#i was so aware that was a problem for teens in fandom spaces but i was not able to acknoeledge it might be happening to me on account of

[aropride]

anons in my inbox like every single day when i was in high school: Actually this fictional character WASNT abusive because he was mentally ill so the stuff he did was fine and its ableist to call him abusive and not forgive him

me (16): ok 👍 i think thats kind of dangerous rhetoric to be spreading considering this fandom is made up of a lot of young teenagers who might be more vulnerable to abuse if they see it excused as being fine bc "hes mentally ill so he didnt mean it so its ok". well anyway i have to go do my geometry homework

me (16) (same day): dear diary hi from the nurses office i thought i was dying again but it turns out it was just another panic attack idk why im having those so often recently. anyway some pretty weird fucked up stuff happened today with my girlfriend as per usual haha but like it's fine. i mean it's not that bad like she's mentally ill so it's not like it's on purpose so it's not like abuse or anything haha. and if i said it was that'd be pretty fucked up and ableist of me. anyway i'm going to go work on the 40 page essay i'm writing for fun now

[bougiebutchbitch]

NGL I do find it funny that the side of the fandom yelling “if you’re uncomfortable with the way Con showed up to a livestream with his whole bulge on prominent display you’re homophobic” is the same side of the fandom that was harboring multiple sexual predators lol throwback to the Canyon Kink Camp!! Anyway shoutout to the canyon for knowing how to be normal about people’s boundaries <3

I notice you sending this message to multiple people. On anon. Smells like teen cowardice.

So, first off -

You are lying through your teeth.

Victims of two sexual predators came forwards... and those sexual predators were immediately thrown out of the canyon. They were blocked/black-listed everywhere and deactivated! Explain to me how that is 'harbouring'?

Some weirdo also started harassing the victims because they were a friend of the perpetrators. They were...... also....... mass blocked and lost all their popularity, as far as I'm aware (I don't actually know that person, and am not on Twitter, etc.)???

Sexual predators will show up literally anywhere in society - including in your precious fandom spaces. Pretending that your half of the fandom is 'pure' and 'perfect' is, in fact, far more dangerous than acknowledging that there were predators, and dealing with them.

Especially when the antis were the ones crowing that people like me, who are abuse and rape survivors IRL, had 'no idea what abuse/rape looks like', and still are making claims like that in the tags - as well as sending asks accusing us of lying about our trauma.

All because we like a fictional character who you hate.

As for Con showing up in his underwear...

Literally nothing was showing.

You saw the SHAPE of a bulge. It was no more revealing than Tom Hiddleston's Loki outfit, and there have been uncensored gifs of that flying around willy-nilly (pun intended) for years without anyone being Shocked and Disgusted about it.

If you're not bothered by men being in underwear when you go to the beach and see guys rocking a budgie smuggler, but you're throwing a massive stink about a queer man being in his underwear on a ticketed show that was always marked as Explicit, and using it as an excuse to call him a sexual predator, I honestly don't know what to say to you.

Boundaries are real and important.

But if you went to an explicit stream and saw something mildly suggestive there, and proceed to accuse a queer man of being a sexual predator... You are the problem.

And yes, you are a homophobe.

Even if you are queer yourself, you are contributing to the dangerous rising current of accusing queer people of being 'degenerate' and 'perverse' for merely existing, because - oh, think of the children.

And that's without mentioning that Con is a vocal supporter of trans kids in the UK. We all know how queer people who dare to support trans people are unjustly painted as predators. It's happening on Tumblr, with the mass reporting and banning of trans men and women for 'inappropriate content' that is no more explicit than what cishet people have on their blogs. It's happening all over the world.

Hell, all profits from Con's livestream went to Mermaids (UK charity for trans folx) and true colours united (homeless lgbt youth charity).

Take a good long look at your argument. Take a good long look at the current political climate for queer people. Ask yourself who your insistence that Con is sexually inappropriate for... wearing underwear, is really helping.

If you feel this unsafe around even the vaguest suggestion of genitalia, the onus is on you to avoid any streams where you might encounter it. You're no different than people who read Explicit-marked work on AO3 and leave hatemail for the authors because you encountered smut.

[batrogers]

Linked Universe Time with PTSD

My friends have gotten the brunt of me going on these rambles at them directly, so I decided I’d make this everyone else’s problem as well. Especially after the recent update and the somewhat... questionable words exchanged between him and Twilight, I figured this could be a salve for people like me and a few friends going “What the fuck” about how out of the blue it feels.

A comment on my approach to canon: I am aware there are things shared in the Discord that are creator content, and on the Patreon to which not everyone has equal access or can even manage to relocate again with any ease. As such, like I do with most fandoms, I will be discounting those as “extra-canon” only referenced to augment the “core materials” which I am treating as the Tumblr account archive, because that is available to everyone, without an account and without paying.

I am, of course, including all base canon of the games in this analysis as well, which is to say all the canon directly included in the games and not including the Ocarina of Time or Twilight Princess comics. Interviews and so on are considered "extra-canon" here as well.

(Also I am in the Patreon and at the moment none of the “bonus” content is relevant to this anyways, for the curious. I am not, and have never been, in the Discord.)

Approx 1500 words.

IIII

I’m going to start from the comment everyone is making about this update: that Malon must be pregnant. Obviously nothing can prove or disprove that in and of itself, but I would argue that’s both not a necessary read of this and the mere question is actually part of my analysis: Link and Malon are, by word of god and how they’re drawn, in their thirties. They’ve been a couple since they were late teens to early twenties, and they very clearly want to have children from how they react to Twilight!

So why don’t they?

Infertility is suspected after two years of a (presumably) reproductive capable couple having unprotected sex without a pregnancy. If Time and Malon have been trying for ten to twenty years to have children (assuming their relationship started between 15-20, and currently are 30-35), they are incredibly infertile. It’s not out of the question, and a wild stroke of luck could still occur (my own cousin conceived unexpectedly after ten years of trying) but it does serve to investigate other reasons: maybe they had some reason they weren’t trying, either on purpose or because something was keeping them apart.

Something, perhaps, like a war.

The base game of Ocarina of Time does not leave Hyrule in a good state. We are told, in-game, that Hyrule was in a civil war when Link was a baby. His mother died getting him into the Lost Woods, where he was raised as an orphan. The Shadow Temple explicitly states it was used to imprison (and, strongly implied, torture) the enemies of the Hylian royal family. Ocarina of Time is the only game to use its unique script for Hylian, which suggests it wasn’t the original language and did not last into Twilight Princess later on.

Lon Lon Ranch itself is both very protected by location (very close to the Castle, close enough it supplies it with food and other supplies) and by a twelve foot log palisade. The castle grounds themselves have two guarded gates between it and Castletown (do they not trust their own populace?) and a vast number of guards on the hills around it. Kakariko also has guarded, gated entrances.

(This all has a game mechanics explanation, of course. Closing off each section with “gates” and high walls permits loading screens to feel justified and more immersive, and saves game data and space. It creates clearly defined, restricted areas for the console capabilities at the time. But they can still be interpreted this way, because that is ultimately still the world they built in the end.)

In addition to that base of implied precarious stability at home, we have the question of how the matter of Ganondorf was resolved. Time very briefly references pointing the finger at him and causing something to happen, but ultimately there is no result that would not have made the situation politically volatile for some time after. Even if they executed Ganondorf immediately, the bad blood between Hyrule and the Gerudo would’ve festered under Koume and Kotake as potential leaders. If they didn’t, and simply threw him out or banished him, the same would apply this time with Ganondorf still alive... and, if we assume that the Twilight Princess Ganondorf and this one are the same, he looks much older in-model than he does in Ocarian of Time which suggests this interpretation holds more weight.

