#once i got an anon talking about how i disliked discourse but then hated on the ship and like

[oceanwithouthermoon]

the realization that tumblr does not work like twitter and i cant just vague post about random discourse or arguments otherwise people will wrongfully assume its about them has flipped my whole life upside down

[lindszeppelin]

She's telling people to block her, but then allows her friends to send her screenshots of people talking about her. That's what we mean when we say she has spies stalking people for her. People who blocked her are being stalked by her friends. I didn't want to put my story out here, but y'all cowardly anon Mollie shooters left me no choice.

I know this because it happened to me on twitter. I have her blocked there (and here), and I discovered that she somehow got a screenshot of my tweet, probably because her friend was following my page (which, I should add, is private! No one can see my tweets unless they're following me) and clearly told her I was telling someone else about her. In my defense, it was because that someone else was asking about gossip she had heard. Gossip that Mollie's spreading.

I hate to admit that I was once a follower of Mollie's, and I once tried interacting with her here and on twitter. But I regret it because every time I tried talking to her, I'd get ignored. So I gave up and soon realized that I had made a mistake in thinking she was a decent human being.

There's a reason the Broadway fandom dislikes her and still talks about her now that she's left that fandom. She's not making many friends here either. And if she has friends telling her that people are talking about her, maybe she should listen to them and not make jokes about it instead. If she's really hurt by it, then her friends are shitty for telling her that people talk about her. But she's clearly not hurt, since she made her layout dedicated to what people have said about her.

If she hates people talking about her, then she needs to really think about how the people she gossips about feel. But she didn't listen to the people who already came forward to her with their feelings, so I doubt she gives a damn about the people she claims to stan or their publicists coming across her blog and reading what she wrote about them.

Austin said his publicist told him all about the voice discourse and now he's self-conscious and is doubting himself/his voice. How do we know that he isn't also aware of Mollie taking the rumor Vanessa's fans started about him cheating with Olivia and using it as a hot topic for her blog, imagine how he'd feel if he discovered that his own fans now think he's a cheater because of her blog. Olivia is all but slut shamed in those posts about her and Austin, so imagine how she'd feel if she knew about them. I'm also sure Kaia wouldn't appreciate being a topic in the blog either.

Except we're not gossiping about her, and we're not bullying or harrassing her. We're all sharing our stories because we deserve to be heard. If she has a problem with that, then she should practice what she preaches. Use the block button. Her friends should block us too instead of coming at us for saying how we feel.

If you know your friend is triggering people with her gossip, is ignoring people's feelings, is acting like our feelings don't matter and you're letting her act this way, that says a lot about you as a person.

hi diva babe, thank you for coming forward with your story <3 you've got a safe space here to share about your experience. and im so sorry to hear that she harassed you

i will say that yes i agree, its not like austin is okay with gossip. he clearly does not like it and stays away from it. and he is affected mentally by it. so...the topic of gossip is really one that should be boiled down to gossip inherently is toxic and can feed upon negative perpetuations of real life people

[rotationalsymmetry]

The other thing is, apart from anything else, if someone was actually going on to tumblr and going “I think nobody should ever do anything about the environment, because everything will take care of itself” (emphatically not what happened) so what? Obviously there are a lot of people who are climate change deniers or otherwise just not that motivated to fix things. Is going “hey I need to disagree with you in your notes right now” a constructive use of anything? Some people are going to decide that saving the planet isn’t their problem. It is what it is. What’s more important from where I stand is that there’s people who want to do something who don’t have clear direction. Those are the people worth talking to, if you have a sense of where they should go. Plus people who vaguely intend to do stuff but sometimes it gets shuffled behind other priorities so they need a reminder.

it’s GOTV all over again. Effective getting out the vote for Democratic candidates means identifying people who intend to vote Democrat and 1. identifying and removing barriers to them voting (needing to register to vote after a move, needing a ride to the polls, etc) and 2. reminding them to vote, a lot. This is what is most likely to be effective in getting more people to vote Democrat, because in every election there’s a ton of people who intended to vote but life got in the way. (If you ever get paid to GOTV, this is mostly what you’ll be doing. Although one time I got to ride around on a yellow fire truck and shout, which was fun.) It’s actually super common for people to have an intention and not follow up on it. And it tends to be easier to push someone into doing a thing that THEY believe they should be doing — pushing them in accordance with their own will — than to convince someone that what they think they should be doing is wrong and get them to actually do the new thing.

And as with voting, once someone has voted (/has a clear plan to vote and almost certainly is going to do it) and wants to do more, it’s relatively easy to rope them into giving money or time or otherwise being engaged at a deeper level. Likewise for treehugger stuff. When someone isn’t with the treehugger program to start with, they haven’t even done the first step. But someone who’s already with the program can be leaned on to do treehugger basics (whatever you think those are), and people who are solid on recycling or whatever can be leaned on to show up to city counsel meetings. Or go to an oil pipeline protest. Or regularly spend a few hours hauling plastic bottles out of a river. Or whatever the next step is. And the thing is, it’s not that hard comparatively to get someone who’s unsure to get with the treehugger program and that’s worth doing, but most of the useful effort is geared at people who already understand that it matters and just need a little help figuring out how to live their values in practice. And hardly any effort that gets put into trying to persuade someone actively hostile to the program that they’re wrong is going to actually pay off.

and that’s if they’re actually hostile and you’re not just fighting your own side.

(which is another thing to consider: it’s within the realm of possibility that an ask of that nature isn’t actually coming from someone on our side. It could be of course, there’s a lot of reasons it could be. But it’s possible, especially when these things are on anon, that it’s coming from a troll who wants to stir up shit because it’s fun, or from someone who actively dislikes treehuggers and wants us to fight each other over stupid things; doubly so when this comes up in any sort of social justice discourse such as queer discourse or disability discourse and racial justice discourse, since there is An Enemy there and hoo boy do they hate us and want us to suffer. So yeah, when someone is well meaning it’s better to not do that sort of thing. But also, not everyone who does that sort of thing is well meaning and it’s worth recalling that too, especially for people with the sort of ND stuff going on that means they tend to assume everyone is on the level, and people who assume everyone is on the level just because they are.)

Sometimes it’s Amelia Bedelia “reading comprehension” people getting used to seeing enemies until they start seeing ones that aren’t even there shit. Sometimes it’s malice.)

[three--rings]

Something I want to contribute to this conversation as someone who was never in the canyon, never considered myself any kind of Izzy stan, (I've always enjoyed him but he's never been of particular interest to me to explore in fic, etc) is that the hostility of the fandom over the issue of Izzy just drove a lot of people out of the fandom entirely.

I was always, always sympathetic to the Izzy fans because I hate antis of any kind and have been in fandom for 25 years and know people attacking fans for liking a character or ship are always the bad guys.

When I MENTIONED Izzy Hands on my blog I got deranged anon hate in my inbox. As I'm sure you all understand. Last year, I mean.

It got to the point where sometime late last summer I just didn't want to see the words Izzy Hands and unfollowed anyone who had any discussion of his character at all on either side because reading the discourse infuriated me so much.

Which means I basically unfollowed most of my OFMD people and ended up drifting quickly away from the fandom into things that didn't pain me to interact with. From the general amount of discussion and fan content over time I don't think I was the only one who was like yanno fuck this shit life is too short. If you think being an Izzy fan was lonely, try being pretty exclusively a Blackbonnet fan who can't stand people talking shit about Izzy.

Only when the trailer dropped did I try to reengage with the fandom and quickly realized oh, yeah a lot of these mainstream people are still completely deranged by hatred of Izzy Hands and I followed and unfollowed people extremely quickly once I saw it. It was so unavoidable in the buildup to S2 airing that I wrote this post.

And got a death threat within hours, which eventually tumblr said they removed the sender for fwiw.

