#I’m not getting in on the discourse btw I’m just saying

[firewasabeast]

Why anyone would waste time being mean to someone for liking a certain ship is beyond me. You mean to tell me you spent your summer writing anonymous hate in people’s inboxes and threatening real people within the tv show?

Bizarre. I spent my summer imagining my ship fucking each other in every way shape and form imaginable.

You should try it.

[mistigrisunshine]

yes spike is pathetic but he’s also really fucking cool. yes both at the same time. hope that helps

[angellwingss]

This is a weird thought I’m having so I wanted to ramble a bit but I don’t understand this weird double standards in fandom that I’ve noticed and it’s just. Idk.

JayVik is one of the most popular ships in the arcane fandom despite Jayce saying ‘he’s like a brother to me’

Meanwhile Genji says ‘you’re like a brother to me’ to Cassidy in one of their interactions and immediately everyone starts dunking on the ship saying it’s found family it’s this it’s that and now you can’t ship it. I think it mainly just comes down to ship popularity tbh like. It’s undeniable people like yeehan and JayVik a lot more than they like things like Spuriken and idk. MelJay? (only comparison I could think of)

I think with JayVik specifically it’s also that you get to see a lot more development between Jayce and Viktors relationship, so most fans would probably grow attached to it more despite what happens with Mel who we see a bit less of??

Idk about overwatch every ship just gets tablescraps I don’t even know where yeehan came from 😭 blizzard can’t even decide if it wants to push Pharmercy or Gency so I am so honestly over it at this point lmaoo

I have no issues with any of these ships do whatever you want I just think it’s interesting how people cherry pick depending on the ship/fandom ig?

(Obviously overwatch is not arcane and the fandoms/general fans/shipping cultures are suupppperrrr different I just happen to be in both and this is something I noticed while actively being apart of both fandoms)

[starlooove]

No bc how do u simultaneously ship chaipunk and chaiflower but then turn around and have an issue with punkflower bc of ages YOU MADE UP like

[morganaspendragonss]

tk being like ‘why haven’t we had this conversation yet?’ bro you didn’t have the secret wife conversation until eight weeks out from your wedding the real question is why are you surprised you haven’t talked about kids

[moondal514]

Whenever I see discourse about representation in media, all I can think about is how I have never ever once expected to see myself in a character, and in fact spent most of my childhood unaware that I was supposed to be seeing myself in the characters of the books/movies I loved, because the idea of expecting someone to write a character that’s an agnostic half-Korean half-Jewish Eastern European sex-averse asexual girl is laughable at best

[ripley-ryan]

eyyyy you’ve noticed how many people are weird about converting too!! I got massacred for it when I mentioned it in another blog but like. if you want to convert then actually do something about it and work with a rabbi? there’s way too many people on here who are “interested in Judaism” or “planning on converting” and like that doesn’t make you special. you’re still a goy and you can still be massively antisemitic, you just think you have a “special connection” when you don’t. as a convert those people make me so upset, I never claimed Judaism before it was mine and I actually understood things, why can’t they just be quiet until they do the same

THANK YOU anon. literally i have no issue with converts it’s just that, as previously stated, some of you on here have GOT to be lying.

like saying you’re converting and learning yiddish and turning around and being anti-zionist isn’t necessarily antisemitic, but sometimes it’s pretty clear when you’re doing all this to go “as a jew…” and don’t really have an interest in judaism other than as a political tool.

this isn’t directed at you anon obviously because this is like a general you type of situation here. but like once again some of you guys have got to be lying about who’s converting around here because there cannot be that many of you coming in here with very little respect to a mostly closed religion

[solojihyo]

You don’t even have to answer this or post this if you don’t want to, but it pisses me off how a well known minghao based blog refuses to address what he said. Just had to get that off of my chest

i’m sorry you’re pissed off, anon </3 i have no idea who you’re talking about (which is probably for the best), but i completely understand the frustration. obviously we can’t force anyone to talk about it, but at the same time, you’re right - it would definitely bother me if a person didn’t try to hold their fav accountable. i wish more people would be willing to talk about issues like these, especially when they happen to their favs.

