#NOT an anti-post but for some reason people think it is??

[artemisdesari-blog]

Ok, so I don't have an update about the child most hurt by all of this. Mostly because investigations into stuff like this is slow at the best of times, and international investigations are even bloody slower, but also because it's none of anyone's business at this point and I'm not going to spread anymore of this kid's business over the internet. The awareness of the harm done to them is enough. I do, however, have something I need to add because some people lack the critical thinking ability to do the really fucking bloody obvious:

Do not come onto this post with your comments or your reblogs that contain the phrase "I don't agree with proshipping but...". Alright? Just don't.

"Pro" a prefix meaning "for". "Anti" a prefix meaning "against". Alright. End of. Proshipping is simply ship and let ship. Shut up and mind your own business about whatever that person is shipping. Because this post isn't a discourse about whether there are things people should be allowed to ship and write about or not. This post is about the very real harm the so called anti community is doing to very real people in order to protect fucking pixels.

You think proshipping is the thing causing the harm? The people who make their work and tag it to shit before posting so that the people who want to see it can, and the people who want to avoid it are able to avoid engaging? The person who wrote an E (for explicit, this was ao3 remember) story, posted it on the website created so that people could ship their ship and write their dark and nasty fic without having it deleted or being persecuted for it, and tagged it so clearly that I didn't even need to open it to know it contained specific themes. That person? You think that person did the harm when it was actually some purity obsessed asshole who sent it to a literal, physical, real child? You really think the person who tagged their stuff so thoroughly to protect people who didn't want to read it from reading it is the person responsible for the harm done to that child? And you're going to come into the comments on this post and go "I don't agree with proshipping but..." at me. Fuck right off. If that's your first thought, get off the internet, go take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror and contemplate why you're getting your knickers in a twist over works of fiction. Because people like you are the ones on the slipperly slope to harming real, living, breathing children. Not the poor bugger who just wanted to write and share a work of fiction for reasons of their own.

Sometimes being the mum who exists in fandom spaces leads to awkward, even concerning, conversations. Such as the one which happened this morning. The mum of my daughter's best mate asked me if one of their mutual friends had sent her a specific message. This message was a link to a fic on ao3, if this had been a G rated fic this conversation would not have happened. It was not G rated. It was an E rated fic. Our kids aren't even 12 yet. As it happens, both of our kids have their internet access heavily locked down and monitored. They have phones because of how their school manages homework. The mutual friend, however, is not so monitored. Or she wasn't, given what her mum found she's about to be. This kid had found a fandom, joined it, and found it chock full of antis. The fic had been sent to her by one of them as an example of the sort of terrible people out there who need to be harassed and attacked because they wrote a smutty story.

Someone thought it was appropriate to send written porn to an 11 year old to encourage her to attack the author.

This resulted in a very awkward conversation where I had to explain to multiple horrified parents the anti culture that is becoming so prevalent. The fact that there are adults who use that purity message to groom kids. The way they escalate and how it bleeds into real life. One parent told me she'd wondered why her 14 year old was suddenly concerned about the two year age gap between her parents. The more I explained, the more absolutely ludicrous it sounded and the more baffled these poor mums looked. More than once I was told "but the characters aren't real, it's really weird but it isn't hurting anyone". Which is the point. The fictional situation isn't hurting anyone. The person who sent porn to an 11 year old is.

Was the person who sent it the author? Doubtful, that thing was tagged in the extreme. Was the person who sent it an adult? Almost certainly. The parent who's child received the original message has found more concerning stuff and gone to the police, but from the language the person doing the sending was in the US. We aren't. Did my daughter receive it? No, she isn't interested in that fandom and therefore wouldn't have bothered with it. Is this the fault of the author? No, they didn't send the link, they didn't ask to be harassed, they wrote a story and put it on ao3, the website created in response to rampant censorship and designed to allow for all kinds of fiction. Is this the fault of the parents? Partially, they should have been looking at their daughter's internet use and clocked what was happening sooner. Is this the fault of the child? No, she's 11, she didn't know better.

This has been a difficult day. Multiple parents have had their eyes opened to parts of fandom culture they had no idea existed. And the thing of it is, they aren't concerned about the why of anti rhetoric. They don't care about the adults writing about teens or rape or incest or torture or any of the rest, because they looked at the clearly tagged and rated fics and figured that it worked the same as a warning on any streaming service. They only cared because some utterly vile individual decided to expose their child to something this girl might not have looked at for years.

Proshippers did not cause what I have spent afternoon helping several sets of parents navigate. Antis did. Normally I'm fairly quiet about the whole debate because I just want to get on with my life and share my experiences. Today I got dragged into that mess in my every day life and the adults in the equation didn't react the way Antis like to think they would. They didn't condemn the author. They condemned the anti who shared the work with a preteen.

