#i shouldn’t stress out abt online attention

[faux-ee]

I wrote a fyolai fic that shortened my lifespan by at least ten years (/j) what I mean is that I poured my whole heart into it. I included so much of my reflection on their relationship and philosophy in general and I did a lot of research and put in a ton of symbolisms and motifs…and ofc it’s not perfect or remotely THAT good but I’m really proud of the work I put into it. However, bcs the censor system on Chinese fanfic websites is rlly strict and my fic has some concerning themes (these two r Russian terrorists can u blame me rlly), I could only link that fic in my blog for ppl to read. And most ppl just. Read it and left no feedback, no likes or reblogs or whatever. I’m just so upset and discouraged like I know I’m overreacting but this is the favorite thing I have written I just feel so sad that it’s not getting any attention at all…sorry for the rant I just don’t know where else I can ramble abt my feelings but this is making me feel so bad I need an outlet

[thankyoumskobayashi]

TGCF Snakes On a Plane AU starring Ban Yue as an orphan with a collection of 3,000 snakes which she brings with her on a journey to an orphanage. General Ke Mo is the long-suffering pilot, Pei Ming is that asshole who hits on women, Pei Su is his biologist son who is embarrassed by his very existence. Eventually Pei Su helps Ban Yue in collecting all her precious snakes and putting them back in their containers. 

Xie Lian feels his bad luck caused the snakes to break loose, but San Lang (who gave him his window seat and spent the whole flight flirting with him) insists the problem is the quality of the duct tape instead. Bc there was duct tape used on the boxes.... not the smartest idea but how else is an orphan going to load 3,000 snakes on a plane????

By the end of this experience, Xie Lian's Dad Instincts have been activated, Pei Su is ready to become Ban Yue's older brother, and Ke Mo (who has a secret fear of snakes) just wants to retire so he can leave this plane forever. By the end of it, Hua Cheng has bought several things online that Xie Lian mentioned he had to do without, and even put his info in Xie Lian's phone.

Ling Wen fixed the plane in midair because she used to be a mechanic, and since knowing practical stuff like engines helps her fix the plane she saves them enough to let Ke Mo land the plane. I feel like she wouldn't panic even if snakes are falling on her, so she probably fixed the engine wearing at least 3 snakes as a scarf. Any more snakes and she'd probably put them on the nearest item so she can move around.

Also by the end of it Ling Wen wants to keep her scarf snakes bc she likes having the company. Xie Lian wants to adopt one too, but only a snake that's going to grow up small. Hua Cheng immediately orders luxury snake cages, immediately trying to curry favor with him.

Jun Wu is an old grandpa and he offers to take some of the snakes until Ban Yue finds a home. He's only ever had dogs but he'll be damned if he can't learn.

At the start of the airplane ride, Feng Xin and Mu Qing fought for the window seat in front of Xie Lian, eventually Mu Qing won. Behind them Hua Cheng smiled and pointedly offered Xie Lian his window seat. He slipped his arm around Xie Lian's shoulders and the two bickering before only turned their heads around to glare at this rando for daring to make a move on their friend.

Hua Cheng was some rich kid who was saved from a concussion when a ball from a baseball game went flying towards him at high speeds. Little Xie Lian, who was also sitting nearby and had brought a glove, reached over and caught it. He gave it to Hua Cheng with a sigh, telling him to be careful from then on. Hua Cheng had asked his name, and Xie Lian had unwittingly told him. From then on, Hua Cheng tried to unsuccessfully gain Xie Lian's attention.

They had both gotten into the same college. Hua Cheng despaired in his first year, however, groaning hopelessly among the stacks. Xie Lian, who was scribbling a paper nearby, reached over and handed the last of his snacks to this random depressed person among the bookshelves. He was obviously hungry- his stomach confirmed that- yet he gave away the last of his food with some encouraging words and returned to writing.