[fumifooms]

Hien & Benichidori compilation

Okay so I put a & but this absolutely a shippy post, the hienichidori community is quiet af and there is no discourse but their comics in their Adventurer’s Bible profiles…!!! Many may ask, does Benichidori canonically have a crush on Hien?! Straightforward answer: It’s left heavily implied but yes. Alternate answer: If the framing of Falin in an explosion as Toshiro says that he loves her isn’t meant to associate the explosion with falling in love when it is mirrored in the next page, then… I think it’s a mix of both, I don’t think just this is true because Hien wouldn’t know who Shuro is talking about or even what Falin looks like, but it could be that the explosion is instead meant to show a world vision being shaken, the thing blowing you away. So for Hien, having Shuro say that breaks this unsaid assumption she’s always had that they might end up together, and thus Falin is taken like an explosion to the face. Similarly, for someone with facial dysmorphia and for who appearances and being subservient are everything, having Hien be confident and totally assume her plain looks, even uplifting herself, that also shakes her world like a bomb. And yes it’s not just about the makeup!! Benichidori’s drawn to her confidence, to her unapologetic attitude, to her attitude. Benichidori unexpectedly snapped at Hien too, but she was totally unshaken and she replied casually and lightheartedly even then; Benichidori saying she can be herself with Hien is about Hien not caring about her mask, both her makeup and her subdued demeanor. Hien is canonically special to Benichidori.

And on the note of that comic, I took a picture from my Adventurer’s Bible for this but I think the fantranslations I’ve seen are lovely too, really gets across all the meaning of the original sentence… Where Benichidori said "She was the only one I could be my unadorned self in front of" (which is my fave) or "I’m able to act my honest self with her". Benichidori having body(more specifically facial) dysmorphia is explicitly stated in the Adventurer’s Bible btw.

Pleasee how Hien’s extra is her talking about her life story and Toshiro to Benichidori… How Hien says "That guy is blind!" and Benichidori says "I’ve noticed that 😊" as if saying that Toshiro is blind to what a catch Hien is… Also in the ninja girls’ shared inn room Benichidori puts her futon next to Hien’s bed.

[garoujo]

saetoru is talking abt you on her private blog (@/clorindes) yuckkkkk

CW BULLYING, LITERALLY IMMATURE HIGH SCHOOL DRAMA, SUB POSTING.

hi nonnie, thank you for letting me know! since i’m leaving this blog & this platform for the foreseeable future i figured i might aswell get a few things off of my chest before i go. i apologise in advance for the vibes this post will probably bring, the discourse & the posts that will ofcourse follow, but i honestly i am not the first person to be targeted by this creator and i’m sure i won’t be the last considering the amount of creators that have been bullied off of this app by them.

first off i’ve had multiple blogs that would be considered bigger blogs such as @/hvnlydmn, @/atsymu + now this blog which is the biggest of all 3. i think there’s a sort of unspoken responsibility that comes with being a bigger blog which i know is no fun but it’s also because it can be super harmful on a site like this, when people weaponise their following.

on that note i’ll start this post by saying that i’ve known tee for probably around 3/4 years, maybe? we were mutuals on hvnlydmn & atsymu and we continued to talk on discord even when i was off of tumblr. i will honestly admit to this day i have never had a negative interaction with tee to my face and she was genuinely supportive of me during any discourse i was involved in. i am not some angel, i’ve had my fair share of crap on this app (of my own doing) but this post is not meant to come across like “oh she doesn’t like me so i’m calling her out” no. im sorry if this doesn’t line up with my brand and my ‘victim complex’ but i’m not gonna lie down and let someone on a power trip on a hobby app drag me through the mud.

first off i had began to get some off vibes from tee when i had started writing on garoujo, notably when i’d just hit my first milestone which was probably around 1k. during this i had decided to move my instagram theme from my main blog to my writing blog.

i’d noticed tee subposting (on main and on her personal blog which i followed at the time) about someone basically using the same theme as her, which after then clicking onto her blog i realised was an instagram theme. i didn’t think much of it, again me & tee were friends and she hadn’t came to me directly so ignored it. i was still a new blog and trying to solidly an aesthetic (before the beige lol) so i changed my theme / masterlists / layouts a lot.

a few more sub posts later i decided to message tee about it because with every thing i’d change / post on my blog, there always seemed to be another post. so i messaged her and got this response in: (i’ve blurred out my irl name btw) open up pics for convo!