It’s not really a question of “if” things devolved again after these events, but when and how badly. Remember, again, my comment that the script of Ocarina of Time is gone by the time of Twilight Princess. In addition, I've done an analysis of Twilight Princess game implications that do not imply Child Timeline has been peaceful, either.

But, of course, the question of what the games themselves leave us with doesn’t answer if Jojo went with this position within the canon of the comics. There is of course the potential to disregard this if someone doesn’t want to go the route of war post-game for Ocarina of Time. Many people just don’t want to write it, and that’s valid! I honestly don’t think Jojo really considered it.

But, there is evidence that could support it if you wanted to go there.

First of all, we have Time’s platemail. This is based off of the Hero’s Shade platemail in Twilight Princess. Disregarding all other factors, platemail directly implies a few things about Time’s social position at the start of Linked Universe: he has enough money, influence, and reason to have suffered the cost and length of time required to make what is extremely high-level, personalized (in size and design) armour. This means several things:

Time has social status. That armour is meant to be seen and noticed; it’s something that either was made for show (a “jewel of the crown” level of regard), or because he wanted people to notice it personally. He has money, or political favour: that shit’s expensive. He either paid for it himself, or someone paid for it for him. And he has cause to want the level of defense offered by platemail over chainmail or hardened leather. Platemail is uncomfortable. It's heavy, and reduces agility. You wear plate because you expect to get hit, and hit hard by something that could surpass chainmail or hardened leather. Something like a moblin... or an iron knuckle.

Malon directly references this in their visit to see her: “You’re in danger if you took your best gear.”

Time chose to wear his platemail to go after Dink, but this is armour he already owns before Dink ever entered the picture. In that same chapter, Malon directly states “all the times you’ve come home beaten and bleeding.” While they also joke that Talon doesn’t believe him, remember that Lon Lon Ranch is in a very protected place within Hyrule. A war that takes out the castle and central city is a war that’s very nearly lost. (Hyrule Warriors losing Zelda AND the castle was a devastating, near-lose condition and his Hyrule is probably in severe condition.) Talon can afford to consider the affairs Time gets up to none of his business.

But that doesn’t make them perfectly safe. Malon can fight, she’s been drawn with bow and arrow before. Lon Lon Ranch, as noted, is behind a tall palisade and there’s the implications that Talon’s deceased wife might’ve been a Gerudo. He’s also old enough that he was a young adult at least during the Civil War that killed Link’s mother.

And, somewhere between that picture of Time at sixteen or seventeen, when Malon promised she wanted to know what had happened to him, and the start of Linked Universe (a gap that directly implies that this was not the result of Majora’s Mask!) Link lost an eye and gained the markings of the Fierce Deity mask. And, with it, he gained what we’re told by Jojo (in a VERY old ask) is a terror of using it again.

I’m not going to presume to say what exactly his trauma might or might not look like. PTSD and similar things manifest differently for a lot of people. But it could make Time react badly to the visceral reminder of going back into serious combat. A reminder like, say, a long wait for someone to recover from a nearly-fatal injury. Add in that on long campaigns, letters from Malon may have been his only piece of home, letters that likely carry her terror for his safety with them nevermind the specific news they contain and...

He might not be in a good state of mind when setting out once more with one of the young men he’s pulled into this fight with him. He might struggle to think clearly, when he feels so responsible for their safety and remembers how Malon reacted to Twilight, all because of what he told her.

He might say things in a poor way, with fear weighing more heavily on his mind than reason.

[utilitycaster]

"There is zero attempt to extend anything but bad faith."

standing ovation for tidily describing this fandom in a nutshell tbh

Thanks, but I'm talking about a particular subset, the handwringy overwrought appeals to emotion crowd for whom the gods can never under any circumstances be redeemed, so unless you are also talking about that specific small piece of the fandom, I disagree! I actually think the fandom at large has been pretty receptive to the story as it's being told. And honestly, even when I've been in fandoms that frustrated me greatly with widespread bad faith interpretations (Midst and WBN have both had problems here)* they've come around when more obvious evidence came about. Better late than never.

I do think that an issue in this fandom, and fandoms at large, is not so much bad faith but as someone else said, motivated reasoning (though in the case of something the motivated reasoner dislikes, will become bad faith). A lot of people decide how they want to the story to go very early, often in a manner that validates their own existing real-world politics (even if they're not super applicable to the situation at hand) or personal preferences. I mean, that's in the end the source of a good number of shipping bad takes - people decide two characters must be in love and so even if they start dating other people and not talking to each other anymore, the motivated reasoning shipper decides that ACTUALLY this is all a front and the actor's blinks are in secret code and the relationship will definitely break up and the True Love was Always Endgame no matter how many times the creators say "no, it never was our intention to have those characters get together." But even then I think the silent majority of most fandoms are just. vibing and happy to be here. It's just that motivated reasoning people are loud.

And I'm not setting myself apart here; I'm loud and I'm certainly not without bias. My motivated reasoning tends to be based on foregone conclusions that I think are more likely to actually play out, I think, and I try to be self aware about it, but like, I do tend to assume stories will be good and follow some narrative lines and use the hints they drop, and that is itself an assumption because some stories are poorly made. Like, for example, with the gods, I do think that there is very little chance Matt is going to tell a story that's like "hey, Ashley, you know your first ever TTRPG character, who brought you into this friend group and whose life's purpose is to restore worship in the Everlight? Bad news, Everlight's a genocidal cunt and she's gotta die." That's obviously not my only evidence here. We've got the whole opening scene. We've got the fact that the non-Aeorian NPCs who aren't divine companions we've spent time with have been a sickly old man granted peace in death, a gnomish woman granted solace after being cruelly mocked by Aeorian forces, and the beggars who didn't have food despite wagons of supplies going to Aeor, whereas the Aeorian NPCs have been guards, slimy bureaucrats, teens badly beaten for minor crimes, and a drunk cop; the defaced and forgotten temple in a poor neighborhood that is heavily surveilled from afar because its laborers are unwelcome. Hell, as I said before it aired, the fact that the main PCs are gods and not Aeorian mages is a very deliberate and telling choice on its own. But yeah on some level, while I think Bells Hells have the space to decide to kill the gods since they are those same cast members (thought I doubt that is what they will do), I do not think Matt will tell an earlier story that says "hey, everyone at the table except Marisha? your beloved character(s) whom you played for all or most of a campaign followed a rotten-to-the-core lie."

Going off the meta of creators is a bit risky - a lot of dumb D20 discourse is based on assuming Brennan's leftism is the same as Very Online I Do Not Dream Of Labor Leftism and not his actual "the BBEG is the exploitation and undervaluing of labor and the dehumanization of others; labor itself can be deeply fulfilling, you just shouldn't be forced to rely on your capacity to do labor to the exclusion of all other things to be housed and fed" leftism and reasoning from there - but it's certainly more reliable than going off reasoning of "I as a random private individual want the gods to die for whatever the fuck reason and therefore that is the correct thing to happen and any other outcome is bad."

This is very rambly because I just got up and maybe it's that it's a nice morning and I can actually enjoy a leisurely breakfast before going into work unlike most of last week and much of the rest of this week, but for all I proudly identify as a hater, I am very much a lover of fiction and I want it to succeed and I want it to not just validate me. Like, if I hate on something it's because I wish it were better, but I don't hate on something just because it presents a different viewpoint than the one I already held. And I think you have to bring that good faith to fandom as well. If people are being idiots and assholes then yeah you don't need to keep acting like they're valid for that (I mean, they're valid in that everyone has the right to their opinions, but not in the sense that you need to grant those opinions intellectual consideration on par with thoughtful and evidenced meta and theories) but I do not actually go in assuming the fandom is going to be wrong and dumb and disappointing, and I think that's why I've found such enjoyment in it. Most people are chill! Chill people just tend not to loudly say WOW I'M SO CHILL AND THIS STORY IS GREAT.

