#never had a fandom wank tag tho i think

[bobbinalong]

Hey, I've been following for a while now and i absolutely love your art. Thank you so much for sharing your talents with the fandom!

I just was wondering if you maybe when you post screenshots of other people being antis against a ship or character, you wouldn't mind tagging that with something so people who block fandom wank can filter it out?

i shall tag it "fandom wank" in the future. no problem at all, anon.

[epersonae]

20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @yerbamansa, thanks!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

169 😅 150 of which are for The Adventure Zone (I wrote a LOT of small fic for TAZ, and just a lot of TAZ fic in general)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

604,338, which remains absolutely wild to me. I hit the half-million mark this year.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently Our Flag Means Death, but previously The Adventure Zone, and I have one Star Trek (TOS movies) fic.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Sea of Love (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) (6,697 words)

Phoenix Fire (The Adventure Zone (Podcast)) (2,031 words)

Commit to the Bit (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) (2,471 words)

Dinner & Conversation (The Adventure Zone (Podcast)) (826 words)

I have begun to long for you (Our Flag Means Death (TV)) (4,185 words)

Yeah, ok, some fun reunion porn for the big fandom and a collab with two pretty popular writers for the small fandom make sense for that top two in particular.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to, especially since I don't get that many, and I love getting comments so much that I just want to share my appreciation. Sometimes the spoons are low, sometimes I don't know what to say except "thanks!" and if someone just commented on several chapters I might not do that for all of them.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Well, Phoenix Fire is the Worst Ending, aka the destruction of the entire universe, plus unbearably sad between the main characters, so yeah.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I do have quite a bit of fluffy fic (Commit to the Bit comes to mind, there's also a Fantasy Costco Kravitz/Taako that's very sweet), but I immediately thought of for the benefit of all the broken hearts, just because it takes an incredibly bittersweet ending of the fic it's fixing and says FUCK THAT, how can everyone get a happy ending instead?

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've never gotten any, even managed to avoid the twitter wank that WFU got when I wrote fics of it! (long ago, I did get some vagueblogging about some stuff in my TAZ fic, but nothing ever addressed directly at me)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

That is where I started and why I started (my first smutty fic is pretty bad imho but it was popular, relatively speaking, because for a bit there it was the only unlocked smut for that pairing); my original rarepair was M/F bi4bi in a complicated polycule, and so there's some them+others works in there. (readers of for the benefit of all the broken hearts are nodding along like "ok this tracks") beyond that, I'm just going to say go look at my work.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Is for the benefit of all the broken hearts (and the rest of that series) a crossover??????? Like I'm legitimately staring into space thinking about the boundary line between modern AU and RPF and........ HUH.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

DO PEOPLE DO THAT

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

183 thousand words in a series: the only life you could save, with my beloved Ryn, when we were "just friends" - started as our attempt to co-write a reconciliation between Taako and Lucretia, and spun out into an entire timeline with themes spanning before the Stolen Century all the way into post-canon. Some pieces we wrote separately, much of it we wrote together. Even the last piece, which I published after Ryn died, includes a section that they wrote, about Taako trying to cope with Lucretia's death.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Probably Mulder/Scully lol, tho I don't know if I've ever read any fic of them????

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

One of my very first TAZ fics was a Hurley/Sloane backstory fic that was going to be basically a beat-for-beat retelling of The Fast and the Furious (oh, I guess that's also sort of a crossover?), but I only ever wrote the first chapter. I would love to write it at some point, because I think it would be fun as hell.

I'd also love to finish my TAZ Amnesty fic, sweetness follows, which is friends-to-lovers post-canon Minerva/Duck.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character voice, I think. Possibly a stupid depth of canon knowledge for whatever the canon is, and I think I have a knack for figuring out how to reincorporate those details. Honestly, it's hard for me to say "oh these are my strengths and weaknesses", or at least today I'm having trouble pinning that down.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Punctuation Pokemon, or rather, my sentences do get very tangly. I find endings really tricky, I've done a lot of work thinking through how to stick the landing. (This is one of the ways in which Ryn continues to live in my head, because they could always spot when I hadn't quite made it.)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Alas my Spanish (high school and college) is too rusty to even try, and I don't know any other languages.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

The Adventure Zone, although I wrote quite a bit of Agatha Christie pastiche in junior high, and a lot of Anne Rice influenced original fiction in high school and college.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I love a lot of my fic, it's fun to go back and look and say "oh that!", and The Reckoning Arrives is up there, of course, because I loved writing it, and it saved my life. ("she's survived the impossible before" got me out of my marriage and 2 years later got me through the hospital. "you're here, so be here" got me through what came after that.)

But it does have to be for the benefit of all the broken hearts - she lives in my head, still, and I feel incredibly proud of all the work I put into it, the technical work, the emotional work.

---

Not tagging anybody, but PLEASE! if you feel like talking about your writing, do it!

[maipareshaan]

Do you find yourself to be blocked by a lot of blogs due to being a hater a lot of the time? I support you but I'm curious

Lol, i had a blog in 2020, i already had an account from years ago but i never used it, i guess i just created it when i was seraching how to have a blog or something, so i never saw fandom before 2020. I started seeing posts to see Dean and D*bb era hate bcz my binge was stalled and i guess i just wanted to see stuff, bcz C*rver era made me feel like i was losing my mind and then D*bb era was just insufferably bad quality, then i became active on tumblr to see and make memes mostly, i love shitposts and crack. Mostly i was very fascinated by fandom bcz what a shitshow, truly unique, iconic.

Anyways as you can see the hate content i seeked coupled with being voyeuristic of fandom meant i was um an acquired taste.

Not sure how to make this short but i guess circle wise i was more in those wanky sam stan circles then i kinda turned on them bcz god they are so whiny and i am more bronly anyways and proship.

Anyways anon i was blocked by 98% of fandom, the most unblocked subset would be the bronly/w*ncest (i * cuz i don't want things in search btw) Sam circle.

Currently afaik i am only blocked by 1 blog, its mainly bcz i am very lowkey, i do not follow active blogs and i try to keep posts out of tags, and also i would like to think i am fairly sane and balanced currently.

Also i would say being a hater is like okay depending on what, but take responsibility for it, especially if its something like fixated character hate or strong opinions, like don't make your feelings the problem of other people mainly and don't do moral wank about it, and other people are valid to block you if they don't want negativity. Frankly i am not sure what makes me a hater currently besides my petty problem with D*sticule, if its characters i would not say i am a hater really, i think i talk about characters from a pretty chill place, like me talking about how unsexy a character is is not hate imo but ofcourse its negativity and people would not like that, esp when you see something all the time and its used to make a point as to how better the other characters or that ship is (i don't do that tho ofcourse).

Oh also fyi i never like not even once blocked anyone besides pornbots.

[multsicorn]

fandoms for a reason for a season for a lifetime

It’s funny how even spiralling into a new obsession I can tell - this isn’t one of the big ones, probably. Not unless it pulls out a whole lot more ~something~ in the last seven eps I have left.

Because when I look back at the fandoms I’ve been in here on tumblr over the last decade, there seems to be a sharp dichotomy.

[this got way too long? have a cut.]

There’s fandoms I think back on as ‘damn I love/d that. For so many reasons. Even if, for other reasons, good reasons, I am not in the fandom anymore - or not currently.’ Glee, Hamilton, Check, Please!, (where I never liked the canon much at all! but I loved my corner of fandom so much, I kept coming back to it for years.)

The Untamed. (Which I hope I may still come back to? In some form, if it’s still going, like, next year? I never quite managed to find myself a cozy corner, and wore myself out trying and failing, but I also never managed to really exorcise the feelings I wanted to there, so, I’m still like - I love it? I love a lot of things about it. But I cannot currently ~engage.)

Nirvana in Fire, which I am fully planning to watch for the third time, and hoping to create content for this next time round, … whenever I get tired of Word of Honor, probably in a few months from now.

And then there’s the fandoms where I just kinda needed - a fandom. To be in. Which does not mean I didn’t love them at the time! Hockey RPF (where I pretty much only read fic - and also wrote in my head a good handful of fic. based on fic. but I never cared much for the ‘canon’, lol.) Yuri!!! on Ice; Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812; Good Omens. There are things I remember with fondness about all those canons (… rpf fic, the way I look at it, is the canon) - but - like. They’re not *so* much, to me. Obviously, to other people, some of these fandoms are their very favorites!