so i let it slide, kept posting & that was that. probably a few days / a week later, tee had soft blocked me which then eventually led to me being hard blocked. i was upset ofcourse because i genuinely considered tee a good friend but i’ve always been a big advocate in controlling your space.

this was when, one of our mutuals in common (the first of many may i add) approached me on discord to say that just like now, i was being ripped to shreds on tee’s personal blog:

again i was notably upset about this because i was being accused of not only copying her theme but also her writing & masterlists, we did have a lot of mutuals in common so it was also upsetting knowing they would all be seeing these posts aswell. i allowed myself one sub post about “creating a narrative” because i was particularly frustrated but tee then also subposted about this, even though she had me blocked?

i would also like to say regarding our mutuals in common that this was not the first or last mutual to approach me regarding tee. i’ve had multiple people tell me that “they’re only mutuals with her because it would be more damaging not to be” “it’s easier to be on her side”. also i am not saying this is okay but i’ve had multiple of her current mutuals send me not only her posts, but screenshots of her private, personal instagram & also tell me about how all of them and their friends had a running joke / theory that tee made up her boyfriend (ex-boyfriend?) for attention.

regarding the accusations from tee i’d like to first comment on the instagram themes, again i had done an instagram theme on my main blog but it seemed to only be an issue when it was on my writing blog that was gaining traction. if the timing was off and it seemed like i copied her, i genuinely have nothing to say except it’s not the case— it’s instagram (which tee already admits she doesn’t own above) also the hanma writing? i’m still not 100% sure which drabbles she was referring to but i can only assume that 1. is when i posted a drabble about hanma fucking you outside of his subordinates house — this was a almost completely word by word rewrite of a suna drabble i done on my old blog @/atsymu i literally just changed the concept to fit tokyo revengers themes. i can post screenshots of this suna drabble also from my google docs dated February when i deactivated. the other one may have been some basic concept about him fucking you against the window.

she also mentions in the very first recent screenshot at the beginning of this post that i have apparently stolen concepts of fics / posts from her mutuals. what i want to say regarding this is, do you believe that i would have made it this far on stolen work? i don’t know any of the mutuals she’s referring to apart from 1 which i’ll get into. but every single accusation i’ve ever received has always come from someone associated or in contact with tee, she has always been at the root of it all but i have yet to receive a single anon or ask about me copying or taking inspiration from anyone’s work.

i know there was apparently a blog and an ex mutual of mine, who i had a lot of respect & time for who was under the impression i’d stolen their concept for this gojo fic. the whole premise of this fic is honestly not uncommon considering how many times people losing control of their techniques / powers / quirks during orgasm has been done in fanfiction. this concept was completely my own, i had originally posted shitposts about him losing control of his technique & also him putting you into a mating press / breeding before i’d decided to smoosh them together into a fic. we all read from the same workbook, we all have the same material to work off of — two people in a fanbase of THOUSANDS having a similar idea is not unheard of.

now onto the masterlist banners. the screenshot on the far left are the comparison photos that tee made herself— i’m sure you’ll be able to see them in better quality when she makes her own post about it; because obviously that’s going to come. first off i will say, i will admit i took inspiration from her official art masterlist banners — i thought hers looked good and i needed a masterlist so i used official art. fair game there although i only kept them for a few days before i changed again.

but onto the grey masterlist banners, i can honestly say i did not even know tee had this masterlist, also the only comparison i myself see is the colour. the only reason i chose grey was because i had started to use a grey / white overlay on my manga panels for my layout (as you can see far right), and as you know— i’ve always kept my colour scheme pretty consistent. on that note, regarding the actual layout of the masterlists— i’ve added screenshots from atsymu (that i could find due to it being deactivated) that shows the layout of my old masterlists, which was what i took inspiration from for my current. although the title font for each heading like headcanons is different, i had used the sort of old style, basic font that everyone uses before i had deactivated so it would match my fic headers i just don’t have photos obviously.

anyway on the back of this there was then discourse over me apparently copying tee’s kinktober masterlist, which again was not the case. but again due to tee’s following i had received multiple death threats into my asks the morning after i posted mine. as far as i was aware, the only similarities were the fact we both used gifs in our headers & the layout listing thirsts, hcs & fics (which is very common during kinktober but i admitted below i could see that similarity). unfortunately during all of this discourse was when ffflowers, my hate blog also came into the mix which then lead to tee reaching out to me in dm’s from her old blog.

