#And there's far too much ableism in the fandom and it's made me absolutely not want to enagage

[neon-moon-beam]

I say this as a fan of Submas, as someone who liked Submas before the PLA hypetrainwreck, as someone who considers them among their favorite human characters in the Pokemon series:

The Pokemon series DOES NOT revolve around Submas. In fact, they're fairly minor characters. They're not going to be in every game. They don't need to be in every game.

[khruschevshoe]

OFMD Critique: Bad Faith, Fandom, and Respect

All right. You know what? Screw it. I saw one post I just cannot ignore anymore that encapsulated all of my problems with the fandom right now. Personal rant incoming.

I understand that there's a nuance to the discussion of season 2 of Our Flag Means Death, and that there are people going a little too far with both their critiques and their support of the show. But oh my God, I'm tired of being straw-manned and made fun of for legitimate critiques of the show.

I just used the block button on someone in this fandom for the first time. Some of you might think I'm overreacting for this, but I saw a post that I could not on any level stand. This person, who I will not name names of, because I'd rather just block them and never deal with their level of bad faith again, took their one legitimate criticism of those of us who critique the show, the back and forth on whether or not Izzy's death was homophobic or not, and used it as the first in a literal list of straw man critiques that no one I've read in the OFMD Critical tag has made (and I check it like once a day bc I like reading meta, sorry), proceeding to absolutely make fun of the legitimate critiques that people have of the show, parodying them in the worst possible ways. They took our legitimate critiques about everything from the sexist handling Zheng Yi Sao's character, the absolute ableism of the finale, the questionable optics of the handling of trauma, etc. and stretched them into things that they very much were not (two examples were that we were crying ableism bc of something to do with seagulls and that we thought the problem in the Stede&Zheng dynamic was the "emotional labor" involved).

Now I'm pretty sure this post was a joke. I *think* it was a joke. But how in the world am I supposed to feel comfortable in the main section of a fandom like this when the comments and replies to this post were full of people agreeing sincerely that this is what the critical section of the fandom is like? How am I supposed to feel when I just see people making fun of me for my analysis of the show? I love this show. I adore season 1 and I'm clearly still making fan related content (moodboards) for season 2 along with my critiques.

Sure, I vibe way more with fanfiction than the actual canon at this point, but I still genuinely engage with the show. And to have the critiques that I made in good faith, regarding issues that I sincerely care about such as ableism, sexism, homophobia, and the handling of trauma, made fun of and taken out of context and straw-manned to their extreme, makes me feel so absolutely unwelcome in this fandom.

Other than keeping up with the couple of fan series that I'm currently still reading, I don't know if I can stay in this fandom any longer. I can't say that I'm excited for the new season if this is the kind of response that any good faith critique of the show is going to get. I can't say that I feel safe or comfortable when there are this many people ready to dog pile on me for a critique I made with ACTUAL TEXTUAL EVIDENCE to back it up.

I would like to thank all the people who have been making excellent critiques of the show. Their meta-analysis is what got me into making my own critiques, which I was nervous about making in any other fandom. I don't think I've in any way tagged them all, but just a few I can remember off the top of my head. Go read their critiques/meta- it's really good!

@sky-fire-forever @carrymelikeimcute @blue-b-bro @bougiebutchbinch @treesofgreen @sixstepsaway @alex51324

And from the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who has engaged with my mood boards or my critiques or anything else that I've made, as well as the amazing writers and artists in this fandom (such as @ruecrown, @aletterinthenameofsanity, @fool-for-luv, and @possumsmushroom). You guys have kept me going with my love for the show and engaging with it for a while now. Despite the stuff that is making me take a step back now, I really did love this while it lasted! I'm still planning on making a few more mood boards, but other than that, I'm going to take a step back from engaging.

Hope this post can spread enough support/joy your way to counteract the ache I'm currently feeling!

Sincerely,

Ashley (aka @khruschevshoe)

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

Yesterday I saw a post that basically said that Avatar wasn’t a feminist show that has a bias towards Zuko and that no female villains get redeemed(?!?) 

And said that the show oversexualises Azula which like WHAT

This is not a Cuties situation the camera never accentuates cleavage or anything, if you just saw Azula showing more skin in the beach episode (because she’s at the fucking beach) and then immediately thought about sex that sounds like a you problem.

People really gotta learn what words mean - and that no show from nearly TWENTY YEARS AGO is gonna present social issues the same way modern series would. Avatar has two whole episodes in which the whole lesson is "Sexism is bad, don't mistreat women", and a ton of the female characters are absolutely badass and incredibly well-written. One or two questionable moments is not enough to make claim it is misogynistic.

A female villain not getting redeemed while a male character does is only sexist if her gender is presented as the reason why she can't be redeemed, or if they did all the same things but her actions are presented as worse - and while the ATLA fandom is often guilty of that last one (not always because of sexism, but also because of ableism), that doesn't mean the writting of the SHOW was sexist.

I say this as someone who loves Azula's character and wants a redemption arc for her: the show's ending is a tragic, but logical one. Not everyone changes. Not everyone wants to change, or even gets the chance to. It's sad, but it makes sense and there's nothing offensive about the finale (unlike the way Azula was treated in the comics, but once again the root of the problem there was "the mentally ill are inherently evil/beyond help so anything and everything done to them is justifiable").

"The show oversexualizes her" That one is bit more complex - but not THAT much.

Avatar is a show with lots of fanservice (see Zuko taking off his shirt causing birds to fly and fangirls to appear behind him squeeling), but all of it is stuff that was ALWAYS presented in a way that was 100% appropriate for children. More importantly, the show never tried to use the fanservice to compensate for poor writting or to make Azula an evil seductress (a trope that is not inherently sexist, but can become so if the writer isn't careful with it). Making Azula gorgeous in a scene, or letting Grey Delisle have some fun like the did during the confrontation Zuko and Azula had in The Awakening, is not the same as them reducing Azula from character to sex-object.

Once again, the fandom is far more guilty of the "Attractive means sexual and sex is evil" mentality than the show ever was. I lost count of how many people "theorize" that Azula is a "slut" who slept her way to the top and has even raped people (usually Zuko and Suki) even though the show made it clear she can't flirt to save her life, is so respected/feared because she's a great fighter/manipulator, and has literally never forced herself onto her brother and was obviously lying when implying she had done something Suki because THE SHOW ITSELF told us everything she was telling the Gaang on that scene was just an attempt to buy her father more time until the eclipse was over.

Some of the fans treat her as the typical "evil femme fatale that you can tell is evil because she sleeps around", but the show itself never did that.

Also a lot of what I sometimes see fans claim is "sexualization" is just mundane stuff. I lost count of how many times people were losing their shit because "WHY IS A FOURTEEN YEAR GIRL ALWAYS WEARING MAKE UP?"

Maybe because said fourteen year old is a perfectionist that can't even stand to have one hair out of place, so obviously she'd want her face looking perfect too? Or maybe she wants to look older not to "seduce" anyone but because she'd rather not risk not being taken seriously for being so young? And, crazy thought but bear with me here, maybe, just maybe... Azula likes make-up. Revolutionary concept, I know.

And it's not like the show ever got weird about it like the comics (seriously, girl is hallucinating in a straight-jacket and her hair is all messed up, but SOMEHOW she put on lipstic/the doctors did it for her????). She had a clean face when she was sleeping and when she was at the royal spa getting her hair done, and even at Chan's party her make-up is exactly the same she wears during the day. The "weirdest" place she wore it at was at the beach, and again considering it's Azula, who always wants to look perfect, I can see it.

Seriously guys, there's a difference between "TikTok is constantly telling women, teen girls and children they need to buy 37 different products that they gotta put on before anyone can *gasp* see their face" and "This cartoon had one of the characters constantly wearing make-up because that's a thing teenagers do sometimes + it helps the character be more memorable"

[carletes]

I can't help but feel like all of this defense of Bianca is purely due to ableism that F1 fans themselves have but don't realize.

The amount of times I've seen people try to pull the "I can't be racist because I have black/brown friends/relatives" card and still have to face consequences, yet she uses her autistic brother as a prop to claim she can't be ableist and people are suddenly like "omg best apology ever, we support our queen."

No. I am autistic. I've gotten bullied for it for much of my life. I don't appreciate seeing Bianca continuing that bullying by encouraging the use of autism as an insult, and I especially don't like her using someone who is autistic to try to cover up her behavior. People need accountability if they're going to learn, and so far her version of "taking accountability" has just been "I'm just a girl, just a kid, only 18, I didn't know better" which luckily she deleted, and then using her autistic brother to try to gain PR brownie points after insulting people with autism.

And I KNOW F1 is full of ableism, not just on twitter but on here too. Hell, I was ranting to a F1 friend maybe a month ago about a post someone made on here about how they didn't like Lando solely because they thought he was neurodivergent but he was too privileged to have to mask his neurodivergent behavior and I just? Girl what in the fucking ableism. Do people realize how exhausting "masking neurodivergent behavior" is? And that post had about a dozen notes - not of people calling it out, but of people agreeing with it. Lance gets the majority of it, but I've also seen people use autism to insult Logan too. He isn't in F1 anymore, but I saw it all the time with Latifi too. Like fucking stop chalking up disliking people to "omg i don't like them because they exhibit behaviors that i associate with autism," that's fucking gross and insulting!!!

Idk I'm tired of reading how I'm anti-women or anti-POC for not immediately accepting her apology and jumping right back in to supporting her. She needs to do a LOT of self-reflecting and attitude changing, as do motorsport fans in general given a lot of responses to this situation. Ableism isn't cool, cute, funny, etc. (Also looking at the fans who repost that RocketPoweredMohawk YouTuber's clips in the tags on Tumblr too. The guy's biggest punchline is "HAHAHAHA lance autistic" yet F1 fans worship the ground he walks on and treats him like peak comedy. Please, find an actual sense of humor that doesn't involve making people with disabilities the punchline of your jokes). It's getting old. It's not funny or quirky or edgy. It's exhausting to constantly run into reminders that most of these people I'm interacting with in my online spaces would never accept me and would probably just bully me if I ever came across them in real life. 🙃

Thank you for saying all of this. I genuinely didn’t even know this was a line of ~commentary (ew) on Lance or Logan. It’s absolutely disgusting. I feel like we’re only just getting to a point where people even understand autism (and let’s be clear…they still don’t lol not really) but shit like this is so gross and only forces autistic people even further into the margins of society. I’m really sorry the fandom is like this. You deserve to take up as much space as you need, and the rest of us need to hold ableists accountable.

[theofreakingbell]

I'm proud of myself today.

(cw mentions of parental abuse and discussions of trauma)

I've been in this fandom for a long time, almost since I could legally have an account on here. There's a person on here that I used to follow when I was younger. at the time I was being abused by my parents and going through a lot of other shit in my life and Loki was something that comforted and validated me.

I felt a tremendous amount of doubt and insecurity about loving him. I didn't on a basic level know it wasn't morally wrong because he was a villain. I was intensely vulnerable and didn't know I was being abused and was looking for any validation I could find. her blog was, to me then, one of my safe spaces. the scarce few I had. She didn't think it was wrong for people to love him, and she clearly loved him very much herself. She spoke of many of his feelings like they mattered. validated things I had hardly seen elsewhere. She was a good curator of fandom posts too. I would go to her blog sometimes when I needed comfort in my anger and hurt from my abuse, and on at least one occasion feeling like that was a safe space stopped me from self harming. I thought for years that I literally in some ways owed her my life.

she also reblogged misinformation about abuse on multiple occasions. I ate it up and it made me feel more depressed and self destructive. She woobified Frigga to a ridiculous extent and refused to acnowledge any responsibility that she had in the things they shouldn't have done that it made me internalise problematic shit about my own mom (whose relationship with my own father and acting as a sort of peacemaker while also doing her own bad stuff mirrors Odin and Frigga very much) that I am still having to carefully detangle from me like glass shards. I nearly realised I was a survivor years earlier than I did because of how I was relating my own trauma to Loki and beginning to understand it, or at least that it existed, and it was what I saw on her blog, the assertions that what he went through wasn't abuse, the denial of certain areas of abuse, that sent me crying and thinking that I couldn't be one, and that I was wrong for wanting to know that he was a survivor too.