There’s more or less stuff that I love in each fandom. Or, maybe, more accurately, if I think about the things that draw me to each - they mean more to me, or less.

I was fully immersed in Glee fandom for … almost four years. I’ve never had another experience like that, because for almost all of that time Glee was actively, um, happening to us ;). I joined in the middle of season three, I left the fall after season six ended - in part because I fell head over heels for Hamilton, but mostly just because. I’d spent almost four years reacting to the unfolding story (and spoilers for it etc.), writing fic and meta and so forth, having my enthusiasm refreshed every few months (at least) by injections of new canon. Of course half the time I was reacting against new canon info instead of in favor of it, lol, but in any case - I was kept interested! And so by five or six months after canon ended… I felt like I’d chewed it over enough. I still loved Glee, and I will always love Glee, but I’d had most of the thoughts I’ll ever have about it. I was ready to find something else to have new thoughts and fresh feelings about.

(I was in Hamilton fandom for about a year and my experience there ended because of the aftermath of a pile of pan-fandom-famous wank. Fuck Israa, I say, from the bottom of my heart. Although what got me to leave ultimately wasn’t the flames or dogpilers, but the fact that so much of the fandom at least passively agreed with and supported them, meaning that I never knew which of my fellow shippers I could try to befriend or interact with.) (And then, after Trump was elected, I became far less interested in writing any fic about any Founding Fathers than I was in 2015. Which was after I left the fandom, but not irrelevant to why I never went back.) (seriously tho, I will remember ‘i would hope that it is clear who i do and do not associate with’ 4ever.)

And then! I was obsessed with a fandom built out of a few strips out of a webcomic that I don’t even really like… on and off over four years!? Goddamn. When I needed something else cause I was frustrated with Hamilton, I fell into Check, Please! and Jack/Parse (<3 <3 <3), and, because (that segment of the) fandom was tiny, and (relevant to my interests) canon updates virtually nonexistent… I ran out of interest/excitement/engagement repeatedly, and took up - one after another - Hockey RPF, Yuri on Ice, Great Comet, and Good Omens - each for just two to six months, iirc. And then I boomeranged back to Jack/Parse.

(at some point I will finish the post in my drafts about why Jack/Parse had such a hold on me, ‘living in the wreckage of what you thought your life was going to be.’ But that is not this post.)

And THEN I fell in love the with The Untamed, (thanks, stulti! For turning me on to *two* of my all-time favorite fandoms), and it was just, like, amazing, for a while. I hadn’t loved a canon that much since Hamilton, which had been five or six years ago? Even though I’d been in a number of fandoms between the two. It was so nice to love something so very much!!! And I ended up kind of overdosing, I think, cause I was eating from the fandom buffet more-or-less indiscriminately… there were so many riches in that fandom! And so many that weren’t quite to my taste, lol, because there was (and is) SO MUCH STUFF in that canon for its fans to love. (there’s another post in my mental drafts about that.)

Anyway. My point is. I guess. That I hope to come back to The Untamed, sometime. I fully expect to come back to Nirvana In Fire. (It is, actually, so good? As a canon as well as a fandom.)

I don’t expect to come back to Check, Please! ever again, because, weirdly, I don’t think I need to. Of course my understanding of what it means to ~reconcile with one’s past~ etc. has changed in the last mumble-years, but more than that… I have Nirvana in Fire, now, to deal with almost the same issues. I don’t think I fully got the Extent of Mei Changsu’s (Lin Shu) identity issues until the end of the show? But in retrospect - now that I have -

Nirvana in Fire is a pretty perfect fandom/canon for coming back to with gaps between, lol. It’s small enough that I can read through all of my favorite AO3 tags and be left wanting more; it has enough of a strong but slowly-spreading appeal that new people do come and go between say, last summer when I consumed the canon for the first time, and this spring when I watched it again.

And maybe I won’t need to come back and back! Maybe a third watch will be enough for me to say the things in that I want to say. I certainly cannot guess ahead of time!

But - yeah. There are those fandoms I love ~forever,~ some of which I may not be done with…

And then there’s Word of Honor. Which I love right now. Even if it’s not as deep, or ~intense, or… whatever… as some of my other fandom loves; I still love it! Even if I can see ahead to six months from now when I bet I won’t, anymore. I still can’t believe that I spent the past hour-plus writing this post rather than dashing on to watch episode 30, which is what I was intending to do when I sat down.

It’s just - funny. That sort of double vision. How I know this fandom is Mx. Right Now, but that doesn’t make me squee any less.

[iamapotatobag]

I’m not gonna tag anyone in particular so if you wanna go for it. got tagged by @yanara126

Put under the cut bc it got L O N G.

How many works do you have on AO3.

9 and counting

What’s your total AO3 words count?

35739. at least of published fic lmao, i know i have a couple thousand more of wips

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

A Learning Experience . FFXIV smut. it’s smut with feelings tho. 102

Captive Audience . FFXIV smut but as a guilt wanking. 87

Morning Star, Evening Star; Both Make the Sky Blush Pink, Destiny. Not smut actually. All clean stuff. series of one shots. unlikely to write more for it. 35

Called Your Bluff(That Wasn't Even There), FFXIV its also feelsy smut. but not with the same pairing as the two above, and even my own oc is ooc at the start. 34

Kinktober 2019, FFXIV. it’s ALSO smut. seriously not gonna finish this one, ever. 32

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Generally yea! Mostly bc i don’t get a lot of comments so each one is special.

What’s the fic with the angstiest ending?

I don’t think any of the fic I have on ao3 is particularly angsty? Well, not quite true.  Eothas in Dreams and  Letters are my most overtly angsty that aren’t a singular one shot in a series of one shots because I think chapter 8 from  Excerpts from the Roost is the most angsty.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Called Your Bluff(That Wasn't Even There), uh probably. i mean its hurt comfort smut that ends end without any fridge angst

Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

Only as a joke with my friends or in my head.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, my fics only get kudos or ignored.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

i write smut. I don’t try to hide. It’s mostly feelsy stuff without any hard kinks or whatever. Mostly ends up being me giving good things to my OCs without any context on why they would need the good things because i havent gotten to publishing the other stuff since i know it won’t get attention for the most part

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No But I wouldn’t be adverse to it!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

way back in eons past of being a young teenager. we never got past chapter 4.

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I write so much ship fic in any form. romantic? done it. platonic? also done it. I don’t do ultimate ships tho. Multi-shipper to my core, but i do often prefer some over others.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

any wip i don’t have finished is like this. i get sidetracked easily

What are your writing strengths?

I actually don’t know. My creative writing prof and classmates have told me in the past that it’s character introspection and scene description but I just feel like i’m rambling.

What are your writing weaknesses?

simple actions. I guess. and use of speech tags.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

It depends on the fic tbh.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

well published FFXIV. but fic i’ve written over all? idk maybe like yu gi oh when i was a little kid, but in my mind.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

honestly? idk. my current favorite is Eothas in Dreams. I need to do more like that, I forgot how much I enjoy doing those types of two shots. 

[tonyglowheart]

.

I rly miss those early days when I like sedately strode and then swan-dived into CQL and then the Thailand concert happened and it was such a magical time, and I had never in my life been filled with such want and desire to be somewhere, and before I had the distinct misfortune to have to see with my own eyes mxtx antis, and like right before it really exploded in EN fandom & way before it even hit Netflix (remember when we were excited it was hitting Netflix? :’) actually it’s kind of sad and funny to me, in the context of seeing ppl absolutely *dreading* things like AtLA and I think some kind of she-ra thing hitting netflix lmao.. and then the new crop of Hannibal purity wankers..... we were so young and unafraid... and dreams were made and used and wasted...)

honestly tho I think everything started going downhill when I had the distinct misfortune of seeing that one CQL giffer start posting their MXTX anti shit, and then seeing more MXTX antis in the tags, and then CQLs started drawing ranks around CQL more and then more and more purity wank just happening... 8′)

I miss that magical summer/fall

[gravitasfalls]

A rant on fandom etiquette, the GF fandom, and what they did 4 years ago (and now)

By now, my “bullshit” tag has refuted most of the ridiculous hot takes, fun policing, and harassment that fans of Stanford Pines have had to face from the wider Gravity Falls fandom. But these rebuttals fall short of naming the real problem with anti-Ford wank: we never should have seen it in the first place.