*one bit of salt to cut the sweetness here but also still weirdly positive: the way I've dealt with that and specifically WBN is that I am trying to write one piece of meta after each episode that doesn't attack people or anything, just lays out my thoughts respectfully. Be the change you wish to see. I think a lot of people in fandom see someone disagreeing with them and go "OH YOU CAN'T LET US HAVE ANYTHING" and frankly this is the cause of almost all fandom unpleasantness I've experienced (in the sense of people seeing me say I don't like something and acting like I shut them down instead of simply didn't vibe), but it's important to remember that isn't how it works. Even if you do think the fandom has widespread bad opinions, you can change this by being thoughtful and patient and putting forth better ones. I mean there's limits, and if a fandom is genuinely hateful, get out, but if it's just surface-level takes for something that should be deeper? Be the one who shows the depth.

[sleepanonymous]

Going through your archived material and getting a sense for just how much these guys are massive nerds behind the scenes (Vessel especially, just wow) has struck a fear into my heart that I didn't previously consider:

Given the general age demographic, interests, and time period for being chronically online teens/young adults, it's possible that at least one of the eepies (again, my bet would be on V) has a blog here.

Whether it's for lurking or a separate interest blog, the possibility of being perceived is objectively quite low but not zero.

Anyways, do with that what you will. I'm choosing to think that, if I'm right, they're just vibing with the memes and horny posting because it seems to line up with their IRL humor.

OR you yourself are one of them + that's the real reason why you've got your hands on so much lost media. I'm on to you pal (/j)

I literally don't know how to answer this, Anon 😅 Like, I don't want to freak people out but it's also a very real possibility they're at least aware of this corner of the fandom. They're in a very unique situation where they can and do lurk in certain online spaces, and I'm pretty sure a couple of them have burners for other platforms, but thankfully I don't think any of them are actively on Tumblr (thankfully).

I can tell you that they're aware of the thirsting and memes, so if they did have a problem with it, it would be stated. What they do have a problem with is fans crossing privacy boundaries or impersonating them online. That said, I know you were joking but I have been accused of being in Sleep Token or knowing them before, so I would like to take this moment to say that I am not and I do not lol. Have I been perceived by them, though? Absolutely and it's terrifying, but it's also always been my own fault 😅😩 The more I think about a certain series of events that happened the day before and day of the Phoenix ritual, the more I hope to god that none of the guys recognized me and my friends on the barricade 😨

[korkiekenobiconfirmed]

I could go on here and say my problems with st*rek lie in the lack of scenes together or the fact that their canon dynamic was more comedic/antagonistic than romantic, but honestly that’s not even it. Idc when ppl ship characters that didn’t have great chemistry, didn’t get along, didn’t even MEET in canon! idc! What I do care about is:

1) Pedophilia. Stiles is a teenager, Derek’s a grown man. I’ve seen debates about derek’s exact age but tbh whether he’s 22 or 26 or 30 doesn’t change the fact that he’s way too old to date a high school sophomore. Period.

2) Stealing Scott’s personality. All the st*rek fics are chock full of Stiles being the nurturing “Pack Mom” while Derek plays Dad when Stiles is unforgiving, caustic, and sharp-tongued 90% of the time. It’s Scott who takes in strays and treats everyone around him with utmost kindness right up until they prove they don’t deserve it. Even then, he still sometimes forgives.

3) St*rek’s prevalence. Okay, so we’ve come up with a crack ship that doesn’t have much basis in canon! Great! Why is it suddenly THE MOST POPULAR SHIP IN THE FANDOM BY A FUCKING MILE? I can’t go anywhere in any teen wolf fandom spaces without the goddamn st*rek jumpscaring me. For reference, St*rek outclasses the second most popular ship on ao3 (which happens to be Steter for some fuckin’ reason) by MORE THAN 7X!

4) The delusion. I’ve seen lots of ships like Malia and Isaac where the shipping is a little…tongue in cheek. The shippers are self-aware, they know there isn’t much canon basis, but they’ve decided to go ahead anyways because this is fiction and it’s fun and it hurts nobody. I’ve seen ships like Scissac or Malira where the shippers are more delulu (admittedly me, lol) yet there’s a decent canon basis to those relationships that make the hc shipping more understandable… but I have never (and I mean NEVER) witnessed such widespread CONVICTION about such a canonically weak ship. Never in my life in any other fandom (besides maybe the rpf weirdos) have I seen SO many people who are SO INVESTED in a ship with such little foundation, while not one of them is self aware enough to look around and admit that it’s really just a crackship!

[tsarisfanfiction]

Love Or Hate

Fandom: Trials of Apollo Rating: Teen Genre: Family/Hurt/Comfort Characters: Will, Apollo A long overdue conversation about family, betrayal, and loving them anyway. TOApril day 15 - Without Requisite or Deadline. Halfway there and this was such a weird prompt, so thanks to @fearlessinger for translating it as "unconditional" for me, which finally got my muses churning on something...

Will opened his eyes with a gasp, residual light taking its time to fade away from the explosion his mind had conjured up once again.  It wasn’t the first time he’d dreamed of that moment, when he’d listened to Nico and death and his own hatred over the urge to heal and save within him, and he knew it wasn’t going to be the last, either.  Some demons just never go away, and regret was one of them.

What made it worse was that Will still didn’t know if he did regret it, and if he didn’t, did that make him a bad person?

He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

Around him, dawn broke softly, a gradual light intensifying oh so slowly in the inverse of the explosion.  There was no sign of the sun, but there didn’t need to be.  Will wasn’t in his bed, wasn’t in his cabin, wasn’t even in camp, and that told him that the dawn wasn’t real.

It was symbolic, instead, a caressing comfort to match the warm hands that were settling on his shoulders, drawing him against an even warmer body.

Apollo had drawn him out from nightmares into a dream safe space enough times in his life that Will had no problem recognising the signs again, here.

He closed his eyes for a moment, watched the rest of the explosion finish fading away, and then took a deep breath.  “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, Will,” his dad said, and Will leaned back willingly as Apollo snaked an arm around his torso, resting his head against his father’s shoulder and tilting his head up to look at him.  “More bad dreams?”

“Yeah,” Will admitted, letting his eyes fall to half-mast again.  The nightmares wouldn’t come for him again tonight; once Apollo had pulled him out of one, the rest of his night was always far more pleasant, if not necessarily more restful.  His body got to keep resting, sure, but his mind and soul wouldn’t.

Not that Will cared, if it meant he got to spend some time with his dad, uninterrupted and unshared.

“Thanks,” he added, somewhat belatedly, but that didn’t really matter with gods, with Apollo, because they always knew what he was referring to even if it took a while for him to say anything.

“You’re welcome,” Apollo murmured into his hair, and Will felt a light pressure in his hair for a moment.

These gestures of affection had never been missing from Apollo’s various dream visits over the years, but they’d become far more commonplace since his mortality and all the various fallouts from that.  Will was sure he didn’t need them to know that his dad loved him, but that didn’t stop him enjoying them whenever they were dished out.

Apollo loved all of them, and Will was sure they knew it.  He certainly did.

Echoes of the explosion flickered behind his eyelids, rudely dragging him out from his gentle relaxation with his dad, and a flicker of… of something, danced inside his chest.  It wasn’t comfortable, rather closer to dread, and in a dreamscape there was no way Apollo wasn’t going to notice it.

