#i was just Completely Baffled when i went on tumblr and there just wasn't any posts

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

am i the assshole for softblocking a person (and… existing, apparently)?

so this requires a bit of a backstory. recently i realized that i hadn't seen a certain mutual (person A) on my dashboard for a bit. i decided to go check their blog directly. when looking for it, however, no results were returned. curious, i went to check on a reserve tumblr account i made when my main got nuked, and this person did not delete their blog, they blocked my main. that seemed weird, because i don't remember any negative interactions with them, but i can be hotheaded and say things i later regret, so it wasn't implausible i said something to upset them. i decide to check the blog of a different person (person B) who i know is friends with the aforementioned one, and that person has me blocked as well. "that's not a coincidence", i think, and after sitting on it for a bit i decide to ask a third person, who was friends with both of them, and whom i consider my friend as well, whether i have done something that might have upset them at any point. they tell me that no, there isn't anything like that they can recall. after explaining what prompted this, i received an explanation that frankly baffled me.

turns out, person B was quite distressed with things related to me. according to them, i was an incredibly cool person who everyone was friends with, but i blocked them for no apparent reason and everyone kept discussing just how cool i am, which led to them feeling invalidated and upset. i should clarify, that i did block one of person B's sideblogs on which they post fanfiction for the fandom we're both in, because i wasn't quite comfortable seeing the kind of stories they write and it showed up in character name search if i didn't block the blog. i did not permablock their main blog, but i did softblock it a couple times because again, i'm not completely comfortable with what they write and would rather avoid interactions with them after finding out. i did not have any particular feelings about them as a person, because we barely ever interacted. and while i would not say that i am lame or something like that, i am also not nearly as cool as person B felt. there is a non-zero amount of people who either have me blocked or don't follow me back, and i rarely post original content, most of my blog is just reblogs of memes or other people's creations. i am a perfectly ordinary tumblr user. but i caused them enough distress that they chose to leave a discord server they were in because they talked about me so much, and for some other personal reasons i'm not quite sure about.

recently, i joined the guild and the server this person was claiming was so fond of me -- partially to see for myself how much people really mentioned me, but also for unrelated reasons. being the nosy person i am, i ran my name through the search function on discord. there was a total of six messages mentioning me in that server. in a total of four conversations. so i have been individually brought up 4 times. which apparently equates to a three hour conversation about me, according to person B.

to clarify, i am not saying person B's feelings are unreasonable -- i do know what it's like to feel ignored or outshined by someone, but i don't think i have personally contributed significantly to them feeling this way, nor do i think they interpreted any of my actions correctly.

so, aita for curating my dash and being brought up in a discord server half a dozen times? i genuinely can't tell.

What are these acronyms?

[sketchy-the-changeling]

Do you enjoy being miserable? I’ve been hearing a lot about how many people apparently find misery to be comfortable lately, but how anybody could come to that conclusion is just completely baffling to me personally. So I just figured that I’d ask around about it, to see if I’m in the minority with how that I find misery VERY uncomfortable to say the least, and certainly don’t take any type of comfort from being miserable at all.

I think you may be thinking of the adage "Misery is comfortable; it's why so many people prefer it. Happiness takes effort."

It's not that these people ENJOY being miserable, per-se. That's why the adage uses the word "prefer". Preference and Enjoyment are two different things. They don't enjoy the misery. They're complacent in it. They know it's going to take effort to be happy, and many people don't want to put in that effort, whether it's because they find said effort to be too much work, or because the brief, fleeting relief they get from venting to/trauma dumping on the people around them (even if they didn't consent) is too intoxicating to let go, or whatever else.

So everything I wrote so far probably answers the question you asked at the very beginning, but to be clear: No, I do not enjoy being miserable, and as I've gotten older, my patience for people that wallow in misery has gotten thinner and thinner. It's why I'm of the opinion that having venting channels in Discord servers is an astronomically god-awful idea.