Her knowledge of psychology and the terms she used was clearly stuck in some past decade and she said multiple ableist and nonsensical things re loki's mental health. She said that Loki did what he did in the first movie because of psychosis which. just. absolutely not. She shared things that pathologised Odin instead of criticising him properly and without ableism.

I just. I was so afraid that nobody would ever care about what I went through or listen to me or respect me as someone who loves Loki and had bad luck in finding better people that I clung to her far longer than I should have, or should have had to, and I had a very hard time realising that while I saw her as someone who could be a safe space, she wasn't that, and in a lot of ways hurt me and made things worse for me. She validated his anger and pain while obscuring and lying about some of what hurt him and in turn made me think harder that what was being done to me was okay, because ~they were trying~, as if that should have been enough to protect me from what they were doing (it wasn't).

I know I'm a survivor now. I know Loki is too. I have met and talked with and befriended so many lovely people here. I feel safe in the fandom now in a way I literally never thought I would and I am so happy and greatful for that. (she was not the only problem, nor my only source of trauma within fandom, but she was a gigantic part of it)

She's never interacted with me on here. I have no idea if she even knows I exist. for multiple years I couldn't even bear to look her up to block her because there was a part of my brain screaming that that was too harsh, that I should be greatful to her, that I owed her that.

I blocked her today.

II'm still struggling to know, in the whole of me, that she and her feelings are not my responsibility. I cared about her so desperately for so long and part of me still does. But I do not owe her access to me when even seeing her username makes my entire body tense up, when she, a full grown adult, put me as a child in more danger that I was already in by not being careful not to spread misinfo about abuse and not be dismissive of it, when she gave me emotional wounds I will likely be dealing with long after she dies (she's quite a bit older than me), when I cannot even think of existing in the same space as her without feeling short of breath.

I do not owe her that. and I owe myself the peace and safety of knowing I never have to interact with her again.

Here's to relaxing a little more after today.

[snowstories]

The reasons Papyrus Undertale made the exception shortlist pretty much speaks for itself I feel (infantilized to the point of absurdity) and I don't want to spend too much time on him because he's a pretty uninteresting case to me, and other people have fought that battle for me. Laios Dungeonmeshi however I DO want to elaborate on because whatever the fandom's got going on with him actually is interesting to me.

Prefacing this: I have only read around thirty chapters of Dungeon Meshi and am not in the fandom. In fact I honestly don't even like Dungeon Meshi all that much. Like it's fine, it's just not hitting me the way it seems to for a lot of other people. I do not seek out Dungeon Meshi fan content, so y'know, do not take any of this as some kind of Expert Analysis In Dungeon Meshi Fandom Ableism or whatever. These are obversations made by an outsider who wants to study the way fans in fandoms interact with autism like a bug. Perfectly possible I'm missing nuance or I'm flat out wrong etc etc.

But anyway Laios is fun because this is a case of a character who is not only pretty much universally regarded as autistic by fandom (not all that unique all things considered), but is in fact so autistic in the source text that deliberate coding is not just likely but probably the most logical explanation. As far as I know we have not gotten any kind of word of god confirmation on his exact diagnostic status but at this point it's all but irrelevant. Point is, Laios has been near-universally accepted as autistic by the fandom with extensive canon backing, and moreover, this is a fact that is praised and celebrated. I've read some very interesting and nuanced analysis of Laios's autism. I think it's rad as hell how much fun everyone's having with this autistic little guy.

At the same time people will absolutely not shut the fuck up about what a weirdo freak he is, like he's suuuuuuuch a freak guys like he's SO abnormal lmao. Now this raised my eyebrows, for what I'm assuming are pretty obvious reasons when I lay it out like this, but in and of itself? I don't believe calling an autistic-coded character a freak is inherently ableist. I call myself a freak frequently for my autism. This is not ableist, and me calling an autistic-coded character a freak (affectionate) because they remind me of myself is not ableist either. Context matters; this is why I believe most claims of anti-autistic ableism to be overblown. A lot of them rely on a shallow kind of criticism where merely calling a character cute or childish or asexual is grounds for (for example) intantilization, when that's actually not at all what infantilization is about. If a character's agency isn't taken away due to a presumption of incompetence and mental immaturity then that character is probably not being infantilized. Calling Laios Dungeonmeshi a freak, even if a lot of people do it, is not necessarily ableist in and of itself, because words only really matter insomuch as their context does.

So what really makes this ableist is not just that people are calling Laios Dungeonmeshi a freak specifically for being autistic (though y'know. despite what I just said people could probably stand to be a little more self-aware about the fact that this is what they're doing), but specifically that people call Laios Dungeonmeshi a freak and then proceed to describe all the ways even his friends hate him for it. The sheer amount of jokes I have seen from SPECIFICALLY the fandom, not the manga, where the gag is that Laios is so weird and socially incompetent that he's insufferable even to his friends has crossed the line from 'kinda strange flanderization of canon' straight into 'guys do you think about actual IRL autistic people like this?'

It's not the word 'freak' itself I take issue with; I've seen perfectly fine and even relatable posts affectionately talking about how much of a freak Laios is. It's the unspoken, continuous assumption by the fandom that Laios's freakishness not only alienates him from a lot of people and society (a demonstrably true fact in canon, objectively correct assumption, kind of the whole point in fact), but that it makes him fundamentally annoying to be around. Casual jokes about how much Chilchuck wants to strangle Laios every time he talks to him are one thing if they're made by one or two people, and another when it constitutes some 70% of the jokes I see with them together, and Chilchuck always specifically wants to strangle/harm/kill Laios for infodumping or being socially incompetent (i.e. saying weird things). I took these jokes as an example but they're made with practically every character in the series except his sister; for another example, 'Marcille only puts up with weirdo Laios so she can fuck his sister and doesn't actually care about him' is another frequent one I see.

This also goes beyond 'Laiso is not actually liked by his friends because he's a weirdo freak' straight into 'You, personally, would not like Laios because he's a weirdo freak', usually framed as 'funny' posts like 'Laios isn't [fandom/Tumblr/whatever] type of autism he's [trait deemed offputting by OP] type of autism you would NOT hang out'; these sometimes carry the implication that OP is built different and would get along with him, but often just... do not. Second one is uncomfortable for reasons I hope are obvious, but even the first still usually reveal some very telling things about what OP does or does not consider 'offputting' autistic behaviour. Why is talking for half an hour about a children's cartoon NOT offputting behaviour, but talking for half an hour about, say, World War II or fishing or human anatomy is? Why is flapping your hands not offputting, but maintaining unbroken eye contact is? (All actual examples coming from posts I've seen that follow this structure btw.)

Let me be clear: sometimes, often even, the second type of posts are clearly intended as pushback for the sanitized/one-dimensional view of autism in online fandom spaces. I have criticized this myself, at length, repeatedly. I get it. Again, context matters, and these are posted in the fandom context. I don't necessarily think every single instance of this post type is inherently ableist, some are clearly vent posts that got taken wildly outside of their context. But an overwhelming majority reveal a deeply distorted idea of what autism actually is and who are or are not considered 'offputting' autistic people, even in the fandom sphere. It presents a false dichotomy of 'accepted' vs 'rejected' autistic people and completely fails to identify that the primary thing that defines these categories (to the degree they even exist, because no kind of autism is all that accepted even in the bubble of fandom spaces) is a) level of care needed and b) whiteness or non-whiteness. Like man, the guy they're implicitly describing as insufferable and offputting is a guy I've met twenty times over at the autism hangout and gotten along with just fine. A majority of even the terminally online autistic Owl House/Steven Universe fans clearly being used as a strawman in these posts would get along with them fine. Your idea of what 'offputting and difficult to get along with for the normies' entails is distorted and kinda concerning.

Which will then go one step FURTHER moving away from jokes into genuine analysis based on the idea that Laios Dungeonmeshi is somehow uniquely annoying and offputting due to his autistic traits, but whereas in canon this is framed as largely being an issue on part of the people who inexplicably hate, distrust, or are weirded out by Laios for no real good reason, these types of analyses instead put the onus on Laios, explaining at length why certain characteristics of his ARE weird and freakish and uncomfortable on some kind of objective level. These often also pull up examples of his friends being weirded out by him to support this argument. Weirdly these analyses are often made in a very cheerful, supportive tone, praising Dungeon Meshi for its portrayal of autism by showing them a genuinely offputting freak rather than an uwu santized autism. Most analyses of Laios's autism and its role in the narrative are not like this, for the record; I've found the vast majority of meta and analysis I've seen on the subject genuinely interesting and insightful. It's not acknowledging that Laios is viewed as weird by almost everyone on some level that's the problem, or even explaining which specific traits cause this and why: it's specifically the framing of Laios's flavor of autism as uniquely and innately offputting that's ableist. Again, it reveals some very strange assumptions on part of the writers regarding what they do and do not consider offputting.

What all this compounds to is a fanbase that consistently pretends that Laios is fundamentally and uniquely unlikeable as a person due to his autism. His friends think he's a weirdo freak who can't communicate who they barely put up with, a majority of people (at least on this site, maybe in general) wouldn't want to put up with him if they met him in real life, and this is somehow a realistic and positive portrayal of autism. It's a baffling fandom state that I've never seen before. I want to study you guys like a bug.

Anyway if Dungeon Meshi actually framed Laios this way he would not be a positive portrayal of autism, but it doesn't. Yes, many people find Laios offputting (especially when they first meet him) and assume the worst about him. However, as stated earlier, this is usually framed as an issue on their part more than anything, and usually there's additional factors entirely outside of Laios' control that don't even have anything to do with him (such as rumors) that aided in this assumption. Second, yes, while Laios' friends are sometimes weirded out or annoyed by him, they still clearly enjoy his company; they are not putting up with him, they care about and enjoy hanging out with him not just in spite of his autistic traits, but often because of them. Third, and most importantly, the fundamental reason I blame this fandom phenomena on ableism more than bog standard fandom flanderization: Laios is not that weird! Laios is not weirder than any of his companions! He is not uniquely weird!

Pretty much everyone in Dungeon Meshi is weird in their own way! Everyone in the main party annoys or weirds another out at some point! Laios is not special! As a matter of fact, the party member who most often weirds out the others is not Laios, it's Senshi! Laios, Senshi, Chilchuck, Marcille, and Falin are all, for different but often overlapping reasons, considered weird and offputting by society at large, and all of them have at some point weirded out their companions as well. Laios is not special, and it's extremely strange that he's singled out as a unique little freak by the fandom, because the manga never does this. Laios is a freak, sure, but so are all of them. That's kind of the fundamental appeal of their dynamic. So why is Laios the designated freak in fandom spaces, when, say, Senshi chose to live in the hell dungeon for decades because he enjoys it and has gardens on barely-legal magical creatures he fertilizes with the poop of dungeon parties? Why is his weirdness insufferable whereas Senshi's isn't?

Sure, Laios is weird. But the fixation on his weirdness specifically above all other characters who are at least as weird as him, in combination with specifically framing him as uniquely insufferable for it, is in my opinion caused primarily by ableism.

I have gone on record multiple times saying that I believe most claims of anti-autistic ableism in fandom are at best overblown and at worst completely unfounded. However the exceptions that prove the rule are Papyrus Undertale and Laios Dungeonmeshi. People actually are weirdly ableist about them. I think this is especially strange bc I've rarely if ever seen anyone point out the casual ableism with which most of the fanbase seems to approach Laios.

[blindbeta]

Something I frequently see in atla fanfic is Toph rolling her eyes and other characters being surprised she can do that. (“Who taught her that?” Is a very common sentence.) I wonder if this is realistic? Obviously, with some forms of blindness, rolling your eyes is no problem. But would Toph, blind from birth, be able to roll her eyes? I’m sorry if this question is hyper-specific. I see this trope in at least half of all fics with Toph in them. (Thanks for your amazing blog and all you do.)

I welcome hyper-specific questions here! Especially about A:TLA and Toph, where fandom is both a nice break from ableism and a very ableist place.

With the resurgence of Avatar, there were an agonizing amount of comments like this online. Although they were more about how unrealistic it was for Toph to have facial expressions, how the animators messed up by having her eyes move, etc. The “Who taught her that?” trope about eye-rolling is simply another manifestation of that.

