#not exactly anti either ship but still critical

[avatarfandompolice]

You can tell how boring Klance and Zukka are as ships by the fact that literally all fan content for them is interchangeable

[just-orbiting-you]

discussion of the army status quo, bts as artists, consumerism, streaming vs. critical fan engagement

this ended up being a rant, i just needed to get this out, but be forewarned of the topics listed.

building off the post i put up about the division among jikookers the huge divide in army is still ever present. this fandom is so divided and has just become people screaming at each other, reporting and blocking. there’s no capacity for conversation and constructive discourse. some of these fans are so volatile i’m appalled. at this point i just wonder why these people are fans of bts, because what about their actions, music, and celebrity personas allows them to feel connected to the members. why are these people fans?

because we should be fans of their music first. i see having biases and “shipping” as a side to appreciating and supporting their art as artists. through that, i stand with their messages they have promoted through their art over the course of their career. bts inspire me to become a better thinker, person, and artist. personally right now, i am not expecting them to be their celebrity selves while others may think otherwise, but i will not condemn or stand for the condemnation of their call for hybe and bts’ action.

the emphasis on streaming, the decline of artmy and fandom creation, the infighting and refusal to come together, the accusing of others from a lot of solo rhetoric, i just cannot take it and i’m nervous for the future of bts and their fan relationship.

no fan is perfect - i have seen accounts of proclaimed ot7, shippers, solos, biased ot7, all of which spout rhetoric i can take issue with. i’m not perfect either. and i don’t want to abandon this for lack of a better word “army space” since i do still love and care for the members. but how long can this go on for?

army has an agenda - but only when they want to. we can only come together when the members are in dire straits. why do we wait on bts’ beck and call? why can’t we operate independently and do work on their behalf? why can’t we speak up about social justice, liberation and other issues, when bts are away from their public platforms? why can’t we comprehend being critical of company higherups and attempts to reach the members with education is not direct hate to the members that needs yoongi scandal levels of mobilization? why can’t we actually mobilize to take down anti accounts like we did for yoongi? why can’t we make donations to reputable charities in the name of bts like we used to???

and again, i have spoken about this before, but k-pop and bts’ previous level of output (plus the accelerated output of the solo era) has brainwashed fans into capitalist compliancy. people foam at the mouth if they don’t buy the newest album. people scream at you if you don’t stream. this is exactly what these companies want you to do and exactly how they want you to think. hybe is sitting on a big pile of money right now from all their means of profits, yet we give them that power with our money.

i want to make clear that i understand the historical significance of streaming in regard to boosting bts’ popularity and creating a reputation of loyalty and monetary support for their fans, when they were the underdog group. but,

over the years, i think the ways in which bts want us to support them is reading their lyrics, understanding their messaging, seeing their hard work and artistic processes and showing up for them when necessary. of course they’re thankful when we support them monetarily, but did namjoon make RPWP so it could be streamed to death? no. did jimin make FACE so it could hit BB hot100? no. did yoongi make amygdala and polar night so they could get #1 digital song sales? NO. those are some of his most deeply personal songs. they made those albums out of their lived experiences, processing their most vulnerable times. this is their art. and as time has gone on, i miss the appreciation and praise for their artistry. they deserve that regard for their work. you can say that charting them is the ultimate way to show your support, but i disagree. streaming just lines hybe’s pockets. engaging in critical conversation with other fans and supporting projects like minimoni music and suchwita and listening to their words closely promote healthy fan engagement. mindless streaming of their work is not engaging. mindless streaming of the last, amygdala is something that should not be expected of people, these song are difficult to listen to!!!! if it isn’t for for people, then they need to reread the lyrics. outside of a hybe monetary boycott, i do believe streaming and analysis in tandem is not a bad thing. but we need that deliberate fan engagement. we are nothing without it.

especially the infighting and refusal of common ground, plus demonization of fandom creation overtime is truly toxic fan engagement distracting us and souring the environment overall.

i think solo era has brought on a lot of these issues as everyone was sorted into their own factions based on bias and a lot of ot7s showed their true colors. but i worry for what bts’ reaction will be when they witness the wreckage of this fandom. and even calling on hybe to do something about weverse army and weverse as a platform has not been resolved. maybe i personally just need time away, who knows.

[darklinaforever]

Interesting to see Sareth and Sessrin on the same list of loves. Because I too love both and don’t think either are bad. Both ships are dependent on the female. Let me explain, in both relations Rin/Sarah decide when they are ready. Neither guys understand affection well, because the girls are one offs. Jareth didn’t know how to properly express his feelings. And Sess wouldn’t have had any clue. I only ship either when they are grown women of course. When they know their feelings :)

The first similar thing that struck me though was that both females when they grow up, after Sess/Jareth who else would possibly follow them? If Rin was ever going to love anyone it would only have been Sesshomaru. And Sarah’s sexual awakening was a magical king that looks like Bowie! Would a human man ever compare? Both women’s choice when they grow up is obvious. Why would they change filet mignon for spam? And their guys would let them. Ever if Sess realized he had feelings when Rin got older he wouldn’t act on it. And Sarah has to invite Jareth back into her world 😉 😆 Sorry if this didn’t make sense but that’s my thoughts

Exactly.

These are two relationships where everything depends above all on the woman.

And I myself can't imagine them as a couple with another man once they're older.

Also, I'm tired of seeing people spit on these two ships without understanding them and using words whose meaning they don't even understand.

Small compilation of important articles on these two ships that I was able to do :

[just-antithings]

sometimes i wonder if some ppl who made nsfw and ships things yet goes to have anti-like mindset, actually understood what proship is like. with some antis i feel like some did start off making lewd content and ships, but when taught about the fact that the content contained elements of "pedophilic", "sexist", "incest" etc, which are morally wrong IRL, thy end up it, and either thy stop doing the content or accuse those who do as shady ppl... (1/?)

forgetting that their content still exist or tries to hide the fact that thy made that, most out of fear of being accused themselves. and this happens with ppl and some sites, who have been posting nsfw content for most of their online presents, being into censorship and harassment for certain kinks and ships... (2/?)

some of it cld be because of the complains and harassment from antis getting to them that theyre trying to stop as no one wants to deal with it along with things changing online with fictional content, but its very contradictoring given what else theyre allow to post. and even if its because they have their own prefrences & are disgusted by certain things, thy shld know to not judge ppl on their content and leave them be...(3/?)

honestly i can't blame these ppl too much on not understanding this. when you join any fandom ya do it as a hobby, ya do it to have fun and meet new ppl who share yr interest. u don't exactly go to learn things like media literacy, critical thinking, internet safety and spotting red flags about ppl...(4/?)

considering that posting rule34 and shipping questionable things have ALWAY been a thing and most ppl wld have joined while they're minors or young adults, thy wld probably think it's no big deal to make until some tell them otherwise because of wat the content is based on. with hypocritical antis I'm not too mad on it (as they are still better than the abusive predators) and some of them can change for the better at least (6/6)

I think we lost part of this ask but I still think you make an interesting point

[elfelt-valentine]

I am very glad that general public has moved past the need to identify themselves with either proship or antiship (i wonder if it has something to do with growing up? cuz when i was a teenager it was still everywhere even though im pretty much still around the same circles ive been like 4 years ago. we all grew up i guess LOL) because both communities are absolutely unnecessary vile and lack any sort of critical thinking skills or desire to listen to someone with differing opinion.

As much as it is going to be useless to try to explain to a hardcore proshipper that """shipping""" """"problematic"""" things is bad and harmful and it doesn't make a person explaining that to them a puritan it's just as useless to try to explain to a hardcore "anti" that shipping something unhealthy or being into "weird" kinks doesn't define person's moral standing or them as a person.

And by the last one i don't mean pedophilia or incest - it's specifically ships that are purposefully between people who are bad for each other. It always comes down to the way the person goes about such dynamics that you can judge for yourself whether you want anything to do with them. Cuz most of the time it's not that they think abuse is awesome, or unhealthy relationships are cute, it's just that sometimes someone doesn't give a shit about implications and whatnot and goes off of the surface level of understanding of that relationship and they decided for themself that its cute. But i digress.

It is honestly horrible to see adults so deep in their own ass trying to defend horrid behavior in spaces dedicated to kids, spread content actively harmful and putting children into the headspace where they can become an easy target for predators, and make it even harder to try to have the conversations with children about how it is harmful.

But it's foolish to try and think that both sides of this stupid internet war aren't batshit weird. Both spread outright lies about each other to make each other look bad for people who don't know any of this stuff. It's foolish to think that there aren't predators in the "anti" spaces. Predators will be everywhere, what we need to get our attention to is spreading information on how to recognize them and stay away from them, not that certain content or spaces will make kids more susceptible to becoming a victim.