Obviously, if someone is miserable due to factors beyond their control, like systemic poverty, homelessness, mental illness, etc etc, that's completely different. I'm talking about people for whom there are actionable solutions to their problems, but they refuse to take them.

I'll give a personal example below, but it's rather lengthy, and the original question has already been answered, so I'll just put a break here and HOPE that Tumblr doesn't fuck it up.

Example: I'm in a Discord server run by an artist mutual of mine. Said server happens to have a venting channel, so you already know where this is going. One member of the server was an aspiring writer, and would often go to the venting channel to express frustrations with how he can't make progress on any story he writes.

It didn't matter what ANYONE said. So many of us offered solutions to the various roadblocks he was having, and none of them worked. It wasn't because he attempted our advice and failed, but rather he just preferred to complain about the problem he was having rather than actually doing anything to fix it. It was the equivalent of someone sinking in quicksand, and just folding their arms rather than grabbing the dozen or so ropes that people are offering to them.

Once I recognized this was a pattern, I spoke to the server owner privately and said that this needed to be dealt with, because he was becoming a nuisance to other server members and he was just gonna keep doing it if there were no consequences. She didn't do anything, and the guy kept going, and more and more people just stopped bothering to try helping him, but then this behavior spilled out into other channels, and several of us, myself included, went to the sever owner privately about this. Again. Several Times. After dragging her feet on it for months, she finally started allowing mods to time him out when he acted like this, and when that proved to not be enough for him to stop, the server owner FINALLY made the decision to boot him.

Mind you, my stance on people that act like this was already solidified beforehand. This situation just reinforced that stance.

Protect your peace, y'all.

[steinbit]

why is No One talking about this manga???? like there is literally not a Single Post about it in Any of the tags i tried which is like????? SUCH a shame cause even tho there aren’t a ton of chapters out yet (it only started publishing late nov last year) it’s already Super fun and engaging and the art is great! 

[jessepinwheel]

hello! so i just read dielectric breakdown and, it was magnificent? you're a genius? i have, feelings, and stuff, etc.-- anyway, i guess i was just sort of wondering about your thoughts on the mandalorian clone vibes the swtcw fandom is so attached to? like, hmm, idk, do you wish there were more fics out there where it went a little differently? or where the mandalorian aspect wasn't there at all? idk, i guess i just got really curious, haha-- also, have a great day!!! <3 <3 <3

yeah okay I'll swing at this hornet's nest

in honesty I don't think it's unreasonable that, if the clones were trained by mandalorians, that they might have picked up some amount of mandalorian culture, whether that's a little bit of the language or a couple of the customs, the way that someone living in a different language-speaking household would probably just pick up those things growing up

however. I don't believe the trainers would ever actually go out of their way to teach the clones their culture. I don't think they would be fluent in the language because nobody would bother to (or want to) teach them, and I don't think they would be invited to participate in whatever mandalorian things mandalorians do, if they're not explicitly excluded from it. I think I've made my opinions on "jango is a good dad actually" takes pretty clear (as seen by the story I'm working on where jango is literally such a bad dad that he ends up directly causing the destruction of his own empire)

(brief aside, clones using mandalorian as their personal private language is ridiculous not just for the "who the hell would have taught them" reason but also because it wouldn't be fucking private if literally every single trainer could understand what they're saying. this is why I gave clones private sign language that's derived from military sign, because it's easier to conceal and clones probably lived in an environment with extreme noise discipline.)

the insistence that clones are mandalorian and would speak mandalorian and have all these specific cultural views was baffling when I started reading star wars stories and it's still baffling now. my understanding (from talking to people who actually watch star wars) is that there's pretty much nothing in the actual canon to indicate that clones would be mandalorian or care overly much about mandalorians.