It is hard to explain my frustration with questions like these, even if no offense is meant. These questions bother me partly because they assume certain things that make it clear they have never met a blind person, nor bothered to research before commenting, endlessly, on what is or is not possible for blind people.

Also, as I explained in this post about myths, even the ignorance behind expectations like these can be harmful. In assuming Toph cannot have facial expressions, a blind person who makes expressions or gestures may be assumed to be faking. This puts a lot of stress on a blind person, who may be refused help, harassed, or even attacked. Plus they are just annoying. In this post, I go over how some of these assumptions carry over into jokes, something the Avatar fandom is also not exempt from.

Jokes are fine. Questions even more so. As long as someone is genuinely asking and not coming from a bad place. For example: “I wonder how Toph learned to make facial expressions as a blind baby” is easier to answer than “OMG Avatar is so unrealistic and ridiculous because Toph, a blind girl, makes the same kinds of expressions as the other characters!”

Facial expressions are instinctual and innate. There are basic expressions that many people can make and understand — with some exceptions — which have evolutionary implications. For example, making a face of disgust could have indicated that something was poisonous. A face of fear could have alerted others to danger. Eye rolling is not quite so useful or ancient, but it has been referenced in older literature as a way to express contempt or rejection.

I would put eye rolling in with the gestures category. By this I mean research shows blind people gesture just like others who speak the same language. Because gestures are culturally specific, they can differ depending on language. Even people who were blind since birth gesture the same way others do. Eye rolling is not much different. No one would need to teach Toph how to roll her eyes, although she probably would have heard about it verbally eventually as she aged, such as when Azula teased her by saying, “And since you can’t see, I should tell you I’m rolling my eyes.”

So the “Who taught her that?” question is not very realistic as far as I’m concerned.

I will say that sometimes people have rapid eye movement and difficulty controlling the muscles in their eyes. Before I had surgery, I would have uncontrollable eye movements in one eye and since I couldn’t see my own eye, I have no idea if rolling my eyes actually looked like it is supposed to. And because I can’t see other people very well, I’m not sure if I’m the best person to give details about this.

But the real issue behind the other characters being surprised Toph can roll her eyes isn’t so much about the ability to do so, so much as just knowing about it. Again, the same question comes up about facial expressions and gestures.

I also want to clarify that the ableism in the Avatar fandom isn’t really about mean words or even rude assumptions. It is the attitudes and beliefs behind these questions. It is a rudimentary understanding of ableism that causes people to claim Katara is ableist so they can hate her, while similtaneously complaining that Katara and Zuko talk about their trauma too much. While simultaneously sharing art and GIFs and videos of Toph without image descriptions. While saying very little about the show’s lack of audio descriptions when it was added to Netflix initially, or even assuming blind people couldn’t or wouldn’t watch the show at all. Not because of a lack of accessibility, but because people simply assume we don’t like television or films.

If you think about these attitudes and beliefs, you start to notice a pattern. One that isn’t only in the Avatar fandom, but it is made all the more frustrating because the show has a popular blind character in it. You would think people would be interested in learning about blindness, but the overwhelming love for Toph sometimes comes across as exploitive without this interest.

That said. Toph is one of my favorite characters and I love that the fandom loves her too. I love fanfics with her in them. I don’t blame one person for not adding an image description to their art, because image descriptions are not as normalized as they should be, and were certainly not normalized years ago. When I talk about ableism in the Avatar fandom, I don’t mean any one person. I mean the wider problem as a whole that has been going on for over a decade. I mean people who have “ableism” in their vocabulary and yet don’t change their ways when someone gently asks them to. Ableism is in our society and fandom, especially those with blind characters, are no exception, despite whatever hopes I might have.

There are absolutely wonderful people in the Avatar fandom. The fandom is improving on reblogging things with image descriptions or adding their own to older posts, especially art of Toph. While I sometimes feel things are stagnant, there are people like you, anon, asking the good questions. I appreciate you and anyone else who is doing the work to learn and also for supporting this blog. While I have some problems with the fandom, there are wonderful people here and progress is being made every day.

If you want help writing Toph, @mimzy-writing-online has an excellent post with advice. I highly recommend fanfic writers read it for a richer story.

So that’s my wishy-washy Avatar post with some slight education thrown in. Thanks for the question, anon!

If any blind people want to chime in about this, feel free.

I hope this helped some.

-BlindBeta

[tobi-smp]

hello i'm popping into your ask box to ramble about some dumb shit i saw on twitter, don't mind me.

anyways i saw someone say smthing like "tommy better have a good reason to be angry at wilbur" and?? mans does have a reason like. even ignoring whatever could have potentially happened between the two in limbo, wilbur still blew up tommy's home, along with a bunch of other shit that happened in pogtopia??

idk its just kinda annoying to me that some people act like tommy has no reason to be angry at wilbur, or that characters can't be angry at wilbur because he was/is mentally ill. like yes we should acknowledge that he is not in a great mental space and that affects his actions, but we should also acknowledge that it doesn't excuse said actions??

i do think tommy could have waited for a better time to confront wilbur, but i think he should be allowed to feel angry or hurt by wilbur's actions.

honestly, I think a consistent problem with the fandom is analyzing individual interactions in a bubble characters’ reactions to each other are Very Often boiled down and judged based on what’s happening in that moment even when there are Significant Factors outside of it affecting their emotions and actions. and part of that is the fandom being full of people who’ve only seen pieces of canon by necessity (there’s just too much content for people to have seen everything), and part of it is just good ol bias jack and tommy’s argument after tommy’s revival being analyzed as if tommy Hadn’t just been murdered. people getting genuinely angry at tubbo because he felt threatened by the syndicate coming to snowchester to judge whether it should be destroyed or not. quackity being taken at face value as an uncomplicated villain during (and long after) the butcher army arc Despite the many times it’d been clear that he wanted power to protect the people he cared about. Etc so often people judge who’s Right and Wrong in a situation by what’s said out loud in the moment and it leads to some absolutely Wild interpretations. that said, looking at this less generally, a big problem with wilbur Is that people are sensitive to wilbur being vilified. there was and Is a big part of the fandom that stripped down wilbur’s nuance to uncomplicatedly view him as a villain (and again, a big part of this comes down to new fans who haven’t seen the earlier streams). it makes complete sense that many of his fans would be sensitive to vilification and ableism pointed towards him. but at the same time I’ve seen it swing way too far in the other direction to the point that it’s turned into erasing or excusing the trauma he’s caused other characters gatekeeping whether or not characters are allowed to be Hurt is bad enough as it is, but with tommy in particular I’ve seen it morphed into anger. with tommy’s own trauma being made out to be some kind of insult towards wilbur. I’ve seen people call tommy a bad person for splitting up wilbur in his mind because his mind couldn’t reconcile imagine of him before the elections with the person who hurt him in pogtopia. I’ve seen people get angry with it being acknowledge that the pit scene would’ve been traumatizing for tommy to live through. people saw tommy Literally offer himself up to dream if he kept wilbur away from the server Immediately after learning that tommy had been alone in the void with wilbur for months that we Didn’t get to see and still got angry at tommy as if they’d know better. the problem isn’t Just that some people are using wilbur’s mental illness to excuse his actions, it’s that some people are actively Angry at characters for having been traumatized by him because it makes him look bad. which blends So Fucking Strangely with the focus on ableism within that side of the fandom. in the same breath people will try to call out perceived ableism while more or less victim blaming.

[thestreamdreampony]

In light of all the stuff that’s been going on on mcyttwt, I do want to bring your attention to what’s going on in the FNAF community.

As most of you already know, in the last few days mcyttwt has been indiscribably toxic. Both Tommy and Dream have decided to go on twitter hiatus, due to the harassment they received there. And I do not want to minimize their mistakes or act like they can do no wrong, but all valid criticism of their off colour statements and jokes was completely drowned out by thousands upon thousands of people just straight up harassing them. And then, upon finding out Tommy has been seeing a therapist, because the pressure has gotten to him. They decide to trend tommy neg again to accuse him of running away from his problems. That’s a whole ass child. Education can be found in places other than twitter. I can guarantee you that the people who get shit done irl, didn’t get educated there. And minecraft youtubers are not activists. That is not their job and they are not qualified or knowlegeable enough to speak on lot of these issues with any kind of authority. It is excellent when they are educated, but that is not their job and acting like it is is silly.

(For transparency’s sake, I am white myself. So please tell me if I overstep in anyway)

I do want to state again, that I absolutely do not want to diminish the hurt the minorities in question have felt at the jokes these ccs have made, but to all the white fans who keep seeing issues like this as a way to get fake internet brownie points and shout over minorities and harass the content creators. Shut up. Shut the fuck up.

You do not need to have an opinion on everything. You can acknowledge the wrong ccs do. Especially when minority fans point them out, but use that opportunity to uplift their voices, not use your own to shout over them. Use that opportunity to listen to their struggles. Use the money you’d usually buy merch and twitch subs with to donate to their causes. A lot of the time minority fans will calmly tell a cc to better their behaviour and then get completely drowned out by white people, who get a kick out of getting their “fave” to bow to them. 

To them it’s all about ableism, but as soon as a cc says that twitter impacts their mental health it’s suddenly running away from their problems. The jokes they make aren’t ok, but I’d say that the myriad of boundaries these “fans” break while harassing them I’d argue is much worse behaviour than the original sin.

Ok, I apologize. i went onto a way to long tangent here. Back to my original statement. I want to bring your attention to the FNAF fandom. I myself am not in that fandom. (again, for transparency’s sake) However, today, the creator of Five Nights At Freddie’s “came out” as a proud christian republican, pro-life Trump supporter, who has donated several thousand dollars to anti-LGBT causes. This of course is an extreme example. However, I do want to point out the contrast . 

Scott Cawthon is openly proud bigot and that’s not where criticism should start of course. This is a man that absolutely should be deplatformed. However, I think it puts the situation on mcyttwt a bit in perspective. 

The biggest crimes Tommy and Dream have committed was jokes and off colour statement. And again, I do not want to diminish the harm those cause. Micro-aggressions are not a laughing matter. However, both of them have proven several times that they are willing to better themselves. I mentioned this in a previous post where I was mostly talking about the pride tweets, but I think a lot of younger mcyt fans lack the perspective of being around long enough to remember the mcyt fandom just 5 years ago. Or even a COD lobby nowadays. Hurling slurs at women, lgbt people and POC was and still is very normalized. We have come a really long way in this community. It’s a more inclusive gaming fandom (esp on this scale) than the internet has ever seen. And no, it’s not perfect. 

Dream’s statement that the fandom isn’t anti-black is a blatant falsehood and a statement made with incredible privilige. While being very LGBTQIA friendly, it’s also very very white, but compared to a few years ago we’ve come a long way.

In conclusion, mcyttwt needs to take a step back and remember that these ccs are normal ass people too who make mistakes and that putting them on a pedastal ultimately hurts everyone. 

Also, that the issues mcyttwt makes mountains out of aren’t much of an issue outside of twitter. There are people out there who actively hurt minorities (again, Scott Cawthon) and causes that minorites care far more about than the jokes minecraft youtubers make. Listen to them directly and donate to their causes directly instead of expecting content creators to know everything and everything and then inevitably be disappointed when they don’t.

(I feel like this post is very scatterbrained. I’m sorry if my train of thought was hard to follow. I didn’t really know how to summarize all my thoughts in a concise manner)

[shadowfae]

We’re all pretty aware that the tumblr otherkin community is at a huge decline; I was wondering if you have any theories as to why that is?

American Protestantism, the decline of queer oppression in North America and the AIDS crisis, helicopter parenting, web 3.0, morality politics, and  Tumblr’s porn ban; roughly in that order and rolled up into one bombshell that was a few years in the coming but nobody really saw it and understood it until it was far too late.

That was a mouthful and probably only made sense if you follow current cyberpolitical theory. For some of you reading this, as with every other hot take I have this has a chance of being passed around, that alone is enough. But for others who had no idea what I just said and need the ELI5 version, let me explain that. Buckle up, this’ll be a long one, and will go into fandom history a bit as well because it is actually relevant.

