperfixation (the word) has two main uses; in regards to a single task/activity (in which you’re unable to pull yourself out of said task and cannot switch focus to anything else), and in regards to media consumption (having an intense, very focused interest in media or a character, that can feel very consuming and intense in some cases. This extends even MORE so to special interests).

Hyperfixations in those who are neurodivergent (don’t think the same as the wider population- such as people with ADHD and Autism, amongst other things) are NOT typically something they can control. Not without exceptional effort and potential detriment- one of the fairly unfortunate coping mechanisms I have for this (speaking, yes, as someone with ADHD) is to Completely ignore new media, wholesale, to avoid gaining a hyperfixation in relation to that media. Even still, I obviously still SEE things because I exist in the world and things are everywhere- and while I can enjoy content normally, it is MUCH different when I see something and feel unable to focus on ANYTHING else for WEEKS on end.

You can hyperfixate on something before learning about “X problematic thing,” and then when you’ve already gotten very attached and deep into the media people will start attacking you with it! And saying “Oh, you like THAT??? That was made by a super problematic person, you can’t like that!!!” It’s EXTREMELY difficult to explain how harmful that is when I A: Can’t control it, B: Didn’t know, and C: Suffer from RSD in the first place. It DOES NOT stop you from engaging with the content, because you are hyperfixated on it and you literally can’t avoid it, but it DOES overwhelm you with guilt and make you withdraw from the people around you because now YOU must be problematic and horrible and you’re a horrible person for liking this media and everyone must HATE you.

The above was not an exaggeration. That is legitimately how it feels.

People are talking about how “Cringe Culture is dead,” but it being replaced by a MUCH more insidious “Purity Culture” that is MUCH MORE toxic, MUCH MORE manipulative, and also inherently flawed to begin with!!! You CAN’T and SHOULDN’T be a perfect person, that is why you CHANGE AND GROW. You should ALSO be judging a piece of media on its OWN merits, NOT on the merits of what’s behind it (not wholesale like people are intent on doing).

Now, all things in moderation. If a piece of media was created with malicious or biased opinions in its core: It IS important to address that, and to acknowledge that this aspect is not something you should support, and something to be mindful of when thinking about the content. It’s also good to be aware of how people currently are when participating in media spaces- you don’t have to be perfect at this, but if you don’t want to engage with things made by people who have horrible current views that is absolutely your choice.

However, this doesn’t excuse constantly shaming and attacking people, ESPECIALLY people who are aware of a media’s flaws and able to both recognize that and amend that in a respectful, understanding way. You can enjoy a story about a murderer without also being a murderer and knowing that murder is wrong. This extends to other actions as well by the way (and the desensitization of people to murder in modern day media is also a wild topic for another day because wow some people really be out here like “yeah literally ending someone’s life in fiction is fine but x is absolutely abhorrent and unforgivable,” like what??).

The real thing here is, this: If you don’t like content, or you cannot in good conscience enjoy that content knowing about something that happened relating to it: Don’t interact! If you are for some reason, stuck participating in and interacting with something you personally feel is horrible, don’t shame and hurt other people for more honestly enjoying it, especially the good parts. What you CAN do is inform people, respectfully!

And with ALL the details please. Because I see a lot of times, especially with creators: Someone will dig up something the creator said years ago and say, “THIS CREATOR IS (X) YOU CAN’T SUPPORT THEM OR ENJOY WHAT THEY MAKE BECAUSE IT’S PROBLEMATIC!!!” And, actually: They have since apologized for what they said, and actively made efforts to change. “But they did it in the past” Is NOT a valid argument, and honestly?? If you’re the same person you were even two years ago, that’s wild, and I hope you’ll understand that some people can change drastically in that time after being properly informed about issues.

Again: If you don’t want to interact with a piece of media, okie dokie! It’s up to us to respect that, and to tag our stuff and not shove it down your throat, y’know? But maybe, if you don’t like something, you shouldn’t decide to hurt the people who do like it, because I think that’s pretty harmful, and man imagine someone digging into your life 3 years ago and finding one sentence you said to judge your entire life on and force people to hate you with. Haha that’d suck, right?

If you read all this wow thanks, and also I’m well aware most my fellows with ADHD probably skimmed it because yeah it is a lot man whoops- I’ve just been thinking about it for a while because yeah. Yeah. “I do not control the hyperfixation” is not just a funny meme y’all it’s a thing and it’s legitimately exhausting and painful to see everything you enjoy be hated and be told you’re wrong for liking it in any way, shape, or form.

#fnf #Friday Night Funkin #Yes this is about friday night funkin #long post #ADHD #important #if you have a problem with this #I give you permission to send asks and slide into my dms #I would be absolutely willing to have an open respectful conversation w ya #This post is a bit meanly worded sometimes #Sorry about that!

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astringofmadhousefloozies · 3 years

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Magicam Live

Vil’s guest is a pest. Contains coarse language, people being catty bitches, and more telling than showing.

You want more, check my Twisted Wonderland Fanfiction tag. If you liked it, let me know!

~*~*~*~

Transcript of Last Week's Magicam Live From *schoenheit_official

Vil: Hello my dearest fans! As promised, I will be showing off my newest capsule makeup collection, to be released this Monday exclusively at Feathersweep Cosmetics. However, due to high demand, instead of simply demonstrating on myself, I thought I would show that anyone could be half as beautiful as me with these!

[He holds a hand out to the side.]

V: Please welcome my fellow student at Night's Raven College, Yuu.

Yuu: Yo.

[A girl with short, dark hair and tired eyes sits down beside him. Spotty and plump, with a notable double chin. She's notably underdressed, compared to Vil.]

Y: I am she. I'm *donegotisekaid, if you haven't seen yet. Full of genuine memes from another universe, as well as me figuring this place out, and pictures of my not-cat.

V: She's simply been begging me for a makeover!

Y: He asked me if I'd do it, actually.

[Vil stops and takes a deep breath, clearly irritated.]

V: Yes, well. You've prepared?

Y: I scrubbed my face real good and managed to leave most of my pimples alone, if that's what you mean.

[Vil sighs]

V: As much as you're capable of, clearly. We'll start with the primer.

Y: [with a smile] Didn't you already give me one on how to act in this?

[Vil pinched the bridge of his nose, regret pouring from every cell in his body.]

V: Just lie back and be quiet until I'm done with you.

[Yuu looks at the camera, but says nothing. There's an audible snicker from behind the camera.]

[There are a few quiet minutes where Vil prepares her face, before selecting a foundation.]

V: So, is there a reason you don't wear makeup? You could look quite nice with it.

Y: Few reasons. It's a lot of effort, and I tire easily. I don't really like the feel of it on my face, and I tend to touch my face a lot anyways, so it doesn't last. It's a lot of money, and I break out very easily.

V: I can see that. Don't you use face wash?

Y: You should have seen me when I did use it! Much worse.

V: Ugh. I'll give you something later. And none of these have a good tone for you.

Y: Just pick the closest! I'll end up wrecking it by a few hours from now anyways.

[Vil rolled his eyes.]

V: Rook, any questions from the chat?

[A familiar accented voice from offscreen]

Rook: *stellargems wants to know how Yuu found herself at NRC.

Y: Transdimensional bullshit. I'm here until we figure out how I can get home. It's not bad, I don't miss it much.

V: Yuu even has her own dorm so she doesn't have to bother anyone.

Y: Not that it stops me.

V: [sotto voce] Don't we all know.

Y: If they kept you in a building with four usable rooms total and no electricity, you'd be out and about too. At least the ghosts there are really nice and help me out.

V: Do you kiss these ones too, or was that a one time thing?

Y: If I hadn't kissed her we'd be down a student and you and half the people I hang out with would be paralyzed, so don't make fun.

[Vil stops to regard the camera.]

V: To clarify, there was an incident with a ghost princess causing a lot of trouble at the school a few months ago. Yuu decided to kiss her to fix everything, because she's both stupid and deeply strange.

Y: It was really fun until I started dying.

V: All her blood was on the outside. It was disgusting.

Y: It did work though!

V: Keep telling yourself that, you didn't kiss the one you really wanted to.

[Yuu gives him the finger, and Vil shoves her hand down.]

R: *vilpleasefathermychildren asks-

[Yuu sputters with laughter. Vil just winks at the camera with a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.]

R: They want to know if there'll be a coupon code for the new release.

V: There will! It'll be released via the official fanclub email Sunday night.

Y: It'll be a whole three percent off and you have to pay to access it.

V: Stop that.

Y: [sweetly] No.

Rook: *getterbackback wants to know what your shirt says?

Y: Yeah, hold on.

[She stands and pulls the shirt out to be seen better. It says in large letters, I'M CUTE AND I BITE]

Y: You can do one yourself if you take a dark shirt, tape the parts you want covered, and scorch the area around it with diluted bleach. I've done a few of these, a few designs more than once.

V: Destroyed them?

Y: Nah, Lil wants at least one of every one I do.

V: [to the camera] That would be our fellow student Lilia Vanrouge, from Diasomnia.

Y: He's pretty great. He's *elderbatbrat if you want to look him up.

V: Sit back down so I can figure out which blush to use.

Y: Pinks and corals work best for my skin tone.

V: I thought you didn't wear makeup?

Y: Why do you think I know wearing it tires me out? It's not something I ever did a lot because of the effort.

Y: Except for highlighter. it's basically sparkles and it's light, so I like that.

V: You remember that, but not your proper name?

Y: Ain't life grand.

R: I'm getting several questions about that. Would you care to elabourate for the chat?

Y: Yeah. I don't remember a lot about where I'm from. Culturally? Lots. What I like? What I don't like? Everything. Names and places specific to who I was? No. And don't ask me to think about it too hard, I get the worst fucking headache and I stop seeing right.

V: You've never seen right in your life.

Y: Oh, fuck off, Vil.

[Vil stops blushing one cheek to point.]

V: Stop that.

[Yuu responds by biting at his finger with an audible click when her teeth meet, laughing hysterically as Vil pulls back in shock.]

V: !!! Dreadful little monster!

Y: Yeah, but you're the one who thought you'd get more views if I was here.

R: We indeed just surged another 20,000 views and counting! Excellent work, Yuu.

Y: Thank you, Rook.

[Vil looks ready to explode.]

Y: I won't bite again, that was just too easy. Please continue, I do want to see what magic you can do.

V: This is regular makeup.

Y: Metaphorically, you jackass.

R: *rosemassacre wants to know if you're always like this.

V: She's always this horrible.

Y: Vil first saw me and called me a dumpy little potato. I told him it's because I'm great all ways and everyone wants a taste, and slapped my ass at him. He's been obsessed with me ever since.

V: I am not obsessed with you.

R: You go into a rage over her at least once a week.

V: She can't go a week without being a pest.

Y: I went three after you kicked me out of the movie club.

V: You can't just project violence on the walls of Pomfiore because I said we weren't going to watch it!

Y: Vil, it was The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and it is art.

V: A man gets sawed in half in the first ten minutes.

Y: To an absolutely bangin' soundtrack. Oh that reminds me. Ad time, hold on.

[She wiggles a little before puting on her best customer service face.]

Y: If you want to access media that is quite literally from another world, please go to MonstroMedia dot com and sign up! There's ebooks, movies, tv, music, and more. Much of it is horror, sci-fi and fantasy, as it's from my person collection of media brought with me on my laptop and backup drives. You can use the code SHOENHEITSAYSWHAT for the first month free!

[She put her hand up and lowered her voice to a conspiratorial tone.]

Y: I completely understand piracy, but I'd appreciate if you paid because this is the only way I get spending money, and I can only bat my eyes at these boys so much before they expect something in return for gifts.

V: How'd Ashengrotto talk you into that one?

Y: He was going to make me start paying for all the food I eat if I didn't.

R: *waterwitchesbetgitches says, and I quote, "so like if ur the only gal at NRC how many boyfs you have"

Y: So many. At least twenty. Even more if there were girls here.

V: That is a gross exaggeration. She has maybe three, if we're being very generous on the definition.

Y: [points] And he's mad he's not one of them.

V: [squinting] You are absolutely dreadful and I can't understand how you're so popular.

Y: I like you too, Vil.

[Vil pauses, visibly taken aback.]

V: ... Thank you.

V: You know you're going to have paparazzi on your tail now, right?

Y: Aw, shit.

R: *insertmagicamhandlehere wants to know what's on your neck.

V: An antique chain with an attached charm specially made for me by Soleil Atelier.

R: I believe that was for Yuu.

[Yuu snickers, as Vil looks for himself. When her collar is pulled down, it fully reveals a vicious set of hickeys with visible toothmarks.]

V: Eww.

Y: You should see the other guy.

V: Eww!

[Vil takes a moment to recover, while Yuu laughs.]

Y: That could be a second part! Everyone needs that tutorial. "Bruise Coverup How-to by Vil Shoenheit: For when you just can't keep them off of you."

[Vil mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like "nerds shouldn't be allowed to fuck"]

Y: Then where would your fans be?

V: At least there's only setting spray after this and then you can leave.

Y: Won't you get bored without me here?

R: One last question! *shroudstreaming has asked... well, there's a lengthy keysmash and an all-caps "why".

Y: Ah. Hi, babe!

Y: Hey, everyone go follow him, he's a total fucking babe and he refuses to take my word for it, no matter what I do to him-

[Vil sprays setting spray directly in her face, leading to Yuu coughing.]

V: No taste at all, and gross to boot.

Y: Asshole.

[Vil offers a mirror]

V: No. Miracle worker.

[Yuu looks... well, the same, but with an even, well made-up face.]

Y: ... Aww. You remembered I like sparkles.

V: Less likely to scrub it off if you actually like it.

[Yuu's admiring herself for a few moments in silence, with Vil watching, quite pleased.]

Y: Hey, can I do you next?

V: Absolutely not.

Y: Ask the chat.

V: No.

R: Chat says yes.

V: [With a visible eye roll] Ugh, fine.

Y: Aight. Take your shirt off.

V: What.

[Yuu brings up a case and flips it open. Inside is a magazine with a gory cover, and various things like fake blood and liquid latex.]

Y: Alright kiddies. You wanna learn how to slit a man's throat?

[Vil gets up and walks away without another word.]

Y: You said I could! Get back here!

[Yuu follows. Rook emerges from behind the camera.]

R: That's it for tonight, ma belles. Next time.

[Magicam Live ends, but not before audible yelling and scuffling, quickly cut off.]

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland fanfiction #vil schoenheit

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kiranatrix · 3 years

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I feel like the nature of Light’s ideology and his methods get caricatured a great deal in the fandom (especially by those who only viewed the anime). I keep seeing popular memes about Light killing petty shoplifters who are only attempting to feed their family and I always get the sense that they’re largely inaccurate (for the most part). Light notices in the Yotsuba arc that Kira’s sentencing spares those: who’ve served their sentences and improved their ways, who committed justifiable crimes, and who have shown remorse. So it feels off to seeing portrayed that way, especially when Light’s elimination of innocents (such as the FBI agents, Naomi, etc...) are usually for strategic purposes, intended to help him progress ahead. Not to mention this pervasive belief that Light apparently didn’t know that he would be bound to sentence some innocents to death (with his large kill count per day). Wouldn’t it be more likely that Light knew that it was inevitable and was willing to sacrifice those lives for “the greater good,” in his view?