[impactrueno]

ok stop. stop. i'm gonna stop you right there because why in the world are you telling me this? where is this even coming from? what did you see on my blog that would make you come to me with this? i didn't ask ANYONE to justify their feelings about beetIebabes, positive or negative. you don't have to explain anything to me. i don't ship them, and i don't care whether other people ship them or not, or their reasoning why. my ask box is not an open letter column in a magazine, it's part of my blog. i'm a person. this isn't "beetlejuice fandom central" or anything like that.

i already said i do not want any shipping discourse of any kind brought into my blog. respect that.

just know that you're allowed to dislike things. you're good. no one is making you like the ship, i promise. i support you, you're perfectly valid and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. i'm very sorry that happened to your friend, but that's not a "proshipper" thing, that's a groomer thing, and groomers can be ANYWHERE. to see it as an exclusively "proshipper" thing is just going to put you in danger because kids have gotten groomed by shippers of "safe and wholesome" pairings as well. i've seen it happen and it's why i distanced myself from a previous fandom. so please, if YOU are a minor (or just young, adults can get groomed too) please stay on your guard no matter what circles you're in, and yes, even around "safe" shippers. i can't stress this enough.

let me tell you something before i shut this topic down.

this fandom i distanced myself from, i did it because i kept seeing adults pressuring minors to draw certain things. some 16yo kid drew suggestive art of a character under the pretense of a shitpost, and people went crazy over it and demanding more. and kids are always going to give into peer pressure, so of course they continued doing it and escalating the tone of the "shitpost" drawings.

this wasn't a "proship" space, quite the contrary, these were all very "anti" types as you may call it (once again i loathe these terms and shipping discourse is a fucking circus i don't want to involve myself with) the types that enforce safe, appropriate and unproblematic shipping and content. but here they were, hooting and hollering and with a terrifying lack of self-awareness and pressuring the kid to draw more suggestive art. IN PUBLIC. ON TWITTER. everyone thought it was hilarious but i was standing there like "wow! i want to get the fuck out of here" and i tried to remind everyone to NOT give in to peer pressure to do anything you're not comfortable with, but no one was listening because "sexy art of a popular character"

you can be manipulated and peer pressured to do things you're uncomfortable with at any age. especially if you're kind of a people pleaser like i was. people got nsfw art out of me that i didn't want to draw when i was 20. i got used and manipulated by someone who shipped "the correct things" to ship.

you won't realize you're being groomed until it's too late. that's why i insist for kids to stay safe and make wise choices, keep an eye out EVEN IN "SAFE SPACES" and i repeat do NOT let ANYONE pressure you into doing something you're not 100% comfortable with (and even if you are, think it over)

once more: stay safe, guys. no matter who you think your friends are. groomers can use anything to groom you, not just "problematic" ships.

that's all i'm gonna say. don't talk to me about shipping discourse again, please. won't be posting asks about this if i can help it.

[racewinnerlandonorris]

this year as a lando fan while it’s had its highs (it been great to witness everything he’s achieved) it’s been an absolute struggle more so than any other year, i’ve feel myself becoming less and less attached to the sport and to do so in the year he got his maiden win and was “fighting” for wdc feels so shitty. and the fact is it’s got absolutely nothing to do with lando himself, i will continue to support him no matter what, but the discourse surrounding him, people trying to minimise every achievement he got, the bombardment of hate towards him has been nothing less than disgusting, psychotic and heartbreaking. i used to come on this site and go through landos tag to see if id missed anything he’d been up to and it was something that brought joy to my day, however now i can’t scroll through the lando tag without seeing hate directed his way by people, (who are not only losing a few braincells with their inability to correctly anti tag), who just think it’s fun to wish injury and death on people and dont seem to understand the irony in a lot of their posts. not forgetting the insane lando hate anon, while yes i enjoyed laughing at, would flood lando fans inbox’s with hate anytime he so much as breathed. anytime i go on twitter i see more hate for lando from other drivers fan accounts than i see positive things about their drivers. the anti lando hate train that some people think is cool to be on isn’t. and it just shows how rotten of a person you are if no matter what your supposed favourite driver does the first words out of your mouth are about lando norris and reason 626174 of why you hate him. it’s very telling when people who claim they aren’t fans are more obsessed with talking about him than those who are, i beg you all seek help and get a hobby because this type of behaviour isn’t healthy both for yourself and for others around you to witness.

[raspberryfem]

hmmmmmm ok so

i was probably like 11 or 12? but i was already engaging in fandom-style behavior on my own as a child, eg, making fan playlists, spending excessive time thinking & daydreaming about media, etc

i am still pretty heavily engaged in fandom tbh (on a very different blog lol), but now that i'm an adult woman (and a medicated, more mentally healthy person) i am capable of engaging in healthier ways. i have more friends (and more work) that keeps me busier, so i don't read fanfiction as much as i used to. i think, in terms of 'disengaging,' it's more that i disengaged from specific communities and their terminally-online fan wars (think pro vs anti shipper) than from fandom as a concept, if that makes sense? like, i'm always going to be invested in stories in this way, but now i'm capable of making more educated, healthy decisions about who i associate with. the block button is a great friend to me, and if i don't feel the fan community for a certain thing is a constructive force in my life, i'm comfortable being a fan on my own.

huuuuuuge question here lol. i think the issue is again that women in fandom culture aren't a monolith, so there are a lot of different reasons people might be into m/m content. for me, i've posted some on my blog about how male slash content was a coping mechanism that allowed me to read romance without a) being grossed out by f/m content and b) becoming too overwhelmed by the loneliness and depression of being a lesbian teenager, or to be more specific, it was romance that didn't make me feel like i was missing out, because i didn't want a gay male relationship. for other girls/women who are attracted to men, it's often a combination of fetishizing gay males while engaging with romance content that doesn't have to tackle the issue of patriarchy and sexism. i could say a lot more on this topic, but i have to get back to my homework, so maybe later.

