#especially since this blog was made cause I had to avoid a stalker

[blackbackedjackal]

Sometimes I think about how long some of you all have been following me and I'm like wow, ya'll really like watching this clown.

[spaceorphan18]

Question, since I was not around during the time the show was airing. So I know Crisscolfer (is that what they’re called?) was huge, probably the biggest of the rl actor ships, but I also know that there were so many people that massively shipped Achele and Heya. So, if the crazy CC shippers caused Chris and Darren to distant themselves in public, why wasn’t it the same for Heya (and Achele)? Did Heather and Naya not have any reaction to the crazy invasive people? Did they just not care? Because even after the crazy shipping started, they were still so affectionate both publicly and over social media.

I’m just wondering why it went so far for Darren and Chris.

So, first of all, I don't know how Diana and Lea or Naya and Heather reacted to their fans shipping each other. I can't tell you how they acted. I know zero things about Diana and Lea. But with Naya and Heather, from what I can tell, seemed to mostly shrug it off. They are bffs, and liked to play that up a bit. I also think that neither of their significant others were as harassed as, perhaps, others (I'll get to that in a second.) I also think, at the end of the day, it didn't bother Heather or Naya to be seen as a couple.

I want to state, first, that these are my observations. I do not know Chris or Darren personally, and so this is only from my third party view point. So, please keep that in mind...

Chris and Darren have a lot of other, more complicated (?) things going on.

First, let's talk about Chris. I think sometimes what is forgotten is that he was a literal child coming into the industry from a very sheltered and conservative place. It can be quite shocking to see how fans react to things on a big scale, and for someone who is deeply private and, as I said in the earlier post, deeply individualistic -- being tied to his costar like that upset him a lot.

(There's also a part of Chris that likes to control things - and not being able to control his image, especially his sexual image, seems to be something that has been hard for him. He's seems to have come to terms with it -- but I think it took him a long, long time, especially with people tell him he'd never be any kind of sex symbol, to deal with the idea that people write sex stories about him and his likeness.)

Now - RPS has been a thing forever, and honestly, it used to be a thing that people didn't necessarily believe, they just enjoyed the fiction. I know there were blogs dedicated to CrissColfer that were just fun fic blogs. No one believed it. They just liked to read about it. And honestly, while it's not my cup of tea -- it's fine. The real people are not supposed to be a part of that.

The problem becomes when people a) believe that it's reality and b) cross the line and start effecting the actors' real lives. (As an aside -- this isn't a unique phenomenon -- this kind of stuff happens all the time, which is unfortunate, because it does ruin the experience for actors.)

I think what people might not know, or have forgotten, is that Chris shot to fame really, really quickly. And with that come the crazies. He had a literal stalker for years that we all knew about because she was pretty vocal on the forums and LJ. I know that one reason he moved from his first house is because a group of fans rented out the house behind him and spied on him. People do some really stupid shit when it comes to famous people. And, for someone who, again, is very deeply private and wanting control of his own voice -- this is a part of fame that Chris has been vocal about HATING.

So, when the whole CrissColfer thing started to get out of control sometime in season 4-ish, Chris shut down and out of social media almost completely. (I think there were other factors, too, such as Cory's death and feeling tired of being on the show.)

I think one thing that didn't help (though he's perfectly right to his privacy) is how closed off Chris became about his life. Take Heather and Naya -- they're (were) on social media all the time. Their lives were public enough that (while they showed you probably what you wanted to see or only what they wanted you to see) you, as a fan, feel like you are a part of their life. You aren't, in reality. (which is its own set of problems.) But it makes you feel connected. And Chris disconnected that connection. Which just made people speculate more.

I also think -- around the time he shut down was around the time he started dating Will. Chris is a savvy guy, and, if I had to guess, wanted to protect that relationship -- which we know is rather special, because they've been together for eight years. Do we know that much about Will? Not really. And I'm totally cool with that. Because that's their prerogative. And I respect that.

As an aside -- I have seen first hand some of the stuff they try to pull with Chris. I was a children's event (CHILDREN'S event) where grown women were in the first row, taking photos of his ass, and continued to do so even after he asked them to stop. (my god, I was embarrassed for them.) I don't blame him for shutting people out, because it's truly disheartening to see people act that way.

Meanwhile... Darren. Darren's pretty public about how he mostly thought the whole thing was funny. But was respectful enough to Chris (I'm pretty sure they had a long conversation(s) about how to be in public) to not get too into. But it didn't stop him from, like, mentioning his name while doing Hedwig. If Chris wasn't Chris but someone more open like Naya or Heather, I'm sure Darren wouldn't have minded playing it up a bit. Because I don't think he cares about what other people think about him the same way Chris does.

However, there is one thing Darren does care very much about -- and where he draws a line -- and that's Mia. Mia is his wife. And he loves her very, very deeply. That is a fact. Not my opinion. A fact. And since Darren is the more open of the two, the tinhatters seem to have latched onto Darren (and his sexuality) and this weird obsession that Mia is either bad for him or a beard or whatever.... And they've done some crazy shit.

Now, one of the cool things about Mia is that she's been able to take it (at least publicly) with stride. At the end of the day, she's well aware that she's going to go home and fuck him and you aren't and neither is Chris Colfer. And who really cares about the rest of it. She's also a rather strong woman who doesn't need Darren's defending. But I've seen videos of stuff thrown at Mia, which has been nasty, and Darren step up to defend her. Because that crosses his line. And they've been doing throwing this stuff at her for nearly ten years now.

It's tiresome. It's tiresome for me and I'm not Chris or Darren. So I don't blame either of them for being over it. And the easiest way to do that is to avoid each other. I don't know if that puts anything in perspective nonny, but at least you now know some of the history.

[genderfluidlucifer]

Response to being asked to give  an opinion on Connie’s calout by residentevil-4

(Tw: CSAM, rape fic, incest fic, predatory behavior, racism, ableism, kink mention, nsfw mentions. Minors should probably dni.)

“Connie and I know each other irl and went to school together for 3 years, although they now live in a different state and have cut contact with me. We went to a private therapy school in Manhattan as we're both disabled and were deemed unable to attend public school. Even though we were pretty close, Connie didn't like having photos taken of them, so I don't have any selfies of the two of us; however, these are from our sophomore and senior yearbooks which at least confirms that we were in the same year at school. People who have seen Connie's selfies should be able to confirm that that is what they look like. First and foremost, Connie is not TMA. They are intersex and the two of us have discussed intersex issues both in person and online, but they are still decidedly CAFAB.” Ok so first off, I want to address this part of the callout. To be honest...was it really necessary to literally doxx Connie ehre? Because this textbook definition of doxxing. Yes Connie’s done some shitty things but I freally don’t think that what they’ve done warrants this level of doxxing. Or...even better, any doxxing. This feels like a really unnecessary breach of privacy, revealing sensitive information on Connie’s childhood that they choose to confide in you with. I really don’t agree with this aspect of the callout as it feels very invasive and bordering on stalkerish.  Btw when I say bordering on stalkerish I’m not directly calling you a stalker Bonnie. Just so we’re clear. I am not defending Connie supposedly faking being TMA. Because faking being TMA is a very serious issue. HOWEVER since I don’t know Connie irl and to be quite frank it’s none of my business what the nature of their agab is. Were not close and I’m certainly not going to like lead Connie onto thinking we’re friends just to confirm this with them because that would be creepy. So to be honest I’m going to take this part of the callout with again of salt for now.

[ID: A cropped screenshot of a numbered list Connie posted to their blog hadrosaurs in response to an ask. 

“3. I’m TMA And that’s completely irrelevant. I’m not accusing them because of their gender I didn’t even know their gender when they said that to me saying that they said that because they fucking said that and the reaction to it was incredibly alarming. Don’t fucking say that stuff to people.]