As we know, tumblr is a very American-centric platform. Twitter is also this way, but less so, but tumblr has it bad. Now, I’m ‘lucky’ in the fact that I’m Canadian and a twenty minute drive from the American border, so that puts me in the ‘privileged’ majority. (I say privileged because I’m not really sure what else to call it. Most of the information going around about politics either directly affects me or indirectly affects me approximately one or two links of contact away. Someone who’s only influenced by American politics because it makes their sister’s online friends sad is not going to be privileged in that way.)

This means that American politics and their social climate overwhelmingly affects tumblr’s social climate. This also bleeds through into other fandom spaces, on twitter, instagram, and Pixiv to name a few places; but here’s where I spend the majority of my time so here’s what I’ve witnessed.

America’s main religion, as far as I understand (from the raised agnostic and currently neopagan view I have), is some weirdass capitalistic-Protestantism that is so many miles from what the actual Bible says that if I were a betting man and knew more about cults than I did, I’d say it’s some weird fucking cult and never set foot in the country again for any reason that isn’t gaming free shipping through a PO box. If you have no idea what I just said but are at least vaguely familiar with Christianity, this graphic explains it pretty well. So we can see there’s some glaring issues with that ideal.

The decline of queer oppression and the rise of queer rights in North America, which is to tenderly include my own country but we all know when people say ‘in NA’ they mean ‘America, and Canada where it applies because the right-wing Republicans are really good in the propaganda department to convince everyone that Mexico is a drug-lords-and-anarchy wasteland to the point where even I don’t actually know what’s down there other than bad drivers and heat’; means two things. One, it’s a good thing by a long shot and do not mistake this as me thinking queer oppression being lessened is a bad thing. But two, it means that thanks to the AIDS crisis, queer folks lost a lot of first-person sources as history.

The queer elders in NA who survived are typically either a) bitter anarchists who are often POC, probably still dirt poor and do recreational drugs or b) university-tenured TERFs (trans exclusionary radical feminists). Category A are the people who Republicans have deemed worthless in every way, because racism, queerphobia, ableism, and all the other ways to be wrong and different and Evil that they can’t handle, because Jeezus would never want them to actually learn to love someone who wasn’t just like them, and they don’t have the compassion to do better. Category B are the people who want to be different in just a teensie little bit, typically with TERFs they want to be lesbians, but they don’t want to challenge the status quo. They’re fine with the way things work, they just want to be on top oppressing others over ripping the whole damn thing down and building a more forgiving system.

Now, due to all those ‘isms and the cheerfully malicious aid of the Republicans, pun not intended but drives home the cruelty of it all, we also see the rise of helicopter parenting. The invention of the internet did not really help this. Basically what you’ve got is a whole bunch of parents who saw the civil rights movement, just got access to the internet and things going viral, know the world is changing, and like all parents, they’re scared for their children. Now instead of parents knowing one or two people in their classes who just went missing one day and everyone assumed they ran away, they hear about eight homicides in the city of kids going to parks at night and dying. The Satanic Panic was another event around this time that contributed to that, but I’ll let you research that one.

This means that all of these parents, instead of doing what their parents typically did and let their kids wander off for the day so long as they’re back by sundown, they can’t let their children out of their sight. There might be a freak accident where their child is decapitated on the playground swing! Their baby might get murdered by an evil Satanist walking home from school! Their dearest darling might go online and tell their address to someone who’s got a 100% chance of being a pedophile who will show up and kidnap them in the night!

…You get the idea. 

Combine those three things I just established, what we’ve got is a lot of queer kids who have a lot of internalized shame for being different and wrong, because they’re queer, and they can’t find spaces offline to be themselves, because all of the elders who would do that are dead and/or inaccessible and their parents won’t let them go to any clubs that aren’t school-related, which they’ll never find a GSA or queer club because Republicans, ‘isms, propaganda, and the war on Category A queer adults have all done their best to ensure that those spaces don’t exist.

So you have a generation of kids who I am the youngest of. The first generation on the internet. The late Web 1.0 (usenets and Geocities) and early Web 2.0 (livejournal was the big one, ff.net too, also 4chan but fuck those guys) generation. What we were taught was: trust nobody on the internet with your real info no matter how much you like them, this is a wilderness and any crimes that happen won’t be punished or seen so don’t put yourself in a position where you’re going to be the victim of one, and everything you put online is never getting taken down so don’t put anything up that you’re not willing to have on the front page of your local newspaper.

This worked out pretty well, actually! You had kids who knew that if they got in trouble, there was no backup coming to save them. Because the form that backup might take - parents and police - wasn’t going to help. Best case, they’d be banned from their friends and online support groups for being queer. Worst case, they’d be jailed and put in juvie and conversion therapy and turn to drugs and become evil Satanists just like everyone says they secretly are already. So they learned very quickly to take care of themselves. Nobody was going to save them, so they learned to not need saving.

And then, well, Web 2.0 shifted to Web 3.0. Livejournal died because parents - the Warriors for Innocence was the big name - went “gasp how horrible my children are being exposed to the evil pedos and homosexuals they’re going to do drugs and die of AIDS!”. Which is uh. It’s filled with a lot of bigotry, and I’m not excusing them - absolutely I am not - but you can kind of see where they’re coming from, if you tilt your head and squint.

Either way, LJ died, tumblr took its place, Facebook was fast taking off, and the fandom folks who had seen mailing lists go inactive, web admins take their fanfic sites down due to copyright, entire fandoms burnt to the ground in flame wars, said ‘fuck that we’re making our own place’ and that’s how AO3 got made.

That’s important. A lot of folks move to AO3, because well, the rules let them. The rules say ‘you can throw literally anything up here so long as it’s fan content and is not literally illegal, so we don’t get taken down’. It’s a swing for the first generation internet users, those kids who know this place is a wilderness and are carving out our own sanctuary.

But. The children under us. The children for whom AIDS is a nightmarish fairy tale, for whom the ghost stories are conversion therapy, for whom know they can’t really talk to their parents about being queer but can trust they probably won’t get kicked out over it. The children who haven’t spent ten seconds without supervision except online, and their reaction isn’t ‘oh thank god I’m finally free to express myself’ but ‘if I get in trouble, who will protect me?’.

And there’s nobody there. Because we went in knowing there was no backup. And that was fine. But now, the actual adults have figured out that hey uh, maybe we should make cyber laws? Maybe we should make revenge porn and grooming children over the internet crimes? And they grew up with that. They grew up learning that no, even if your parents are suffocating and controlling, they’re always be there for you! Some adult will always be there to protect you!

That isn’t the case. It’s not. But they expect it, because it’s always been done for them. They don’t really want to change the status quo, because that means doing it themselves. They can’t do that, because they don’t know how, they’ve been controlled for every single part of their lives thanks to helicopter parenting and without that control, they don’t know how to keep their lives together, and they demand someone come and control it for them, without restraining them.

Effectively, they want someone to ensure they never face the consequences of their actions. Helicopter parents will rescue you from whatever you did, because you’re their precious baby and it doesn’t matter if you punched a kid, you can do no wrong and the other kid clearly started it.

But being queer is doing wrong. Being queer is something Jeezus doesn’t approve of. So they want to make it something he could approve of! But if it’s too off what they consider to be okay, if it’s too different and weird and wrong and evil, that can’t do, that’s still bad, and they’re precious angels, and children, and minors, why are we the adults not protecting them and letting them see it? Why aren’t we being just like their parents  but queer-friendly, why aren’t we protecting the children?

The adults who taught us were the children of those who died as a result of AIDS. The eldest of my generation knew some of them personally. My therapist’s younger brother died at 20 of AIDS, and she told me what it was like. But they don’t have that. These kids of web 3.0, they don’t have that. What they have is over-controlling parents, and the expectation that someone will always be there to protect them but hopefully in ways that don’t hurt them this time, no real understanding of why Category A queer elders are the way they are, and so much internalized shame that they have to do some pretty fancy logic-leaping to keep them from collapsing entirely.

They can’t turn into Category A queer youngsters, because they don’t know how to unravel the system around them, because they’ve never had to actually make choices in their lives and live with the consequences, because they don’t have the example of how to do it. They can’t unravel their internalized shame because again, that’s hard and they don’t have their parents to take away the consequences and pain. It doesn’t come easy to them, so it may as well not come at all.

But, you ask, if Category A queer elders aren’t around to teach the kids, then how are they learning anything positive at all? Well, Category B, our university-tenured TERFs, who don’t want to change the status quo but want to just be at the top of it instead.

For a lot of kids who don’t know how to make hard choices but want to be queer, this is an extremely attractive option. But when they go online to queer spaces, a lot of them say fuck terfs, we don’t support your hate, and they go ‘yeah okay that makes sense’. They can say fuck terfs without ever actually questioning why terfs are bad. They’re Bad and Evil, just like drug addicts, just like fairytale nazis, just like the evil homophobes.

And we saw them say ‘yeah fuck terfs’ and we were like, ‘aight you got it’ and we never questioned if they actually understood us. They didn’t. They didn’t, and we didn’t do enough to fix it, because not enough of us realized the problem. So terfs got a little sneaky. They hid behind dogwhistles and easy little comments, hiding their rhetoric in queer theory that you’ll absolutely miss if you just memorize it and never actually question it and understand why that point is being made.

This goes back to America sucking, because their school system is far more focused on rote memorization over actual logic and understanding of the text. They’re engaging with queer theory the way they’ve been taught, which is memorize and don’t think, don’t question. Besides, questioning and understanding is hard. Being shown different points of view and asked what they think is not only hard but requires them to go against all of the conditioning that says to just listen and agree and never question it, which goes back to tearing the system and internalized shame down, and we’ve established they can’t do that so naturally they don’t do that.

This begets, then, the rise of exclusionary politics. They’re turning into Category B queer youngsters, because we told them ‘hey that’s a terf talking point what are you doing’ and they never questioned why. They learned you can do all sorts of things, just don’t say X, Y, or Z, because they never thought deeply about it.

The children who have grown on Web 3.0 do not want to do any heavy lifting to make things easier for themselves long-run. They want to do as little as possible and have things get better for them. There isn’t enough of us left in Category A, because Category B terfs are very good at recruiting young folks and Cat. A is overwhelming poor, dead, and easily dismissed in the system as evil and bad, so we can’t exactly convince the young folks to listen. If all of the young kids could agree to tear down the system, a lot more older folks might listen. Change always starts with the young, and there’s a reason for that.

But Republicans have figured out, if you get people fighting, they never put together a force that can actually stop you. TERFs, who want the exact same thing as Republicans but with themselves on top, are doing this to queer youth, and Cat. A elders can’t fight back because there isn’t enough of them and the odds are against them, and the young folk like me who follow their lead.

People can kinda handle gay people. It’s not so far from the acceptable normal that it’s impassable. But you want them to handle kinky people? Gay people of colour? Kinky gay people of colour? Trans people? Those are bridges too far to step across. The original idea was to get the foot in the door with marriage equality and inch our way through with racial equality, sex positivity, dismantling ableism and perisexism (forgive me if that isn’t the word for anti-intersex ‘ism), and see if we can’t patch up the system instead of inciting a civil war over this and have to tear down the system entirely.

Well, we might’ve managed that if not for AIDS being the perfect ‘Jeezus is killing all the evil gay people for being sinners’ propaganda machine. As it stands now, not a chance in hell. So long as Republicans and terfs keep everyone fighting, nobody has the power to dismantle their empire, and they stay in power.

So then, you ask me, “Lu what the fuck does that have to do with the decline of otherkinity on tumblr???” and now that you’ve got all that background knowledge, here is your answer.

Those children who want their experiences curated for them and the evil icky content they don’t like to be gone because it disgusts them and anything that disgusts them is clearly sinful problematic and should be destroyed, are what we call ‘antishippers’, or anti for short.

They like being progressive. Sort of. They learned what Republicans and terfs have honed to a fine talent: keep people fighting, hold them to a bar they have to constantly make or risk being ostracized, and harass the people who don’t play along into getting out of your sight forever. Sound familiar?