People might have genuinely forgotten this, but fandom used to have etiquette against character hate. We called it “wank” and “bashing” instead of dignifying it as “discourse”. As late as 2014, fandoms on this very site had “X hate” or “anti-X” tagging systems for blacklisting, as courtesy to people who liked X thing...

...a far cry from GF fans of 2015 demonizing Ford in the most inexplicable ways, making every post a platform for that, siccing their followers on anyone fully positive about him, then pretending that never happened post-finale as they continue the bashing more insidiously to this day.

Like, what even was that? There’s a lot to unpack in those people’s arguments but let’s just throw out the whole suitcase.

(Under the cut: Snapshots of discourse I shouldn’t have had to put up with over the years, and snark-based coping with that. It gets ugly, you’ve been warned.)

Ford is irredeemable/deserves to suffer, why he didn’t even thank Stan!!1

Thanks I hate it! “It” being your apparent decision that, because you can’t make the fictional character suffer, real people who like him are the next best thing.

Ford is egotistical! Have I mentioned on literally every post I think his only trait is “egotistical”?

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. But while that is just, like, your opinion man, you’re entitled to it on your own posts; you’re falsely entitled about it by forcing it on dissenters’ posts and inboxes.

*dumps negativity into inboxes anyway*

Your Hot Takes have disturbed and insulted me. You fools are unworthy of my great knowledge. The era of human enlightenment shall never come to pass.

You really think Ford is some kind of hero?

Only after you told me I wasn’t Allowed to see him as one and I Examined My Desires™ like you demanded! Funny how critical thinking ≠ agreeing with you.

Ford is your favorite? WHY DO YOU HATE MABEL.

Better question, why are you copying “WHY DO YOU HATE AMERICA” logic? 9/11 did fan drama I swear

Ford is NOT PURE OF HEEEAAART, so you have to Constantly Explicitly Acknowledge his Sins and interrogate what relating to him says about you.

I got no friends ‘cause they read the papers. It’s funny, actually, projecting onto him got me dangerously close to processing some negative experiences from my past... good thing I have you here to shut those thoughts down <3 Thanks for saving me from myself uwu

If you just want to project onto a comfort character in peace, Stan is right there! His lack of fantasy elements makes him more relatable anyway!

Ford brought Bill’s manipulation on himself!

Damn fandom, back at it again with the GROSS VICTIM BLAMING

FFS why is this take as prominent now as ever??? at least the outlandish criticisms were funny, this one just makes me want to be dead.

Ford is abusive/manipulative because he doesn’t make fun of Dipper/ made a case for his apprenticeship/ called Mabel good/ complimented her personality!

(Yes, people did these mental gymnastics; yes, my soul left my body instantly.)

STOP trying to justify Ford’s actio-ma’am this is an Arby’s. also:

Ford is the Epitome of Toxic Masculinity, if you defend him either he’s your Male Power Fantasy or you’re a ditzy fangirl broad with ovaries for brains!

Ah yes, the two genders. Pack it in, everyone, we’ve reached peak feminism and patriarchy is over.

Someone negativity-tagged my Ford post, WTF?! I’m not “anti-Ford”, I’m “pro Ford-learning-a-lesson”!

And pro his-fans-never-having-a-moment-of-peace, apparently! Sorry I assumed you were a hater by your complete lack of positive things to say about him tho

Ford is a sociopath/deserves death for having no empathy!

"Tumblr is as ableist as any majority-conservative site," I say into the mic. The crowd boos. I begin to walk off in shame, when a voice speaks and commands silence from the room. "You’re right," they say. I look for the owner of the voice. There in the 3rd row stands: tumblr.

*Dozens of 10000+ note posts calling Ford stupid, manipulative, solely at fault for everything that went wrong, other inanities*

(This is the fandom that made me get Xkit. I’m sure hundreds of my 1000+ blocked posts are theirs.)

If you like Ford on any terms but ours then I’m sorry, but Gravity Falls just isn’t for you, k?

I don’t have a flippant response to this one. Just... stop. No one has to agree with you about this character; no, nor with me. No one even has to engage with fandom moralistically; I promise it wouldn’t hurt anyone if I were to watch this show without having to Interrogate its Morality. It wouldn’t even hurt if people voiced character hate within reasonable bounds of tagging, as I’ve said. But instead they spread it like the plague in the name of Purity and insinuated (using ages-old “ur a fake fan!!1″ no less) that we don’t get to have outlets. I’m tired.

Look at my hilarious/satisfying art of Ford saying OOC strawman things, Stan beating him up, the kids turning their backs on him! (Srsly look at it I’ve put it in all the tags)

You’re madness, Gravity Falls fandom. Virulent madness. And everything you touch dies with you.

This is only a fraction of shit we’ve had to wade through, practically every day while the show was running. You couldn’t avoid it if you followed popular blogs. I saw the best meta writers of my fandom dogpiled by BNFs, dragging themselves through the blue hellsite at dawn looking for a fix-it fix. And people now expect me to believe it was “just Discourse” or that anything equivalent happened “in reverse” toward Stan. If I didn’t know better that they don’t know better, I’d call gaslighting.

I don’t expect to change anything. In fact, until this blog’s next go-around I don’t intend on seeking out new content anymore. I can’t keep looking at a fandom where the consensus on a canonically abused character’s victimization is that it was stupid, funny, a moral failing, or deserved, and expect anything to improve.

But to anyone else these people hurt: your anger or upset is valid, and I’m sorry. None of us deserved this. And I’m not letting it follow me into the next decade and make me forget why I liked this show in the first place, even if the only way to do that right now is cut off from the fandom a bit. I’m telling you, it never should have come to that. I don’t know if negativity-tagging can ever catch on here, considering tumblr has no boundaries by design and fandom no boundaries by choice... but for the sake of everyone who comes next, Gravity Falls fandom, make an effort.

[angrycowboy]

skrtl replied to your post “I swear, the more people in this fandom shittalk Maria DeLuca, the…”

See, Maura, your opinion is totally valid like everyone’s, since this is not a jury or anything, just polarization within fandom, which I’m learning to see as very common behavior. The thing is: why say things like “go watch the show again” and “get a shtick”? It just sounds like who doesn’t share your opinion is stupid, therefore it sounds impolite and rude. We love our special characters, but in the end of the day they are just that: characters. But mean words can hurt real people.

I’m going to take this moment and talk about something that has been bothering me for months, and that I can’t recall having discussed outside of DMs - and that is the fandom divide you mentioned. I recently had a very good conversation with someone about that divide, particularly in regards to Malex shippers. It also made me think of that thing about 1% of the fandom being batshit, which is something I very much believe is true, and one glance into the main tags can always show someone who those perpetrators are.

(Under the cut, because this got long.)

Early on when the show first aired, there were some very vocal Malex shippers who had some very poorly worded arguments in regards to how they defended the need for queer representation in media, and specifically RNM. Are their hearts in the right place? I think so. But attacking OG Roswell fans, as well as Miluca shippers, was the wrong way to go about it. And one of the biggest mistakes the Malex fandom made was that many turned a blind eye instead of calling out the worst of those offenders and their treatment of other blogs. And that attitude has only steadily gotten worse from there. It put those fans on the defensive (as is their right when they were constantly being attacked for their ships and characters, when they were doing no different than what everyone else was doing in having a POV character they prefer), and lead to the hostility that became prevalent in the fandom between the Malex shippers and the Miluca shippers - something that very much still exists.