In the end of the day you won't stop people from making horrible things, sadly. And what's even more disturbing is that for many years "anti" spaces has created an environment where making a mistake is equal to having your entire internet presence near dangerous and very psychologically draining. One think proshippers are right about and it's that "antis" aren't always exactly concerned about children but about upholding higher moral ground.

Not to get personal but it certainly didn't protect me from predators. It certainly didn't make me feel better about myself or feel safe or like i could grow as a person if i always say the "right" thing and would be too scared to misstep or i will be shunned from the internet.

Idk where im going with this actually. I guess what im trying to get at is think for yourself and learn from your mistakes and listen to people when they say how things harm them. It certainly helped me get out of the proshipper spaces and antishipper spaces eventually.

[absolutezerotolerance]

Gruvians: It's just fiction! stop taking it so seriously! Also Gruvians: writes long metas on why the ship is brilliant, stalks accounts they were blocked by to bitch about said account not liking their ship, stalks posts they disagree with & vehemently reading the tags within each reblog of said posts & treats head canons such as a Gray liking Lucy & Erza first before Juvia as some sort of personal attack against them.

A large part of the GrUvia fanbase seems to be built on insecurity, and I think that for exactly the reasons you mentioned.

The GrUvia ship has come under a lot more scrutiny than most other ships in Fairy Tail, and I think it's resulted in them being completely unwilling to think about their ship in any kind of nuance.

One of our friends once mentioned that they don't support the ship in one of the most innocent ways possible, and it led to several days worth of battling with GrUvia fans and explaining her stance and why she was justified in her opinion. It got to the extent that she had to explicitly state that she would not be responding to any more asks because she didn't want her blog to become known for being anti-GrUvia. Just for stating an opinion. That is how quick the ship's fanbase are to anger.

You're either supportive and unequivocally good, or you're not and you must be attacked.

We've seen evidence that this has even extended over their ability to think critically about each other. We've received asks about how there is a psychologist in the GrUvia fanbase who thinks that the ship is healthy, and one of our admins was in the fandom when the whole GrUvia University thing went down. If I was a GrUvia fan, I would be disgusted by how they're treating people.

They cannot handle the idea that there is a space that exists in the Fairy Tail fandom that doesn't welcome them. Whenever we post things with the tagline "GRUVIA FANS: DO NOT INTERACT" we'd get at least 1 ask from a butt-hurt fan who could not find it in themselves to take our advise to block us and move on, and instead had tantrums after tantrums in our ask box.

(Hi, one of the other admins here popping in for just a second! Quick tw for a mention of stalking. I’ve been doxxed twice, I still get sent death threats, harrassed online, harassed in real life, and my stalker used this ship as an example of why I had to fall in love with him if he just kept trying. I personally am convinced that they’re too stupid to realize how hypocritical they are when they say don’t apply it to real life. Fiction always affects reality, even when it’s not blatantly obvious, and people really need to be more conscious of that and the fact that there are levels to it. A character’s favorite color may not have a big impact in real life, but normalizing abusive relationships has a massive negative impact, as seen by all the victims sharing their stories on this blog and those who share their stories elsewhere, because let’s face it, this nasty ship is not the only time an abusive relationship has been romantisized.

That being said, this does not mean all GrUvia shippers are stalkers/abusers. Fiction does affect reality, but that doesn't mean it controls reality. People have moral compasses, and sometimes they like to explore weird/amoral/dark things in fiction, and it's better to do that in ficiton than in real life. The problem lies within the fact that the vast majority of them that I have personally interacted with (<- reread the bold part and use your reading comprehension skills please) have been willing to doxx, harass, or abuse others. Pro-Juvia and Pro-grUvia shippers are notorious for these things, but some anti-Juvia and Anti-GrUvia people are too. The problem lies within the attitude of the shippers even more so than the ship itself. If we could both have conversations about it, with respect that neither side is going to change the other's thoughts and opinions, then the fandom would be a much happier and safer place.

Personally, I would love if we could just coexist and enjoy Fairy Tail together. Alas, it is not meant to be, hence the creation and necessity of this vent space)

On some level, I do feel bad for the GrUvia fanbase that they have to exist with so much scrutiny. But then I remember the content of the ship itself, and I genuinely think that they've only ever made it worse for themselves by being aggressive.

If the fandom was able to have discussions like this, to talk about ships through a critical lens and have an actual conversation about this, the ship would still be awful. But the fandom, itself, wouldn't be viewed as this group of people with the mental complexity of toddlers.

[agentrouka-blog]

Ned also didn't give any explanation or warnings to Arya and yet she didn't disobey her father . Sansa is fully aware that her father and his men were attacked in KL . Trying to say that she has to be spoonfed every information for her to come to conclusion is equivalent to infantalizing her character and treating her as a bimbo . It's similar to Coleman getting tensed around her when she orders dosages of Sweetsleep . Yes , she isn't a medical expert but seeing that the Maester is hesitating with panic is good enough an evidence for her to think that something is amiss . Sansa is a smart girl or else Grrm wouldn't have LF as her antagonist . In ASOS, we see her deducing the Kingslayer stew plot in regards to Joffrey , Margaery and Loras . It's another one of seeds planted by Baelish which we later see confirmed when she is in the ship with him . She is not spoonfed about this complicated plot . She observes and she tries to decipher the dynamic that would be in play amongst these 3 characters after Margaery's marriage to Joffrey . Ofcourse she thinks the whole thing is stupid because of constantly being told about how stupid she is but the gist is that the author is telling us the girl is smart and is able to decipher things without being spoonfed . As I said earlier , in order to bring down LF you need a smart protagonist .

Just wanting to clarify this is not anti Sansa . Sansa is not a villain . She alongwith Bran and Arya have traditional heroes arcs where the threat of corruption always lingers with the protagonist choosing to momentarily delve into it thanks to temptation before breaking free from it and treading the path of heroism and righteousness . We as readers know that Bran is atleast aware of how warging into Hodor makes him ( Hodor ) uncomfortable and yet he ends up doing it which would later in TWOW result in Hodor's death . The temptation here is warging into an unwilling human and taking part in it inspite how the whole thing is torturing to Hodor . Same is Arya's tryst with unhealthy violence and vengeance . Similarly like her 2 young siblings , Sansa's arc also has her active choices in fiddling or carrying out unpleasant things because of temptation . Just like how Bran and Arya will break out of this , Sansa will too .

Trying to take away Sansa's agency in her mistakes and the bad things ( poisoning her cousin ) she does is equivalent to taking away her agency where she chooses to be kind and brave . Antis try to shoehorn her into some sort of a cackling maniacal bully stripping her of kindness and bravery which is exactly similar to how stans strip her of her wrong choices and treating her as a beacon of purity . Both of these dialogues don't do justice to her character . There is no such thing as a hero's journey where the hero is completely pure and endlessly kind .

Look, thank you for that manifesto, but it doesn't change the fact that Sansa didn't "betray her family".

You can criticize that she was could have been more observant orn suspicious about the danger they were in, but you can't compare her perspective with Arya's, either. Arya hated it in KL and had more than one personal conversation with Ned about her feelings and their precarious position. She was free to hate the Lannisters because she wasn't the one her father had tied to them for the rest of her life. Arya actually overheard conspirators whispering in the shadows. Ned got her Syrio, which made her happy, and she was just told she could a) take him along to Winterfell, and b) even have one last sparring session before they would leave. WHY would Arya be dissatisfied in this moment and defy Ned? She wins on every level!

(And she still would have gone with the Kingsguard if Syrio hadn't intervened, btw, so let's not pretend Arya was any safer than Sansa on her own while Ned was busy engaging in a political coup.)

Sansa is the one losing out on the only thing that has given her joy these past months, which is the courtly culture and splendor in KL. "There must be more than this provincial life" is fine for Belle but not Sansa?

Sansa had zero explanations about anything from Ned, only chastising about fighting with Arya or "No you can't go to the Tourney.. okay fine, whatever." Nor did she get a talk about his killing of Lady and her deep grief and anger. All she has is a crumbling trust in her father because he pays barely any attention to her and makes choices for her she disagrees with but is not allowed to question. She can't say goodbye to the guy she was supposed to marry. No explanation. Nothing.

So, yeah, she goes to speak to Cersei about being allowed to stay, because she's too scared of the king to speak to him directly.

That's her big crime.

It's not erasing her complexity to understand what actually motivates her in this moment. It sure as heck wasn't "I want to betray my family and do them harm! Mwahahaha!"

I don't understand this interpretation at all.

But then, you actually think she is "poisoning her cousin" on purpose because being smart means she has not only the ability but also the obligation to understand the hidden motivations of everyone around her, even if they contradict the political reality that Littlefinger's power entirely depends on Sweetrobin being alive.

