#(i also i actively try not to tag groups that the post isn't about tbh)

[blizzardfluffykpop]

recently reminded myself how much i loved day6 and i've just been having sm fun rediscovering old favorites and listening to new songs and just falling in love with them all over again-

[johaerys-writes]

Kind of a random ask but okay. I noticed you have a lot of mutuals and my question is do you have any tips on how to socialize in the fandom here? Like I have people that I would love to interact with, but Idk how. Idk if this has happened to you

Hi anon!! I totally get where you're coming from. I never really thought too much about it and I don't know if I have a specific method, but here's what I would do, if I were you:

Don't be afraid to talk and reach out to people. It doesn't have to be sliding in their DMs, which I understand can be awkward if you don't know the person, but routinely commenting on their posts, their fanfic, their art, or reblogging their posts with nice and enthusiastic comments is a great way to make friends! I don't always have the time or the spoons to do that unfortunately, but I try to do it as much as I can. I really appreciate all the creators in fandom and I try to show that.

If you're a creator (but even if you aren't) don't be shy about posting your work and maybe tagging people in WIP memes or tag games or something like that. Not everyone responds, but I feel like tagging ppl sometimes opens the door for more communication, and if they tag you back you can just keep the conversation going.

When you see people reblog a prompt list or ask game, send them asks!!! Please, just send them an ask!!! This is actually a pet peeve of mine tbh, people reblogging an ask list or ask game from someone who obviously wants to get asks lol (why else would they rb it) without sending an ask first. I feel like it's basic fandom etiquette, but it's also a really nice gesture even if you don't know the person that well. Showing that you actively care about what someone has to say is the first step into getting to know them, I think, and it's also just very nice to be included.

Getting into a fandom discord or group chat isn't always easy or intuitive, but if you do find yourself in one, don't be afraid to talk!! I may or may not be suffering from "can't shut the hell up disease" LOL but I'll take any opportunity to talk about my faves that I can get 😅 It may feel like you don't have much to say at first, but sometimes just reacting to what others say and being generally nice and positive can be a good first step.

It can be tempting to lurk around and only look at what others say or post, or to read fics without leaving a comment, or to like art but not reblog it, but it does nothing for helping you meet people. Imo this is actually really pervasive and not good for fandom overall. To each their own, of course, I'm not going to tell anyone how they should engage in fandom, but my best and most lasting friendships were made because we started reading each other's fics for example, or complimenting each other's art, or they reached out to me because this or that meme made them think of me, or we tag each other in games and stuff, or we took part in fandom exchanges, etc etc. It might be hard at first if this isn't something that comes naturally to you, but I do think it's worth it if you want to be part of a community. And, like any community, fandom requires give-and-take to thrive.

TLDR: sometimes seeing ppl in an established fandom interact with each other and having friends can be nerve-wracking and you don't know where to start, but honestly fandom is all about engagement. Basically, talk to people! Compliment their art or their fic! Tag them in games! Send them asks! Be kind! That’s it 😊

[neverquiteeden]

Shout out to the person who just reblogged this from me and made me remember about this! Bit of a long post so if you want, you can skip.

We're doing a lot better now and we're starting to have hope for the future! I highly encourage you to build friendships and community with the people around you. One of my friends has stated that if they have a child I will be their godparent and if they have a daughter i will be their namesake. I was put here on this earth to be the village Auntie and I cannot wait for the future.

Yes it's scary, yes I'm worried that I might not be able to afford a house by myself in this economy (but frankly, who isn't worried about that?), but tbh the feeling of "coming home to someone" that the poets speak of and that I talked about in the tags IS the feeling of going to see your friends. It's "I'll walk you home" it's "did you eat" it's "hey i thought you'd like this" it's trying new things because they love it and them returning the favour, it's listening to them talk about their interests and being listened to in turn, it's being invited in, it's setting up a group activity. I love my friends so so so so so much and i know that they also love me and I can just be myself. I don't need to perform, i don't need to explain, I can just exist

Yes, the aro grief does hit on occasion. Yes my friends will change and the dynamics will change, and some people will go on another path to me, but good god. My life is so full of joy right now, and I know that I can build a good life for myself even in this world. I'm not going to steal grief from the future with my friendships with something that might not even happen.

You ever listening to a nice, sweet song that you usually like and then the Aro Grief hits you like a fucking train

[veliseraptor]

Top 5 fictional siblings!

oh boy oh man. I feel like I've probably answered this one previously but I don't feel like going digging for it right now so you get to read me talking about at least some of the same relationships again

1. Yunmeng Siblings. God! What a mess! Truly a deeply codependent trio with intertwining and sometimes clashing issues and communication problems! I love them. Like...god, no joke, I'm pretty sure it was the Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian relationship specifically that actively hooked me emotionally and that kinda continued to be true (and is definitely true now as one of my major points of emotional connection), but then Jiang Yanli in there and the dynamic with her added? The role she plays in mediating, her self-effacing-ness, the way she is, I think, trying to make herself small in part to offset the drama swirling around the other two and also just generally to avoid conflict? The "older sister taking on vaguely parental role" vibes? I just...love them. And all their fucked up mess.

