#Echo Chamber Answers

[danthropologie]

Since everyone is being a downer, I’m here to bring a bit of positivity.

As your local correspondent at Albert Park over the weekend, I can report back that I saw so much old and new Daniel merch. 10 year old STR hats and a piece of every enchante drop, old Red Bull hats and so many McLaren shirts.

Australia still loves him and was very disappointed to hear about his deleted lap time, it could be heard across the grandstands. Also the very expensive VCARB merch was sold out by the end of Friday.

omggggg anon i appreciate this so much!! he's so loved 🥺🥺🥺

[simplepotatofarmer]

This is something I was wondering for a while, but where does that entire claim about Dream being a cult leader come from because to me all I see is that there’s a guy who is extremely popular who got a bunch of fans and stans around him. like yes, there are certainly some crazy people like any other fandom, but one can make the same argument for some of the other Minecraft players, or even some celebrities and I don’t see people call them cult leaders all the time (even when they do, it seem as ridiculous!)

I think the reason why I’m saying that is because maybe I’m a bit biased because I listen to a bunch of true crime and I hear about how cult leaders act and then I just look at what I see and now I saw it it was just how the fans reacted to their favorite creators and I just think man that’s not being a cult leader that’s just being a creator on the Internet. Could you explain where that accusation come from and why?

it took me a moment to realize you weren't talking about the character.

but the accusation comes from people who just really hate dream and his fans and have a desire to feel morally superior about it and if you say 'this fandom is basically a cult' well then, it certainly sounds bad! and it certainly makes you look better when you're deeply hostile to anyone who likes him.

in the end, the whole thing comes down to the same thing: they hate dream. they hate his fans. they want an excuse to do so because if they just bully and harass him and his fans for being cringe, they've lost the moral high ground, yeah?

and the cult thing is extra insidious because one it's severely downplaying what a cult is while putting in place an excuse to never believe anything a dream fan says or have to examine their biases and the lies told about dream. so it doesn't matter if dream proves his innocence or apologizes for his past mistakes, when his fans bring that up, they're just crazy cultish fans who can't accept the truth! if fans (like myself) speak out about the mass harassment faced, we're lying at best or deserve it at worst.

because you're right: there are shitty dream fans who have done things i deeply disagree with but everything people accuse dream and his fans of can be found in other fandoms as well. good and negative.

but it's never been about the truth, it's always about what they can say, what words they can apply to him and the fans, to justify the way they act towards him and the fans.

[greensaplinggrace]

You obviously know this is about D*rkling or have you misused tags in other fandoms as well? And I am still better than people condoning child trafficking.

i dont believe in cross-tagging, my friend. unfortunately for you i'm the one that made the darkling slander tag on tumblr. if you want a different experience then can i perhaps recommend tiktok? it's a pretty decent hangout for those with no critical thinking skills and the need to argue with thin air. besides, the tumblr slander tag actually has real slander instead of the shallow and incorrect bs i see antis spew. as if it's my fault i'm better at your jobs than you.

also maybe self-evaluate in regard to the last sentence of your ask. best of luck in therapy!

[qqueenofhades]

I find myself asking this question so very, very often, but why is the New York Times so deliberately fucking stupid?

[takeariskao3]

Oi anon, it’s ok mate when you have low EQ & IQ it’s hard to understand Hinny…. 👀

Even my 80 year old military grandpa told me Ginny was going to marry Harry in after reading CoS 🙄

Please go read your delusional stories about Harmony where Hermione is just a brunette version of Ginny and let us live in sanity. Thanks!

^^^

[utilitycaster]

I know very little about radiation so it's probably easier for me to suspend disbelief for that element in Burrow's end than you are and I haven't been bothered by it. I wonder if you'd be willing to expand on how you think the radiation plot takes away from the good elements of the show (family/political) beyond the suspension of disbelief issue, or would you rather go into it after the season ends?