But that hostility never truly went away, and in fact, it only continued to infect the Malex side of the fandom with the conclusion of the season. Suddenly, you had Malex shippers attacking not only each other, but also “Alex stans” and “Michael stans” (tho I don’t really see “Michael stans” addressing themselves as such, it’s more a moniker tacked on to people by others - most “Michael stans” just refer to themselves as Malex shippers) as well as people attacking any defense of Maria and her choices. One look into the tag, and it was relentless, post after post of hate against Maria, people attacking anyone who dared do anything except praise Alex, and as this hiatus has progressed, and vague posts about how angry some people are at Michael just become more commonplace. And so it didn’t just stay hidden in the tags, it gets reblogged, and the hate and wank was showing up on people’s dashboards - which is always exhausting when you are constantly bombarded with post after post about why your fav POV character is an asshole, or a bitch, or deserves to have terrible things done to them (we can argue until the cows come home about blacklisting but sometimes it comes from people you’ve made friends with in fandom and that can often ruin a fandom experience very quickly). Then at the same time seeing post after post basically forcing people to only post positive things about one character, because anything else will not be tolerated - you will get anons, you will get hate, and you will be told to tag it “anti.” So there has also very much been policing in the tags of how people post and how they tag (many people do it for archival purposed on their blog, something that seems to be forgotten by a lot of the fandom) that needs to be addressed (and preferably stopped).

I defended Maria in her decisions throughout the season once, and received two anons berating me because apparently I dared share an opinion that wasn’t conforming to some unwritten rule that to be a Malex shipper is to hate Maria and/or Miluca. I’ve had numerous people in my DMs saying they are afraid to reblog Miluca sets because they’re afraid of backlash, or how exhausting it is to see Michael or Maria hate on their gifsets (this can also be extended to Max hate on gifsets made by Echo shippers). And it is not uncommon for people to receive anon hate simply for posting or reblogging Miluca and/or Maria-positive content. Interestingly enough, Maribel content seems to be excluded from this, which gives the look that the only “acceptable” way to ship Maria is with Isobel (I’m excluding other Maria ships as they seem to be too small to pick up much notice in general).

This doesn’t even touch upon the numerous blowups in the discord servers, which has also attributed to the fandom divide, but is rarely ever spoken about, and is literally the definition of opening Pandora’s Box, so I’m going to skip right over it.

To address your reply, I suggest you re-read the entire conversation in the replies, particularly where I refer to a specific argument against Maria that has absolutely no basis in canon, but nevertheless is used as reason for people to hate Maria as a character in canon. Maria is not a homewrecker, she did not steal Michael away from Alex, because Alex broke up with Michael multiple times - these are canonical facts that can easily be ascertained from watching the show as a whole. There have been numerous posts written about the miscommunication issues Malex has, and how that plays into their actions and decisions in the latter part of the season - it is pointless to rehash them here. I was not referring to anyone who is angry because Maria and Alex are friends, and if you look again you will see it is not mentioned at all. That is a perfectly valid reason to dislike Miluca and the love triangle, which is why it is also not the basis for the post you are replying to either (though given that I never mention what set me off to write this post, you must know something I don’t, Jassi)

If anyone takes away from my saying I love a character more the more hate I see as personally offensive, then I have to wonder what those people are posting about that sets them on edge like that. 

[anamorph-marco]

A question:

Has anyone else in the world read both the Leandros brother series and also watched Voltron?  I had an idea for a vld fanfic and associated art that would put the Voltron characters in the place of the Leandros’s series characters but like... I feel like I am the only person who would read it.  Especially since the Leandros series ended with the final book Everwar never being officially published (as far as I’ve been able to find.) And VLD had 3 massive fan exodus’s from declines in show quality following seasons 5, 7, and 8 and intermittent steady fall off from the massive amount of fandom wank that made the fandom one of the most notoriously toxic on the internet for the past 2 years.  I just don’t know if anyone other than myself has read/engaged with both series.  not to mention I only have about 17 followers anymore that aren’t porn bots inactive. and I appreciate you all.  Oh well. I’ll tag this and see if anything happens welcome if you’ve never met me before please interact and tell me what you think :3 ____________ What I’ve got so far: Cal (Caliban) is an emo edgelord who is very good with most weapons He is also only half human. As he is half monster/demon-elf His much older half brother Niko who is an even better fighter and swordsman than Caliban is. And is mature beyond his years from trauma and raising Cal on his own. So there's Keith and Shiro There's the Vampire mistress Promise Nightingale who was a nurse in several wars and is very rich. She’s Niko’s love interest in the Leandros’s series and this doesn’t exactly track  1:1, so I’m wondering if I made her binary flux, and had her have two names, Allura and Adam, then that would cover Shallura, and Shadam, both are ships that I still very much enjoy.  anyways, Allura The illustrious Robin Goodfellow/Puck who is a satyr but only sometimes. And he is a playboy tease Aka a loverboy. But also next to Niko he is the most capable fighter and often complete with Cal for most kills. Lance Rafferty and his brother. The werewolf alchemist and medic who are the most knowledgeable of how to treat magical injuries and the bodies of monsterkind. But they are also a very temperamental asshole who doesn’t like being interrupted. Also Rafferty’s brother is trapped as a wolf. And he spends his free-time trying to find a way to change him back. Pidge and Matt Ishaiah the literal angel. Who is in love with Robin. And they were a thing back during Pompeii. But Robin fell in love with a girl. And then... well yeah. So they work together but their relationship is tense with a lot of bad blood built on top of old good bonds. Hunk... kinda (it’s close enough) And then there’s the werewolf chick that Cal ends up dating for several books who is basically a... “black-rom” (don’t @ me, it fits) type of deal even tho he has feelings foe her. James Coran can be the ancient bartender that knows who Promise is and keeps her secret that Ishaiah works for. Boom... That basically wrote itself (more or less) So I guess this would be a Jaith, Lunk, Shallura/Shadam fic?  with maybe some crossover as they form their relationships?  but it would probably stay mostly gen? idk It’s a complicated mess and would have to be pretty flexible as it was worked through. 

[bitchy-peachy]

To Anon

Not responding in ask itself cos the ship got mentioned without spaces and that would make the asks appear accidentally in ship tags (and I'm on a device that doesn't seem to be programmed for screenshots at the moment, lol)

I totally agree with everything you say. You know what I used to call shounen manga in the past? Friendship Porn.

Cos the shounen genre sometimes wanks the hell out of friendships instead of romance (unless said shounen is mixed in with shoujo like for example Inuyasha that was in both those genres instead of one. Just adding that in cos in the past whenever I said shounen wasn't romance some dumbass would bring up Inuyasha as if unaware that said manga was categorized as both so of course that manga had blatantly romantic moments going on along with the shounen elements)

Naruto is the very definition of Friendship Porn that while it did have its shippy undertones for the pairings that eventually become canon, it was always overshadowed by the friendship theme. Shippers went crazy thinking that because their ship had their bonds concentrated in such detail that it was "romantic" when Kishi himself said that his manga was friendship themed. So while the non-canon shippers complain about development and say "it doesn't make any sense when we have all this pro ship evidence" the sad fact is that all their "evidence" was friendship. Tbh one of the ships that had a lot of panel time and was romantic love as it was stated repeatedly throughout the manga, gets a humorous amount of hate by people who shipped the characters of said ship with their friends. Don't get me started on the Mira/Tsun shippers that suffer the same syndrome as NS shippers.

I kinda hate how platonic love is downplayed a lot by the fandom. Its such bullshit. Love comes in all different forms, and platonic love is still love. Some shippers need to stop acting like they're getting murdered with this, lmao. They can still ship it romantically in fanon like I do, but hearing facts and knowing them shouldn't hurt them so much. Cos canon and fanon go separately and if they can't admit canon then... No wonder they're always complaining instead of enjoying their pairings. (And its true that it gets annoying to go to a shipping tag and seeing your ship treated as a brotp in said tag when you already know that shit but enjoy another version of your ship. So brotp and romance fanon should sometimes be kept separate, lol. I know it sounds bitchy but that's my view on it. Saying it cos I go to actual ship tags that talk all the time about friendship without tagging it as brotp to not upset shippers. People can ship or brotp whatever they want but jfc. I'm not just saying this as a shipper but as someone that knows people ship wlw pairings as brotps. Just like shippers wouldn't want to see "its platonic and bffs" in the tag, I doubt brotp shippers would want to see nsfw and wlw romantic headcanons. These things need better tagging so both sides are satisfied )

I ship that pairing you mentioned too but I knew it wasn't going to be canon and I'm not necessarily butthurt about although it would have been very cool to have it become canon (I knew they were just best friends but I still enjoyed the idea of romance. Tho my main ship is SS so I write that other ship you mentioned as a very close female bond that doesn't go romantic, okay I'm rambling). I also have m/f brotps. Two brotps of that sort that have been proven as just friendship and they're beautiful friendships cos I've got guy friends like that irl and it never turned romantic.