the interaction between me & tee was pretty good, again she was nothing but nice to me directly despite the way she obviously spoke about me in private above. but as you can see below, tee herself told me that basically most of the similarities all made above were brushed off as basic. we spoke about the ig themes & i apologised, saying i could understand where she was coming from and that was that. i unblocked her & she unblocked me so i could reblog her post, it’s been that way since.

it is not my place to comment on other people’s experiences on this app but i would need more than 2 hands to list the amount of people that i’m sure have had similar if not worse experiences with tee. i know i have had multiple mutuals who have been bullied off of this platform & had their safe space ripped from them for little things such as: liking a character that this group selfship with, tee and her friends not liking their characterisation. they’ve even went as far as to go through other larger creators notes to check for minors so they can make excuses as to why they’re thriving.

i also know of a blog who was ‘blacklisted’ from tee & her mutuals as they self shipped with arataki itto at the time, one of tee’s friends also did, so they blacklisted this creator and had all of their mutuals block them for this which then in turn drove this creator off the app. there has been other notably bitchy things that i’ve heard but i have no receipts for therefore i don’t see any relevance in starting rumours.

i would also like to say i know plagiarism is a horrible thing, we have all been through it— myself included but it’s got to the point where being accused of copying tee has become a canon event. notably, bigger platforms have been ruined and driven off of this app for little things such as mdni dividers, similar colours schemes etc. and it’s the reason i’m also leaving.

i will say i have met some amazing people through my discourse with tee, notably people who have been in similar situations and i also apologise to any mutuals who we still have in common who are now sort of stuck inbetween. no hard feelings. although to tee: id be careful of the people you trust because it seems the loyalties they have to you are not as sincere as you may believe. you can also go to her personal & read the other things she was saying about me like how she was always so ? at how many people seemed to like me.

so that’s all i have to say, i’m sure dash will get a few responses from this but i’ll be logging out & turning off asks because honestly? couldnt care less. the only thing i’d change about my experience on this app would be i wish i’d blocked tee sooner.

i’d say have a nice day, but instead, have the day you deserve.

— emmie :)

[shellbells-things]

I’ve seen a lot of discourse over the Jikook Car Convo. I think on the surface, it sent mixed signals. But if you think about what you know about Jikook and how important being together is to them…there might be a different way to look at it. Jungkook started off by saying something about how they were supposed to have a drink together (code for hang out), but didn’t …and it went on from there. And that’s where people got hung up at. I have a perspective on this based on a recent experience of my own.

Recently, my daughter and I decided to take a trip to Disney World because I had a business trip down there anyway. (Adult Disney is a blast btw. Great food, drinks, Epcot, Disney Springs, etc). On the car trip down we talked a mile a minute. During the trip we ate and drank and hung out. So fun! We literally said the words “it’s been so long since we’ve been able to just hang out. We haven’t gone anywhere fun together in a while. We’ve been so busy with work and just life in general. I’m glad we are taking time out to have some fun!” Interestingly….my daughter lives with me. I see her every day. But the trip was fun time spent together, not just the day-to-day stuff. We weren’t two ships passing in the night, two ultra busy people who work, eat, sleep and repeat. We were in the moment, having fun together, no distractions! (Yes, It’s a mom/daughter relationship instead of a couple relationship, but still. Spending quality FUN time together to nurture a relationship is important!)

I wonder if Jikook, who have since confirmed that they saw each other during that time (but clearly not enough)….meant that they hadn’t been taking much needed down time with each other, hadn’t been able to step out for some drinks or other fun for a while because they’ve both had opposing schedules and have just been so busy. I felt like Jungkook was sort of admonishing Jimin for being too busy to have fun…but then admitted that he had also been too busy…that if it wasn’t for deciding to MAKE TIME and take this trip, they might have just continued being too busy to prioritize quality time with each other. Then he said “You’re here. Finally”. Like that boy breathed a sigh of RELIEF!

That’s what I think this convo meant. Its NOT that they didn’t see each other, because I’m betting they saw each other all of the time, but that they didn’t make time to have fun with JUST each other like they usually do.