[siryouarebeingmocked]

"SYABM genuinely believes [complete and absolute lie that resembles nothing I've ever said, inexplicably put in quotation marks]."

Class, this is what's known as a 'double bind'.

If I say nothing, they continue to lie. If I defend myself, it just "proves" that I can't leave an argument alone. Even though this wasn't an argument, it was a personal attack by cowards who want to talk smack behind my back in a public forum, but not give me a chance to defend myself.

So screw 'em. They're either liars, or just plain wrong.

Somehow the guy who regularly chats with slashers who are also anti-SJW totally believes slashing inevitably leads to being an SJW. It’s not like I mock the way some people use SocJus rhetoric to justify their shipping. 

It’s not like I do the exact same when antis use similar rhetoric to justify harassment.

I also like how the person slagging me off behind my back says I'm the one who has to take and win every argument, when I regularly say "I'm done arguing, I'm going to leave now and let you have the last word."

I have a tag specifically for the times I was wrong, to keep myself humble. Not to mention the many times I decide not to get in an argument, which you usually don't see because, y'know, I don't post them. And for reasons which will be detailed later, I doubt witchyyy is a regular reader of my tumblr.

Irony: I get in less arguments and make shorter posts than I used to when I started this blog, for physical and mental health reasons.

As for the movie Overlord, I still enjoyed it, I just assumed it was taking place in an alternate universe or was taking artistic license or something. Especially when I realized it was inspired by COD Zombies.

Incidentally, I last reblogged something from renard in May 2020. And I was, uh, agreeing with him. I don't know where this enmity came from, or why he has me blocked.

And as long as we’re throwing around personal attacks;

Gee, I wonder why witchyyyyyy - who I’ve never interacted with - is lying about me. Totally not because she’s a SJW. Couldn't possibly be because I mock SJWs exactly like hir, especially "non-binaries" and people with pronouns in their bio.

Also: >Sashibun said I responded on a post where someone was being “hyperbolic” in their criticism of the Vox from Bioshock Infinite<. Which sounds an awful lot like “I don’t want to believe someone on my side would actually make such a stupid argument.” 

>Especially since I mostly seem to see Sashi when she’s making excuses for SJWs and the left.< (EDIT: I checked, and I was wrong.)

And sure enough, it was someone strawmanning wildly and hiding it under the guise of humor. And more importantly, I was responding to someone who sincerely agreed with OP’s point. >And it turned out the second person was wrong<. AMy point at the end was literally “OP’s ‘satire’ is such a distortion it’s not even real criticism anymore,” even if they wanted to make some kind of point about racism.

I literally criticized it for being too hyperbolic. >Twice<.

Somehow, Sashi took my criticism and turned it into a justification.

@nerdylilpeebee​, sashi was lying to you. Or misremembering. Same diff.

[wenellyb]

Was Sebastian Stan in some scandal/controversy recently? I saw the previous ask about the interview and I agree his stans are terrible and it would be nice not to have to deal with them, but I wasn’t aware people had major issues with Stan himself. Did something happen or does this just relate back to his fans? Just curious as I wasn’t sure if I was out of the loop on something or not. I don’t really follow any actor social medias or controversies so I often am.

Hi Anon!!! Wow, this might be long. So I'll start with what I know about and will end with some of the other stuff I have seen.

So yeah his fans are the worst, but he's not innoncent either. But if you ask me, the behavior of his fans is also related to this, they made things 10 times worse.

My problem with Sebastian Stan goes back to a few years ago. I used to be a big Sebastian Stan fan because of his friendship with Anthony Mackie. His fandom was already problematic but I never held it against Sebastian .... I would even support his movies and everything ( I even watched his olympics movie and was shattered by that scene...). So everything was great until he made a post on Instagram about his movie I Tonya.... and the meme said "this is real kneeling" or "back to when kneeling meant something".... i don't remember the exact words anymore but does someone have a screenshot?

And this all happened when Colin Kapaernick was kneeling... Which was a very sensitive time, when Kap also didn't get a lot of support and got so many criticism for calling out racism and police violence. At the time his kneeling had stirred up a lot of contreversy and people really showed their true colors and a lot of racists (politicians, actors, ... etc) came out of the woods. So Sebastian's post came at the worst moment ever and was truly disturbing. It's one thing not to vocally support an anti-racism activist or stay silent, it's another thing to actively post something that brings down a man who is already facing so much criticism for saying one thing :"Stop being racist and killing Black people".

Sebastian Stan isn't a child and has been living in the US long enough to know what he was doing.

If someone does something racist, I'm going to assume that the person is racist until proven otherwise. ad it has been disgusting watching his stans try to ignore the avoid the conversation.

"I know Sebastian, he's not racist" "He's friend with Anthony he can't be racist" If you are someone who has ever written something like this you are part of the problem....(general you here I'm of course not talking about you anon)

That post was racist, anf best case scenario, he didn't understand the Kap thing, which is still awful because it means he doesn't care about non-White people dying or being harmed.

So as a fan, seeing a White celebrity you liked clearly express he doesn't care about you, is disheartening.

It's not exactly a surprise because I always expect some White Men and Women to be rwcist but it's still a disappointment. And watching White Sebastian Stan stans trying to brush it off was the worst part of it.

White people always act like being accused of racism is worst than actually being racist. If you really want to improve things you need to acknowledge it when racism happens.... and you have to say the word "that post was racist" "what I did was racist" not "it's ignorance" "it's clumsy". You cannot say you're anti-racist and then try to sh*t down people who are calling out racist behavior.

Racism is a reality, some people are racist and it's a reality, and if you try to deny it whenever you get the accusation no one will go anywhere, it'll just end up with non-White people being hurt and silenced.

Anthony Mackie got accusations of being homophobic, because of some stupid stuff like not shipping sambucky (only stupid people think that not liking a ship equals homophobia I'm sorry if the truth hurts) but some of the accusations came from the fact that he had said some stuff about male friendships, and you know why I don't think that Anthony is homophibic? Because he has talked about it, acknoweledged it and said the words: he has talked about how he grew up in a homophibic environnement how he got called out for homophobic remarks in college and has been working on it ever since.

If you do something racist, you apologize and you say it... What I did was racist, and you don't ever do it again.

Sebastian Stan stans do the opposite... they cover up racist stuff and then end up being 10 mores racists while trying to defend their fave.

Sebastian Stan was only able to give a fake *ss apology after that post and the rest of the time is happy ignoring everything going on around him.

Yes, Sebastian doesn't attend White Supremacist rallies (to my Knowledge) but that's not what racism is only about... it's also only hiring White people and seeing no problem with it, thinking White people are better in every aspect, not being bothered by injustice when it happens to non-White people. And this is a reality a lot of Black people have to deal with daily. I've had colleagues who would say the most racist things unbothered, I had a coworker who would tell me that Black women had no luck when it came to hair, that asian hair was the best, then came White hair and at the very bottom came Black hair, I had a coworker tell me that I probably had climbed a tree to eat a banana, and the list goes on and on..

And you know what my White friends would say whenever I talked about it? "Oh no it isn't racist, they're just ignorant" "They didn't mean it" "it's nothing" and expected me to just take it... My friends...

It took me not standing it anymore and writing to my HR director to know that I was not overreacting... the HR director called me and talled me that that behavior was clearly racist no questions asked.

But if I had listenend to my White friends I would have suffered in silence for a few years more.

White people, you need to stop doing this. I know it's uncomfortbale but you have to know that some of you are racist and trying to ignore or hide it makes things 10 times worse.

That's how Sebastian Stan are... they just want the Black fans to take it. Because it would be too inconvient to admit that they are stanning a racist White man. That is more important than listening to the Black fans.

Calling out Trump for being a racist is super easy. But do you call out your own family memebers when theyre being racist? Your friends? You fave? And people who have ever said "I know Sebastian and he's not racist " "he has a Black friend he can't be racist" are disgusting. I'm not telling anybody to stop stanning Sebastian Stan... you do you. I'm telling people that if there are justified accusations against your fave, you sh*t up and listen... You demand a real apology from your fave and not a fake *ss one like the one Sebastian made.

