#reasons why i have outgrown fandom as a whole for the absolute most part and don't intend to go back

[youturningintodust]

I will never not be baffled and disappointed that even in a chat group entirely centered around talking about Xena: Warrior Princess -- and one that billed itself as "the gay subtext one" that mocked "maintexter homophobia", even --

I still faced negativity for:

being transmasc/genderqueer and not hiding it

rejecting/gently mocking the idea of my having a hetero relationship with a cis man, basically mildly showing my homosexuality rather than being a full bisexual

as an extension of 2 -- being uncomfortable with male main characters (i.e. Joxer) continually sexually harassing female main characters. talking about it. (everyone else tolerated this and froze out my comments. in a fandom for a lesbian-couple-centered show?!)

Most members of the group were bi cis women, gender-conforming and while there was one who was nice and normal towards me, the rest just went silent and got weird whenever either of the above were just like... Not hidden. Not stifled.

I remember one or two talked about being in a hetero marriage with a cis straight man, and that that was their "only exception" and if they were single again tomorrow -- that they wished they were with women.

One of the Big Names there, in a "TMI" convo, admitted that she only felt comfortable talking to women when she was drunk, and barely even then. She also referenced "fucking (women) through men in a threesome", which to me those two put together shows strong fear of doing things that people like me (fully gay, butch, masculine to the point of trans) are known for doing: using a strapon to fuck your female partner yourself. Of course someone who secretly desires to do this would have that kink, if they were frightened to even talk to women.

Essentially, half the discomfort was deep jealousy. Because they did not have the bravery to live the life I was living. The repression there was SO REAL.

It also taught me how much fandom is an expression for painfully awkward, self-closeting women. (i.e. not forced to be, by abuse or shariah law or something.) One would say things randomly like "omg they're so gay" and I thought it was just fangirling. Later, she said that that was code for "I felt horny when I wrote that". This explains soooooo much about how online fandom works to me that I just didn't pick up on before. I was always feeling more of a nonsexual, sentimental, romantic emotion or just...general enthusiasm for the story's gay writing or whatever. Not something sexual.

Just. So many layers to that scene. Makes me glad I'm not a part of it.

But sad that it didn't work out in the end.

Right before I ended up leaving, a member joined whom I remembered from an older chat group. She would predate on the teens in the group, asking highly personal questions, preying whenever someone said something about their IRL that sounded sad (zeroing in on them at that moment and asking a lot about it). Like. Abuser behavior. She was in her 40s-50s, original era X:WP fandom. I almost publicly called her out, but my rep was already in the trash for just...being transmasc. So again I felt that I couldn't.

Just a shame. A literally lesbian-populated fandom that couldn't survive without it, for a show with multiple trans actresses in it and one actual trans episode, which embraces cis women characters' masculine side and puts it on proud display... which embraces their homosexuality (for Gabrielle) and bisexuality with a strong gay lean (for Xena).... Shouldn't be the place where this kind of shit is allowed to fly.

There was just so much petty, high-school-girl behavior and energy, too. Not possible to have direct conversations, seen as rude if you tried, meanwhile they were all headfucky and game-playing.

No place for a stereotypically blunt butch that likes healthy, direct discussions about life, fictional themes, and keepin' it real. Too below-the-surface, catty, etc.

Just. Ugh.

[astra90x]

Flufftober Day 2 - “You’ve Told Your Parents?”

@flufftober

Fandom: Stardew Valley

Pairing: Sebastian x Reader

Word Count: 824

Reader Pronouns: She/Her

This is one chapter of an entire linear story! It can be read separately but is better when read as a whole. Enjoy!

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

It’s been a few days since the sweater swap with Sebastian at the saloon, but since that night, you haven’t even caught sight of the raven-haired boy. It’s not your fault that he spends most of his time shut away in his room, but still, when you take a glance at the hoodie hanging next to your door, you can’t help but feel a little bad. He should have it back. 

You do have to take a trip to Robin’s, anyway. Your chickens have outgrown their current coop and you need her help in building you a bigger one. So why not kill two birds with one stone and bring Sebastian’s hoodie back while you’re at it? 

You grab your backpack and tuck Sebastian’s sweater into it, making sure that it’s folded nicely and won’t wrinkle. It isn’t yours, after all. It deserves the best care possible. 