So then I was like fuckit I'm getting death threats, I'll be more explicit. Which post got such insane responses that people not in the fandom were messaging me and commenting like OMG what the HELL is wrong with that fandom. Legit people were like I was going to watch the show but now I'm not because those people suck.

At which point I basically decided to start following Izzy fans because they were the only sensible people I could find. Hi.

But my feeling, as a whole, watching the people who were in OFMD all along who were hostile to Izzy fans, watching Izzy fans, watching people like me who haven't been active for a year or more until this season.

I think most people are positive to neutral on Izzy and always have been. Or dislike him because he was an antagonist but not as a character if that makes sense. I think some may have been persuaded by the hate or simply ignored it in order to engage in fandom, (or were afraid of being labeled problematic and racist) but I think a lot of people simply decided to just read fics they liked and hang in very small circles if any and ignore the greater fandom drama because it was so unpleasant.

I feel like if people who hated him now feel more positive it's not because they feel like they were wrong, but that he has changed and his writing has changed. I don't see a lot of remorse personally.

But humans are always very bad at admitting to themselves or others that they were wrong. Their opinions of Izzy might continue to change when they go back and rewatch, but I doubt you'll see many posts about how wrong they were. I doubt you'll receive many if any apologies.

Certainly anyone who actually did the worst of the harassment will not admit they were wrong because they would not be able to face being that bad of a person.

The blockwalls are unfortunate but unlikely to be undone. The most you can really look for is that the Izzy haters become fewer and fewer over time and as people return to the fandom and new people enter, the old wars will fade into memory.

Also, do not underestimate how hostile a small number of people can make an online space feel. You may feel like the numbers are overwhelming and that everyone had blocked all Izzy fans, but I doubt that is the case.

I know a situation in another fandom where multiple writers were hounded out of the fandom by hundreds of messages over years and it turned out to all be one person's doing and only by finally comparing notes was it revealed and they were named. People who felt like a significant group was coordinating attacks on them across multiple platforms were actually just targeted by one very ill person.

So, yeah, these are unfortunately the kinds of things that happen when we forget to live and let live and when fandoms get bored during hiatuses. Eventually canon will be complete and the period of in-between S1 and S2 will seem like a distant memory and the fanon associated with it will probably be laughed at. That's how fandom goes.

TBH the fandom has reacted better to S2 than I feared, though that could always change at any moment. Even now it feels like once we get to Tuesday and Wednesday that people start getting antsy and try to start shit with baiting hot takes.

slowly moving out of my smug phase and transitioning into a "okay... so what happens next?" phase.

cuz like... what does happen next? i really really think the fandom as a whole needs to address whatever the fuck was happening for more than the past year. and i guess i'm wondering what does that actually look like? and what are you supposed to do if you spent a year and half being awful to people about a character you were wrong about?

and ik a lot of people will just brush it off or dig their heels in deeper that they weren't wrong and they didn't do anything bad, but i like to believe that not everyone will, ya know?

but idk it feels like part of a larger convo on fandom, antiracism, fan activism, and harassment.

[nikki-in-miraland]

my oh my

take this as you will, im tired and i cant enunciate my thoughts well ever

[wasflypaw]

Yo Dsmpblr: Can We Tone It Down?

I've noticed something recently, and it's been bothering me a little. The lighthearted apologist discourse has become... a lot less lighthearted?

Its normal to be passionate over this stuff, I am, I get it. Especially when it's about a character you really enjoy or relate to. I do it, a lot of the fandom does. It's easy to get invested in this stuff - whether its because you genuinely really enjoy writing essays (I do !! :] ) or whether its because a take you've seen got you so heated you just Had to respond.

I just think it's gotten to the point where we prioritize defending these fictional characters over the Very Real People talking about them?

Yesterday I made a post about how I wanted the prison arc with c!Dream to have a Little more immersive acting bc I Know that would make me feel more sympathetic. I got an anon telling me I'm deranged, a monster, a horrible human being, "a BAD person" because I was "invalidating c!Dream's trauma" and it got me thinking. This, alongside the Reddit post I saw earlier where someone got into an argument with their friend because they were a c!Dream apologist and accused them of being an abuse apologist.

Not only did anon:

1. Not consider the fact that I mightve gone through something like that

But 2. Didnt stop to think "is this fictional character I'm defending really worth telling someone they're deranged over?"

Guys: These are Not real people. These are Not real people with real trauma.

I get it, I really do. We can project onto characters and relate to their trauma, and it's easy to get hurt when someone downplays or acts like they deserved said trauma. But at the end of the day they are Fictional Characters. I dont believe anyone is an abuse apologist even when they say shit like "c!Tommy provoked c!Dream/c!Tommy deserve it" and while I believe that is a very horrid take I cant stop anyone from thinking it and its Very unlikely they think that of real abuse victims. I do think it shouldnt be said or at least needs tagging, though. Because the more people saying stuff like that the less people feel comfortable in this fandom. I do think it's a case of "block and move on", though

Nobody condones what their fav does. c!Dream apologists are Not abuse apologists, c!Dream apologists do not hate traumatized people (especially when they themselves say they relate to what c!Dream is going through in the prison), c!Dream apologists can make me uncomfortable with what they imply sometimes but that's as far as it goes. And it goes the other way too, people who dislike c!Dream dont condone irl torture or prisons (or even the DSMP ones), not every c!Tommy fan is a trauma dumper who projects on c!Tommy, etc etc

I have NEVER once thought of any of them as a bad person, they all seem like very nice people just with takes I disagree with over a fictional character.

Im making this post because I've also noticed something else: People insulting eachothers intelligence over these analysis posts. And it BOTHERS me

When I make a critical post against c!Dream refuting a take I've seen, I seem to get a lot of "c!Dream apologists lack critical thinking if they cant see this" and when I see takes from The Other Side I see stuff like "my takes are too nuanced for you" and it's like. Can we not?? That's NOT the intent of my posts at all. The intent of my posts is for anyone reading to try to understand my POV and what I think of the characters, NOT to insinuate they're dumb for thinking that way. Genuinely, stop

My posts arent to FORCE people to change their opinion, my posts arent to make people think they're DUMB for not agreeing. My posts are simply here to see My opinions and My side, and agree if they want to

I had to make a post the other day setting a boundary to Please Not Respond With Hostility On My Posts because someone disagreed with me and some people who followed me immediately jumped into an argument with them. That's not how you get people to see your POV - do not be hostile to people directly? There's a difference between a gossipy "lmao look at this take I saw" and straight up arguing with someone to their face

Curate your space, block people who make you even mildly uncomfortable, I do it. A lot of takes can be very uncomfortable relating to a characters mental health or what theyve been through but its Important to separate fiction from reality. I'm talking from experience - if a take makes you So uncomfortable you break down or have a very negative reaction it's best to step away, block and try to distract yourself. Apologist discourse can get heated because of the dark topics and it's taken me like 4 months to realise that if a take that's victim blaming for example leaves me shaking and angry that is Not healthy and I NEED to block that person and block as many tags/people as I can to never see that take again. Looking at discourse can be entertaining, I get it, but if its causing you genuine stress you Need to step away.

Anyway Yeah Tone it Down!!! We're all trying to Have Fun Here

[whitetrashjj]

most people that don’t like kie don’t like her because she

1. gets mad at JJ when he calls her out for being rich

2. prioritizes john b constantly because whatever feelings she has towards him gave her tunnel vision

3. tried to guilt-trip pope into missing his scholarship interview despite the fact that, like he said, she wasn’t there for any of them when big john went missing

4. talks about the gold, pope’s scholarship, and things that happen to the boys because of them living in the cut as if it’s okay to just toss them aside when it’s only okay to do that for her- seeing as she doesn’t need the money, and she doesn’t need a scholarship. the only thing that makes her a pogue is that she decided to hang out with them, which is fine but she can’t act like she goes through what people on the cut do seeing as she doesn’t actually live there or go to their school. these things are only expendable for her.