I'm not straight myself and I've seen my sexuality butchered by straight writers constantly. My sexuality gets written as promiscuous and into orgies, ffs. So I don't get why some people are so desperate for obviously straight writers to give them representation and if they're not given any representation, they complain about h/mophobia. If they want it so bad, they should create their own characters, or write fanfics (I write fanfics for my fave same sex ships. One which I wish was canon but I understand under the circumstances that it wasn't ever going to be canon) or whatever instead of complaining about a writer not giving them what they want cos in the end of the day, this is a fact...

They're not the ones in control of the story, the writer is, and if they don't like it they should maybe move on and create their own content.

And tbh I don't get it what is it with this whole "we hate straight people but want them to write us" bullshit. But that's a separate subject. 😂😂

[slashtakemylife]

Well, honestly since all this fandom wank is still going, I think it doesn’t hurt to show this back again, my favorite part

If you take nothing else from this article, please take this: all this outrage isn’t about protecting children, or about morality, or about critiquing media. It’s about people wanting their favorite characters to kiss.

This next part is my personal opinions but are all mostly based on this article, all I wish to add is how stupid this whole anti is because yes, it’s just about character’s kissing and their rules change to their convenience, so I’m just expanding to it with my own experience.

I’ll talk Fandom, why I think Antis have it wrong, some anti foolery and what to do, all of course in my opinion.

I’d like to start out with that “Fiction affects reality” and I can say, YES, but whose fiction? It’s the mass media produced fiction or the one I do from the comfort of my home?

Remember that all pieces of entretainment (books/movies/songs) as small as they may be, are all made by a group of people with the intention to reach to the biggest amount of people, it is their literal job, they know they are throwing ideas and notions to others in hopes to get feedback and be able to keep going, in other words it’s deliberate and so far we get tropes that affect and stereotype minorities. We must criticize those works because, again, a group of people allowed this to be produced with the intention to reach and capture the biggest auduence they can.

What about fandom? Fandom is exactly the opposite for me, we are not a team, we are just ourselves that get invested in one fandom and wish to explore more on the universe these creators gave us, and all for free! None of us are paid for it, yet with the anti movement, we are suddenly treated the way real paid content creators are made.

Fandom is a safe place because we can be whatever we want and explore whatever we wish because Fandom is self-contained, we broadcast to people with the same interests and hope to get feedback, create a healthy community were we just dicuss our fandom.

The anti movement uses the criticism we use on mass media and “moral ground” to justify their actions (harassment) but when you point at a fan, it is just that, you are pointing at a person, suddenly we must justify why we do what we do, what we write, what we think, give our life story, show credentials, all for what? Just to be “Valid”? Valid for who? A bunch of random people on the internet? We already have to struggle to be “Valid” in the real world and in this place were we can just be, we suddenly aren’t, we have to justify everyting we think, just to be allowed to not be harrased and have some freedom.

What is worse is that our prize if we pass this “Test” is just to not be harrased online, that’s it, I don’t know about you but in the Real World they supposedly live in, this is called Blackmail. We are threatened to be excluded, harrassed, recieve threats sometimes even death threats unless we stick to THEIR Values.

This is already bad enough and I haven’t even started with the antis themselves, becuase, who is the judge? Who is going to tell us if we are “Valid” enough to warrant not be harrased? What are THEIR Values?

This changes from anti to anti and oddly enough, it can be flexible to each one because again, every single one of us in fandom is just a team of one, there is no Anti Team, just a bunch of anti individuals that will bite each other because their foundation, like the article said, it’s not about morality but who can kiss and who isn’t allowed to.

What is the Anti handbook? Can anyone give it to me?

Let’s live in the Anti world *shivers*, I went into the fandom pretty young, I was 15, (I’m 25 now) and my first fanfiction was just pure crack, a character was turned into a cat and that’s it, the characters were comlpetely ooc but I was having fun.

What would it be like if 15 y/o me started fandom now?

Remember that now each of us are holded on the same standard grown, working paid adults are, so if I wanted to make a fanficiton I must begin wondering, do I have moraly sound topics? Is this my age appropiate? Are the character “Valid”? The actions I’ll put the characters in can pass the Moral Anti Compass Test? What is this Compass? As a 15 y/o how am I expected to know all this? We can’t be but we Will be harrassed.

If someone doesn’t like my ooc they can and WILL call me problematic, a 15 y/o that just wants some fun, they will invaldiate me, tell me I’m problematic, be asked to tell some stranger who I am and what are my credentials to do that content and no it doesn’t have to be nsfw, it can just be anything, they are currently creating a cloud of fear in all new and sometimes old users.

He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone

Let’s take a look at some Anti foolery since they are full of contradictions and will use Morality for their gain but ultimately they will fall under their own rules because they are not really for Morality but as an excuse to justify their harrasment.

The Minor Excuse.

Oddly enough, many anti’s I’ve seen are minor and they use it to a fault, “I’m a minor, you can’t do nsfw for those characters I like or that pairing I dislike”, Our response and most nsfw artist response is, “Well just block me, don’t come into my space, I’ll tag it 18+ so you’ll know not to come here”

That is a good enough response but for antis it’s not enough because it was never really about their integrity, the real point always was so that the content creator stops creating that content of that pairing they don’t like so the new argument is:

“The characters are MINORS, so you as a DIRTY adult mustn’t do any content about them”

This is good enough becuase now they are called pedophilic and with that argument now the antis carrying torches and pitchforks have a, very bad, place were they can comfortly harrass nsfw content creators (or just creators)

One thing about minors and our example minor anti used is that, as minors, nsfw content must be away from them, that is the point right? Protect them from topics they are not mature enough and it’s totally ok, but do they follow? I began watching nsfw at 15, do Minor antis really keep away? Do they keep their mental celibacy until 18? Oddly enough, if the pairing that they favor is underage as them and is written by someone underage then it is ok for them to see them in more 18+ setting, like not full blown really kinky situations but do be able to include sexual encounters in their content, odd right? I thought they were all in on the minor train so that should wipe all nsfw and in fact the anti in our example had previously stated their absolute distaste in nsfw content, funnily enough just not content on the pairing they didn’t like, content THEY like is good enough.

What these antis don’t want to realize is that Minor it’s a very very temporal state of being, they tops have like 5 to 3 years until THEY are no longer a minor so by THEIR standars they have to leave all shipping involving minors when THEY reach 18, I have yet to see an anti say good bye to a pairing because they are now 18 and wouldn’t be moraly sound to carry one shipping them.

BTW friendly reminder that all underage pairing shown in media are made by a team of adults but I have yet to see a boicott were minor fans argue mass media shouldn’t include romance of any kind involving minors because adults are writting underage relationships, kinda odd right?

The incest/age gap

I won’t go too much into this because I’m just looking for anti foolery, the paring Sheith is considered incest because the character of Shiro mentored Keith and met him at a younger age, this ship and all ships involving Shiro a 25 y/o with his minors peers (shaladins) are a big gigantic no no in the dumpster that is voltron fandom, sheith in particual had Keith say to Shiro, “I love you, you are my brother” in one of the episodes.

However those same anti that satanized Sheith are now happily shipping Catradora, and in this show it’s literally said and shows many many times, by the character themselves how they were raised, basically since birth together as sisters, how it doesn’t fit Incest? Well, because the anti liked that one so I guess the anti manual kinda went into the wind right? Nope, they still hold Sheith as a pedophilic, grooming, incest pairing, but Catradora is ok, should I add that Catra is always trying to kill Adora? Some Villian/Hero pairing? No? Is OK? I thought antis would lift the pitchforks but apparently no...Reylo is bad tho, becuase omg VILLAINS!!!!