yes, I have stories (asynch and related works) where I mention mandalorian stuff in passing with relation to the clones because, again, I think it's reasonable that it would be part of their culture, but I've stopped doing that in all my other works because the fandom obsession with mandalorians is fucking annoying. it's similar to why I made dielectric not romantic--I'm not against clones having some amount of mandalorian influence, but the way people read it is that any quantity of mandalorian culture, no matter how small, will completely eclipse the culture that would develop organically from having four million identical men raised in weird prison boot camp hell

I can only assume that people want clones to be mandalorian so bad because either they want to write fandom mandalorians (fandalorians, as the kids call it) but the clones are the only characters available to put that archetype on, or because people want clones to have fun cultural stuff so bad but don't want to actually build some organic homegrown clone culture, or because despite people saying "blood doesn't matter" they think blood does matter a lot actually and jango being mandalorian means all his clone sons who he sold to the republic for his weird genocide plot means that the clones should definitely for sure also be mandalorian just by virtue of sharing genetic material, which. sure is a take.

I would be less annoyed about the insistence of making clones some quantity of mandalorian if it wasn't fucking ubiquitous, but the tumblr star wars fandom is [gestures vaguely]. if there was a wide variety of interpretations of clone culture, and one of them was that they had mandalorian elements, that would be fun and cool, but the "mandalorian clone" thing has taken over pretty much the entire fanfic sphere like a rampant c. diff infection, which is fine if you're into that I guess but when I want to read about clones I don't want to read about tumblr's workshopped mandalorian culture I want to actually read about the clones.

me writing clones where they are explicitly not mandalorian and reject jango and have their own distinct culture is my attempt at increasing biodiversity. will it inspire people to homebrew their own clone culture and make something that hasn't been repeated ad nauseam? considering I occupy the smallest possible corner of fandom and don't interact with the star wars community at all, probably not. but they're stories that I like and they're out there for anyone else who feels similarly (which, based on my statistics, is a not insignificant number of people).

obviously people can write what they want. it's not other people's duty to write stories that appeal to me, and two cakes etc. I don't read that much star wars fic anymore because I'm bored of reading the same +/- 10% story and mandalorian clones is just one part of why that happened

[lucianalight]

Not really an ask but I just wanted to drop a line to tell you I love you Tumblr blog! ❤️ Thanks for always posting such engaging content!

Sorry, I hit "ask" before I got to finish writing (don't ask how :)) I waned to THANK YOU for talking about your experience with Loki's death scene in IW. I had a strong reaction to that scene and couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. The beginning of IW put me in a phase of "not really functioning properly" for about two weeks (would have lasted longer if I hadn't had my tricks). I can't describe that feelinf other than an aching emptiness, on an almost physical level. Anyway, it thought it was ridiculous and ridiculously irrational that I could feel that way because of fiction. Even more irrational since I wasn't even invested in Loki. In fact, when I came across that scene for the first time (last year), I was like, "Wait, how is Loki still alive? Didn't he die in TDW?" (After Loki's almost death on Svartalfheim, which I thought was definitive, I turned the TV off and never found out that he actually survived at the end of the movie. Talk about cutting off all ties with things one dislikes, huh?). Anyway, back to IW, it felt weird that the scene could elicit such a strong reaction in me. It doesn't normally happen. But then reading your post and learning that you (and others) experienced depression after that IW scene made me understand that maybe there's nothing wrong with me for having such an incomprehensible reaction. Maybe it's just something that happens to some, and maybe that's okay. I can't say I was affected by IW for the reasons you describe, though. I don't identify with Loki at all. I'm the definition of boredom, a grey rock, really. Haha! So I still have no explanation for *why* I felt that way. But still, knowing I'm not the only one with such unreasonable emotional reactions makes me think that, maybe, that's not so unreasonable after all. :)

Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoy my blog!😍❤️

There is definitely nothing wrong with you for how feel and react to fiction. The fictional world, the characters, are not real but your emotions are and they are valid. I completely understand you and I'm sorry for what you went through after watching that scene.