5. she tried to fight pope on the boat because he rightfully called her out on her “moral high ground bullshit”

6. she gives off performative activist. she’ll talk about saving the turtles but when jj is clearly hysterical or something with his buying a hot tub using his share, she says he could have “literally given it to any charity” as if he isn’t quite literally the charity… even without seeing the bruises it’s clear that jj is in an unstable environment with someone who doesn’t care about him and can’t support him financially.

7.she doesn’t sympathize with jj until after the jj/pope/kie hot tub group hug when she sees his bruises. she just ignores whatever he says when he mentions her financial privilege and insults him in a non-friendly way. (he insults her too obviously, but since the show never goes in depth to discuss kie’s struggles as a biracial girl or pope’s struggles as a black boy, it’s not something that jj can randomly sympathize with, seeing as it’s never brought to light. if it was brought up and jj were to react like she’s being annoying for pointing it out or pointing it out to spite him, i would have major problems with jj because acknowledging whatever privilege you have is important, especially when you’re with people that don’t have that privilege/when you’re someone whose character is supposed to be the activist type. and i’m not equating racial privilege to financial privilege, i’m just mentioning it because classism is pretty much the basis of the entire show and its plot.)

anyway… this is the reason i’ve seen most jjpopes dislike kie. mentioning the “kiara sucks” anon as if that is a blanket statement of all jjpopes is strange. we aren’t some raging misogynists out to get her, but you saying that pope is a very flawed character with no examples to back it up but also getting irritated when someone says kiara sucks with no examples to back it up is ridiculous. these are examples. since this is in response to your response to that ask, i’ll also add that while your experiences as a queer person are valid, they aren’t universal (“Any queer person knows that you can’t be as forthcoming and open about our affections as straight people are.”)

i get where you’re coming from with saying a regular character might not be outward about his feelings, but jj is not a regular character. jj is a nothing-to-lose kind of character, so your reasoning for why those many displays of affection throughout the show weren’t intended to be romantic just doesn’t really add up? of course he values pope’s friendship and wouldn’t want to risk it, but it’s also evident that he’s a very good liar and could easily say he was joking or wasn’t trying to seem like any of his actions were romantic, something you can also probably understand/have experienced as a queer person. your very statement that jj is someone who flirts with anyone is counterproductive to the statement that that means he doesn’t have feelings for pope. he flirts with every girl, but he can only form a lasting bond while also doing things you’d normally do with a crush, with pope. a lot of jjpopes including myself think he’s gay, and comphet/trying to prove to yourself that you’re straight by engaging in meaningless hookups (like jj) is reason for that headcanon. i get what you’re saying for other characters, but there’s no indication of jj not having that same nothing-to-lose attitude when it comes to people he has romantic feelings for, so there would be no reason for the pull-back or hesitation that you mentioned. and since he knows pope and his connection (whether it be platonic or romantic to both of them) is so strong, he probably assumes nothing could break that bond/dynamic either way.

also no one called you anti-black or implied that you were for saying pope is a flawed character, but it would be surprising to see one that isn’t rooted in that because all of them in the past have been- this fandom is wildly colorist and homophobic (another reason representation like jjpope is so important) and it’s extremely hard to find someone that doesn’t like pope without an explanation for their dislike that isn’t rooted in racism. that’s just common sense, though.

You know, I've been looking at this ask for a long time just wondering if it's worth my time to address all of this - like I didn't realise one could send asks this big. But I'm bored and got a beer in me so fuck it let's go.

So first let's talk about the reasons you hate Kie. I'm gonna admit that I to think she is flawed, like every other obx character, she is also a victim to bad writing and under developed. But also I just do not understand how people can hate her or insists that she is a bad person, don't get me wrong sometimes you just don't vibe with a character and there is nothing wrong with that but hating them and tearing them down is a very different thing.

Now I've said this before but let me reiterate. Not liking a character or ship or preferring one over the other does not automatically make you racist, misogynistic or homophobic. But I do think it is important to take a step back and assess our motivation and perhaps internalised biases. Sometimes you will find that you reasoning is without much substance and realise that you have some things to work on, sometimes even though mentally you don't have the conscious block there is something internalised about that - I know I have been subject to that. This doesn't make you a bad person, and you don't have to force yourself to like it or anything, but just be aware and sometimes it's okay to just remove yourself for the conversation because the people who do like it aren't supporting something that is morally corrupt and it doesn't have to be the subject of discourse. People can like different stuff.

So:

1. Did you mean pulls faces when JJ calls her rich? Cause that's what she does, gets a little annoyed, pulls a face but doesn't say anything because she know he's got a point. I'm very confused about you definition of angry and perhaps be careful about perpetuating the 'angry black woman' stereotype.

Also, I think it's important to note that clearly the kooks vs pogues divide has pretty much abolished the middle class, and you are either lower class or 'rich'. The Carrera's very clearly still struggle with money and are not on the same level of kooks as the Cameron's. So yeah, I think she's justified to roll her eyes at JJ saying she's rich as fuck and doesn't need money.

2. Prioritizes John B because his dad's gone missing, he's been abandoned by his guardian, is being threatened with being taken away from his home and everything he knows and is in general spiralling? Yeah. What a fucking monster. Also, I find it hard to find a justification for Kie having canon romantic feelings from John B that isn't just born from heteronormativity - her caring about him and then getting kissed by him does not equal a love match.

3. It wasn't about missing the interview - which wasn't until the next fucking day - it was about not giving up looking for their friend who was in a really bad way. Like - you cannot say that getting a scholarship when you are 16 is more important that John B's actual life being at stake ?

The fact that she wasn't there when John B went missing wasn't relevant? Like I've talked about why I hate Pope in this scene. But like, Pope is saying 'um you can't call me out on being a bad friend now cause you were a bad friend then'. That's the point, Kie caring so much about John B is rooted in guilt cause she wasn't there, and now she's trying to be there and support him, to prove that she's a better friend now. That's she's different, because she is.

4. I would love some specific examples of her brushing this stuff off like it means nothing. Other than the boat scene which once again, justified. And once again, Kie isn't destitute at all and no she doesn't fully understand the struggles of the boys or the cut but her family is not rolling in it and spending weekends on Yachts. Like this point is such a bloody reach.

5. I don't love that she got physical with him either. But she didn't do that because she got called out. She got upset because Pope was the one person she confided in about that happened during her kook year, about how bad it was, about the fact that she was suicidal and Sarah saved her and that's why she was so drawn to that, not because she wanted to be a kook, and Pope just throws that back in her face because he's jealous that Kie cares more about John B's problems than his.

6. Well this is just a misrepresentation of what happened. She said give it to any charity because in that moment it seemed like without a reason JJ just blew that money on stupid shit. Pope thought the same thing that's why he yells at him for not using it for restitution. In that moment he just seems like he is being drunk and irresponsible, because they didn't think he would go back to Luke, Pope literally says that he wouldn't. And then note how when they see the bruises they know what happened and the tone instantly changes cause they realise what happened. And that he did try to do the right thing and got flogged because of it. And she is right in there to comfort him and reassure him. So like... yeah.

7. Please give me example for this. I don't see Kie insulting him that isn't a justified call out or playful banter that is returned and part of their push and shove dynamic. You know... just being friends.

The only times we see Kie react to JJ's home life she is concerned and sympathetic. She's the only one who's worried about JJ going home when he storms off and is instantly there to comfort him when she knows he's had interaction with Luke. I really don't know where you are getting this from.

I don't use it as a blanket statement, I know not to group shippers in as one, I know there are jiara shippers that I do not see eye to eye with for a second. The reason I bring up the 'kiara sucks' thing is because of the context it was used. We weren't talking about Kie, it wasn't relevant, it had no reason to be there or anything to back it up. It was random bitching and as you say fandom is a very racist place so yeah, it seemed like racism to me. Like you realise you are calling me ridiculous for being annoyed that someone just came to me and said Kie sucks without reason, and then this ask goes onto be annoyed that I have some issues with Pope and that more than likely racist for thinking it because you've elected to ignore my massive post outlining my stance on this.