I'm holding off until the season ends because there were some developments in the most recent episode that made me wonder if the Blue/Light isn't radiation after all and if this is a red herring (which is its own problem; there's been far too many red herrings here for very little central mystery), but ultimately, I stand by my assertion that if you are strong on literary analysis, you don't need the addition of science literacy, though obviously that is what initially signaled to me that this was a mess.

The question really is "what does setting this in a nuclear power plant vs. some other human structure achieve, narratively and thematically?" The following are some discussion questions to consider that I don't think require any particular scientific knowledge.

What does the bear being controlled by chipmunks and full of the Blue achieve? What does this tell us about the world?

Do you think the stoats having magic powers requires an in-world explanation? Why or why not?

What do you think the stoats using radiation represents as a metaphor? Does this change with the reveal that the stoats were the ones to cause the radiation disaster?

The blue is stated to be behind the very different revenant statuses of both Tula and Ava, who died under very different circumstances. Does this feel consistent? Why or why not?

How is the Blue used in Last Bast? Is the Blue necessary to create the high control societies of Last Bast? Is the Blue-based cult run by Thorn Vale a high control society? Explain your reasoning.

[dogshit-enchantment]

I think people don't understand the repercussions of "just cut them out" like, it's often not simple or easy from an emotional standpoint. Literally every single person who i explain the situation with my family to has gone "yeah you should cut them out/it's good that you cut them out" but what they do not understand is the isolating loneliness in its wake. I never had a security net financially with my family but I would have had at least some kind of social support but now I don't. I have no familial support whatsoever and it is So Fucking Stressful. I am entirely reliant on my friends for support and when they're busy with their lives (which is their right to be) I have no one.

"you should cut this person out of your life" are you going to step up to the plate to replace that lost support? Are you going to be there for them while they grieve a relationship that should have held through life? Are you going to listen when the repercussions of such an act make them feel lonely? If not, stop fucking suggesting it, or at least be more mindful of the consequences.

Cutting family out is hard for most people, stop pretending it's not.

[monmuses]

what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥 - currently accepting!

taking personal problems & conflictions w/ others to public tumblr posts is what ive learned to be my final straw in blocking people. i rarely find people ANNOYING, but i block when all they post is just. nonsense. problems that are turned into drama because they can't seem to stop posting bullshit to garner sympathy or they try to twist a story to fit themselves as the perfect victim/"i did nothing wrong!". i hate it. it makes me sick and it will always be the deal breaker for me with people because accountability is a rare skill alongside common sense nowadays.

like ... this isnt fucking twitter. i will block people if all they keep doing is bringing nonsense into conversation publicly on a ROLEPLAY BLOG of all things. i'm not here to listen to stupid people make stupid choices, and i'm not gonna subject myself to pointless emotional stress when no change has been made.

[silvashapeshifter]

sliva, I heard from Miles that something happened regarding proshippers, r u okay?

that's very kind of you to worry, but it's okay ! I didn't get harassed or anything, even if the amount of proshippers answering to tell me i'm wrong in the comment section of a post of an actual proshipper did scared me at first. I'll block the ones who are disrespectful, that's all !

if anything ever goes wrong/makes me deeply uncomfortable, i'll report it, don't worry 👍

[dchan87]

People need to turn the same tactics on the Palestine protestors that we do on MAGA: point out that they're a bunch of freaks and weirdos. It's weird to be obsessed with whether or not some random Jew is a Zionist. It's weird to make lists of Good Jews and Bad Jews. It's weird to screech at pediatric cancer patients and accuse them of contributing to war in the Middle East. It's weird to camp out on college grounds, shitting in buckets, not allowing bagels in the camps, and pretending you're making any positive difference in the world. It's weird to make I/P your entire personality.

These people are freaks and I'm tired of pretending that they're not.

They’re weird like Republicans

[enchi-elm]

Gosh. The hardest part of planning to write a tallster fic is realizing how much history was condensed for the sake of the show, and then the deeper you start reading (which is still relatively surface) the more you struggle whether to write historically accurate or lean into the fact that it's already not and instead write something that passes as 'appropriate' for the time-period. How the hell do you do it (awe)?

Hello, Delightful Human!