I mean I”m not a trans woman so take this with a grain of salt if you want but...I don’t see how this is really proof of Connie being deliberately transmisogynistic? Yes Connie gives iffy retellings of mistakes they’ve made in the past. I’ve seen that on their blog before and I won’t pretend it doesn’t happen. BUT here they sound genuine enough and to be honest a growing issue I’ve seen with callouts as of late is. A person confirms they in fact did not do the thing they were called out for. And then the people who make the callout choose to see it as proof of incriminating behavior anyways. To be honest it’s a big problem and it’s also incredibly unfair to the person being called out. If you’re so determined at that point to see the person as bigoted no matter what they say then of course anything they say can be seen as proof. So I’m going to have to pass on this bit of evidence. “Connie responded: “Final note: I have spoken extensively with several trans women about using TMA to describe myself. I will not be getting into discourse about that on this blog again. All that leads to is people demanding my medical records and calling me slurs. If you wanna have a thoughtful conversation about it direct message me cause it’s not happening again here.” Again this really doesn’t seem all that self incriminating. Connie mentions here that they’ve talked to rl trans woman about whether or not they can be considered TMA. Connie really doesn’t have to disclose that personal information to people for any reason. Yes even when people are e including this ask response in a callout. And considering lots of people DO get invasive about Connie’s medical history ans general personal life over matters like this? I feel their reaction is pretty understandable here. “Connie has constantly compared “exclusionists” (or anyone, really) to TERFs, even when the people in question are not transmisogynistic, trans exclusionary radfems, or are even transmisogyny affected themselves.

“ Gonna have to disagree with this part of the callout too. Lots of ace inclus blogs, even some run by trans women , have proven that the ace exclus movement was started by swerfs/terfs. But the blog that has the most evidence for this is courteousmingler on tumblr. I suggest you check out that blog’s archiving of the history of ace exclus rhetoric before rushing to call me a transmisogynist for disagreeing with this part of the callout. I looked through all of the evidence for Connie being racist and tbh as a black ndn it all feels incredibly flimsy. It’d be one thing if Connie was using their experiences to derail and invalidate the discussions about how black people are oppressed But they weren’t doing that there at all. This part of the post feels incredibly biased. And like OP is looking for things to be mad about. Going to have to pass on this list of evidence. Also uh I seem to recall that residentevil04 got called out for some questionable behavior as well. “Both me (insepsy, hi) and ezrat have had really weird spikes in activity on our Statcounters, both on the same day. (Saturday, 4/17/21) For both of us, majority of the pages looked at by these visitors have been related to or about Connie, or have been posts that Connie would find "problematic" such as the f slur untagged or something related to "panphobia"/aphobia. I’m sorry but...none of the proof of cyberstalking holds any water. Visiting someone’s blogs and rbing posts to disagree with them is not cyberstalking. Keeping tabs on urls that an abusive person who has harassed are using so you can block them (in this case with kyoshi) and warn your mutuals is not stalking. As a victim of rl stalking it’s...really weird to call this legit stalking at all. Much less claim that you have damning proof of it being stalking when no such evidence exists in the callout. Besides after Connie and nonbinarydave called out one of kyoshi’s buddies for sending a death threat hate anon to nonbinarydave’s toddler st4lker partly admitted to doing it a few times. Then other mutuals in kyoshi’s toxic social circle clearly began joining in. Making side accounts where they tried to spin a false narrative of nonbinarydave’s daughter being one of their alters (ableist as hell.) And also trying to do it in such a way that they thought would trigger nonibnarydave’s psychosis (also ableist as hell.) If you’re going to drag Connie for their mistakes and never let them move on from those mistakes then it’s only fair to do that to people you agree with who also do toxic/bigoted things. ALso the fact that your wording here suggests that you think panphobia and aphobia aren’t real makes me doubt this claim even more. Exclus and their allies are notorious for mislabeling inclus disagreeing with them as stalking. “connie said that they would release that info at a later time and the minor began to argue with them that they had a responsibility regardless of their complicated relationship with age. in this argument connie for a time kept their age ambiguous and at one point told the minor (who confirmed in a later ask that they were severely traumatized by adults) that they obviously weren’t traumatized. connie quickly deleted this ask and any mentions of it and the next post they reblogged was about how wrong it was to try and quantify or discount others’ trauma. on my old blog i @ed them in the replies and asked if they had just done that. connie admitted to it and said it was fucked up but quickly blocked + deleted my comment. i can’t remember whether or not connie apologized to the minor, they may have? but yeah. i thought that was pretty weird.”] I do agree with some of the concern here that adults shouldn’t over expose minors in discourse. I’ve been contemplating this for awhile myself. And trying to figure out how to take better steps to avoid including minors who are triggered by discourse in discourse, especially. HOWEVER I have one little issue with this addition to the callout. If that is the case then exclus and their allies need to practice this as well. You cannot ignore the fact that the reason a lot of minors are getting involved in exclus discourse is due to adult exclus and their allies forcing minors to pick a side in the discourse. Y’all are not at all exempt from this problem. I still remember an ex mutual of mine trying to convince a minor to agree that aces can’t face corrective rape. And based on how aggressive it got with me when I tried to avoid giving an opinion on the matter, I can’t imagine that it would’ve reacted better to the minor refusing to give an opinion or to the minor outright disagreed. Refusing to put these standards on exclus and their allies is both hypocritical and quite frankly very transparent. The claims about them glorifying dark topics on AO3 through their fics also seems unfortunately legit. I mean those asks of shaming people who ask their viewers to not romanticize or glorify abusive relationships in their works is very damning. I’m very disappointed to see that Connie has taken being an inclus to the point of validating antis anti culture wholeheartedly. I can’t think of much more to add to my opinion on that part of the callout. As for the issue of Connie interacting with pro shippers in the past, I do know that this claim is legit. I’ve seen it before and so has Breeze. This was why for a brief time we decided to stop following their blogs. Because it was triggering to have pro shippers put on our dash. And sometimes we just don’t feel it’s worth it to always let people we’re platforming know they’re rbing triggering stuff. So sometimes we just quietly unfollow and choose to not interact until we’re sure they’re filtering what they do and don’t rb in some way. I definitely don’t agree with that behavior. And if they’re still doing that I”ll deplatform again. “The anon asks: “A weird question but do you know any other stimboard blogs with your follow criteria? (No radfems, racists, fandom antis, etc.) I was hoping to find more through your “similar blogs” but a lot have no anti-antis for their DNI or allow truscum/transmeds and exclus. :(“

The user responds: “I know of @turtle-pond-stims, @outofangband, and @kinaesthetics! 🍂🍄" “[ID: A cropped screenshot of an ask sent by Connie from their now-deactivated blog, butch-with-a-tortoise.

Connie says: “hey anon I have safe stim blogs. dm me if you want them. And radfems/bigots aren’t allowed to interact. For my own safety (because the community is honestly terrifying) I can’t publicly say on my blogs that I’m safe for proshippers/kinky people but I try to spread word how I can.”] [ID: Screenshot of a post by evilwriter37, which reads, “I’ve been seeing posts about fandom police leaving ao3, and it’s like: Good. We don’t want you here anyway. Go find your own fanfiction site.”

The post is tagged “#Fandom #AO3 #Antis #Purity Culture” and has 87 notes. It was posted on December 21st, 2020.

There is a reply from main-to-outofangband-andothers saying: “there are Silm antis on that site who are against Russigon (Maedhros and Fingon) not because they’re cousins but because they’re both male (coded)”] [ID: A screenshot of an anonymous (though signed off as being from outofangband) ask sent to evilwriter37, which says, “Melkor and Viggo solidarity is ‘Look there’s nothing wrong with keeping my enemy chained up in my personal chambers at all times so please just focus on the war efforts and I’ll focus on the boy* in my chambers’ -@outofbangand.