2. Shi Wudu & Shi QIngxuan. I feel like I was less attached to this as a dynamic on my first read and got more into it on reread because again - say it with me - it's a mess. Shi Wudu's overprotective, somewhat controlling relationship to Shi Qingxuan born clearly out early fear and anxiety about her doomed status but now manifesting in disapproval and judgment, and the tension between Shi Qingxuan's freewheeling, carefree nature and her desire to please her brother...and maybe most of all the way that the fact that they love each other too much ultimately condemns both of them. Shi Wudu refuses to make a decision that will hurt Shi Qingxuan. Shi Qingxuan again and again refuses to turn away from her brother even after she knows what he's done. I'm suffering about it.

3. Felix & Mildmay. Remember when I was 13 and read Melusine and possibly was a little young for it but latched onto it so hard and got really, really invested in the relationship between Felix and Mildmay in all its fucked up codependent messy glory? Yeah, that was a thing and it hasn't changed. Beautiful disasters. and like...I feel like in some ways Mildmay's love and devotion to Felix goes without saying (it's not always good for him!) but I was just looking back through my blog and found the part where Felix answers someone judging his relationship with Mildmay at the end of the first book by saying that he is "down in the gutter. With him." and boy!!! for a character who so ruthlessly distances himself from his gutter history in every possible way...that's a lot.

4. Richard & Lymond. Feel like this whole post could be titled "what a mess! they love each other very much but what a mess! and that's definitely also true here. Like from The Game of Kings classic "I will bring him to you on his knees, weeping, and begging to be killed" through...everything in Checkmate tbh...augh. It's almost always Lymond making things harder, also, but Richard just...can never quite walk away from him.

5. As usual I waffled on my fifth but I ended up going with the Sons of Feanor as a whole. A little bit of a different dysfunction because I think their dysfunction is less with each other (though increasingly the 'us against the world' thing probably...isn't super healthy) but more with. the extended family and also the world. But boy do I love a borderline pathologically loyal group of siblings dedicated to a hopeless cause that they kinda know is hopeless but it's happening anyway! and they all die miserably except one who lives miserably! That is, as the kids say, the good shit.

Honorable mention does have to go to Thor and Loki, who do own the tag "tragic siblings" on this blog.

[cat-sapphics]

Hey!

I follow the" aroace lesbian" tag and your recent posts have come up in my feed so I just wanted to say that being arospec, acespec (demiromatic graysexual, both labels in the aromantic and asexual spectrums) & lesbian is completely OKAY and you should not let anyone tell you the contrary. Especially uneducated people so 😚🤍

Many aroaces use the term aroace to encompass being in both aromantic and asexual spectrums; this means you experience little to no romantic/sexual attraction and that's more than valid. You can be both arospec and aspec! 🔥 Or arospec and asexual. Aromantic and acespec 🥺🤝

The way YOU experience romantic and sexual attraction is just different to the average allo person, & that doesn't make it any less valid. Attraction is an abstract concept and we shouldn't be putting ourselves into boxes but letting feelings be that, feelings.

Your experiences are necessary and important to our diverse & big aro/ace communities as an aroace lesbian! An aspec person is that who experiences little to no romantic attraction. That's it. THAT'S OKAY 🥰

And being an aspec lesbian is more than valid too, it's not a contradictory term because the little and fluctuating romantic & sexual attraction you DO experience, is ONLY towards women/nb so; I don't see why lesbian isn't a term you can't use. A lesbian is a women/nb female aligned person who experiences romantic, sexual and/or emotional attraction towards women/nb female aligned people. Check, check & check ✅

All in all, ace lesbians, aro lesbians and aroace lesbians are ALL part of the lesbian community & our unique experiences with romance and sex are necessary and valid for it 💓

Sorry if this got long, hope I made my point clear. Aroace lesbians have always been lesbians so don't let any exclusionists steal your peace 🧡🤍💖

thank you!! thank ya thank ya thank ya!! i really appreciate it <3

i will say, i think some of the anons i got did make some valid points (obviously not everywhere you look but they at least gave me something to think about in general) but it really took me by surprise how condescending and disapproving they all were. super uneducated too, i said i experience attraction differently or at least less frequently than average allo people and like ?? that doesn't mean i'm secretly a self-hating lesbophobe ?? you don't get to determine that for me if i'm genuinely happy even though i participate in lesbian discourse and am passionate about keeping the definition specific and closed ?? lol i didn't redefine lesbian or take away its initial meaning so it really had me peeved