They learned of otherkinity, and particularly fictionkind, because web 3.0 means if something goes viral on one site, it doesn’t just go viral on that site, it makes it to worldwide newspapers and twitter and nobody ever, ever fucking forgets it. They realized the following: “Hey wait, if I’m this character for realsies, not only does it help me deal with the internalized shame I’ve done nothing to actually fix because that takes work, I can also tell these people who draw gross content I don’t like they’re hurting me personally, and that actually sounds credible, and I can shame them into stopping”.

If this is your first time here and that sounds sickening, it damn well should, and I am so, so sorry that any of us had to witness this, and I am more sorry I and everyone else who personally witnessed this didn’t realize what was going on and put a stop to it. I answer asks and browse the tags and clear up misinformation and it isn’t just a genuine desire to help. It’s damage control, and my own way of trying to deal with the guilt of not stopping this. I’m well aware I couldn’t have seen it coming, I was a teenager myself still learning and no one person has that much power. I still feel like I should have done more, and I’ll do what I can to fix what’s within my power to fix.

So back to the story. This all culminates around 2016 or so. Trump wins the election, and every queer person ever knows they’re fucked, and the younger generation’s only ever heard horror stories, never seen actual oppression that this could bring. We’re all scared. We all don’t know what to do. Nobody has any answers or any control over the situation.

So they lash out. They attack others for drawing things they don’t like, for challenging them in literally any way, for asking them to reconsider the vile shit they just said, for so much as defending themselves from the harassment they just got. And when challenged, they yell ��But I’m a minor! A literal child! How dare you attack me, clearly you get off on this, you evil pedophile!” and they sling around every insult in the book until one sticks. Pedophile is a pretty good one, so is abuser, and sometimes zoophile works out too. Freak is great, everyone gets right pissed off about it.

The fact that Category A queer elders were called pedophiles and freaks is not a fact they know or care about. The fact that they are quickly making every fandom community super toxic is also not a fact they care about. The fact that the ‘kin community has words and terminology and they actually mean shit, and the fact that they’re spreading misinformation faster than we can keep up with, are not facts they care about.

So they come in, take our terms, make it impossible for us to find new folks. They realize our anger is easily a power trip, because we’re already made fun of, so they get off on the little power they can find and make fun of us too, and then when we get rightfully annoyed and pissed off, they can hide behind being minors.

Then tumblr implements their porn ban, because nobody’s stopping them, because it isn’t profitable to have porn on here. Considering most of the otherkin community, and most fandom communities, are full of adults who do occasionally talk about NSFW things, and the fact that they’re just banning everyone who so much as breathes wrong, this begins the start of a mass exodus, scattering already fragile communities to twitter, pillowfort, dreamwidth, and a few other places. Largely, twitter, where you can’t make a post longer than a snappy comeback and where the algorithm is literally designed to piss you off as much as possible.

So community elders have largely left, because they can’t stand the drama and the pain of what’s happened, and that’s if they didn’t get banned for being kinky furries who do talk about how their kintypes merge with their sexuality. Most community members have also left or stopped talking about being ‘kin, because they get associated with antishippers and toxicity and it’s just not worth it. Those of us who are left get drowned out by misinformation and trolls and wishkin and antishippers who appropriate our terminology because it supports them getting a power trip, and whenever we argue, we get called pedophiles and freaks and worse.

And now there isn’t much left. I hope we get to find a better place. Othercon was a good place to talk about it, I did a whole panel (it’s on Youtube!) about what we want to do about it. But I don’t really have any answers. 

But to sum it all up... America’s political climate ultimately culminated in destroying queer spaces, and we survived, and then people who wanted to destroy smaller communities to get on top showed up and we were all but defenseless against something we had never, ever dealt with before on this scale.

One of my twitter mutuals mentioned how kinning and otherkin are now completely separate communities. It’s really the best I can do to keep hoping that continues, until nobody realizes the words are at all connected to each other. It’s the best anyone can hope for, now. I hate it. I hate every part of this. But maybe we can salvage what’s left.

[isaaclaforeze-remade]

The (more pressing) issues with Netflix’s Castlevania

Making this post at the request of someone who’s been asked this and doesn’t want to get into it, as well as for my own convenience - people like to ask me why if they’re not familiar with the subject.

Disclaimer since I’ll be putting this under a readmore: This is not a full list of issues with the show, it is only the most important stuff that I feel people should know about or keep in mind if they choose to watch it, or engage with people who actively participate in its fandom/endorse it.

As this is only the crucial issues, I will not be covering too much regarding canon-inaccuracy here. The average layman doesn’t care about that, and there’s bigger issues that would be present even if this series existed independently of Castlevania.

Trigger warnings for sexual assault (both real and in fiction), rape (same as previous), grooming, racism, and discussion of violence.

If there is only one thing from this post you read, let it be this first point: Its writer and producer, Warren Ellis, has allegations of sexual assault and coercion from over 60 different women against him. Many of the victims’ statements can be read for yourself here. I have not read all accounts as I am sensitive to these things myself, but of what I have read some of these women were as young as 19 when Ellis was well in his 30s+. These allegations came out in 2020.

There are two separate instances of rape in the show which I will describe very briefly and not in great detail here for two reasons: One, I am not an authority on this as I have not watched this far into the show myself, but these events have been relayed to me by those who’ve watched it. Two, this topic is very triggering to me and there’s no way in hell I’m opening that Pandora’s box for myself today or any day. In one instance, two characters are introduced and bond with Alucard in Season 3. The situation escalates, they rape him, and he kills them. From what I understand this is not discussed ever again. In the other, Hector is kept as a sex slave by a vampire named Lenore. Important to take note of is that in the Netflix adaptation, Hector is a man of color. Lenore is white. She is well loved by the Netflix fandom and from what I have been told the narrative does not treat her as though she’s done wrong.

Season 1 of the show was adapted from an earlier attempt at a Castlevania III adaptation as a film. This was made by Ellis collaborating with then-series producer IGA, who left Konami in 2014 and did not work on the Netflix show beyond the remnants of his work left over in the Season 1 script. Ellis had this to say about working with IGA:

“The film is, of course, set in Wallachia in 1476. We’ve worked with Koji Igarashi to get the film solidly inside the Castlevania timeline, and he’s approved everything I came up with, including some new embroidering to the timeline. To make it work as a film, I had to introduce new backstory, and I went through five drafts of the premise and three of the full outline to get the material where IGA wanted it. He remains absolutely passionate about Castlevania. After eight rewrites of pre-production material, I remain absolutely passionate about beating the crap out of IGA in a dark alleyway one day.” (source)

Again, the list of things wrong with this show is non-exhaustive, and I will likely revisit this post to add more to it later when I can find the words to properly describe it. For now this will be all, and it is the most important stuff. If you choose to watch the show please think critically about it not only about these matters but about classism, ableism, etc. I would also recommend looking into its source material first, because in my opinion it’s important to recognize what’s off about it when informed of how Ellis felt about the man who made that source material.

[neon-moon-beam]

"...because so many people looked at this character who was more like me than any other character I'd ever seen before and decided things about him that were reminiscent of what childhood bullies and abusers decided about me. It's not safe for me to engage in that space, and it's upsetting to know that I'm now excluded from a space that was helping me recover."

"I'm now excluded from a space that was helping me recover."

"I'm now excluded from a space that was helping me recover."

I really, really hope people in the Submas fandom see this, and people in other fandoms realize this too. These things alienate people, they make them feel dehumanized, they make them feel unsafe in spaces that should be friendly, and in some cases, spaces they helped build.

The person I reblogged this from, who reblogged and added to my original post, is not only my roommate, but one of my best friends. She's been a better friend to me than any other friend I've ever had and I refuse to stay silent about how people have greatly negatively impacted her by turning Submas spaces into ableist playgrounds as though everyone finds it harmless and entertaining.

I introduced her to Submas before PLA, as she'd left off at Gen 2, picked Pokemon back up with SwSh, and I was filling her in. She absolutely loves Submas. I remember how excited she was, drawing them, recreating their exact teams as she played through Gen 6, ordering the plush because they came out at just the right time. She was excited to finally see characters who were so much like herself, who were allowed to be themselves, no tragedy, no angst, nothing.

And then PLA took that from her, and the Submas fandom took it far more than a questionable dev decision ever did. To see this happen, to see my best friend watch characters she loved meet with tragedy over and over and be denied happy endings in fan works, to be mischaracterized over and over again by fans claiming to adore them, to see Ingo and Emmet dehumanized, sometimes literally in the case of Zoroark or Robot aus, simply for having traits that she and other autistic people have, as though those traits made Ingo and Emmet weird, or "scary" or even potentially dangerous, or just...not human, to have her ask me often if the way these people depict Ingo and especially Emmet as scary and unhinged, if that's the way people see her as an autistic person well, it's infuriating and it's disgusting.

She wrote the Submas Primer right after PLA came out, hoping to help people who wanted to write Submas true to their canonical characterizations, especially since Gen 5 isn't really accessible to most people, and because she knew the angst and especially ableism would happen all over again. How many "Submas fans" read this and continued to create depictions alienating the author? How many of them didn't even read, just reblogged because "Gotta have content about the sad train blorbos!" (THEY AREN'T EVEN SAD, PEOPLE) and continued to create the exact issues the primer was practically begging them not to do?

I really wish people would stop for two seconds and think about how messed up that is, because my friend isn't the only person who found the Submas fandom post-PLA to be alienating, my friend is not the only autistic person who feels the unhinged depictions are ableist and feels they can't engage with the fandom due to how other people might perceive them, or just wishing to protect their mental health from ideas and depictions about who they are that they can get anywhere else simply by existing in a world often remains inaccessible and hostile to autistic people, as well as other neurodivergent people.

So much of the Submas fandom has done a great disservice to other fans of Submas, and people are even doing a disservice to themselves. Step out of your little echo chamber of fandom and use critical thinking about how you might be impacting others. If you've messed up, apologize and try to do better! Educate yourself! Growing and changing is far better than digging your heels in and insisting there isn't a problem because you and your little community don't see one.

EMMET IS NOT MEAN. HE DOES NOT GO AROUND HURTING OTHERS, PUTTING THEM DOWN, OR ACTING LIKE A "FERAL" EDGELORD. STOP IT. INTERACT WITH THE SOURCE MATERIAL.

Fandom interpretations are all too often NOT EMMET. Many are NOT EVEN CLOSE. They're just some guy who looks identical to Emmet. It's not even a case of, "Emmet would not say that", but rather, "Who even IS this character? It's not Emmet. Must be someone's OC who looks just like him!"

[matan4il]

hey that post the other person mentioned about you talking about ana's ableism. I can't seem to find it? If it's not too much of a bother, could you maybe link it ^^' you totally don't have to if you don't wanna I hope this doesn't come off as rude

Hi Nonnie! Of course, and you’re not rude at all. It was in a reply to an ask that you can find here. Thank you for being interested in reading it! xoxox

I recently discovered 911 and Buddie and even more recently found your metas! WOW, my unobservant ass is blown away by your metas. I love reading your thoughts after an episode. I’m sorry if this has been asked before, but I just read that there’s been beef between Oliver & Ryan and they unfollowed each other on Insta in January. Do you think this has contributed to their lack of screen time together this season or could prevent any chance of canon buddie? 🥺���

Hi Nonnie and welcome to the fandom! *big hug* I'm so happy that you’re enjoying 911, Buddie and my meta, it’s a pleasure posting when I know people do! :D As for Oliver and Ryan, we don’t actually know what the situation is with them. Maybe they’re still friends, maybe not. They did unfollow on IG, but they still follow each other on Twitter, so who knows... But as for their working relationship, I have no doubt they’d both be professional about it even if they weren’t friends anymore. I’m also sure no show runner lets personal relationships dictate the course of their show. We know there’ve been on screen romantic couples whose actors absolutely detested each other in RL, but you wouldn’t ever know it watching the show. So if Tim decided to give us canon Buddie, I’m sure the status of Oli and Ryan’s friendship wouldn’t influence that. More than that, I also don’t think they’ve had less screen time together than in previous seasons. At least, as someone who’s been analyzing the eps for several seasons, I’m not seeing a significant difference so far (’coz it’s an ensemble show, the amount of Buddie time we’ve had has always been limited, we’re the ones who magnify it). I hope that helps! xoxox

Hi! I'm the disabled anon from the other day, I just wanted to say thank you so much! your words really meant a lot and it's good to know there are other people who feel the same way! I'm sorry about your vertigo, I've had vertigo occasionally due to my chronic illness and its so awful, sending you hugs and much love!