“Will?” he asked, probing lightly.  “Is something wrong?”

Will appreciated the offer of an out, a way to dodge the topic, because Apollo knew something was bothering him, that was as clear as the dream-dawn sky above him, but he’d given Will an opening to lie about it.  They’d both know it was a lie, of course, but that didn’t really matter, because it wasn’t about lie or truth, it was about whether or not Will wanted to talk about it.

He didn’t, not really, but it was something he’d never had a chance to mention to Apollo, what with his father’s absence and then mortal stint, and he was self-aware enough to know that he wanted answers, somehow.

He hoped he wanted answers, anyway.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked instead of answering directly, glancing towards his father’s face.  Blue eyes, the exact same shade as his, met his look evenly and softly.

“Of course,” Apollo said.  “You can always ask me anything, Will.  What is it?”

Will took a deep breath.  “Octavian,” he said, and felt Apollo still behind him.  “I… How much was the truth?”

He’d never been able to reconcile what Octavian had to say about his father with what he knew of Apollo, but as much as he hated it, the older boy had been a descendant of his all the same, and Will wondered what that meant for their relationship.  He hadn’t really met many legacies of Apollo; they seemed to be a rarity at Camp Jupiter, for reasons his father had never explained.

Apollo sighed.  “Octavian… was not evil,” he said.  “Nor was he… entirely wrong.”

Will’s chest tightened.  “He wasn’t?” he asked, his voice cracking and coming out far too small.  “But-”

“I did search for more power,” Apollo confessed, “and Camp Jupiter was an obvious place to start.  Octavian was more than willing to help me.  Perhaps it was just because he grew up hearing stories of me from the cradle, but he was always devoted to me.”  Will thought Apollo sounded a little pained at that.  “How he reached the conclusion that he needed to destroy Camp Half-Blood, however, I don’t know.  That was never my intention, or my implication when I spoke with him.  We spoke of uniting the camps, much the same way they are now, not subjugating.”

“I hate him, for that,” Will admitted quietly, looking away from Apollo because he didn’t want to see disappointment in his father’s eyes.  “Everything from his attitude to what he did annoyed me, but it was what he was trying to do that was the worst.  He was going to pin the blame for it on you!”

“I know,” Apollo said, “although I don’t think he saw it as blame.”

Will swallowed.  “Do… do you hate him?” he asked, not knowing if he wanted to know the answer to that.  He didn’t know if he actually wanted to know if Apollo was capable of hating his own descendants, because it felt wrong but Octavian had done so much bad, caused so much hurt, that Will couldn’t comprehend not hating him.

His dad didn’t answer immediately, which could have meant anything and Will didn’t know which anything it was.  There was a tenseness in his body, where Will was leant against him.

“I… felt betrayed,” Apollo finally answered.  “And angry. Definitely angry.  Camp Half-Blood is my creation, and for anyone, let alone my own descendant, to attempt to destroy it…”  He trailed off, and shook his head.  “But at the same time, Octavian is my descendant.  He might not be my son, but… that doesn’t matter, really.  I still loved him.”

“Loved?” Will wondered, and Apollo’s arms wrapped around him, encasing him in a glow of warmth.

“Loved,” Apollo repeated, before shaking his head.  “No.  Not loved.”  He paused.  “Love.”

The emphasis on present tense startled Will.  “But he’s dead,” he pointed out.

“You hate him,” Apollo reminded him gently, and Will felt a little cold at the words, no matter how true they were, because his dad clearly didn’t, and that felt like he was the one in the wrong.  “And that’s okay, Will.  There is no law in the universe that says you aren’t allowed to.  Family doesn’t have to love each other.”

“They should,” Will mumbled, “shouldn’t they?”

Apollo sighed.  “Not if they’ve only caused pain.  You don’t owe anyone love if they’ve hurt you, not even family.  Octavian only ever hurt you.  It’s okay if you hate him.”

“But you don’t,” Will mumbled.  Apollo shook his head.

“No,” he agreed, “I don’t.  But that doesn’t mean you can’t, or shouldn’t.  It’s okay, Will.”

“Even though I killed him?”  Will didn’t mean to ask it, hadn’t even realised the thoughts had been swirling around in his mind until they gave themselves a voice, but he couldn’t take them back.

“You didn’t kill him,” Apollo said instantly.  “Octavian made his own choices, and followed the fate he carved out for himself.  Don’t take on a burden that isn’t yours to carry, Will.  His death is his burden, not yours.”

“But-”

“But nothing.”  Will’s hair bowed under the pressure of something pressing against his head instead.  “Don’t do this to yourself, Will.  You did nothing wrong, and his blood is not on your hands.”

Will didn’t know if he believed that, but arguing the point against his dad was clearly a futile endeavour.

“Why don’t you hate him?” he asked instead, dragging the conversation back a few steps.

Apollo sighed into his hair.  Will felt the strands move around with the force of it.

“He’s my child,” he said, “even if there are a few more generations between him and me than there are between us.  I could never hate him.  I could never hate any of you, no matter what you do.  I’m not strong enough, not to hate family.”

Will supposed he could understand that, at least.  Maybe if he’d ever actually seen Octavian as family, he’d be the same, but he hadn’t – and if he was honest, he probably preferred it the way it was.

Finding the strength to hate family seemed like it would be exhausting.

[frosty-tian]

Being a bit aggressive today because I’m feeling violence (and poor wording).:

Boiling take,

(Maybe it got better or the majority of these people moved to Twitter, IDK.)

Unless you’re doing it for self-representation (including black folks), making edits/darkening skin-tones of anime/manga characters but then simply saying they’re blasian and leaving it at that comes off as mega lazy, especially when there are darker-skinned Japanese people as well?

There are so many other Asian countries with many dark skin individuals which are underrepresented in media, so many other diverse cultures to explore.

Other things you could do is to make OCs so you have more liberty in showing their cultures, or even give more spotlight to dark-skinned characters which often get shadowed in the fandom.

Ones which particularly irk me so much are white Americans/Westerners doing it for the sake of ‘representation’ while having a superiority complex over taking the lazy route, like no, that’s the bare minimum and it comes off as you wanting to be seen as ‘progressive’ but don’t really care about doing research/putting work into it. Also, it’s very eye-brow raising itself, it’s true that many Asian countries have a huge problem with colourism, but doing so is implying that light-skinned Asians are not ‘POC enough’. There are so many thoughts I could say, but way too exhausted to say more at the moment.)

(I’ll try to word things better and provide a list that a friend made on other underrepresented Asian countries which have lots of darker-skinned individuals once I’m in a better head-space and situation, but that’s the most I can say for now/just wanted to get this off my chest.)

(Disclaimer: I’m aware a lot of people doing so are teens whom likely have good intentions, but aren’t approaching it in the best way.)

[silverlulus]

Also I'm aware the stress that others are going through at this time, I also know the risks of calling out the ex mods, more so with rat that is roaming Scott free.

But I want others to understand why I'm doing this, and the main reason is that toxic users should not be allowed in any fandom spaces, more so when hijacking /stealing a entire project with no remorse nor a care in the world he ith the amount of damage that has caused.

I asked for the whole thing to go because of what leech had done, and that it is not safe to keep this going more so if a user called manah is the ring leader in all of this mess.

Problems need to stop being shoved under the rug, and in more so this case.

I have screenshots asking for this zine ver to be shut down fully, and that did not happen, I had no contacts from the ex admins, them just changing the name hasn't changed anything in this, because it's still running on the original skeleton.

If a completely new project was made out of scratch then this call out would not be on the scale it is now.