You don't say "well he apologized so get over it, what else can he do". I'm saying this because my asks are always open I have received a dozens of asks like these. So yeah, Sebastian Stan has been a big disappointemrnt to me and fell from a pedestal he will never get back on, but he's not the worst, the worst has been his stans who are in a big majority extremily racist. It's all linked. This was my own thoughts and below some of the other stuff I have seen but won't form any thoughts. Here are some of the stuff he was called out for but I don't know much about: -he liked a video of a White man talking about whether or not it was racist for White people to say the n word. I don't have much thoughts about this because I haven't seen the video but I just would like to comment that people like to brish this off whenever it comes up and Letitia Wright's video is still brought up one year later? - he posted a pictute on Instagram holding a Buddha statue in his Tommy outfit I'll let people who are Buddhists comment on this one. -His girlfriend is allegedly racist? I'm not a big fan of blaming someone for someone else's actions but just for your information, some people haven been calling him out for this. What surprises me was that one of the evidence was that she was wearing a Kimono while in Japan...? But honestly I don't know and don't follow celeb gossip. So here are other stuff because you asked, but to me the kneeling post was the breaking point. I don't mind posting Stackie stufff from time to time because they're really hilarious and celebrities are celeberities, I don't know them and I consider watching interviews as entertainement, actors are not my friends and I see them as entertainers. But the reaction of the Sebastian Stan fandom in that whole stuff has been extremely disgusting and sickening and really takes away the joy out of this whole thing.

[thejustmaiden]

So out of nowhere I was tagged and quoted by a SR shipper for a blog of mine posted in August of last year. Talk about throwback but, hey, gotta appreciate that level of snooping. 😉

Back in the day I actually used to encourage discourse amongst Inuyasha fans- both shippers and antis alike- but I've since realized that it's a lost cause. But for you, @feministmetalgreymon , I'll grant this exception. Just 'cause it's been a while so why the hell not. haha

I want to assure you, however, that nothing you say will ever convince me that Sesshomaru and Rin are meant to be together romantically or that the story intended it so. Nor will you find any validation here. You can ship them for all I care, but please for all that is good and holy while I have your attention try- I mean really try- to understand why it is so many of us Inuyasha fans are so against this pairing in the first place (newsflash: it's not about ship wars), and why we believe a romance between the two of them is completely and utterly out of character.

For those of you interested in reading this, the blog of mine in question that the above shipper mentions in their counter-argument is here for reference. It's titled "Jaken = Rin's Dad?" I'm going to try and keep this short, but I'm also making no such promises. After all, I'm not exactly known for my brevity. haha Now let's get crackin'!

Like you, feministmetalgreymon, did for your recent blog here where you took screenshots of mine to address certain parts, I will be doing the same and dissecting yours accordingly.

[Snippet 1]

I worked with kids for many years as a teacher, and many people in my family have too or still do. Two of them happen to be just over 5 feet which is quite short for the average adult woman living here. I've also worked alongside many a women of short stature, and never did I hear any of them complaining of issues with their students having difficulty differentiating them from their own peers just because they were short as well. I'm sorry but that's just ridiculous. Kids are quite smart and pick up on a lot more than you seem to give them credit for. Height is not the only characteristic they look at to determine who's an adult and who's not, and it's foolish to suggest otherwise. So unless you're a babysitter who's still in their teens and/or who has very childlike features or behavior then I'm afraid what you're getting at is total hogwash. This is just another example of how you shippers offer nothing of real substance to your reasoning, it's only ever cherry-picking or strawmanning from you guys. Stop deflecting from the real issues please, because this certainly isn't one and only winds up being a complete waste of time for all parties involved.

[Snippet 2]

Okay, calm down now. I wasn't insinuating that relationships between parents and children can't change over time in terms of how they get along. Of course that's possible, as all families experience their fair share of estrangement and abuse. What I was speaking about was in reference to the overall dynamic between the two. Because a bad mother or father can still be viewed as a parental figure to their child even if say they're not in said child's life anymore. Since Sesshomaru and Rin share a healthy bond- and just a friendly reminder that in my blog I even said that he doesn't have to necessarily be labeled her father but that a romantic relationship later would still be inappropriate- I didn't deem it necessary to address what you brought up. Plus, it kinda, umm, misses the point?? Please, let's stay on topic. And it's not captured in the screenshot, but stop acting like there isn't a small part of them that idolizes their parents at some point during childhood. Just like you mention later on how it's normal for kids to have innocent crushes on adults that they eventually grow out of? Well, guess what, the same concept applies here. Kids eventually learn that their parents are far from perfect and make mistakes too. Rin is so damn young in the OG series though that we never even get to see her reach that maturity level.

[Snippet 3]

LOL! Alright, okay, so the "unbreakable bond" bit you're mentioning was actually me quoting you sessrinners. Did you not catch that? I literally spelled it out. *sigh* The whole point I was making is that shippers like yourself make hypocritical and contradictory statements all.the.goddamn.time. One moment you guys claim that Sesshomaru and Rin were essentially strangers and meant very little to each other, only to say in the same breath a few seconds later that they were destined to be together and their bond is like no other. I agree, their bond is special, but why must that mean they're going to fall in love?

That is the root of the matter here. Too many animes/mangas have romanticized this older adult man & young girl growing up falling in love trope that it's become way too normalized and widely accepted across the world- and yes, in some cultures more than others. Sadly, you lack the awareness to recognize how this all works. You know how we know that? When we see that you shippers are so desensitized to sexualized images of girls in the media that you share posts like this one below which *subtly* imply a future romance although one half of that pairing is still just a child in the pic and then try and pass it off as cute. That's like super fucking problematic and it scares me that you can't see that (or deny you do). 🤢

After all that's said and done, Sesshomaru leaving Rin in the village with Kaede is to me the strongest indicator more than pretty much anything else he's done for Rin that proves he is her adoptive father. It's so funny to me how you somehow see the exact opposite though. 🤔 What I think is happening is that you got yourself on some squeaky clean ass shipper goggles fresh out of your little echo chamber. Because I hate to tell you, but what you're fantasizing is what you want to see and not what's actually there on screen or was written into the story. I'm strictly talking about Inuyasha and the manga of course. [For the TL; DR version skip to the last paragraph.]

Parents looking after their kids is what parents are supposed to do. A good parent will do anything to keep their child safe and ensure they are cared for, so what he did for her by leaving her there was in her best interests clearly. Besides, as a babysitter, you more than most people should understand that parents aren't always able to be there for their kids so sometimes others gotta step in to help. Haven't you heard of the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child?" Which in Rin's case is literally true! 😂 Sometimes kids are even sent off to stay with grandparents and that's who raises them instead. Or maybe they have to temporarily live with an aunt or uncle because their single parent's job requires they work out of town 4-5 days of the week so they're hardly home. But that doesn't mean that the parents care or love their kids any less, and it's foolish to assume that Sesshomaru must have thought very little of Rin simply due to the fact that he made the decision to leave her in the village. Come on, y'all are acting like he abandoned her there!!

It's just given the circumstances Sesshomaru finally came to learn that Rin traveling with him was no longer safe. I also like to think it's because he wished for her to live a more normal life and to learn how to fully trust humans again. Plus, continuing to travel with him as young as she was would have proven dangerous and unwise. Now for you to know all this and still manage to turn his past actions towards her while she was just a child into a romantic gesture is what boggles my mind. Regardless of how you look at it, from my perspective or your own, Sesshomaru is in the wrong. Either he's a father figure who impregnates his daughter at the young age of approximately 14. OR he's this man she used to travel with who maybe isn't a father to her but who nonetheless basically rapes her since kids her age can't consent to sex with an adult. Idk about you but it sounds to me like nobody here wins with either scenario we're given. In other words, you should be just as mad as we are. If only one side didn't choose to forsake their morals they know we both have in common for the sake of a ship. Welp. 🤷‍♀️

I agree, incest is disgusting but that's not the only problem we have with this pairing. A romantic bond forming between Sesshomaru and Rin would also constitute as grooming.

You realize that over the years he visited her in the village that he brought her gifts too and essentially watched her grow up right before his very eyes, right? I mean, I know you do, but I really shouldn't have to explain further why pursuing a romantic/sexual relationship with each other is plain and simple wrong. And before you say it's not because he didn't have any malintent, please understand that considering their history and power dynamic up to then that yes this is still considered grooming even if Rin supposedly "wanted it" or "made the first move." Whether you consider him her father or not, as the adult who took on a role resembling that of a caretaker in her early life- a critical developmental time for a child- Sesshomaru is obligated to turn down any advances by Rin and most definitely should not initiate any himself. As the first close adult figure she's had in her life since her parents died, it's unfathomable to imagine how Sesshomaru could go through with taking advantage of this young girl who was under his care and supervision since they met. To think he could be capable of betraying that trust sickens me to the core.

This. Now THIS is how a parent/guardian or a similar adult caretaker (babysitter, teacher, etc.) talks to a child. And, in turn, this is how some young children talk to adults. You'd be insane and delusional to deny it! We see it in our everyday lives, do we not? From where else do you think our stories draw most of their inspiration? Yes, obviously these fictional universes have aspects of fantasy that don't exist in the real world, but so how then do you suppose we're able to relate to them? The reason for that being is because these stories are written by people for people, so naturally there are going to be real life aspects embedded throughout. Sure, a little escapism doesn't hurt as we don't need to take everything so seriously, but ultimately we all need to recognize that the messages in the stories we tell matter. Most stories possess a combination of both light and dark themes, but when it specifically comes to the latter we gotta be careful with how we tackle this in children's media since kids are far more impressionable.