*boy used figuratively @ antis”

The user responds: “Pfft!!! Hahaha! You’re absolutely right! (And Viggo does refer to Hiccup in canon as ‘my boy’).”] I can’t really say anything to refute this. Because these are all posts of Connie outright stating that they disagree with antis. And not only sympathize with anti antis but are fully against antis. Looks like very damning evidence. Although ngl I’m not entirely against kinky blogs as a whole? Just so long as they truly stay in their lane with their kink content. And don’t force it on others in any way. Or shame people who are triggered by their kinks. It is true that being entirely against kinky blogs no matter what is dipping your toes into swerf rhetoric. Tbh I’m not going to look at the rest. This is pretty much all I need to make a decision on whether or not I”ll continue platforming Connie. Though I will try to get some more  perspective from people who I interact with as well. Because I feel better about making a more definitive decision after doing that. Also in general please don’t not try to get an opinion from me on how I feel about syscourse. A lot of the claims about Connie’s age weirdness and them using their alters as a shield feel like syscourse to me. Especially if this callout was written by one or several singlets. Singlets should never be trying to judge how legit someone’s system is ever. Even if their system friends encourage them to. You can call out a horrible person with a system without trying to insinuate that they’re lying about their alters in some way. Doing otherwise is ableist ESPECIALLY if you’re a singlet. Also in general the reason I stay out of discussions of judging how someone is handling their systems is because it’s syscourse and syscourse is triggering for my system and I. If this post was an attempt to get me to give an opinion  on the validity of Connie’s system I don’t appreciate it. And I would appreciate not being dragged into such matters again, thank you.

In general there’s like a few parts of this callout that feel legit. Which is unfortunately cluttered with obvious bias and obsessive hatred of Connie. I’m not here to stan or coddle Connie. I know they are not a perfect person. Especially since no human being in the world is perfect. But I feel the way this callout was created was very sloppy since a lot of the evidence was messy at best. And some points were very hypocritical as well as there being some no true scotsman moments from OP. In acting like exclus never do any of the thing that they tried to call out Connie for. Which is behavior that I am not a fan of. This is why people need to be more careful about callouts and like make roughdrafts and have a more unbiased person helping them if they don’t feel they can do it on their own. I’m even trying to make a resolve to do better at that myself. So it’s not like I’m unwilling to put my money where my mouth is. Anyways those are all my thoughts on this messy callout. And tbh I’m not going to get too much more heavily involved in this. Because I need to focus on more immediately serious rl stuff more often, like doing what I can to get out of the hellish landscape of a house I currently am stuck in.

[thran-duils]

Devils Look Like Angels (Ch. 12)

Title: Devils Look Like Angels (Chapter 12) Summary:  Fem!Reader x Psychotic!Castiel. An unhinged, criminal, supernatural artifact collector extraordinaire… and the reader caught his eye. It will not take her long to realize that beneath the charm and mystique is a crazed killer who will go to great lengths to woo her. Words: 1,609 Warnings (for the fic in entirety): Stalking, angst, death/murder, violence

Chap 11 || Chap 13 || Masterpost || Fanfic masterpost

You were accosted the moment you walked through the bunker door. Castiel had dropped you off down the street per your request and you had walked the remainder of the way. The bright side of him driving you was that you now knew the make of his car and the license plate. Although, it could have simply just been a rental, you still had some idea of what to look out for.

“What the fuck?” Dean demanded as you descended the stairs.

“I’m fine,” you sighed, carrying the bag of your dirty clothes and the swimsuit that Castiel insisted you take with you.

“I can see that. But it doesn’t do a damn thing about answering my question, does it?”

Placing the bag down on the table, you leveled them both with a hard stare. “He took me from the bar.”

“Gathered that much,” Dean quipped.

“If you’re gonna be a jackass—”

“We were – are – worried, Y/N,” Sam interjected. “It scared the hell out of us.”

Breathing in deep you tried to calm yourself again. This was not your fault and it was so hard to separate yourself from the blame since you had not been acting smart.

“I needed to pee. Like I told you, Sam, before you went to check on the food. So, I tried to. The line was long, and I don’t know! I just needed to go, and I tried to get to the men’s room and ended up outside. And I went out there in the sticks. But then Castiel was there when I was heading back in. He was accusing me of avoiding him and it was scary.”

“I tried to bypass him by brushing him off but then he said he had men inside. He was really, really fucking mad you guys ‘let’ – insert finger motion, illustrating to them your disdain for his verbiage – “Me get so drunk. Said it wasn’t keeping in good health or something. I didn’t want him to hurt you for some imagined slight – and he did threaten to. So, I agreed to go.”

“I woke up next to him, fully clothed. He made me breakfast. We went on the speed boat provided by the rental, which you know, was fun.” Dean scoffed and you finished harshly, “He fished, cooked the fish for dinner, we ate, you called.”

You fell silent, waiting for them to react.

Dean looked at Sam and said, “We can’t go anywhere.” His attention was back on you. “You’re not safe anywhere. How the hell does he know? Every time?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. I asked.”

“Of course he wouldn’t.”

“I don’t believe he wants to harm me. Not after this.”

Dean barked out a humorless laugh. “Oh, okay. That helps the situation. He just wants to possess you like one of his artifacts and play psychotic games and kill people!”

What he said hit hard and you found it hard to stifle your emotion.

Stepping towards you, Dean told you firmly, “He is unstable, Y/N. We all know this. he is a cold-blooded killer. And to me it sounds like you’re defending him? And saying it was fun?”

“I wasn’t defending him! And it was, despite the circumstance!”

“Just downplaying the severity of the situation then.”

You were silent.

Sam asked, “Why didn’t you contact us?”

Throwing him an annoyed look, you snipped, “I didn’t exactly have my phone. As you know.”

“Well,” Dean said. “If you were as safe as you say you were, why wouldn’t he let you let us know? And if that was all a ruse, why didn’t you fight back?”

“And possibly get killed, Dean? I didn’t know what he was going to do during all of it!” you yelled, finally losing your temper.

Dean’s face fell, anger melting.

“Last time, he had a bunch of people around and I was more concerned about them than myself! This time… it was just me.” You threw your hands out by your sides helplessly. “Just me! That is what I was focusing on. Especially at some lake where he could easily dispose of me if he had the desire to do so! Kill me, weight me down, and toss me in the middle in the dead of night! So, no. I didn’t actively fight back. I went with the flow. But I was sure as hell ready to fight if I needed to.”

Chest heaving from your adrenaline, you stared at the pair of them. Your fear was laid out on the table.

Sam swallowed, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry. ‘Last time’?”

Dean had not seemed to catch that but now his brows were furrowed, looking at you accusingly.

Shit.

“I…I met him for a concert. In Kansas City. And nothing happened. He was normal. And that’s what’s so scary. I was waiting for him to snap at any momenta and blow up the theater or just kill me. But he just wanted a night out with me.”

“So… those back to back movies you saw in Kansas City…?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.”

Dean swore and you said defensively, “I thought appeasing him might chill him out a bit!”

“Cause that usually works with stalkers!” Dean retorted.

“Dean, I did what I thought was best!”

“Well you were flat out wrong, Y/N!”

“I’m with Dean, Y/N. That was stupid,” Sam chimed in. You gave him an incredulous look and he argued in turn, “Don’t give me that look. We are a team. And keeping things like this from each other is a surefire way to fail. Especially in dangerous situations like this. You don’t have to sacrifice yourself for some cause without us at your back!”

You scoffed loudly, “Really? You’re going to lecture me about personal sacrifices? Didn’t you two die all the while... never mind. Forget this. I’m tired!”

You snatched up the bag and moved around the table to go to your room.