I don't care if I lose followers, I have never been one for a massive follow count due to my social anxiety most of the time.

I am simply here at the moment to tell people that when you let certain folks run around, this type of issues will happen, the Internet has changed so much over the years and not for the best, so more than ever is that you need to be careful who you let into a fandom space, and the effect it will cause others if left un checked.

I don't want to see more projects/spaces hijacked or stolen because someone uses someone's death as personal clout and thinks they can get away with it.

Being a veteran horse fan has taught a lot over the years, that people will try and take over anything when they feel like it and that they don't give a hoot in who it affects, and this time though is that I was stupid, I was stupid in who I trusted and that my kindness meant Jack shite in the end to them.

And now I have to suffer, and many others as well because with them trying to keep that cesspool running.

I just want this to end, it has become nothing more than a sick joke and should be put out of its misery.

People need to understand that this is not okay, that this is not healthy and that all the ex admins should be held accountable for bombing a protect this hard because they can't be mature about this and let go.

Nothing is gained from this, there is nothing to salvage, and the longer this circus goes on, the more damage is does to the fandom.

I want this to end, I want to feel like I can breathe again and I'm pretty sure others do as well.

That mer ygo zine ver is dead, trying to say otherwise is a joke and wrong.

You can try and delete as much as you want, try and claim I'm the bad guy here, but it won't work, I know where I stand in all of this, so just end this, move on and go destroy something else far away from everyone else.

And I hope in time that you learn from this and actually give two cents in how that certain actions can affect others and more so when you use someone's passing like this, because this has been disgusting on so many levels and pathetic.

This was a simple matter, that has now become a circus and again, a cesspool because of allowing one user use others like this and take them down with them and down a entire project whilst they where at it.

I have no pity for either of them, they made their bed, they can stay in it until they learn to actually listen to other sides instead of jumping on the bandwagon straight away.

I have seen so much in my teens and 20's, this is by far the messed up thing I've ever seen and it once more, it needs to end.

[astridthevalkyrie]

do you actually agree that fics depicting child r*pe should be allowed? do you not think that having media as that so accessible can de damaging? like i’m actually seriously asking not trying to give attitude

sorry i just pulled an all nighter so if this sounds incoherent it's because i haven't slept for the past 22 hours. thank you for seriously asking and not giving attitude lol

it's not about what i think should or shouldn't be allowed. fics depicting that aren't exactly my cup of tea. i don't read them, i don't write them. but authors are going to write dark content, whether that be fanfic authors or published ones. i've written dark stuff that might be totally fine with one person, but not fine with another. your local library might have stuff that makes the worst of ao3 look tame. dark content has existed and will always exist. the problem is, as that post put it, is saying authors can't or aren't allowed to write disgusting things means that now anything anyone dislikes can be labeled a disgusting thing. the slippery slope of authoritarianism.

there are published books that i would never ever want a child to accidentally happen upon, but it is the job of their parents to monitor what their kids are getting access to, the job of the librarians or booksellers to organize things in a way where it's not just open and easy for kids to read. the same thing applies with fics, it's parents' jobs to monitor their child's internet activity, and saying that children can access something is not a good enough reason to say that it means that the writer should never have brought it into existence.

fic writers have a responsibility to tag their fics and if you see someone incorrectly tagging (if you're on ao3 PLEASE be aware that "no archive warnings apply" is very very different from "author chose not to use archive warnings") or it's purposely misleading to get people to click and be traumatized, then yeah, in that case, it's absolutely the author's fault. send in a report!

but if a person as an adult sees warnings, registers them, reads the fic that has exactly those warnings, and then proceeds to say the author shouldn't have written it....it's just so much effort for a mistake on the reader's part. fic is about making yourself happy. why are you reading things that make you upset?

i was 13 or 14 when i joined tumblr. i was 10 or 11 when i started reading fanfic. at that time i barely saw minors dni stuff. i read smut, including dark fics and art that absolutely left me scared to sleep at night. not once did i ever tell the author they were at fault for writing it. i knew what i was about to read. i knew what i was consuming. it was on me and me alone (and i suppose my parents for not monitoring my internet activity). i have two younger sisters who both read and write fic. they weren't online for ff.net and they don't go on wattpad. their fanfic experience is almost entirely ao3 and the first thing they do when they go into a character or fandom tag is take out tags they don't like.

and i'm not naive. they have both most certainly read fics that they shouldn't have read. teenagers always do. i obviously did. very few teens see a minors dni and actually just stop reading the fic. but again—if the author has done their due diligence, on sites that are not meant for kids (tumblr and ao3 both), sites where freaks were promised to be allowed to be freaks, they are not responsible for minors who come into their space.

so that's one part of the argument. the other is the debate over whether writing fictional dark content makes someone as bad as actually participating in that dark content. this is an age old debate. the first time it got really big after i joined tumblr was around the time voltron 2016 came out, when people were being called pedos for shipping shiro and keith. it's gotten much worse since tiktok has become a thing. there are other people who have talked about this and explained it better than me, you can delve into the tags for "anti" or "anti anti" or "proship/antiship" or whatever it's called now.

but calling someone who ships, say, eren and levi in aot, a pedophile, is absolutely off the walls insane. first off, a loooot of people shipping age gap or adult/minor relationships are very likely to be minors themselves. secondly, it absolutely diminishes the meaning of the word. it's the same thing with incest. i've seen people say that shipping characters who are best friends is the same as incest. it's.......not. and you might think, well, yeah, that one's ridiculous, but the stuff that i'm arguing against are legitimate. and i get it. but like i said before, slippery slope. people equating someone's fictional interests to them as a person spells a very bad future for fandom.

i think a lot of this started when people were like "oh your ship is just the character you relate to and the character you have a crush on." and i'm begging people to realize that is not the case at all. a ship can be that, but it can also be "their color palettes compliment each other." it can be "they never interacted but i think they'd be interesting to see together." it can be "oh that makes a hot pair." it can be "oh this would make both characters miserable and i love it muwahahaha."

so just. please reserve the word pedophile for real-life-harming-children-and-minors pedophiles. not for people who write about fictional characters engaging in morally dubious or criminal acts. they are not the same level of crime. i think people need a reminder about why pedophilia is bad—it's because it harms children and minors, not because it disgusts us. and incest is an even more tricky subject when it comes to fiction so i'm not going to delve into it, but in the same vein, fictional incest ≠ actual incest.

i wish i had blogs to recommend that could explain this better, but you're better off just going through the tags (and anything you can find on fandom and specifically fanfic history) because my brain is super fried. and since i am not an expert i'd like to not answer more questions about this, i'm a bit too old and tired for the anti vs anti anti debate, thanks. i hope this helped 👍🏽

[perpetuallurkernazanin]

A teenager appeared in my DMs saying that Eny “seriously fucked [them] over mentally” and asking for help in spreading the word so other teens don’t also get hurt. Here’s the story they shared, and that of another teenager. (cw: the doc-linked-within-the-doc contains screencaps of fetish talk by Eny and another).

https://twitter.com/thrwawyy2/status/1634429570429452289?s=20

TLDR: Eny has been emotionally abusive and sexually irresponsible (to say the least) with multiple minors during the past year.

Near the end the doc says: “I just want people to be aware of the things he’s exposed me to and for him to stay away from minor dominated spaces permanently. I don’t want him to hurt another kid ever again.”

As the doc reports, Eny made this response.

In addition to the multiple screencaps the teen added to their doc showing that Eny is lying about being a fan of 4lung, here’s a screencap I have from 2020 (just taken today in a previously-shared server)[image]

Also, “I looked at this person as an equal instead of a 17-year-old” is a problem, not an excuse. When Eny was pretending to be an adult, he talked about maintaining proper boundaries between adult content and teens. He has not kept those healthy boundaries since becoming a real adult.