Someone really needs to give me the anti handbook because Anti’s themselves don’t follow their own rules, it’s almost as if...

They use Morality to justify their harassment to things they don’t personally like

Hmmm, something to think about right?

Antis that have a little brain do point out how in Real Life pairing would be sketchy and some, yes they are right, they are just bad and sometimes we should consider the real life implications, sometimes we do keep using in fandom harmful tropes but many times we don’t realize because we all arrive here with the mass media influence on us.

It’s not about harrassing, I feel it should be about teaching and letting each other be free because in the end, fandom is separate from life and it’s a SAFE SPACE, I rather have young people explore and understand what they like and don’t in fandom rather than feel excluded and ashamed both in and out of the internet and with no way of letting their feeling out they might just give it a go in real life, we must educate to separate fiction from reality but at the very end, let them be free.

What if one day a minor gets a crush on a 25 y/o in real life? I rather that person acknowlege their crush, know it’s fine and don’t feel ashamed of liking that person but to please not be in a relationship and know exactly why, specially if said person approaches them.

I rather they write and create art imagining what it would be like in a perfect setting, let their feelings out in a shape of unreal characters and situations instead of bottling it up and feeling ashamed.

BTS is one of the biggets boy bands and many fans are minors, I rather they explore and dream what would it be like to be romantic with one of the band members (26-22 I think?) in their own innocent romantic way via fanfics and art, it’s okay to dream of that story were they pick you out of the mass and dance with you on stage than pursuing a real relationship with an older person.

Fandom is SAFE because it’s UNREAL, we can explore things we would never do in real life, we can have some leasure but know how it affects real life, we still have to be careful, we must know that Fandom in the end is just a bunch of people putting out their feelings, they must know to distrust a little because all of Fandom is just our own individual uncurated minds, I read once someone said they got pregnant (or their gf pregnant, can’t remember) because they didn’t know about sex ed and only educated themselves via nsfw fics

I mean again, we are not professionals, we are just people, we are imperfect and many times in fandom we are just chaotic, incoherent and just crack minds, we can and will be completely absurd with reality or try to stick as close to Real Life, it’s up to us to know both exist in the same place.

Each one of us has to understand that and allow others to have their place to be free, Fandom has existed for many years before Antis and oddly enough has become worse because of them, despite their puritian stance they only achieve the same as real conservative people, make us feel ashamed of ourselves, to shut out voices for THEIR gain, it’s never about us, it’s always about THEM

[spockandawe]

So you’ve heard Spock is the actual literal devil

Have you heard that I’m a terrible person? A plagiarist? Have you been told that I’m only into transformers at all because I wanted to make this one random guy unhappy? If you’ve been told that, you’ve probably also been told that a year and a half later, I’m still making fanworks just to upset him. You might have even heard that shhhh, don’t disagree with Spock on anything, or they’ll hunt you down and harass you.

Right, okay. This is one hell of a saga that I will attempt to tell in as compressed a form as possible. It’s a lot. Years ago, back in HS, there was this one guy who policed the hell out of one of the character tags. I’m going to call him C. He’d pressure people not to make the content they were making, decry the hateful people reading with a malicious eye who thought the character would ever do anything bad (the character was a creep). And because being obnoxious wasn’t bad enough, if you didn’t cave to his demands, he just might do things like start whisper campaigns about how you support rape, casually out you as a survivor, cute little things like that.

This is not a story about that guy.

This is a story about C’s one-time attack dog, eventual boyfriend, and current ex. We’ll go ahead and call him R. I’ve tried real hard to avoid namedropping on my blog before, but could people find him from this? Probably. Have I stopped caring? Absolutely.

TL;DR, unsubstantiated accusations of serial harassment are a little questionable when they’re coming from someone with a years-long, extensively documented history of serial harassment and a personal grudge against me.

Cut for length.

Edit 7/2/2017: R has posted that he regrets making these posts about me, and admits that he said things that were out of line. And he’s stated that he’s going to try to do better in the future. I genuinely, truly appreciate that. I’m leaving this post up because there have been lies about me floating around for a while and I reserve the right to defend myself, but I really do appreciate that.

Oh balls, none of this makes sense without backstory (I’m so sorry)

If you think I suck or my work sucks, that’s fine! You do you, go enjoy the things that make you happy.

If you think I’m the devil because this one guy told you about my evil, evil past and all my terrible misdeeds, without anything at all to back up his words? You can ask me. I don’t bite, and oh lordy do I have receipts.

To be clear, R is totally allowed to hate me! I don't care. I don't care if he hates my writing, I don't care if he hates me as a person. But now he's escalated to spreading lies about me, and people are believing him, and I’m not enough of a doormat to let that just stand.

And I’m going to cheat a little. Here’s a memo with the cliffs notes version (not the original memo, I made a copy with C’s urls cropped out since he hasn’t attacked anyone in a long while). Warning, digging any distance into this turns up violent fantasies, violent sexual fantasies, creepy interactions with a minor, and lots more, it’s all really, really unpleasant. Evidence is thoroughly documented, please tread with care.

You would not believe how truncated that is compared to the reality.

Now, the worst of this came via C. Who has calmed down a lot these days, and I’m really happy that’s the case. Good for him. I hope his life continues in a direction where he doesn’t find it necessary to do this stuff.

Lucky for me, R was standing by to pick up the slack.

It doesn’t show up as much in the memo, which is mostly C-focused, but R was standing by C this whole time, defending his right to spread around private information about someone’s abuse history, sending nasty messages on the other guy’s behalf, and much,much more. it’s long, it’s awful, it’s unpleasant. R personally hurt people in some significant ways that I don’t want to link directly, for their sake. He expressed deep remorse a few times, but it never stuck.

Here’s my personal favorite quote from R. He’s speaking to the CSA survivor that C casually outed (with information given to him in confidence), and who they’d been running a long, long whisper campaign against, and who was understandably a bit upset over the whole thing:

oh go wank to your own tears [name]

#and get your sympathizers to help #nasty fucking people #maybe if you cry enough youll be able to go into second grade in the fall #ooc

Said, again, to a CSA survivor they outed and harassed. That person is such a sweetheart, and this screencap still infuriates me.

The first time I saw C pick a fight he had lots of friends. Shockingly, as he did things like loudly fantasize about how he wants to mutilate people and rant about how autistic people should die, those friends mostly drifted away. I know one person had a friend even help them stage a faux relationship-ending fight, so they could be sure they’d be able to completely cut and run from C. R stuck with him, though. Eventually they even started dating.

‘Spock followed R into transformers to harass him and stalks his favorite characters just to harass him more’

Then, transformers. Here, let me show you the first post (by R) that ever brought MTMTE to my attention. I spent years being aggressively uninterested in transformers, but this caught my eye

and honestly, ppl (adults too!!!) shipping someone who has the mentality of a child and is quite glaringly lacking a world of experiences and general understanding of things outside of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, with an adult, is just. very alarming and gross to me.

and honestly, the fact that there is a large portion of people who want him to become romantically (and sexually!!!) involved with either one of two fucking adults in canon, and hell, esp those defending it with ‘hes an adult too tho!!’ is really gross.

you can pretend all you want that hes ‘an adult’ because his body is, but theres no way jro didnt intent to code him as a child. stop fetishizing children lmao,

#pedophilia -/-/- #cygate -/-/- #if someone comes at me screaming ‘rule 38′ im gonna shove them in a locker

I didn’t know transformers, but I was pretty sure this was some straight-up bullshit.

(but don’t worry, he ships it now! no hypocrisy here, no sir)

It’s “really gross” to ship this adult with other adults. Mm. Given the reasonableness of the claims these guys have made in the past, and given their extensive history of harassing people over those claims, I hopped to the wiki to check it out. I read a bit about the comic and the plot, and all of it sounded so fascinating that I just had to give the comic a try.

Reader, I married it.

I shotgunned MTMTE 1-47 in two days, started doing fanworks right out of the gate, and I’ve never looked back. A lot of my art was cygate, because come on, the comic wants you to ship it so bad, my first readthrough ended with issue 47, and that was the first ship I’d ever read about for the series, even before I dove in.