Also I'm pretty sure you're not the definition of boredom as everyone is unique and interesting in their own way :) That being said, identifying with a character doesn't mean you're like them personality wise. It means you can understand, sympathize with and/or relate to them, their feelings and situation. And the fact that you turned off the TV after Loki's TDW death tells me you at least like him a little? So even if you weren't invested in Loki, that was enough to cause you feeling like that.

And if that's not the case either, the scene is objectively a very long, detailed and graphically violent scene. In fact I showed it to my bff when I was talking about how much it hurt me. And she is not a mcu or Loki fan and hasn't seen any of the movies. But she said it was a horrible scene and was really baffled because of the violence in it. I still can't believe they got a PG-13 rating. Also killing by strangulation is a gendered violence and the fact that they did it to a feminine/queer coded character makes it even more horrifying.

Thank you for sending this and I hope you never experience sth like that again. Sending you lots love❤️

[creatingnikki]

Should I just leave tumblr?

Due to bullying.

2020 had been a fucked up year for most people. For me it wasn't just covid 19. In early summer I was afraid of being kicked out of my house and not having a place to stay. It was one of the most terrifying times of my life. I didn't know what to do or who to look towards for help and support. In all that life wrecking stuff I didn't respond to my friend. My dear friend Autumn. We had been friends for as long as I probably started using Tumblr.

When I reached out to her after things got sorted out a bit she decided to ghost me but before saying that I haven't been there for her. I understood one could be mad especially when they felt like a friend hadn't been there for them so I decided to give them some time to be mad at me, to argue with me, and then to get over it.

Then I had a seizure. And my life as I knew it completely changed. I didn't share this with them. I didn't want to leverage that. That's the last thing I wanted to do.

Yet, this friend decided that I was a toxic manipulator and the best is to ignore me.

If you know me, you know I'm anything but that person. I'm not an angel, I make mistakes and unintentionally hurt people too sometimes. But I realize that and I truly apologize and I try to fix things.

But not responding to a few texts while my life is completely shattering shouldn't be cause for someone to write me off. Or even of they want to, thats their choice. Fine, I was just making my peace with it. But to have their friend attack me? That's cruel and unfair and unacceptable.

I have received a lot of anon hate over the years but all of that was bearable because I knew it came from a random place. Those people didn't know me really and I didn't care about them.

But to wake up, while I'm trying to figure out therapy, seek out a second opinion from a neurologist, adjusting in my new house and trying to be a little excited about my birthday, to messages like this just absolutely broke my heart.

Nothing I have ever written on my blog has ever implicated anyone specific on tumblr. Any writer would, especially one who writes from pure emotion like me, know that when you are writing about something it's never one person or one incident or one memory. It's a jumble of multiple such that make you feel the same way.

I never went around and played the victim and told anyone about what went on between me and Autumn. But I didn't know what to do or how to process or how to not absolutely break down after seeing this in my inbox.

What this is is pure bullying. And I never expected to be a victim of that on a place like tumblr that I have always considered my safe haven.

Not replying to a friend for a few weeks when you're trying to hold your life together is not you walking out of their life. Trying to patch things up with them with carefully distanced messages like on their birthday and around Christmas so that it doesn't feel like clingy behavior or coming off too strong isn't playing mind games. It's being considerate of how they must be feeling and not wanting to impose on them.

Before this post, I haven't ever said or done anything that would paint me as the victim in relation to my friendship with Autumn. And even this isn't about that. This is about feeling attacked and bullied by chronicallykalene.

It makes me feel so helpless and weak and angry as if I'm back in high school being bullied and cyber bullied by a group of people. Only this is worse. Because this was supposed to be my safe space. My instinct and tears right now tell me I should go off tumblr. But the life wisdom that I have in me knows that isn't fair or right to me. But right now seriously I don't think I can take this. So I don't know what to do. Other than try to be okay and breathe.