i think most of their comments reflect on how they don't believe in aromanticism and asexuality being a spectrum, which i guess i invited by my own doing since i have some conservative and exclusionary views on the lgbt community and that affects my following/audience, but my response to that is that i use these labels because they bring me personal comfort. when i say i'm demiromantic i don't mean that alloromantics have zero standards when it comes to a potential partner or are completely mesmerized by the idea of hook-ups, just that the connection they need to start crushing comes within a decent time period with a personal connection, but not a super strong and deep and loving one that makes it exceptionally hard to fall in love despite however much we may desire to. the label doesn't exist to imply something bad about """normal""" people, it exists to name an experience many people have but to an intense degree. so, yes, it's a pointless social construct, it probably means nothing to you and that's fine, but it still means something to me. i'm not crying oppression or marginalization, and i'm not claiming that i'm lgbt on the basis of being demiromantic/greyasexual, but through being a nonbinary lesbian. that's the difference between mspec lesbians and aspec lesbians, is one is actively harmful to multiple groups and actually Does spawn from a place of internalized lesbophobia and/or biphobia, and the other is just "mmk this is just for me and affects nothing at all, it doesn't drag you into anything at all, i still qualify for lesbian the way you (should!) see it as technically even if you do believe it's redundant, so just... leave me alone" cause it reflects more on them than me when they make it their business by unfairly assuming things about me

same applies to me being greyasexual. still trying to figure out if it means that i experience sexual/physical attraction less frequently, less intensely, or both, but does that matter?? genuinely?? this is also redundant but i didn’t wanna leave it out of the paragraph about me being demiro fk;ljslkgbdvhbs. the aro disapproval part isn’t acceptable at all but i can at least see it since romance is so normalized and is a core part of, y’know, lgb relationships; the greyace disapproval however....... i don’t wanna label it as acephobia because i don’t really believe in aphobia being a thing, but it still kinda rubs me wrong to claim that sexual/physical attraction is a requirement ykyk... NOTHING WRONG WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE SEX OF COURSE (i myself kinda wanna try someday if that works out) i just think frowning upon someone who doesn’t UNLESS they try to claim they’re lgbt on that basis is.................. not really cool. i really hope people who read this understand what i’m trying to say and don’t label me as an ace inclus who thinks aphobia and oppression are real, i was just trying to make a point about my personal experiences oops lmao

and then it became "aroace means NO ATTRACTION AT ALL" okay... so i'm angled aroace, that's a sub-term since aroace is literally an umbrella term, actually (unlike lesbian, shit's complicated ykyk). "YOU'RE NOT AROACE THEN"....... they don't even like the idea of oriented aroace now either, so like, what then, are aroace people just never allowed to feel love or positive feelings from other people ever? jesus christ. i'm not even getting into this, i consider aro/ace identities to be secondary to describe one's attraction so this debate should not be as important as, say, discourse centering the L, G, B, or T. it's just dumb all around tbh

hope i addressed all the arguments against it, but i can't really care at this point if i missed something :/ i'll probably get a mean anon about it so don't worry!! /s jslgjgjkshkj;lhfp

speaking of, i've had to delete so many anons and even turn off the option to ask anonymously because of this discourse. it's so pointless in my opinion, so i've just stopped giving them my time unless i think it's worth answering - but even then, i try to keep it fairly short. i genuinely was not expecting my take on (cishet) ace discourse to turn into myself failing to be seen as a "real lesbian" despite literally meeting its definitive qualifications and then it just kept building up ?? stan behavior tbh, especially since plenty of them obviously come from the same users

i apologize for the rant. i just never really felt like i'd be listened to if i tried to explain my identity, so i gave up and just tried to ignore my way out of it. so i really genuinely appreciate your ask, especially since i can identify you. it really feels like i actually have someone on my side now, so even if you ever disagree i'd know you wouldn't harass me about it. it really means a lot, i really needed this from you and i don't wanna dump more shit but i feel that you deserve to know. so thank you again <3

[muggle-writes]

Rules: Answer 21 questions and then tag 21 people who you want to get to know better.

tagged by @elizabethsyson

Nickname: Muggle is my nickname, but when I went by Muggle in person for more than a month at a time, it naturally got abbreviated, usually to Mugz

Zodiac: Aquarius

Last movie I saw: into the spiderverse (same answer as last time. I don't watch that many movies tbh except around Christmas. unless YouTube counts in which case... music of some sort? idk links for the next answer)

Favorite musician: changes by the day. I've kinda been in an acapella and/or folk music mood recently so the Maccabeats and Peter Hollens are in my YouTube and Spotify history a lot recently. also I'm eternally in awe of Forte Handbell Quartet (eta a longer video; i recommend skipping to the techno piece or the Jurassic Park theme)

Last thing I googled: "vine why are you buying clothes at the soup store" (my wife hasn't seen it; also i can't find the vine because apparently it's a much bigger meme than I realized). before that it was "chgrp not root" because work and group permissions are useful when they work

Song stuck in my head: well for most of the day when I haven't been actively listening to something, it's been the Pokemon RSE route-walking music. (but that somehow happens frequently when I'm in the no-music-no-internet room at work, as I was for most of the day, and I don't know how I accidentally trained my brain to make that connection). right now, surprisingly, I don't have any background music playing in my head. I think it's because the humidifier provides just enough white noise that my brain doesn't feel the need to provide its own

Other blogs: my main is @muggle-the-hat and I'm a mod on @why-do-neurotypicals but we've gotten one ask ever so that blog has been dormant for a while. I have a bunch of other sideblogs, but they're all small and I use different screen names on each of them (enby life: no idea which name suits me best so I may as well try them out) so i feel like it would just confuse things to link them.