So if at the center of a story we have two of the main protagonists whose mom is basically their same age and to top it off she knew their dad when she was just a girl and who just so happened to help raise her, wouldn't you say that's beyond fucked up or at the very least so fucking weird? Like why would we think it's even remotely okay for our children to watch this garbage?? Really think about it. Try and be objective for once and think about how it would sound explaining this storyline to an outsider who's never watched IY or HNY. Well, antis have tried this before many times and we always get the same reaction: Ewww!

Like I said earlier, if you wanna ship it then fine, but 1) please stop seeking our approval or trying to change our minds - your ship wish came true didn't it, so why do you need us to validate it? 2) even though it's not canon, respect that we don't support this sequel portraying pedophilia in a positive light. It's harmful af to not only allow but glorify the continuation of sexualized images of young girls everywhere. And I shouldn't have to say this, but just because this trope is popular as you say does not make it right. Lolicon themes in the media have been an issue forever and it needs to stop. Yes, even some people in Japan or "the East" would agree. Shocker!

We're pissed off and rightfully so because Yashahime's TV rating is 14, not to mention it airs at the prime time kids in Japan watch TV after getting home from school. That's Towa and Setsuna's age, true, but if Rin being the mom when she's like only a year older than them (please don't argue w/ me about the math- antis have so far been right every time with it) is straight-up disgusting and not something we should be supporting or endorsing. Rin's a whole ass child!! Please don't start with the "but times were different then so her having kids at 15 is acceptable" argument either, because we've already debunked that and every other single excuse you guys throw at us. Besides, how or why would you expect young viewers to know these historical "facts" anyway, especially if as you suggest fiction doesn't affect reality so what does it matter? Yet here we are, arguing over a fictional show in real life almost a year and a half into the "Sesshomaru fucks?" sequel being announced. My ass, your ass, hell all our asses fiction doesn't affect reality!

Look, I do apologize if the tone of this blog came off as snippy or condescending at times. I do not wish you any ill will, it's just I'm not really sure what you expected to get out of all this besides maybe getting on my nerves perhaps. haha A lot of you shippers have been desperately scrambling to interact with us, lurking in our tags, jumping onto our posts screaming canon and getting so defensive even though you sought us out first. We've been sticking to our tags, so how about you stay in your lane too. By the way since we're on the topic, have you seen Twitter or Reddit?! SR shippers there are the actual worst and many Inuyasha fans (not just antis) have complained of not feeling welcomed to engage in fandom spaces anymore. Shippers swarm them and scare them off simply because fans don't like your ship and refuse to accept it. It's pathetic, really. No one should ever be bullied or harassed just because they don't like something you might. We're all fans of Inuyasha, aren't we? So let's act like it. Yashahime on the other hand, you guys are welcome to that pungent heap of trash. Fans have a right to criticize it too, but if you like it then good for you, so keep on liking it and don't mind us.

I'm almost done, but real quick back to Jaken! Let's not forget about how the official Yashahime website- which came out after my blog, mind you- described Jaken. This translation isn't the best one available but it's the only version a fellow anti friend could track down. They do recall a better one done by a native Japanese speaker who was also an anti, and that member confirmed that Jaken is indeed called Rin's babysitter. So you see, I was right in my interpretation. In the original post I did compare Jaken to a brother, but after talking to others (some comments can be found under said post) I did acknowledge that he's more of a reluctant babysitter who's not related. And if he's not at least a brother to Rin, then he's definitely not her father.

At the end of the day, the creator Rumiko Takahashi has the final word. Which is guess what? Hogosha. 💖 Probably should've just started out with that and saved us all the trouble, huh? Good day/night to you.

Papamaru bids you adieu now. 🤞

[zoufantastical]

I’m so annoyed lol but in like a haha way. Some of you are so hung up in apparently calling people “conspiracy theorist” and “wankers”; saying how people who are anti sylki/Sylvie/Loki show still use the “overused dna/related nonsense”.

I wonder if some of you deliberately ignore people’s valid criticism (how inaccurate was the genderfluid and lgbtq representation), deliberately accuse people of gaslighting and being a nuance to the fandom, so you all can stay in your little delusional bubble.

Using the show’s logic, since diverted timelines come from the same timeline, there shouldn’t be variant that look drastically different (a Tom Hiddleston Loki to a black version that is Boastful Loki to a stupid redundant joke of an alligator Loki). Because they come from the same timeline. But fine lets say there’s some sort of “mutation” or some weird lottery of genes that happens that for some reason doesn’t automatically prune the timeline (assuming so because there needs to be a version of a black Loki so that He Who Remains can exist..? But then a “female born Loki” should have immediately alerted the TVA. Who fucking knows with the show’s logic). Why would they NOT be related? They get pruned because up to that point, everything has been exactly the “same” or has been running in a way where it doesn’t disrupt the rise of Kang. Like let’s think about it. Because trust and believe there’s no reasoning that defends this.

Either they are all related because trust me it sounds wrong as hell to say that Boastful Loki and Sylvie can’t be related because one is black and one is a female or none of them are related which still makes no sense since they all stem from the same timeline.

For Kang to have one single stream where he prevails as HWR, it means he has to have the TVA constantly prune every diverted timeline down to the most minuscule reason. Which means none of those pruned Lokis, especially the ones who look drastically different to the sacred timeline Loki, should have grown up at all. Because then that will mean that the TVA sucks ass at their jobs (nothing new).

So really this whole “they are not related” debate is ridiculous. But I get it; it’s the shows fault. Although from watching the show, it seems to me that these are the ground rules they laid. Rules that even they didn’t follow through enough.

Either way, it’s bad that I keep finding holes to poke on this story.

It doesn’t help that many of you are ignoring the fact that Sylvie’s creation as a character came with the price of using Boastful Loki, that other backgrounder POC Loki and the rest of the backgrounder Lokis as Marvel’s fodder. POC Lokis we’re tokenized for a selfcest ship. And enough people are not talking about this.

[olderthannetfic]

I'm a Chinese, nationally and racially. Racial projection seems to be a common practice in western fandom, doesn't it? I find it a bit... weird to witness the drama ignited upon shipping individuals with different races, or the tendency to separate characters into different "colors" even though the world setting doesn't divide races like that. Such practice isn't a thing here. Mind explaining a bit on this phenomenon?

--

Sure, I can try. But of course, fish aren’t very good at explaining the water they swim in.

Americans aren’t good at detecting our own Americanness, and a lot of what you’re seeing is very much culturally American rather than Western in general. (In much of Europe, “race” is a concept used by racists, or so I’m told, unlike in the US where it’s seen more neutrally.) Majority group members (i.e. me, a white girl) aren’t usually the savviest about minority issues, but I’ll give it a shot.

The big picture is that most US race stuff boils down to our attempts to justify and maintain slavery and that dynamic being applied, awkwardly, to everyone else too, even years after we abolished slavery.

There’s a concept called the “one drop rule” where a person is “black” if they have even one drop of black blood.

We used to outlaw “interracial” marriage until quite recently. (That meant marriage between black people and white people with Asians and Hispanic people and others wedged in awkwardly.) Here’s the Wikipedia article on this, which contains the following map showing when we legalized interracial marriage. The red states are 1967.

That’s within living memory for a ton of people! Yellow is 1948 to 1967. This is just not very long ago at all. (Hell, we only fully banned slavery in 1865, which is also just not that long ago when it comes to human culture.)

Why did we have this bananas-crazy set of laws and this idiotic notion that one remote ancestor defines who you are? It boils down to slavery requiring a constant reaffirming that black people are all the same (and subhuman) while white people are all this completely separate category. The minute you start intermarrying, all of that breaks down. This was particularly important in our history because our system of slavery involved the kids of slaves being slaves and nobody really buying their way out. Globally, historically, there are other systems of slavery where there was more mobility or where enslaved people were debtors with a similar background to owners, and thus the people in power were less threatened by ambiguity in identity.

Post-slavery, this shit hung around because it was in the interests of the people in power to maintain a similar status quo where black people are fundamentally Other.

A lot of our obsession with who counts as what is simply a legacy of our racist past that produced our racist present.