somewhat? i feel like it's kind of a given, especially if you're a child/teenager in fandom, bc it's usually the impetus for leaning so heavily into fandom in my experience. i think it's more often joked about than deeply analyzed, and that's because usually people enter fandom spaces for a reprieve from their troubles. nobody wants to discuss their mental health issues in detail, they want to read things that make them happy. but i don't think it would be fair to say it's never talked about or that no one in fandom is mentally healthy, again i think it just varies a ton depending on what fandoms you're in/what social media you use/what fandom events you go to in person & such

overall, i think that most people in fandom got into it because, at some point in their life, media of some kind was the main thing that made them happy. for many people that's still true, and for many people, they are healthier but still enjoy fandom bc it is a fun, familiar, and comforting thing to do. it has plenty of issues, especially in terms of misogyny, homophobia, and mental health issues, but i definitely think there are plenty of healthy ways to enjoy fan communities. i would say that the main issue is that many people who enter fandom are very young & often mentally ill, and so they have not yet learned how to engage in a safe and healthy manner. as a result, it's often a trial by fire that certainly could exasperate mental health conditions, but fanfiction/fandom doesn't inherently do so.

I don't hate fan fiction because it's not original material or whatever. I hate fan fiction because it seems like everyone who is into it has serious mental health issues.

And I realize that it's a chicken/egg situation so there's no way to tell if being immersed in it tanks your wellbeing or if you get into it at your lowest point. What I do see is that it doesn't make you any better and definitely makes things way worse.

[shutupineedtothink]

More ep 8 + 9 thoughts, in no particular order:

Rio looks at Agatha the way Agatha looks at other people when they say something angry or misunderstood or untrue about her — mainly, hurt. It’s fine, I’m fine. By not accepting her nature, Agatha’s doing the exact same thing to Rio that people have been doing to her for centuries and if that ain’t trauma i don’t know what is.

I’ve heard people say it was out of character for Rio to go all evil witch in ep 8, but I think it was a choice. She was so hurt by the deal Agatha wanted from her to never see her again, she said you know what, fine. You think I’m evil? I’ll be evil. Let’s play. But even as she puts on this show she’s saying things like I’m the natural order of all things and you love me, and why don’t you want me? And again, this is an Agatha move. Putting on the show of the evil witch to hide her pain underneath. Calls back to ep 1 too, when she says I can’t kill you, but I can make you wish you were dead.

I tend to kill my coven members. So do I. — That boy and Agatha are mirrors what did I tell you. 🙌🏼

I still can’t quite wrap my head around what she was thinking when she tried to give him up to Rio. Did she see him start to turn himself in and know that that’s what Rio needed him to do, so she changed to her evil side to make him second guess himself? Or did she genuinely think screw this in that moment and then changed her mind? I don’t know, and I don’t think we’re supposed to know, and that’s really interesting actually.

And Billy! Basically manipulates her into sacrificing herself for him using Nicky! My dude you really aren’t that nice. In that sense… he really got all of them killed.

I say more about this in my general show overview post which is coming soon, but once I was able to let go of where I thought Agatha should go as a character, I realized a couple things: a) her journey isn’t over, so this wasn’t supposed to feel like a complete arc and b) I think the point of her character is that you just can’t pin her down in one category or another. She’s not fully evil, she’s definitely not good but she can make good choices, she’s not a complete villain but she’s not a hero or anti-hero either. She’s truly unique in the MCU in that sense. And interestingly, it seems like Billy is going in a similar direction. We’ll see.

So Agatha is the “maiden mother crone” of the last episode right? We’ve now seen her in all three stages, she was the mother up until she died and now is the crone as a ghost playing the Guide to Billy. I’m gonna go with that.

There’s a .2 second look of pain on Agatha’s face when Rio tells her Lilia is dead. That’s when she found out. She does care about them, she’s just definitely not going to show it in front of anyone else.

Lots of great line repetitions in these last two eps (covenless witch, get used to this feeling, etc), but one I could have used again was Rio’s “te veo” — she does say the line about watching Agatha just as closely as you watch everyone else, which was great. But idk I wanted that to come back one more time.

See my previous post for my Nicky thoughts but it seems like the more discourse comes out the more we all agree that is Rio’s child just as much as Agatha’s. The question then becomes, was he just created from their love and magic, or for some other reason? Personally I would love to see more play out with Nicky and him possibly being “a demon, or an agent of Mephisto” and that’s why Agatha can’t face him. She needed more time to figure out how to change his fate but she couldn’t. It’s almost a Bucky/winter soldier situation, but instead of hydra it’s literally the Marvel god of the underworld controlling him. There’s a movie in there somewhere for sure. (MCU witch movie??)

The music banged in these eps especially the choral opening to ep 9, so cool.

Am I the only one wondering why Agatha is RunNInG when she’s in labor? Like where’s she going, who’s she running from? Just an interesting opening.

It’s Agatha All Along in several ways: Agatha (and Nicky) originated the ballad, Agatha used the ballad to kill witches for centuries, she was telling the truth all along about the road not existing, she was the one who bound Jen, and she knew all along it was Billy who made the road. Not exactly the character transformation I was gunning for, but I see the vision now.