And here’s the deal. You don’t end up going on MORE trips, saying you want to do a travel show together until your fifty, and enlisting together where you will be together every single day for 18 months….with someone you were not close with and never saw prior to this convo. You don’t go from “no longer close” to this 👇 in a day.

Nope. So I think the car convo was them sort of lamenting that they had been so busy and had made the mistake of not taking the time for each other that they deserved. Listen, Jikook are normal humans who love each other, but let their crazy busy schedule get in the way. Very unusual for them I think. But they finally said ENOUGH, and decided to make time, steal time, whatever, just to prioritize themselves as a unit. I loved the show. I saw lots of domestic moments, lots of fun/giggly moments, some 👀 and 🫣 moments….but most of all, I saw happiness. I saw love. And THAT makes me happy. So anyone that says Jikook aren’t close or that they don’t love each other….pfft. 🙄

[project-sonadow]

hello—i have a question to ask, and i figured it’d be better to do it here than to bother an individual artist about this. (sorry in advance for bringing the mood down w/ a serious question, btw.)

so, i’ve seen posts going around lately where people are like “hey, stop being explicit about sonadow, it’s weird”. and i agree that making explicit comments on sfw work is not cool. forcing the creator to see stuff that might make them uncomfortable is rude. /gen

however, if the characters are explicitly stated to be aged up (like, have lived several years beyond the games) or are in an au where they’re older, is that still bad? /genq because i always thought that the authors/artists were specifically going out of their way to say “we’re actively not wanting to make these pieces about children, we just want to see these two personalities and how they would behave in nsfw situations”.

sorry again. i’m just very confused (and a bit scared by the hostility /nm) and was hoping that i could maybe get some clarification.

(btw, thanks to all the artists on this blog for making such cute art. it’s all really nice stuff.)

Hi there. This isn't the type of thing we would typically address here, but your approach tells me that you're looking to learn and understand, so I'll give you my thoughts.

First of all, to address hostility - it's intimidating and intense, because this is the kind of thing that fires people up. We're not exempt from this, because we do not want to see explicit content about minors, and we will be direct about this fact. And for some reason, some people get very offended when you tell them this.

I'm going to respond to you in good faith, and I don't assume any bad intentions on your part.

On aging characters up. I will be specifically talking about the sonic franchise as my example here, but this applies to any series where the focus characters are children.

Sonic and Shadow are kids. They are teenagers. Age discourse is NOT relevant. They are depicted as teenagers, they act like teenagers, and they are meant to be viewed as teenagers. And so this begs the question: why is there a need to see them in adult situations? Why is there a drive to depict minors in explicit situations?

Even if a creator is theoretically not making a piece about minors, when they choose to age up minor characters, that tells me that they thought about those minors in explicit situations, or that they wanted to see those minors in those situations, but needed a way to justify it.

This is why I fundamentally disagree with aging characters up to put them in adult situations. The core characters are children. Wanting to see a child character in explicit situations so badly that there is a need to justify it by aging them up or making an au or whatever is strange and disturbing, and I personally would not want to associate with someone who does that kind of thing.

Reflect on the issue yourself. All I can do is explain my reasoning, and say that I will choose not to associate with people who make and/or consume content of minor characters in explicit situations.

I appreciate that you want to learn. I am answering this question specifically because of the way you asked it, and that I see this as a way to tell you why we think certain things, and why we vehemently disagree with certain types of content. To others reading this, this post is NOT an invitation to discourse with us. I will not be arguing about ages or logistics or whatever. Do not try to convince me that nsfw of minor characters is okay, you'll get blocked immediately.

[i-isa-i]

I think it’s so interesting how much authority is awarded “the author” in different fandoms. You always here people scream “Death of the Author” but still hold up authorship as an authoritative concept.

Like, when Buffy had bad storylines the consensus was something like ‘trust Joss Whedon” who btw turned out to be a horrible person.

Similarly, Kripke was kind of deified by the fandom (and also kind of by the show) during early seasons spn.

Even disclaimers on fanfics show this dynamic. Why did we write stuff like ‘these characters belong to JKR’?!? Like no shit, I didn’t create Sirius Black but the character still doesn’t belong to that woman?

It’s so interesting to look at the stark difference between gomens and spn fan discourse at the moment. I’m not saying one way is the right way, just that the dynamics are interesting.