Sam reached out and grasped your arm, “Y/N, this isn’t done—”

Yanking away from him, you spat, “For now it is! Leave me alone. Both of you.”

You did not let them utter another word before storming off, leaving them behind you.

<> <> <>

It took until late the next morning for them to corner you in the kitchen as you were trying to sneak some food for yourself. Your plan had been to continue hiding in your room, simmering in your anger. But they were not going to have it.

Sitting at the table across from them, Dean started, “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to what you were trying to say. But damnit, Y/N. What the hell were you thinking?”

“I already told you why.” Catching the glint of annoyance in his eyes, you added, “Look, if he hadn’t of cornered me like that, I wouldn’t have met him. I’d been putting him off for weeks. He left me some airline tickets to Hawaii – and he went by himself apparently, thinking I would actually show up and was extremely upset I hadn’t – and he’s invited me to dinner. Ever since that night when I blew up on him. I was actively avoiding him, he was right.”

“I know it was stupid, but I really didn’t have a choice. And I know that this has got to stop. The good thing is that he can’t get inside here. And he shouldn’t because of all the shit that’s in here. I can’t imagine what a person like him would do with it.”

You stalled, a thought coming to you then.

Of course.

Sam noticed, “What?”

“That’s it…” you said quietly before repeating it more loudly. “That’s it. We have a couple bone knives, don’t we?”

“Yeah. They’re locked up,” Sam answered. “Why?”

You were gaining confidence, excitement brewing at the possibility of solving this whole mess. “I need to give him one of them.”

“What? Why?” Dean demanded.

“Look, he told me about his parents. How they were killed and what got him into this business that he does in the first place. They were killed over a bone knife his father had found at a pawn shop. He’s been searching for one for a long time. It is really important to him.”

“Y/N, I don’t know if it’s smart to hand over a supernatural artifact like that to him. I mean, the Men of Letters have this type of stuff in bunkers for a reason.”

“I could get him to leave me alone if I give it to him though, Dean.”

Sam sighed, “I don’t think a singular item is going to deter him from his obsession with you, Y/N.”

Sighing, you argued, “But if I give it to him and make it clear it is a parting gift, this could help me. Help us, really. It could end this whole nightmare.” They still looked uneasy and you added forcibly, “Please. You didn’t hear the way he talked about it, the tone of his voice. It is truly something important to him. And we aren’t even using them anyway.”

Dean and Sam were both quiet, contemplating what you said as you impatiently waited for them to give you their answer.

“Fine... if you really think it could work,” Dean relented.

“I don’t know for sure, but it is worth a shot.”