Nonnie, I’m so happy to hear from you, thank you for following up and letting me know you saw my reply and that it helped! Absolutely made my day. And thank you for the kind words, it means so much! vertigo really is awful and I’m sorry you’ve had it, too. I hope it’ll somehow never affect you anymore in the future and that you don’t suffer because of your illness. Big hugs and so much love to you! xoxox

(a few more short replies under the cut, to save your dashes)

- Nonnie who sent me the gifset? I hadn’t seen it, but you’re right, it captures exactly what I was talking about. I added it to my queue. Thank you! xoxox

- Hello again, Nonnie with the ‘TY’ prompt! Thank you, you’re very sweet! Hey, we’re all just watching the same show and having fun together, right? So you’re always welcome in my inbox! And thank you, added it to the prompt! xoxox

- Nonnie with the Albert theory, I like how you’ve constructed your reasoning, it was really well done. In fact, so well, I’m not copy pasting, because it might turn out to be spoilers instead of speculation. XD IDK if the show will do quite as well as you in building his place on the show, but if they have any sense, they will def follow your logic. ;) Thank you for sharing! xoxox

- @yelenabelous, it’s always so lovely to hear from you! *hugs* To you and the Nonnie who asked me about Buck and ADHD, I really don’t know enough about the subject to comment, but I believe that whatever headcanon helps and makes people connect, it’s more than valid! Also to this same anon, I did not see that thread with Oli, the one with ‘spoiler’? So I can’t reply, but I wouldn’t be opposed if you hit me up with a link. Thank you both! xoxox

[overthedub]

Gorillaz Fic Recs Part 1

Today’s a day all about love, and I just feel like there isn’t a whole lot of love shown towards the fanfic side of this fandom. Hopefully my haphazard rec list can fix that.

A lot of fics on this list (though certainly not all) feature Murdoc as the main character (because I love him lol), so if you hate him, maybe skip over this rec list.

Got a good mix of family fics, angst, and other stuff, so take your pick.

(Part 2 incoming)

Family Fics

Things They Don’t Understand by Ferrenbach

Summary: Murdoc is the most real person in the world, but it's hard to make people understand when he doesn't have the words.

Rating: Teen

BOOOIIII this fic. THIS fic right here is my jam. I absolutely adore it to bits, and whenever I’m lacking inspiration to write for my own fic, I go and revisit it.

The poetic style, the deep characterizations of both Murdoc and 2-D, just everything about this fic is so damn good, my dudes. Holy shit, I cannot recommend this one-shot enough.

Worlds Infinite by Ferrenbach

Summary:

Murdoc goes looking for 2-D, who can only take so much party noise. He can also only take so much alcohol before turning into an armchair philosopher. Murdoc is more practical. There's no sense in musing on "what-ifs" after all, is there?

Rating: Gen

Yet another great piece from Ferrenbach. I’ve been meaning to delve into their other fics, too, but so far I’ve only had time to read a couple of their one-shots.

I adore the atmosphere of this fic, and the descriptions and characterizatons of Murdoc and 2-D are just as amazing as in Things They Don’t Understand.

The Gunpowder Princess by ghoullly

Summary:

A runaway princess with a gun on her back

A man with raven's wings and a bird's skull atop his head.

A giant man with long legs and the biggest heart she'd ever seen (figuratively and literally).

A man with a ghost between his ears and the ability to sway the elements with his mood.

One man is mute, one man is blind, and one man is deaf.

A ragtag group of misfits band together to travel to the edge of Japan to help the young heiress escape her planned assassination. They quickly realize that it's not as easy as it sounds, especially with some dangerous people following close behind.

Rating: Mature

I haven’t had the chance to catch up with this fic in a while (and it’s unfinished), but I adore this AU to bits. Japanese folklore AND found family dynamic? Yes, please.

return address by beepboopwriting

Summary:

Even evil has loved ones.

Sometimes, evil sends said loved ones letters written in nasty ink and addressed from a high security prison.

Loved one replies. She replies a lot.

Rating: Teen

This one makes me wanna cry, man. Murdoc and Noodle’s father-daughter relationship was one of the reasons I joined this fandom in the first place, and this Phase 5 fic does NOT disappoint. My heart aaaaah

Horse With No Name by Invader Sam

Summary:

Another one-shot Gorillaz fic, this time set during their first US tour. Noodle is plagued with nightmares and Murdoc, fearing it may be affecting her performance in the band, decides to 'handle it'. :) Rated for one or two curse words.

Rating: Teen

This is a really cute Phase 1 Murdad one-shot that made me smile a lot.

Sleepover by vinnie2757

Summary: 'Is this "Everybody Crawls into Murdoc's Bed Night" and I wasn't informed?’

Rating: K

Another cute Phase 1 one-shot where both Noodle and 2-D have nightmares and sneak into Murdoc’s bed to talk to him about it like the kids they are, much to his weary dismay.

Snapshots by vinnie2757

Summary:

The early years are full of the soft moments, the easy smiles and piggybacks, the laughter and the supportive hands behind backs. [A collection of moments from a time when Gorillaz were happy.]

Rating: K+

This one-shot collection spans across multiple phases and is an all-around nice time. No drama, no angst, just Gorillaz being a family. :D

You Are Now Entering The Harmonic World... by OceanBacon23

Summary:

A collection of little scenes. Each deals with a certain song by Gorillaz, and you might need to know each song before you can read the story.

No archive warnings apply. ADDITIONAL WARNINGS MAY BE PLACED IN AUTHORS' NOTES.

Rating: Gen

I haven’t read all the one-shots in this collection yet, but it’s nice to take a peek into these song creation moments the band members get up to here.

The Apology by eyedentification

Summary: Murdoc makes amends. (My own take on a common Gorillaz fanfic trope.)

Rating: Mature

This is more a comedy one-shot than a family one. I’m not exaggerating when I say I yelled at this Phase 4 fic lmao. I won’t spoil anything other than the fact that this is just Peak Murdoc™.

Press, Release by ratbat

Summary:

Privacy is something you trade for fame, Murdoc knew that, but there's always something personal you hope to cling to, something to keep for yourself.

Now if only the fucking media and their hack lackeys would quit acting like that belonged to them too.

Rating: Teen

This is a great Phase 1 fic focusing on Murdoc’s own battle with internalized homophobia after the media tries to rip his coming out away from him in an interview.

This fic does have some slurs in it, courtesy of Murdoc’s own foul mouth and internalized hatred, but do read this one if you’re okay reading that sort of thing.

What Are We Going to Do? by Close_enough_to_lose

Summary:

Murdoc notices that Noodle looks embarrassed while handing 2D the lyric sheet for Every Planet We Reach Is Dead. He quickly figures out why. Luckily, it’s one thing he’s equipped to deal with.

Or,

Murdoc finds out Noodle is bi and gives her his advice.

Rating: Teen

More Murdoc being a good dad to Noodle. :D Just a bi dad giving his bi daughter (actually good) advice.

2D is Weird by alexisntedgy

Summary:

2D has always been a little different. Or, other people always thought he was. But when people keep telling someone that they're weird, it starts to get to you.

Or, 2D is autistic and has a panic attack because of his ~issues~.

TW for internalized ableism, panic attacks, and general ableism. Any other TWs in the notes.

Rating: Teen

I also have a headcanon that 2-D is autistic, and I like how this fic portrays how he struggles with his and other people’s perceptions of it and him. Noodle’s also being a good sister to him here, so that’s a plus.

Just Another Girl by alexisntedgy

Summary:

Noodle is a girl. She knows that. The only problem is, the rest of the world doesn't know it.

Rated T for Murdoc

Basically just trans Noodle. I love her she's gr8 :))

Rating: Teen

I haven’t caught up with this fic all the way through yet either, but the chapters I have read are super cute and wholesome and full of Gorillaz family-bonding. :3

Angst Fics

Pretending by FleetRed

Summary: After a casual hookup, Stu imagines what it would be like if it were something more.

Rating: Teen

I adore the many character study fics in this fandom, and this one is no exception. It’s a great insight into 2-D’s romantic mind.

The Selfish Giant by fashionpixiez

Summary:

YOU ARE MURDOC NICCALS, AND YOU ARE EMPTY.

No, no. Don’t tell me you’re not. You’re empty, aren’t you ? A vessel. But you aren’t the kind of vessel that wants to be filled, are you? No. You reach out to people and you touch their hearts and you burn them, because you want them to feel some of that burning emptiness too. that’s all you’re good for. (It’s like it’s all you’ve ever known.)

Rating: Teen

This fic hurts my heart, but damn is it good. The descriptions of Murdoc’s feelings and his past are so poignant here, I just want to hug him.

Other Murdoc-Related Fics

Tattoos by HowlingMisfit

Summary: There's a reason why Murdoc doesn't have them anymore. (Rated for: Major character "death", Gore, Blood, Nudity and Murdoc.)

Rating: Mature

This is a horror/supernatural one-shot that (to me at least) is more comedic than scary. Of course, the descriptions are downright macabre (which I love), but...again Peak Murdoc here.

Lucy, I’m Home by TheDarkLegate

Summary:

After the release of Humanz, Murdoc isn't willing to wait another seven years for more success. Lucifer wants to see just what he'll give up to get it. One shot. Spiritual Successor to "A Day in the Life of Satan".

Rating: Teen

I’ve hardly (if ever) seen any fanfics that delve into Murdoc’s deal with the Devil. The way Lucifer is portrayed as a world-weary businessman rather than someone to fear is pretty funny and really in line with Gorillaz’ sense of humor, too.

Morning Person by Lmaooooonade

Summary:

A young boy cherishes the mornings where he can just exist. Things might not be great, but he can at least exist peacefully for a while.

Rated Teen for my fucking language.

Based off the headcanon of another creator I very much admire, please inquire within.

Rating: Teen

This Phase 0 fic is a great stand-alone read even if I haven’t really delved into the headcanons that inspired their fic (though I have seen their neat artwork around sometimes).

If I move my hands fast enough, I won’t die by alexisntedgy

Summary:

Murdoc Niccals has Tourette’s syndrome, this is the story of his journey.

Because nobody else has written about this headcanon yet!!

This will probably be a place to keep Tourettes!murdoc ficlets and one shots!!! For context, I (the author) have a tic disorder :)

Rating: Teen

Personally, I like Murdoc’s verbal tics, so it’s interesting to see someone else’s take on why he does them here.

Aaaand that’s it for now! I’ve read a lot more Gorillaz fics than this, but this list was getting long enough as it is, so I figure it’d be best to just make another rec post based on genre.

Part 2 of my recs will focus more on OC/Murdoc and reader/Murdoc romance fics, so stay tuned for those!

If you have any fic recs for me, by all means tell me about them! Just keep in mind that I don’t like any band ships aside from 2Russ and RussDel.

Self-insert OCs or reader fics are a-okay, though!