This is a doozy of an ask, anon. But it is GLORY bc these are all excellent things for me to ramble about Light (thank you!). I’ll take them point by point, strap in cause this is a bit long. *cracks knuckles*

You’re absolutely right that fandom often boils Light’s character and ideology down to a few basic elements that are distorted, mostly to drag him. Let’s be honest-- it’s fun to drag characters, even our favs-- and pretty much everyone in Death Note deserves it. But it does become annoying when its inaccurate, like with your example about who Kira focused on killing and some others I see. To be clear, this isn’t any kind of apology for the bastardly things Light DID do, but clarifying what he was and wasn’t about.

Did Light kill petty criminals?

The only time it is mentioned that Light kills criminals for non-serious crimes is when he was under surveillance by L (the infamous potato chip scene) and had to kill someone on the news right then, as well as the immediate coverup. In that circumstance, he couldn’t afford to be picky-- he needed L to see a signature Kira death (heart attack) when Light supposedly couldn’t be doing it. The crimes that appeared on the news that night (in his chip bag TV lol) ended up being non-serious criminals, and Light wasn’t so thrilled about this.

Mainly because it meant he had to cover his tracks and kill a few more minor criminals so it really did look like Kira’s work.

But his focus was putting himself in the clear with L; those minor criminals were incidental, and when he had choice/freedom again, he did not focus on them. The ruse didn’t completely work because L thought minor criminals dying was suspicious since it deviated from Kira’s usual MO. So, L knew the real focus.

This was a strategic move in service of, versus reflecting, Light’s ideology. This is something we see pop up again and again for Light. He is willing to do ‘wrong’ for the greater ‘good.’ We also see his distaste for killing petty criminals later when Light rebukes Mikami’s off-script killings in his thoughts. If Kira had been acting this way all along, then the Task Force wouldn’t have been surprised and Light wouldn’t have been pissed off that Mikami was doing it.

Kira was looking for violent criminals who had escaped justice, that’s his main goal. He’s also disagreeing with Mikami’s methods of punishing wrong-doers who paid their debt to society (as opposed to the Death Row criminals I discuss below who haven’t ‘paid their debt’ yet). He doesn’t want people to fear Kira and thinks shooting fish in a barrel, so to speak, would do that. His ideology is not punitive; to him, its about prevention. Petty crime wasn’t on his radar until he had to make that a temporary focus for his safety.

Did Light focus on criminals already in prison?

I’ve seen plenty of posts in the Death Note tag grousing about how Light was ‘dumb’ because he only focused on criminals in prison, but that’s not wholly accurate. The first two names he wrote were criminals he witnessed in the process of a crime with actual victims that needed help (a hostage scenario where the perp had already murdered people, and a man about to rape). Then he went for the Big Bads in the news- the most vicious criminals world-wide.

Other than criminals at large, he DID kill some criminals in prison. The times he did so were:

1) Killing criminals on Death Row who, in the eyes of law enforcement, “deserved the death penalty several times over.” These are criminals who had already been sentenced to die and Kira enacted the ‘justice.’

2) During Light’s ‘testing phase’ of the Death Note when he was trying to understand the rules in a population he could control

3) When he was trying to be conspicuous about deaths for L’s benefit, like throwing off the assumption that Kira was a student. Light knew that those deaths would be found immediately and attributed to Kira.

For 2 and 3, these criminals were likely to be on Death Row given what was said by INTERPOL about who Kira was killing behind bars. Ironically, even L thought Death Row criminals needed to die-- he chose Lind L Tailor from Death Row for his stunt, and said on TV he’d seek the death penalty for Kira. Hmm.

Why did Light kill innocent people?

The innocent people that Light killed include Raye Penber, the rest of the FBI agents in Japan investigating Kira, and Naomi Misora. L and Watari might be considered innocent per Kira’s ideology (Watari had probably murdered people but L had probably not, directly). Rem technically killed L and Watari, but Light certainly wanted them to die and orchestrated it that way. The innocent people that Light WOULD have killed include the Task Force (Mogi, Aizawa, Matsuda, Ide) and the SPK (Halle, Gevanni, Rester, Near,) if he’d won in the warehouse.

The main thread tying all these people together? They were all imminent threats to Light and were actively trying to stop and/or kill him. Killing them would never have crossed his mind if that hadn’t been the case. THAT DOESN’T MEAN HE DIDN’T ENJOY IT. Taking out his enemies was something Light did savor, he really loved that win. But it wasn’t like he wiped out the entire FBI or Japanese police force. Those were not his targets; these were individuals who threatened his goal and life, and he saw their killing as self-defense.

Did Light kill any criminals who were innocent or wrongly convicted?

It’s certainly possible that he did but the manga never touches on it. Given that his MO for killing incarcerated criminals was limited to Death Row, he probably felt like those were safe bets (we know that’s not always the case in the real world, of course). But let’s say that Light, in canon, found out he’d killed someone wrongfully convicted. In the beginning of his journey as Kira (at 17-18), I honestly don’t think he’d given this a lot of thought. What’s funny is that Light was naively, and paradoxically, putting a lot of faith in the human justice system while simultaneously enacting his own justice that relied on having zero faith in the traditional channels. Makes my head spin, but Light is a fascinating character because of that kind of thinking. He championed sweeping ideals of right and wrong, but couldn’t be bothered with getting in the murky details.

But by the time he’d grown up and matured some, especially after becoming part of the police force himself, he would have know it was a possibility. At that point, I agree that he’d view it as an inevitable sacrifice in service of, but not directly reflecting, his ‘greater good,’ like the previous choices he’d made.

So why is Kira’s ideology so often distorted? For one thing, his thinking is kind of convoluted. The anime has less nuance about what Light’s about, and many people just watch that. Another common reason I see for this is that someone really, really hates Light for defeating L, and once we dislike someone it becomes easier to roll in more and more unlikeable qualities into a nasty villain pie. Any trait that is ‘bad’ can be overlaid onto Light because he is ‘bad,’ so it fits right?? Ha....no. He has plenty of bad traits and actions of his own to drag him for without inventing new ones. At the same time, I see L’s flaws and negative traits/actions being hand-waved away or justified because he is their fav. It happened with Minoru, too.

#death note #light yagami #meta #character analysis #asks #anon #anyone who actually reads all this ilu

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waywardrose · 4 years

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On Babbushka

There is a group of well-known writers in the fandom who have been discouraged and put down by one of their own, Zannah - @babbushka. It happens behind the scenes in DMs. It happens in posts and tags.

In DMs, she has started conversations with seemingly innocent questions. When she doesn't receive the response she was aiming for, she diverts the conversation to criticizing and humiliating the person. She has attacked writers for tagging—or not tagging—a post in a way she deems appropriate. She has gotten into arguments over how characters were portrayed and then tried to claim victimization when the other person wouldn't knuckle under.

She will appeal to her following to attack any fan or creator who has an opinion that differs from her own. She will encourage friends to send rude anons. Those same friends will also DM the target with rude remarks.

Several creators have stopped writing altogether because of their interactions with her.

We are tired of being discouraged. We are tired of being talked down to. We are tired of being bullied. Enough is enough. Under the cut we share our stories, let the chips fall where they may. It's up to you, the reader, to decide whether to support her.

We can only warn up-and-coming writers, artists, fans, and supporters of her behavior.

Hope - @callmehopeless

The Australian bushfires of the 2019-2020 season were nightmarish—for those living through it and those witnessing. As the season went on, cries for help increased. Joaquin Phoenix used the time during his Best-Actor acceptance speech at the Golden Globes to call for unity, action, and accountability. Regardless of what we may think of him, it was a thoughtful speech.

Hope, who is an Australian, found Mr. Phoenix's message encouraging and reblogged a gifset of his speech.

That morning, Zannah made a post about Mr. Phoenix's shady past and his association with a known sexual predator. The main reason wasn't because his speech was inappropriate or not timely, but because she didn't think he should be the one to get the attention over other actors who had spoken of the bushfires during the Golden Globes.

While Hope confessed she was scared of the bushfires, scared for her loved ones, Zannah was more concerned with purity. To Zannah it was about the face of the message, not the message itself. It didn't matter that Mr. Phoenix was amplifying support for Australia, what did matter was that he had done bad things.

It was virtue signaling on Zannah's part.

Still, this remains a complicated argument. Can a person who has done bad things actually have something positive to add to a cause? Should we listen to a problematic person if they share an insight? Does it reflect poorly on us to agree with their isolated statement? Will we be canceled, too? What about the bigger picture?

In this case, the bigger picture was hundreds of homes were destroyed in the bushfires and families were displaced. People died, thousands of animals died. And it was because of climate change. Mr. Phoenix called for his rich peers to examine their respective lifestyles and to give back.

Yes, Mr. Phoenix has done bad things. Yes, he has associated with people who have done bad things. His words resonated with people on Tumblr, and they reblogged part of his speech. He said something that gave Hope hope.

Hope was asked by a third party how they could help. She came back with a resource guide for those who wanted to send aid to Australians.

When it became obvious Zannah wouldn't silence Hope, Zannah decided to sub-post about the interaction. There, she accused Hope of being a rape apologist for reblogging a gifset and finding a little comfort in it. Zannah placed her ego before someone who was facing a very real danger.

Side-eying an actor is one thing, shaming a person you know for finding solace during a scary time is another. Hope isn't responsible for which voice got picked up. The only "colors" being shown here are Zannah's. She put her own concerns about being perceived as morally pure above actually supporting a friend.

I'll keep this brief - I knew Zannah for many years. And on one of the lowest weeks of my life, when my suburb was burning down and I feared for my family: she convinced me I was a rape apologist for sharing Joaquin Phoenix's speech asking for action on bushfires. In all my life, I never felt more alone. To add insult to injury, she then posted memes mocking me - something that has stuck with me to this day.

I've had dear friends quit the fandom because of her kinkshaming. I've had people I love message me distraught over what she's said.

Enough is enough.

— @callmehopeless

Rose - @the-wayward-rose

This PM exchange started after I tagged my reblog of Zannah's fic Feast (Cameron Bistle x Reader) with cw: white reader. I had been on her taglist, and I wanted to show support because I liked the fic overall. For context, the reason for my tag is because of this sentence:

"But then you're blushing so pretty and squeezing his hand affectionately and reaching for the handle to the passenger side of his car, and then you're laughing when he swats your hand away to open it for you, and then you're beckoning him down as if to ask a question – only to place a chaste kiss to his lips instead."

This is from Cameron's point of view.

She asked the reason for the tag, and I explained it was because of the use of "blush" to describe Reader's appearance.

She misunderstood my premise. I did not mean only white people blush.

According to Merriam-Webster, blush means "a reddening of the face especially from shame, modesty, or confusion" or "a red or rosy tint."

It is an autonomic response, though. It happens in all humans for body cooling and nonverbal communication. The main problem with using it universally is that melanin obscures the appearance of said autonomic response.

Here's an example of three runners:

The two pale women, left and center, are pink in the face. They are blushing. The woman of color on the right is likely blushing, too. However, the melanin in her skin obscures the blood in her cheeks. She is not pink.

That's the pitfall of the word "blush." The observer can't always see it. We know what it feels like. We all do it. The face and/or neck gets hot. The use of "blush" is shorthand in narrative, and I understand that. Nevertheless, when writing to cater to a reader-insert audience of unknown heritage, writers need to consider describing with universal terms.

Again, she misunderstood my premise. I clarified by asking how Cameron sees the Reader blush under an abundance of melanin:

She sidestepped the physiological explanation to go straight for justification. She tried to legitimize "blush" as "perhaps [this]" or "perhaps [that]" when I stated earlier that blush by definition is pink or is to redden. That's the logic. A noncommittal, covering-all-the-bases, complicated defense diluted the conversation.

With her earlier "I have friends of color, hence I can't be exclusionary" statement, I wasn't sure she would get my point. I take full responsibility for not explaining, too. I should've asked for some time to gather my thoughts, but I didn't. Truthfully, I was unprepared, because I didn't think my insignificant tag would be an issue.

Also, I was confused why she was trying to police my blog.

Her replies came rapidly—before I could mention my confusion—and felt aggressive in the moment. Maybe that wasn't her intention, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That doesn't take away from the fact that words have meaning. It's why we use specific words. It's not understood in the narrative that her use of "blush" could mean a bunch of things. If I had known, I wouldn't have tagged as I did. How is a reader of color supposed to know that? How does Cameron see Reader's blush if she has darker skin?

As writers, we don't know who is reading. Someone could be very pale or very dark. A person with medium-toned skin can turn a shade of pink or red. A person with darker-toned skin will not. We can't assume all readers are medium to pale. We need to develop better writing skills. We have to include everyone.

Readers of color > White-writer feelings

When I stood my ground, she doubled down, stating I made no sense in my tagging and that I lacked the ability to learn from her. She then diverted the argument, attacking a ficlet I wrote a few days beforehand—which had nothing to do with this argument. The Christian imagery in that ficlet was upsetting to her and "in such poor taste" because she headcanons Flip Zimmerman (BlacKkKlansman) is 100% culturally and ethnically Jewish.

Flip stated in the movie:

"I'm Jewish, but I wasn't raised to be. It wasn't part of my life. I never thought much about being Jewish. Nobody around me was Jewish. I wasn't going to a bunch of Bar Mitzvahs. I didn't have a Bar Mitzvah. I was just another white kid. And now I'm in some basement denying it out loud[...] I never thought much about it. Now I'm thinking about it all the time. About rituals and heritage. Is that passing? Well then, I have been passing."

By his own admission, Flip is ethnically Jewish, but not culturally. These are two separate things, and that should be recognized. While Judaism is ethnically and culturally entwined in ways that other religions are not, one does not equate the other. You can be one and not the other.

At the time, I didn't want her to sic her 3000+ followers on me. I wasn't going to argue further. I asked myself if the ficlet was important and worth anon-hate and realized, no, it wasn't. It was a throw-away.

And since I'm not culturally Jewish, maybe I had misstepped. And since Zannah is both culturally and ethnically Jewish, I asked for her guidance.

She flatly refused my request. I don't know how I was supposed to learn from her if she wouldn't teach me.

It sounded as if she wanted me to delete the whole fic. Like none of it was worth saving because it hadn't been Zannah-approved. I had gone against her headcanon, and the fic was too offensive to fix.

The last sentence was supposed to cover her back from criticism, and it placed all the responsibility on me. Obviously, she was above such petty concerns as someone else's blog or writing. Never mind that she had just attempted to get me to change my tagging system and rewrite my ficlet. On my blog.

Later, I figured out she was only criticizing and not offering a constructive critique. Her argument was not in good faith. It was retaliation for not giving her the obedience she thought she was owed.

This is the passage that offended her:

"It’s because of the way he fucks you. Like it’s confession—though he’s never been much of a church-going man. Every touch, every thrust, is a truth between you. Even when it’s rough and greedy. It feels like flagellation when you claw his back. He wears the sin proudly."

This is what I edited it to:

"It’s because of the way he fucks you. Every touch, every thrust, is a truth between you. Even when it’s rough and greedy. It feels like flagellation when you claw his back. He wears your marks proudly."

Yeah, I'm not pleased with the revised passage. It's lost its teeth, but I keep it.

The anonymous message(s) she mentioned weren't very anonymous, either. Unfortunately, I've since deleted the two messages. I had apologized to Anon for disappointing them. I said that if the fic was too much, they should unfollow and block me. I meant that in a self-care way. At the same time, I did not—and do not—owe anyone discourse. I don't have to explain my art when it doesn't hurt anyone. And no one was hurt by some purportedly misplaced religious imagery.

I have been silent about this since late January/early February. I was embarrassed. I had been bullied into changing my blog and my fic by someone who proclaims to never do anything of the sort. I had been a fool. Since this conversation with her, I have been blocked/blacklisted by third-parties, most likely at her behest, when none of this exchange had been necessary.