Pulling out your phone, you texted Castiel asking for a meet up, insisting it not be a riddle. It was the first time you had ever texted him, so you could only imagine his elation of you requesting to see him. You only hoped he would be able to control himself when he realized what the meet up was for.

~~~

CASTIEL FOREVER TAGS: @willowing-love @perseusandmedusa @greenappleeyes @afanofmanystuffs @earthtokace @shikaros-blog @marisayouass @splendidcas

[aceandaroacts]

On Being a Happy Family of One

[This month, I'm hosting the Carnival of Aces, a blogging festival where participants respond to a topic. The topic I've chosen for this month is "Conscious and Unconscious Differences". You can see the other submissions and join in here!]

Considering the experiences you’ve had that are tied to your asexuality, how have they made you stronger?

Hi! I'm aceandaroacts. If you met me in real life, I'd introduce myself as a coder of custom software and grandma-at-heart. But this is the internet!

The most important thing to know about me is not the things I've built, places I've gone, or the experiences I've overcome. It's my attitude: "I can do this!"

When I first started thinking about topics to write about for this month's Carnival of Aces, I was torn between several ideas. I love fashion. I understand none of it, and never know what I'm doing, but I have fun with it and am trying to figure out how to be more... visible? as one of the few agender people at my company. I also have a cool history with being forced to dress like a Gothic nun half my life and building cosplays and cool Halloween costumes in the present half. But that felt a little too intersectional, and might not be as useful from an academic lens.

I thought about cryptography, clandestine communication, and the obsession with language and selective secrecy I had as a kid, and how that connects to a lot of ace symbols - the black ring on the middle finger, ace cards, cake, dragons... and how I wound up spending two months and hundreds of hours consuming all the ace content I could find, because words and language and symbols are so important!

And I thought about my life; how it compares to the default narrative, and how I'm going about building my own.

This month's theme is conscious and unconscious differences. Unconscious, as in automatic, or as in: before I knew I was asexual. Conscious, as in: intentional. It's broad enough to wrap around all the above, but specific enough in the "how does this make you stronger" bit that I think we'll still see some cool patterns and strengths arise that help to establish our own narrative tropes.

I bought "unsexy" conservative outfits before I know I was asexual. I avoided people that showed too much interest in me automatically. I unconsciously avoided conversations about dating, sex, attraction, and masturbation with friends by walking away or changing the topic. My favorite colors have always been purple, silver, black, and white. Strategy games were my favorite. I'd obsess over characters that were mysterious, building all kinds of different backstories and futures for them in my head. I never had sleepovers, and didn't understand why people would want them. I was the "lone wolf" in my friend groups - a drifter that got along pretty well with all kinds of people, but ultimately did whatever they wanted with or without company. Around 60% of my friends were adults; I had great relationships with the teachers and staff members at my school, and I knew all the local librarians by name. The gender split of my friend group was always pretty close to 50-50, and populated with extremely different perspectives - punk anarchists, exchange students, female football players, native american sci-fi enthusiasts, anorexic wrestlers, etc. I loved words, loved codes and ciphers, loved fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and music with lyrics. I avoided drama like the plague. I had a very unstable home life, and moved locations almost every year. Home only extended as far as to the skin on my body. I never dreamed about weddings or fancy houses or kids (or even pets!). P.E. (Physical Education) was the worst - I felt uncomfortable in the dressing rooms, so I would arrive early before people started undressing and would change in the restrooms so I would have privacy and avoid seeing naked people as much as possible. I never obsessed over my body - I could go for months at a time without looking in a mirror. My reputation was based on my academics and random hobbies, not my looks or relationships. People sought me out as a mentor and constantly told me I was "mature" and "an old soul". When fights broke out, people looked to me as a fair and impartial judge of the situation, and respected whatever verdict I reached. It felt a lot like being a Buddha!

Realizing I was asexual didn't change much of that, but it did cause me to face choices head-on: would I try to find a partner, or not? Would I try to live with other roommates, or not? Would I try to be attractive, or not? Would I go to bars to make friends, or not? Would I worry about having a weak social network, or not? Would I want to live in a retirement community, or not? Would I want kids around, or not? What would my milestones in life be? How would I fulfill my human need to be social? Who would I trust to take care of me in an emergency?

I'm estranged from my birth family. I'm asexual, aromantic, agender, touch-averse, romance-repulsed, sex-repulsed, and introverted as can be. I tried dating and was so miserable that I wound up finding asexuality because of it in the first place. I don't trust myself to be a parent since my own parents screwed up so badly that it left me with three mental illnesses and a decade's worth of unwinding bad life lessons. So I'm in a fun position!

The "normal" life journey story goes like this: You grow up with two loving biological parents, get your education, graduate, get further training or education via school or a first job, find your partner in life, get into a steady career, get married and live together, have kids, raise those kids, watch them get their education and jobs and move away, then retire and die at an old age. My life only has the education and job bits (retirement? in this economy? die old? on this polluted planet?). I'm not going to look for a lifelong partner. I'm not having kids or adopting. There's a whole lot of white space where everyone else has milestones, and I've consciously accepted that as okay. I'm a family of one, and it's great!

The first milestones I set for myself were to find good roommates, help out fellow child abuse survivors, and own a home. I've achieved them! My next milestone is to do something big and artsy that makes a decent amount of people happy. I have no idea what it will be, yet - right now I've been doing lots of little things: teaching workshops, building costumes, painting, home renovation projects. I'm gonna try being in a music band this year. The milestone after that will be to have a big impact via a community-service type initiative. There's a woman in my city that created an LGBTQ homeless shelter that's an actual home-like environment (seasonal housing with free counseling, job training, stocked pantry, etc. aimed at guiding people to independence and self-sufficiency) which I thought was really cool, and I'd like to do something that's on a similar scale. After that, who knows? Maybe publish a book instead of writing 12 of them and letting them collect dust? Maybe run a small rainbow-themed cafe that makes fancy desserts? So many possibilities!

It's exactly these differences that bleed into my strengths. I'm super independent/self-motivated/self-directed, because I've had to be to survive. I excel at navigating uncertainty, ambiguity, assessing risks, and forecasting outcomes and trends, because my life has a lot of uncertainty and risk compared to the average population. I'm quick to pick up on communication styles and tailor my messages accordingly, because I've had to be mindful about it when navigating my parents and people that developed crushes on me and/or became stalkers. My superpower at work is my ability to dodge all of the politics at play and get everyone on board with factually beneficial solutions (so I still come across as an objective party vs someone playing favorites or only looking out for themselves). People have faith that I'm an expert in all things IT, even when I mess up, because I ask good questions and make fewer assumptions. (I assumed I was cis for 22 years and surprise! I was wrong. Anyone can be wrong. Especially if they are never forced to think about the thing!) I'm great at organizing live events - I plan multiple award shows and get-togethers. I also run an ace & aro meetup in my city! (The experience of being isolated will make an organizer out of you real quick!) People seek me out as a mentor and coach at work because I'm already satisfied with my life and who I am, and I genuinely want to help others without expecting anything in return. I intentionally stay in touch with and work to expand my friend group, which means I have a great professional network of actual friends that I find interesting and fun to be around, and not just LinkedIn faces. If I weren't ace, I wouldn't be doing that. And if I still didn't know I was ace, I wouldn't be doing it half as much as I do now - when you really focus on it, it's so worth it!

So, yeah. Asexuality is a part of me, and it's great. How does your identit(y/ies) make you great?

[likemesomesalads]

I know I keep reblogging ask games from you from my GW2 blog and I always feel guilty about not asking you one of them. I just don't know anything about your characters, but I want to. Might I indulge you to tell me about the lovelies?

This will be a Long one since I have many of them and not all of them is fully flushed out, but here I go!

First up my main: Thoernen:

He is a thief, literally, his occupation in his first 8 years was a thief. He ran away from his Wyld Hunt in fear of death and for years he tried to avoid any contact with undead or other dragon minions (not always successfully but always letting others solve the problems). Alas, in the end, he got baited into joining the Vigil and from there as a vigil soldier he worked against Zhaitan, eventually (following the personal story) forming the Pact with Trahearne and becoming the Commander.  After defeating Zhaitan he got a bit more confident in his work so continued to be the Pact Commander, forming a brotherly bond with Trahearne. Which made it really hard for him once he had to kill him in HoT. In the jungle, he also lost sight in his left eye and got several scars which made him look as miserable as he felt. Also in Maguuma, he saved an ex-mordrem, Dau who later ends up being his dear heart.  Personality wise as a sapling he is cheerful and keeps up the sight of that even after he runs away from the Grove and becomes Soundless, though as he fulfills his Wyld Hunt he gets more serious and broken even, especially after All or Nothing. He can’t take Aurene’s Death and steps off as Commander. he also loses his left arm because it was hit by a blast of Kralky’s and started to turn him branded, which he cuts off himself, not having anyone around. After he retired he and Dau moves back to the Grove to try and live peacefully.Aevelyhn:A helpful, tiny sylvari roaming Tyria and helping where she can. She doesn’t have a specific Wyld Hunt, rather she follows what she was in her Dream, which was helping others. She is often found in Divinity’s Reach, with her friend, Jaquline Du Ciel. She enjoys shopping for pretty dresses, dancing and practicing her elemental magic in her free time.Ainlon:A necromancer who awoken from the Dream with the face of Trahearne in his mind. He took it as a sign that he had to help him so after a few months of training himself, while Trahearne was in Orr and he waited for his return, Ain joined the Firstborn. It was a rocky learning curve to get used to living in Orr but he and Trahearne had a really good mentor-student, then a sort of brotherly relationship. He has a boyfriend, Quinlan back int he Grove who he always love to return to.Quinlan:Ainlon’s boyfriend and a gardener in the Grove. Mildly jealous of Trahearne being able to spend so much time with Ainlon, but knows Ain loves him and he trusts him.Sheara Swiftpaw:The leader of a Warband and member of the ash legion. Very skillful ranger has a pet stalker called Jul and loves hunting trips. She is very tomboyish and not very friendly, however, she does indeed have friends. A norn, called Rhaevee and an asura, Eaxxy.Eaxxy:Crewe leader in the college of dynamics. She loves to come up with new ideas which she usually forgets about as soon as she has the next, so her lab is full of half-finished projects and ideas. however, if she indeed finishes something than it’s the best it can be. She is rather sarcastic and loud. Has an unlikely friendship with Sheara and Rhaevee. Rhaevee:A journeywoman, who loves to travel and collect strange animals as pets. Has a big family with seven younger brothers. She is the only girl in the family which made her the protective big sister. She loves her family very much. They own a pub up in Shiverpeeks and make their own beer as well. Besides collecting animals she also loves to collect recipes from all across Tyria (and later Elona) and shares them with her mother who then tries to make them in the pub and home as well. She follows the Spirit of Raven yet her companion is a white wolf, called Morrigan. She saved Morrigen when he was a pup and his pack was slain by Sons of Svanir. She was led to the pup by a white raven. She is loud and strong, a true norn woman.Jaquline Du Ciel:A second born child in a noble family. She aspires to be a Shining blade member, currently a recruit, to be able to spend more time with her all-time crush so that she can live up to her idol, Countess Anise. Her best friend is Aevelyhn whom she loves to invite to tea and chat about the happenings in Tyria. She is a big lesbian and she does not hide this fact.Aeris Moonsong:Priory researcher and hobby gardener. She lives in Queensdale, near Divinity’s Reach and loves researching ancient artifacts. She also loves gardening but deadly scared of spiders.Cayde:Nightmare Courtier, Duke of Peonies or more commonly known as Dog of Faolain. He and his pod twin, Soléine were lured in a trap pretty much right after their awakening, by Inquest asuras. They both were curious and naive and paid the price for it. They were separated and experimented on. From the painful, torturous experiments Cayde turned to Nightmare and Faolain was there to welcome him. He has quite murderous tendencies and anger issues, resulting in him murdering many other courtiers and captives, for which Faolain had to assign a special ‘sapling sitter’ beside Cayde who can keep him in control. He is obsessively trying to turn her sister to Nightmare and kidnaps her from her loving home. Despite all of his flaws he has a boyfriend, @ascalonianpicnic‘s Aselif who he loves dearly and for whom he would do anything.Soléine:Cayde’s pod twin. She suffered the experimentations as well but was strong enough not to turn to nightmare, barely. She was saved by a group of soldiers, including Canach, who was the only one who could convince her to leave with them and the only one she actually sees as her savior. After she is rescued, she clings to him closely and they grow to love one another. She saves a half-dead fern hound in the human city and decides to take it home and heal him. and since then Isonos is by her side and she finds a passion for healing animals, learns more and becomes a vet.  At the time when Canach is in Maguuma Cayde kidnaps her ( or more like commissions @mystery-salad‘s Aezlin to do it for him) and tortures her, trying to turn her. That nightmare ends when the Court falls apart and she can escape, having again zero trusts in people and clinging to Canach just as she did in the beginning. She is shy and soft and loves animals and Canach.Lusus Naturae: They are Cayde’s 'sapling sitter’. Their pod was taken from the tree by the Inquest working with the fresh Nightmare Court in 1307. The name of the project and the one they ended up having was: Lusus Naturae (aka. Freak of Nature).  Their pod was just freshly sprouted so it had a lot of growing to do. Since they were severed from the Tree at such a young state they have no connection at all to the Dream, to the Pale tree or to other sylvari. It also caused them to take much longer to bloom. It took 16 years for them to be ready and when they were born, due to the lack of connection to the Dream, had the mentality of a newborn. The Inquest rectified the problem with connecting their brain to a computer and uploading the needed data which had them very confused for a while. (The implant which they used to do that is still embedded in the back of his neck.) After they were deemed to be a somewhat successful experiment, not counting that it took them way too long to awaken, and another series of tests, in which they tested their capabilities and discovered their fast regenerating abilities (tested for limb loss, high blood loss and many more which caused their Nociceptors to  shut down, thus they are unable to feel pain.), the Court took them over and they worked for them ever since. First, they worked under a Duke who was a Mesmer and learned from them (eventually broadening their abilities and learning Chronomancy by themselves), but a few years later they were assigned to keep another Duke, Cayde in control for his murderous tendencies. They work with him ever since.Tristrham:A revenant who is not at all proud of his abilities. He got his revenant powers by letting his guildmates die in the Mists when they accidentally found a way there. He actually had to kill one of them himself to be able to escape. (He killed more but didn’t want to think about it and we don’t talk about it. They basically were killing each other due to illusions.) Since he is out of there and once he got used to the voices in his head he went on about in the world, working as a mercenary, ending up in the Heart of Maguuma, where he was fighting to not give in to the voice of Mordremoth. He pulled it off for quite a while and giving in practically just before he died, so he has a short mordrem past, of which he doesn’t remember nor he wants to. After the jungle, he took a little break, trying to relax and heal but eventually ended up joining the Pact and is there ever since.Xeneviev:A spy in the Grove for the Nightmare Court. He joined the court because he has a HUGE crush on (again) @mystery-salad‘s Aezlin and he didn’t have much of a love for his supposed to be purpose either. In the Dream, he saw himself in nothing more than endless fields and mud and he really wasn’t about that. He hated it to the core so it wasn’t hard for him to throw that away for something more intriguing. He loves fashion, Aezlin, doing his job right, Aezlin, designing outfits, Aezlin, looking good and, you guessed it, Aezlin.Dau:His full name is Daulion but he doesn’t like that, so just Dau. He was in an abusive relationship with a courtier, named Alvanil and it took him years to be able to run away. But as soon as he did Mordremoth awakened and he was too weak to not give in, so he became a mordrem. He doesn’t have a lot of memories from that time but he still fears that he’ll turn mordrem again even after the dragon’s defeat. Thoernen saved him in the jungle after he successfully killed the jungle dragon and he fell for him at first sight. He joined the Pact and started to follow around the Commander, lending him a lot of emotional support in the desert, during PoF and they slowly formed mutual feelings and got together. Alvanil:Dau’s cruel, abusive Courtier ex-boyfriend. He loves to make others suffer, especially if they are weaker than him. Not many characteristics, only that he is an asshole. Gotta work on him more.Saberlily:Naive little sapling turned to Nightmare by Gavin, who is her mentor now. She kept her cheeriness even in Nightmare as she thinks there is nothing wrong with how the Court thinks. They want to free the sylvari and anyway, other sylvari do bad things too for no apparent reason. She loves sharp and shiny things. Has a very weird obsession with sharp weapons.Asteracéa:A soundless sylvari courtesan, living in Divinity’s Reach. He had to use his body as payment once he was stuck up in the mountains with no money or anything. (Not like he really had to have to but that was the first thought he had and it worked.) He ended up there by hiding from the Nightmare Court in a caravan. Ever since then he hasn’t returned to Caledon Forest and is a greedy, but highly requested courtesan. He loves to be fancy and even figured out a way to change the color of his body without much hassle. Has a roommate I am yet to name but he loves to hang out with him in his free time. He also obviously very much likes his job and the activities coming with it.Philix:A sweet, furry teenager, raised by two lesbian salads in Lion’s Arch. Works on the docks and as a part-time tour guide. Loves to get in trouble out of work and flirts a lot around. A true teenager.This two is not yet up in my character list, because I am lazy but:Endellion:You can call him En, Endy or Lion. Anything goes with him. He is a hairdresser/foliage dresser?  He loves his job a lot and doesn’t just excel at sylvari foliages he is great with hair or fur too. Residential in the Grove or  Mabon Market from time to time. A cheerful sunshine salad.Dhealaichte:He is Trahearne but not really. He is his reincarnation. Looks and sounds alike has his memories as well, but not his abilities. He bloomed a few years after the defeat of Mordremoth with the name Trahearne but he decided to change when he had enough of being compared to his previous life. He has no memory of his Dream this time though so he doesn’t have a Wyld Hunt.  Once Dheal was full of everyone wanting him to be someone he isn’t he left to discover Tyra for himself and then stayed in Lion’s Arch for a while, working and eventually learning to be a doctor. As the elonian refugees’ numbers grew he decided to go to Elona and help there, so as of now he is in Amnoon doing his best to help people.

[thehollowprince]

Hey, it’s the “coding” anon here and honestly that answer to my question was excellent and the exact reason I come to your blog. I would absolutely love to hear you go on about the fetishization of m/m relationships!

This has been sitting in my inbox for over a week, and I want to apologize. I'm sorry for taking so long to get to this one, but I'm overworked at the moment. I've been pulling 60+ hour work weeks, by myself and I haven't had off since the first of December, so I'm a little tired. But I'm here and I'm ready to murder this bitch of a subject.