Now, both these characters punch me right in the heart, in some painfully personal ways. Tailgate’s the more relevant one here, but I don’t even know if I could do justice to the emotions both of them give me.

I’m still not a fan of how R’s lies about me have edged me into needing to say this in public, but okay. I’m developmentally delayed. It’s been a rough ride. And Tailgate hits me in some of those spots so hard it just takes my breath away. I’ve got a lot of baggage over not being a real adult, and not in the funny oh-no-how-do-taxes-work way, more like an extended months-long meltdown my first year of college because I can tell that my friends are years ahead of me and I don’t know how to even start catching up, and just existing, as myself, is humiliating.

All of my relationship milestones have come painfully, painfully late. The whole thing is still one awful emotional bruise. I hate it, and I hate how easy it is to convince myself that yeah, of course you don’t actually deserve to be treated as an adult and you never will. Just look at you. So then it is unbelievably important to me that I can see someone someone who is like me, being treated as a legitimate adult, and being able to have an adult relationship.

Hearing that shipping someone like me is essentially pedophilia is the opposite of that.

But he ships it now, so everything is fine :)

Yeah, you know what? Another fucking receipt.

uGHGH im so tired of all the rabid cy// /gat// //e fans like even cy’s giving em a look like ‘leave my fucking child alone’

#i just #im hoping jro has some taste tho and doesnt make an adult date a child #and if not im hoping the outcome blows over soon bc im so tired of seeing people defend pedophilia #pedophilia -/-/-

Parental.

This continued even after JRO explicitly confirmed Tailgate was an adult.

Bonus ableism: shipping Whirl (another character who hits me way too hard) isn’t okay either. Even though there isn’t the excuse of ‘but he only lived three years--’ No, at that point, you’re saying that an adult who fails to adult correctly does not count, and isn’t allowed to have romantic relationships. It makes my skin crawl, and it is an issue which is very personally and directly important to me.

So some of my cygate was porn from the start (it’s what I write. it’s what I draw.), and some of the porn was made because I was upset over discourse that says someone like me needs to be treated as a child. I played with cywhirlgate too, because omg how could I not, and some of that was porn as well. It was ages ago, so I don’t remember the details for every little thing I made. But when I saw someone saying that Cyclonus and Tailgate had a parental relationship, I’m sure that helped nudge me in that direction. Maybe R thinks I should have channeled my emotions by starting a whisper campaign to exclude him from fandom spaces. But I think my way of working through bad emotions might have been a little healthier than that.

So when R accuses me of making cygate content to spite him? Half true. Just true enough to be real fucking dishonest. R spent a nice long time insisting that cygate was pedophilia. I channeled my outrage over that ableism into fan creations.

I didn’t attack him. I talked about him some – on a private forum, with people who’d already been aware of him and had been watching him and C hurt people for years, plural. I haven’t told people on tumblr any real details about him until now. And R still is happy to talk about how it was his toxic ex’s right to post torture/rape/murder porn vent fic about actual people.

Tell me, how exactly am I in the wrong?

Bonus pettiness: I posted some cywhirlgate porn. The next day, R vaguely whined about robot pedophilia and turned around and wrote some obviously-a-response cywhirlgate. Where it was super platonic and the text explicitly said it was super platonic and it even had platonic thigh nuzzling. With two “children” involved. Of course I turned around and wrote more fic of my own, because jesus h christ that made my skin crawl. You want to play this game? I guarantee I can write faster than you, let’s do this. (he did not follow through on that)

I’d also like to say that forgetting inconvenient little details like this is a thing with R. Hard to call me terrible for writing spitefic when you write it yourself.

A history of Spock’s personal involvement

Let’s backtrack a tiny bit. You may notice I am up to my elbows in this nonsense for no clear reason.

I was friends with some of the people C was taking shots at, and I was unfortunate enough to believe his original smear campaign about that one artist (I’m still ashamed about that). I cared about a number of people C was trying to hurt. I think one or two fanworks of mine upset him, but he already had loads of targets. I kept tabs on him and R, because anxiety is the gift that just keeps giving.

Eventually, C fantasized about wanting to put my former datemate’s hand through a meat grinder (ey wrote a fic that portrayed his fave in a negative light). And R defended his right to do that.

The person he posted about is still feeling the effects of that incident. I’m still feeling the effects of that. And it wasn’t even directed at me, just someone I care deeply about.

R has recently posted that ‘oh my goodness, C sure was awful, remember when he posted this thing about a meat grinder and how unreasonable it was?’ Thanks buddy, glad you noticed, now just go ahead and keep on blaming me for the aftereffects of what your boyfriend did, and what you defended.

After that, it was months before I could properly look away from either of their blogs.

C posted extensively about trying to track down the street address of his ~enemies~ (including the one whose genitals he fantasized about mutilating). He posted about how autistics should die. He had skype chats about wanting to do amateur brain surgery on people. All while posting very often about finding real addresses.

Yeah, it’s more than a year later, and every so often I get a stab of anxiety and have to head off to double check on what these two are up to.

I will repeat that C has been pretty chill lately. He’s got a career he’s aiming for. Good for him, go find success, please don’t slip back into being an internet bully. It’s sad and upsetting to see R echoing some of the early patterns of his ex, and it’s so strange to see me labeled as his own personal enemy.

‘Spock will totally come harass you too’ and/or various accusations of ableism

So there are some things I did in the mix in this history that I regret. Occasionally, I went out and flipped through the blogs of C and R’s friends, seeing if maybe they’d had said something in their notes, did they have any vagueblogs C liked, did they post about— It got unreasonable. I admit that. Anxiety was at the root of it, but it absolutely got unreasonable. And also it is a massive time sink, and I can’t remember the last time I bothered with it. I enjoy life much more when anxiety and paranoia issues don’t have their claws in me. This hasn’t been an issue in a very long time.

I came down hard on some of the kinfeels and system stuff too, which I do walk back a bit. C’s approach was… hahaha. It was something. And he was my intro to the kin and system paradigms. I saw R talking about C’s approach being unreasonable too, pretty recently. So that was an unfortunate bit of poison in how I processed the next people I met who did that sort of thing. I don’t do kin stuff, but I get it. And DID may not strictly apply to all systems, by the formal diagnostic criteria, but I’ve learned there are plenty of other dissociative disorders out there. And I met people who were multiples and who did kin things that weren’t these two guys. Which helped a LOT.

But the big one, hmmm. C wrote a fic. The idea was interesting, but the execution frustrated me. Everyone but the main lead felt so… flat. Everyone was constantly cruel to the main, for no reason. I saw a way to riff on the original text while staying true to its shape, and writing my bad emotions out is also a major, major thing I do to cope. Now, my big thing is that I should have asked before I remixed. I’d been thinking in terms of, y’know, transformative fanworks. Even with authors like Anne McCaffrey and Anne Rice, who fought against fandom, people have still felt that it should be allowed, even against their wishes. So I wrote the remix. I gave full credit on ao3 in the ‘inspired by’ box, linked to the original with positive words, the whole shebang.

The guy was still furious, and… that’s fair. I thought I’d written a thing on self-sabotage that was pretty sympathetic and compelling, and the self-sabotage actually drew a lot on my own personal history. But I gave the main flaws he strongly disagreed with, and I didn’t ask for permission. I get why he was/is angry over it.

I’ve been a fixture on their shitlists ever since :P

It’s remarkable, even while R posts now about ‘oh my god, remember how C wrote the creepiest things?’, I’m still the one who’s the the actual worst, for being skeeved out by the creepy things and finding a constructive way to deal with it. R’s controlling ex gets full freedom when it comes to vent fic, even when it’s about wallowing in torturing, raping, and murdering an avatar for a real person (the original one they harassed!), or punching someone in the face until they agree to be your friend (another artist these guys targeted). But R’s position seems to be that only C is allowed to vent (even if it’s genital mutilation fantasies), and I’m definitely not.

Oh, and R has now expanded this remix into me totally having a consistent pattern of stealing ideas and plagiarism and so many remixes that are obviously done as revenge on anyone who pisses me off. So that’s nice.

So R hates your writing. Is that seriously why this post exists?