Kassanovella - @kylorengarbagedump

Zannah's followers have asked her about Kassanovella’s Fix Your Attitude. For context, it's currently one of the most kudo-ed fics for Kylo Ren x Reader on AO3. It had a bit of a renaissance earlier in 2020 because a TikToker wrote a song for it.

There is nothing wrong with not wanting to read a fic. If the subject matter doesn't work for a reader, they don't have to partake. Easy as that. So, these tags aren't a problem.

However, it led to this...

She lashed out, calling Kassanovella's fic a joke. A joke.

She implied her fics should be as popular as Kassanovella's because she works really hard on them. She admitted she's tied to the metrics. She implied she wouldn't be writing fic if not for the external validation.

Here's the thing about fanfic: readers like what they like. They don't care about a writer's effort. They only know what works for them. They comment and give kudos, reblog and like what they connect with. That is not under the writer's control. All a writer can do is try their best and concentrate on what they're passionate about.

To bash another writer's fic because it's popular is disrespectful. This whole bitter rant drips of entitlement and is an affront to Kassanovella.

Some time later, an incident happened in a chatroom during a streaming event for veterans by Arts In the Armed Forces (Adam Driver's organization). At least one fan brought up Fix Your Attitude while waiting for Mr. Driver to make an appearance. They were also disrespectful towards the other presenters by demanding to see Mr. Driver. It caused a big stink within the fandom, and Zannah had some choice words.

While mentioning the fic during the livestream was inappropriate, it was also inappropriate to throw all fans of the fic under the bus as she did in her tag. Sweeping generalizations and incriminations of a subset of fans certainly reads as if she resents those fans for a perceived slight.

Next, Zannah made an earlier disparaging comment about Kassanovella's fic, Little Bird. Unfortunately, that comment is lost. However, the messages supporting the comment remain. (For context, Little Bird is a Kylo Ren x Reader The Handmaid's Tale AU. It has been well received in the fandom, earning thousands of kudos on AO3.)

What an author wants to write about and sexualize is their business. Fantasizing about being dominated by Kylo Ren isn't cringe. It's a sexual fantasy. Some sexual fantasies can be disturbing to those who do not share the same kink.

Sexual fantasies are like ice cream. There's a reason why there are different flavors.

Also, "I will never ever be a person that tells an author what to do or not do" is an absolute lie. As evident in this post, Zannah most definitely tells authors what to do or not do.

Again, she bashes Kassanovella, claiming her writing isn't good. Her motivation for bashing Kassanovella can only be speculation. With Zannah's previously stated opinion of Fix Your Attitude, though, it indicates a certain level of negative emotions.

Anonymous

An anonymous person came forward with a case of Zannah policing their blog. Anon has a sideblog for their personal AU with Flip Zimmerman. They reblog gifsets and post headcanons. They were an enthusiastic fan of Zannah's and reblogged a few of the gifset she made. Anon tagged their reactions, and Zannah blocked them for it.

Anon went to Zannah and asked why they were blocked, because all they wanted to do was have fun and support fellow Flip lovers.

Anon was under the impression that because they were shipping themselves, and not Zannah, with Flip, she blocked them. Their personal AU doesn't align with Zannah's headcanon that she alone is married to this character and has his children.

While Zannah's reply may sound innocent, and perhaps it is, it also speaks to someone who has set herself up as the owner of Flip Zimmerman. (Wait until Spike Lee or the real Ron Stallworth hears about that...) It appears that if a fan does not comply with the Zannah-approved headcanon, where only she is married to Flip, that fan shall be blocked. If a fan uses tags on their blog that she does not approve of, that fan will be blocked.

Zannah's policing is disturbing. Going into a blog to look for something as a reason to block is disturbing. Any fan is allowed to use any tag on their blog how they wish. If the OP has said their post can be reblogged, how a reblogger tags is beyond the OP's control. To punish that reblogger for not behaving in a way she finds acceptable is uncalled for and unjust.

Anonymous

Backstory: Zannah does not view Ben Solo's arc in the Star Wars sequel trilogy as acceptable canon. However, she does view the story she created for Flip Zimmerman in BlacKkKlansman as completely canon.

This is not the first time she has been asked to clarify her position. Nor is it the first time she has avoided giving an on-topic response. A question asked in good faith should be responded to in kind.

If a creator doesn't want to address the issue, they can state that they don't. Deflecting from the question only muddies the waters. Fans feel dismissed. The creator feels hounded, and comes across as irritated and unapproachable. No one has a positive fandom experience.

There is nothing wrong with having a headcanon. What is wrong is Zannah mandating her headcanon for Flip on the whole fandom. As evident in this post, if a fan does not comply with her headcanon, they will be summarily blocked.

Also, there is nothing wrong with rejecting canon. Writers of transformative works have always done this. The problem is shaming fans who have accepted canon while not offering justification for that shaming. A creator saying they "can't help them" is the creator washing their hands of responsibility from articulating their thoughts when they themselves began criticizing the canon in the first place.

Again, this is a bad-faith argument. Creators can't ask for discussion and attention and then get mad when their viewpoints are challenged. Just because a discussion isn't going a creator's way doesn't mean it's an attack, either. It means people want clarification, and if one criticizes, they should be able to back up their criticisms.

While sharing our stories has been freeing, it's not our aim as fellow fans to cancel Zannah. We would hope she would take the opportunity to reflect on the damage she has done to the fandom. We hope we all can move forward with a more approachable and supportive scene.

No one person speaks for our fandom. The actions of one fan do not represent the entire fandom. Whether creator or consumer, you are welcome here.

[posted July 25, 2020]

#babbushka #reader insert #flip zimmerman x reader #kylo ren x reader

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griimhilde-a · 3 years

Text

if you know, you know.

——— a response to those who refuse to move on.

EDIT: after some encouragement and realizing that, while i tried to be respectful and private about this situation, i was not given the same treatment, i’ve decided to be upfront and filterless. here is a link to my page of receipts that i did not provide in this post.

i would like to point out that when i made the DNI, it was buried and sandwiched in my super long rules purposely so that it wasn’t explicitly visible and drawing attention. it was specifically put there for mutuals to understand my boundaries for the new blog, and as soon as i moved blogs, my guidelines underwent heavy reconstruction and the DNI section was removed overall ( i don’t like DNIs for myself ), as well as on this blog. all statements made in the DNI were what i felt to be true and based off of not only my experiences, but others’ as well, backed up with evidence i have saved that i didn’t feel the need to provide because it wasn’t meant to be a big deal, but i also felt i needed to explain why this person was on a DNI and that it wasn’t done out of malicious intent. again, if something sounds bad it is because “bad” things were done and i can’t control that.

reading the call-out had me ( and others ) confused on where it was i had bullied her, when i had her blocked since november, where it was i had manipulated her, and so forth. i’m always wanting to be a better person, so i was extremely confused on where i had done anything wrong. i also didn’t appreciate my new blog url being attached to it as it had nothing to do with it and i was trying to move forward, and it read very much like an attempt to blacklist. despite everything, i never wanted it to be a spectacle. the pinned, public call-out by this person doesn’t read to me as someone wanting to move on, but wanting to drag things further. this is not a call-out post, this is me defending myself. i will not name drop. if you know who this is about, i ask you just read this to understand the full story.

this is going to be a long boi ( i really tried to keep it short but alkfjdklfksldf nope ). i would also like to apologize for any dryness here, but i am aiming to just state facts as they are. it feels ---- ridiculous writing this all out because it’s something that could and should have been handled privately. but, here we go !!

everything on the DNI is true. i will not post or reveal the sources because one, they are not my stories to tell, and two, i am not going to give her the excuse to bother them. they deserve to be safe, and i am walking proof of what happens when you speak out against someone like her. if i have to bear that burden, then so be it.

it stopped being about “just a url” a long time ago. it became more about how i was treated in that interaction, and how i was continued to be treated afterwards. not to mention the increasing tension within the rpc and having to second-guess whether or not i was truly wanted. it was about how it was affecting those around me, my time in a hobby i love, and my mental health. the amount of times a mutual has tagged me by accident when they meant to tag her is insane. it most definitely did not feel good !!! if that kept happening, it was a problem. i also had to shut off the anon feature because of the amount of anons i was receiving. some had good intentions, but others had resorted to hate.

regarding the messages on discord --- i stand by them. i thought if you were friends with someone on discord and have previously talked over time, it was okay to message, otherwise what was the point of discord? i didn't realize it would make her uncomfortable to do so, and i’m more careful about how i approach people now !!!

regarding the messages: there was no change in tone other than that i grew exhausted and extremely anxious ( shaking !!! palms sweaty !!! knees weak !!!! mom’s spaghetti !!! ) and wasn’t in the proper mindset to sound happy while i was being invalidated to my face. i have even apologized there if i came off as mean. i don’t “present myself” in a way. that’s just how i talk, i prefer communicating one-on-one and i try to alleviate tension that arises no matter what because these types of conversations aren’t always a walk in the park. i wanted things to be good and not stressful for all parties involved. i’m sorry my tone came off as insincere. after being in desc rpc for a year, i was a little surprised seeing a near-identical url so i think it was fair for me to message her about it. she made the decision use it, and i was allowed to react. it was said misspellings in urls made her anxious so i wanted to help and i was shot down and vilified, essentially told i made her feel unsafe and shouldn’t have messaged. if it wasn’t okay to claim i felt “unsafe” and “paranoid”, why was it okay for her to claim the same based on a choice she made herself, but not me to feel anxious about those choices?

i have never told a blog to block her. i have never initiated conversation about her, nor have i spoken negatively about her as a person. ever. i have, in fact, even stated that i didn’t want anyone blocking and that it would be okay to interact. here’s one example after i was approached about her. i cannot control what other people do.

hardblocking her on my end was to avoid seeing her on dash as much as possible.

i am allowed to softblock / unfollow people who interact with her after months of trying to be okay with it. what kickstarted this process was someone i thought was a close friend had dropped me and suddenly i realized i didn’t need to sacrifice my comfort for the sake of keeping a mutual. if they could do it, so could i. while i adore the descendants rpc, the rpc is not a family, we’re not obligated to interact IC or be mutuals with every single person in the rpc. it’s not causing a rift when we don’t interact on dash. i have even emphasized that i would love to stay in contact via discord and write there if possible !! why am i being vilified for trying to make my blog a safe space for me?

regarding the “vagues”: they were all responses. a mutual wrote the post, i reblogged it, my tags were in response to the post ( said mutual’s url wasn’t even blocked out so ... ). if it felt like a vague, i can’t control that. the meaning behind the url post was circulating on dash, i didn’t see any vaguing in it other than me recounting my process of choosing this url, which was true ( was i not allowed to participate?? ). the shrek meme was in response to a public dash event ( which i originally thought was a joke ) that had received copious amounts of criticism for. it wasn’t a vague and it was explicit on what it was referring to, it was meant to be silly dash commentary, nothing deep.

this is in my rules but i have explicitly stated that my headcanons about my characters are not a vague if they differ from yours. the talk about hair styles was actually initiated in a conversation with my friends in private. it had absolutely nothing to do with her. if it sounded like a drag, i encourage everyone to look at how i’ve “dragged” many other things including the original outfits for descendants, evie thinking mermaid dresses are ugly, evie not liking wine, and so forth. my portrayal of evie =/= other portrayals of evie. while she may never do so-and-so, it doesn’t make it wrong for another portrayal to do it. ( why was my blog being kept tabs on and compared with, in the first place? that’s not duplicate friendly ).

regarding sex week: i've stated it was an inappropriate event because the descendants rpc had been heavily criticized for smutting and felt it wasn't the best response, nor was it the best way to promote sex positivity. it was insanely uncomfortable to witness, as someone in this rpc. it doesn’t matter if the people or the muses involved were adults, i would still call it inappropriate had it happened in any other rpc. it wasn’t a “block and move on” situation. i’m also allowed to defend myself because i didn’t want to be associated with something she posted. i didn’t want it tied to my url. i would like to clarify that when i said "embarrassing" in the responses under that anon, it was directed at the anon for misreading the url, nobody else. ostracizing occurred when the descendants rpc was being added to DNIs because of sex week / smutting, which was posted by this person ( if you post it, you start it. simple ). i had been blocked simply because i am a descendants blog and that had never happened before.

i was also notified that people uninvolved with this have been namedropping me on dash in an attempt to have me “written off” ( their words, not mine ) because my rules stated that i was open to exploring evie’s sexuality. below is a screenshot of my rule regarding smut. i deleted the rules page from this blog when i moved so i snatched it from my other canon descendants blog that i reuse on all blogs. the second is my elaboration on sexual content in my new evie rules. the third is what’s on my google doc, a condensed version of my rules. there is a major difference between smutting and posting a public dash event dedicated to sex versus being open to explore sexuality as a topic. they are not the same. also, me not choosing to smut does not dictate my opinion on smut, so do not make assumptions about that either. if you want to move on, why are you still talking about me on dash, especially when unprompted? if you just want to move on, why are you upset that i’m not “written off”?

this person has vagued me multiple times ( which they conveniently did not show in the call-out ), this person has been shown to talk badly of me in private ( and now, publicly as well ) ---- all of which i have not done. i have screenshots sent by others to show for it, but do not feel it’s relevant to share because this is not about her. this is just about defending myself.

i have spent three months apologizing for feeling things, apologizing for reacting, apologizing for things i should not have been apologizing for. i have spent so long accepting blame because i felt it would help. i’m done doing that. i know what i did and what i didn’t do. people know what i did and didn’t do.

all in all, i am confused on why a call-out was made when the content provides nothing other than catty remarks meant to air out personal drama. the messages exchanged only show how i tried to remedy things. the screenshots of my “vagues” were just responses, and most of which had nothing to do with this person. my initial silly dash commentary and later discomfort over a sexual dash event posted by this person is not a vague.

if you ( referring to maker of the call-out and others who partook ) are upset about people not talking about me in regards to the “rest of the call-out”, maybe consider the fact that there was nothing about me in it that warranted a call-out in the first place. people saw that i did nothing wrong. the only thing of substance in the call-out was something the maker themselves did : the public, sexual dash event. people are allowed to identify that as a more prominent issue as opposed to how my messages or public posts could be perceived through basic, biased narrative manipulation.

me deciding to unfollow / softblock blogs that interact with this person =/= involving the descendants rpc or making it public. i am allowed to softblock whoever i want to cultivate my dash experience. most people i know have it in their rules that they are okay with people softblocking for their comfort and that it won’t be taken personally. you know what IS making it public and involving the entire descendants rpc? this person messaging a descendants server and name dropping me in the server, reducing the situation to just being about a “url” and publicly announcing it in the server. here are the facts to consider: her message was sent jan. 21. my DNI went up feb 2.

so, regarding the call-out: there was no bullying, no manipulation, no harassment, no gaslighting, nothing from my end, and the call-out shows precisely that the claims are just that: claims. whatever was felt is valid, but feelings =/= gravity of the actual action itself - the most common thing pointed out in therapy: feelings are valid, but are they justified? call-outs should be reserved for people who cause actual harm, not because someone wants an excuse to blacklist. if i am a “bully” for unfollowing blogs for my own comfort, then i think the rpc really needs to reevaluate what these terms mean because the misuse is harmful.

here are the things i did do: treated everyone i talked to with respect. approached things civilly. communicated. tried to accommodate for others. attempted to make a safe space for myself. did not involve the entire rpc by announcing it in a server. did not make a call-out post nor pin it. did not continue to name drop afterwards despite claiming to want to move on.

this entire situation is absurd and should have never been public, much less made a call-out for !! while this was meant to defend myself and state facts, i understand it may not change minds. a friend has told me that people will hate me because they want to hate me, no matter what. and i can’t do anything about that !! all i have to say is that holding hate in your heart never ends well. i hope everyone can find peace at some point.

so please, let me move on. let me write with my friends. let me unfollow / softblock people to keep my dash comfortable. let me take a break from descendants while also having the choice to return at anytime. please stop talking about me when i’m not even giving this another thought and haven’t since i moved blogs. please stop name dropping. stop keeping tabs on me, stop stalking my new blog. please leave me alone. i hold absolutely nothing against anyone i may have softblocked / unfollowed or am not currently interacting with on my new blog. my IMS / discord is always available, you will not be violating my safety by messaging me, everyone is welcome, but i also understand if you feel the need to separate yourself !!! as for those of you who have interacted with the call-out post, i wish you the best but i hope you understand why i do not want to interact with you by any means in the future.

i’m hoping this post lays everything to rest, seeing as my first one did not. honestly, what are you trying to prove if you still have to post about this? it helps nobody. this back-and-forth is exhausting and unneeded. no more. let’s be better people, yeah?

i hope everyone takes care of themselves, i hope you all have a great day / night !!! thank you for reading this long boi !!