[thechildoflightning]

The Kübler-Ross Model Ch3- Bargaining

Title: The Kübler-Ross Model [Masterpost]

Fandom: Sanders Sides

Pairings: background LAMP

~~~

Chapter Title: Bargaining- Chapter Three

Summary: 

Stage Three: Bargaining- Characterized by making internal and external deals in order to cope with or even attempt to fix a loss.

In which Remy is talking, but not nearly enough.

Warnings: Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Suicide & Rape & Hate Crimes (all mentioned), Transphobia & Racism & Fatphobia & Ableism (all mentioned)

[ao3 link]

Bargaining- Chapter Three

“Selected: Voicemail. One item. Tab one of one,” Remy’s phone claims, direct and to the point. Remy knows it’s from his dad, he’s the only one leaving Remy voicemails. He puts his finger to the screen, sliding it around as he searches for the desired section.

“Voicemail.”

One finger down.

“Daniel Zurko. M-”

Double tap.

“Look Remy, I get that you’re not happy. I know how much going to university meant to you. I get that, okay? But it just isn’t realistic and you need to accept that. I- look why don’t you come home? The college in town is great, maybe you can take a few courses there. I think it’s too late to sign up for this semester but maybe you can start in the spring. I know they don’t have some of the sculpture classes you were interested in but they have some creative writing courses and that’s pretty much the same thing, right? Just… Please call me. We can work something out together.”

-

A little while later, Remy and Patton settle in the living room. Patton sits on the couch and Remy’s a few feet away on the floor, hugging his dog as he slowly stops sniffling. Cha-Cha helps him out, covering his face in kisses to get rid of the tears. Remy laughs little and pushes her away after a moment.

The small chuckles ring out as the only noise in the room.

Patton still doesn’t speak.

Remy quickly falls silent.

“I came out as trans when I was fourteen,” Patton eventually says, “But- I- I mean I don’t- there wasn’t one moment for me. I- gosh I debated it for forever.” 

Patton stops and Remy considers. Remy’s kind of surprised in all honesty. Patton has always seemed so sure of himself that it surprises Remy that Patton ever had any sort of doubt.

“Why- why’d it take so long?” Remy asks carefully.

Patton hums.

“I guess- I was scared. That was definitely a big piece. There was this huge fear of what it would mean for my life if I was trans. Everything would change.”

Remy swallows hard. 

“I was- I didn’t know what my family would think. I mean- I knew they were supportive but it’s different when it’s your kid, y’know? And there’s all the statistics of suicide attempts, rape numbers, hate crimes, it was a lot. 

“And I- I was also scared I was wrong? Because- because there’s this idea of what a black girl’s supposed to be like, y’know? And I had never been that. But I thought- I thought maybe it was just that? Maybe I wasn’t trans, maybe I was just pissed at the racist standards that follow black girls? And I hated my body but like- how much of that was trans versus being disabled? Versus being fat? So there were all these reasons that screamed at me that I was faking, that I wasn’t valid, that I could never be trans. It was scary because what if I was wrong, what if I was faking?”

Remy’s so scared of being wrong.

“If you were so scared of being wrong- how did you figure out that you were right?”

“I kept coming back to it,” Patton answered honestly, “And I thought- gosh if I keep having these excuses of why I’m not trans but I still end up here again and again and again, questioning my gender and so unhappy, then it’s gotta be true, right?”

Remy thinks she understands.

“And that was it at first, it still is,” Patton continues, “A big part of it now is trusting myself. I’m happy as a guy. It feels right. It is right. I’ve always been a guy. But there’s still doubts, and I guess I deal with those with just accepting them? Because maybe I am faking. Like- maybe. I mean I know I’m trans, but I think I’m always going to have that doubt. And if I’m always going to have that doubt, I’m going to live the way that makes me happy in the meantime. Does that make any sense?

“Yes,” Remy says, and she means it. “Yes. Yes. It does.”

Patton offers a small hum.

“Patton,” Remy says, and she's desperate now, oh so desperate. “Patton,” she insists. “Patton, I’m a girl.”

“Okay.”

Remy cries for the second time that night.

Patton offers a hug, and Remy shakily gets to her feet to collapse into his side. Patton wraps her up firm and tight and he listens to her. He listens and he hugs and he soothes.

It’s so nice.

Her mom never did this for her. She got so sick so fast that it had always been Remy comforting her than the other way around.

Her dad had, or he tried at least. He had wrapped Remy up, wrapped her up in layers and layers of bubble wrap, leading to suffocation instead of protection. Remy’s dad hugged her but it had always felt wrong. It always felt like it was about her dad, never actually about herself. His hugs were given as proof that Remy needed him, needed his suffocation, versus providing any actual care or comfort.

Remy hated that she almost missed them.

She curled into Patton a bit more. Patton lifted one hand to gently stroke her hair, soft ‘it's okay, it’s all going to be okay’ on repeat.

It takes her longer to stop crying this time.

“So,” Patton says, “Where do you want to go with this?”

“I’m a girl,” Remy says again. This time it's a bit stronger. “I’m a trans woman.”

“Okay. Absolutely,” Patton says, “That’s amazing and I’m so happy for you.”

There’s a pause.

“Can I ask about names and pronouns?” Patton prods gently.

“I… Uh,” Remy falters, because she hasn’t really thought this far yet.

“You can take all the time you need,” Patton adds, gentle and sweet, “And while I want you to feel like you can share this with me, you don’t have to either.”

“No- I- She. She/her. I- Feminine language too? Is that the word for that? I-” Remy pauses here. She tenses up, prepares for a fight. She doesn’t think Patton’s going to like what she has to say next, but she has to say it because it feels right. It feels so right, and she’s willing to defend it. “I’m keeping Remy. My name is still Remy.”

“Okay.”

Remy’s body relaxes, then tenses again. “Okay?”

“Of course Remy, whatever you’re feeling is valid. One hundred percent. I’m here to support you.”

“I- I just kept my name?”

“Well you can always change it later-” Patton admits. Remy winces. “Or you can keep it. It’s your name. All that matters is that you’re happy with it.”

“But-” Remy flounders. And it’s so stupid, Patton said it’s fine, why is Remy looking for a fight, “But?”

“Did you know my name is legally Patton Agnes Wilson?” Patton says abruptly.

Remy did not. She shakes her head slightly.

“Yeah I-” Patton continues, before stopping suddenly, “And I just pulled out my ID to show you. Putting that away now.”

Remy lets out a light laugh, and truly relaxes.

“Yeah. When my moms adopted me they gave me the first name Agnes, but I always went by my middle name- my deadname. My deadname hurt. A lot. So I chose Patton. But Agnes, Agnes meant something to me? And I didn’t want to lose that. So I made it my middle name, got rid of my deadname and made Patton my first,” Patton explains. He pauses once more, “Did I say that right?” 

He seems to be questioning himself more than Remy. He starts to mutter the sentence under his breath again, revising it.

“Yeah you said that right,” Remy confirms.

Patton laughs, and it sounds like bells.

“Okay. Good. But my point is- your name is your name, not anyone else's.”

“My mom named me Remy,” she admits, “I- my middle name is Alan. After my great-grandfather. That can go,” she insists, making a face.

“I can understand that,” Patton says wryly.

“Yeah.”

“Have you come out to anyone else yet?”

“No,” Remy sais, “No. No I don't think I was even out to myself. That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

Remy and Patton haven’t talked a lot. She knows that this conversation has to be painfully uncomfortable for Patton. After all, Remy did just show up at his house, live with him for a few months, leave for college, and then demand he share about being trans. Patton doesn’t even know her.

“I’m glad you did. I’m really glad I could help you with this.”

Patton’s such a good person. Remy’s so appreciative of that.

The door opens and seconds later there's excited skittering paws on the floor as Trixie races over to say hi to Cha-Cha. Cha-Cha perks up at the attention and they quickly begin to play with one another. Remy smiles at their energy and let’s them be.

“Remy?” Virgil asks, “Are you okay?”

She wants to say she’s fine, but maybe, well maybe she isn’t. She isn’t fine at all. She doesn’t know what to say.

(She thinks maybe she should tell Virgil she’s a girl. She did just figure it out, but it’s important. Virgil would understand. He would. But there’s something that tells Remy that she can’t. Not yet).

“I- I dunno? I’m upset,” she admits.

“About?”

“Kind of everything?”

“Do you want to talk?”

“I- me and Pat were talking a bit?”

Virgil pauses then stands.

“Okay. I’ll let you be then. But if you need to talk- I’m here okay? You have people supporting you.”

Remy nods, because she doesn’t think she can force words around the choked feeling in her chest.

Virgil leaves.

“I don’t want to tell Virgil yet,” Remy says immediately after he leaves, “Or Logan. Or Roman. Or anyone. I told you, just don’t tell anyone else yet, please.”

“That you’re trans?”

Remy’s trans. She’s trans. It feels so freeing even as it terrifies her.

“Yeah,” Remy confirms, “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”

“Okay, that’s fine. It’s yours to share.”

A pause sits between them.

“Can I write this down?” Patton asks for a moment, “I write down important stuff to remember in my phone so when I forget I have it all. I wanted to ask because while my boyfriends would never read my notes unless I told them it was okay, it’s obviously still going to be out there in some way. But I want to write it down because there’s a very high chance I will forget.”

“Yeah, that’s okay,” Remy agrees.

“Thank you,” Patton says. He presumably pulls out his phone to do exactly that. “It’s getting late and I have a class at nine tomorrow. Did you want to talk more or…?”

“No, no, you can go to bed,” Remy insists, “I’m good, yeah. I'm just going to go middle name searching now. Uh how the hell do I even go about that choosing a new name?”

“Baby websites. They were created for expecting parents, trans people, and authors.”

Remy rolls her eyes at the comment.

She then groans. Like yeah, she wants to find a better middle name than Alan. But she does not want to be searching through millions of names to find the right one. How do parents do this?

“That’s gonna be so many names. Have any suggestions?”

Patton hesitates.

“Yeah?” Remy asks

“I- well. If you want… Eileen was my deadname. But if you want you can use that?”

Patton’s words are casual but Remy can feel the weight behind them, the power. Remy is absolutely floored by the offer. 

“I… really?” she asks.

“I mean if you want. It’s an idea. There’s a lot of names out there.”

“But you would be okay with that?” Remy confirms, because she is honored but she doesn’t want to take something that will make Patton uncomfortable.

“Yeah,” he says, “I mean it’s not like I’m using it.”

“Remy Eileen Zurko,” she says, “Remy Eileen Zurko.” She smiles and knows she must look like an idiot.

“Yeah?” Patton asks.

“Yeah,” Remy chokes out, “Yeah I love it.”

They sit in silence for a moment.

“Okay, I’m headed to bed.” Patton says, “Uh, the bedroom you stayed in is still empty. Extra towels are under the sink… I think. If you want to shower or anything.”

Remy gives a nod and Patton gets up to leave. Before he can fully exit, Remy calls out once more.

“Patton?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

Remy’s not quite sure what she’s thanking Patton for in particular. Maybe the name. Maybe for the advice. Maybe for listening. Maybe for the entire conversation in general. Maybe just for being here.

But Remy is. Thankful that is. She’s so thankful.

“Of course. Really.”

Patton means it. Remy knows he does. It makes everything inside of her hurt.

When Patton really is gone, Remy gets up from the couch as well and makes it to the empty bedroom. She closes the door softly behind her and pulls out her phone, opening Kai’s contact. She has some apologizing to do.

-

“We’re going for a walk,” Logan announces, as he enters the doorway to the room Remy’s staying with. He blocks a fair amount of light, and Remy’s eyes struggle to adjust.

“Uh… I was actually about to leave. Maybe another time,” Remy bargains, because she was about to leave. Plus she thinks she might know where this conversation is going and she really doesn’t want to have it.

“Okay,” Logan says, and Remy thinks she’s won. “Then I’ll walk with you back to your dorm.” Nope, Remy’s trapped.

Remy doesn’t have any actual reason to refuse. So she accepts with a sigh and nods. She grabs her bag and heads for the door. At the door, she gets Cha-Cha in her harness and quickly steps outside, Logan trailing behind her.

The minute she steps outside she’s hit with blinding light and takes a step backward into Logan as she squeezes her eyes shut.

“Remy?” Logan asks.

She ignores him for a minute, fumbling through her bag for her familiar sunglasses. Which she of course doesn’t have. Because she came here when it was dark out last night with a rushed back of minimal school supplies. Of course.

“Logan, do you have any sunglasses I can borrow?” she asks.

“Yes,” he answers, “One moment.”

He’s gone the next seconds and Remy keeps her eyes shut and sits down on ground, lying her head in her arms as she hopes for it to stop pounding.

“Hey,” Logan says, rejoining her. He sits down next to her. “Here.”

Remy holds out her hand and Logan hands her a pair of sunglasses. She takes a minute, letting the shooting pain in her head relax a bit. After that, she lifts her head and slips the sunglasses on, slowly opening her eyes. 

“You okay?” Logan asks.

There’s still bright spots in her vision and her head hurts, but both are fading. Her eyes also struggle to adjust to the change in light, but that’s nothing new.

“Yeah,” Remy says. She waits another minute for the panging in her head to die to a dull ache. 

She then stands. “Dorm?”

“Okay,” Logan says, “Do you want me to guide or Cha-Cha?”

Remy answers by grabbing his upper arm right above his elbow. They start walking, Logan guiding.

Logan makes a clicking noise as they make their way to Remy’s dorm. Remy just zones out and starts to think about how she’s going to apologize to Kai and Elliot in person. She texted them both last night, but Remy still knows they both deserve in-person apologies. She shouldn't have snapped at them.

Eventually Logan stops the clicking noise and reaches up to pat at his chest instead. He hesitates for a brief moment and then begins to talk.

“I’m worried about you,” he begins.

Remy just waits. She doesn’t want to have this conversation. But maybe if she listens- or pretends to at least- maybe Logan will voice his concerns and let her go.

“You are of course welcome to stay with us whenever you want. That isn’t what this is about and I want to make that clear. You always have a place here, okay?”

“Okay,” Remy says.

“Virgil doesn’t want to talk to you about this,” Logan confesses, “He thinks we should give you space.”

That means Logan disagrees. Remy wishes he’d just follow in Virgil’s example. It’s easier that way.

“I’m also not going to ask about last night. I don’t know exactly what happened, but Patton expressed that it wasn’t- that it was different.”

“Different than what?” Remy can’t help but ask. She regrets it at once.

“Different than what I’m worried about. Or maybe part of it? Playing a role? But not the main idea.”

Remy stays quiet this time.

“You don’t seem happy,” Logan admits after a moment, “I thought things would maybe get better when you were away from your dad for a little bit. And in a sense I think you are doing better. But you aren’t doing… You still seem off. Not only unhappy, but… You seem detached? I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but it concerns me.”

“I’m fine.”

She isn’t. She knows she isn’t now, but for some reason she’s still unwilling to share that with Logan.

“You keep saying that but I don’t believe you.”

“You’re saying I’m lying?” Remy can’t help but challenge. It’s not fair of her, but she doesn't want to be having this conversation.

“No,” Logan says, “I’m not sure why you keep saying you’re fine. Maybe you think it yourself. Maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe you are lying. I don’t know. Regardless, I’m concerned about you.”

“Okay,” Remy says. She knows that’s not the answer that Logan’s looking for, and maybe that’s a bit mean, answering in a way she knows Logan doesn’t want, but this is also Remy’s business so Logan can budge off.

Logan sits with that answer for a minute.

“I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me,” Logan says eventually.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I doubt that.”

“I talked to Patton.”

“Apparently not about the things I’m concerned about.”

Remy shrugs.

“I’m frustrated,” Logan says, “I don’t feel acknowledged in this conversation.”

“I’m sorry,” Remy replies, “That wasn’t my point. I get that you’re concerned about me. I hear that. I don’t agree with the concern, but I hear that you are.”

“Okay. Thank you. I want you to talk to me, but I don’t think you’re going to do that.”

“Yeah, I’m not,” Remy says.

Logan and her used to be so close. Why was that all crumbling apart?

“Okay,” Logan said, “That’s one of the many things that’s concerning me.”

Remy doesn’t reply.

“Remy, will you talk to someone?”

“I-”

“I mean, it doesn’t have to be me. It doesn’t have to be about the things I’m concerned about. I’m worried that you don’t have anyone you’re talking emotionally with in any scheme. Considering you’ve been through some deep emotional shocks lately, it concerns me that you seem to have no healthy outlets for talking about those things.”

“Uh huh.”

“Remy, I hope you talk to someone.”

For most of this conversation, Remy’s been numb. But there, for just a moment, she feels something.

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

Remy’s not going to, but she knows that saying she might will make Logan happy. It’s a tradeoff, lying to get Logan off her back. She hates that she doesn’t.

“Alright,” Logan says, and stops, “We’re at the front entrance to your dorm. About thirty feet to the front door, straight ahead. I’m headed to class. Call, text, or visit anytime.”

“Okay.”

“Can I give you a hug?”

“No thanks.”

Remy doesn’t really feel up for it, and she knows Logan won’t be offended. She offers a handshake instead which is weird and doesn’t feel right for this conversation or their relationship, but Remy wants to provide something here. Logan accepts it. It’s awkward.

“Alright. Bye,” Logan says when their hands drop.

“Bye.”

Logan leaves, and Remy goes back to her dorm.