My experiences as a queer person are not universal, no. But I do know they are very common. I'm so thankful that there are people out there who don't experience this and I hope that in the future it will be the norm. But realistically, with what we know about JJ, I think it is more than likely that would be his experience.

Look if you headcanon him as gay say the things with girls is comphet, then that's your view and I won't fight you on it. But remember that that is a headcanon. And what I have been talking about is were they intentionally setting up jjpope and are those actions indicative of romantic attraction, which if they we're they would have made a point to frame it as comp het, which they didn't, they might in the future but for now - they aren't. In terms of being a good liar, I just- like gay panic is a very strong thing. There young girls who tell everyone they don't like hugs because they actually really liked the hugs and feel like people will know that they are gay if they hug their friend, a hug. I can't see 'I'm a good liar' being enough to overcome those sorts of feelings.

The thing is while JJ has a nothing to lose attitude when it comes to his life and future the same doesn't apply to his relationships, because the Pogues are his thing to lose, his only family, the one good thing. I can't see him just saying fuck it I could risk losing Pope. So I can't agree with you there.

First of all, I was called anti-black for not liking Pope, despite the fact that I don't hate him, and just had valid reasons for thinking he is flawed, not the devil incarnate. Two, I am well aware that this fandom is racist, like all fucking fandoms, and have talked about it. And I think that fact that I don't hate Pope and laid out very clearly the reasons I don't think he's some perfect angel that does no wrong kinda shows that I'm not just random bitching because he's black. Also - I'm a fucking Kie stan. I have to deal with people hating on Kie for the same reasons they love Sarah - it's very obvious to see people motivations there.

And you are right. An interracial mlm ship would be great representation. So would an interracial ship between the hot guy that everyone loves with the black girl - because doesn't he always end up with the white self insert? But reminder that ships don't automatically have superiority because they have 'better' representation and certainly does not represent a shipper 'wokeness'. Personally I think a platonic relationship between two men that are as close and physically affectionate as JJ and Pope - especially when one is so traditionally masculine as JJ, especially if one or both of them could be queer - would be great representation for young boys struggling with toxic masculinity.

So yeah, I think your reasons for hating Kie don't have much basis in canon. I do not give if you like her or not but.. hating her and trying to prove that people shouldn't like her, that she's not good enough for JJ and coming into my ask and putting her down for no reason, still does not sit right with me.

[justsomeoneunordinary]

Alright, this here is for everyone: It’s for those who like Tony and those who don’t. It’s for Stony shippers, for Stucky shippers, for IronStrange shippers, for those who ship Ironhusbands or WinterFalcon – it’s for those who hate Stony or Stucky or any of the other ships for whatever reason. It’s for every single person in this godforsaken fandom.

The past few days I’ve seen quite some fandom drama on this hellsite to a point where it went way too far. To a point people got literal death threats into their inbox. And that on both sides of the discourse that originally led to the drama.

While that shit fucking finally stopped again, instead now people start pointing fingers: “X sub-fandom is so toxic, I hate them so much, it’s good we’re not like that.” Etc. But you know what? That’s not true.

Since I’ve been on this hellsite I’ve seen the biggest bullshit everywhere. - Stony shippers harassing others in some kind of superior-complex, going on anon and annoying the fuck out of everyone, even other Stonies for ‘not writing the ship good’ or whatever other bullshit.

- Stucky shippers bullying anyone who likes Tony, especially when it comes to Stony or WinterIron fans, but even other Stuckies who genuinely like Tony, for example an artist who dared to make a WinterIron piece for once and got so much hatred for this that they practically stopped (and no, I’m not going to name anyone here).

- IronStrange shippers going into a poor Stony artists inbox telling them they’re ship is wrong and they should convert to IronStrange now, as if that actually would change their mind, instead of just being annoyed by this kind of childish behavior.

- Ironhusband shippers literally telling a Stony fan that they should just die because their ship was toxic. Yes, Ironhusbands – that small, pure ship. I know what I’m talking about.

- WinterFalcon shippers stalking Stony blogs to send hate.

- Tony haters lurking into a Tony-centric blog, waiting for an opportunity to start a discourse.

- Pro Tony people going into the anti tag to start a discourse.

- Both, pro and anti Tonys, pro and anti Steves, crosstagging their posts deliberately to annoy the other side.  

You think I am joking or making things up? Ha, I wish I was. Point is: If you think your sub-fandom never spreads hatred? Believe me, it does.

And yes, fact is, the ones who cause the biggest problems are Stonies and Stuckies. That’s not me being hateful, that’s just simple math. The bigger a fandom, the more toxic people you’ll find there. And guess which two sub-fandoms are the biggest ones in the MCU fandom? Exactly. Doesn’t mean that if you’re in a small fandom, that you won’t find these people – there are just less. But not none.

So, instead of pointing fingers at the others all the damn time, maybe you should take a second and look at your own place. The moment one says “it’s always the Stuckies thank god we’re not like that” I can bet with you that in the next thirty minutes a poor Stucky blog will get a hateful anon ask in their inbox.

Which is not to say that this is the anti poster’s fault. It’s not their responsibility to watch out their followers don’t harass other people. You’re allowed to like or dislike whatever you want and talk about it on your own blog, and if someone misunderstands it as “haha they’re totally right, let’s attack those people”, then this isn’t on you. But you should be aware that there are people in your fandom who will think like that. Because it’s never only the others.

So, instead of pointing fingers all the time, maybe take a second to spread awareness that this kind of asshole-ish behavior is not welcome, not in your own fandom, not towards the other ones, not towards the ones you don’t like, not towards anyone at all.

The moment you go into someone’s inbox to spread hate, the moment you start to crosstag/misstag your posts to start hateful discourse, the moment you search for something deliberately that isn’t meant for you to find a reason to attack someone, the moment you’re disrespectful towards a content creator for their interests (this includes gif makers too btw!), the moment you jump into someone’s inbox trying to change their opinion because you believe you’re right, the moment you tell someone to kill themself-

-that’s the moment you’re one of those toxic people we’re talking about.

Like what you want, hate what you want, make your posts about it, tag it fucking properly, keep away from the things you dislike, but keep in mind:

The characters are fictional.

The people behind those blogs are real.

Nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing, gives you the right to harass or bully or send fucking death threats to other people.

And if there was even one single second you thought I might be talking about you: Fuck yes, then this sure as shit is about you.

Stop blaming as if it were only the others, stop acting as if your fandom is on a pedestal, no matter how small it is, stop turning a blind eye on what is exactly in front of you, stop encouraging others to harass, and stop fucking harassing real life people over fictional characters for fucks sake!

And if you still think this kind of behavior is justified? Then do it openly instead of turning to anon like a coward, if you really think you’re justified – so people can fucking block you.

Thank you for your attention.

[mayfriend-archive]

Totally understand if you're not up for it and fully recognize the ronald mcdonald dom/sub anon vibes which is an AMAZING post btw but like...now i'm curious, what the hell did Lord of the Flies anon DO that got him blocked for the discourse? like...i just can't wrap my head around high school lit being...uh...that inflammatory i guess?

Okay so, I'll start by saying I've had a new anon from apparently the same anon saying they are NOT the person I blocked, just a rando making the same points, but I'll answer your question anyway just to set out why this person in particular got blocked, out of the several thousand who reblogged/commented on that very successful addition to the LoTF post I made.

First off, I added the 'real life Lord of the Flies' story because I thought it was a good story. I had read about it only a couple days beforehand in Humankind and, after reading out the entire chapter to my parents who weren't very interested, I was excited that there was not only a post where it would be relevant to post, but that I wouldn't be hijacking it, as it was already rejecting the widespread interpretation taught in many schools, that humanity is inherently savage.