For starters, and for context, in case anyone who sees this doesn't follow my blog or, if you do and don't really pay attention, I am a gay man, so a lot of this comes from my own personal experience.

Now, onward my fandom soldiers.

M|M Fetishization & Objectification

I've only been super active within fandom spaces for the last couple of years. Before that, I just scrolled through Tumblr and reblogged gifsets and fluffy headcanons and whatnot, but even then I noticed a trend in fandoms that made me uncomfortable. That trend was the overabundance of gay men (chatacters) in fandom works, especially when there either weren't any gay men in that show or book or whatever.

I'm not at all saying we need less of that. I want and need more gay characters in the things I watch and read. That's actually one of the criteria I look for before I start a new show, or a book series or comics. I want to see myself represented in the media I consume, even if it is only this one tiny piece of who I am. But the problem for me arose when I saw all these fan works and headcanons and gifsets and thesis length metas about gay or bi male characters that were neither of those things in their original source material.

The biggest examples of this occured in fairly popular shows that I loved at one point, but do to a combination of bad writing and then the horrible fandom, drove me to actively dislike and avoid them. And that's always a sad thing, when you end up losing the love you had for something because others just won't let you enjoy it as it is.

Those two examples are Teen Wolf and Supernatural.

For years I watched people go on and on and on and on about Stiles Stilinski and Dean Winchester and how they were bisexual and so on and so forth.

There's nothing wrong with headcanoning a character as gay or bisexual, especially when those characters are severely lacking on screen and on paper. The problem arose when the fandom at large started to ignore the ACTUAL gay or bisexual characters that are in these shows and focus solely on their headcanons as the only representation in the show.

To start with Teen Wolf, we had, in the first season, an openly gay character that everybody in the school loved, that being Danny Mahealani. This character was introduced as gay from the very start, but oddly enough, there is almost no large fandom meta or fics or anything about him. In fact, a lot of his traits and qualities ended up transferred to Stiles, such as his intelligence and overall popularity. Hell, even Danny's attraction to Derek was stolen and transferred to him. These aren't things that Stiles is overall known for in the actual canon. He's clumsy and socially awkward and on the outskirts of the school like Scott (the main character) and has been obsessed (to the point of being considered a stalker) with one girl since elementary school, but somehow, in fandom, Stiles is suddenly the genius polyglot queer with severe depression who has a crush on the broody muscular werewolf who just wants somebody to love him.

Fandom created this portrayal of the character that didn't exist anywhere in the fandom except for his appearance. The reason I saw behind this was twofold. 1: fangirls (fandom is mostly female) want to see two "hot" guys kiss and get it on because they get off to it, much in the same way that straight men get off to lesbian porn. 2: Stiles (or any of these headcanoned characters) becomes a sort of self insert.

What I mean by that second one is that women and girls find a male character that's not "too masculine", usually kind of gangly or skinny, somewhat on the effeminate side. Someone that they can project their ideas and insecurities and so forth onto so that they can that pursue that relationship with the hunky manly man that they want to bang.

You may be asking yourself, "Why don't they just use one of the female characters as a self insert?" and I'm here to tell you that I have neither the time nor the experience to go into detail about internalized misogyny and how effects the way women do almost everything, even watching and interpreting their media.

But the reason they chose the male character is that, years ago, during the dark days of FF.net there was a lot of self insert OCs that infiltrated almost every level of fanfiction. Which caused the fandom gatekeepers to rear out of their hibernation and just shame anyone who tried to introduce an Original Character to this already beautiful world and ruin it with their lusts. Thus the OCs slowly disappeared and identifying with the male sidekick was born. And this is generally where we get the whole "my smol gay son!" bullshit. (side note: please keep in mind that 75% of shows are male characters and their problems, which is another cause for female fans to identify solely with men.)

So, for years, I watched Danny, and then his boyfriend Ethan, being shoved aside in fandom spaces so that the fans could focus Sterek (Stiles and Derek) despite the fact that both characters were stared to be heterosexual and that, on screen, they expressed nothing but mutual dislike for one another, if not outright hatred. This got so bad that Sterek, the crack ship whose members had no romantic or sexual interactions whatsoever, managed to beat (by a very large margin) actual gay ships from both this show and others in a fan poll. It got even worse when the character of Danny was written off the show (with no explanation) and we were introduced to the character of Mason.

Mason Hewitt was everything that fandom!Stiles was. He was smart and funny and openly gay and crushing on a hot werewolf. He even did the research that the fandom loved to attribute to Stiles, literally everything that the fandom had Stiles doing in fanon, but somehow the love for him (Mason) wasn't that big of a note in the fandom. I mean, Mason was even a major plot point of season five and the pack's mission to stop the Beast, but i heard nothing but cricket chirps from the fandom.

You'd think that after Stiles was written out of the show for the last season that maybe Mason will get some love now, right?

Wrong!

I didn't think it was possible to get any worse, but the fandom proved me wrong. Because instead of focusing all their pent up energy on Mason and his boyfriend, Corey, who had a number of cute moments in that final season, these fans focused on another crack ship that had no basis anywhere except in their fantasies. That ship being Thiam, which is based, once again, around two characters who actively dislike, if not outright hate, each other and even physically assault one another. But no, that apparently is a display of affection by someone who is emotionally stunted and just needs love to blossom and be his true self.

You notice how often the fetishization of homosexuality (even if only imagined) intersects with woobification?

You'll notice, if you look at Danny and Mason, that they're both POC, with Danny being brown (Hawai'ian) and Mason being black. Now, as I've said before on this blog multiple times, I am the Whittest White Man to ever White, so I don't have any qualifications to talk about fandom racism, so I'm just going to leave that little nugget there for you to think about and interpret how you will.

Moving on to Supernatural...

Before we start with this one, understand that I have not watched this show outside of an episode here and there since season eight, because I realized that no, this show wasn't going to get any better, so if any of this is contradictory to what has happened over the past six seasons (god, this show needs to die!) I do apologize.

Dean Winchester... I never really liked this character, especially as the show went on and I started to actively dislike and then, hate him. So it was annoying not being able to go into any aspect of the Supernatural fandom without coming across a post about Dean and his issues or his Bi sexiness or how his brother was mean to him.

Also, people, understand that this wasn't a new revelation for me. My dislike for Dean and the fandom's obsession with making him bisexual just so they could hook him up with Cas wasn't an overnight decision. I was there...

I was there at the Beginning, when this show first aired, when the ONLY constant characters on this show were Sam and Dean. I endured the hellfire that was Wincest and its infection of almost the entire fandom. Like, that right there, that was one of the most extreme cases of m|m fetishization I've ever seen, because the fandom needed to get off to two guys being together so badly that they turned to actual brothers for want of any other male character.

That's why Destiel immediately became so popular, because here was another guy that we saw with semi regularity that wasn't rated to the Winchesters, obviously they were meant to ship them.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "I thought this bitch was going to talk about gay fetishization, not his dislike for one character?" to which I'll just say I very easily go off tangent. But all of that is relevant because, come one of these later seasons, there was a scene where Dean was at a bar and the (male) bartender hit on him, and he didn't react negatively or homophobic.

Oh, my God, I watched my dash and the tags explode in post after post, meta after meta, about how Bi Dean was canon confirmed! Now he and Cas will HAVE to be together, because its canon that Dean likes guys. and Cas is an angel, who doesn't follow human sexual limitations, and... blah, blah, blah.

Cut to a few years later, and we're introduced to a character named Max Banes, a witch and hunter, who is openly gay and flirts with Sam in his first appearance. Where were all of his metas and fanfics and headcanons? Granted, he only appeared in two episodes, but I have watched people in this and other fandoms build mountains our of molehills, going on and on about how two male characters weren't actually straight and how they were destined to be together because the once wore similar style shirts a couple of seasons apart, or because of a carnation in a jacket pocket that signified love via the Victorian flower code (or something like that), or how the wallpaper of that room they shared a scene in was a subtle clue to their true desire for each other, etc.

And I'm not exaggerating there, those are actual examples I've seen in fandoms over the years.

But back to Max, why is it that he was left along the wayside, despite fitting most of the criteria that fandoms love in their m|m ships while Dean had entire thesis level posts about that time he shared a glance with Castiel or he let a bartender hit on him and not get upset?

And its not just these two shows, not by a long shot. If you were to go into literally any fandom of a certain size or bigger, you will come across fans putting two straight characters together because of "the chemistry" they have. Even if those characters are confirmed to be straight - especially if those characters are confirmed to be straight. Because when these loud fans don't get their crack ship that they rub one out to, they scream queerbaiting and homophobia and oppression, harassing the actors and producers and directors and writers.

Here are some others that just pop to the front of my mind...