#this is a long boi.#thank u to everyone who's offered their support these past few days!#i refuse to let people push me out with baseless claims !!!#so here are all the facts #i really don't want to talk about this anymore but if u need proof of the things this person has done u can msg me #otherwise. this ends here.#pls don't reblog!

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grxceblqckthxrn · 4 years

Text

TDA characters as types of tiktokers

y’all KNOW i’m bored when i’m doing this shit lmao

i’ll get around to doing the other TSC characters eventually TDA was just the first to come to mind also if you’re not actively on tiktok some of what i say might not make sense ahaha

also i named some tiktokers who yall can use for reference for some of them and from what i’ve seen they’re all fairly unproblematic so you should check them out!!

EMMA CARSTAIRS

okay so she’s DEFINITELY super popular and she uses her platform for good

she’s really funny and a lot of her audios go viral posts videos of her dancing saying that she cant dance but she’s actually really good at it

6M followers and growing fast

hypes up her boyfriend’s account ALL the time

calls out misogynistic/racist tiktokers through duets and KEEPS THEIR TAG IN THE CAPTION

she is not afraid of starting drama lmao

occasionally hops on POV and transition trends but its usually satire

emma can’t act for shit lmao

super active on tiktok and has a spam account

people are always asking her to drop the skin care routine but she doesn’t have one??

*pushes Zara down* “and no one’s gonna help her?? WOW some world we live in”

JULIAN BLACKTHORN

there’s no way he doesnt have an art account lmao

a lot of his paintings go viral but 90% of his comments are 14 year old girls thirsting over him

yall know that pottery guy on tiktok?? the cute one?? (i searched up his account just for this post he’s @/daxnewman769) that’s the best way to describe him

literally all the famous tiktokers commission him

probably has like 4M followers lmao

will occasionally make about how respecting women doesn’t make you a “simp”

doesn’t get into tiktok drama tho

posts candid videos of emma and all his jealous 14 year old fans get so pressed but he shuts down anyone who says anything bad about her

sometimes does painting or drawing tutorials and he’s really good at teaching stuff lmao

CRISTINA ROSALES

omg okay so like yall know those really pretty girls on tiktok who are literal models and are always dropping tips on how to frame your face for pictures and best clothes and poses and whatever ( @/ameliezilber is the first person that came to mind as an example)

thats her

alot of her content is just for the aesthetic

BLING EFFECT

GRWM’s all the time

10 step skin care routine

GOOD VIBES

has a pretty decent following?? like at least 2 million

has a spam but it’s exactly the same as her main lol

also calls out problematic tiktokers but not by name

her entire account is full of body positivity and does a bunch of stuff on loving yourself

sometimes does POVs and all the comments are like “@ netflix hire her rn”

sometimes posts crack videos with emma and cute vids with mark and kieran

MARK BLACKTHORN

does a lot of reaction videos and duets

a lot of his videos go viral but he doesn’t have a huge following like maybe 800k

everyone still knows him

gets at least twenty “are you wearing only one contact” comment about his eyes every post

he’s really funny without even realizing it

sometimes goes inactive for weeks at a time and just forgets that tiktok exists lmao

shows off kieran and cristina ALL THE MF TIME AND EVERYONE IS SO JEALOUS LIKE HOW ARE ALL OF THEM HOT

KIERAN

doesnt have a tiktok lmao sorry

but shows up so much on mark’s and cristina’s that a lot of people know who he is

DIANA WRAYBURN

unironically does POVs but is actually good at them??

lots of videos talking about the struggles of minorities like LGBTQ+ and POC and women

posts a lot of those vidoes that are like “what to do if you ever get kidnapped” “red flags in relationships” “most powerful parts of the body” etc

probably has like 500k followers

at the end of the day she doesn’t really use tiktok that much tho ahaha

LIVVY BLACKTHORN:

does a little bit of everything??

posts dance videos sometimes

omg her transitions are SO good

everyone is in love with her and she has to remind them that she’s a minor (i’m just a kid plays aggressively in the background)

posts videos that are just vibes?? like her skating at night, dancing in traffic with dru/her friends, walking through the city at night etc

lots of lip syncing videos to whatever sounds are popular and all her comments are like “i wish i looked like this” “guess im not eating today” and she gets so upset :((

she wants everyone to know that they’re perfect the way they are!!

also posts POVs sometimes and she’s not that bad at them ahaha

probably has like 1 million followers

doesn’t even need a spam just posts everything on her main

shouts out her sibilings accounts all the time

overall just great energy

TY BLACKTHORN

never posts his face on his main but he does on his spam

yall know those accounts that post fun facts or psychology facts?? his is like that except he talks to explain them and everyone finds his voice SO calming

he posts a lot of content of animals and everyone is in AWE with how good he is with them

his username is probably theanimalwhisperer or something djkfskjd

every single time he posts Kit on his account all the comments are like “OOH ICU” and “SHIP” and “ASK HIM OUT ALREADY”

he gives 0 shits about popularity on tiktok he’s just posting for fun because he likes teaching people about his interests

so he has like maybe 500k followers

lots of philosophical questions that has everyone questioning their existence

ugh i love him

KIT HERONDALE

be honest this is what y’all were waiting for

yall know those unproblematic ppl that everyone refers to as the “king(s) of tiktok”???

yeah thats him

SO FUNNY

LIKE HIS CONTENT IS GENUINELY HILARIOUS

lots of sarcasm and satire

think @/adamkindacool ?? (one of my favourite tiktokers lmao)

does reaction videos for those “pov: im the annoying hot cheeto girl sitting next to you in math class” videos

dark humor (not like rude humor but actual dark humor)

like “i put the baby in the oven and the pizza in the bed” type of jokes back when those were a thing

has like 4M followers but almost every single one of his posts go viral so he’s gaining fast

lots of pranks

starts a bunch of trends

any video he posts of Mina goes viral

sometimes he posts some really weird stuff that has everyone laughing so hard irl (@/benoftheweek)

he NEVER thirst traps but still gets a lot of those weird sexual fairy comments on his posts (iykyk)

TO BE CLEAR I MEAN THE FAIRY EMOJI ONES NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM BEING FAE

reacts to the comments with a video of him just staring at the screen with the “oh to see without my eyes” or “im just sixteen” audio going on in the background which only encourages them to make more weird comments

anyways everyone loves him

any of his povs are pure jokes meant to make fun of pov’ers

posts maybe one serious tiktok every 5 months that talks about being respectful and using your platform for good

“i miss old tiktok”

posts a lot of random videos of Ty where, again, all the comments are shipping them except even more so on his account because everyone can see his heart eyes for Ty

collabs with Dru a lot and does a bunch of duets of her videos

everyone loves him bye

DRU BLACKTHORN

SO many memes

she deletes any hate in her comments bc she honestly doesnt care to respond to them and doesn’t need that kind of negativity in her life

but one time she got a “the f in women stands for funny” comment and she WENT OFF

does really dark povs sometimes that are really interesting

CLOWN MAKEUP + SCARY CLOWN TIKTOKS ( think @/avani ‘s clown make up posts

REALLY good at makeup and sometimes gets julian to do scary makeup on her for tiktoks and povs (like those ones with stitches over the mouth or skin peeling off)

huge ally!! posts a lot about minorities struggles and white privilege, and acknowledges hers

does movie reviews and stuff sometimes

“types of” videos

pulls a lot of pranks on her sibilings with livvy and sometimes with Kit

lots of body positivity + self love

calls out back-handed compliments

also has a lot of content like Livvy’s of just vibing in LA

julian and emma and mark go off at anyone who sexualize her in the comments

probably has like 650k followers

posts a couple of times a week

BONUS:

JAIME ROSALES

lots of skateboarding videos idk he just gives me that vibe

doesn’t post that often but is super popular

like maybe 1.5M followers

really passionate about systematic racism

HATES all those privileged white boys using the “this is america” audio to pretend they’re oppressed ( this is a may 2020 thing so it probably wont make sense to anyone who sees this after lmao)

POSTS A LOT OF THIRST TRAPS LMAO

also posts lots of videos that’s just him yelling about stuff but they’re really entertaining to watch ( like that guy sebastian @/sauceyogranny)

everyone thinks he’s super hot he always shows up in those “hottest boys on tiktok” videos except sometimes he’s just the token POC boy and it makes him mad :(

DIEGO ROSALES

HIS ACCOUNT IS SO PRACTICAL LMAO

lots of tips

“what to do if you’re trapped in the desert” “what to do if you’re kidnapped and stuck in the trunk”

doesnt reply to comments EVER unless it’s to clarify a point he made in the video or answer a question

has like 200k

okay thats it lmao im done bye this took me like an hour to make

i’ll get to all the other characters from the other series’ eventually

also if yall are wondering abt the lack of f*ckbois in this post they’re coming dw

TMI CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS

TID CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS

TLH CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS

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ladyxxdaydream · 3 years

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a year-in-review meme - for writers!

I thought up this writing meme for fic writers who might have been staring at the artists having their lovely and well-deserved collages of their work through the year - and wanted to join in the fun! also this works as a great reminder for those of you (and me) who’ve been thinking that they haven’t been writing as much as they want to, and allows you to go back to enjoy your old fic ;D

Rules: pick your favourite sentence from a work you posted / wrote during a month of 2020! if you didn’t write anything in any particular month, don’t worry! tell us what you were doing or use it as free space for runner-up sentences. after that, tag 8 people or more to do the meme!

That being said, here’s mine:

Tagged by: @rikacain !!