He didn't know how many times Hua Cheng stopped by his dorm room, awed, reverent, yet kept away by the glares of Xie Lian's roommates. They knew their friend was gay, and they knew assholes would want to date him, so they did their best to keep him from meeting Hua Cheng.

Even the handwritten note thanking Xie Lian for saving him didn't seem adequate. Hua Cheng tore it up and flopped dramatically on his bed. He'd seen Xie Lian that morning and that was enough to inspire him to keep going.

When college was over, he went back to whatever his parents wanted him to do, but it wasn't enough. He kept checking on what Xie Lian would be doing, until finally he overheard Xie Lian excitedly telling Feng Xin and Mu Qing about the trip they were going to take. So Hua Cheng could only book a ticket on the same plane trip.

Mu Qing had the nerve to snark at Hua Cheng. "Break our best friend's heart, playboy, and we'll break your face."

"Believe me, you'd have to bring me back to life to kill me a fourth time if that ever happened," Hua Cheng just laughed.

"San Lang, you're so funny," Xie Lian murmured. "How would they find your soul the 2nd time, let alone the 4th??"

"I'd die several times over before breaking your heart Gege." Hua Cheng tossed him a red stress ball with silver butterflies on it making a pattern like the stitches on a baseball. Xie Lian caught it, tracing his fingers over that unique pattern.

"Here, keep this. It's my promise to you." He stretched, yawning, curling his hand around Xie Lian's shoulder, making him go red and shift awkwardly in surprise.

Throughout the whole plane ride, Xie Lian's getting hit on by this guy who he assumes is an Airplane Rando, but Hua Cheng is talking to him like they're already close. Maybe he's just a really forward person??

Behind them is this little kid who looks scared and uncertain. She is holding her favorite pet snake and looks terrified.

Xie Lian immediately lends her a dog-eared copy of his favorite book to cheer her up. He gives out crayons, coloring books, pencils- you name it. Ban Yue is having a grand old time, coloring flowers in while she tells Xie Lian about how she's bringing all her snakes with her. By this time the snakes are escaping their boxes, but haven't reached the cabin yet.

Ban Yue loves snakes because they're chill, great listeners, and she has someone to protect. Xie Lian tells her that's wonderful, and if her favorite snake is her only one.

By this point, the snakes have found the cabin's ventilation shaft. They are free from their cardboard prison and spread out to explore this large metal box.

Pilot Ke Mo hits some turbulence. Passenger Ling Wen, who was just flipping through engine forums, slams her laptop shut as she hears something go wrong with the plane. She makes her way to the attendant and whispers a plan as the plane's nose dips unsteadily.

Xie Lian buries his face in his hands. "I knew I shouldn't have gone on this trip! Now our plane is going to crash."

"Gege won't crash, I'll protect you with my body so you'll never hit the floor," Hua Cheng draws him to his chest and murmurs comfortingly.

"Shameless!"

"Too shameless!"

"Don't listen to them, Gege. They are jealous of our love~"

Xie Lian resists the urge to ask how he can fall in love with someone he doesn't even know, when he turns around and sees Ban Yue squinting at the vents.

She holds not just her favorite snake, but two now.

"That's funny, I could have sworn I only brought this one with me. How on earth could the others..."

Screams of anger and shouts of alarm echo throughout the plane. The flight attendant had let mechanic Ling Wen have a look at the airplane, and was then notifying pilot Ke Mo of the situation. Ke Mo agreed to make gentle spirals to slow their descent and give Ling Wen time to fix things. However, he wouldn't have anticipated a snake dropping into his lap so that he'd scream and lurch the whole plane forwards!!!

Screams echo throughout the cabin; other passengers must be feeling similarly.

Xie Lian takes all his luggage out of his bag and gives it to Ban Yue for collecting her snakes in. He then picks up the snake around his neck and drops it in there. Hua Cheng immediately offers to put Xie Lian's stuff in with his own stuff. Xie Lian is grateful.

Xie Lian and Ban Yue go down the aisle collecting snakes and apologizing to the over passengers. Jun Wu is deadpan handing over his snake and asks if he can keep it.