Neil says something and most people respect it, some even see it as their duty to act as his apostle and spread his word. People are in his asks to try and get his opinion on certain fan theory bc they consider him the ultimate authority over canon.

And then you have spn fans, especially destiel fans. Not only do they not care what kripke/ dabb or most of the show runners say, they actively oppose the “authors”’ perceived interpretations of the characters and routinely make fun of them. Dabb says he wrote a finale that is only meant to satisfy 30% of the fans and the rest of the fandom decides to strike it from canon and collectively produce enough fix-it fic to fill a library.

Can you imagine what would have happened if Dabb or Kripke or whoever had asked the fandom to keep a spoiler or leak like the gomens one a secret?!? It would have become a meme in 5 seconds and it would have trended above a historic election.

[theorionbunny]

DISCLAIMER: i did this out of curiosity, just bc they never explicitly says max’s age in the second goofy movie so i did the math based off of other things max is in, any discourse you have with this, before you decide to speak please keep in mind i am 16 so be civil.

okay this is lowkey stupid but, i found someone talking abt the maxley age-gap (max being 18 bradley being 23) and i just realised smth, so max’s first appearance was in the goof troop released in 1992 (go watch it if u haven’t btw it’s rlly good) and they say he’s 11 and the first goofy movie was released in 1995 (max is graduating middle school in this the movie takes place over summer break so he’s 13-14) the second goofy movie was released in 2000 so i did the math. and if you subtract 11 from 1992 you 1981 so that’s when max would’ve been born and then take 2000 and subtract 1981 and you get 19, so he’s 19 not 18. i only did this bc everyone says he’s 18 and it’s just out of speculation bc they don’t say his age and i see a lot of people say that the only reason they don’t like maxley is simply bc "he’s freshly 18 and it’s creepy" so i finally was like i’m doing the math bc they never explicitly say his age in the movie only in the goof troop which you would only know if you watch it lol.

[writing-for-life]

Nuance in (The Sandman) Fandom

Send me asks about everything Sandman-related!

I thought a lot over the past few days, partly prompted by discourse on here, partly due to a couple of “interesting” asks and messages I received (the type you don’t answer). I *think* they might have been prompted by engaging in discourse on topics like anti-blackness/racism, misogyny/sexism, TERF characters etc in The Sandman.

Fandoms are always getting super sensitive if someone shines a critical lens on their favourite works, authors and characters. So to make this clear (in case it isn’t already obvious from my brain-rot blog):

I love The Sandman. I love Neil Gaiman. I have an extremely soft spot for Dream (and Desire btw, who deserves a lot more character analysis than just being summed up as “villainous, sexy bitch”. One day, perhaps ;)).

I can read The Sandman and just get lost in the story, even after decades and many rereads. 

But I can also view it through a critical lens—these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

Not critical enough or too critical?

As fans, we can get trapped in certain thinking patterns, like:

“My blorbo can do no wrong”-syndrome 

“Characters with flaws are inherently problematic and imply authorial endorsement of those actions” 

“Characterisation and problematic subtext are one and the same” (aka overanalysing and looking for problems where there are none is the death of every story, but failing to see problematic patterns where they are clearly visible is a problem, too).

Don't say anything bad about my favourite character

I think this doesn’t need much further exploration. It’s not my personal way of looking at stories through permanently rose-tinted glasses (I always feel it stalls my experience, but my experience is not everyone else's). Some people prefer that type of escapism, and I’m good with that (although the downside is of course that by not willing to engage with issues, we can unwillingly perpetuate them). Live and let live, ship and let sail. But please, for the love of god: Don’t insult people via their inboxes or messages just because their opinions and preferences don’t align with yours. I’m not going to sugarcoat it or phrase it “nicely”: It’s infantile (and a form of bullying btw), end of.

How can you even like a character who's so horrible? And that author must be equally horrible, too

We have to separate flawed characters, even those who are written to be really problematic, from real-life endorsement of these actions. 

Author, narrator and character are three fundamentally different things, and don’t overlap as much as some people seem to think. 

We can write vile, despicable characters to make a point (for me, Thessaly was always a prime example for this, and I explained why here). We probably hate them as we write them. I don’t know what else to say, but this facet of writing seems to get more and more lost on people, and it’s a worry. Crying for sanitised characterisation is one step away from censorship. We explore what is problematic about people and humanity through story. That’s how we process and learn. It’s nothing new, but it becomes impossible if we can’t write flawed and even disgusting characters. 