I’m tagging -- @flailinginlove @aviss @kiitsvne @stupidbadgers and @tea-blitz who doesn’t use tumblr anymore but WHATEVER. and anyone else who wants to do it! <3

~~~

JAN: (from Heavy Weight)

“Iruka felt Kakashi’s eye on him. Most people feared the Sharingan, and for good reason, but Iruka feared his real eye, his own eye. It had a way of seeing straight past Iruka’s defenses, no dōjutsu required, and deep into his soul.“

FEB: (from Old Pine)

“Do you want children?” Iruka asked, feeling like the timing was right.

Kakashi was quiet for a few moments. Iruka had learned to read Kakashi’s silences for what they were. It wasn’t hesitation like he had initially thought. Kakashi simply liked to think things through before answering immediately. Iruka liked that about him.

“I think we have four already,” Kakashi said, eyeing Sasuke, Naruto, Ino, and Sakura through the glass door.

Iruka laughed, but refrained from clarifying. He knew Kakashi understood what he meant and would answer him shortly. Iruka had also learned that Kakashi had a tendency to be indirect, before he got around to what he actually wanted to say.

MARCH: (from Mouthful)

“So, Kakashi.” Iruka said, unable to stand still any longer. “We both like what we see. Now what?”

He wasn’t usually this forward, but he was feeling it tonight. All of this playful banter was riling him up—it was his favorite way to flirt.

“I like a man whose direct,” Kakashi said, shifting his stance to lean an elbow on the table. “But hmm,” he hummed. “I don’t know.”

He gave Iruka a seemingly bored look, as if the obvious invitation to leave together was lost on him.

“Well, I like a man whose decisive, so I guess that rules you out.”

Kakashi let out a hard, surprised laugh. He downed the rest of his beer, and took Iruka by the hand, pulling him out of the bar without a word.

APRIL: (from A New Chapter)

“I don’t know how to put this,” Sakumo started, “but… what the hell is that?”

Kakashi looked at where his Father was pointing.

“Uh… a diaper…?” Kakashi guessed, not sure where this was going. They had about a million others, in every color and pattern you could imagine, folded and stacked in the closet. Iruka wanted to go the re-usable route, and several of his students mother’s were eager to gift them. Kakashi had been less than thrilled by the extra laundry.

“Yes. It’s a diaper, Kakashi. Very good. Tell me, did you have both eyes closed when you put it on?”

MAY: (From Cake Substitution No Jutsu)

“What’s this?” Iruka asked as Kakashi entered the kitchen, a fully dressed Tomo whizzing past them both.

“Ah, it’s a backpack,” Kakashi said, crossing over to Iruka excitedly. “I saw it on display in a shop window while doing Gai’s scavenger hunt. Its arms and legs are the straps, so when you wear it, it looks like it’s riding on your back.”

Iruka smiled, turning it around in his hands, noticing the zipper and a few pockets.

“That’s actually pretty ador—”

Iruka stopped speaking. The tail was tightly curled up inside plastic casing still.

“Kakashi,” Iruka said, feeling his eyebrow twitch. “Is this… is this a leash?”

“No. It’s a Puppy Pal… with an exceptionally long tail.”

“It’s a leash,” Iruka deadpanned. “A leash for a child.”

“You put Tomo inside a barrier the other day as a playpen,” Kakashi said, a matter of factly. “Why can’t I have some help controlling her?”

“That’s… that’s different!” Iruka exclaimed, feeling his cheeks heat in contradiction. “Would you like it if I put you on a leash, Kakashi?”

Iruka regretted it the second it came out of his mouth. He could practically see the wolfish grin forming beneath Kakashi’s mask.

JUNE: (from Use Your Imagination)

They laid in silence for a while, listening to the sounds of the night through the cracked window—distant cars on the street, a lone dog barking, upbeat music wafting from a floor below them.

Kakashi never wished for time to stop. In fact, he tried to keep himself as busy as possible—he chose a career that ate up most of his life for a reason. But right now? He wished time didn’t exist, hyperaware of how quickly it would pass before Iruka was back on a plane tomorrow.

He traced circles into Iruka’s lower back, watching as the brown skin pressed against his broke out in a wave of goosebumps. Iruka shivered, and then shifted, and Kakashi wondered if he was falling asleep.

He selfishly continued his adorations, wanting to keep Iruka in this realm with him for a little while longer. He expanded his rake, sliding his fingers up Iruka’s spine, skirting around his scar, and back down again.

Kakashi wasn’t one to believe in divine intervention, or soulmates. He’d acted in enough corny films to almost make him hate the notion entirely. But the fact that a man as perfect as Iruka had come into his life so serendipitously—and just as scarred as he was—was something he couldn’t overlook.

It made Kakashi’s heart ache with want, before that ache traveled down, and curled into his gut.

JULY: (from Love Me As You Are)

“And then you demeaned their lives by calling them your soldiers—”

“—is that not what they are?!” Kakashi cut across him, getting upset. “You’re as much a part of this system as I am, sensei! We both know the truth of it, whether we like it or not. I just called it by it’s name.”

“But they’re people too, Kakashi! Kids. They’re so much more than soldiers…”

“That’s not how I was treated,” Kakashi said before he could catch himself.

Iruka’s mouth fell open with a punched sound.

“Kakashi…”

His tone was soft and free of the anger it held a moment ago.

“Forget I said that,” Kakashi said, turning away, his cheeks heating up—the last thing he wanted was Iruka’s pity. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No,” Iruka said, shaking his head as he took a step towards him. “I’m not going to forget you said that. It does matter because you matter. You deserved to have somebody stand up for you too, Kakashi. I’m so sorry Konoha failed you.”

Kakashi’s eyes burned with tears—he bit his tongue, refusing to let them fall. Those words pierced him straight through the heart. It was everything he never knew he needed to hear.

AUG:

um I didn’t write anything this month because my wife and I separated annnd my whole life was uprooted as I moved to a different country ksjdhgkdsj

SEPT: (from I’ll Fall, If You Do)

Their relationship was going really well. There were days where Kakashi still turned him away, usually corresponding with the mornings he had therapy. It was frustrating, because Iruka just wanted to be there for him, for Kakashi to open up to him completely, but he didn’t push. He knew that would only make it worse. They didn’t fight anymore, but Iruka regularly had to correct the language Kakashi used towards himself, and sometimes it was irritating for the both of them.

But mostly… it was amazing. Their chemistry was incredible. Electric. And not just in the bedroom—they were never far from each other, drawn in like magnets, grounded by a simple touch or brush of hands. Kakashi hadn’t even left the room twenty minutes ago, and already Iruka felt the pull.

He jumped up from his seat and went to go find him.

OCT: (From Language Gap)

Iruka glanced out the bus window, his body instinctively knowing where they were about to pass. The building was still empty twenty years later, the brick still scorched, and Iruka’s nightmares were still plagued by the fire despite not being there when it broke out. He’d been sent on a delivery on foot — one steaming container of karē udon — two blocks away. He delivered to the same old lady everyday, and she always kept him longer than necessary, pressing sweets into his palm. When he had come back, the noodle shop was aflame. In his shocked state, he distantly heard something about a grease fire, before he was whisked away by the hand by his childhood friend Asuma, living with him and his father from that day on.

Iruka sighed and stood up, making his way towards the door since his stop was next. He really wished the city would do something about the building. Every time he saw it, it made him feel oddly exposed and vulnerable, like his past was staring straight at him.

He shook his head a little and stepped off the bus.

NOV: (From Brand New Sound)

Kakashi watched in stunned silence for a moment, trying to get his heartbeat under control as color effortlessly flowed from the artist’s hand onto the brick. Whoever this was, they had sort of become one of Kakashi’s heroes. People always said meeting your heroes was never a good idea—bound to be disappointing—because it brought them down to a human level.

But that was precisely what attracted Kakashi to this artist in the first place—the sheer, raw, humanness. The way they tackled hard emotions and vulnerability, baring everything through their work for others to see. It was honest and transformative, and Kakashi spent more nights than he could ever count wandering the streets when he couldn’t sleep, hoping to catch a mural he’d never seen before it was painted over. Sometimes he did, and sometimes he’d sit in front of ones he already knew and found new meaning in them.

DEC: (from Perks of Promotion)

“But why now?” Iruka insisted. “Why ask me out now? Right after I’ve made tokubetsu jounin? When we’ve known each other for years?”

Oh.

Kakashi paused, the realization dawning on him. He didn’t blame Iruka for being suspicious of his intentions; he’d heard the way people said ‘the chuunin sensei’ or ‘the chuunin desk worker’ like it was some kind of insult. It always pissed him off.

Kakashi stared at his feet for a moment before lifting his head again, leveling Iruka with a serious stare. “Because I didn't think I’d live past 21. Because it took me an obscenely long time to become a barely functioning adult. Because I never had the guts before… I-I still don’t, not really, if you can’t tell by how much I’m fumbling around here,” he said with a nervous laugh.

#kakairu #my fic #hatake kakashi/umino iruka #this is VERY long #i dont expect ppl to read it lmao #but it was really fun #*sweats* yeah i picked one sentence.....#also WOW #i published something every month (sometimes twice!!)#except for august #which is... understandable #this was a really cool idea #thanks for tagging me rika :D #writer meme

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aceghosts · 3 years

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WIP Monday

I was tagged by @chyrstis to share some WIPs I’ve been working. Thankfully, I have some WIPs to share.

Tagging: @archetypesinthefog @strafethesesinners @mrspaigeomega @p0lkadotdotdot (Please do not feel you have to do this; this is all for fun!) Also, if you have something to share, please consider yourself tagged.

Alright, under the cut are the WIPs.

First, I have to clarify that all of these are in the early draft stages. So, I apologize if they are a little rough. (The first WIP comes from something I wrote today, which means it is really rough.)

This first WIP comes from a multichapter fic for my Deputy, Blue Murphy, and Joseph Seed. It’s an AU that takes place five years after the events of Far Cry 5, and there’s a threat in the form of a new cult. Eventually, Blue and Joseph are going to have to rely on each other for survival, but right now, Blue is extremely pissed off and they have good reason to be in the Fic. Ya know, besides the stuff that the Deputy is subjected to throughout the game. (Also, I know the premise is kind of silly, but I’ve been inspired to write it lately. So, write it I shall.) Anyway, here’s a snippet of a not-so-happy reunion between Joseph and Blue:

Blue opened the door, stepping into the cold room. As they stepped into the room, Joseph’s head had been bowed as if he was praying. When the door closed, his head snapped up, his eyes widening as they settled on Blue. Blue’s chest tightened, finding it difficult to breathe. So many dormant emotions bubbled up to the surface. Anger. Panic. Hate. Love. Blue’s feelings toward Joseph were an intricate, tangled mess. After a few seconds, they finally stepped forward, heading towards the metallic chair, keeping their gaze on Joseph.

Prison had not been kind to Joseph Seed; Blue doubted it was kind to anyone. They noticed more strands of grey in his hair. His blue eyes had dark circles under them, and his face seemed to have an air of weariness. Even as he smiled at the sight of Blue, he still looked tired. As Blue sat in front of him, he spoke. “I did not think you would come; You seemed to have no interest in talking to me.” He let out a laugh of disbelief. “Even now as you sit in front of me, I scarcely believe you are real.” His hand reached out reflexively for Blue, only to be hindered by the handcuffs.

God, what a miserable fucking place. “I didn’t come here for you.” Blue stated, guard up. Joseph had always been good at manipulating people; he seemed to have a gift for sensing the things that made a person self-conscious. Blue wouldn’t let him manipulate them, not again.

Joseph closed his eyes, head bowed for a second. “I should have expected that.” He said, looking up at Blue again. His blue eyes seemed to stare right into their soul. Blue tensed, some part of their mind screaming for them to get the fuck out. “Tell me, did they show you pictures of the dead? Tell you what good people they were? Oh Blue, the world always rest so heavy on your shoulders, doesn’t it?”

This second WIP is actually a snippet from a touch meme ask that @chyrstis sent me. it’s supposed to revolve around the theme of relief. Here’s a short snippet involving Commander Rooney Shepard and Thane Krios:

They thought of earlier, as he helped pull them up on the ship after Rooney leapt from the crumbling Collector base. His hands were firm and steady, bringing them to their feet. Yet, they remembered the gentle, yet relieved way he touched Rooney’s face when they were finally on their feet. He almost seemed scared that they might disappear on them. Thane’s touch could be so gentle and light sometimes, yet Rooney always felt like he managed to steady them.

As a sudden weariness took over them, Rooney found their feet carrying them forward. They crashed into him, wrapping their arms around Thane. Burying their face in the crook of his neck, Rooney apologized. “Sorry. I’m just…relieved you’re alive.”

He laughed, his arms wrapping around him. Rooney could feel Thane gently rub their back. “No need to apologize, Siha. I understand. For a moment, I was afraid…” He trailed off.

And, that is all I have for now. I’ve been also looking through some of the older stuff that I’ve been writing for Blue, and I hoping to work on/post some of that some time in the future.

#the kate tag #kate writes #Alright I'm posting these before I chicken out #thank you for tagging me #I've been excited to share some stuff #and I've also been looking at some of my older stuff #which is nice because there is some stuff I can appreciate and some stuff that needs to be changed #also the older stuff for Blue is only from the summer of 2020 so its not that old lol #Commander Rooney Shepard #I won't let fear compromise who I am #the blue fic tag #the rooney fic tag #blue murphy

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lizallanapologist · 4 years

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The problematic behavior of Tomdaya stans; a thread

Some of you might not be aware of the stalkerish problematic stuff tomdaya stans have done with Tom and Zendaya’s life but it’s gotten to the point where Tom’s own brothers protect with big scrutiny every single female in Tom’s life because they fear they’re going to get bullied or harassed. This is not OK and this has to stop so we’re exposing their toxic behavior.

This is only to bring awareness and we do not condom any hate or death threats, don’t send hate to tomdaya accounts, either block them or report them but don’t bully them. Many of them might need professional help dealing with the fact that Tom and Z are not together due to the fact that they created an illusion in their heads for a long time but that doesn’t mean some of them aren’t plenty manipulative and love to get away with bullying and harassment.

If you don’t know, Tom was recently seen with another woman on his instagram, not going to say the name and please don’t try to find out about her, the relevant information is in this post and all of the private information regarding her is being protected for the same reasons. Many stans decided to apply the same treatment to her as they did to Olivia. If you don’t know what happened last year, all information is here. The fact that this kind of bullying and harassment got overlooked is horrifying.

This specific behavior doesn’t apply to all of the stans but the vast majority is on the same page.

A big thanks to all the blogs who contributed with information and their writing in this post.

STALKING

1. Tomdaya stans have made an entire thread/timeline of events in Tom and Zendaya's life that they manipulated so it can be seen as proof of them dating. They stalk every single part of their lives, from paying stalkerish apps to review their instagram activities daily to having a constant GPS to know their exact locations everyday. They ask twitter accs, owners of restaurants/stores, people close to them information about their whereabouts/the things they buy or eat/who they were with, etc.

They order their ‘’interactions’’ with specific dates and they even know information you shouldn’t know about them.

They pay for apps that helps them stalk their every move. That’s right, they take every like as proof of them being together.

They hide behind the pretext that they're celebrities and this is what they've signed up for but neither Tom nor Zendaya have signed up for constant daily harassment of their partners in life.

HARASSMENT OF PARTNERS

Tom was seen last year with a blonde girl called Olivia, everyone speculated that was his girlfriend and that was something everyone should’ve respected since it’s Tom’s life and he’s in control of it, instead, many fans including Tom H. crazy fans and tomdaya stans, decided to stalk and harass Olivia to the point she had to make her account private. They started bullying her by publicly calling her names like ‘’Olive Oil’’, ‘’Ugly old woman’’, ‘’Ugly fake bitch’’ among other names. They continuously compare her with Zendaya and write on her friends and family members’ social media and ask them to tell Olivia nasty things. You really think this is ok?

Same is happening with the girl Tom was seen with. Tom’s own brothers asked several people to take down and delete the video because they were disrupting her privacy. Many stans didn’t care and started all over again harassing the girl. (I’m not posting images or the identity of this new girl in hopes that this helps maintain a little big of privacy for her.)

However here are some examples of them harassing Olivia:

’’I saw a troubling post on twitter about this fan dming another fan saying that they’d kill her (Olivia). That they’d find a way. So that “the fans can have him all to ourselves” - source

MANIPULATING THE NARRATIVE

Tomdaya stans and some Tom Holland crazy stans love to harass Tom Holland to the point that they tag family members and friends only because he decided to go out in public with Olivia. They call him cheater, manipulator, a dumbass, made fun of him because Tom is dyslexic calling him an illiterate, mocked him and tried to cancel him in every opportunity given by manipulating everyone into thinking some of these ‘’facts’’ are true.

Many fans don’t know better and go to social media to frame Tom as a scumbag because many tomdaya stans have convinced the public of this.

This same issue occurs with Zendaya. Her known boyfriend; Jacob Elordi, is frequently called a cheater and is being investigated every five seconds on every social media, candid, interaction ever. Many fans are already calling him cheater, telling everyone Zendaya’s changed her behavior thanks to Jacob and that she needs help.

Source

BULLYING

The definition of cyberbullying according to Stopbullying.gov:

“Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place over digital devices like cell phones, computers, and tablets. Cyberbullying can occur through SMS, Text, and apps, or online in social media, forums, or gaming where people can view, participate in, or share content. Cyberbullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else. It can include sharing personal or private information about someone else causing embarrassment or humiliation. Some cyberbullying crosses the line into unlawful or criminal behavior. “

Examples of cyberbullying on Tumblr from good ole Toutdesuite360:

https://toutdesuite360.tumblr.com/post/190572803098/faces-haha-ive-heard-this-has-been-memed-when

Making fun of Jacob Elordi’s wealth… but that isn’t that only thing that the Tomdaya stans have done.

She basically implied that Olivia looked like an elderly lady, and she permitted her followers to humiliate her.

Funny, that a middle aged woman who has never revealed her face on her blog is bullying a young woman.

(She may have deleted the link to save her a** on the post with the Cher pictures, but thankfully @crazypeopleonfandom took screenshots of this post; I got most of my photos from them)

The next aren’t pertaining to the ‘innocent’ Toutdesuite360, just some random jerks from Twitter/Instagram. If you have the time, you can read through them.

See the pictures above and below for reference.

Labelling Zendya, Jacob E., Tom, and Olivia as cheaters, when there was no confirmed relationship between Tom and Z, and Jacob broke up with Cari already is plain disrespectful. These are type of claims are considered slander, and I’m surprised that the people who own these accounts haven’t been rightfully sued.

And remember when I talked about the repetition of people tagging Tom and Z’s family for their ‘thoughts’? Why are you tagging Nikki in your post?

Calling Olivia, once again, a vulgar word that shouldn’t be used for any woman.

This person and many other tomdayas are harassing Zendaya and Tom by tagging them repeatedly. Now we know why Tom stopped using Twitter, and why he may be taking breaks from social media.

And, as pointed out in another point on the thread: Tom has dyslexia! I easily ignore the posts that tease him about his lips, but when it comes to his disability, that crosses the line. It is unacceptable to bully someone just because your fantasy relationship doesn’t seem so real now.

Before I finish this point, I just want to remind people that celebrities are humans too. Everyone has feelings, and even if they haven’t seen these posts, it is still harmful to post this kind of information on your account. Fans who are young (or naive) may see these posts, thus making them believe that Tom actually cheated on Z, and that Z is really with Jacob as ‘payback’ to Tom. Bullying is still an ongoing issue, and maybe you should stop harassing/humiliating people on your platform.

DEATH THREATS

Olivia, Tom and his family, friends, Zendaya, Jacob Elordi, etc. They were sent death threats as a result of a fictional ship. This is truly upsetting and we’ve shown some proof of that above and it’s truly sickening how many of them really want to attack Olivia in public only because of a few photographs.

DEBUNKING EVIDENCE

While we don’t know anything for sure, we need to trust and respect what Tom and Zendaya have said several times: they were never together and they were just friends. This is a topic that makes them feel uncomfortable and tomdaya stans decide to twist their words every time they want to clarify the situation, saying they’re hiding their relationship and that they’ve been hiding it for over 3 years.

Stop believing everything SpideyParker on YouTube says, that person desperately wants them together so they’ll do anything in their power to make it seem like that they’re ’’still together’’. All of their evidence is also nothing but scraps. I can also make a video cropping out certain individuals from the frame to make it look like Tom is with someone or I can also investigate every tiny detail to a borderline degree to make it seem like Zendaya is dating someone. It’s really easy to manipulate the truth, so don’t fall for these things so easily. Check with the real sources, Tom and Zendaya. Trust and respect what they say it’s not your job to investigate and figure their lives out.

Their evidence of the relationship is ridiculous, stuff like them wearing the same clothes,

because obviously there’s no way this jacket is in any random store in the world...This is a unique jacket, made by Tom and Z specifically...And it’s not even the same jacket. If we’re going by their logic, then

More, more, more and more.

Source

Robert Downey Jr. and Tom have been in a relationship for a long time...

Angourie, Remy and Tom wearing the same jacket.

I have no idea what’s going on with the freaking necklace you swear with blood that Zendaya gave him but that’s hardly something special:

Matching necklace with Olivia.

Avengers necklace.

He likes necklaces, nothing special here.

'’Tom only goes to Zendaya’s home, and only goes out with her!’’

Tom Holland went to RDJ's house to watch Black Panther with him.

Tom and RDJ facetime daily.

Obviously, his only friend is Zendaya...

Look at him and Zendaya there, wow.

‘‘Tom looks at her with heart eyes and in a very special way!’‘

Excuse me, what is he supposed to do? Ignore Zendaya and look somewhere else every time she talks?

He literally looks at everyone the same way.

‘‘He only does Spider-Man because he wants to be the Peter Parker to his Mary Jane, one of the most romantic comic book couples!’‘

I can’t believe I once read this as proof but I haven’t forgotten about it.

Interview with Tom and Laura:

“Is Zendaya’s character Mary Jane Watson?’’

Tom Holland: “No, no! This is one of those rumours, that like, we’ve all said it’s not true.

Laura Harrier: It’s not true!

Tom Holland: Like, we keep on… You guys keep building yourselves up for disappointment.

Laura Harrier: Unless we don’t know how this started? Because you guys are gonna see this movie and be like “…Ugh.” She’s Michelle!

Tom Holland: She’s a character called Michelle.

Laura Harrier: She’s playing Michelle.

Tom Holland: 100%. Hands down. Her character’s called Michelle. And she’s sort of this weird, quirky one in the friendship group that Peter has. She’s funny, but she’s super strange.

Laura Harrier: Yeah, super dry humour.

Tom Holland: She’s 100% not Mary Jane. It’s funny, everyone’s like “Is she Mary Jane?” and I’m like NO, I’M TELLING YOU! SHE’S NOT MARY JANE!

Source

‘‘He did the Will Smith thing with her, he loves her!’‘

‘’He only ever talks about her! He only praises her!’’

Angourie Rice.

Robert Downey Jr, 2, 3

Laura Harrier, 2

Elizabeth Olsen.

Jacob Batalon.

Chris Hemsworth.

Jake Gyllenhaal.

And the list goes on and on.

‘‘He always goes to her special events only! He only goes to her parties! He only goes to hospitals with her! He was on the set of Euphoria with her!’‘

How about, he goes out with her and everyone else in group and individually? He goes out with Harrison alone, with Jacob alone, with Laura alone, etc. I love how many of them love to leave out certain people to make everyone believe it’s only the two of them. And he doesn’t only goes to hospitals with her, he’s gone with many other people and he does it because he’s a good person, not because he’s on a date with Zendaya.

Tom AND Jacob visit Zendaya on the set of the Greatest Showman.

Tom and friends celebrating Harrison’s birthday party.

Tom on a double date.

Tom going to Joe Russo’s restaurant to get an exclusive cooking lesson from Jessica Largey.

Tom on birthday parties.

Tom, Laura, Harrison and Harry out for dinner in Brazil.

Tom, Brie Larson, Tessa Thompson, and Zachary Levi in a club in Brazil.

Tom, Laura, Jacob, Harrison in a pool party.

RDJ & Tom Holland visit Jon’s restaurant and participate on his show.

Tom Holland visits Doctor Strange’s set.

Tom Holland, Ciara Bravo, Joe Russo visit haunted attraction.

He’s a good person and loves supporting his friends.

‘‘He only has chemistry with her!’‘

Tom and RDJ’s extraordinary chemistry.

Tom and Jake’s chemistry.

Tom and Jacob’s chemistry.

Tom and Laura’s chemistry.

Tom and Daisy’s chemistry.

Tom and Chris Pratt’s chemistry.

Also Will Smith, Chris Hemsworth, etc.

Look below for Ciara and Tom’s chemistry.

Like I said before, maybe he’s a good actor and that’s it?

‘‘Their FFH kiss was too real and magical!’‘

Spoiler alert for Cherry

Fan about witnessing Tom’s kiss with Ciara Bravo:

His reaction about kissing Laura Harrier:

‘‘He LOVES touching her’‘

I’m sorry, is he supposed to be scared of touching people?

This is it. This is the big touch they always talk about and the only times they’ve ever held hands is in manips or in FFH, but that doesn’t count, those are fictional characters. Well...

Maybe he’s a touchy person. Consider that.

’’She’s the only one that knows him well!’’

How well do Zendaya, Jacob, & Laura know Tom?

I’m sure Harrison, RDJ, his friends and others know him pretty well too.

And only because he knows she likes ice cream doesn't mean she’s his ultimate soulmate or something blown out of proportion.

‘‘He’s only a gentleman with her!’‘

Tom saves Gina Rodriguez

Tom rescues fan

Karen Gillan

‘‘He looked way too in love with MJ to be fake’‘

Nope.

Nope 2

Nope 3

It’s called acting, pretty sure you guys know by now he’s good.

‘’They’re inseparable!’‘

Jacob, Tom and Harrison

Also, why is it that every female in his life is his cousin, aunt, close childhood friend or ‘’he probably hates her’’ for you?

They’ve said this multiple times but:

In an interview with Elle, Tom said he is not involved with anyone at the moment but is "definitely a relationship person." And when addressing the rumors, he says it’s uncomfortable and annoying when people ship him and Zendaya together.

Zendaya also denied the claims, telling Variety Magazine that she and Tom were simply ‘just friends’.

You can ship them if you want, as a bromance or cute chemistry, but not at the expense of someone else. Not when you violate their privacy, their lives and specially not when you bully, harass and stalk every detail of their lives.

Zendaya is clearly very happy with Jacob Elordi:

Let her have that. No, she doesn’t look miserable with him, no, he didn’t change her style or her personality. No, she doesn’t dress differently because of him. She is the same as always, she looks even happier. Let her be. This is good for her. She has every right to go out in public with her boyfriend. And for the love of god, stop commenting on her instagram posts ‘’warning’’ her that Jacob is going to cheat on her. Hopefully that won’t happen ever.

And no, they’re not going to magically ’’get back together’’ when Spider-Man 3 starts filming, stop wishing bad luck on Zendaya and Jacob’s relationship. Tom is not going to magically realize how ‘’wrong’’ he was for ‘’leaving’’ Zendaya. He never left her, he’s her friend.

All of this have gotten to the point where Tom can’t have a friendship with a female and he has to ‘’protect’’ them every time he wants to interact with them. Do you guys seriously think this is ok? Are you really a fan of his if this is how you want him to live? Controlling him all the time?

Do you realize how wrong and unfair it is for the other partner every time you comment in every single picture on instagram, twitter, etc about how ‘’cute’’ Tom and Zendaya are? About how ‘’ugly’’ Olivia is? How about when you compare Zendaya and Olivia, or every single female in Tom’s life? Or when you comment on Zendaya’s instagram telling her she is different now and that you don’t like her now because she’s changed for Jacob? Telling her that Jacob is going to cheat on her? Stop sending death threats to the partners, stop tagging their families in your ‘’evidence/proof’’ posts/tweets. Just because they don’t voice these things doesn’t mean they don’t read them.

Being sincere, if you all, as a collective; really, genuinely cared about Tom, this is the last thing you would wanna pull. In your endless obsession with thinking you have a right to dictate the life of a man simply because he's famous; actually stopped once to consider how this is possibly making Tom and Zendaya feel?? You are basically sending the message that nobody is enough, that him being happy isn't enough, that he won't ever be allowed to be happy until he gets with the person YOU think is best for him. Fucking abhorrent, how they don't have a choice on who they choose to fucking love. This is how you make a celebrity jaded. THIS is how you make a celebrity hate you. And he will, unless you stop your bullshit, and treat him; and whoever he decides to be with, like human beings.

When you focus only on two people it’s easy to believe anything, try and see the bigger picture. Allow Zendaya and Tom to enjoy their lives without harassing them and their partners.

251 notes · View notes

panharmonium · 4 years

Text

...and damn the consequences

These are just some thinky-thoughts that I suppose could be an addendum to this old piece about Morgana, since I saw a couple of different discussion threads in that general vein in the tag a while back, and you know reading about this show always gets my brain going. :)

Most of what I ran into was written with the intention of shifting the blame for Morgana's issues away from Merlin, which is something I appreciate, personally - I've talked plenty myself about the myriad reasons why Merlin does not owe Morgana his secret and does not deserve "blame" for the things she does.

But when the blame is shifted (rightly) away from Merlin, it does sometimes end up getting pushed onto others. And while I do understand where that impulse comes from, I actually tend to approach this from a slightly different perspective, so since I don't think I've ever typed up anything about this particular subject before, I figured I might as well set down a few potential things to consider about a) Morgana (in relation to Gaius, specifically), and b) the more general question of "the blame" (and whether it's really a productive line of discussion, given that the question only has one legitimate answer, for me, at least).

disclaimer, as always: these are just my own thoughts, and nobody is obligated to share them! If my particular perspective isn't interesting to you, don't worry about it - I'm just hanging out talking to myself on my own blog, so feel free to scroll past and continue interpreting the show in whatever way is most enjoyable for you!

i. my favourite patient is always welcome

So, first of all - some thoughts about Gaius.

I was really surprised at how infrequently Gaius appeared, when I first started poking around in the fandom. For such a major character, and for someone who is such a huge part of Merlin's life, I definitely thought he would be more prominent, but essentially the sorts of posts I've seen about him are mostly restricted to two things: 1) memes, and 2) call-outs (he's in a very similar position to Kilgharrah, in that way).

I don't necessarily think those things do him justice, and there’s a lot more we could talk about when it comes to his character, but for now, the only thing I'm really interested in working on is maybe adding some nuance to the perpetual question of Gaius, Morgana, Merlin, and "the blame."

(For clarity’s sake: nothing that follows necessarily means that Gaius makes the “right” decisions. The entire point of his character's history is in fact his failure to always do the right thing - see: Kilgharrah's line where he tells Gaius to “do nothing," because “that is, after all, your talent." What I’m saying in the section that follows is just that there's more to consider about the choices Gaius makes than “he's a coward.")

So - some things to consider, when we think about Gaius and Morgana:

1) One thing I'm not always sure people realize about this show is that neither Gaius nor Merlin knows that Morgana has magic until 2.03.

And I definitely can see why people don’t necessarily realize it, because as we all know this show can be a little haphazard/loosey-goosey with its worldbuilding, but just to help clarify: until 2.03, Gaius does not know that Morgana has magic. He knows that "some of the things she dreamt" have indicated certain future events (NOT all of them, importantly - more on that later), but her dream-visions are also specifically stated to be a separate gift from sorcery - dream-visions and magic are clearly established to be different things in this show, and prior to 2.03, Morgana has only ever demonstrated one of these abilities.

At the end of 1.07, Merlin asks, "Is she like me? Does she have the gift?" and Gaius's response is, "I hope not, for her sake." Earlier, he also says, "The gift of prophecy is too close to the work of magic," indicating that the two things are, in fact, different abilities (if equally dangerous ones, in Uther's eyes). “It's said to be an innate ability. Those who have it are born that way.” Whereas magic, in the Merlin-verse, is a learned skill. We spend so much time around Merlin that we tend to transfer his experience to all other magic-users, but we have to remember that Merlin, in this world, is directly stated to be unique. He uses magic without spells, without study; he tells Gaius he was born doing it. But when Gaius hears Merlin say this, his response is, "That's impossible." It's not something that happens.

In the Merlin BBC-verse, people can be born with the "gift" - the ability to use magic - but their magic doesn't just manifest on its own. What happens to Merlin (being able to use magic "before he could talk," with no training and no spells) and Morgana (starting a fire accidentally) is NOT something that is indicated to ever happen to other magic-possessors. We aren't being introduced to a world where magical children will automatically start manifesting their magic in dangerous ways unless they're trained to use their abilities (ie, the X-Men model, or the Force-sensitive child model, where choosing not to teach someone is automatically irresponsible ). Magic, as presented to us in this show, is something that cannot be used without training or specific spells/power-amplifying artifacts. Merlin (and, later, Morgana) are exceptions to a universal rule.

And this is just something to keep in mind, because it does provide some context for Gaius's decisions. It doesn't mean people have to agree with the choices he makes - it doesn't even mean *I* always agree with the choices he makes, to be honest - but I do think it's worthwhile to at least remember that Gaius doesn't make his decisions thoughtlessly. As far as Gaius knows, even if Morgana did have magic, there is no way that it could ever manifest and become an issue for her without her being trained. If she doesn't learn how to use magic, she can't use it, period. And if she can't use it, no one will ever know she has it. And if no one ever knows she has it, no one can ever kill her for it.

(Once we hit 2.03, the conversation changes, obviously. It becomes clear that Morgana is some kind of anomaly as well, and at that point, the only appropriate path forward is to tell her she has magic.)

(Which is, of course, precisely what Merlin does.)

2) According to the show, only "some of" Morgana's dreams have actually played out in real life; others have just been regular nightmares (and we see later on that even some of her prophetic dreams are vague to the point of incomprehensibility - eg, she dreams about a raven in 2.01, but how would she ever know what that meant, or if it meant anything at all, barring external context?) Some of the risk/benefit analysis on Gaius's part has to take this problem into account - what if he did tell her that some of her dreams might be prophecies? There would be no way for anyone to sort out which ones were real and which ones were just nightmares. And Gaius has known Morgana all her life - he knows what she's like; he knows how headstrong she is. She would assume all of her dreams were real, and she would act on all of them, because what if the one time she ignored a dream, something bad happened to someone she cares about?