--

The other big factor in American concepts of identity is that we see ourselves as a nation of immigrants (ignoring our indigenous peoples, as usual). A lot of people’s families arrived here relatively recently, and we often don’t have good records of exactly where they were from, even aside from enslaved people who obviously wouldn’t have those records. Plenty of people still identify with a general nationality (”Italian-American” and such), but the nuance the family might once have had (specific region of Italy, specific hometown) is often lost. Yeah, I know every place has immigrants, and lots of people don’t have good records, but the US is one of those countries where families have on average moved around a lot more and a lot more recently than some, and it affects our concepts of identity. I think some of the willingness to buy into the idea of “races” rather than “ethnicities” has to do with this flattening of identity.

New immigrant groups were often seen as Other and lesser, but over time, the ones who could manage it got added to our concept of “whiteness”, which gave them access to those same social and economic privileges.

Skin color is a big part of this. In a system that is founded on there being two categories, white owners and black slaves, skin color is obviously going to be about that rather than being more of a class marker like it is in a lot of the world.

But it’s not all about skin color since we have plenty of Europeans with somewhat darker skin who are seen as generically white here, while very pale Asians are not. I’m not super familiar with all of the history of anti-Asian racism in the US, but I think this persistent Otherness probably boils down to Western powers trying to justify colonial activities in Asia plus a bunch of religious bullshit about predominantly Christian nations vs. ones that are predominantly Buddhist or some other religion.

In fact, a lot of racist archetypes in English can be traced back to England’s earliest colonial efforts in Ireland. Justifying colonizing Those People because they’re subhuman and/or ignorant and in need of paternalistic rulers or religious conversion is at the bottom of a lot of racist notions. Ironic that we now see Irish people as clearly “white”.

--

There are a lot of racist porn tropes and racist cultural baggage here around the idea of black people being animalistic. Racist white people think black men want to rape/steal white women from white men. Black women get seen as hypersexual and aggressive. If this sounds like white people projecting in order to justify murder and rape... well, it is.

Similar tropes get applied to a lot of groups, often including Hispanic and Middle Eastern people, though East Asians come in more for creepy fantasies about endlessly submissive and promiscuous women. This nonsense already existed, but it was certainly not helped by WWII servicemen from here and their experiences in Asia. Again, it’s a projection to justify shitty behavior as what the party with less power was “asking for”.

In porn and even romance novels, this tends to turn up as a white character the audience is supposed to identify with paired with an exotic, mysterious Other or an animalistic sexy rapist Other.

A lot of fandoms are based on US media, so all of our racist bullshit does apply to the casting and writing of those, whether or not the fic is by Americans or replicating our racist porn tropes.

(Obviously, things get pretty hilarious and infuriating once Americans get into c-dramas and try to apply the exact same ideas unchanged to mainstream media about the majority group made by a huge and powerful country.)

--

Politically, within the US, white people have had most of the power most of the time. We also make up a big chunk of the population. (This is starting to change in some areas, which has assholes scared shitless.) This means that other groups tend to band together to accomplish shared political goals. They’re minorities here, so they get lumped together.

A lot of Americans become used to seeing the world in terms of “white people” who are powerful oppressors and “people of color” who are oppressed minorities. They’re trying to be progressive and help people with less power, and that’s good, but it obviously becomes awkward when it’s over-applied to looking at, say, China.

--

Now... fandom...

I find that fandom, in general, has a bad habit of holding things to double standards: queer things must be Good Representation™ even when they’re not being produced for that purpose. Same for ethnic minorities or any other minority. US-influenced parts of fandom (which includes a lot of English-speaking fandom) tend to not be very good at accepting that things are just fantasy. This has gotten worse in recent years.

As fandom has gotten more mainstream here, general media criticism about better representation (both in terms of number of characters and in terms of how they’re portrayed) has turned into fanfic criticism (not enough fics about ship X, too many about ship Y, problematic tropes that should not be applied to ship X, etc.). I find this extremely misguided considering the smaller reach of fandom but, more importantly, the lack of barriers to entry. If you think my AO3 fic sucks, you can make an account and post other fic that will be just as findable. You don’t need money or industry connections or to pass any particular hurdle to get your work out there too.

People also (understandably) tend to be hypersensitive to anything that looks like a racist porn trope. My feeling is that many of these are general porn tropes and people are reaching. There are specific tropes where black guys are given a huge dick as part of showing that they’re animalistic and hypersexual, but big dicks are really common in porn in general. The latter doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing the former unless there are other elements present. A/B/O or dubcon doesn’t mean it’s this racist trope either, not unless certain cliched elements are present. OTOH, it’s not hard for a/b/o tropes to feel close to “animalistic guy is rapey”, so I can see why it often bothers people.

A huge, huge, huge proportion of wank is “all rape fantasies are bad” crap too, which muddies the waters. I think a lot of people use “it’s racist” as an easy way to force others to agree with their incorrect claims that dubcon, noncon, a/b/o, etc. are fundamentally bad. Many fans, especially white fans, feel like they don’t know enough to refute claims of racism, so they cave to such arguments even when they’re transparently disingenuous.

--

Not everyone here thinks this way. I know plenty of people offline, particularly a lot of nonwhite people, who think fandom discourse is idiotic and that the people “protecting” people or characters of color are far more racist than the people writing “bad” fic or shipping the wrong thing.

But in general, I’d say that the stuff above is why a lot of us see the world as white people in power vs. everyone else as oppressed victims, interracial relationships as fraught, and porn about them as suspect. Basically, it’s people trying to be more progressive and aware but sometimes causing more harm than good when those attempts go awry.

[bluewinnerangel]

discourse rant. your tag post from earlier got me in my feels about how some larries (on platforms that allow for less nuance) waste their energy trying to make antis take them seriously by……. denying that h&l are *ever* doing larry-related things? like, have your own opinions, yes, it’s totally fine if you don’t buy everything, great good yes we should ALL come to our own conclusions and always think critically, if we all believed the same things and people were afraid to disagree with one another that would be so toxic. but the constant effort to please/convince antis/the gp by aggressively putting down theories about queercoding feels so deflating because, like, in the way it’s framed, it often seems like they’re making a blanket denial of exactly what larrying is and has always been built on. coding. because of homophobic oppression that prevents h&l from saying things, requires them to scream what they want to say in veiled ways.

lfkdsjfdjlfskdfjskd it just makes me sad because larry at its heart is about a deeply significant queer struggle, queer visibility, creative coded resistance to really caustic homophobia, etc, and those are *extremely important* things to so many, and i wish they could see how reducing larry to *~*eeeeeee look how cute they are! but i’m not a conspiracy theorist like those other crazies**~ just feeds the ongoing silencing of the very same ship they love to squee about.

This rant got better and better with every word. But yes openly making fun of theories is part of the problem. They're already silenced and on top of that you're silencing the remaining little ways they're ~possibly~ still trying to communicate. It's not up to you to decide what is and isn't part of their coding, if you find a theory ridiculous, like I'm sure we all do at times, then ignore it and it'll go away. Or, you know, try to figure out why that theory is there in the first place because there might be more to it and you're a new twitter larrie who wasnt there when context happened and never got exposed to it because you're not following people that were either. But they don't, they highlight it in negative way by removing it from its sensible context and spewing vile shit about it. For a hittweet? Like fuck that's nasty. it's just very effectively still silencing current already silent screams and I'm just ohhh hot and bothered. I feel like I just repeated your ask but ok. Thank you for this I'm both happy and sad to hear I'm not alone in getting worked up over this pretty specific fandom dynamic lol

the tag post

[bookofmirth]

You know, there are things in the fandom and my friends theorize in general that I keep finding it pointless, because Sarah never did it.

I know for many I know, Sarah has a problem because her writing on many things needs improvement.

I know all the problems, but I also don't begin to think that Sarah is going to do this and that because of the fame she has these days.

I don't give an opinion and I won't even hate the author if it's something in personal life because everyone says this and that because I don't know that as Sarah is and I shouldn't believe in Said Me Said either.

I will only criticize what each author writes because I can judge what I read and not because I have been told this and that about someone's personal life.

I don't want to judge and I won't defend either.

But the thing is, even if I don't trust Sarah half the things she could do better, I'm confident even she has a conscience.

She knows she can't do half the things they say she's going to do.

Although sometimes she could get some good advice.

It sounds like you've been reading some anti sjm posts 😂

I've said this before, but I think the ship war has made people forget that the anti sjm community exists, and its purpose is... questionable.

Yeah, we know that there are inconsistencies (Lucien's parentage) or that her world-building could be better (how does the magic even work), and that she doesn't always think through the implications of every plot point (thinking of the pliant bones, the pregnancy plot, Nesta's intervention... almost every plot point of acosf, really).

But she's still a person, she doesn't owe us anything, and we could at least be decent enough to not talk shit about her as an individual. Just because we bought her books doesn't mean we can comment on her fame or what she cares about or whatever.

We paid for a book, we got a book, she doesn't owe us the exact book that we want. That's not how creative works... work.