When making the addition, I a) did not think it would get more than a couple reblogs, because the post was already at 50k notes and I figured anyone that might be interested would already have seen it, and b) I did not know the very specific context that prompted William Golding to write the book; all I knew was that he had been a teacher at a public school (basically, the poshest schools in the country - think Eton, Harrow, very 'old money' places that pump out Conservative politicians by the bucket-load 🤢) who hated his job and the boys he taught (which, valid), and new information I'd been given in Humankind - that Golding had said to his wife one day, "Wouldn't it be a good idea to write a story about some boys on an island, showing how they would really behave?" - which had no mention of The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne, which I have since learned was the text that Golding loathed enough to write an entire novel in refutation of - and included what I considered a very telling letter from Golding to his publisher, in which Golding wrote of his belief that 'even if we start with a clean slate, our nature compels us to make a muck of it.' Another Golding quote that I believe portrays his belief in humanity's 'innate savagery' is that "man produces evil as a bee produces honey."

Obviously, the author of a book putting forward the case for humanity's inherent goodness was going to oppose Golding's hypothesis; Bregman not only noted Golding's literary accomplishments and beliefs, but his personal life.

When I began delving into the author's life, I learned what an unhappy individual he'd been. An alcoholic. Prone to depression. A man who, as a teacher, once divided his pupils into gangs and encouraged them to attack each other. "I have always understood the Nazis," Golding confessed, "because I am of that sort by nature." (Humankind by Rutger Bregman, p. 24-25)

I have bolded the part about him as a teacher, because it is incredibly relevant to the original post that I commented on, which begins with a comic of a teacher locking her class in to see them 'recreate' Lord of the Flies, something which the follow up comments before mine staunchly reject as both misunderstanding the point of the book, and the fact that it took the kids in Lord of the Flies a significant amount of time without adult supervision to go 'savage'. This misreading of the text is widespread enough that when Golding won the Nobel Prize for Lord of the Flies, the Swedish Nobel committee wrote that his book 'illuminate[s] the human condition in the world of today'. Whether or not they misread it is beyond my expertise - they do at least mention the factors of the outside world neglected by many when analysing the book, but still seem to believe it says something about human nature as a whole rather than just, to quote thedarkbutbeige 'British kids being rat bastards' - but Golding quite happily took his Nobel prize on this basis. Which, in fairness, I would too. It's a fucking Nobel prize.

It was with this knowledge, and this knowledge alone, that I stated in my now very, very widely read comment that Golding 'wrote the book to be a dick', in response to the tags of the person I reblogged from. As I said, I now know that Golding did not write the book (solely) because he hated the kids he taught, but as a response to The Coral Island and the general idea that clearly the British were inherently civilsed, whilst the people they colonised and enslaved were inherently savage. So. That's the background.

The anon - or rather, the person I thought was anon - was the sole exception out of dozens of replies, who instead of telling me about The Coral Island politely decided it was time to go ALL CAPS and regurgitate points already made by thespaceshipoftheseus, and implied that the only reason that the real life Tongan castaways didn't go all Lord of the Flies was because they weren't British. Not because they weren't surrounded by violence like the boys in Lord of the Flies, or there wasn't a World War ongoing, or that they weren't the upper, upper, upper crust of a class-obsessed society like Britain - but because they weren't British. A complete inversion of the concept that Golding was trying to get across - now, instead of all of humanity being equally prone to savagery in the right conditions, it was solely nationality that determined it. As in, the British were inherently savage, but nobody else was.

I, trying for humour, made the terrible mistake of replying to them.

I won't lie, I was absolutely blown away that this was real life. What I think they were trying to do was be that Cool Tumblr Person who, after somebody's been shitty on a post, goes to their blog and sees something Damning in their about/description. In an ideal world, I imagine I'd have gone nuts or done something Unforgiveable. In what I can only call the rant that followed, they stated several times that I needed to go back to high school to get some 'proper literary analysis' skills and that the story of the Tongan castaways was completely unrelated to the point at hand which. I mean, I disagree, considering that I made the addition, but I couldn't get my head around how commenting on a post that was already rejecting the thesis that the 'point' of Lord of the Flies was that humanity was inherently savage and was, in fact, about how kids - British or otherwise - learn how to function from the adults around them, and that traumatised, terrified children aren't going to create a mini-Utopia, and put forward a real life example of how without the key additions of an ongoing world war, a colonial Empire and the subsequent mindset of thinking you are 'inherently civilised' and therefore can't do anything wrong, actually, people just want to take care of each other.

A friend has since asked me why I even have 'england' in my description. To be honest, it's a timezone thing - I talk to a lot of people online who don't share my timezone, and it generally makes me feel like if I don't reply immediately because it's 3am, they have the tools to see that I'm not in their timezone and not just ignoring them. I did consider changing it to 'british' or 'uk' after it was... 'used against me', I guess, simply because I didn't want to deal with it, but you know what. No. Not gonna do that. I am from England, and I have never hid that fact. I have a tag called 'uk politics', during Eurovision I refer to the UK's act as 'us' (even if I really, really don't want to. Because James Newman slaughtered that song and it was downright embarrassing), I regularly post stuff in my personal tag about where I live (and mostly complain about this piece of shit government). If people really think my nationality makes every point I make null and void, then they don't have to follow me or interact with my posts; tumblr is big, and I am one medium-small blog very easily passed over.

I did reply to them, trying to explain the above, but their next response really just doubled down. Because I used the word British instead of English - foolishly because the posts above mine focused on Britishness, and also because although Golding was English and taught English kids, the pro-Imperialism author of The Coral Island, R. M. Bannatyne was actually Scottish so, ding ding ding, falls into the 'British' category - they then decided that I was somehow trying to pretend I wasn't English and made all the same points, before ending with this doozy:

At this point, I knew there was nothing to be gained from replying, because if we're whipping out conditions like they're pokemon cards then there's no actual conversation anymore, and I'm not going to start mudslinging like an identity politician. They made up their mind, and I figured there could be no harm in letting them think that they 'won' by blocking them instead of replying.

Until the ask. INNATE ENGLISH SAVAGERY did, I'll admit, make me think it was them, back again. I even thought up a really good response approximately 12 hours after I replied, I was that sure. Until the second message came in, and said they were just someone who came from the post and made the same point by chance. So the saga draws to a close... for now.

It may have been them, it may not have been - the anon feature makes it impossible to be sure, but as the second message I got said, we're in a heatwave. It's too hot to argue. And I've just written a goddamn essay about a book I dislike anyway.

My pasty English ass is going to go melt. If there's Disk Horse, do not tell me. I am Done™

[waynedunlaptheorgandonor]

That anon with that fucked up ask about Mmb, i hate to say it, but a lot of your posts as of late are feeding the C@ryl haters, dismissing those who aren’t as chill about the spoilers as you are as dramatic and telling people any negative theories about a female character is misogyny. You’re so smart and great at analysis and i love your writing and i usually love your meta, but, as of late, there’s an edge of mean and smug i’ve been surprised by. I get you’re frustrated w fandom, but jeez.

i 110% encourage anyone who finds my posts upsetting to unfollow or block me. i mean that genuinely. even if we're friends, i don't mind. my whole thing is that i want ppl to make fandom a place they want to be a part of, and if i'm spoiling the experience then exclude me from your narrative, that is totally fine, and i will never hold it against you.

and to be clear, i am totally understanding of people who are upset about the spoilers, and who don't wanna be positive bc they're feeling tired with everything, or they don't like the direction the characters are going, and there isn't a thing wrong with their pov. but i /do/ think there's something wrong with specifically targeting female characters and actors, however, especially when we've literally not seen anything they've done yet. there is a VAST difference between "i don't like this female character bc of X reasons that she's done in the show," vs "this woman interferes with my ship, ergo she's a bitch and she should die and i cannot believe the audacity of the actress to play such a horrible character." if you're not doing the latter then i'm not targeting you and you shouldn't be concerned.

you're never gonna see me go on a ten million words long discourse rant about this. i got all my obnoxious, militant activism out in college and am sort of at the point where i'm cynical and bitter lol. like i'll go to the protests but me and the rest of the old, cynical crew sort of just hang in the background sighing the whole time cuz we been here so long, and i'm the same way about internet discourse, which is probably why i come off as snarky. i'm too tired to teach intersectional feminism on a tumblr blog about a zombie apocalypse show, but i also have absolutely no qualms about pointing out privileged behavior when i see it. y'all are lucky i haven't bothered to touch the racism aspect, lmfao. you wanna see bitter, just try me on that one.

the point is, i'm going to be very understanding about how different people are affected by the way the story is progressing, and i am very self-aware that positivity is not what everyone wants right now, which is why i've said more than once that you definitely do not need to be up in this blog if it's upsetting you, i genuinely do not mind.