Following: blogs matching all the themes of my sideblogs, (including this one, which is writeblr), korean langblr, jumblr, assorted fandom blogs, authors of my more favorite fanfictions (some overlap with other categories), and irl friends and acquaintances (including one fandom blog turned irl friend)

Do I get asks: on my main if at all, which isn't really surprising because i have hundreds of followers there and maybe 60 followers combined among the rest. but I get asks far less often than I reblog ask memes so... I'm always happy to get more. I do get tagged in ask games more on this one, but writeblr is actually vaguely organized about tag lists so that makes sense. also I used to get tagged a bunch on my main and I rarely could find the posts again to follow up when I had time to answer.

What I’m Wearing: pajamas. staying warm and cozy

Lucky number: I don't remember what I said last time, but I like a lot of numbers. 64 is a good number. recently I've been debugging software in which 0x3E is my lucky status number and 0x0E taunts me. (um, decimal 62 and 14). Also my other favorite number i can't share until it's no longer the combination to the lock to the Secret Room. (or realistically never because opsec and i shouldn't make public the types of parents we use for that combination lock), honestly I aim to be like.... ah, I'm sure the anecdote involves G.H. Hardy but i don't remember on which side. anyway one mathematician remarked to another about how the id number of the taxi he rode in was sadly uninteresting, and the one I aspire to be like, argued "what are you talking about, this number is interesting because ______" and I'd like to be able to do that for any arbitrary number thrown at me. (hi yes math is good, history is hard, math history is interesting yet i still forget the people even if i remember the math. except when things are named after people, but that tends to be, like, Euler and LaGrange and other people who did lots of cool science things so i remember the methods and the names of the methods separately which never helps)

Amount of sleep: ....depression both screws with my sleep schedule and means I always feel like I need more sleep except when I wake up at 5pm and feel like I've wasted the day. so yeah. I can never get enough sleep

Favorite food: yes (why do I have to pick a favorite?) uh, chocolate in most forms, many other sweet things, red meats (especially if served with potatoes), curry (especially if it has "too much" ginger), fresh-baked bread, chai the way my favorite local Indian restaurant makes it (spicier with just a little bit of sweet, which is the opposite of what i can get from the mocha machine at work which is wayyy sweet with a hint of spice but that inferior chai is still superior to coffee so i drink too much of it). also vegetables which I really don't eat enough of: sauteed zucchini and onions, roasted broccoli

Dream trip: dreaming requires creativity and tbh I funnel that mostly into my writing instead. I wouldn't mind going back to Korea for another visit though

Dream job: my current job is pretty good when I feel productive and when my debugging tools actually produce data maybe??? (they were not being helpful today. but i still mostly like my job.) dream job is probably this but with seniority and confidence and double the salary (while living in a similar area of the country; I wouldn't want to double my salary by moving to work for Google in California and having less available after rent than I do now)

Describe yourself as aesthetic things:

the smell of old books

the first glow of sunrise (the sunrise painting the mountains pink and gold)

a rainbow in the spray from a waterfall

the flicker of distant lightning (watching a thunderstorm fade into the distance)

this picture

Random fact: about me or about the world?

how about a combination answer: when we got our new handbell music this season, we only looked at half the pieces our first rehearsal and afterwards I tried to look up one of the pieces we hadn't gotten to on YouTube because it's got a weird time signature and I wanted to get a feel for how fast it would go and how strict the counting is...... except it turns out we're the first group to ever play the piece. it was commissioned recently but seeing my conductor's name on the page didn't tell me how new it was because he's super prolific. (the fact that it was on printer paper without the publisher's graphics should have been a giveaway but it's only the second time I've been among the first to play one of his pieces so I think I can be excused for not realizing)

Languages: mostly just English, but I took Spanish for years, so I can hold simple conversations in it. I can almost read sound out Hebrew fast enough to keep up in services, and I know some random Hebrew vocab but comparatively no grammar. and I took Korean in college, enough that I can recognize sentence structure but I can really only speak tourist-Korean, though I can sound anything out (if it's typed. handwriting is hit or miss.) in both Hebrew and Korean (and Spanish tbh but i don't often listen to Spanish music) I'm very proud when I can separate the words enough, listening to a song, to translate them without looking up the lyrics. also I tried to learn Japanese from Duolingo when it was new, but I still hadn't gotten the kana straight when it started progressing to kanji so that was a rough time and I went back to Hebrew.

tbh I "dabble" in "language learning" which really means I start a million courses on Duo and stick with none of them. with the notable exception of French, which I acknowledge is super common and probably a good idea to learn but the spelling and pronunciation seem so arbitrary I'm scared to look close enough to learn it properly, and I've never particularly considered starting the Duolingo course for French

I think I lost a few questions, because that's only 18 answers. whoops.

um... who to tag

@abluescarfonwaston if school hasn't drowned you in work yet and @copperscales I'm interested in both of your choices for lucky numbers especially.