The Peggy Carter cosplay I live 🤌

I still don’t think Agatha outright intentionally killed Alice. I still think she either genuinely didn’t have control in that moment, or Billy subconsciously made her do it to make her the villain. (Edit, Jac basically confirmed option 1)

I LOVE that she’s a conwoman. It makes so much sense for her character and even in a more genuinely evil context I love a con.

Agatha says she was going to kill them in her basement on day 1, but Lilia stopped them. If they didn’t attack her, would she have found another way to take their power? Idk but it seems more to me like she’s just trying to make Billy feel better.

I’m itching for more, but I do love the emotional moment between them in the basement at the end. Agatha lets just a little bit of her true feelings peek through, and Billy gets a little perspective as well.

Ok, I’ve now listened to the full 3.5 hour House of R pod on the finale, including their interview with Jac Schaeffer, and she confirmed a lot of my thoughts here so. Nice.

OMG Jac said this thing about the Road being Agatha’s lie that Billy made real and I got CHILLS

I’m expecting some baller fan edits for this show now that it’s over absolutely can’t wait

I could probably say more, and if I think of more stuff I’ll add it in comments. But also look out for that full show review post.

[damnfandomproblems]

6253: The reason why most people use “purity culture” and call antis “puritans” is because some of the antis spew the same extreme, puritan “Christian” rhetorics but with different wordings.

For example, antis who are against A03 that want “a little bit of censorship?” That is a bit of purity culture in their wording. There is no such thing as trying to get “a little censorship” of content you personally hate. Look at what happened to Tumblr. Look at what happened to Wattpad. Look at the nonsense that happened with credit card companies that affected the businesses of Pixiv, Patreon, Gumroad, and Cuddly Octopus.

There is also the Hays Code, which basically forced creators in the past to have the good guys win and always be good, have the villains be punished and lose every time, no sex, no gore, no nothin’. Antis are trying to make a Hayes Code 2.0 because they don’t like the gross stuff in fiction.

Antis have also called people “porn addicts” for simply enjoying sexual content, and that term “porn addict” was used by extreme “Christians” who self reported themselves as being “addicted” to porn. Not to mention that criminals who committed sex crimes have watched less porn than other criminals.

When you really think about it, the purity culture and call for censorship has been around since the soccer moms of the 90’s and old man attorneys trying to blame first person and third person shooters for gun related violence in America, and now, it’s being leaked into fandom by people wanting to act all self-righteous about that “disgusting, icky, gross dark content.” Sometimes, it’s not always dark content they attack. You can create something that isn’t dark content, like fluffy, cute one-shots of an established relationship with two consenting adults, no arguing, no signs of abuse, etc, and some people will still attack you over it.

Is it misused? Definitely. Like the terms “pedophilia,” “zoophilia,” “Nazi,” “racist, “homophobic,” “transphobic,” we can’t just throw these serious terms around all willy-nilly. We need to be careful with how we use these terms, because the more they lose their meaning, the more people don’t take accusations seriously.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

[jewishvitya]

I put the pictures under the text for. Reasons.

The thing about being called a self-hating Jew is that people who know me, know I love who I am as a person, even while seeing myself as a work in progress. And even more than that, anyone who knows me knows I love being Jewish. It's the core of me, the first thing about me, the only outlook I know to have. I'm Jewish before I'm a parent, before I'm queer, before I'm an artist. Anything, everything. Both chosen identities and not. I can't fathom any other existence for myself and I wouldn't want it.

Also, I didn't complain that I see Israelis as human beings, I complained about how often I think "no, our soldiers didn't do that" only to see horrifying videos and pictures. It's a complaint about how awful it feels when I'm wrong, and the awful things I had to see just to confirm it to myself.

The pogrom part. Not what I said. And not remotely what I meant. I didn't say "they deserved pogroms because they were zionists." Early aliyot were often made up of refugees that didn't have many other places to go because other countries didn't want us. And I spoke about this before. I'm not pretending every single Jewish person moving to Palestine was some malicious conqueror aiming to ruin Palestinian lives. I don't think anyone could ever "deserve" pogroms. Just like I don't think I "deserve" to be hiding in a shelter from missiles.

I said that, when there's a movement working with the British to create a state on top of the lands they're already living in, there will be uprisings, and those uprisings can't be used as evidence that Palestinian hostility is motivated by nothing but antisemitism. We know antisemitism was and is a problem not just in Europe but also in Arab countries, including Palestine back then, but acting like they had no reason to be against a state that always meant to take over their lands, for the benefit of another ethnic group, at their expense, makes no sense to me. Any group would try to resist that regardless of who's doing it. Even Ze'ev Jabotinsky acknowledged that. In The Iron Wall, he said "Colonisation can have only one aim, and Palestine Arabs cannot accept this aim."

And, a Nazi calling me a Zionist as an excuse to be antisemitic towards me isn't "leopard eating face." Nazis will be part of every movement they can weaponize, and they will act badly in it. It's not the same as the movement itself turning against someone. When I saw a different neo-Nazi using Palestine and sharing holocaust denial, I made a post about it, and among the people who shared it there were both other anti-Zionists and Palestinians. That's just a fucking Nazi. That's how they are everywhere.