BUT!

when it comes to misogyny i am not going to be as nice. i'm not here to make you comfortable, and if me pointing out the rampant internalized misogyny not just in the caryl fandom, but p much every twd fandom (or like, any fandom that exists anywhere) makes you uncomfortable you may want to examine why that is. again, there is a clear difference between disliking a character bc you simply don't like their story and development, and disliking a character bc she's a woman and she makes you mad, and the latter don't fly on this blog, and never will

(i was telling my partner about all the spoilers, and you know what the first thing he said was? "god, i'd fucking hate to be that actress." this is not something i've made up, this is a very prominent problem, my dudes)

so i'm sorry if i seem mean, and in most circumstances i will be understanding and patient, and if you want to talk to me about a specific issue or have a specific question i will try and meet you where you're at with no judgement, but when it comes to the situation at large, i've been through this bullshit long enough (re: my entire gd life) to not have to be gentle about stuff like this anymore. especially not on my own blog. shit makes me mad, and i'm entitled to my anger, just as other people are entitled to theirs. i contain multitudes, bro, let me be a complex character, it's only fair

-diz

[astroninaaa]

I am a c!Tommy apologist, first and for most. But sometimes other c! Tommy apologists make me exhausted.

I actually despise Goat Tubbo it’s a terrible hc

I love season 2’s pacing for fucks sake let me drown in content rather than the drought we have now.

Telling me to watch smaller streamers isn’t going to go get me to watch them. I feel like they’d rather have someone who likes their content rather than me giving them pity views because they’re smaller.

While I agree that all lore is lore there is no such thing as semi lore, I just happen to like a certain CC’s lore than another one and people will constantly flip flop between if that’s okay or not

The fandom has no clue what the rule of cool is.

Sometimes I wonder if people are happy in this fandom. It’s bit hypocritical cause I’m just ranting and complaining but my blog isn’t 100% complaining about c!dream apologists or the story or other discourse like it. Like god damn are y’all good? Do what you want with your blog but it must be tiring to make that majority of your content.

Season one is good! Season two is good! Season three is good!

So much discourse could have been spared if Beeduo never got platonically married. I kinda wish it never happened

Michael is overrated sometimes but the amount people who wanted cc’s to kill him is horrible

this is so much but i'm answering it one by one bc i have time. also feel free to elaborate on any of your takes anon

1. don't interact enough with c!tommy apologists to know but i do think there are really bullshit takes in the c!tommy apologist focused esphere of the fandom, specially regarding other characters

2. why. i like it i think it's great

3. PFT SAME i miss having on-going content but i also feel like ccs shouldn't feel forced to stream lore so like. i miss having a lot of content but i don't hold it against them + when we do have lore it's a lot more exciting

4. mmmmmm mmmmmmmmm mmmmmmm i get where you're coming from but i don't like the way you worded it lmao. you shouldn't feel forced to watch a cc because they're small or because they're a minority but like. idk like i understand you but i really Disliked how you Said It it didn't sit right with me LMAO idk idk

5. i have no clue what that is either

6. anon i'm gonna be completely honest with you but my dash is curated enough that i barely see actual complaining or neg so i don't really know KJNDKBISUFIBF as someone who writes, posts, and reads a lot of fandom/character/plot crit tho (which is different than neg but ehhh you get what i mean), i have to say that i actually really enjoy writing and reading crit because i really enjoy analysis. i think as long as people aren't being disrespectful or hurting anyone their content is their own issue yk? if you don't like it just unfollow and move on you have all the right to not want to see that

7. BIG MF VOUCH

8. tbf they never got platonically married. their marriage has been ambiguous/romantic-leaning from the start, and it makes sense both story-wise and character-wise, plus i believe it adds a lot to both general plot and their own character arcs (which is something i could talk about for so long- i think a lot about what the c!beeduo marriage means narratively). the problem and only reason why there was any discourse is that the fandom can't separate the character from the cc, specially in regards to bench trio

9. honestly i don't think michael is overrated i think he's vibing and cute and represents a lot regarding both c!tubbo and c!ranboo's character development. but yeah i also hate how a lot of the fandom wants him to die like- that's a TODDLER what the FUCK

anyways those were my opinions for each one of your takes!!!!! /nm as always, i think it's nice to see differing opinions inside the fandom, and feel free to talk about it more + any other person feel free to chime in. to be completely fair a lot of my fandom crit can be unreliable because i don't look through tags that much anymore (only every once in a while and for very specific tags) and mainly rely on the people i follow for dsmp content LMAOOO SO LIKE MY DASH IS JUST. SO CATERED TO ME SBDSKBKFEK IDK IDK

send me an evil take!!!

[azelmaandeponine]

Okay, in response to recent Discourse™ and annoying anons, I figured I should directly address the OG post that prompted me to make the post:

https://alifeasvivid.tumblr.com/post/616255785067053056/you-know-how-its-kind-of-a-common-thing-in-human

I can’t reply, and I don’t want to reblog cause I dislike confrontation.  For any who want a screenshot of the post:

Needless to say, this is a GODAWFUL take.  It’s not even a lukewarm take, this is a cold take.  This is such a cold take that it’s at absolute zero.  I’m about done talking about this, so once again: England was not the victim of the American Revolution.  England literally left small children alone for years at a time.  He canonically got possessive and controlling in the years prior to the Revolution.  It is literally his own damn fault America left.  England is not a good parent.  He and Austria are the worst parents in the entire series. This isn’t bashing him; it actually makes him a flawed character, and it’s more interesting to view him as someone who lost America as a result of his own actions, anyways.

Can you all stop woobifying him and demonizing America for wanting independence, please? It’s not only in poor taste but goes against canon.

Also, don’t come into my inbox with anon hate, please.

[losebetter]

Why are people saying you’re racist??? I missed this discourse apparently

honestly nothing has come back to me in enough form for me to make sense of it, but from what i’ve seen it’s a lot of critters who are real mad that i came forward about my work for cr and looking for a way to invalidate my criticisms of the show? the most common threads seem to be:

that at some point over a year ago, there was conflict on my platform about whether it was my place to speak up about the “tusk love” joke being uncomfortable for fetishization reasons. you can find my original vent post on the subject here, and you can find my public response to the criticism on curiouscat. this was clarified with some speed as being aimed at other white folks in fandom, not fans of color, who can choose how and when to respond to media that engages in this. this is, to my knowledge, the only true thing that’s come up, and it was put to rest for most people in early 2019.

that i “constantly talk over people of color” (i.e. when fans of color tell me to stop talking about my experiences on my own platforms, i keep talking about them; responding in any way to fans of color who criticize me by replying directly to me on twitter is also seen as this)

that i have a lot of people of color blocked (for reference, i have hundreds of people blocked, and as folks know many of my abusers from cr-related discord servers were fans of color, and i obviously have those people and their supporters blocked)

that i have a nonwhite orc OC (mocca, who has an earth-toned skintone) named after a food (incorrect, bc his name obviously isn’t pronounced “mocha”) who i use as my twitter icon (also incorrect - my twitter icon is paris, a different orc). mocca is my character in the same curse of strahd home game critters randomly decided to publicly critique because our GM made strahd queer and took a lot of the sexual violence against women out of the module. this argument got dropped within a few days because it’s obviously paper thin, but they just moved onto another one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

that i made observations and complaints about avantika (a villain and a character of color, albeit played by a white person) during the arc of cr she was involved in having to do with canonical dubious consent. people tend to exaggerate and accuse me of calling her a rapist, etc, which is pretty easy to check as something i never did, especially because that doesn’t align with what my actual thoughts were! (this seems to be part of the prevailing narrative that i’m also a misogynist)

that i, at some point, claimed that disliking fjord/orcs was as bad as Actual Real Life Racism (something else done by my abusers in that outed f/jes server that was attributed to me despite there obviously being no proof i said anything of the sort -- for some reason their raving about how hating fjord was akin to police brutality gets blamed on me?)