This is on top of two incidents less than a year ago.

He knowingly did erotic role-play with a 17-year-old in April 2022. There are screencaps of him talking about it here [https://imgur.com/a/CfBnrkR]. Source: this document, which documents more toxic behavior by Eny in the OSC fandom.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XT6keyvq9B-BDaWzBXLP99FkO0_oNKgMwrduhXyPmOg/edit

Here is a Tumblr post that links the above doc and says that Eny had been talking about plans to re-join OK KO fandom: https://www.tumblr.com/richestindaworld/707160361659432960/awareness-on-eny-luridbrainrotcornenjoyer

In addition to the above, in July 2022 a 13-year-old shared art on Twitter depicting one of Eny’s fetishes (involving teeth). In that post the 13-year-old said they’d never drawn fetish art for Eny, that the art wasn’t fetish, and I do not doubt that for them it was not… but in the past Eny has drawn and shared similar art in Discord servers and talked about how the subject is a sexual fetish for him. I’m not going to post those screencaps for minors to see, but adults may DM me to see them.

*

Apparently Eny has now deactivated accounts.

Hopefully he really is seeking real-life help, this time. Like Eny says: “It’s going to take years for this stuff to even begin to think of healing.” But if past behavior is an indication of future behavior, it’s possible he’ll be back in a few months expecting or insisting that people forget or excuse his previous bad behavior.

He should not be in contact with any minor, as he has shown repeatedly that he can’t help being emotionally abusive and sexually irresponsible to them.

The safest thing for everyone is to not interact, and to simply warn minors to stay away.

[chappybird]

Warning: Text wall incoming! Prepare your bottom!

While I do still have notifications turned off, I admit I did look today after not even trying to look in about two or three days, where I saw the first few words of your post. I was a bit apprehensive in clicking on your post, but I took a gamble.

I did mention a message that a Homestuck Facebook group led me to the MXRP Tumblr, and then to that Discord server. So when people were assuming I knew this or that about, or mocking me for not knowing all about it, it was strange.

The mixed race thing is I am Puerto Rican-Black, like Miles Morales. Heh. I could have kept going with that, but I quickly realized it was going nowhere fast.

LGBTQ+ stuff: What's funny with people bringing up my age is they don't realize I was a teen, and then an adult, protesting and marching and raising awareness during the times when those marches didn't often end without a hitch, let alone peacefully. When it was illegal to get married in the US. When it was very legal to outright fire LGBTQ+ people if they were accused or found out about being LGBTQ+. I think maybe a very old message on my blog talked about what sexuality I am, but I rarely bring it up because of old reservations about that and I like seeing what people assume about me. Kind of applies to the race topic as well.

And I am dogshit with text interactions, especially while upset. But if you were there in the VC, I got a little snippy at the race discussion, and then passionate about the LGBTQ+ topic, but everything else seemed calm throughout, with MMOs being the ending topic. I really wasn't expecting both the accusation and the ban. So I got emotional about such a serious accusation. Which I guess is "only my opinion" from the other replies. Then this fornication cluster went on.

I did fuck up on many things. I even brought up in one post that the things I did say could've been looked at as queerphobia. While I would have still been upset about an accusation, thinking it over would have made me slap myself with how bad I phrased it all, and apologized with hopefully clarifying everything I said.

But this is still over and done with on my side. If other people want to keep arguing about it, it's out of my sight and out of my mind.

I don't know how to do TL;DR things. I suck at synopsizing stories. Uh... something TED Talk.

I hope you don't mind me answering this publically, but I will keep it out of the tags. If you want me to delete this let me know.

I think it's unreasonable to ask you to be perfect, tbh. I don't expect it, and I don't think that launching a witch hunt is the appropriate response to something like this anyway. You misspoke on a few things (Not everything tbh as said in the original post I made I don't think all of your points were incorrect and even the ones I disagreed with I could understand the reasoning.) I've misspoken before. Everyone has misspoken before. The problem with "fandom activists" like the sort of people found on this site is that they care less about making the world and their spaces a better place for everyone, and more about feeling right by lauding "justice" at people they think are wrong.

Thanks for sharing some of those things about your experiences and life. I hope that this will blow over soon. Have a good one.

[ghost-shipping]

I think it's ok straight people like gay/lesbian romance content and also understand that fiction =/= reality, the only problem is that people can still like yaoi/yuri still be >homophobic< against lgbt people in real life.

(Example: straight man who likes lesbian content because "women kissing is hot" and is homophobic against gay/bi men or straight woman who likes gay content for the same reason and wants to have a "gay best friend" and is homophobic against lesbians women /bi.)

I as a lesbian woman as much as I'm fine with straight men writing content with lesbian characters, sometimes i feel uncomfortable just watching lesbian character series and movies that exist only for straight male gaze or being seen as the "lesbian best friend sidekick that helps the main straight female character" and other stereotypes etc is very tiresome. 😐

As I've said before I support straight people liking gay content and creating gay content too, it's just that sometimes i want to see lgbt content written by other lgbt people that aren't geared towards straight people, like, having a preference is not "misogyny" or " sexism".

Sorry for answering this so late! I was traveling for the past week.

I think the real problem is that, because queer people are a minority and have only recently been deemed acceptable to put in mass media explicitly at all, a lot of the representations we get are designed to make straight masses as comfortable as possible even when we aren't being sexualized or degraded. We are objects and not subjects to them in terms of screen writing when it comes to movies and tv. It is easier to write "the lesbian best friend" for tv than it is to write "lesbian main character who is authentically queer in a way that might not resonate with the straight audience". And a lot of tropes that do take off are because of this implicit need to cater to straight audiences who may or may not have unaddressed queerphobia.

But this gets exhausting if you are queer and want any kind of actual fucking variety! I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a butch lesbian in a movie. There's only the smallest handful of fictional gay couples the general public is pretty aware of, and almost all of them are exclusively between feminine gay men. Prior to Wendell and Wilde last month I had never teen a transmasc character in non-indie media at all. We just gotta be careful to not let this frustration lead us into the trap of being pissy with random (presumably) cishet people consuming or making queer content who aren't even doing anything else that can be read as being queerphobic that's so common in fandom spaces.

[phantalgia]

My Experience With The Furry Fandom

I like being a furry. I think it represents a desire to escape what it means to be human into something completely different. To just go into a different world a different creature that you've created for yourself that you have a close but loose identification with. It's got a lot of potential for radical thinking and change for the real world. But I don’t see that.

My Own Cynicism

I’m quite cynical when it comes to the furry fandom as a whole. And before I go any further I want to be clear that there isn't one furry community or fandom. It's no different to how there isn't one LGBTQ+ community. Anyway, I should have really seen what I was getting myself into. A sea of kinks, drama, reputation, competition.

I really was the "furry in denial" person. Being an edgy teen and masking my appreciation (in more ways than one) for some of the OCs I see through trolling. I eventually came out of my shell about it after befriending people who were furries and realized it was just a bunch of outgoing and unique people.

Quite honestly, it was a breath of fresh air. When you surround yourself with edgelords, you just see some very stale personailities resistant to change. But this was different and I love seeing people with amazing and often peculiar personalities. Many of these were strange (in a good way) people, some will be therians (which I do know is different from furry but for the sake of explaining the variety of people, I include therians) and so on. The people you meet is just an amazing experience.

Some people will talk for hours about their sonas or favorite furry species. It's adorable and I love the passion many people have for it. It can be quite a fun and albeit draining experience. It's something I love about it.