... wow I'm blanking on other mutuals I haven't tagged recently. as usual lmk if you'd like to be edited in, or just answer the questions and tag me back, that's great too.

[bubblinelovechild]

You guys are really fucking up my festa vibes and tbh that’s really inconsiderate of you

First, I was very intentional in not mentioning Monty in my first post because I understand that he is a touchy subject in the fandom and I didn't want my point to be ignored. But while we are here, RWBY fan's using Monty Oum as a shield against criticism of the faunus arc's writing has always struck me as incredibly cowardly, his contributions to the show do not actually exempt it from allegations of racism. I know you guys have a kindergartener's understanding of race but people of colour are in fact capable of writing racist things not just against their own race but in the case of the Faunus of other races. The writing of the faunus is not vaguely racist it is very specifically anti-black and relies heavily on racist stereotypes against black people. The writers admitted to basing the fauns's oppression and struggle off the civil rights movement and the experiences of African Americans. 

Second, Miles Luna did not flesh anything out, he did little to no research into the topic he was writing, he took the propaganda he received from the fucking Texas education system of all things and wrote it into his show (I can say this I went to school in Texas). If Miles was really interested in fleshing out the struggles of his in-universe minority and not creating a thinly veiled outlet for him to rant about how much he hates black people he would have done some research, listened to any of the criticism he received or just hired a black writer.

 What about either of those characters fleshed out anything? I mentioned in the tags of someone else's post but RWBY fans are incredibly delusional about Sienna Khan, y'all hype her up as this big bad morally grey queen, call her "the adam taurus you wanted" and accuse anyone who critiques Adam's writing of being racist and misogynistic for not focusing on her. And then you watch the show and she's in one scene WHERE SHE DIES. The only reason yall like Sienna is because she is nothing but a shield for Adam's shitty writing. She doesn't have any pesky revolutionary ideals to make you question your morals, she isn't morally complicated, she is fucking nothing. It's like that one quote about abortion activism it's easy to root for a character when she's only in the show for like 4 minutes max. I will leave the explanation of the specific flaws of illiya’s writing to someone who knows more about the specifics of anti indigenous discrimination than i do.

Your second paragraph makes no sense, Adam having more character and motivations than Cardin is proof of my argument. Faunus "terrorists" are a bigger presence in the show than the actual discrimination that supposedly inspired them. The show takes the stance that groups like the WF are overreacting. The only time we accurate violent subjugation the scene still insists that Adam killing a violent racist is too extreme, that scene exists to villainize Adam for protecting himself not to show what the faunus experiences. 

I used Malcolm X as an example because I doubt any of you could name any other violent revolutionists, but yes Malcolm X did support gaining rights by any means necessary here is a quote btw: “We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.”

I'm going to be real with you I think you are incredibly stupid but I also admire your bravery. I have never seen racists try to use MALCOLM FUCKING X to defend their bullshit. MLK is disrespected to hell and back but most people know better than to invoke Malcom's name in their bullshit. Just to be clear Malcolm X is not the civil rights leader to use for your ALM, "but riots are bad nonsense". You are right Malcolm X would probably be disappointed in the conduct of current-day civil rights groups. But his criticism would likely be that they were not violent enough and that they were wasting their breath attempting to fix a doomed nation. You, people, are just so fucking stupid, I am baffled. I knew a lot of RWBY fans held irl racist beliefs and that is why you are so comfortable with the rhetoric the show spouts, but this is honestly so insane I'm convinced you're trolling.

For your Adam is abusive argument please refer to my last response to one of your fellow imbeciles: https://www.tumblr.com/bubblinelovechild/719687530147151872/i-honestly-didnt-expect-that-last-post-to-get

I do not think revolutions are exempt from criticism I am a Black Queer woman, I have beef with a lot of civil rights era activists, let's leave that criticism to people who actually know what they are talking about instead of racist white men and their equally racist fandoms ❤️

0/10: this one didn't even make me angry you are just so fucking stupid that this honestly felt like a goddam chore. The only reason I finished this was because I was like 2 paragraphs in before I realized how much of a fucking racist idiot you are. Instead of watching propaganda wannabe anime please fucking read a book. Malcolm X was a black nationalist, he literally believed America was unsalvagable and that there was no way to fix a country that was in every way built on the subjugation of black people. Arguing with stupid people is not fun. Almost all your arguments are just nonsensical bullshit and that really takes the enjoyment out of this for me. I would have had a more intellectually stimulating conversation with a toddler. Atleast Lilith tried to sound like she knew what she was talking about.

Anyways it's bts' tenth anniversary and I would like to enjoy it, I can't do that if fuckin neanderthals are accosting me on tumblr every 3-5 business days.

The RWBY fandoms treatment of Adam makes me very uncomfortable

This is very long sorry I was rambling <3

There’s something really odd about the dedication RWBY fans have to hating Adam. So much so that they’ll admit the writing of the WF is racist but refuse to admit that Adam a member of the white fang also suffered from that racist writing.