[mythorhuman]

The obsessive anti-Bonnie/Klonnie stalker would delete and create accounts to avoid being blocked while trying to befriend Caroline/Elena stans to recruit others to bash Bonnie stans, so the age of the account isn't really relevant to the reaction OP received. However, no one asked her to know any of that. What was asked of her was to not insult Klonnie shippers in our tag. She isn't being attacked. No one called her names. No one was being nasty. Most of the responses to her post don't even acknowledge her directly and are Klonnie stans validating and defending their ship to each other.

Besides my responses and maybe one other person, none of these replies are even really about OP and you're both taking it personally for some strange reason. Klonnie shippers are uplifting themselves after being put down and discussing the unfairness of Bonnie ships always being mistreated by the fandom. Somehow that's an attack? Nasty? I'm trying to find the insults here. Where are they? What attacks are there to complain about? Why are Klonnie stans expected to welcome someone who attacked us? OP apologized and that's fine, but they did so AFTER doubling down without initially acknowledging their rudeness. No one here wants to convince OP or you to ship Klonnie. You are definitely misinterpreting ALL of these responses if you think that's what people want. Ship what you want. We just want to ship Klonnie in peace. The responses are clearly irritated and annoyed but not hostile/aggressive/mean.

some of yall are scary because what do you mean you ship klonnie?? bonnie tried to kill him how many times? and klaus too like that ship doesn't make any sense im sorry. bonkai i kind of get it since kai was obviously attracted to her but still they tried to kill themselves!

[cinnamonest]

Don’t worry about replying to this in any capacity. Just wanted to say that I read your most recent post and it was extremely helpful and informative for me. I was just talking to my dad earlier about really struggling to understand how anyone could support Trump when he is just a complete bumbling fool of a man at best and a piece of shit bigot and sexist at worst. (Not to say that Harris is some beacon in the darkness, not a fan of her either.) But the perspective you offered was really enlightening so thank you for it. and I hope you are doing well enough, all things considered, and that regardless of what happens in the coming days that things get better for you and your community.

Thank you, that's very kind. I'm very glad it was helpful, I was worried I was coming across the wrong way or didn't word it very well or could be misinterpreted.

If it helps, I had some more thoughts I think would expand upon that, specifically for women — since I see a lot of posts essentially asking how women can possibly vote for the guy, and I think I can explain that too, as I've been thinking and talking a lot about that with women who I know intend to do so.

1) I think for the upper class, they tend to focus more on social issues, because economic issues don't affect them as strongly.

But for some of these people, especially moms, the increased cost of living is literally a matter of "how am I going to feed my children, how am I going to pay electric AND water," etc. So it becomes a priority, especially as many families have lots of kids, and some are single moms. They don't really think as much about social issues, whereas when I went to college, most of the kids cared only about social issues. The more financially secure someone is, the less preoccupied they are with economy.

But for a mom, the safety of and provision for their kids is paramount above all else, so economy and crime will take priority.

But since we only have 2 major parties, people often assume that whichever you vote for, you must agree with ALL of the party's official stances, which is often not the case. That's part of why our bipartisan system is so divisive and breeds hostility, because it creates an "us vs them" mentality.

2) women in the area I talked about don't really even think about abortion/reproductive rights. They're not militantly anti-choice (like some of the more suburban moms of kids I went to school with), it's more that no one ever really thinks about it at all. Many of them have kids very young and lots of them, it's just normal. They also don't have careers to focus on in the way higher-class women do, and many have no chance of ever going to college, so there's less reason to hold off on it.

People do what's normal per their class/local culture — so here, if a girl gets unexpectedly pregnant (which is... not uncommon), they don't freak out or think about how it will affect their future, how they'll afford it etc, they usually just... shrug, drop out of high school, marry the guy, have the kid.

When we were 16, one of my good friends got pregnant, and she too did exactly that. She was unironically overjoyed to find out too, rather than panicked or dismayed. Like, when she took the pregnancy test, I was there with her, sitting on the tile floor of the church bathroom at 9 pm with the test we scraped cash together to buy from the gas station-pharmacy hybrid shop down the road, and she, as a 16 year old high school junior, was actively hoping, fingers crossed and smiling and everything, that it would be positive. She's now 24 and is about to have baby #5.

And part of the reason she was fine with it was... because her mom had her at 15. It's a very cyclic thing. The possibility of abortion would not occur to them unless someone else brought it up.

3) Moreover, when women vote, they focus on what affects them specifically as a woman — and prioritize what's most "real" to us as an individual woman, the hypotheticals one can most realistically see happening to them. But what that most realistic thing is, varies a lot from woman to woman.

For a woman living in, say, Maine or northeast California or even a safer rural place like Idaho, I can see how abortion is probably the most "real" thing to them, that they can see themselves being in a position to affect them.

Whereas for me, having experienced harassment and aggression, reading about these statistics and headlines, violence is something I am much more afraid of happening to me. I'm very careful to avoid an area where I was harassed before.

But for someone in a low-crime place, that isn't something that's going to be a priority.

I personally now realize that a lot of the misunderstanding and clashing is a matter of the fact that women in many blue areas simply don't think about this, because they've never had a reason to, and that's perfectly understandable.

But a lot of women in areas like my home do not realize that. Many women at home strongly believe that "them uppity rich white women out in California or wherever the hell" (quoth my 90-something year old neighbor), are aware of, but simply don't care about, the consequences women here/poor women face. I used to think so too, when I was younger, because that's what I was told.