Also like accusing me of sending my self "fake anons"? The only thing I can think of about that is what my parents always say. When people accuse you of such things it's probably because that's what they do.

I think what's unhealthy behavior is labeling every single person who doesn't appease to you or pisses you off as a psychological abuser and toxic person who needs help.

I do not have ten thousand anonymous blogs where I go bitch about people without them knowing it's me. But I can write whatever I want on my blog. And yet I never wrote anything implicating or abusive against someone who was supposed to be my friend.

I should stop here because I feel like I shouldn't have been the one justifying. It just baffles me because people who are supposed to be the 'kind' ones sit on a morally high horse and go around slaying people thinking that they deserve that. In this case with their words. But who doesn't know that words are the most painful.

[snickiebear]

Tumblr keeps glitching out when i try and send you an ask so I will try and keep it short :c

war torn and ragged (the beginnings of peace and a soft, soft life) - with the fanfic ask thing you reblogged.

Questions 1, 3,4,11,12

THORNSPUN!!! HI!!! tumblrs been extra glitchy lately for me too :(( if there are any other questions or anything you wanna discuss, my dms are always open!!!

war torn and ragged (the beginnings of peace and a soft, soft life) + 1, 3, 4, 11, 12

1. What inspired you to write the fic this way?

so the entire "go more into the past and further in the future" for the series was not planned LMFAO. tbh i wasn't even going to write the second or third installment until i saw just how much people loved it?? which fucking baffled me because it was just this silly little thing that i wanted to put out there.

so when i was writing the second one i wanted to dive deep into sakura's POV and a little bit of her past and then how she sees the kids. that was the main idea of the series; God Eater Sakura+ Kakashi and three brats. AHHAHA

the little time skips in between was just me being lazy ig?? i just wanted to write the parts i wanted to and the ones i thought were funny or important, so i kept that theme up with the others ones too just for consistency :)

now, as for the entire Sakura Fucked Up All The Timelines thing, that was me being self indulgent and not allowing anything bad to happen to them LMAO well, worse that than Sakura and Kakashi had to go through.

3. What's your favorite line of narration?

the entire beginning of We Are Creatures Of War,,, i just really think i worded Kakashi's character (in WT&R) with those lines but especially

Fifteen and he was nothing except a ghost. He swore that if anyone dared touch him, their hand would pass right through him (and the thought didn’t scare him as much as it should have.)

this one just really resonates with me and Kakashi and really shows where his character development with begin

4. What's your favorite line of dialogue?

DEF THE OPENER FOR STARS IN OUR EYES LIKE LMAO i was laughing when i wrote that (fun fact! those first two lines were the very first idea and then everything exploded afterwards)

“Kakashi-sensei,” Naruto whispered, the horror plain on his face. “You’re married?”

Lazily, Kakashi looked down at his gloveless hand where his ring rested, “It would appear so,”

Naruto squawked, eyes going wide with disbelief. “Who would wanna marry your lazy ass?!”

Sai only blinked, his brows raising the smallest amount to give away his interest.

Sasuke just huffed, “Is it Gai?”

or!

“What are we?” he rasped, voice shot as he dropped his weapons.

She turned to look at him, grinning at him through bloodied teeth, “Untouchable.” | i really love this one too bc kakashi is like "what are we bro??" (as in relationship status) and sakura like "bro fucking badass duh" LMAO

11. What do you like most about this fic?

God Eater Sakura. Yeah. i just love letting sakura be absolutely feral and give no shits and do whatever the fuck she wants to. and then kakashi is like "THATS MY WIFE" yeah i love that.

12. What do you like least about this fic?

ummmm tbh i don't have anything i don't like about it anymore? i went back a few weeks ago and completely edited it, fixed tenses, added a few lines, stuff like that and now i'm pretty satisfied with it. though, i often don't read my works after they've been up for a while,, so yeah. i'm pretty okay with how it is rn!

though, maybe the whole God Eater and her Wolf thing? idk i feel like its cringey??? i might go back and change it but idk

ask ask ask!