There’s this weird dedication to pretending there are no problems with the choices made around Adams character and vilifying literally everyone who tries to talk about it, for the sake of continuing to blindly hate him. The fandom seems to struggle with understanding that the show is fictional and everything that happens in it is a direct choice of its writers. Y’all talk about Adam like he is a real person who has personally offended you irl. Just a huge lack of media literacy tbh.

A white man wrote a civil rights group, that he admittedly based off the black panthers, as the generic bad guys of his shitty anime knockoff and made a central theme of the show the idea that fighting against your oppression violently makes you just as bad if not worse than your oppressors. Then he mad the leader of that group a generic abusive meanie bad guy. Who essentially is what white supremacists think civil rights activist are all the way down to being the fictional equivalent of a black supremacist.

When there was backlash to this he made a knockoff Malcom X and then killed her in her only scene and made a character whose ideology is basically sit down and lick the feet of your oppressors and had the audacity to say he was based off of MLK. How the fuck do you base a character off of somebody without doing basic research on them because contrary to what people seem to believe MLK was not a doormat and this is a conversation for a different day but I’m sick and tired of his memory being weaponised against black people.

What’s worse is that Adam is the only character portrayed as actually doing something to fight racism. Ghira’s faction is only ever seen fighting against other groups. I don’t know if y’all know this but that’s not how the civil rights movement worked. Most of the leaders didn’t agree on methods but they coexisted because the main goal was the liberation of black people and they knew they had to coexist. MLK did not go around calling the cops on revolutionaries he disagreed with.

The problems with Adam and the WF are not separate and cannot be. Most of what’s wrong with the Faunus plot line is the way the show handles Adam. The choices made with his writing cannot be separated from those they made with the WF overall. Adams choice to kill his attackers to keep himself and other Faunus safe, from people literally trying to kill them, is treated the way it is because of the stance they took with WFs writing. When Adam kills a human supremacist trying to kill Ghira you’re supposed to see it as an extreme and the beginning of his turn to evil. Adam isn’t a real person every describe he makes is informed by the white writers of the show. Why would the bias they displayed writing the WF apply to him?

Some of you have been abused and relate to Blake in that sense, a lot of you seem to be projecting your abusers onto Adam. I’m sorry you went through that but you are not excused from buying into racist rhetoric. It’s incredibly uncomfortable as a black person to watch people talk about how “healing” it was for them to watch a civil rights leader admittedly inspired by black people slapped around and killed by two white women. It is anger inducing to watch fans celebrate “queer representation” dancing on the corpse of a monumental disrespect to black people and our history.

RWBY doesn’t even handle abuse well tbh and most of the queer rep is not that great, there are many shows that do it so much better, there is actually no excuse for hanging on to the black people are bad for fighting against racism show.

[bitchy-peachy]

I have opinions about shit I don't like. I'm allowed to say what I want in my blog as long as I'm not imposing my opinions on people who stay on their own fucking lane like I do. So for the ones going around crying about being "mistreated" cos their dumbass are picking fights on correctly tagged posts with the excuse of "defense" I can't even feel sorry for you.

If someone dislikes the shit you like and it makes you get butthurt, actively seeking people who dislike your favorite thing to try to "make them see the light" just makes you look like an annoying little masochist. And this is coming from a Dom, lmao.

It's like seeing a warning sign about a dog and you ignoring the warning and then complaining about being bitten. You say freedom of speech allows you defense of yourself when you're actually trying to police the opinions of people just discussing something among their peers aka violating their own freedom of speech. These people don't know or give a shit about you and you're only reinforcing the belief that you're oversensitive (lmfaooooo) and can't handle someone disliking your shit on the internet.

If you're doing your own thing without bothering anybody and some asshole shows up bothering you, then go ahead and drag them through shit all you want. I support it, tbh. But if you're attacking everyone that simply states dislike or like of something in their own spaces, don't fucking think you can act like some self-righteous little shit that deserves a pat on the back. If anything you kinda asking to get shit on, lol.

For all the little whiny ass discourse blogs out there that have hilariously thought that stalking anti tags to attack everyone in there makes them good people instead of sensitive little fandom police.

You have your opinion, they have theirs. It isn't only YOUR side that is right and can't get burned.

PS: if someone says they're triggered by something and post about it, and you try to talk down to them in their own vent tag and trigger them further, you're just a twat. Idgaf if your arguments have good points or not, don't fucking go intentionally upsetting people in their tags, ffs.