Casual blog readers, this Delightful Human left a truly wonderful comment on my huge Tallster multichapter and now seeing their username always makes me smile.

First of all, from this ask it sounds like you yourself are embarking on a historically accurate (ish) Tallster fic, to which I give you my most heartfelt encouragement and <i>sincere</i> condolences.

I really didn't know what I was getting into with Wind and Water. When I wrote Chapter 1, naive and with good intentions, the only historical understanding I had of the American Revolution was what was presented in the TV show. Not being American myself, it was never covered in school, nor had I ever been interested in it until I saw my two rogue boys swashbuckling across the screen playing at being spies.

So I know intimately the dilemma you present. Once I started delving, and oh boy, did I ever delve, I realized it was going to be impossible to present every aspect of the events I wanted to highlight in a way that captured properly and respectfully every point of view I wanted to include. To this day, I don't know about the major campaigns before and after Valley Forge, nor the greater political context of Washington's position and relation to Congress. (You know who does? @tallmadgeandtea)

To me, it was always more important to stay true to the emotional core of the story, and for that, I realized my ignorance wasn't as big a stumbling block as I thought. Nobody knows what's going on in a war, not <i>really</i>. Most of the events you're writing about were experienced through very very narrow perspectives. Ben is trying as hard as he can to figure it out, and even he gets it wildly wrong, endangering the people he loves most. On a personal level, on a soldier level, on a Caleb-and-Ben level, the things that were going to impact them were the things I prioritized learning about. And I leaned into the chaos. Centuries later, we still don't have clear answers and almost all the investigation comes from the Patriot side of the war. Getting it 'clean' and 'correct' was no longer the objective. Mess and confusion are central to any conflict.

So the setting became really important. The Frontier, the forests, the hills. The feel, the cold, the sensory bits. (I also played a stunning amount of Assassin's Creed III while I was writing, which may or may not have helped with some of the scenes.)

And honestly, I got a lot wrong. About two years into writing You've Caught Me Between Wind and Water, I submitted an early chapter of it to a writing critique group and was promptly informed just how much bigger and more industrial the Valley Forge encampment was than how I'd envisioned it. I pulled in elements of that knowledge into subsequent chapters, gently massaging the portrayal of the camp in my narrative. Wasn't until about Chapter 9 that I started reading Joseph Martin Plumb's account of the war, at which point it really sank in just how <i>miserable</i> and dire a soldier's experience was. So then that helped fuel Shepherd's characterization, and Reggie and Freddie and Stanley.

So, the short answer is:

Keep the emotions front and centre. The rest is just very clever window dressing, really.

Read as many historical sources as you can and learn when to draw the line and make executive decisions (maybe Washington didn't give Ben an earful about the horses <i>this month</i>, but it did happen and so it could have happened). People haven't really changed in millennia, so make them human before you make them historical figures. Remember that it's your story and you can include anyone you want (and indeed, restore them to their rightful status and importance, cough cough, "Han Yerry", cough.)

Try not to pull your hair out, but remember it grows back. Talk to people who know better than you and read other stories that are historically accurate but don't centre the history. Personal favourite examples from my circle of friends (who I have to promote whenever I can because I think they're all amazing) would be Lucyemers' Bewitching Precision, CrepuscularPetrichor's May 1792, LadyTP (@ladytp)'s ....Lady, where did Seven Autumns go??? I can't find it on AO3! Also ASheepsLife's Who could resist Deliverance and of course, the most historically accurate one I know about, Cchambers' The Summer Soldier and the Sunshine Patriot.

And thank you for asking your question! Hope this helps.

[unofficialadamtaurus]

Instead they choose to write Adam as a hate sink, creating a vicious cycle where he only behaves and acts in a one note manner without nuance or redemption. Projecting their hatred of a straw man villain of their own making because good writing is hard and racism makes them feel icky. Bonus points for using Adam as a prime catalyst to force along an overrated and divisive ship.

no but Adam was a big meanie whose story has no nuance whatsoever actually and everyone who likes him or dislikes his writing is a cishet white dude who just wanted to project onto him 😡😡😡

[nohr-selphias]

How do you guys write dragon age fanfic? Is it a longfic that follows and retells the events of the game(s)? One shots that add extra context to plot lines or relationships?