There used to be a blog dedicated to gathering all the gossip about her personal life, like her friendships with other authors and such. It was so ridiculous and childish.

I will only criticize what each author writes because I can judge what I read and not because I have been told this and that about someone's personal life.

This is exactly how I feel, too. I know that people lovvvvve to talk shit about how she's not friends anymore with people who used to be in her book acknowledgements, but do you know how many people I've been friends with for a time and no longer speak with? It's not because any of us are bad people, shit happens and people sometimes just grow apart. It feels really immature to say "oh she and SD aren't friends anymore omg she must have fucked up". Like have you never had a falling out with someone? Have you never grown apart from a friend???

I've been seeing more anti sjm stuff come across my dash lately, and 90% of it has me rolling my eyes. Anything that's anti a specific character, too - it's just ridiculous to me, whatever happened to nuance?? I'm sure someone is thinking "Lele you're such a hypocrite that one anti tag was in your top ten of 2021" and okay well yeah random tumblr person that's true, but I am enjoying my moment of being right after being quiet about it for four years okay? haha Soon enough I will move on and won't even need that tag anymore, mainly because in general, I find being anti-anything a waste of my time. And I had a lot of pent-up dislike that needed to come out.

[donttouchmeimsleeping]

Error the Protector of the Multiverse

Okay, so, since I have a good idea for a story to write for this concept, I am just going to write everything out. Here it is, the basics:

(I’m basing this Error’s personality, much like the Error in xX-AVJ-Xx’s ask-comic with the ship-child extinction.) 

What if in this multiverse, Error was in Ink’s place in helping the creators create AUs because of interference in the codes. Because of this interference in the codes, Error takes Ink’s place and Ink has to be annihilated. With balance now in order, the multiverse resets to the beginning, and Error is left with only the Original Undertale, the only AU, in the doodlesphere to look after. Error doesn’t take this alteration in the codes very well and tries to destroy an AU, but as soon as he does intense and immense pain cripples him to the floor. And there was enough pain to make him crash. After rebooting, Error very reluctantly accepts this new role. 

Being stuck in the doodlesphere, Error gradually bonds with the creators. Insert lots of insults, snarky remarks, talk back, and sarcasm from Error to the Creator voices. After a while of monitoring the Creator’s and their creations, Error goes on many adventures will all sorts of sanses. He resolves Nightmare’s and Dream’s quarrels as brothers, helps out X-tale in the weirdest way possible, makes sure that the council forms as a unit to help the AUs that now exist (considering he can’t opt them out), becomes a severe critic for the “creator voices” in the doodlesphere that he has to constantly put up with, helps with the better construction of the Omega timeline, and overall just visits the various of people he either has caused trouble for, caused trouble for him, or knows through his past experiences. 

Of course, most of these adventures he goes on, in the beginning, were forced, once Error concluded these were going to be a regular occurrence, he kind of started looking for the next “mission” the multiverse would send his way to complete. Though that was wasn’t the whole reason, Error had noticed whenever he finished these “missions” he felt a soothing and angelic sensation wash over his soul or a piercing and unbearable pain. Concluding that they acted as a value system of how positive or negative his decisions impact the multiverse’s existence. Therefore leading him to make more soothing and angelic sensation than anything. This action, on his part, led to the formation of his Cadre of Custodians, allies, admirers, and neutrals. But the rest of the multiverse calls them “The Custodians.”

It’s not long until Error meets his most difficult mission, and doesn’t realize it until his allies have to shove it in his face that this mission is meant to test his loyalty to this current multiverse. That is because the mission was to deal with a few insurgents from another multiverse. A multiverse exactly like his when he was once the Destroyer and God of Destruction.

Renaming things as this is Error’s domain now:

Places:

The Multiverse ↠ Vortex!Multiverse (VortexVerse/Vortexverse-)

The Anti-Void ↠ The Nexus

The Doodlesphere ↠ The MainStream

The Omega Timeline ↠ Ground Zero

The Multi-Void ↠ The Epicenter

The Star Sanses Club-house ↠ Polestar Pivot

Nightmare’s Castle ↠ Captial Convergence

The Save Screen ↠ The Linkscape

The Dreamscape ↠ The Affinity Realm

The Sunset Island (From Underverse) ↠ The Midway

The Void ↠ The Axis

People:

Ink, The Protector ↠ The Creator (Important to the climax of the plot // Explained why later, but he isn’t actually-)

Error, The Destroyer ↠ The Overseer (Extremely important to plot // Very important reason as to this title-)

Dream, Guardian of Positivity ↠ Defender of Positivity

Nightmare, Kind of Negativity ↠ Defender of Negativity

Night, Passive Nightmare ↠ Preserver of Feelings (Important to plot // explained later as to why-)

The Council ↠ The Commission

Core, Founder of the OT ↠ The Alloy

Events: 

The Apple Incident ↠ Nothing’s Changed

The X-Event ↠ The X-Trails (Important to plot // This fits very well as to what happens-)

Reactions:

Error’s: Will refuse to take the role, and be VERY reluctant when he does. Has a very different perspective on the multiverse and the system as a whole, but can’t/doesn’t question it, just voices it. Is very strict and rigid to pretty much everyone one he meets and interacts with. Is very intimidating to the other Sanses. Big softie as he goes through character development. Has big emotional impacts on other characters that will most likely put them through a character arch of their own.

Ink’s: Will start off fine until he pieces together what happened, and then will have an existential crisis. After recovering, he turns into a peanut gallery as he proceeds to spectate Error’s progression as the protector. Will have existential crisis’ from time to time, as he rethinks the decisions he’s made and their outcomes and compare to Error’s and seeing him have better impacts on the multiverse. 

The Stars and Originals: Dream specifically with go into a character arch of his own well first meeting Error. Error completely destroys Dream’s idea to go and face his brother right after coming out of the stone. He tells him, that he is not only weak but pathetic. Dream protests, but Error explains that it’s been around 500 hundred years since Dream has even fought Nightmare last, and Error knows for a fact that Dream will die if it happens again. Error tells Dream to train until he can find Error on his own with his own magic and then he’ll consider letting Dream help with handling Nightmare. As for the originals, Error makes each of them have their own short archs when Error starts intervening in the codes. He basically helps them defeat the player, and practically feel content in their Aus. They’ve only ever interacted with Error though his strings, as Error doesn’t actually go to any of the Aus. At least not yet. 

↪ Dream, Blue, Orange, Classic, Papi, Fell, Rus, Mauve, Vermillion, Danz, Salsa, Cosmic, Pluto etc. 

The Bad Sanses: Nightmare’s interaction with Error is strange, he immediately noticed in their first fight that Error give little to no effort in evading and reading his attacks. Which is odd, considering it’s only been their first encounter. Dust, Horror, and Killer get wrapped up in the multiverse mess later when the OP Sanses get involved. Cross specially is interesting, as the X-Event is never born thanks to Error. Because Error went about things differently when interacting with X-Gaster, the X-Event ceases to arise in this multiverse. Which makes Cross’s personality very different in a way.

↪ Nightmare, Dust, Horror, Killer, Cross etc.

The OP Sanses: When these guys come into play, Error immediately gets in their faces as they pose the next biggest threat in his multiverse, considering he is now out of the picture as he is no longer the Destroyer. Because of different encounters with them, Error has to leave the MainStream to deal with them, exposing his existence to the Aus he is protecting.

↪ Error 404, Fatal Error, King Multiverse, Bill, Alastor etc.

The Neutral Sanses: Still working on this part.

↪ Lust, Shears, Ethan, Halo, Night, Mint, Clouds, Decans, Fresh, Lavender etc.

[the-insomniac-emporium]

thoughts on Bela///Donna?

What a lovely can of worms you've placed in my inbox, dear nonnie. I cannot wait to open it and lose followers (regardless of what I actually say).

Since this is, uh, a subject of some debate among RE8 fans, I will be inputting my thoughts on the idea of the ship (and the possible controversy), as opposed to doing HCs or something for it (which I recognize might be what you were asking for, despite the excessive /s).

This is all based on my playthroughs of the game, as well as what I've managed to double check on the fandom/wiki for it. I know that a lot of people who read fanfic for the game haven't actually played it, likely having been lured in by Tall Vampire Milf, and so I hope that some people will be open to a reminder of, like, canon vs fanon? I've mentioned in a previous post that there's a lot of details for RE8 that are not made clear, and I feel the need to reiterate that in this post. Capcom left a lot of stuff up to people's imaginations, or kind of just hinted at in game or in concept art.

But more importantly, regardless of what game we're talking about, regardless of the conclusion I come to (and the one you come to) at the end of this post, I want to say that I absolutely understand the need/desire to have your own perspective/take on the characters from the game, as well as their dynamics. If a ship makes you uncomfortable because you see the characters as being family members, it's totally okay. Block the ship tag, or filter it out when you look through fandom stuff, don't follow people who post for it, etc, etc.