Face value…

Since I’m mostly in The Sandman fandom, I often read that its ending is hopeless, and that’s supposedly the entire message. 

It is agonisingly sad, yes. But is it truly hopeless? I personally see it as quite the opposite, but of course that’s my opinion, coloured by my life experiences.

I also get that show-only fans often haven’t read the comics, or at least not the whole arc. And as such, their outlook from what they’ve seen so far (and choose to focus on) has to be different by default. I also understand that many people are quite new to the comics, even if they have read them in their entirety. I’ve sat with them for 30 years, and I still find new things on every reread (and I read it more times than anyone should 🙈), and I still don’t feel like I’ve understood it all. Perhaps because I still haven’t fully understood myself (and it’s unlikely I ever will). If there’s one thing The Sandman isn’t, it’s one-dimensional and easy to grasp in its whole depth.

I just wrote a ginormous meta on it, if you’re interested, it’s here:

Subtext, (not so) glorious subtext

This is where it gets complicated:

We shouldn’t mix up characterisation and story subtext. Overanalysing every line to death will always make us find something that’s “problematic”, when it really isn’t in the wider context of the story.

Zooming in is NOT always a good thing. Sometimes, we actually need to zoom out. 

But subtext *can be* (accidentally) problematic. Even in stories we love. And none of this negates what I previously wrote.

Stories have real-life implications of sorts, and we need to be able to talk about it. That’s where those slightly flabbergasting, hostile inbox messages come in, and I want to expand on that "topic of contention" a bit:

Neil himself confirmed that the Endless basically warp reality, and that this is why, after Dream’s failed relationship with Nada, many black women in his vicinity suffer terrible fates (Ruby and Carla in particular). And that this spell is only broken when he dies, and that it is the reason why Gwen doesn’t suffer the same fate. And said Gwen then gets used as a plot device to basically absolve Hob (who canonically really is a problematic character, whether show-only fans like it or not) from his slaver past. Once again, very clearly: No one is making this up. Neil confirmed it (for the comics, and that was over 20 years ago. It remains to be seen if his stance has changed as we move into that arc in the TV show).

I don't think it is correct to imply that Dream as a character is racist (I've read that, too) because he logically can’t be. He holds *all* the collective unconscious. He is also, strictly speaking, not white. He is everything and nothing, and he shows up in many different ethnicities throughout the whole arc, depending on who looks at him. But Neil played with a subtext here (reality warping due to a bad relationship which then affects everyone with similar physical traits) that will read very differently to a black person than it reads to a white person, and we have to understand why that is an *extremely* slippery slope.

Plus, we are supposed to see Hob, who *was* a racist at some point (you can’t not be if you’re a slave-trader—it’s impossible by default) as redeemed. And yes, he *does* regret deeply, good for him (and if I were saying this aloud, you would hear the sarcasm in my voice, because it is indeed all about him. We are to sympathise/empathise with him and his character growth while there isn’t much mention of the people he maltreated). But also: it was a black woman who basically forgave him (with dialogue that personally makes me cringe). And that black woman who offers forgiveness is not truly a black woman—she is a character written by a white man. And as much as author and character are not the same (see above), there is an inherent sensitivity in that power imbalance that we can't brush under the carpet.

I don’t think Neil is racist. Probably quite the opposite, and I can even see that his intentions were good from a storytelling point of view. BUT intention and impact are two fundamentally different things, and telling the story this way (comic version) betrays blindspots only white people have. Just like women have blindspots when they tell stories about men, and men have blindspots when they tell stories about women (and there are a few of those in The Sandman, too). And and and…

As storytellers, we can’t always speak from lived experience. It’s impossible. And that also means we occasionally make mistakes that look bad in hindsight, even if our intentions were good.

I guess the proof is in the pudding: What do we do when people who *have* that lived experience tell us it looks bad? If they inform us why it is hurtful, plays into old stereotypes etc?