~~~

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[goth-bunny]

I’ve been losing my mind over the hints at Bloodhound’s backstory that it’s unreal. So I wrote a lengthy blog entry about it. It’s at 1,711 words under the Read More.

(If you see this post on @bloodhound-and-jackrabbit, don’t worry, that’s my sideblog!)

Alright. Anyone who knows me, within the Apex fandom and outside of it too, knows that I am in love with Bloodhound. The season 3 launch is killing me! But don’t worry! I only have good things to talk about it!

 A bit of a background: I was into playing Overwatch from late October 2018 to May 2019 thanks to my ex. But it wasn’t until I saw someone tweet about a new video game franchise having a canonically nonbinary character. Unfortunately, I felt like the genre wouldn’t be my cup of tea as I have minimal experience with battle royales, let alone FPS. The teaser trailer did manage to convince me otherwise with its diverse cast of characters, fast pacing, and killer song choice. I didn’t pick up the game until the end of February, which was a few days after my ex dumped me. I needed a distraction from it; so hell, why not play that hot new game?

 I launch the game and don’t think too much, selecting the Tutorial mode, because of course, it’s a brand new game with different controls and mechanics from Overwatch. Imagine my surprise that I see the very Legend who’s piqued my interest in the series in the first place! After the Tutorial, I try the regular Play mode and got matched up with someone playing as Mirage. Unfortunately, I wasn’t doing so well, and I was nervous about speaking on mic at the time as I sound too feminine to be read as androgynous. I don’t remember much besides dying in a skirmish and being unable to use ziplines as they weren’t a part of the tutorial. After that match, I spent the remaining time checking out Bloodhound in the Legends gallery. What stood out the most for me were their quips or voicelines; a lot of them were very comforting for me to hear, especially in a low point of my life.

 Weeks later, I was still talking to my ex, but it was clear that things were completely different than before. I played Overwatch without him anyway, but it wasn’t the same. I was still unable to come to terms that I do have somewhat of a crush on Bloodhound until early June; I had a dream that the two of us were alone in the woods, and they found it safe to take off their helmet and mask around me. They revealed themself as an androgynous black person with short, curly red hair, and I kissed them on the cheek. Two more dreams would succeed that:  one where we were both dressed in black and red suits on a date, and the other one was…it ended up being not safe for work, to say the least. These all lead me to formulating a self-insert fanfic, and then finally giving Apex a second chance just so I can figure out the lore and feel of the game. Initially, if I have not gotten into Overwatch, I wouldn’t have considered playing Apex Legends even if I learned there was a nonbinary character.

 Within the past 3 months, Bloodhound has been a comforting character for me. They were absolutely relatable to someone like me; besides the fact that they’re nonbinary, they also happened to be a pagan with an affinity for birds, sharp objects, and mortality.

 The main catalyst for writing this post is the season 3 launch. Last week, when the launch trailer debuted, I lost sleep over seeing Bloodhound sharpening their handy hunting knife with a whetstone as they’re surrounded by numerous candles in their dropship room. The very scene made me fall even harder with them, as I too have always loved candles, and even more so when I started identifying as a pagan since last year. However, it was the season launch itself that made me even more anxious.

 During the past 3 months I’ve immersed myself into the fandom, I’ve come up with multiple headcanons for Bloodhound, a great portion of them never having been published here on Tumblr or discussed publicly, the most notable being their backstory: I’ve figured that Bloodhound would have an Afro-Latina/Filipina biological mother (Nimfa Vilhjalmsdottir) who remarried to a white man named Sigurdur (Sigurdur Steinnson), thus Bloodhound ending up with a meathead stepbrother named Albert. The parents had a military background, and they all lived on a planet with a high population of humans of Icelandic or Nordic descent. As a kid, Bloodhound was kind of an oddball, preferring to spend lengthy periods of time outdoors and exploring the woods or reading books about fantasy and adventure. One time, little Bloodhound was flocked by an unkindess of ravens, much to their parents’ concern. As they grew older, they became more and more visibly uncomfortable with their birth gender, and their stepfather’s pressure on them to join the military. As Bloodhound turned 18, the tension between them and their stepfather grew, thus prompting them ran away from home and join a group of ragtag freedom fighters dedicated to preserving the Frontier lands from militarization and imperialism. Eventually, Bloodhound would end up knocking at death’s door in the middle of the woods after a young Anita Williams snipes them from a distance. This would be a turning point in their life, where they’d meet the Allfather and promise to be devoted to him. Coming back to the mortal realm, Bloodhound sees that their group has lost the battle, and decided to go into hiding, hopping from planet to planet to run away from their past.

 However, it was teased that Bloodhound’s parents are named Johann and Brigida, and that they’re probably both scientists and not war veterans. Not disapproving or judgmental of their child’s gender of interests, as far as the loading screen with Johann’s letter to Brigida suggests. I would be fine with this, but it opens up a new can of worms for me.

Before I point what these potential worms would be, let me remind you that the new season dropped at the same time I had my psychiatrist appointment where I finally brought my mom over to talk with her about me, thus revealing that what I originally speculated was completely wrong.

Okay, here’s the can of worms: Johann and Brigida, and Artur to an extent, are very “white” sounding names. I would be lying if I denied that I didn’t speculate Bloodhound as a white person during the first few weeks after the game’s release. If the races of Bloodhound and their relatives were revealed to be all white, I’m worried that it’s going to cement the falsehood of Vikings or Norse pagans as being exclusively white, which was not the case in reality. I’m worried that Bloodhound being revealed as explicitly white would mean that they would be co-opted as white supremacist symbol because a sizeable amount of neo-Nazis/white supremacists/bigots practice Norse Paganism (which I learned the hard way a few weeks back).

Another concern would be Bloodhound getting a face reveal, which would undermine a lot of fans’ headcanons for them, mine included.  The headcanons are as diverse as the Apex Legends cast itself and a lot of heart and soul have been poured out into them, so catastrophe is inevitable if the official unmasked!Bloodhound face will be revealed.

 On the bright side, there are some things I hope will be executed instead of my worries. Bloodhound and their relatives are never portrayed explicitly, and are instead, shown as silhouettes, in addition to them never getting their face shown even when they have removed their helmet and mask. Another thing that would be nice to see is that they’d be ambiguously brown; Bloodhound being ambiguously brown would help break many stereotypes about them as a person, one of which is that one has to be white to be a Norse pagan, which is an open practice, anyway, and that Vikings have traveled across the globe and intermingled with different civilizations, meaning that a white viking homogeneity is racist and historically inaccurate. Besides, names like Johann, Artur, and Brigida can be just as white a name as Elizabeth Harris (that’s Cupcakke the rapper’s real name by the way!). It would also be a relief if the writers pull a Riley Cavanaugh and never hint at Bloodhound’s birth gender and keep them as androgynous as possible.

It’s also been speculated that Johann and Artur are Icelandic, and that Brigida is Italian, meaning that Bloodhound is potentially mixed-race. Let’s not forget that Apex Legends takes place in the 28th century, and people of all races are in space. Sure, there’s space ableism and imperialism, and to an extent, transphobia, but it would be unrealistic for racial homogeny to still exist.

 Bloodhound has been a great source of comfort for me these past few months. I see so much of myself in them: besides being nonbinary, I’m also a pagan who venerates a psychopomp, love books and birds, introverted but sympathetic of others, and unashamed of my identity. I’ve seen my confidence spike upwards, knowing that a person like them exists. That I am much more than my weaknesses and how people perceive me. That I still have so much to live for. That I am not alone.

 Before I end, I’m actually glad that Bloodhound grew up with a loving and accepting family, and thus destroying what projection of my hurt I have on them; I assumed that my mom would be immensely disappointed in me being nonbinary and bi, so I wanted someone who would be going through the same predicament as me, so that there’ll be some common ground. But it seems we do have enough common ground, having scientist parents who moved to a different place from my place of birth. Last August, my psychiatrist asked me how can I be a happy nonbinary person, in a world that sees everything in a male/female dichotomy? Perhaps I’ve found my answer in the form of Bloodhound.

 If you have reached this paragraph, thank you so much for taking the time to read my post in its entirety. I just want to get my feelings off my chest, as Bloodhound has been very important to me.

 Have you any questions or reactions, please feel free to message me!