#i am hoping to return to my twd rewatch (which i was really enjoying)

[youmakethelight]

I've never been in a fandom before so don't know what it's normally like. But I honestly thought, stupidly, that I could just make a silly little account and post silly little thoughts about my fave show and characters atm.

Totally stupid of me I guess, but I didn't expect people I've never met to start targeting and tearing apart my lighthearted commentaries. Didn't expect those same people to taint how I feel about other characters in the show I also enjoyed (rick, michonne, maggie, BETH etc.).

I didn't expect to be made to feel so utterly beneath the rest of the human population bc I dared to lean into the fun I was having watching these characters, and even daring to hope for their story development.

Being in this fandom was so fun for like 3 days and now it's been 1 month and I've only felt increasingly worse and more hated for reasons I don't even know.

It's stopped being fun and feels so serious now. People's mental health is suffering, people are being retraumatised with abusive experiences, bullying is happening among grown adults, ageism and misogyny are being grossly normalised, and so many opposing and strong claims and attacks are being thrown around that I sometimes don't even know what to think about anything anymore. At the same time, I love seeing all the creativity and thoughtfulness happening in this space. It's so weird here. How do I just get the good stuff? How do we all?

I'd been enjoying twd in peace for years. I never felt like my personal thoughts about liking carol and daryl or liking connie or michonne or however else I reacted to things was a problem or wrong. I started posting on here with the same mindset, just enjoying my own business. It's a fictional tv show, I didn't think it was that serious. But boy was I wrong.

Idk why I'm writing this honestly. I'm just getting my thoughts out. I feel like I can't do anything here now without anticipating someone judging me for it and thinking they have a right to be rude. Bye.