Ha, no. Let’s look at the concrete things R is saying. Here, let me post a little sampling of evidence.

These aren’t just things he’s shouting into the void, people have responded saying wow, I never knew that! These are lies that people are believing about me. And then yesterday, June 30, 2017, he warned a friend not to disagree with my meta, or I’d come harass them. A friend I’m aggressively leaving out of this, just as I’m leaving out other responses, because these people don’t deserve to be dragged into R’s bullshit.

Let’s have bullet points. Some of these are the silly spock-is-bad-at-writing complaints. Those are here because this whole mess is pretty fucking depressing and the ridiculous claims make me laugh, but these are all things he says.

Spock is evil – You know what, he’s not calling people pedophiles, which is a step up. I’ll take it.

Spock is a plagiarist – I remixed one fic with full credit, said only good things about the original, and linked to it in extra places so that people would have extra opportunities to click through and check it out. I arguably remixed inappropriately, but that’s not the same thing. Words have definitions. If I’m a plagiarist, so is everyone who’s ever written a fanfic.

Spock is something something mean when people disagree – I don’t even know, man. I’m actually shockingly conflict-averse. Is this because I make walls of text and explain why I hold opinions at great length? I enjoy talking about a thing I love. I’m autistic, I’m hyperverbal, and this is my special interest, so is it that I talk a lot? That’s the best I can do. I’ve talked about things I disagree with on a private forum, in which case mister pot has had a lot of fun in public on twitter, not only talking shit, but also spreading outright untruths. Maybe he wants to rethink this one.

Spock will come harass you if you disagree – You need to back the heck down, pal.

Spock’s meta/fic/characterization is bad and they should feel bad – Hahaha, fite me. He won’t, because I can articulately defend myself at significant length, and his criticisms seem to stop at ‘spock sucks’, but hey.

Spock used ableist language about Whirl - I... what? This one confuses me and makes me laugh so it stays here. Also, holy double standards, batman.

Spock is only into transformers to harass R – I checked out transformers because I was pretty sure R was being disgustingly ableist (he was). I stayed in transformers because I adore it. I had to adore it a lot to make me willing to share fandom space with these two. My god, I have better things to do with my life than spend all my time on something that bores me just to annoy one asshole on the other side of the internet. I’d ask if he thinks I spent dozens of painstaking hours cross-stitching Starscream just to bother him, but….. yep, pretty sure he does.

Spock goes after all of R’s favorite characters to upset him – R latches on to just about every interesting and/or sympathetic character that shows up. When he was dating C, they covered most of the cast between them. I don’t care who R likes best because I don’t agree with his opinions. I tend to stay away from his opinions because I don’t like reading things that bother me. This is asnine. I’m only allowed to like the characters R despises, I guess.

Spock makes fanworks for things R likes just to make him see them – Oh my god, I don’t caaaaaare. I write about things that interest me, unless I’m venting. Say, venting about the way R and his ex have deliberately hurt a shockingly high number of people I care about. ‘Spock made rodistar because I liked it--’ I made it because I wrote a thing about their parallels, and shipping was the obvious next step. R isn’t that important to me. Promise.

This is just exhausting, man. The anxiety bugs had been dying down, and it had been ages since I checked out this guy’s anything. C, who drove the whole initial blowup that led to this, has been quiet and chill on tumblr. But R has learned from his ex’s old example and has been having fun spreading lies about me.

In conclusion

Some fun history.

R was 18 when he told a CSA survivor upset about being outed and harassed to wank using their tears for lube.

He was older than that when he defended C’s right to post about wanting to mutilate someone’s genitals (for the crime of saying C’s logic didn’t make sense).

He was older than that when he complained about that person’s spouse being ‘vicious’ for reacting badly to C’s genital mutilation fantasy.

He was older than that when he nodded along as C called autistic people retards and said they should die.

He was older than that when he talked about being happy that someone he disliked was triggered, and nodded along when C fantasized about that person drinking bleach.

And he was older than that when he defended C, his twenty-something boyfriend, against the thirteen-year-old that C had been having incredibly inappropriate conversations with, despite skype log proof and everything.

And despite all this, I’m still the bad guy, because I didn’t think what they were doing was okay. I’m the bad guy for being upset by C's actions, even though... R is now upset by C’s actions. The ways I responded to C were inexcusable. My only motivation is to hurt people. Every thing I did that ever upset them still means I’m terrible, even though R is saying this while he’s busy posting about how awful C is. And this all means that he needs to warn his friends not to catch my attention, or I’ll come harass them.

So, I’m tired.

I’m very tired.

I’m glad he’s trying to grow past that history. Good. Maybe he can do that without making up a story about how I’m unrepentant villain who lives for villainy and who only takes joy in causing him pain. I’m sure it helps him, because it’s a story that brushes aside the shit he did that he regrets, and makes his past less painful to think about. But that doesn’t mean I’m okay with him telling lies about me.

I don’t know why I’m the one boogeyman he has left (I kid, it’s because I’m in transformers, and because he thinks I’m popular. he harps on it a lot, and it’s weird for everyone). I mean, whatever. I’ve aggressively avoided publishing drama details on here for a very long time. But there are two blog tags, miscellaneous other untagged blog content, three forum threads, and hundreds of pages of skype logs with hard evidence of this bullshit.

I’m pretty sure that if he tries to defend himself, one, he’ll place some blame on his ex. That’s fair. C was pretty darn controlling and demanding. But R is still absolutely responsible for his own actions, and is especially responsible for the harm he personally caused. He’ll talk about how it’s bullshit to pull up all these receipts from so very long ago. In that case, his receipts for me (whatever he even has) are equally old, so aren’t they null and void? No, because Spock is the devil. And it’s not so much bullshit if he’s clearly learned nothing, and has gone back to spreading outright falsehoods about people.

To be clear, a lot of the lies he told about me were told a while back. Weeks to a few months to a year. I was letting it sit, because I’d really, really hoped this was over. Yesterday, June 30, 2017, he warned a friend not to publicly disagree with my meta or I’d come and harass them.

It’s been three years since I first saw him doing this. I’ve watched him hurt a lot of people, and I’ve watched him admit, multiple times, that he has hurt people. I thought he’d learned to stop following these toxic patterns. Apparently he has not.

Edit 7/2/2017: To repeat the edit up above, R has said he regrets posting these things about me, and that he's going to try to avoid slipping into this in the future. I very much appreciate that.

[fiftyshitsofgay]

Your friend is a CSer, right? How does that impact on how you view CSers? When you see posts about how all CSers are stupid, do you think of your friend and if these statements hold true to her?

thanks for the question, lovely

yup, she is. her love of cs is dormant right now, even among the time of spoilers and speculations, so i’ve thankfully been able to catch a break from her pro-hook love but pray for me when 7x02 comes lmao

when it comes to generalization i take it with a grain of salt bc of her. i see the kind of bs csers pull and i know her well enough to know she’d never think about doing things like that, hardcore fangirl she may be. stuff like badgering the writers for a cs baby on twitter, insisting this ship is the pinnacle of ships and everyone else can just not exist bc no one cares, and purposely hijacking anti-tags and posts for the sake of argument. she mostly stays in her lane when it comes to being involved in the fandom. tbh my issue with her loving the fuck out of hook has more to do with a flaw in her own character (i mean hook has P L E NT Y of flaws but it’s not his moment rn lol).

i started this blog because of her, because i was sick of her gushing about cs (lbr she’s way more into hook than she is emma… we all saw that one coming). i’m all for letting people be excited about things–i won’t rain on your parade even if i disagree with it–but it was overwhelming me. the one time i casually and politely asked her to take it down a notch, she acted like i forbade her from talking about her precious pirate ever again and boy oh gee was i in trouble for that! :) even tho i already had my emma ships, i actually started shipping sq completely out of spite.

annoyed as i am, i do think statements like the example you’ve given are for those csers who go around declaring their ship is the best like it’s gospel, which my friend doesn’t do, so i don’t see her as that. same goes for all those casual csers who don’t participate in fandom wank. that being said, can she be obnoxious and overzealous at times? definitely. we all get like that. the only difference between us is i don’t talk to her about things i know she doesn’t care for.