Ban Yue is shocked but shakes her head. These are her snakes, and she knows how to take care of them thank you very much.

They continue in this way until Xie Lian is bitten by a snake. Hua Cheng runs up immediately because he "wants to suck out the venom" but Xie Lian stops him by asking what's the point of Hua Cheng also ingesting it too.

"The point is that if anything happens to you, I won't forgive myself!"

Pei Su who has been calmly reading the newspaper this whole time, clears his throat. "Actually, it doesn't have the proper markings. This snake is not venomous."

Ban Yue's eyes lit up. A fellow snake expert?

Soon Pei Su is explaining to whoever is nearby what kind of snake has just landed on them. He joins the crew going down the aisle stuffing snakes into Xie Lian's bag. Eventually, they run out of bag and Ban Yue thinks to check the duct tape on her packaging... d*mn, did the duct tape get loose again?!? She'd have to check and see. A bad feeling for that mechanic arose within her.

Meanwhile in the cockpit, Ke Mo is hollering mad and shaking with fright. "I have HAD IT up to Here with these MOTHER F*CKING SNAKES on this MOTHER F*CKING PLANE!!!" as more and more of the snakes drop from the vents. He has truly tried to stop the plane from landing right away but his stress is mounting.

Meanwhile Ling Wen is fixing the plane while covered in snakes and completely unfazed abt it. She wipes sweat off her brow and pets the snakes hanging off her arms. A look of concentration crosses her face as she adjusts some more things. "Almost there..."

THANKS FOR READING SO FAR BUT IM REALLY FUCKING TIRED. I GOT OUT ALL MY IMPORTANT PLANNING THOUGHTS SO I MIGHT ORGANIZE THIS INTO A PROPER FIC IN THE FUTURE. STAY TUNED

[anxietysroomsupport]

Ugh ok it’s late and I might regret writing this to someone in the morning but I’m genuinely upset now bc my brother just went on a tangent abt how shipping irl ppl is awful and disgusting but crankiplier (markiplier and crankgameplays) is right next tss for me rn and I almost told him yesterday and I’m really upset that he thinks something I enjoy is revolting. Is it actually that bad like should I actually stop? I don’t post anything abt it so I thought it would be fine and I know it’s not real and not gonna happen so it should be fine right? But then why does everything think it’s so awful. I know the real people don’t care for it but they don’t hate when people do it for funsies right? I just feel so bad now like am I actually a bad person? I always seem to have problematic ships and so I have no one to talk to about it but myself which is already kinda hard, but to think that I’m hated by ppl bc I think certain people can be cute together. Can you help me understand please, like should I stop? -🧸

Hi 🧸 Anon,

This is a very grey-zone question so I think it would help to go over a general range of all the kinds of IRL shipping that take place and talk about each one.

It’s also a hotly debated topic and you can find people for and against it all over the internet, so you might want to read through more opinions as well.

First off, the umbrella opinion seems to be that shipping real people together is not cool, because it can make those people very uncomfortable.  Celebrities are already a lot more exposed than most people and their fans opinions can have a big sway on what content they produce and what directions their work takes.  So, learning that huge numbers of their fans think they should be dating someone or other can be stressful, not matter how they actually feel about that person.  

Some celebs take this information in different ways.  Thomas Sanders and Jon Cozart apparently thought it was funny and leaned into their ship by making a video about their compatibility.  But I recall a talented Loki cosplayer a while back who was very offended that fans were shipping him with another cosplayer and hated all the comments he got about it.

(There is also the side factor of people we see in media or online not necessarily showing their true personality, but actually a persona they create for their content.  Deep analysis of those personas as if they were the real person can sometimes make those celebs feel incorrectly portrayed or misunderstood.  For example, this is tied to why fanders, and Thomas himself, have made a point to clearly distinguish between the real Thomas and Character Thomas.)