I have my own peculiar fictional tastes but you know what... I don't go up to people upset by them and shove it on their faces. Fuck, I don't even use my tumblr main account to fan about it cos this site is too accessible for people that can get upset by such content even if they can filter it. (I do have a horror side blog for that but all of those who follow it know what's up in there and it's adult flagged anyways)

The amount of bs that could be avoided if people stayed in their lane or knew how to not rub their shit in other people's faces is surprising. Like not tagging graphic nsfw in main fandom tags (that shit is annoying), not tagging your ship (that could be understandably triggering to some people) in every possible fucking fandom tag that exists, not making nasty sex jokes that make fun of rape and pedophilia and putting them in character tags (instead of just the pairing tag) without a nsfw tag (as a shipper myself I do find shippy bs on character tags annoying af. I know people want notes but damn. The ship name already says that character is in it. No need to fucking put every name, nickname, or whatever to get notes on your untagged nsfw art or text post of rape)

I swear some of y'all kinda ask to be treated like shit cos y'all don't use common sense. Not everyone has to like or accept your shit, so don't fucking force it. You'll get the opposite effect. I've had it done to me before and I just hated the thing even more, lol. So much for "effectiveness".

And also... Don't judge people as a whole. Just cos some anti did something mean to you, doesn't mean every single one is to blame for it, you stupid fuck (sorry but this shit irritates me unlike anything). Think before assuming shit about people based on some asshole that was mean to you. I don't condone every fucking thing people in my own peer groups do. I even call it out myself, so whenever I see some ignorant whiny brat accusing me of shit I didn't do and don't agree with, I just want to fucking publicly humiliate them for being an idiot. You'd actually have to find something showing I did that rather than blindly mouthing off with this crying bullshit.

[ladyluscinia]

Fandom rambles under the cut but you have to be cool about them

Went to throw an old reblog into my drafts so I could maybe reference the point I made easier, and I realized that ourflagmeansgayrights person had blocked me. To be clear - this isn't about them. We only really had one exchange that pretty much ended on mutual "well I fundamentally disagree with your interpretation so idk" and then I mostly started scrolling past them in the tag and rarely seeing any reblog chain with them on my dash, but it had gotten to the point where they were like... the one major and active poster from that circle of meta I saw (vs the misc. people that pop up with opinions every time the tag starts in on a topic but don't really establish a presence beyond that).

They certainly don't have to interact with me and I wasn't interacting with them, but now. Like. It's not an option at all. Which doesn't really mean anything for one particular pair of strangers - definitely not enough to warrant any sort of obligation not to block someone - but at the same time it's relevant to acknowledge that it's not just one or two or five really, is it?

I think it's fascinating, entirely predictable and logical, and simultaneously kind of worrying how efficient this fandom is at walling out takes they hate. I've barely blocked anyone but I don't have to. They've done it for me, and now I go along entirely unaware of these blogs existing, much less seeing their posts. And I know I'm an outlier and most people are very liberally using the block button... which is frequently a good call judging by how hostile the Izzy Hands opinion camps can get. Like, in terms of making fandom a nicer and chiller place to exist in, I think all the Izzy city-states are doing wonderfully. Trimming your dash and tag searches to show people that make you happy and not people insulting you or writing upsetting things about your favorite character or making you angry is a generally positive and encouraged thing to do. It's fandom. It's fun.

But also Season 2 is coming, and another factor of fandom that I definitely enjoy and find important is the way fans collectively get together and analyze things. And I think we are getting real close to or have reached the point of no return where that is going to be really hard for a lot of fans to engage in.

I mean, with all the wildly divergent takes on Izzy, a lot of people must be wrong? He can't be all of these things at once. And if you are wrong but have been pretty quiet about it you might be able to change course with minimal fuss, but for people who have posted meta in Season 1? And likely been extensively blocked for it if it got any sort of traction?

Say Season 2 immediately shows I'm wrong and they are right, and I'm absolutely supposed to be looking through Lens A and setting aside Lens B. Cool. There are extensive existing posts that break down how Lens A applied in Season 1, and presumably a bunch of new posts being made about it in Season 2... and good odds I can't see any of it in the tags or reblog from any of the meta writers. Everyone I can interact with was a Lens B enthusiast and we're all just kinda looking at each other and either quitting the fandom or trying to piece together how Lens A applies among ourselves. Or maybe it's still not entirely clear whether Lens A or Lens B applies, but again, I can only interact with people sticking to their guns on Lens B and can't even see the new arguments for A, plus if I start posting about Lens A then I might get excommunicated from the B group.

Meta writing is maybe going to be a struggle for a lot of meta writers, and tbh whichever group winds up "right" is probably not even going to notice. And if you have been "wrong" up til now, whether or not you are willing to adapt or reconsider may have little to nothing to do with whether you can have any community access (or even just fun) trying to do so. Which kinda sucks.

There's not really a solution here - two fandom needs are competing and they are both of value, and the broader issue of how good is blocking for a community vs how good it is for an individual is also a debate with no real answer. Hell, I've made this post before. But today I realized that maybe my last window into a different city-state was closed while I wasn't looking, and it gave me thoughts.

🤔

(Also, only slightly related thoughts... what was the last straw? What final offense did I commit??? I'm so curious)

Oh wow ofmd season 2 meta really is going to be completely restricted to people within your Izzy Hands opinion city-state, huh?

[uneryx]

I think it needs PROFUSE reiteration that AO3 is so staunchly defended because it has a robust tagging system - both built into the site's framework AND the culture of its userbase - that allows people to curate their own experiences. And sites like FFN and Wattpad don't have that, which ultimately makes for a worse experience.