...and that’s all i can think of, other than that recent anon who accused me of liking cops, which is also pretty obviously nonsense. of this exhaustive list, there’s been no posted proof despite people combing through my platforms for over a month now - the accusation has become that i deleted old posts.

i should say, i’m being a bit flippant here because it feels like i’ve gone over this a zillion times, but i am always open to actual good-faith criticism and discussion relevant to stuff i say or work on. you can see this for yourself on my curiouscat, but for the sake of it i’ll say it outright! i don’t want to dissuade other marginalized folks from coming to me with concerns, questions, or critique of how i handle certain topics. most of this list just happens to be so outlandish to me (as well as my peers who i run these things by to check myself) that it’s hard to list all at once without feeling like i’m in the fuckin twilight zone.

[shining--live]

EIICHI OTORI

Ok now that I’ve sufficiently pissed off everyone who hates Eiichi, hi, how are y’all? Doing good? Good. (I’m not going to hide Eiichi’s name and be apologetic about mentioning him, I’ve tagged his name both ways, if you REALLY didn’t wanna see him, then you could’ve blocked the tag.) Well... I don’t talk to you guys very much on here, although I post art sometimes and this is my blog so I can do what I want. Perhaps I should change my blog name then but ehhhh don’t wanna...

Anyways, as some may notice, we are once again entering that time of year where Eiichi Discourse occurs. Because apparently "singing a song" equals "sexual crime starting with R."

I’ve been thinking about this persistent problem in the fandom, in fact, last time I got involved, it sent many anons to my ask box claiming that I’m an abuse-supporter or whatever... I’m not the first person to propose this, but we as a fandom should just not engage with these people anymore. Just block and move on. Unless SOMEONE writes a list slandering everyone that dares to even defend someone for liking a Pretty Anime Boi (yeah, you know who you are, calling me an r-apologist. I saw that little list hon’.) Then maybe defend yourself? Disliking Eiichi is completely fine, but having an account committed to spreading misinformation and harassing people who are minding their own business liking an Anime Boi are not. We are all tired of the drama and the only way to make it stop is to stop giving these people the attention they want.

I realize this textpost is, in itself, giving them attention, but... well I have a nasty habit of pouring gasoline on the open flame, don’t I? Ahaha;

TL:DR; if you see an Anti-Eiichi account, just block them. Don’t interact, don’t start rumors, don’t engage, just block. Block them so they don’t see your lovely content for ANY of the boys, whether it be art, fanfic, lovemail, anything. We don’t need that negativity in this fandom. If you dislike Eiichi, that’s completely fine! Hell! I dislike Ai! But if you go out of your way to harass people who DO like Eiichi... Well then sorry, but you’re going on my block list.

[aotopmha]

Take Sasha off your profile pic. How dare you defend what Isayama did to her. Consider this your one warning, bitch.

You know, I usually delete messages like these, but this is a very concise example of why I have grown to dislike fandom, but also perhaps an example of my least favourite aspects of Tumblr specifcally.

1) It always ends with personal insults and even threats. This is over a fictional character.

2) A lot of Tumblr can't handle when a story isn't completely wholesome and always positive or when characters make mistakes or are wrong (while the story understands and is considerably more mature about it) even if they claim otherwise.

In this case, I think a lot of people seem to want to make Gabi a lot less complex than she is to show that her character didn't just kill one of their faves and they don't like it, but that she is also actually a bad character. I understand genuinely just thinking her character is one-dimensional and unnecessary, but a lot of posts like these don't come across that way.

This happened with Erwin's death, too, with Eren and Mikasa's characters being generalised, as well, although its Levi that made the final choice.

I feel this actually exists everywhere, but Tumblr has a very specific, willfully ignorant reaction when it comes to stuff like this.

They can't handle something that deviates from the norm and doesn't hold your hand even if it's just for a little bit, even if it's just for a wee tiny bit.

I know that for a lot of people that's a coping mechanism to deal with their shitty lives and there is nothing wrong with liking positive stories - if handled badly, darker stories can just be straight-up bad, too. I think it's okay if you just think that AoT just isn't effective as a story anymore, for example. Each to their own.

I feel like this isn't even what this anon thinks, their message seems to be more about being angry about a character they love dying.

It has always been like this in fandom spaces to some extent, my problem isn't even seeing a story I like interpreted in a way I don't agree with.

I think a story doesn't have to explain everything it does directly to the viewer and part of consumption is using your brain to put things together. I think a lot of the internet is bad at looking at the context. I think a lot of the internet is bad at reading framing and nuance. I think reading comprehension is dreadful in internet discourse in general. People want complex characters, but when they actually get them, they are "irritating" and "confusing". All of this irritates me, but this is also only my personal perspective and what I value in stories and analysis. All of that not jiving with me is okay.

But these days whenever I go to any tags or to look up posts about a series I'm interested in, a lot of them are about actually attacking people.

If you like x ship, x character or x story you are a shitty person.

I think this infantilizes people and presumes you are the one Speaker of Truth on what Good Storytelling is, what is Morally Right and Wrong and that everyone who consumes the story sees the exact same positives and negatives in it as you do.

Once again, I think there is nuance to this, something the internet, again, just has problem with in general - you either completely love something or completely hate something, there is nothing inbetween.

Stories can send harmful messages - I despise stories that have pedofilic relationships, promote fascism and downplay how hurtful sexual harrasment and assault are, but they are also stories and as long as you acknowledge and talk about the problematic elements of a story and what other people might find problematic about it, I think consuming it is fine. Simply consume responsibly.

Now, if the author might support harmful behaviour with the money they make from the story, that is a little bit different.

Many, many indications have surfaced that J. K. Rowling supports TERFs and basically most of the additions she has made to Harry Potter lore recently have had very unfortunate implications.

Author of Rurouni Kenshin, Nobuhiro Watsuki was discovered to own child pornography.

These are very direct cases of giving money to authors that are harmful.

But then there's stuff like Hajime Isayama making those couple of tweets and posts around 5-10 years ago, nothing else surfacing in that time and the story itself clearly contradicting those ideas.

I think in either case, the more direct or indirect one, is a pretty personal choice.

Do you believe the author has grown out/can grow of those views or not and stop doing what they do?

In the case of a shitty author, I think consuming the story without giving them money is okay. This is tougher with stories that have huge staffs.

How do you know in general if there is a nazi among a staff of hundreds or there isn't, for example. It's a pretty complex situation that everyone probably has to suss out for themselves.

But all of that complexity seems to matter less and less as time goes on in fandom.

It's more and more about putting people in their place and insulting them because of a piece of media.

I was impulsively angry like this towards differing opinions when I was younger, too.