Gaius is familiar enough with Morgana to know with absolute certainty that this is what she would do. And he knows that this could SO easily end up getting her killed, either by Uther, who would quickly figure out that something was going on, or by the sheer dangers associated with Morgana throwing herself into confrontations based only on uncertain visions (or worse, regular old dreams).

3) We also have to think about what this show tells us about prophecy in general. Trying to act on prophetic information, in this world, is firmly established as a dangerous game, one which, more often than not, ends up directly causing the outcomes one was trying to prevent. Trying to change the future, in the BBC Merlin universe, backfires on people every single time. In 2.10, the Crystal of Neahtid is framed as holding "a terrible power," and Merlin knows instinctively that "no good [will] come of it," even as he feels compelled to look into it. In 3.05, Gaius himself says of the Crystal Cave that "the crystals are treacherous," and Kilgharrah says that "to change the future is no simple matter, Merlin. To do so is fraught with danger." In Season 5, of course, we all know what happens with Merlin's attempts to prevent Mordred from killing Arthur - it ensures Arthur's death! And that's not even mentioning all the collateral damage it causes - Kara's execution, Mordred and Morgana’s eventual deaths, etc.

I thought I could alter the future, but instead, I caused it. I made it happen.

What you did was dangerous, even for someone as gifted as you.

These are truths about the universe in the BBC Merlin world, not Gaius's personal opinions. Gaius had been brought up steeped in the rules of the Old Religion; he knows how that world works. The risk posed by Morgana interpreting all of her dreams as prophecies (and the absolute certainty that she would constantly attempt to alter their outcomes) is not a trivial concern or something he should ignore. It is real, significant, and extremely dangerous, for both Morgana and the people around her.

So in general, I do think there's a broader context to what Gaius does than we typically look at. I'm not saying that it isn't a sticky situation, and I'm not even saying that Gaius makes the right calls. All I'm saying is that I think it's worth acknowledging that the decisions he makes are a) always sincerely intended to protect Morgana from a number of very real dangers, not just Uther, and b) founded on more than simple cowardice or carelessness.

ii. of course what really matters is the blame / someone you can blame

More generally -

Whenever I see discussion circulating about Morgana’s descent into villainy, occasionally the conversation can start to feel to me a little bit like that scene in Into the Woods where all the characters start going "so it's HER fault/HIS fault/YOUR fault" as they backtrack further and further along the chain of events and tear apart every single character's innocuous decisions (the consequences of which could not possibly have been foreseen) in order to escape any scrap of personal responsibility, until the Witch interrupts their bickering and rips them a new one for worrying so much about who to blame when they have a real problem to solve.

These blame-placing conversations about Morgana, much like this scene, are interesting and enjoyable to think about in their own ways, but they rarely get quite where I want them to go. I definitely love seeing people articulate the "we shouldn't blame Merlin for what Morgana does" angle, but things often then slide into "we should blame X person instead", where X person is Kilgharrah or Morgause or Gaius or Uther or whoever.

And for me, that analysis doesn’t quite hit the mark. The correct endpoint of "we shouldn't hold Merlin responsible for Morgana's actions" isn't "we should hold X person responsible instead." The correct endpoint is "the only person responsible for Morgana's actions is Morgana."

The last time I wrote about Morgana like this, I mentioned that ultimately, the difference between Merlin and Morgana for me is that Merlin owns his choices. He feels guilt, he expresses regret, he apologizes for his mistakes, and he blames himself for his missteps (as well as for other things that aren't remotely his fault). Morgana, on the other hand, never apologizes for anything (despite the fact that she's made plenty of mistakes worth regretting), and sometimes it feels like in fandom we don't necessarily expect her to do so, as if it's a benchmark we don't need her to meet.

So because I really do have strong feelings about the double standard we use when it comes to Merlin and Morgana, I want to talk for a minute here about Merlin and Gaius’s relationship, to provide a comparison.

Morgana isn't the only person who's had important information about her parentage and potential abilities withheld from her. Gaius hides both Merlin's dragonlord heritage and the identity of Merlin's father all the way until the end of Season 2, when necessity forces him to reveal the information. Merlin's mother, for her own part, has been hiding this information from Merlin all his life - out of valid fears for Merlin's own safety, of course, the same way Gaius is trying to protect Morgana. But still, from Merlin's point of view, in the moment when the information is revealed to him, the justification offered by his guardians is unacceptable. He is angry and upset, and he feels cheated out of knowledge he deserved to have, the absence of which has negatively affected him all his life. “I had a right to know,” he keeps saying, on the verge of tears.

Has Merlin been harmed by the choices his guardians made for him, even if said choices were made to protect him? Yes. Does he have a right to feel hurt, betrayed, and angry? Yes. Is he entitled to every ounce of his righteous rage? Absolutely.

Is he also responsible for how he reacts, now that the information has been revealed? YES.

Merlin has no say in what his parental figures do to him in the name of protecting him, and he has no choice about how it makes him feel. He does, however, have a choice about what actions he will now take in response. He can react in a way that hurts others, or he can choose a path of lesser harm. And there's plenty we can say to justify both options, certainly, but either way, the decision he makes is on him.

What that means, in short, is this: Merlin is not responsible for what was done to him. But he is responsible for what he himself does next.

The same goes for Morgana. In absolutely no universe would we classify Merlin's behavior as acceptable if he'd reacted to the revelation of his Dragonlord heritage by assassinating Uther, claiming the throne for himself in the name of his murdered kin, and then shooting innocent civilians in the street when the knights refused to recognize his legitimacy. We would never say that was okay. And we definitely wouldn't then blame Merlin's downfall on Gaius, saying it was Gaius's fault for withholding information about Merlin's powers for so long. The choice to act in a harmful way would still be Merlin's, in that situation.

The same standard holds true for Morgana - particularly when she has access to resources that Merlin can't even dream about. She is rich, beyond his wildest fantasies. One of her dresses costs more than everything Merlin has ever owned in his life - his house, his land, his livestock, every bushel of wheat he's ever harvested. She isn't the 1% in comparison to Merlin; she's the 0.0000001% - a princess in all but but name, and one who would presumably be heir to her father's entire estate in addition to everything she already has in Camelot.

Morgana has the wealth to go anywhere she wants, including places where magic is practiced freely (see Helva, as mentioned in S5). She has the prestige to affiliate herself with powerful people outside of Camelot, if she chooses to do so. Any person in her position would have a broad, high-status network of friends and allies, and indeed we do see that Morgana has political ties outside Uther's court (see: how easily she's able to go to Cenred, Agravaine, Annis in Seasons 3/4 and be admitted, recognized, and trusted, as well as her repeated ability to recruit and/or take command of external armies).

She could leave Camelot if she wanted, learn about her abilities, and build a life for herself elsewhere. She could stay in Camelot and use her considerable resources to work toward her people's liberation, without indiscriminately murdering and enslaving the innocent poor. She could seek out other magic-users like Alator in the spirit of true solidarity, as opposed to just using them as tools to get what she wants and then turning on them when they decide that they don’t want to use her sort of tactics to achieve their liberation. She has hundreds of options, none of which necessarily even require her to forgive or reconcile with the people who harmed her, and none of which are even remotely open to Merlin, who (like Morgana) is still learning about his own abilities, and who (unlike Morgana) has no money, no social power, and no connections that he can leverage or lean upon, besides a tiny village of dirt-poor peasant farmers on the other side of the border with Cenred's kingdom.

Morgana has options. The choices she makes are hers. Gaius's decision not to tell her about her dreams is not equivalent to her receiving a blank check for harmful behavior. She has so many resources. She has so much power. She could have chosen so many other paths - like Merlin tries to plead with her, in the crypt, after he tells her that he does not believe she deserves to be executed, despite what she's done: “We can find another way.”

She's the one who says, “There is no other way.” She makes that decision. She chooses to dismiss the thousand other paths available to her.

That's on her. That is always going to be on her.

iii. i'm going to give you one more chance

This last section...it’s more just a muddle of feels-riddled musing as opposed to a real opinion. It's not something that has a right answer or a solution; it's just something I ponder sometimes.

When we talk about harm being done in the real world, we talk about how intentions don't matter. And that is absolutely true, in terms of both the impact of harmful actions and the harm-doer's responsibility to own what they did/make restitution. If someone knocks you down, and you break your arm, the impact of that event doesn't change depending on whether the person in question did it on purpose or not. Your arm's still broken, either way. Intent doesn't matter, in terms of impact and responsibility - the actual harm done is the same, and the person who knocked you down should still be apologizing and making amends, regardless of whether they intended for you to fall or not.

However - intent does matter when you're considering the future of your relationship with the person who knocked you down. It affects how you react to what they did. It changes how you respond to their actions. If someone threw you to the ground on purpose, you'd (probably) feel differently about that than if a friend knocked you down because they were trying to pull you out of the way of an oncoming vehicle, or because they were carrying too many things in their arms and didn't see you turn the corner.

I think about this sometimes when it comes to Morgana and Merlin.

I don't want to frame this as "Morgana should have forgiven everybody who hurt her," because I don't think that's the case. I've written before about how I fully understand her reasons for ultimately rejecting Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Gaius, etc. She's not required to reconcile with anybody if she doesn't want to.

At the same time, though, I do wonder sometimes about intent. And sometimes I ask myself how things might have been different if Morgana had considered intent, before things went completely to hell, and whether the story’s ultimate outcome might have changed, if she had given even just one of these people a chance.

Morgana has plenty of reasons extend some degree of understanding to the people who caused her pain. The vast majority of the people who caused Morgana harm did so either a) out of love, in a sincere attempt to protect her from being killed, b) without any knowledge of the fact that she needed help, or c) after they thought she was attempting to kill everybody in the city. Everything Gaius ever conceals from her is concealed with the intention of keeping her safe. Arthur knows absolutely nothing about Morgana's parentage until after Morgana has already violently invaded Camelot, and he knows nothing about her prophecies/magic, either. Gwen, too, is never told anything about Morgana's parentage or her magic, even though Gwen supports Morgana when Morgana thinks her dreams might be sorcery. And Morgana never comes to Merlin for help, despite his demonstrated support in 2.03 - what he does later, in 2.11, is a response to him legitimately thinking that she is actively trying to kill everyone in Camelot. When she comes back a year later, he forgives her for it immediately, and when he realizes she has turned against them again, he STILL tries to talk her around, to offer his hand.

So I think about that sometimes. And I wonder what would have happened if Morgana had chosen to recognize things like this. Merlin, for his own part, always chooses to recognize things like this when it comes to the people who've done him wrong (and by this I do not mean to say that his response is always the best one - I'm not talking about him consistently allowing Arthur to continue oppressing him and his community, here. I'm talking about him, on an interpersonal level, being able to recognize when the people who've harmed him did so in an attempt to keep him safe, or without fully understanding the potential consequences of their actions.)

Merlin understands that his mother lied about Balinor and the dragonlords in an attempt to protect him, and he continues to love her in spite of the fact that the deception legitimately hurt him. He understands when Gaius gives Finna up to Arthur, because he know that Gaius sincerely believed her to be a trap laid by Morgana. He understands many of the things Morgana does, too, and he gives her all kinds of chances - he knows why she tries to kill Uther in 1.11, and he holds no grudge. He knows she tried to steal the Crystal of Neahtid in 2.10, and again he holds no grudge - he doesn't even suspect her, at the beginning of the next episode, when the entire city falls asleep. He forgives her in 3.01 after she (as far as he knows) tried to kill the entire city at the end of the previous season, and even after she reveals herself to be a traitor in 3.02, he tells her he doesn't believe she deserves to be executed for who she is. He still feels for her. He still understands. He wants to connect with her.

And, admittedly, neither Morgana nor Merlin are obligated to extend this kind of understanding to the people who've harmed them. The impact of the harmful actions is the same, and Morgana doesn't have to give her friends a chance if she doesn’t want to. She doesn't have to consider their intentions.

But she could have. And I think that in some of these situations, there are compelling reasons why she should have.

It's important to me to recognize that Morgana's choice not to ever consider her friends' intentions, particularly when it comes to people like Gwen, who didn't even understand what was going on and who were given no chance to prove their willingness to help Morgana before Morgana attacked first - completely obstructs the possibility of making amends, working things out together, making a connection, or seeking a more positive outcome. Morgana’s actions come out of nowhere, for most of the people who know her. She starts trying to kill them before they ever even know anything is wrong. She doesn’t give them a chance to help her.

And she doesn’t have to, certainly. But I wonder sometimes what things would have looked like if she had.

#the once and future slowburn #meta #sometimes you've got to do what you think is right

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salamoonder · 3 years

Note

caddy did specifically say he isn't into sex though? it's not true for every ace, but it is for him & i guess i don't get why someone would (after this episode) write smut with him

alright anon, you clearly sent this in good faith and i’m going to try my best to give you a reasonable explanation. apologies if it gets rambly or tmi, i’m going to insert tws.

let me give you some perspective on where i’m coming from.

hi, i’m thane. i was raised in an extremely isolated religious homeschool community in the literal woods with a lot of siblings .i thought i was never going to leave this tiny little town. i think death is fascinating, i love mushrooms and i adore tea. i consider myself to be, among other things, asexual. i’m possibly romance repulsed. (still figuring that out.) when i get upset i throw myself into taking care of other people and ignoring my own feelings as hard as possible. i project onto caduceus hard.

for the past six months or so, i’ve been working on a fjord/caduceus smut fic in which i also project very hard onto fjord, who i also believe falls somewhere on the aroace scale. it deals with the discomfort of realizing that other people may be attracted to you in a way that you can’t reciprocate, the frustration of having a high libido and nothing to “do” with it, having a connection with someone that isn’t quite sexual or romantic or platonic that is difficult to explain to anyone else, and the pressure of outside expectations and rude questions/assumptions on a private relationship that people don’t “get”--are you ace or aren’t you? if you have sex with someone when you’re not particularly into it, doesn’t that mean they forced you? why don’t you just kiss already? qprs are just friendships, haven’t you ever had a friend before? how can you be kinky and dislike sex at the same time? that kind of thing. this fic is my baby and i’ve poured a lot of my own experiences and thoughts and feelings into it. i’m not sure if i will ever actually publish it. it might be too personal. anyway. there is one reason for you that people may still write cad smut after this.

i understand the frustration of watching allo people go “buuuut ace people have sex too so i can just keep shipping him!”. i’ve dealt with a lot of that--fortunately not in this fandom (yet :P) but i’m in another fandom where it’s frustratingly prevalent, and quite frankly, i can’t stand it. so i get it. i really do. and the posts that i made were out of frustration and anger at the idea that now that we have canon confirmation, that would mean that i would now possibly have to contend with “excuse me caduceus is ace wtf” in my shippy cad posts or fics when quite frankly i’ve considered him canon ace for months and was feeling very well represented and happy that i had someone who is somewhat like me to insert into these relationships, especially in qprs or in “yeah we’re dating but it’s not really a Relationship relationship we just kind of do our own thing, attraction and lack thereof is weird and nebulous and we just do what makes us comfortable”.

[dubcon tw, sex, “virginity” talk] another reason someone may have, from a reader’s perspective? there’s a fic on the kink meme which i can link to if anyone wants it where the nein encounter a dragon who says that he can trade nott’s true halfling form back to her in exchange for a sexual favor from the nein, so long as it’s from a virgin. jester starts to volunteer but caduceus insists, reasoning that sex isn’t really a big deal to him since he’s not into it and doesn’t matter all that much. he basically dissociates during the act itself and later feels empty/weird/”broken” without really knowing why and has some trouble processing the encounter, especially as, he reasons, he consented, right? it ends in a lot of comfort and validation from the rest of the nein.

without going too deep into details of my own trauma, this was a fic that i was able to point to and say me yes me this makes sense oh my god other people experience or at least understand this. it was an incredibly validating read. so there’s another reason. [end tw]