So, what form does the shipping take anyway?  If it’s just thoughts in your head - a headcanon - no harm no foul.  It sounds like you’re in this category.  The celebs can’t read your mind, there’s virtually no way anyone will ever become aware that this ship is taking place in your head.  Your thoughts are your own and you shouldn’t feel bad for having them.  This is like Level 1.  But what if it went further?

Level 2 - innocent posts / chatter

From your example, Mark and Ethan do appear to have a very close friendship in their videos together.  So it’s not a big jump to see a new video and comment on their friendship or closeness, and maybe you tag it “crankiplier”.  Ships can be platonic, too, of course.  Pretty innocent, just recognizing things they’ve actually done together, thinking it’s sweet, and chatting with other fans about it.  It might not be the intended focus of the video, but their personalities and friendly chemistry is part of why they’re great to watch together.

Level 3 - fan-edits / art / fiction / and statements

This level is the ultimate grey-zone because of the broad sweeping range of content it encompasses.  Redraws of scenes people have actually been in, edits or video compilations of people’s interactions are pretty safe.  But art and fiction that are creating entirely new events get iffy.  Those celebs didn’t really do those things.  Now the fan is developing the relationship beyond what is really there, and should be reasonably cautious.  

Special attention to the word “statements” - When fans say things in the comments section or directly at celebs like, “you two should ---” or, “when are you two gonna ---?”, it’s creating a clear potential for that person to feel pressured and uncomfortable. 

Level 4 - NSFW / 

NSFW suggestions, writing, and art are very questionable!  People doing this should be prepared to highly curate who has access to their work, because hate will come out of the woodwork.  And if the celebs in question found it, there’s a high chance they would be disturbed and offended, and it may cause them to speak out against it and the poster.

Level 5 - Toxic.

All the levels before now are still grey, albeit some more than others.  But this level (that I just made up) represents the denial of facts.  While shipping can often build off of what was already there, a toxic level of shipping denies all contradicting information and tries to force its own narrative.  Think of celebrities who are actually in relationships already, but the ship is for a different pairing.  Toxic shippers will hate the real relationship, sometimes even send hate to that S.O. and promote the failure of the person’s real life relationships in favor of the ship.  That’s just wrong and it’s veering right into harassment.  

(And coming back to the point about personas, a person might have a relationship that their fans don’t know about, because they keep their private life separate from the persona they present.  Fans can’t know everything about a person, and therefore might cross the line without realizing it.  The only way to prevent that is by not being so aggressive about a ship in the first place.)

Shipping IRL can stir up a lot of strife in a fandom, because everyone has different boundaries and because it has a high potential for going too far -because it has gone too far, too many times, and people, fans and celebs alike, remember dealing with the fallout of those events and how weird it made things for everyone.  Some creators even leaving their work behind to get away from it.  When a particular celeb has stated they are already in a monogamous relationship with someone else, or they don’t like being shipped in general, their decisions should be respected.  Aggressive, pushy obsessions of IRL ships like in Level 5 should be avoided altogether just to be safe.  The celeb’s life is not ours to control.

All that said, freedom of speech means you can say whatever you like, and if that means promoting an IRL ship in various forms, then you could do that.  But other people can also tell you they don’t like it, or hate it even. 

There will always be people who hate you, or hate groups you’re in, for all kinds of random reasons.  People are just too diverse for it to be any other way.  So long as you aren’t hurting anyone (e.g. actively and thoughtfully examining your actions to prevent hurting people) then you do you, friend.

