#Edit: changed my mind so...

[sflow-er]

Fandom New Year's resolutions...

I found myself thinking quite a lot about this fandom and my place in it over the holidays. It was already on my mind due to Faves Fest, and the hate anon I got on Christmas Eve and the general discussion on the confessions blog on whether shipping Wille/Felice was "allowed" made sure it remained there.

I've summarised some of my thoughts as resolutions concerning my presence in the fandom in 2025.

Keep writing and posting my "diabolical" and "deranged" thoughts here when I feel like it, and especially "dying on the hill of Henry and Walter's entirely made up relationship" on ao3. Sorry not sorry, anon. That's the corner of the YR sandbox that I have enjoyed playing in since August 2021, and I will keep playing until l run out of things to say or stories to write. .

Keep reblogging my friends' posts and posts by others interested in the non-Wilmon aspects of the show (when I come across them). Including gifsets etc! I'm not naturally great at paying attention to those because I'm more of a text post person, but they still deserve to be seen by as many people as possible. .

Spend less time scrolling tumblr as a whole. It takes far too much energy and headache-free time away from fic writing and keeping up with my friends. .

Make a safe and comfortable space for my more personal posts. Frankly, the hate anons scrolling my blog feels similar to that one time when someone broke into our basement storage and tried on some of my old jackets, leaving them in a bundle on the floor with the sleeves turned inside out. I washed them, but they all went to goodwill because I didn't feel comfortable wearing them anymore. In the same spirit, I've taken all personal posts except my intro off this blog and reblogged them to a new one that is currently set to private. When it's ready, I will make a separate post asking if anyone wants to follow me there. .

No longer allow anons. I have wanted to keep them on in the past to provide a forum for thoughts that people might be too shy to express on their own blog, such as the Stedrika debate a while back and some past anons about August's ED and accountability, but I'm done risking hate for it. If you want to discuss something with me, you are always welcome to do so in your own name. Whether in agreement or mutually respectful disagreement! .

Radically accept the state of the fandom at large: interest in our corner of the sandbox is what it is. My friend and I had made some plans to liven things up, but after recent events, I'm backing out. I don't want to spend my remaining time in the fandom feeling demoralised; I want to focus on what I enjoy. At the risk of sounding like an obnoxious brag, I can look back on my past contributions to the non-Wilmon corner with pride. Countless people have told me it was my longfic that got them interested and invested in Henry as a character, and it also started the Walty ship that has since become a fandom staple! (Receipts: my fic was the first one from Henry's POV, I added the Henry/Walter tag on ao3, and my readers coined the ship name. The fic was quite popular in its heyday, with 700 to 1,200 reads per chapter. It's still the fourth-most commented fic in the fandom, the most kudo'ed fic with a non-Wilmon focus [although Wilmon do feature prominently as side characters], and the 116th most kudo'ed out of the total 5,880 YR fics on ao3.) But the time for that has been over for a while now. Interest in non-Wilmon aspects and characters, which was always remarkably low, has waned as the people in the fandom have changed and new seasons have been added to the canon. Which is perfectly fine; everyone enjoys the show in their own way! Live and let live. Except... Even that seems to be a controversial opinion nowadays. The sad fact is that puritanical, fundamentalist sentiment has gained more and more ground in this fandom as time has gone by. There are people who feel the need to police others' shipping, opinions, and interpretations of canon. People who see all characters who either stand in Wilmon's way or represent the establishment that Wille is meant to break free from as rotten and unworthy of further exploration, and by extension, the fans who still want to explore them as morally dubious. People who see themselves as righteous warriors and anonymous hate mail to their "fandom adversaries" as a force for good. I never thought back when I was posting my longfic that I would one day be sent hate on Christmas Eve for making an analysis post about Henry and Simon's dynamic for an event that was meant to be about celebrating your fandom faves. Or that I would dread to publish said hate anon, because I was afraid people would either agree with it or more likely ignore it. But here we are. To reiterate, I'm not going anywhere. I'm just going to focus on enjoying my corner rather than trying to wave people over. .

Thanks for reading!

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[valeriapryanikova]

This season, on Hermitcraft...

(speedpaint)

[zazrichor]

a reminder of you (and me)

[lizardkingeliot]

I'm rewatching 1x07 for the millionth time and losing my mind over this little moment where Lestat silently signals to Louis to turn the page, and for just a second when they cut to Louis he's totally lost in Lestat's gaze before he manages to snap himself out of it. He just immediately tumbled into that well with no bottom the instant their eyes locked together...

[deweyduck]

@easthigh's wiztober 2024 event 🔮 week four: beyond

↳ 2008 vs. 2024

[pierogish]

I grew a spine

[ectonurites]

CHAPPELL ROAN THE LATE SHOW [2.15.24]

[gothoffspring]

Emilija and Khia. 2 pretty best friends tbh. They fit into that opposites attract trope very well b/c they're inseparable but have very different personalities

[jesuis-assez]

Tim unconsciously sending/showing signals of his feelings for Lucy

[lazylittledragon]

Feel free to ignore if it doesn't match your HCs BUT since you draw a lot of dad astarion/gale etc I thought you'd appreciate the midwife Halsin headcanon that goes around a lot!

I'm just getting cuteness aggression imagining him being there for Dorian/Astarion's kid :')

nO WAIT THIS IS SO CUTE???? that fits him so well aaa :OOO

idk if cyra would want him hanging around but dorian is pretty crunchy and would probably appreciate him adkfjf

[radioroxx]

bald king

[cuntylestat]

Better ugly than blind.

[titsthedamnseason]

eras tour lookbook: my favorites edition

[aniraklova]

my man is so fine...

[somegrumpynerd]

Actually it turns out I had more thoughts about that post that I forgot about lol

Would Nightmare actually give up his boys? Yes and no

If it was just a black and white situation of they're miserable, they don't wanna be here, they have somewhere better to be, then yes. He would leave them out to wherever they needed to be despite his own feelings and very quickly realise afterwards just how much he'd gotten used to the noise and company. I think he would get a little clingy with Dream about it, which I'm sure Dream would find very weird after everything but not unwelcome, he did miss his brother after all.

(If he couldn't attach himself to Dream's side for whatever reason, I think he might just sit in his castle and go insane. Or maybe he'd just spend all day at Ccino's trying really hard to project that he just likes the atmosphere and isn't lonely as hell)

But the thing is, most of them don't have somewhere better to be. Horror has his au, and Nightmare would keep up the supply of food even if Horror said he wanted to quit at this point, so he would understandably let him return home. Killer, Dust and Cross effectively don't have aus anymore though, and they tend to get into self-destructive habits when they're left to their own devices. (Obviously bringing Color and Epic into the mix to make sure Killer and Cross are taken care of eases matters, but Dust doesn't really have any friends outside their group he could go stay with - that Nightmare knows about at least).

The flipside of this is that his boys may not necessarily want to be given up. I think if Nightmare got really in his head about this he could easily end up convinced this is the right thing to do without ever asking them if it's what they want, with potentially terrible results. He's established such a pattern of always returning to find Killer when they get seperated, that if he never showed up Killer might just keep sitting there and waiting for him greyfriar's bobby style, refusing to leave because he's certain his boss is coming back.