[turned-the-page]

It's the night before the last dance and I have thoughts...

I've said this before but I'll say it again. IF there was a time when things were not platonic between tessa and Scott, I really do not believe Scott COULD have moved on as completely as he has done if he didn't receive a CLEAR message that he wasn't going to have a longterm romantic future with T and I think this was sorted out between them BEFORE J. As a matter of fact, i believe there would NOT have been an opportunity for J otherwise. I know men can be jerks and I have no doubt Scott can be an A1 Jerk but I dont think he has a malicious bone in his body. I dont think he invited J to his and Ts official events as an "in your face" to T. He brought her because he and T were no longer in a romantic relationship, T was aware of her existence and her presence was in no way disrespecting their skating partnership. This disrespect narrative was fandom's feelings and response to Scott's SO not being T. Of course I dont know how if T felt disrespected by Js presence at their events but I can't see what basis she would have for feeling disrespected. Two different relationships; scott wasn't being unfaithful to her so where's the basis for the disrespect?

So if they sampled romance and it didnt lead to longterm, they dealt with that and carried on with the other aspects of their very complex relationship. (Keeping in mind this is just my opinion being expressed on an "if" basis). Tessa and Scott didnt invent couples being in love with each other who couldn't make it work. Scott wouldn't be the first man to have to move on from a woman he loved. Same with Tessa. She wouldnt be the first woman to not marry a man she loves because of reasons only known to them (I say marry because Scott has stated he wants marriage and children). They know each other and their reality best. J isnt the first significant other Scott has had during their partnership so I think romance between both of them would only have been a small aspect of their overall 22 year relationship, and if that aspect didnt work out, this wouldn't and didnt negate the entirety of their relationship. This is what I think is going on now.

In that interview where Scott said he had two beautiful women his life, that's how it actually is. He has a private life with J and a professional life with T. No confusion on his part nor on Ts part I might add. T might have been surprised by the speed of the engagement but she was not surprised that he had J. This interview also put their business partnership in its proper context. They were skating partners who led completely separate private lives.

I have to say here that the announcement of the engagement at the wof hometown was definitely a misstep and left a bad taste towards Scott. But I also think he wasn't yet ready to announce his engagement and his announcement thunder was stolen, twice. Once by amorfatixx on tumblr and then by the wof guy who introduced him at his wof. Im just saying, I dont think he went there that day to make that announcement but once it was anounced for him, he had to say something, which definitely got him in trouble. Ive always thought it begged the question that if Scott had personally introduced J to that wof guy that would have been the time to gratulate him/them when they were face and shaking hands. Why congratulate him publicly if he and scott had a face to face opportunity? So that's why I think someone else informed the wof guy that J was Scott's fiancee. Someone who wanted J to get the attention.

With respect to what goes on in their private life that has nothing to do with what they present to the public as skating partners, I am genuinely baffled why the online fandom is convinced they are entitled to have any information at all. They say scott "hid"J. He didnt hide her. She's part of his private life. Private means not public. And when he brought her to events, he didnt announce her, he just brought her because that's his right. Those who needed to know who she was, knew who she was. Does the fandom really expect that Scott and tessa wake up each morning thinking about the feelings and desires of unknown strangers when they make decisions about their private lives? I must say, this kind of expectation is a head scratcher for me.

I know fandom has been pushing their destructive narrative about Scott but that narrative is not in anyway substantiated by what we can see of Scott and tessa's recent behaviour towards each other. I believe their life is no more dramatic than what they said. They have a complex relationship of 22 years which includes a skating partnership. They are retiring from the skating partnership. The skating partnership is the public aspect of their relationship. In as much as online fandom would like to think they have a stake in how they relate to each other after the last rtr performance tomorrow, they really dont. Scott and Tessa's life after their last public performance will strictly be private and nobody's business but theirs. Status of their relationship is really no longer a public commodity.