As a result, they view their blue vote as a very "let them eat cake" heartless-rich-person sort of thing, as selfish and/or classism, in the same way that women in blue areas likely view their red votes as female-class betrayal, religious brainwashing, believe their husbands must be controlling them, etc.

Now, with greater life experience, I not only understand that it isn't like that at all on either side, but I can also see why many blue-area women dismiss our experiences as "not really happening" or "right-wing propaganda," simply due to the fact that it's very difficult for them to fathom it, because it's so different from the reality they live in, it feels like it can't be real.

3) it *is* true that these women are often demonized and gaslit for talking about the rapes, job loss etc, so that has shifted even more moderate women very rightwards over the last few years, because they feel silenced/censored.

Donald is a sort of savior figure — he acknowledges the issue they otherwise feel censored on, and moreover, has essentially promised to take away the men that hurt them, their daughters, sisters etc. They want to feel safe again, they want their husbands to get their jobs back, feel like they have a secure future, etc, and his platform is literally "make America safe again, make America rich again, make America great again."

That line you may have seen all over the internet a few days ago, where Donald said something along the lines of "I'm going to protect the women if they like it or not"? And you know how it earned disgust from the mainstream population of women?

That line was received extremely positively by women at home. I've already seen them sharing it around with my mom/aunts/grandma on facebook, in a positive light, ecstatic. It makes them feel seen and heard in a culture that otherwise puts a hand over their mouth, and they cling to those words in hope of a better future.

Tldr: it's women who are vulnerable and afraid and desperate, going for the only option that has promised to address their needs. Much conflict comes from the limited human ability to grasp things outside of ourselves, our tendency for solipsism — an unfortunate part of the human condition that has plagued our species from the dawn of time.

[conundrumoftime]

heavens above

Look: there are a lot of Haladriel Discords and groupchats. I'm in some of them, I'm not in others, there's plenty I don't know about. There is not a Haladriel Discord specifically set up to talk shit about newer fans on Tumblr (or if there is, I don't know about it and I'm not in it). Anyone who tells you that is Making Things Up, and if you've been in fandoms before you may want to have a think about why they'd do that.

Lots of smaller groupchats include safe spaces for people to vent about things that are frustrating them in fandom, without personal attacks or co-ordinated harassment campaigns. And if you don't like any of my Tumblr takes - or my ships or my fic or whatever - I absolutely encourage you to go complain about that in a private groupchat somewhere. (also! I know this happens already! and it's FINE.)

To answer two specific questions though: "Why didn't you speak to Apolo directly?" (I did; see below!), and "why didn't you just block Apolo" (I did, right after that, when Apolo's response made it clear she wasn't interested in listening to a different point of view on this one).

For context to anyone who missed this/can't see it because of blocks, I'll put here the post I was responding to and my response itself, which was also informed by seeing Apolo say previously that there are no Celeborn fans just anti-Haladriels. You are free to judge for yourself which one of these contains the language you are happier with seeing in fandom about other fans.

This is my post from Saturday about how I would like Celeborn to return in TROP;

This is from Apolo's post two days after that, addressed to people who want Celeborn to return in TROP:

and this is my comment:

Not going to comment on it or any of this beyond that.

My messages are open and anyone is free to speak to me or ask questions or whatever they like at any time. Or you can block me for whatever reason, I won't get offended.

[aprill-99]

How it started *Under the Mountain*:

Feyre: “So that’s the love of my life.”

Rhys: “Really? Tamlin? That guy?”

Feyre: “Yeah. Thoughts?”

Rhys: “And prayers. Girl what-”

Where it went *Early ACOWAR*:

Feyre: “So this is my mate.”

Lucien: “Really? Your mate is that guy?? Rhysand???”

Feyre: “Yeah. Thoughts?”

Lucien: “And Prayers. Girl what-”

[thevioletcaptain]

next person who perpetuates the completely fabricated anti-adjacent fandom myth that "the writers" shot down queer dean and deancas interpretations of the text and "told us we were delusional" for seeing any of it is getting blasted directly into the boötes void

[cxtangerina]

k2 is such a funny ship to me, like it's just plausible enough to be kinda sorta realistic if you squint and pray and look at it sideways, not quite a crackship but not able to get off the ground as more than a particularly popular rarepair either. they had, like, one big episode together back in season 3, a handful of major moments over the years that people hold onto with an iron grip, and basically nothing else outside of a plethora of fantastic fancontent and dreams.

i think i like it for the exact opposite reasons that i like kyman, actually, they sorta stand as complementary ships in my mind. where k2 barely has any actual basis in canon & comes heavily from fanworks and speculation about how well the characters would match each other, kyman is practically canonical, at least when it comes to cartman's feelings, and is at least regularly joked about and referenced in-show. personally, i also tend to see k2 as a ship that is kinda miraculously requited, whereas kyman is usually stuck in unrequited hell, which...