If you think of characters as being family-family (like, not just "we got married and are now a family" but, like, "we're siblings/parent and child") and still ship them? uh. sorry, bruv, maybe think of hitting that unfollow button. No, seriously, hit that unfollow button. This blog is anti-incest, thank you very much.

The last thing I'll say before putting it under a read-more (for both length and major RE8 spoilers) is that I recognize that I might have missed something, either in game or developers talking about things on social media, and so if you read through this and go "god, J, you're such a dumbass for forgetting *critical piece of media*" or even just "okay but have you seen *small but meaningful piece of media*?" please. Just. Please. Tell me. Link me to that shit. I WANT to know if I'm wrong. I've literally avoided talking about this for as long as I could in order to TRY and make sure I have all the context I need.

With that said, let's examine what context we are given for Alcina Dimitrescu, Bela Dimitrescu, Donna Beneviento, and their relations to each other. I will be leaving my personal thoughts on Bela///Donna at the very end of this, as somewhat of a conclusion, somewhat of just a "hey, this is what you technically asked me about".

Firstly, let me begin by explaining what I consider to be the 3 tiers of "canon"

In-Game/Direct: The highest, truest tier, the definitive canon. This is everything that takes place in game, excluding certain hallucination scenes (ex: Mia was not really in House Beneviento, but we can infer some things from what Donna made Ethan hallucinate about). Things either happen, or are directly stated by characters. There's some wiggle room for dialogue, as characters can lie, but overall we, as the audience, assume we are being told the truth. At the very least, games usually eventually make it clear when a character has been dishonest. Examples of Direct Canon include the following: Ethan is infected with the mold, Lady Dimitrescu drinks blood, Heisenberg wears sunglasses, Mother Miranda can shapeshift.

Concept Art/Developer's Notes/Indirect: Mid-tier and debatable, the "we think, but we're not sure" of canon. Resident Evil: Village contains lots of concept art that the players can browse through, all of which include notes from the developers about the game, characters, environments, and story. Sometimes the notes make something "direct", but oftentimes they do not specify whether the listed idea is still canon or if it was removed during development. This tier also includes information that is implied/can be inferred from tier 1 information, but is not directly stated. Examples of Indirect Canon include the following: Donna's mother died by suicide, Moreau was going to have his lover fused to his back, Duke was originally a fifth lord, Heisenberg was going to have a twin. As you can see, not all of the concept art ideas made it into the final version of the game, so it can be hard when some information seems like it might still be true (such as the matter of Donna's parents).

Fanon/"False": Sometimes collective ideas in a fandom become so widespread that people start interpreting them as actual canon. Sometimes it gets hard to remember what's just obscure lore and what's fanon. When we get a piece of fiction as overall vague as a lot of Resident Evil: Village is, there's bound to be some confusion over time. That's one of the main reasons I waited to talk about Bela////Donna until after I had recently replayed relevant sections of the game, as I wanted to remind myself of what we're actually told. Examples of False Canon are difficult to pinpoint, but might include things like: Hufflepuffs are good at finding things? The Avengers got along for awhile and all had their own rooms in the tower? There's a number scale for the danger level of ghosts in Danny Phantom?

For this post, I will be limiting the majority of my notes to the first two levels of canon, and will do my best to mark them as such. Now... let us... begin.

Alcina Dimitrescu:

Born no later than 1914, Alcina Dimitrescu was 44 years old when she was granted the Cadou by Mother Miranda. (1st Tier: Canon. Source: A note in the castle basement from a servant is dated 1958, and mentions both Alcina and her children. Secondly, Miranda's experiment notes state that Alcina was the 181st subject, and was given the Cadou at age 44. By doing math, we can then determine the earliest Alcina could have been born.)

Alcina refers to the other Lords as her family once without any disdain (when Ethan first arrives at the castle and is caught, Alcina says "you've escaped my little brother"). In a private journal (located near where she threw the infamous vanity) she insults the other Lords, and expresses anger that she is "treated like a sister to them". She argues with Heisenberg without any hesitation, and seems honest in her hatred of him (per Maggie Robertson's wunderbar performance). (1st Tier/2nd Tier: Canon with a sprinkle of interpretation for the last line)

Alcina openly refers to Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela as her daughters, and wrote in her experiment journal that she felt instantly connected to them (as mother and daughters). (1st Tier: Canon).

Bela Dimitrescu:

Likely born in the 1930's or 1940's, in order to be an adult by 1958 (the first dated appearance of the Dimitrescu daughters). (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Dialogue shows that all three of the daughters do love their mother, and reinforces the bond Alcina's journal mentions. (1st Tier: Canon)

We are not given any information about how Bela feels about the other Lords, or even what she knows about them. Once can assume that she shares the ideas of her mother, either because Alcina tells her things directly, or because Bela (who is eager to please her mother) picks up on them over time. (2nd Tier: Based on inference)

Donna Beneviento:

No idea when she was born. If you've read one of my recent posts, then you know that it's almost entirely a matter of 2nd and 3rd tier canon.

Of the four lords, Donna seems to have the most story within the 2nd tier, and has very, very little in the 1st tier. Duke says she's somewhat isolated, and that her "playmates" never leave the house. Miranda's notes state that Donna is mentally ill, and the gardener's diary states/implies (bit of both) that Donna has severe social anxiety. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

Supposedly, her parents committed suicide while she was still a child. This is indicated in concept art/the attached developer's notes. However, the only part that's also directly stated in game is that her parents (specifically her father) died while she was young. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly canon)

While Donna only has one voice line in the game (and it's sad), Angie talks a fair bit. Angie seems to disapprove of the other Lords, or at the very least enjoys mocking them, as well as enjoys watching them fight with each other. As Angie is connected to Donna, and Donna has some level of control over her, one can assume that the two have similar (if not the same) opinions. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

Donna was adopted by Mother Miranda as an adult. It's unclear exactly how old Donna was, or what exactly Miranda did as her "mother", just that Donna was excited about it. (1st Tier: Canon)

Other Relevant Information:

Heisenberg refers to the other Lords as his siblings a minimum of 1 time. Similarly to Alcina, however, he openly insults them and seems to hate them. He just, you know, hates Mother Miranda the most. (1st Tier: Canon)

Mother Miranda does not actually give a shit about the four Lords, intended for them to die before the ceremony, and has been manipulating them for her own gain this entire time. Her notes and dialogue make it clear that she only cares about getting Eva back. Somehow mother of the year and worst mother ever. At the same time. (1st/2nd Tier: Mostly Canon)

It's unclear who treats Alcina "like a sister" to the other Lords. Were there cut lines of dialogue that cemented the idea of them being a "family"? Did Miranda call them a "family" as part of pretending she cared about them? I've done my best to dig around, but there's very little in game that treats them as a family of any sort.

As each Lord ruled their own section of the region, they don't have any mentions of interacting with each other outside of meetings with Mother Miranda. None of the notes for any Lord (and their relevant experiments) mention what the others are doing. In game, their environments are very separate, very well divided, though this is likely as much for gameplay as it is for story.

Conclusion:

I do not not believe there is enough in game evidence to suggest that Alcina and Donna consider themselves to be siblings. There's the possibility for a large age gap, Alcina was a fair bit older than Donna when she met Miranda, Donna is a social recluse whose closest bonds were with dead blood relatives and dolls, Alcina openly dislikes (if not hates) the other Lords, they seemingly lived very separate and distanced lives, and Mother Miranda does not enforce the idea of "family". Furthermore, the sheer contrast between how Alcina interacts with/speaks of the other Lords compared to how she interacts with/speaks of her daughters says a lot about her feelings. Even if Heisenberg takes the brunt of her anger, Alcina never once says anything remotely positive about anyone other than Miranda and her daughters.

As Alcina/Bela and Donna are not blood-relatives, the definition of what would count as "incest" does vary depending on who you ask. Personally, I do count non-blood relations as potentially incestuous. For example: Alcina "dating" one of her daughters would be incest, regardless of the fact that she's a mutated human and her daughters are weird swarms of flies.

Now, I do understand how popular the idea of the four Lords being a real, chaotic but still close family is. And as I mentioned above, it's totally valid to not like the Bela///Donna ship, whether it's because you think they're family or some other reason. I don't personally see them that way, even in my definitely-not-canon stories.

Do I personally ship Bela///Donna? Nope. Have I liked art for the ship? Admittedly yes, even if I thought some of it was, like, maiden x Bela because Donna didn't have her veil and I'm a DUMBASS who doesn't always remember to read tags. Would I ever write for it? Yeah, probably, assuming I didn't miss anything in game/that I don't eventually change my mind.