Ok, so about his change in behavior when J is at rtr shows. Yes, changes some of his interactions with T because he's mindful of her. What's wrong with that? It shows his awareness that certain type of closeness to T will make her unhappy so he reigned it in. What's wrong with that? Some online Fans bitch when they get the choreo without the sluttiness and when they get the sluttiness they say isnt this guy engaged? They also bitch that he no longer waxes eloquent about his love for T. I dont understand why he should continue to do so. There is now a significant other in his life and he's mindful of her feelings. Again, what's wrong with that? If any these stans were the fiancee, let them tell me that they would want their man spouting love lyrics about his business partner. When there was no one whose feelings could be hurt, he could say whatever he wanted but now he's showing the same consideration to J that he's always shown T. I mean would the fandom sky not fall if scott were start spouting love lyrics about J while still skating with T. And yet, there are some who bitch that he doesnt seem "happy" for his future with J. Again, would not the fandom sky fall if he showed great happiness about going off with J while skating with T. Oh my, poor scott. What's the guy to do except please himself. And by the way, Tessa was the first one to extensively use the business partner label for them but when Scott uses it stans take offence. When he called them bandmates stans ridiculed him to death.

Anyway, to end my thots, if they tried the romance and it didnt work, they acknowledged this between themselves and moved on with the rest of their relationship

And if they're retiring after 22 years, what's wrong with that? its skating for gawd sake, fancy dancing as Scott says. There is actual real life to explore and see what else they can do. And if Scott doesn't yet have a firm going forward in place, so what? He's 32 years old. He's completed a first career already. He part owner of a revenue generating business that bears his name, which is benefitting more than just the online fandom. Scott is already accused of being a one-trick pony. Let the man explore what else he is capable of doing.

His net worth is $2 million as of August 2019, which he earned with his skill and talent. So whichever of you think your hard earned ticket money is paying for his wedding, maybe you can do the math for all the shows you attended in 2018 and 2019 and see how much your ticket expenditure actually contributed to his earnings. Send him your bill and ask for reimbursement. And while you're doing the math maybe you can get the numbers on how much it costs to raise an Olympian, pay for tour buses to bring the tours to where you attended, etc. Maybe when you're done with the math instead of Scott needing to reimburse you your ticket money for enjoying his skating shows, you may owe money to alma and Joe moir as part of the cost of mortgaging their house to finance their Olympian.

[waterlilyfilly]

Introduction

Hi! This Tumblr is called waterlilyfilly, but you can call me Waterlily for short, or Lily for shorter. Any pronouns are alright.

If you're reading this, you have found the Water Lily Filly Blog! A bit deceptively named, I guess, because it has little to do with water lilies, and I am not a filly. In truth, I am fully grown, and also not a horse, and also not particularly female. It's just that I wanted a catchy name, and lily rhymes with filly and one of my other internet aliases also involves water lilies, so here we are.

On this blog, I intend to go through My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episode by episode and write my thoughts down. Before I begin, however, I think I have some explaining to do.

My Little Pony and Me

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic shaped my childhood in a weird way. The idea of the brony was baffling to me at first. I feigned outrage because, of course, what else is a person in their early teens supposed to do when they hear about middle-aged men enjoying a show with a target demographic of girls aged four to twelve? But there was something fascinating about it too. In my head I went through a dramatic, vivid character arc, in which I tried to resist the ways of the Pony, yet ultimately failed. Another soul lost in the great battle against the forces of cringe. Retrospectively, I think that I ultimately got into MLP because I wanted to feel special. The idea of breaking societal rules by watching something someone of my demographic wasn't supposed to was very exciting. I enjoyed the show itself to some extent, but I don't think I ever would have watched it at all if it hadn't felt taboo.