One of the biggest Millennial/Gen Z divides I see in fandom is who the onus of content curation is placed upon. Most people north of age 25 understand that it is their own responsibility to curate their experience online. They don't want to see something? Block the tag. Block the search term. Set up filters. Tag extensively so that others can do the same. Block/unfollow people who DONT tag extensively enough to enable good curation. I see far, FAR too many younger folks expecting OTHER people to curate their experience for them. Comments/posts like "let me know if you're a proshipper so I can block you" and "unfollow me if you support X" (by which they usually mean "if you don't actively reject/proclaim hatred of X"). (side note: this is such a puritanical and authoritarian way of thinking that tbh terrifies me. No shit I don't support minors being abused, most people don't. But the fact that an opinion like "teenagers should be free to explore their sexual identities and that includes writing sexual situations about people their age" would get me ridden out on a rail in some corners of the internet is horrifying. Y'all really out here saying the same thought police shit my evangelical pastor used to spew from the pulpit, aint'cha.) The cultural difference in generational cohorts is something I try to be sensitive of because I know that different age groups are going to have different expectations, and I don't wanna be one of those "dur dur gen z dumb" kinds of olds, but I'm also very tired and of late have just ended up blocking people who expect me to do all the heavy lifting for them. I don't owe y'all shit, and I especially don't owe you an essay on why I'm "safe" to follow. I'm not going to vet every single one of my followers or the thousands of eyeballs that have been on my fanfic. I can't. I have a job and hobbies and a life, and that is too goddamn many people. What I do instead is have a disclaimer on my socials and my AO3 page that says I'm 35, I write and discuss things that at 35 year old might potentially be interested in and find relevant. Being a queer 35 year old ND adult is messy. I talk about politics, substance use, sex and trauma-processing, and if that isn't for you, then *don't follow me*. I'm not your mom or your babysitter or any kind of authority with responsibility for your well-being. I'm a grouchy stranger on the internet with opinions. Therefore, I expect YOU to curate YOUR experience. And that's the culture around AO3 - it was made by Gen X and Millennials during the zenith of Livejournal-style fandom in the late 2000s and has a lot of the same cultural hallmarks from that time re: safeguarding content that is "unnacceptable" to mainstream audiences (especially queer content). AO3 exists because two adult men having sex was treated with the same "morally impure" broad brush as literal, IRL CSA. Because AO3 safeguards the rights of authors for that reason, the onus to curate your experience falls to you, not mods, not writers, not site hosts. AO3 and the people who post there aren't going to hold your hand and coddle you and check your ID to make sure you shouldn't be in the grownups area. If you can't handle that, then, well -- as olderthannetfic put it, perhaps Wattpad's terms of service may be more to your liking.

Somewhere in my notes in the last few days I saw someone add some tags that I’ve been thinking about ever since. I wish I could find them again (or that I’d just saved their post at the time) because I think they made a lot of sense.

They were talking about how fanfic is becoming more and more mainstream while still remaining largely transgressive. It’s such an interesting dichotomy to think about!

On the one hand, you have sites like AO3 and realities like widespread high speed internet access being more and more accessible to larger and larger groups of people. This makes it incredibly easy for anyone at all to find and read fanfic.

On the other hand, you have the roots of fanfic. It was born out of marginalized groups such as women, people of colour, and members of the queer community deciding to take the stories that had been aimed at a largely male, white, heterosexual audience and inverting them into something they could enjoy and relate to. To this day, fanfic is a place where people write the kinds of stories that don’t get made into movies and TV shows. The kinds of stories that don’t get published or end up on the New York Times bestseller list.

Fanfic used to be written and shared in secret. People used to hide it. People still do hide the fact that they read or write it. But it’s becoming something that more and more people are becoming more and more aware of.

So now there’s a spotlight starting to shine on fanfic. People who aren’t looking for transgressive works are finding them where they always were. People who think the status quo is fine are getting upset when they enter a place where the status quo is constantly being upended.

The tags on that post that I can’t find made the point that popular media is curated and sanitized and stripped of most of its controversy in order to appeal to the widest possible audience. But that also makes that audience expect all media to be curated and sanitized in the same way. When they encounter the messy, controversial, ugly, radical, difficult things that people write in fanfic, they’re unprepared.

Fanfic isn’t big media. Fanfic authors aren’t being edited and filtered and polished - and nor are their works. The clash between the expectations of people new to fanfic and accustomed to popular media and the realities of what fanfic is and what it’s being written for - that’s part of this struggle that fandom is going through right now. It’s been going on since the beginning of course, but it’s getting louder every year.

I’m still thinking my way through this, but it really does make a lot of sense to me. If those were your tags, please let me know so I can credit you with the ideas at the core of this post.

And if you have any ideas for how we as fans can better introduce the newbies to the culture and expectations in fandom, I’d love to hear it. The better we can guide people into our space, the better they’ll fit in when they join it.