What I really recommend for anyone to do is that if you feel angry like this, write it all down in a separate post and look at it a little before you send it to anyone else. Acknowledge why you want to send a message like this to someone else and whether you really feel that way or you're just really angry towards what they think.

I got three messages with this kind of speech pattern and yes, I spammed inboxes like this when I was younger, too. I just really needed to prove that opinion wrong.

I will actually say thank you for the ask because it helped me put these thoughts out there, but I also want to promote the idea of thinking a little before replying.

I genuinely think many people are just really overwhelmed with emotion rather than genuinely hateful when they send messages like this.

I think truly hateful people are the minority, but as I said, before you click that button, try to stop yourself and think a little, however tough it might seem.

[saltpepperbeard]

Okay I’m officially back on my Joshifer bullshit thanks to you lmao. What are your thoughts on all the drama surrounding JH and CT? Do you think she’s the reason Joshifer never came out and admitted they were dating? Or was it because of JL and NH? I figure it’s been long enough that you can talk about it freely without starting the Discourse™️. Feel free to ignore this though if you think otherwise, I don’t want you to get any hate lol.

I feel like my blog should come with a disclaimer honestly. Like, CAUTION: CHANCE TO GET BACK ON YOUR JOSHIFER BULLSHIT UPON VISITING lol. But oooh goodness we’re spilling tea of THAT caliber, huh anon? I don’t mind talking about it at all these days though. Because yeah, I believe we’re definitely out of the shipping war/Discourse™️ days, and I’ve also reached the level of Fandom Veteran where I just…No longer Give A Care lmao. TOO TIRED TO CARE.

But BECAUSE I have a tendency to get ramble-y, let’s go beneath the cut~

Okay so first off, I’ll start out with my honest thoughts on Joshifer, and what I think they had and/or what happened between them. The thing I lean towards the most is that they messed around at Hawaii. I think it’s the most likely thing, given that they were both young, pretty newly single, and alone on that island together. And looking at all the BTS footage, plus every promo that followed? Come on now. And maybe it wasn’t sex necessarily. But at LEAST making out/heavy petting or SOMETHING, my dude. I WANT TO BELIEVE lol.

So, what I LIKE to think happened is that Jen and Josh messed around/had sex/attempted to get into a relationship during the filming of Catching Fire filming somewhere. But in the midst of that, Jen got a little too scared with the whole idea, and ended up breaking things off to eventually go back to Nick. Which, in turn, hurt Josh enough to attempt to mend his wounds by starting a new relationship with Claudia that following summer.

And then that’s where things get…ROCKY lol. Because back in the day, I definitely used to think that Joshifer’s story didn’t end there. I thought that, somewhere down the line, they had to start messing around again or dating in secret, because there were some pretty eyebrow-raising events that took place.

The two ones that instantly jump to my mind are of course, Cannes and the MJ1 Promo. And hell, even MJ2 promo honestly. Cannes because of Jen giving Josh a LAPDANCE and the two of them leaving the party BY THEMSELVES, TOGETHER, “INTO THE NIGHT.” Mockingjay Part One because of them both contracting strep throat, but no one else in the cast/crew seemed to get it. And Mockingjay Part Two because of all those random kisses/bouts of physical affection.

Bruh, I was just CONVINCED that they were going to come out as a couple following the wrap of Mockingjay Part 2. I really really was. But then…they never did. They both seemed to go quite separate ways for that matter. So that’s left my mind to kind of shift a bit and to start questioning things.

Because, almost all throughout the Mockingjay Promos, both Josh and Jen were linked to relationships. Jen with Nick for a bit, and then Chris Martin for a bit, and Josh with Claudia (See I’m to the point where I don’t mind dropping names lol FIGHT ME). So like…BACK IN THE DAY X2 lol, I thought that they were just “cover up” relationships. Or PR relationships, if you will. I kind of hopped aboard that bandwagon because of how CONVINCING Joshifer seemed.

That, and Josh’s relationship with Claudia and Jen’s relationship with Chris just seemed…weird lmao. They didn’t seem anything like what I was seeing during promo with Josh and Jen. So that made me even more convinced that I was on the right track.

But then Jen broke it off with Chris only to move on to Darren, and then to Cooke, and Josh remained with Claudia. The ship I was nearly certain was going to take off never did. So it left me reevaluating tbh.

It made me think that Josh and Claudia had to be an actual relationship. Because, come on lol, there’s no way. Why the hell would he stay with her for six years now, for anything other than…a relationship? Because Paradise Lost lmao; who is she? We don’t know her. It never even made waves in the states at all. And that was FOREVER ago. Josh was never even that big of an actor to really properly “stunt” in my opinion anyway. That seems to be reserved more for the actors who are really on the media’s current radar. The talk of the town lmao.

BUT, that doesn’t mean I’m 100% a fan of them. Because I’m not. Never have been lol. And nor do I really like how they’ve presented their relationship. I’ve definitely seen enough sketchy stuff to make me wrinkle my nose. Which is the drama you were referring to I imagine lol. Claudia using Josh for her career’s benefit, their friends using him for their benefit, yada yada. Idk, once I kind of realized Joshifer wasn’t going to be an immediate thing, and once I kind of stepped away from Josh (which is a whole DIFFERENT story in itself lol), I just…really never jumped into that drama/cared about it at all.

AND, despite talking to a few different people about it, I feel like I never really gathered enough information to really formulate proper opinions on it. AND X2, I kind of realized that hey, these are actual people and we really don’t know what’s going on behind the surface level stuff we’re seeing. We could be 100% right, but we COULD be 100% wrong. So I just kind of stayed out of it, sighed whenever Josh was in Spain or she in the States, and just kind of moved on.

Same thing goes for Jen and Nick. Saying his name makes me shudder, but I think that’s only a self-inflicted gunshot wound lmao; THANKS, TWAAL. I had a lot of issues with him, but I think they were mostly…fandom driven? Like, it was one of those “I don’t like you because you’re interfering with my OTP and because your fandom hates mine” kind of dealios. I really didn’t have any VALID reasons to dislike him at all lmao.

People will say otherwise. I know a lot of Veteran Joshifer Shippers think that relationship was ENTIRELY fake/PR driven too. I can’t say I entirely agree? But again, it’s practically the same thing as my thoughts with Josh and Claudia. I didn’t dive that deep into things regarding that relationship, so I really know nothing, and so I REALLY can’t form a proper opinion.

*Wheeze* SO lol. Where does that leave me now. Well, since things did not go the way I and probably a lot of other people anticipated, I’ve just been…confused? Like yeah, there were things that I DEFINITELY thought were indicative of a possible fling/relationship. But Josh and Jen were with other people…? It seemed so so SO real, but then they moved tf on?

So yeah, I really don’t know what happened at all. I can’t prove anything. Josh and Jen genuinely could have been just friends all throughout promo, hence why they have nothing to tell. Or, they could have genuinely fucked all through promo, and their relationships WERE just indeed PR cover ups at the time. It’s literally impossible to say for certain.

I think if anything did happen though, it’s probably way too soon to tell. Especially with Jen in a rather new and very serious relationship now, and Josh still in the relationship that he was in all throughout promo. I feel like if something did happen, they’d probably open up about it like, a decade or maybe even more down the line. Or who knows, maybe it’ll be their little secret, and our little speculation.

Like, the both of them definitely don’t need anything “cheating scandals” or anything like that running rampant with their current situations. So yeah, if there was something, we likely won’t hear of it for a while, if…ever.

Which Goddddd gets my GOAT lmao. Still bitter to this day. And still can’t fathom what happened between those two. Because I was rooting for them so very hard, anon. I think everyone was at a point. There was just so much RIDICULOUS shipping fuel between them.

And I think for that reason, I’m always going to be rooting for them in one way or another. They’re the equivalency of a “first love” for me lol. Like, I’ll always always remember what I saw between them/have a soft spot for them regardless. And I’ll definitely ALWAYS have fingers crossed for ANY tidbits.