one last thing i would just like to clarify/point out: while i don’t have to like it (and i seriously do not like it), a lot of people in that other fandom i talked about will tag fics with “i know [character] is aroace, but i’m ignoring that in this fic”. it’s kind of shitty of me to read that, and then complain that “hey, [character] isn’t aroace in this fic”. they warned me. (it is also worth noting that a lot of this stuff is just people continuing fics that they’d started before this character’s identity was confirmed.) and i don’t have to like or agree with them, but they have made it extremely easy for me to open that fic, see the warning, and go “oh, nope, not for me”, and click out. we can debate till we’re blue in the face if this is the same as, say, if i tagged my fic with “human!molly” and someone went “oh, nope, not for me” and clicked out, because “tiefling” is not a real life marginalized identity, but they do have one thing in common, and that is that they are both not canon. they can’t change canon and they never will. that’s the magical best-and-worst part about fanfiction, in my opinion. if someone is going around saying “caduceus isn’t aroace because i said so” well then not only is that asshole behavior, it’s just a straight up lie. but i don’t want people to be punished for warning me exactly what i’m getting into precisely because i may not like it.

so there’s my reasoning for writing ace cad smut, and also my reasoning for why i don’t think we should be harassing people for writing clearly marked cad smut, ace or otherwise. if you’d like clarification or more explanations, please don’t hesitate to ask. it feels like i barely brushed the surface of my thoughts on this.

#i genuinely don't know what to tag this with tbh.#not putting it in main tags #but not tagging discourse either since this particular question is just that #a question and not an argument #if you want additional trigger tags please lmk #anonymous

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incarnateirony · 4 years

Text

*Sits down at desk*

*calmly files through books in front of a fireplace to classical music* *glances up at the camera* Oh, hello. *demurely pulls off glasses*

What makes a rights movement work? Is it the dialogue? The discourse? The trolling?

Tonight, I thought I’d tell you a little story and let you decide.

---

...*just looks to Good Omens fandom* So we have... *flips through* An accepted canon queer pairing between two leads, with no rival ships. The singular author has been receptive to queer readings, as has both of the actors, even if one clarified he doesn’t “play it like that.” But by authorial support, vague as it was, it was canon.

...*flips channel to season 10 supernatural fandom* So here we have an accusation of queerbait between two leads with a similar story, with several major rival ships. Of the multiple authors, several have been supportive, many silent, one actor said he plays it like that, the other clarified he doesn’t. Antis, often rival-shippers, heckled. Cas was a villain, not a friend.

*Plays through til’ Season 12 - 3 seasons ago - “doesn’t exist”* *1997 popup spam*

... *flips channel to season 13 supernatural fandom* So here we have antis having a panicked discussion about how Dabb could canonize Destiel without any sort of admission or physical engagement for it to be valid, while admitting at the actor that used to say he didn’t play it seems okay with it now, as well as it becoming an official marketing line, which they later denied. They mutually aired at Cas not even being cared for in public, while saying Dean cared more about him than Sam in their own lane. (x) (x) (x) (x) I mean, between them screaming at How Dare They Pander With The 13.05 Ending Being Romantically Shot. But everyone forgot that I guess.

*flips to season 14* Let’s see, genderswap, identical but truncated couple, same landmarks... no rivals... *checks box* cool, everyone sees canon.

...*flips to season 15 fandom* *gestures at the everything, including the storytelling style they described that could be used to be amply canon by time flashbacks and Cas’ death*

*looks at parts of shipping fandom trying to argue with season 10 anti fandom takes, but simultaneously repeating them*

*looks at season 13 anti fandom*

*files through recently sanitized anti walls that went on their third rage tear about the show being pandered by being romantic, since the current showrunner turn over* *clicks channel* “Destiel is real” - Jensen *menu flip* “Sam has better taste/Dean has no taste--” *clicks next* “domestic dispute--” --Jensen after filming 15.09 *clicks* “Our characters would be fucking [on another network]” --Misha after 15.09 *clicks to major media channel* “Breakup” - TVG *flips through other multiple TVG Destiel ads over to Variety* Relationship-- *flips across to soap opera reporters* 15.03 Dark point in the romance-- *flips to extrafanon, nonprofessional hubs* Hm, apologies for viewing it with a heteronormative lens until now from nonshippers that usually don’t cover the show, while fandom hangs itself on its own hubs in precarious silence or refusal to address the most challenging material. Alright.

*flips to modern marketing* Hm, DeanCas commercials *clicks* Oh right, that official Join The Hunt Destiel shirt that was printed and tagged and receipted like that, that they tried to tantrum offline *clicks* OH right that OTHER Destiel canon pride shirt that Stands just HAPPENED to make this year.

*turns off television* *blinks* *rubs brows*

*tents fingers*

So at some very bizarre point, things have seemed to switch around here.

At one point, Destiel fandom was avid that the romance mattered more than the physicality, even for canonicity. They, themselves, pointed out how homophobic and double-standard it was to demand a kiss when not all hetero couples need them to be valid. But admittedly, back then, the subtext pool was shallow. A veneer placed by a few key authors.

And yet today, while antis scream in waves, their own predictions and fears of how Dabb would handle Destiel coming true, their own “kiss or it doesn’t count” logic (presented only to positive fandom, of course, with the above links of their conversations among themselves where they knew that didn’t matter) seems to have transmitted like a disease rused in representation battles but in the name of arguing with them, of validating them, of giving them any sort of relevance in a show that overtly mocks them and while they riot and fit and convulse and delete and recant opinions, spewing things they don’t even believe anymore (above links.)

it's LITERALLY the same tactics as in Trump politics, where they just flood bullshit they don't even believe to keep people elevating them having any relevance at all in the conversation and distracting them from the actual core conversation/content. Disseminating misinformation and confusion to the conversation. Hell, going so far as to spend months building fake blogs to integrate to the culture and later spread bullshit (which was its own comedy act in the end)

Also the same tactic TAW used to try to inflate completely made up bullshit bad PR about Mish by getting well meaning fans of his floating the conversation by defending him and keeping it in the public eye. ITS THE SAME SHIT.

And yet here we are, with this fandom’s version of alt right dialogue having infected its respective progressive left, with tinhats instead of redhats vaguely yelling about Dabbama and spewing pointless self-defeating nonsense, but at some point -- somehow these fandom MSGAhats managed to successfully implant their ideology in the fandom and convince supporters of Team GreenBlue their active deletion of the content that these antis, themselves, once qualified as terrible potential canons, that are now very real -- that the deletion of this is what makes progressive dialogue.

Their nature is contrarian. Contrarian to TPTB Contrarian to canon Contrarian to other fans Contrarian to themselves

TPTB are already ignoring them. Oh my bad, BLOCKING. Some have gone past muting into BLOCKING them. Canon doesn't care

If fans would stop humoring all fuckin 50 of them they'd only have themselves to be contrarian with.

Humoring them also includes internalizing their hilarious dialogues as anything worth two fucking pennies much less anything to contend with or prove or meet their clown bars of

Oh and while I'm thinking about it: As recently as S13, antis were still trying to pretend it was a reasonable opinion that "Cas isn't family, or friend, Dean doesn't care about him at all, much less Sam" In a year and a half they slid to "THEY'RE ONLY BEST FRIENDS NOT LOVERS!"

Seriously. Now take the absurdism of the S13 scenario Turn your scope into the current scenario Realize how every big publication has been addressing this shit And here we are! The new absurdism is, deadass, denying it. And convincing other fans that they somehow need to prove the flagrantly obvious, just like season 13~ with Cas' importance to the family. Just like any other intentionally daft way they suck up air and kilobits while frothing more than a rabid dog.

It's this weird mewling whimper, already settling down all of their values but desperately, hoping in this giant publicly visible homo tornado that the media itself is commenting on, that somehow, they can convince the GA who can't hear them anyway that it ain't gay. But somehow having convinced the rest of the fandom, now, that a stupid ridiculous-ass viewpoint this fandom used to know better than needing or demanding (rather than wanting or desiring, or encouraging) is needed to "prove" something to a GA that... *turns TV back on and files through the channels* ...Thheyyyyyyyyyy seem to be getting it better than shipping fandom right now, actually.

Stop internalizing horse shit and letting it redirect your activism like a damn political bot.

Unless, I don’t know-- unless you decided, with all of this -- since I did say you could decide -- that this remaining absurdity in the fandom is actually any kind of activism rather than trained demolition of your own content.

Grand as their self-contradictory public facade is, what I wouldn’t pay to be a fly on their GC walls to see their nega-clowning panic right now.

You know that goddamn meme republicans pass around where they or Trump just need to say the dumbest shit possible to make “stupid libs” chase the cat laser? THAT IS LITERALLY WHAT THIS FANDOM HAS LET THESE FUCKING IDIOTS DO TO THEM FOR YEARS TO THE POINT Y’ALL HAVE STARTED ARGUING THE OPPOSITE OF WHERE YOU STARTED.

#supernatural #destiel #lgbtqia #representation #fandom

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paintedrecs · 4 years

Note

For the fandom talk meme thingy: C (not trying to start drama I swear), I, K, R, and X. =D

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Hmmm, there are a few ways of answering this. One is by listing all my NOTPs, which would be excessively long and ultimately boring because it essentially boils down to “anyone else with either member of my OTP.” I monoship my primary pairings, so I’m pretty strict on what I do and do not like.

(With the way fandom is now, I should clarify that NOTP means that I personally do not like a ship and I therefore go out of my way to avoid it - by muting terms, carefully filtering tags and search results, curating my own space, etc. It doesn’t mean I think the ship is badwrong or that anyone else should stop shipping it. It just means I do not ever want to see it.)

This feels a little less specific on that front, though, maybe more just: people like this and I’m meh about it?

So Allydia comes to mind. I don’t hate it, and if the Sterek’s good enough I’ll still read a fic with them as a background pairing, but I don’t ever like it as a romantic ship. While I ship Lydia with lots of different characters, including Cora, I’ve always seen Allison as straight, so I suppose that’s part of it? And I love Lydia & Allison as bffs - I see them as entirely platonic, like Scott & Stiles, so introducing romance just doesn’t work for me.

Another one is Sheriff Stilinski/Peter Hale. I...I don’t understand it. Unlike the last answer, this background pairing will prevent me from reading a Sterek-central fic.

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

This turned into a complicated and kind of roundabout answer, so I’m putting the rest of the questions under a long-post cut!

I stopped frequenting tumblr for two main reasons:

that whole weird purge thing that made me think everyone was leaving, so I just gave up, which might’ve been premature cause it seems like folks are still going strong on here

the emergence of antis, specifically within the Voltron fandom (although they’re everywhere at this point)

There’s a saying in fandom now:

“Why is the younger fandom generation like this?!??” “Tumblr raised them.”

For me, for years, tumblr was a really wonderful space where I had a lot of great conversations and read very thoughtful threads that helped me to learn some important things about myself, other people, and a world much wider than my own.

But I was an adult when I joined this site, and it really does seem like there’s a whole new crop of kids who have no actual context for ideas like social justice, the need for canonical representation in our media, and a lot of other things that eventually got folded into a big ball of disconnected rhetoric that they now fling as hard as they can at the heads of fandom creators who are committing the ultimate sin of creating content for ships they don’t like.

It’s late, and I don’t feel like getting into a whole Essay Rant about all that.

So on an entirely personal level, I quit running appreciatejack (my Check Please/zimbits/Jack Zimmermann blog) because someone sent me really vile hate for daring to ship Shiro/Keith from Voltron (two unrelated adults in a cartoon). It’s why I turned my ask boxes/anon/chats off on most of my blogs, and then eventually just...got tired of running them.

When I started up appreciatederek, I got a couple asks from people who wanted to know if it was going to be multiship or just Sterek, and when I said it was Sterek, they presumably went off to find other things they were into, because I never heard from them again. Y’know, the reasonable reaction. And then the rest of it was wonderful: finding content for it, and getting responses from people who enjoyed that content.

I thought appreciateshiro would be similar, but it was all so messy from the very start. The Sheith tag was FULL of hate. I was initially checking it every day, trying to find artists and writers and gif-makers to reblog and encourage and support, like I’d done in Sterek fandom, but instead I’d spend literal hours blocking people who came into that tag just to talk about how much they hated the ship.

Every day, I’d look for content for my OTP, and every day I’d come away from it angry and sad and frustrated. I never seemed to run out of people to block. And they never, ever seemed to run out of hate.

It was exhausting. It made me reluctant to go on tumblr at all. And eventually I just...sorta stopped.

So the answer to this question is more, I guess, “fandom made me stop liking tumblr, and in the process I stopped liking most fandoms.”

I’m sure you can kinda tell from the fandoms I’m currently the most invested in.

I love Sterek, and I will always love Sterek. Part of that’s the ship itself, of course, and part is because I had an incredible fandom experience with it. People within this fandom are still really great - always so welcoming and super excited about new content, even so many years on.

Otherwise, my current fandoms are kiiiiinda tiny:

Xanatowen (Gargoyles), which currently consists of exactly 2 people and 12 fics (3 of which are mine).

Trevorcard (Castlevania), which only has ~200 fics on AO3.

Taibani (Tiger & Bunny), which is an oldish fandom with only ~600 fics on AO3.

Remember, I came from a fandom that has SIXTY THOUSAND fics.

So while I feel very lonely and very sad about the low content levels in these fandoms, they’ve also given me the space to let go of some of my fandom hurt & anger and remember what it’s like to just...peacefully love something. I really miss just loving things and talking about loving those things and searching for other people who also love those things without running into....thousands upon thousands of people who HATE that you love that thing.

(Until I wrote all that out just now, I actually hadn’t realized how much this had still been hanging over me, or why I was so hesitant to come back to “reclaim” a space I’d once been super active and happy in. Essay over! Next questions.)

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Answered here!

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

Answered here!

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Found family. This is probably a big part of why Sterek was my first real fandom, because the idea of Pack makes it incredibly natural to build out relationships beyond just the central romantic pairing.

It doesn’t have to be a werewolf thing, though. I’m honestly not hugely fond of the whole puppy piles concept - I’m less interested in “biological urges make characters literally physically all snuggle up together in bed” than I am in the actual build of the friendships, and the concept of choosing people who will become the family you’ve been missing for whatever reason.

Maybe it’s reconnecting with biological family, or maybe it’s discovering that your friends have been filling that space for you all along, without you even fully realizing it. (The concept of “home” is another big one for me. Home is where your heart is etc etc.)

And hey! Now I can pull back in another question from earlier: about “pairings” that I might not have initially considered. As I suspected, I do have more! Mostly platonic.

For instance: Derek and Sheriff Stilinski becoming bffs. I thiiiink I can probably tie my ABSOLUTE LOVE of this concept back to HalfFizzbin’s can't be hateful, gotta be grateful. And then Cupboard Love really has to be the source of ALL my alive!Hales feels, which also includes folding Stiles into their family.

Fic is largely responsible for building out Derek’s relationship with Boyd, Erica, Isaac, his sisters...making them into an actual pack and friends and family in the way the show never bothered. And frankly while I don’t like canon!Scott at all at this point, I love his friendship with Stiles in fics, and I absolutely believe Stiles and Lydia would be amazing friends once he got past his crush on her. I’d point to another fic here, owlpostagain’s will to follow through, as the ultimate source for major Team Human feels.

So yeah. I’m always going to be drawn to stories about family, in whatever form that takes, particularly if it’s one that’s a little bit off the normal white-picket-fence path.

In Tiger & Bunny, it’s Barnaby joining the Kaburagi family, and learning how to be a dad and a friend to his new husband’s daughter.

In Gargoyles, I’m completely obsessed with the (canonical!) idea of a family that consists of a man, his wife, their son, and the chaotically loyal fae babysitter/tutor/third parent. It is not a stretch to tweak this the tiiiiiiniest bit to turn it into a nontraditional family structure of a man, his wife, his son, and his fae boyfriend. Honestly.

In Castlevania, the fic that made me sob my eyes out at one point does something the show would absolutely never. It gives Alucard the time to rebuild his physical home while befriending the people in the little town that crops up around it. It’s about Trevor and Alucard falling in love, but it’s also about them making a place for themselves in a world where that kind of comfort and stability and friendship is so badly needed.

I think we all kinda need that in our world right now. So I love being able to find it in fic, for the characters who’ve grown to mean something to me.

#meme #fandom talk #long post #littlerosetrove #did tumblr seriously break my read more and stick it up in the ask section #i don't even know #thanks tumblr

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