...well, this gets into more specific character analysis, but a big part of this is that i tend to see cartman as having very fucked up views of both romance & sexuality that have especially interesting implications when you consider him to have a crush on kyle, specifically.

on the one hand, i think his cupid self is evidence enough that he has a very fairytale, idealized view of romance, based more out of the hollywood movie image of what love is supposed to be rather than anything in reality. south park adults being utter fucking idiots 99% of the time means that most, if not all, of the kids don't have a lot of good role models to base their actions off of. i'm not gonna talk out of my ass about childhood development more than i understand it, but i don't think it's too controversial (?) of a take to claim that kids understand & learn about the world through watching it just as much as interacting with it, particularly when it comes to their own parents.

cartman is a piece of shit, and while a lot of that comes from him and his own bigotry, he's still ultimately a kid in show and you can trace where some of his worst traits originate from in the people around him, even if he makes the personal decision to push it as much as humanly possible. i think the trend in recent seasons for many adults to try and at least appear more pc only makes this more obvious, actually (coughcoughrandy), though talking about that is maybe biting off a little more south park politics than i'm willing to chew for this particular post.

point is, cartman as a character in particular does not have a lot, if anything, to base his idea of what a healthy, happy romantic relationship looks like, which isn't only because liane is single though that may be a major contributing factor. love isn't work to cartman, it isn't about the maintenance of a relationship or communication or all the more realistic and slightly less pleasant parts of loving someone that hollywood doesn't find dramatic or interesting enough to show. rather it's a fantasy, something that happens to people that they have no real control over. i wouldn't be surprised if he believes in soulmates or love at first sight, even if the likelihood of him admitting that out loud isn't especially high.

on the other hand, i think his view of sexuality is greatly influenced by not just liane's sex work, but the way she is slut-shamed and treated like garbage by the rest of the town for it. i tend to view cartman as having a very transactional, cynical view of sex and sexuality, where sex is only used for personal gain (whether that be money or power, likely at the expense of someone else/the submissive party), and sexuality is an inherent character flaw, a weakness that must be overcome unless you are able to twist it and use it for your own (material?) benefit- see the streaming wars & cartman wanting his mom to seduce a rich man for money as a recent example of this.

it's a running gag in TFBW that cartman uses douchebag catching their dad fucking their mom as a tragic backstory, and doesn't seem to understand how reproduction actually works even when kyle basically says it straight to his fucking face. even as a joke, there's still a lot of underlying truth behind why he would believe this. cartman is aware of his mom's sex work, even if he may not want to fully admit/believe it, largely because of situations where he's specifically getting shit for it. he knows he has a father, and that he is (in)directly responsible for said father's horrible death & consumption, but he only really cares about that insofar as it means he's half ginger. sex has only ever been presented through its most vicious power dynamics to him- why would he see it as a good thing, as something that could ever be loving, especially when contrasted against such an idealized, purified view of romance?

(you could also extrapolate from this how cartman associates sexuality & romance with femininity & his brand of sexism to get some particularly delectable transfem cartman ideas, but i digress.)

ANYWAYS. this is all to say that cartman having a crush on kyle (or anyone, really, but kyle is obviously the most emotionally volatile example) instantly pits those two conflicting views against one another, like he wants something that he doesn't even think could ever exist: a happy, healthy romantic relationship, where sex is just a normal thing that they can choose to do or not. this is where a lot of kyman angst comes from for me, with cartman either trying to stuff that round desire back into the square hole of how he views the world, or having his ideals fall ever further apart when the feelings are unrequited. and, on top of that, none of this being actually said out loud because communication is impossible.

this is why i always see kyman as making each other worse, especially if they actually manage to make it into a romantic relationship. i simply Do Not see kyle being a patient enough person to help cartman work through the intricacies of all of his expectations and idealized fantasies and internalized fears surrounding such mutually screwed views of romance & sexuality- on the rare occasions that kyle does show some interest in romantic relationships it's usually pretty centered around himself, and to be frank i only see his interest in romance going down as he gets older.

i've heard some people talk about kyle before like he's the "moral compass" of south park or whatever and while that may be true by the end of the episode, one of the things i like most about him is the fact that he struggles so much to get to the best conclusions. this is kind of getting back into the k2 side of this analysis, but where kenny manages a much more effortless selflessness, even pushing it to the point of being both a strength and a flaw when kenny stops caring about himself for the sake of others, kyle is a lot more self-centered than he cares to admit and it influences a lot of his attempts at being a good person.

this is both my favorite aspect of kyle, that he really has to put in the work to be the good person that he wants to be, and also the primary bad trait that i think cartman brings out of kyle. by being such a notoriously horrible shithead, he gives kyle the perfect target to unleash his annoyance on, getting him so caught up in arguing and proving himself to be the better person that kyle forgets to actually listen to the people that he's supposed to be standing up for. cartman is a fantastic troll and, at least in show, kyle definitely has not learned to stop feeding him argument fodder yet.

sidenote: about kyman entering a romantic relationship... wasn't sure where to add this, but it's for this exact reason that i also see kyman (or this version of kyman where cartman gets worse with age, rather than better) only actually happening in the universes where kyle has lost all other meaningful connections, to the point that feeding a troll to get off on an argument is the best possible option, even if he's old enough to know better. especially if he's old enough to know better.

again, k2 is the opposite of this for me in that i see kyle & kenny as having a lot of potential to bring out the best in each other.

if kyle's worst trait is that he gets too caught up in his own feelings & desires to truly be the good, selfless, thoughtful person that he wants to be to actually do genuine good for the sake of others, kenny's problem is that he skews too far in the opposite direction. i kinda already said this, but to state it outright: kenny's biggest strength and his biggest flaw are the exact same, that he is selfless to a fault, to the point of consistently putting other people's safety and happiness above his own when he thinks it would be of help the majority/the people he loves. this was the key kenny trait that was established by the end of BL&U, and it has only gotten more prominent in the years since with his mysterion persona.