[vagueiish]

being a dork ass loser sucks. who are you supposed to talk to when you have nobody to talk to?

more than that, how do you talk to people when you’re incapable of expressing your thoughts/feelings/opinions because there’s no point really formulating them because your thoughts/feelings/opinions don’t matter, and all you’re left with is vague ideas about what you’re about except for the self loathing that comes more readily and eloquently and coherently than anything else you’ve ever thought/felt/opined???

[overbearingstruggles]

Sent this sort of thing over the jackinalex earlier this week too but. I think the main thing that upsets me here is the application of social media crime logic to more serious subjects. For the most part, the issue with the fanbase right now is that no matter what they do, they're guilty. It's sort of in the same argumentative vein as politics right now; accuse someone of something bad enough and regardless of whether it's true or not, it's a difficult point to argue without "proving" a different point about yourself. So, for example, in Florida right now, drag is a sex crime and sex crimes are punishable by death. Well, no one wants to be on the side of the sex offender, right? In that way, it's really difficult to argue that we shouldn't listen to victims online because it sort of implies you're on the side of the rapist. The difference here, however, is that there have been multiple allegations run against real life people that have been proven false, either by omission of data or by the person themselves admitting it. In fact, one of the most extreme cases of this that I've seen in online spaces was the entire Kwite situation. He was able to disprove the claims thoroughly, but he had to reveal a lot of personal information in the meantime.

The point of all this is just to say that I don't think ex-ATL fans are going to come back, just because regardless of what ATL does, there's always some amount of deniability (they had better lawyers, she didn't have enough evidence, etc etc etc). I think they're right for going for the court case, but I wish more people saw it as a reason they could be innocent (pretty ballsy to argue a case that might not go in your favor) rather than a reason that they *must* be guilty. yknow?

Overall we very much agree but I want to harp on one thing. For every ATL or Kwite there are many, many, many more Depps and Mansons and historically those dudes win. The entire point of the hard lean into a blanket phrase like Believe Survivors is because of the way abusers have been let off since forever. I stay devastated that my band got caught up in the midst of this pendulum swing!!! But before we can throw around that there are copious amounts of false claims because a few can be named, it does us no good to forget that false claims remain extremely rare and baddies use these exact type of suits all the time hence why they automatically scream bad optics. As far as the social media of it all…people, especially young people, are so concerned with their brand that they live in fear of being on the wrong side of anything but it’s easy to shrug it off if you’re pitchforking in the wrong direction. It all comes back to nuance and critical thinking and bad faith arguments and that most people don’t actually care enough to be thoughtful. And while I agree I don’t expect ex fans to come back no matter what happens, we’ve now seen ATL get read for something as dumb as a fucking hospital bracelet merch item, so the haters stay watching and waiting to pounce on anything to add to a contextless pile of disingenuous got’chas.

[danthropologie]

i don't have twitter (thank god) but in november i stopped reading posts about daniel on reddit and it made an incredibile difference for my enjoyment of daniel discourse lol (every few months i give in and check some posts and then i nope out of it after the first three comments)

i don't care if it's an echo chamber but i wanna feel good about my favourite driver without other people opinion to ruin it

i also blocked a shit ton of blogs here who kept posting negative stuff in daniel tag so when i stumble upon those kind of posts i'm always taken by surprise, i forgot those kind of people existed

SAAAAAME!! sometimes (more often than i'd probably like to admit rip) the sicko (derogatory) in me can't help but poke around a little bit just to see what's being said, but for the most part i try not to look because unless i'm in a very specific highly optimistic mood where all i want to do is laugh at some idiots, it really brings down the vibe. plus people are fucking boring and all their anti-daniel rhetoric is just the same shit over and over and over again. it's like at least TRY to be inventive if you're gonna make this your entire personality lmao