#i love my boys and i'm generally critical of booktok too but its not an excuse to be a dick

[elkkiel]

Same anon again, glad to see we agree! I get easily annoyed/tend to be very wary of people because of Discourse TM ive been in/seen go down and honestly i see a lot of it the st fandom that concerns me and annoys me to no end. So im glad to see we seem to be on roughly the same page here especially with how nasty (in the being an asshole to people who disagree way) people have gotten in discourse ive observed. Let people be horny as long as theres no real life sexual harassment/abuse and let people have fun with interpretations of art (as long as theyre not being weird about real life events that inspired the Perceived As Horny art) yknow? I brought in some other discourse here with this ask in particular but i have been very bitter about people lately lol

With how generally sex-positive the fandom is (like in terms of acceptance of sexuality, esp kink and paraphilia), it's a little surprising that people would actually get that up in arms over something like this.

Personally, from my own observations, I'd mostly attribute it to how booktok's kind of adopted ST + Vess as some shallow, sexy spooky anthem/daddy dom character. If booktok is already perceived as 1) low-quality lit, 2) romanticizing heteronormative abuse fantasies, and 3) kinda "cringe", I could see people being extra negative when their fave's starting to be associated with the community.

Which, I understand both sides. I would like to lick the body paint off of Vessel as much as anyone else here. But, the appreciation goes far beyond sexuality, and it's not a factor in my overall love for the band. It can be annoying to see people fawn over "baby-making metal" and our beloved, shirt-avoidant Best Boy at a horny surface-level appreciation. Especially since a lot of the tiktok fandom that might overlap with booktok are sometimes the ones that take thirsting into actual objectifying territory. The music is far deeper than its sex appeal and the community is more than just folks who scream daddy at the barricade during Atlantic lol (idk if that's happened but like you know what I mean hopefully)

So yeah, I get why people would be upset over it. If it were up to me, I wouldn't want Sleep Token to be associated with people's generalized (and sometimes legitimate) negative opinions about booktok. I love them and I wish people got to form their own views unclouded by horny digital shrieking lol. However, this is real life, and I am a mature(?) adult person who can move the fuck on with my life and let the booktok horndogs straight up jork it to whatever they want. It doesn't affect me. And again, if they're not translating their potentially misinformed, hard dom daddy Vess fantasies into harmful irl practice, then who gives a fuck.

People need to chill and realize that there's always going to be aspects of a fandom that you can't control (I'm a veteran Dream stan, miss me with that fandom policing bullshit lol trust me it doesn't work). Just like there's going to be interaction/overlap with other communities that you personally don't agree with. Have your own opinions, share concerns for legitimate worries that don't demonize the individuals themselves, and curate your own online experience to avoid things you don't vibe with.