#which is the reality of anyone even slightly sepia over in most of europe

[aikainkauna]

Sorry I haven’t been giffing/posting/reglobbing much lately, guys. It’s that behemoth of a fic swallowing up all my sitting-upright time (and a big chunk of my reclining time). Four chapters or so to go and I’m still spending about 7-11 hours every day combing the remaining text for typos (yes, some of us actually do care about our fics and don’t think it’s some dirty “trashy,” “guilty pleasure” of less value), so it’s a full-time job with overtime. So if I’m slow to respond to anything, it’s that. I’m sure that soon enough, the post-fic existential emptiness will be upon us and you’ll be seeing more gifs and tag yelling.

Although it’s just been so quiet among the nice people here and so loud among the idiots that I might just take several steps back from Tumblr in general, just for my mental health. There seems little point in making gifs nobody reblogs and saying anything when it’s drowned out by the types who give liberals a bad name (honestly, some of the shit people say on here would already have made me a Nazi were I a bloke, because apparently nothing is ever enough and I’ll always be Doing it Wrong anyway; you’re not making tolerance seem worthwhile, if you nevertheless beat the tolerant person up for wearing the wrong types of socks).

I’m still looking for that fandom old people’s home, so if you find it, that place where people are old enough to have some fucking perspective, do let me know.

This whole place is eerily reminiscent of an abusive relationship where you’re constantly having to tiptoe because you never know when the next explosion is going to come and where from, what sort of utterly random thing someone is going to call abusive now and beat you up for, even if you’ve been working hard not to upset them, have made deliberate choices to accommodate them because you know their wounds. It’s like Borderline Personality Disorder, but in the form of a website. (And yes, I know first-hand what BPD is like. Had the spouse, had the flatmate, had the fuckbuddies, had the friends.) And the worst thing about BPD is that it’s catching: being around a human minefield makes everyone jumpy, and then *their* jumpiness becomes tyrannical towards others (when the hurt person is just self-defending, they feel) and then the cycle continues. Everybody is paranoid and beating everybody up in the name of great justice, and undermining everyone else’s psyches to the point where they become human minefields themselves. And they don’t know how to stop that cycle, if they’re in denial about having a problem, because of course, if you hurt and lash out, you’re just defending yourself. (Being told you’re a shitty person for freaking out at a trigger is worse than being triggered. Good luck trying to crawl out of that into any semblance of health, if you feel you’re just an explosive piece of crap forever.)

And while I know I can help a bit by stepping outside of that and offering fic and pics and lols where people can forget about it all, I’m still in two minds about offering it in a direction where the recipient is never going to be happy anyway, and where the effort is (or seems) wasted as long as the receiving end isn’t doing any conscious healing/rebuilding itself to better appreciate healthier things. It does nothing. Why am I buying medicine for someone who abuses me for it and throws the bottle in my face? I’ve been there, trying to please people who were locked up in their traumas and paranoias, throwing all my love and effort and work at them to no avail because I thought I could help; I’m not keen on doing it again. Because now I’m old enough to know I’m wasting my time, as brutal and as “selfish” that sounds (how about calling it “self-preservation?” “Sanity?” “Kindness to oneself?” I know women are beaten out of daring to have that, for daring to even think their lives aren’t meant to be lived for other people, but fucking watch me go).

Just like partners and friends aren’t the same as professional help, fandom isn’t the ultimate cure for depression/trauma unless there’s an inner change in the ill person to better utilise it. I was that ill person and I had to go through a lot of therapy and growth to not become a 24/7 abusive bitch myself (I still have shitty hypersensitivities, but those are in-built–they’re bad enough). I changed the way I see fannish activities (I now really do see them as medicine), and only then could I enjoy them to the fullest and only then could I start writing really good fic, because it comes from a firm ground of faith in the inherent value of fic. It’s a really complicated thing to explain, the interrelationships of fandom, queer people and mental health (there should be a book on fandom/queerdom and mentalness–we are wonky in the head, sometimes fucking awfully so, and it’s *not* all due to persecution but genes).

But my gist is that there’s no point in endlessly remaining in a draining relationship with someone who doesn’t want to heal–Tumblr’s anxiety-mongering culture of self-hate, ahoy! One has to pick one’s “battles” and channel one’s energy somewhere where it’s actually going to bear fruit. Not on a site that says the phrase “I don’t discriminate by colour” is racist, or that a feminist, mixed-race royal princess “isn’t enough” or that a given sexual minority gets to rule it over everyone else. Not on a site full of kids who are too young/American to have known *real* homophobia and racism, and who don’t realise that for most people, in the real world, even not being racist or homophobic is a *choice.*

Which is why I miss that supportive community of other brainy, feminist and reasonable fans who actually had conversations so. Fucking. Much. Where are they? (DW is where the militant vegan lesbian sociopath SJWs went, and if you’re not keen on eternal frowny moral meta, ehhh.)

Where’s the actual fun? Where are the other fans who are old enough to have been through therapy and who have experienced real relationships and have known actual real “minority” people IRL, and who consequently have an open mind about things? Who can see that things really aren’t as black and white as they thought they were when they were in their teens? Where are the fans who know something about psychology and psychiatry? The ones who know how gendered socialisation works and just how deep it goes, and who aren’t fans of Tumblr essentialism and its blindness to gender-based toxins? The fans who actually understand and respect the intelligence of other fans, instead of kneejerk assumptions of ignorance and moral corruption? The fans who legit don’t think a Gen X writer who forgot to use–or simply didn’t know about the existence of–a new politically correct term, is as evil as Hitler (because ignorance=/=active, intentional oppression, Jesus!)? The fans who respect the labor that goes into fanfic and fanart and always leave comments or otherwise support fan creators, instead of thinking of writers as vending machines for something “dirty” they feel ashamed for reading?

Because I’m that kind of “old” fan and I’ll be there for you if you’re there for me.

I just need to know where the fuck you are!