But for me, because I had a past that pushed aside that side of me, adjusting to this new world was hard and still is. I often feel out of place within it. I still don’t feel like I belong.

But being in the furry fandom made making friends easier as it was a great segway to friendships. But there still was a problem for me that just wouldn't accept them. Again, many of these problems persist for me to this day. Maybe to a worse degree now than before for a few reasons. One of which I'll at least mention today.

I made friends and even moderated a furry community as a way to give back to the community, and reconcile with being a stupid edgy person. But it was moderating that made me see an underbelly of the furry community I wasn't aware of. This doesn't have too much to do with kinks, I don’t have a problem with furries expressing themselves in such ways as long as they keep it within their spaces. Generally I don’t have a problem with it, and I don’t have a problem with many sub categories of furries whether they're kinks or not or some mix of the two.

Moderating the furry community made me realize how much the furry fandom, the one I have seen and still see, is a reflection of the real world. A theme I have brought up before in another post on online communities. See the furry community just recontexualizes the toxicity of the real world through a lot of ways.

Toxic Positivity

Some furries just have this view that the world is all sunshine and rainbows. They have outgoing personailities yet refuse to challange any notion that the world isnt that simple. They don’t see being a furry as a tool to reconcile with a toxic world and create a new one. Instead it's outright rejection of the world as is and often denial that people feel pain.

Who's Less Weird Competitions

The most frustrating one is when furries get into "competitions" with each other over who's less weird. I have a theory on why. I propose that these individuals want to be an exception to the idea that furries are inherently a "sexually preverted, strange group of people". So they'll do whatever they can to ensure that they don’t seem like that. I'll recount a story:

I remember a group a furries harassing someone for being a babyfur. The obvious insults were lobbed at this individual making that individual really sad. It made my blood boil and I had to intervene. I remarked the irony that they make fun of this person when they're by default hated by the rest of the population for an assumed perversion towards animals.

When these individuals approached me they thought that bullying was a good way to run the world. This incident was the most significant event for me that made me cynical about the furry fandom as a whole. It didn't pervent me from engaging with it. Just I didn't have hopes for it.

Drama

Drama isnt exclusive to the furry fandom of course. Just look at YouTube, celebrities, and Twitter. But this drama culture, I could get into a whole post about drama culture generally, is quite frustrating. Humans just like to get into drama that's nothing new and only natural. My problem with drama is that we have not reinvented drama as a way to emolden community ties, self reflection, and rehabilitation.

People need to be called out on their shit, but they shouldn't turn into witch hunts. Instead, there really needs to be a culture in which we can reconcile with our mistakes and move forward, owning up to the shit we've done to anyone or any community, and growing. That's only being human.

Instead we have individuals who feel the need to have control over their lives that they need to pursue the next "big" drama. They're hellbent on retribution rather than a group of parties getting together to settle differences, self reflect, and provide amends to any offended parties that need it.

Broadly speaking, I think for furries this is just an extention of wanting to be the "exception" to the "furries are weird" rule.

Furries Just as Toxic as Trolls

Another discovery I made about furries is that they can be just as bigoted, cruel, and extreme as any troll. Which is what I see the most. Maybe they're not bigoted, but they'll at least be very nihilistic. This might be more exclusive to one part of the furry fandom than others.

This makes it quite hard to find any like minded people. I have noticed over time the prevelance of toxic or nihilistic furries has increased.

When I was moderating a furry community more often than not it would have been the furries themselves I'd be moderating. Slurs, to harassment, and so on. It put me in a weird position because I was being hated for standing up to this and doing what I needed to do to keep the community safe. Which got me to think about why we force people into situations they intend to just rebel against.

It was a lot of stress, and it wasn't really a good moderation environment as a whole. And it made me reevaluate the ideas of community. The abstract nature of "rules".

It's kind of the reason why anarchy appealed to me. It allows the freedom for people to associate with who they wish. And in retrospect, I wish there was a decentralized way to moderate. Because I want to be away from the toxicity too. But if all the toxicity came from the furries themselves what good was I doing just making myself more hated and draining my mental health?

Parasocial Relationships

This sort of overlaps with some of the things I listed. There's a reason why I don’t like to watch furry content creators. I don’t like that space where it's like this human but not human speaking to me. And it makes me aware of this weird kind of artifical personality that seems cartoonishly uncanny. Like underneath there's something else not being said. And I can never shake off that feeling.

It's like there's a big elephant in the room that isn't being adressed while this person puts on this exaggerated show that's hard to tell if it's genuine or not or some mix.

So it's not exclusive to furries, as usual. But I cant help but see it as caricaturing reality and interaction with other people. Then you get into these very strange videos or streams where the viewer feels like they're being addressed directly and then you get into those parasocial relationships. Whether they know it or not, taking advantage of lonely and vulnerable people for the sake of clicks and clout. They may have good intentions but with a little bit of self reflection reveals a very messed up situation. I don’t like it at all.

There have been plenty of instances where furry content creators have a "cult of personaility". And it gets into that whole thing of parasocial relationships and taking advantage of vulnerable people.

This may just be me complaining about it and I just become no different than any of the types of people I've complained about but it gets me into something else

Cynicism in The Fandom

The paradox is im not helping with this one. But I’m at least aware of it. There's a bit of what feels like cynicism within the fandom and I think that's the umbrella term I can put all the types of people I’m listing under.

I think some of these people might not be aware that they're walking down a cynical path. But it feels like they are. If it isn't then it's me who is the only one being cynical.

But I can't help but notice what I see. Competitions, a "meritocracy" in the fandom, status symbolism, drama, toxicity. This could just be coming from a place of complete resignation from everything around me. Or a sense that the dream I was to get out of the furry fandom never materialized for me and I’m just venting my angst.

I often see a lot of right wing furries and there's plenty of them out there. It's quite strange to me as I would assume to many others is strange. Perhaps it's more of the "want to be an exception" type of feelings. Who knows.

A Shocking Amount of BAD Weird People

Without being upfront there does exist a percentage of people in the community that are really really into NOT good things and have done some heinous things. I had to moderate those people.

I don’t believe this is necessarily a reflection of the fandom as a whole, of course not. Just because it's a fandom of people who like anthro-animals doesn't mean anything, but it does make it easier for nefarious people to take advantage of that.

I really think that relating the problem of these people to the fandom as a whole or any community for that matter is counter productive unless that community is just upfront about their intentions. This isn't some inherent fault within the furry fandom.

These messed up people existed without the need for the furry community. A lot of times, furry communities can be real life savers for people who need it. Yes, it can make it easier for messed up people to reaffirm their beliefs but it's really no different than any other subcultures that have had their fair share of controversy. Hell, religion is notrious for controversy.

These people are manifeststions of their material reality, not some dangerous group of people. This is the theme I’m getting after. These people exist because of conditions outside the furry fandom, the real world. Not exclusive to the fandom.

But regardless, Ive come across people who really don’t have self awareness. They surround themselves with people or thought processes that try to justify their behaviors and it just deteriorates from there.

The furry fandom provides an easy means to do nefarious acts but isnt the intention of the fandom as a whole when there isnt an implicit intention in mind. It's up to the individual person what theyre going to do. And that I leave for psychologists and sociologists.

Reflecting the Real World

I want to reiterate that my observations have come from just noticing how the fandom (and many other communities and online communities for that matter) just reflects the real world. People escaping the confusing, surreal, horrifying nature of post-modernity. They think they're leaving the real world behind and escaping but are being followed by the shadow of the real world. The real world is what creates the type of "furry" you become. You can't shake it.