-Miss Fay

[herotheshiro]

i didn’t know where to post this -- here or on my other blog where i’ve moved my fandom ramblings but i’ve decided to put it here since it kind of touches on more personal topics/feelings. jk i wrote it all out and i didn’t really touch too much on personal stuff so into the fandom blog it goes. also putting it under a read more bc it ended up being pretty damn long wow

recently had a sort of issue/not-issue on twitter where i kind of openly expressed my dislike for this one character. no essay backing up why i dislike them, but i do have my (valid) reasons and i tend to be kind of semi-serious w my hate so i didn’t think too much abt swinging my opinions around. and also since this twitter is a recent development, i’m more used to tumblr where even if you openly express an opinion, you have a ton of character space to utilize to explain your opinion so you tend to explain yourself anyway unlike twitter’s limited character tweets where you basically just express your opinion and that’s it. anyway i might have gotten a little carried away since i don’t really interact w anyone in fandoms anymore and only w my fam member who we enable each others’ opinions and put my opinion on my bio and i think that along w my tweet trail led to potentially being vagued abt by a twitter account that mostly posts abt that fandom. i still have reason to suspect that /i/ wasn’t the sole target of the vagueing (if even) bc they said some stuff abt this character’s negative opinion that apparently someone expressed that /i/ never overtly said (like he’s evil and bad simply bc of how he treats this one person but i never said that, just implied that he’s a general asshole and maybe his relationship w this one person isn’t as good as i’ve seen previously from the fandom which is what i’ve deduced from reading canon content). since they never mentioned names or twitter handles explicitly, i purposely made some tweets (still being open, no censoring on purpose) to try to get a direct response and also low-key targeting the vaguers (out of my paranoia that they were indeed talking abt me which honestly prob not but also it’s a relatively small eng-speaking fandom involved w this character so they have to have stumbled upon me at one point). i did get a response (not from the vaguer(s)) from someone calling me out for not censoring my open dislike of this one character. but i also suspect they knew abt my dislike of this one character stemming from their interactions w another character bc they started talking abt shipping even though i never mentioned a ship in those tweets (but i did mention the latter character though not in conjunction w the former). anyway i felt the familiar heat of embarrassment upon seeing that notif of their callout but i almost immediately felt better abt the entire situation bc i finally got the direct callout i was waiting for and i knew what i needed to take down. direct and clear action

in hindsight after i made a series of vagueing tweets last night lol i feel like this entire situation is just me creating unnecessary drama and wildly hitting even ppl not even involved at all (as noted by the callout which was supposedly having non-involved randos in mind) just to make myself feel better or something which isn’t really respectful in any way (and i was totally open abt me just swinging wildly after the callout and my ensuing taking down of posts. this isn’t even a private twitter where ig it’s apparently socially acceptable to talk abt shit like that). and also makes me think maybe i never really learned anything from being online for almost my entire life. a weird part of me has always wanted to become fandom-famous online but i’ve never succeeded in doing so nor have i made an online group of friends i can bounce my opinions and headcanons off of. so i’ve never really developed an online community, i’ve always just been on the fringes and yelling into the mass without getting much attention. now ik that apparently twitter does indeed chuck your opinions well into that mass (good and bad i suppose), it’s a bit surprising to actually get “attention” ... i also mentioned this in my tweets last night but i really really dislike getting vagued abt which my psychoanalyzing brain was like “that’s bc you don’t like not knowing what others think abt you irl” and yeah if you got an issue w me i’d prefer you to tell it directly to my face rather than pretend you like me (which is totally hypocritical bc i do the latter to others but also i tend to just swerve ppl i dislike so it’s not like i go out of my way to pretend to be nice to them).