it is in this way that kenny both stands as someone that kyle can look up to & admire for how effortlessly he dedicates himself to the people he cares about the most, but also, simultaneously, as someone that kyle can take care of himself and offer the same help back to. and i don't even think kenny needs to say very much out loud to push kyle towards a lot of these conclusions, he kinda just has to exist and be noticed and kyle has the intelligence to figure it out himself, to recognize the shit that kenny puts himself through and his (usually) quite noble reasons for doing so, and want to offer him the same love and care and dedication that kenny never allows himself to have.

really, the difficult part of this is being noticed at all in the first place. again, i said earlier that k2 is kinda "miraculously requited," in my mind, specifically because the aspect that's missing in the show and almost always must be provided by fan content for k2 is that spark/push forward that gets them close enough to start talking and for kyle to notice kenny in the first place. it's just lucky that's one of my favorite things to figure out and write for those two, hehehe.

[bibuckaroo]

absolutely hilarious to me that that side of the fandom think the buddie side is the delusional one because of the tim interview when the man himself CLEARLY stated that he had NEVER seen the fandom behaving this badly in all of his years working in the business and the only difference from all the other years to this one is the bt fandom, like genuinely lol.

he also stated about people coming to talk to him and using what he said when there are prints out there of their fandom doing this, like it’s not all of them obviously, just like there are parts of the buddie fandom who can be disrespectful too, but as someone who recently joined the fandom and saw the comings and goings through the years, i can safely say when a fandom is being too much on the disrespectful side and i saw that behavior way more on that side, honestly.

[arson-09]

its very interesting to me how Tamlin is the character and High Lord that is heavily vilified (I would almost say even more than Beron strangely) when he is the only High Lord to have talked about d how he has gone about removing slavery within his court, protecting lower fae in general, and his court was open to immigration from other courts (i cant remember if its mentioned again in acomaf but in acotar fae from other courts are free to move to the spring court. example, Alis) and how overall he is a great leader. Especially when you compare him and Rhysand as High Lords.

The Court of Nightmares is well, a nightmare. Its existence is extremely strange and makes Rhysand look very odd. as well as its unclear how Rhysand gets his wealth. Velaris was a hidden city until acomaf-ish, which means it was locked (so no immigration or emigration which isn't bad per-say but does bring up how it works economically) and Rhysands inability or unwillingness to protect his citizens (not enforcing the wing clipping ban and allowing people to be abused in the CoN. and before anyone starts about him not being able to control the illyrians, why did he make it a law in the first place? It just makes him look bad) makes him look like a shitty ruler. His supposed "feminism" and friendship with the people of velaris doesnt answer these very important questions or justify the strange shit he does. Versus Tamlin, which you can refer to my opening statement for the comparison. Also to note, his rule only came into question and stability after Feyre broke into people minds (which I do feel is extremely gross and a huge violation of ones autonomy and privacy) and had to sabotage him. I won't comment how I feel about this in this post, but it says a lot that she had to go through such lengths to break him down. Especially after it was revealed he was in fact a double agent and never actually siding with Hybern.

The only time Tamlin is an arguably bad high lord is in acofas and acosf where he is in a severe mental crisis and not in a position to properly rule. But even then, it's not clear if this is actually causing harm to the land and people. It's probably not good because they don't have a proper leader but I can't believe it's a severe issue.

Its definitely a strange choice, isn't it? Cause I think anyone in their right mind would choose the anti-tyranny, anti-slavery leader who does his best for his people... and its somehow not our supposed 'hero'

"I once told you I would fight against tyranny, against that sort of evil. Did you think you were enough to turn me from that?"

Acowar, chapter 44

[twistedappletree]

Thinking about Lan Sizhui teaching Jin Ling how to play guqin.

Thinking about Jin Ling absolutely bored to tears by the fundamentals until he hears how beautifully Lan Sizhui plays and suddenly takes an interest (in the guqin, definitely the guqin, he’s interested in the guqin only, okay??)

Thinking about Jin Ling practicing outside of classes because he wants to impress Lan Sizhui by how much he’s improved and wants to make him proud and wants to see his face light up with a smile—I mean, what? No no no, he just wants to show initiative to learn, that’s all there is to it, nothing more. Nothing at all.

Thinking about Lan Sizhui finding Jin Ling asleep on his guqin after a night of wearing himself out with extra practice and gently waking him up to safely escort him back to his room so he doesn’t get caught by their seniors. Meanwhile, Jin Ling sleepily leans against him on the walk back to his room because it’s normal, he’s just tired, it’s obviously normal because Lan Sizhui slips his hand into his and smiles and Jin Ling’s heart feels like it’s on fire. Oh no.

Thinking about Jin Ling opening up to Lan Sizhui about his nightmares from all the trauma he’s endured and Lan Sizhui staying to play guqin for him until he falls asleep, each note chasing away every bad dream that tries to disturb him.

Thinking about them practicing guqin alone together the next day. And the day after. And the day after that—and they really are practicing but it’s a little hard to focus when Lan Sizhui keeps putting his hands over Jin Ling’s to move them to the correct strings, and Jin Ling’s face is a breath away from Lan Sizhui’s every time he leans over to help him.

It’s just guqin practice, that’s all there is to it, perfectly normal. 🩵💛