Reconciliation and Creativity

I would like to wish that the furry fandom or communities within it start realizing this. Perhaps then it could be a nice place to experiment with new alternatives for the world and not just be a sad attempt at escaping it.

I’m sure there are plenty that exist out there. Plenty of left leaning furries out there.

Why I Haven't Given Up On The Fandom

I could have just stopped being a furry and gave up on it or not associate with it. But I don’t want to. In fact I enjoy it a lot and have ideas about my own fursona I'd like to have realized.

For me having a fursona symbolizes the desire to take who I am now and turn myself into someone I'd like to be. It's not so much about escapism but more so reconciliation and attatching the wholesomeness you can find within the fandom into something new.

I don’t entirely believe that there is something holistically wrong with the furry community as a whole. I spent this entire post ranting and venting about my experience with it. But it comes down to the bottom line that I was seeing a world that reflected the real world. Not something that had an alternative for it. Sure it tries to escape but how does it do it? It's outright denial, or perverts it.

Being a furry is a dream, it's an idealized world that escapes modern dystopia with something human-like but very different from being human. A return to natural roots while integrating what it means to be human today. I’m not giving up on that. I won’t let anyone tell me otherwise. I can carve out my own corner in the fandom, my own community. Plus a lot of the art is hot as hell.

[whimsyrefrain]

REGARDING THE THING ABT SHIPPING HIMERU W ANYONE BUT RINNE IN YOUR RENTRY.

I ABSOLUTELY AGREE OH THANK GOD. istg i have never seen another person say this, especially with the exact same reasoning as me. i ALWAYSSSS get told im being too "sensitive" about it, but theres always a chance he could be multiple years older than most of the fanbase expects him to be and it makes me feel weird when i see him shipped w/other characters..

nothing else i wanted to say! just thankful someone out there agrees + your toujoubros sticker/chibis are absolutely adorable ^_^

Hello anon! okay first off i'm genuinely sorry that people have made you feel this way, especially if you're young. i do not know how old you are, but if you are a minor your worries are 100% reasonable and understandable. and do know that there are people who do share your stance.

Also thank you for the compliment!! i'm glad you enjoyed them :3

Okay with that out of the way, now onto my personal thoughts.

the thing is though, i'm aware that inherently fandom spaces care so little about applying critical thought when it comes to shipping. so i try to not let it get to me too much, even if i'm bothered. but i can't lie i am both perplexed and annoyed by how little thought people put into shipping himeru with other characters

like fine. i can admit that i am perhaps a little too sensitive when it comes to age gap relationships. part of my distaste IS a me issue because it's one of those things i cant separate the reality from fiction, but i find this really strange among enstars fans? because i feel like at least among younger fans, you'll see them denounce all sorts of weird dynamics... but somehow himeru is out of the radar for such discussions? which is odd to me

maybe the problem is i just don't understand what age people perceive himeru as? because i thought the fandom consensus was that he's probably older than rinne, the only question is by how much. but i personally find that hypothetical irrelevant to the discussion. because if that's true then regardless of what specific age himeru is, he's still considerably older than majority of the cast. why are we pairing an established adult with teens who barely graduated high school

or at least that's my opinion. i've seen people believe himeru is 20. which makes no sense to me considering his lore but 🤷 i don't know maybe my other issue is that i value kaname as a character too much 🤷

[rv2xlga]

its that time of the night again.

its 4 am, the eepiness is calling me but the voices are louder so ive come on here to rant abt shuake instead of doing smth productive like drawing❤️ i waste away ranting abt shuake on tumblr to drown out my sadness and overwhelming nostalgia at random times of the day, how wonderful!

i did one of those song association annotation thingies to capable of love by pinkpantheress (she’s so queen may i add) and it got me thinking so much about shuake and just as of late ive been thinking of them bc schl is ending so i finally have time to replay and play the games like p3 or tactica and q1/2 and be able to focus my time on them and also bc im seeing a psychiatrist very soon from now! which makes me think abt shuake a lot bc they are like. HUGE projection dolls for me and i think on that.. quite often especially akechi since he’s the main one for me, the one more personal to me. i think abt his bpd and mentally unwell brain quite often (lol) and i think the way their love is is just very fascinating to me.

i guess its nice or interesting i guess, to see the way i feel and view love be shown in a character so out of the blue. the way akechi’s love is for akira can be viewed this way and again, i think it’s all very interesting. i love shuake so much for this reason and what i wanted to talk about mostly today is how much they truly mean to each other. This is one thing i hate ppl in fandom spaces for bc they always manage to find SOMEWAY to ruin any nuances anything COULDVE had (ik atlus did not try past queerbaiting lmfao) and i hate how to anyone else not apart of these spaces but aware of them just sees anyone talking abt a ship and specifically any popular gay ship and is so quick to assume like wait i actually care lol 😭 and i bring this up bc i really love to view their characters like akira and akechi’s characters individually through the shuake lenses and perspective. tbh i dont really care for persona outside of them and obviously a few other things of course but shuake is the real reason why im even fixated on that game still in the first place so of course, naturally i will focus on this.

i love to think on how akechi subconsciously views akira in his head. i like to interpret akechi as just a nerd girlboy who has a little crush and all the fun cutesy things abt being a teen or whatever 😆 i think that’s all so cute and fun for him and i believe its so him and i love to view him as the teen he is, the child inside of him that’s ridiculous and goes off for hours ranting about his favorite things repeating himself over and over until he tires himself out or the lovey dovey part of him that thinks about akira in random parts of his day and cant stop giggling and smiling at a simple text yk like all the cutie things ☹️ it doesn’t remove nuance and it doesn’t remove character bc thats how teens act, obviously not as stereotypical as i described but that’s how ridiculous we are sometimes! and i love to think on how he views all these big horrible issues in a simple lenses.

doing the song associations with so many taylor songs and then a pink one really reminded me of this bc of the fact that taylor’s (OLD) lyrics are just so serious and more “mature” and i mostly mean folklore and evermore bc im talking abt cardigan specifically rn (that song is just so akechi im sorry) to now doing capable of love bc pink’s lyrics are simple! not bad just obviously more simple so i get to really view akechi in these lenses. I get to have that minute of writer relief even if he isnt my character but yk wtv ig😞 anywhoanywho, again, i love to view akechi in a simple lenses as the simple teen girl he is, its fun and why particularly? bc i personally feel it adds so much more depth to their dynamic. akechi has. ALL these problems going on, akira does too but they still make time for each other and ik i dont focus on akira much (im so fake lmao) but he plays into this just as much! although the council of the world has decided for him he must save it not them, he still makes friends with the enemy and enjoys their time together as if none of that wouldve mattered. he still loves unconditionally like if nobody was going to take that all away from him someday and i think thats so beautiful.

akechi still loves akira so much as if they really were together and akira loves him just the same. akechi is going through all these problems mentally and on the outside but still that child part of that craved love and connection/affection seeps through and overtakes him and his emotions, allowing his crow persona to like be free ig? and of course, that was not the only reason i like to think that it couldve been a part, even a teensy part bc again, they are just kids in love lmfao (so cringe) and yes, it is going to be cringe and a bit ridiculous BUT ITS SO SERIOUS YALL DONT UNDERSTAND

the way im not even done unpacking 25 PERCENT OF THEM YET there’s just so much depth that can be added to their connection, i love them they are so cringe-friendly i hate atlus but god bless shuake frfr ��🙏 but i just wanted to highlight this a bit bc i felt like i didnt enough in the insta story and tbh still but yk, to get some of it off my chest. i love gay people i can project on always a great flavor im off to my cave of inner thoughts now hopefully i knock tf out ❤️