idk where i was trying to go w this bc now that i’m writing it out i’m like wow yeah i’m still in the wrong huh. sometimes i am in the wrong like years ago when i got called out for grossly shipping irl ppl (which yes i will admit i did do once upon a time but now i no longer do it or am ok w it) but i don’t feel like i was in the wrong this time so i just feel a little frustrated abt the vagueing bc if i was part of the group they were vagueing abt then i was definitely painted as someone w no critical thinking skills which i do, i just don’t share their opinion which they think is right (and tbh i wonder if THEY have critical thinking skills bc they said some things in defense of their opinion which i don’t agree with esp if you’re interpreting canon content like that. are we even reading the same content). i do genuinely feel better abt the series now bc before i was literally anxiety whenever i thought of or even saw the related characters. my fam member was trying to talk abt the series to me and they weren’t even talking abt the related characters but i just wasn’t feeling it bc of this whole situation which i literally made abt me even though there was no indication whatsoever it was abt me. this all make me think that i really should take a good fucking long break from fandoms and social media bc it just gives me unneeded stress and anxiety abt cancel culture, trying to be likeable enough to become fandom-famous, seeing hot takes, etc etc. i’ve already been winding down in terms of strongly interacting w fandoms but my mental health has not been doing so hot recently bc of irl things and fandoms are not ameliorating it at all. ik for some fandoms do indeed make ppl feel better but that’s when ppl actually interact w them and they’re not stuck in a bubble of no response whatsoever while ppl may potentially gab abt them outside of that bubble. my issue is that i always feel the need to create when i really get into a fandom and when you create you want ppl to respond to your creations! so you need to interact w the fandom. but then i then want to actually interact w the fandom fr instead of just posting from time to time and staying out of it and you know where that gets me sometimes. i think it’s bc i had a good time in the pjo and warriors fandoms and i want something like that again in new fandoms i’m in but for whatever reason that’s not how it is now.

i didn’t jump into the vagueing tweet mess bc as i said i wasn’t directly called out and also better to just ignore it but i couldn’t get it out of my head. and that’s making me really consider leaving fandom social media and just create fanworks solely for myself without even posting them online. my works don’t really get much response anyway which is fine tbh even having 1 like these days is good enough so it’s not like i’d be losing out. but idk man ... sometimes you just want to share stuff w others. maybe i should just make my own website and put stuff on there w no expectation for likes or whatever. this has also made me re-evaluate whether or not i really do want to go into art professionally. ik this one situation is inevitable w putting your opinion out on the internet and i wasn’t even in the wrong i feel bc it’s not like i have a problematic opinion (racism, sexism, incest, etc) but it has put a damper on creating content to put online even if the content i eventually want to create is original and is in no way associated w fandoms. even as i write that out i realize it’s kind of stupid to have such a damper put on me. i should watch spiderverse again bc that was the film that really inspired me to create my own creative visual content again and also i’ve been feeling really uninspired lately. ik i shouldn’t let this kind of stuff get me down if i really want to create art in the future but it’s hard to deal w sometimes. honestly i really should be seeing a therapist but also wow now it’s delving into more personal territory so i’ll end it here.

tl;dr i need to learn how to chill on the internet and i think i need to create boundaries for fandoms fr and stick w those boundaries for the benefit of my mental health. maybe i shouldn’t have gotten a twitter in the first place lol even if all i made it for originally was just so i could message a proxy on twitter and not to actually get involved in fandom twitter. i didn’t even get the proxied good in the end anyway bc i was forced to cancel the payment by a third party bc the proxy had not sent me the good in months despite them updating relatively regularly on how busy they were as a student. hah that just how it be

also side note i was like to myself “ok you need to chill bc these series’ characters aren’t real. there’s no need to get so worked up over them” but then i realized even that opinion is “problematic” bc there are ppl out there who really use the characters as like idk a therapy object and i’m genuinely not trying to be an asshole i just forgot the specific wording you use. so even if i’m like ‘they’re fake’ there are others who are like ‘no they make me feel better so don’t hate !!’ which idk is a mentality which i think ppl should shift away from bc you can’t be in fandoms forever unless you’re a professional fictional content creator which is also an opinion i think a good number of ppl would disagree w (“they’re not bothering anyone and it’s their life so what are you to say what they should do??”). idk this is my hot take for the day i guess but it’s fine to be a fan of stuff as you grow up but i think it should become less of a focus/active part in your life as you grow older. i mean maybe that’s a cynical way of seeing things bc maybe creating fanwork is a good de-stressor for ppl but i think i feel that way bc i’m not going into creative content professionally career-wise but ... idk what i’m trying to say here. i guess i just have complicated thoughts on fandoms in general.