Asher Millstone from How To Get Away With Murder (saw him shipped with Connor a lot, despite Connor's actual boyfriend)

Sherlock Holmes and John Watson from BBC's Sherlock

Tony Stark from Marvel comics (all because of one panel where he said "ladies and gents" when he announced he was off the market

Literally any male character in the MCU, which is his we get the things like Stucky and Stony that permeate the fandom on almost every level (and some leeway is given here because of the MCU's lack of wueer characters)

Klaus Mikaelson and Stefan Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries/The Originals (honestly, I was surprised that people in the TVD fandom weren't immediately all over Josh and Lucas, because they're literally everything that fans want and use in their headcanon gays)

Kol Mikaelson and Jeremg Gilbert, also from TVD

Elia and Filippo from Skam Italia (despite there being, once again, actual gay characters on this show. Hell, the entire second season was dedicated to a character coming out of the closet and being with a guy)

Etc.

I could go on and on but then this post would seem infinite.

Closing thoughts, please keep in mind that I am just one guy and that my opinions don't represent everyone in fandom spaces. But also bear in mind, that my frustrations are well founded and valid from my own experiences in the fandom.

My sexuality and the fact that I'm attracted to men is not a toy for a bunch of sexually repressed fangirls who think two guys being together is hot.

[alinkbetweenportraits]

(First off I dropped the ball and because I was so tired I accidentally deleted the ask. The good news is I took a screenshot earlier to show a friend so she could translate it for me in my moment of stupid. Sorry about that.)

How to let go of an RP Partner

RPers are people. And it’s a fact of life that no matter how close you are to someone, eventually things are going to change. Sometimes they get bored, sometimes they lose the muse, sometimes the relationship conditions change between partners, sometimes people get married, have kids, find a job, and just move on from the RPing scene. Fuck man, some of my past RP friends passed away for various reasons. This is usually why I tell people not to take their partners for granted. Someday it’s going to end and you’ll at least want to end it on the best note possible. In your case, however, it doesn’t sound like you’re going to get that anymore if you keep pestering them. To be frank, you’re going to make them regret their decision if you keep pushing them into RPing with you.

But there’s good news in all of this. Things aren’t entirely hopeless for you or anyone who really wants things to change for the better. Assuming you’re a rational adult that’s just stuck in a really distressing situation, here’s usually the things I tell people to do. 

1.) Recognize where it went wrong. And really, really think about this one. In your case, do you feel like utter shit for what you did to your friend? Do you regret hurting them? Good. Yeah, I know, that’s a bitchy thing to say, But it’s the truth. Feeling like this is a critical step to understanding your faults and making a real change. If you want things to get better in the future, you can’t fall for the same mistakes you made before. You have to be willing to listen and take criticism better if you want to hope for any relief. Not everyone ends on a bitter note, though. Maybe they just don’t feel the character anymore or their situation changed, and that’s perfectly okay. It’s RPing. You shouldn’t need a grand excuse to not play along. Your friend most likely doesn’t hate you. If she was kind enough to offer forgiveness after an apology, chances are she wants to let go just as much as you. But she may just need some space to heal and manage on her own. This is a critical time for RPers who have had particularly jarring instances like this. Please try to understand that sometimes the best thing you can do is nothing at all. The damage is done and unfortunately, you can’t take it back.

2.) Show you respect their decision to be left alone and work to detach yourself. When we’re particularly close to an RP partner or group, we find it hard to move on and write on our own accord. You may have headcanons, memories, personal work, even entire characters that revolve around the other. After some time, it becomes harder and harder to let go. This is the point where I usually recommend people start cleaning up. Take some time to tear things down and build yourself back up. If you have head canons that revolve around that person, try to adjust it so the character stands on their own. Your character is still a character even if they were made to know the other. They’re still entirely capable of being their own unique individual. Do you have any art or original work from the other person featured on your blog? Store it all away in a file on your computer (preferably a separate flashdrive) and try to remove what you can on your blog. Stow it away in a place where you won’t instantly run into it the moment you sit on your computer or open your files. Try taking some time to look at your blog and characters and see if it’s unique to you and you alone. Whatever you do, don’t post any more of the other person’s material from here on out. This will only cause more strife in the future. Nobody will blame you for using face claims, youtube playlists, or anything instant access if it means saving your mental health. 

But Clara! Why would I save these things if they make me feel so awful? Isn’t that kind of creepy and masochistic?

Well, that depends. Of course, not all memories are worth saving. If there are things you feel are personal attacks to your character, such as call out posts, public statements, or anything you feel is humiliating to your self esteem or the other person in question, it’s best to leave these things in the trash. It’s also not healthy to constantly look back and post about it, lest you turn your RP blog into a stalker’s shrine. However, there’s a positive kind of emotional pain, one that typically comes with grief. Speaking from personal experience and watching people go through the same mess, it usually takes about a month to three months to really feel the effects of recovery after having to lose an RP partner. But time depends on your relationship with the other, how close you were with them, and how the relationship ended. When done on a healthy level, it’s okay to recall where you and your muse learned how to become better people together. There’s no shame in acknowledging your mistakes in the past so long as your present self understands this and is willing to learn from it. It’s okay to feel sad, hurt, or lonely. Even if people dismiss it as just a game, RPing can become very personal between people.

Cutting off people entirely is something I only suggest as a last resort in order to protect yourself and people around you. Doing this will not ease the grief process. If anything, it proves to make things far more complicated and difficult. Once you start, it’s something that’s very difficult to take back. I only suggest doing this if you feel the following:

- You have been emotionally, mentally, physically, or sexually exploited by your last RP partner. 

- You feel that this person will try to reach out to you outside of the internet.

- You feel this person puts yourself and everyone around you at risk both physically and emotionally.

- This person admits to actively participating in harmful and/or illegal activities that could get you hurt as a result.

- This person is blackmailing you and threatens to publicly release this private information unless you comply to their demands.

3.) Reach out to new RPers. This is a very scary step for a lot of people, especially if you don’t find yourself very good at socializing and just went through a time where you got a good look at the worst in yourself. But take comfort in knowing that if you realize where you dropped the ball in the last relationship and took steps to improve, you’re better than ever. And if you made a friendship that memorable as your past self, why can’t you do it again? Often times we feel we need to put up a front in order to meet new people and appeal to a certain audience. However, nothing is more personal and intimate than sharing your writing, art, or ideas with other people. It’s important to be honest with the other person and yourself before you can establish any sort of genuine connection. 

It’s okay to message or IM someone asking for an RP. Be upfront, but not bossy. Ask if it’s okay with them to give the idea a shot. Listen to what the other has to say. If you see any streaming events or discord chat rooms, try to join in and introduce yourself politely while also asking for names. Know that very rarely do opportunities simply fall on your lap conveniently and that a majority of RPers are self admitted dorks who just want to have fun, too. Whatever you do, though, don’t start clinging to these RPers for emotional support on the first day. This can be emotionally exhausting and put a ton of unnecessary pressure on another. You must also learn how to manage on your own.

4.) Never forget that as bad as it gets, it’s not the end. Let me tell you a story. My last RP group went to shit really fast. People didn’t trust one another, a whole group became divided, and because the game didn’t allow an equal balance between high experience and new RPers, it wasn’t rare for people to start abusing their power, making it nearly impossible for more timid and new players to start joining. Since I was new, it was incredibly frustrating to play the game. Add to the fact that a lot of these guys were red blooded authors (some of whom already published or are working on books), it wasn’t very welcoming to someone who was young and mostly dicked around in private IM RPs. Needless to say, I was way out of my league. Rules were broken or bent, and I became so frustrated with people stopping and correcting me every step of the way but ignoring their own rules as the game moved on. RPing made me severely anxious, and I’ve had my OCs verbally ripped to shreds right in front of my eyes. I hated going online and my self esteem and overall mental and physical health plummeted to levels I didn’t think were possible. I won’t act like I’m a victim, though. Because I was angry I did things to intentionally hurt other people. I lashed out a lot, and chances are I did more damage than was necessary even considering what had happened at the time. So those same group of people. Where are they now?

We chill out, talk about cartoons, and gush about our OCs or favorite characters.

Yeah. After all the shitty things that happened, we managed to get along again, though this time I avoid the game itself and just RP freestyle. So what does this mean for you? It means that relationships are bound to change, but just because someone doesn’t want to RP anymore doesn’t also mean time can’t make a big impact. Maybe you’ll learn to stand on your own two feet having met new RPers and friends, maybe you and your partner wouldn’t mind at least being on friendlier terms again. It’s hard to say what will happen in the future, but you must always remember you are never defined by your past. What matters is did you learn anything from your mistake and how you decide to act on your newfound wisdom.