Are we willing to listen and yield (both are the foundations of allyship btw), or are we insisting that our viewpoint as someone *without* lived experience is right? That lived experience extends to all lived experiences (sex/gender, sexual orientation, age...), and from all we’ve heard from Neil so far, it seems important to him to rewrite what he sees differently today. Whether they’ll always get it right for the show—we’ll see. At the moment, it looks a lot better than in the comics, and certain issues are already being handled with a lot more sensitivity, but a few problems remain.

Pushing back on criticism that comes from people with lived experience is problematic—I’d encourage us to think about what it looks like if a white majority in the fandom is basically saying that the opinions of POC are essentially “overreactions” (and yes, that happened).

It’s complicated. The Sandman was written in a different time, and I think we have to distinguish between things that weren’t really problematic at the time but have aged poorly (again, Thessaly springs to mind, and I have lived experience as a queer person during that time, so I can see it in context while at the same time acknowledging that I would make changes to bring it to the present day), and things that were always a problem due to blindspots. They were a problem in 1990, and if they don’t get changed, they are still a problem today.

This fandom is generally so much more open and nicer than others I know. But that doesn’t mean it’s infallible, because it’s full of humans. 

Nuance is sorely needed, in both story interpretation and interaction between said humans.

[starryjkoo]

This might be a controversial opinion but some of y’all need to learn to pick your battles and stop chasing the validation of PJMs and JJKs. Who cares if JJKs are hyping some fictional friendship and writing fanfictions because Jungkook stood next to some random dude twice? Who cares if solo fanbases crop out and don’t post the whole picture (that no one should be reposting btw)? Who cares if PJMs and JJKs don’t acknowledge their friendship? As long as they aren’t dragging Jimin or JK, or even overtly saying anything negative about their bond, literally why do some of you guys care what solos of all people think?

It’s odd to me that some jkkrs will go into solo spaces and then try to get them to acknowledge a member you know they hate and regularly drag. What are you expecting to happen? JJKs actually not mentioning or paying attention to JM is literally the best case scenario. I absolutely wish they would never look at him or talk about him or post anything about him ever again. I literally don’t care if they think JK loves random solider #2 or Mingyu or an inanimate object more than he loves JM and neither should you. They are NEVER going to acknowledge Jikook’s friendship, so stop expecting them to. That is literally one of the least offensive things I’ve seen them do this week alone and it doesn’t actually hurt Jimin or JK, it’s just annoying.

100% make fun of them in your own spaces for being so lame and immature about Jikook enlisting together, they ARE super weird for hyping up this random friendship they suddenly invented (and yes I know they were likely doing it on purpose), it IS really frustrating and sad how dismissive so many people are about Jikook -- but I still don’t understand what some jkkrs were expecting. I sincerely hope that whenever the Jikook travel show drops they keep cropping them out and pretending they’re besties with random bartenders and camera men because the alternative is them dragging JM and JK and their entire bond nonstop. Solos are NEVER going to acknowledge their friendship and I wonder why some jkkrs seem to want them to so bad? You are CHOOSING to go into their spaces and be annoyed that these people who call JM slurs and animal names on the regular don’t want to acknowledge his friendship with JK - and some of you are literally antagonizing these people you KNOW have no morals over something like this.

This whole issue snowballed because so many people are bored and miserable right now and tkkrs especially are looking for a fight ever since Jikook enlisted together (or honestly probably since Tokyo). I see how jkkrs can make an innocent post and get jumped and tkkrs can say the most heinous shit about JM and jkk imaginable and get away with it -- but if you’re active online you should know how it is and learn to pick your battles if you actually care about the people you stan. There was no reason for JM or JK to get dragged over something like this.

Anyways this isn’t the end of the world or anything, but I did watch this whole unnecessary drama unfold and opened my twitter account this morning to see report accounts STILL trying to clean it up, so I wanted to rant a bit. I’m sure the Jikook show will unleash the most heinous discourse imaginable so I’m saving my energy for that. Obviously people can do whatever they want, and I’m not saying jkkrs shouldn’t rant or be upset about it in their own spaces, I was just surprised by some of the reactions. Jikook enlisting together makes it obvious to anyone with a brain how close they are, that’s why the people who hate them are being especially weird and petty and obnoxious. JJKs were writing about how JK tattooed ARMY on his knuckles because he knows ARMYs hurt him or whatever just the other day so idk why some jkkrs were expecting them to suddenly celebrate his friendship with JM who they literally hate more than anyone else.