This was very silly of me, of course. First off, I was probably 13 or 14 at this time. Sure, I didn't believe myself to be of the appropriate gender, but I don't think it was unusual for someone of that age to watch Friendship is Magic, brony stuff aside. Second, I was watching the show because of the cultural landscape surrounding it, and not the show itself. I was, to put it bluntly, a fake fan. Oh, the horror. I was a child, and was therefore bad at being alive and making decisions, so I am willing to forgive myself. And I don't think that I gained nothing from the experience, even if it really was just a phase. I suspect that the completely insignificant act of perceived defiance that was me watching My Little Pony as a kid may have fueled many more coherent, meaningful thoughts and opinions I have now, such as a dislike of cringe culture, a distrust of gender roles, and the general belief that one should do what makes one happy, regardless of what others think.

All of this leaves me with an odd relationship with the show. The mane six are mythological figures to me, and their personas are permanently inscribed in my mind, but I can barely remember anything that actually happened. I think Twilight went to Ponyville because she was put in charge of a festival by Celestia to test her princessing abilities? I vaguely remember them having to clean up winter?? There were evil bug ponies at some point??? Honestly, the plots of the retrospectively hilarious creepypastas like Rainbow Factory and Cupcakes probably exist in a more coherent state in my brain than those of the actual show do. I also didn't watch even close to the whole show. Looking at episode synopses, I think I watched seasons 1-4 and started season 5. I know I must have started season 5 because I remember the Cutie Map episodes, but my comprehension of the show must have been awful because some of the earlier episode synopses don't even look familiar.

So why come back to it? Well, for one, I have the obvious nostalgic connection to it. My limbic system is all aflutter at the prospect of a rewatch. However fake of a fan I claim to be, I still think fondly of the characters and of the experience of watching the show. But nostalgia is not the only thing bringing me back. I'd like to think of this less as revisiting something old, as much as renovating something old. Rather than reminiscing about how weird I was as a child or ruminating on the golden age of the MLP fandom, I intend to wipe away the past and give myself my definitive viewing of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. In the process, I'll also be creating a repository for all of my pony-related opinions. 30 years from now, when someone inevitably asks me about my thoughts on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 5 Episode 12, I'll be able to save a great deal of time by simply pointing them to this blog.

(Jokes aside, I basically just like writing about things and I think this will be a fun thing to write about. If anyone reads it, that's just a bonus!)

Looking Forward

It's sort of funny how we think of some intellectual properties as being dead. Though I am loathe to admit it, I am a member of the Homestuck fandom. This is another piece of media which spiked in popularity in the early 2010s and has since slowly faded away from the mainstream. Within the Homestuck fandom, there is a lot of bitterness about the current state of things. People dwell on controversies and mistakes and the diminishment of the fanbase. I mention this because I see signs of the same thing happening in the MLP fandom and it makes me nervous. Friendship is Magic is over, and generation five is garnering a lot of criticism. I have no idea whether this criticism is justified, but that's not really the point. No matter what is happening with the franchise, nothing will ever be able to kill the magic of the previous installments. With that in mind, I want to make this blog a place of positivity. Not that I'm really expecting anyone to read this blog, but if they do, my goal is to give a refreshing new perspective on what is now a legendary piece of internet history. This doesn't mean I won't criticize things I don't like, but I'm not planning on performing a Cinema-Sins-style dissection of each episode with the express purpose of finding mistakes. It's gonna be more casual than that. At the end of the day, I'm going into this expecting to have fun.

Other than that, I think I'm ready to just jump in. I don't have a specific plan for format, or a timeline, or anything. I'll see what I have to write about S1E1 and let it evolve from there. I'll try to put in pictures once I actually start watching episodes, though, because this ~1200 word wall of text is probably not very fun to look at. Hopefully this post will be the most rambly and long-winded of them all. I just thought it would be a good idea to establish my baseline thoughts on the show before I jump in. I am looking forward to this, and if you are reading this, I hope you are too!