Heading outside and locking the door to the farmhouse behind you, you head to the back of your farm and start to trek up the path towards the mountains. Berries are growing along the edges of the dirt road, so you stop to pick some, popping a few into your mouth as you go along. 

It isn’t a long walk to get to Robin’s, and when you go inside, she instantly greets you with a smile. 

“(Y/N)! What can I do for you today?” she asks, leaning across her desk slightly. “I just got a load of new lumber in today, if you need some wood.”

“None today, thanks,” you reply. “I actually came to ask about expanding my chicken coop. I have payment here, and all the materials you’ll need are back at the farm.”

“Absolutely! I’d be more than happy to give your chickens a bigger home,” says Robin. When you grab your wallet and count the amount of money needed, Robin takes it and adds, “I should be finished in two or three days.”

“Perfect.” You’re about to turn and leave again when you suddenly remember your other reason for coming here; the hoodie.

“Oh, and if it’s alright, I wanted to ask if Sebastian was home?” you ask, shrugging off your backpack and pulling Sebastain’s hoodie out. “I need to give this back.”

Robin’s eyes light up a little when she sees the article of clothing you’re holding, and her mouth forms into a large, almost teasing grin. “Right, Sebby told me all about what happened Friday night at the saloon.”

Oh, great, you think. “I hope he left out the parts about me being a drunken mess.”

“Actually, he barely focused on that at all. He wouldn’t stop smiling the whole time he was telling me, he even said that he thought the hoodie looked nice on you.” Robin leans forward a little and lowers her voice. “Plus, Sebastian protects that hoodie like it’s his baby. I mean, he won’t even let Abigail wear it. It should mean something that he let you take it.”

You can feel your cheeks flushing ever so slightly, and you hope that they haven’t reddened enough for Robin to notice. You barely even know Sebastian, aside from the occasional greeting when you pass in the streets or when you chatted with him a little at the egg festival a few months back. And yet he let your drunken self take his favourite article of clothing? It feels… strange. Good strange, but strange nonetheless. 

You’re broken out of your thoughts when Robin says, “I think he’s still asleep though. Yoba knows that boy is not a morning person.” She gestures towards the sweater. “I can take that, though. I’ll give it to him when he wakes up and tell him you stopped by.”

You can’t help but feel a little disappointed that you won’t be making the return to Sebastian yourself, but still, you hand the hoodie over the desk to Robin. She takes it and tucks it underneath. 

“Oh, Sebastian left your coat by the door over there. He even washed it himself, he wanted it to be clean when he gave it back to you.” She nods in the direction of the door, where there’s a coat rack standing in the corner. Among Demetrius’ large jackets and a few lab coats, you spot your own coat, looking fresh and clean of the dirt usually covering it. Ah, farm life. 

“Thank him for me, will you?” you ask as you go to retrieve your coat. “And thank you as well for the chicken coop.”

“Always happy to help,” replies Robin. She waves goodbye as you step out the door, back outside into the summer heat. 

A scent of laundry detergent is wafting from the jacket in your arms, and when you bring it closer to your face to smell it, it smells like a mix of fresh air and Robin’s house. Sebastian’s house. You don’t know why, but the thought of that makes you smile. 

♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡

[demyrie]

I'm curious but why did you delete JAM? It was one of my favorite JxD fics and I never got to finish reading it.

ahhhh oh dear, yeah, that happened.

So, for everyone arriving, I wrote a fic called Just Another Mission for the Jak and Daxter game series, and Jak/Daxter pairing. Yes, the green haired elf protag with the fuzzy orange thing, which btw used to be a human and was a human in fic. I think I started it when I was maybe 14 (yikes omg) and a few years ago, I deleted it, and I don’t delete fics.

Rant and personal history ahead, but tldr; i deleted this particular fic because:

1) I became more and more uncomfortable with the way I’d treated certain characters without giving them respect or resolution (throwing around things like domestic abuse while being too young to properly understand What I Was Doing or How to Answer Very Triggered Friends Who Had the Misfortune of Reading This I’m So Goddamn Sorry, as well as falling into that Not Like Other Girls slash fan ditch of treating female characters like shit/obstacles to the main pairing WHICH IS JUST ******) as well as personally uncomfortable portrayals of obsession and taking advantage of people that turn my stomach to this day (see reason 4)

2) i got way in over my head with my own writing/style which was so obtuse and self-indulgent that I felt a great amount of shame over it, including the attention it had gotten, and the way it went to my head and turned me into an egotistic little shit. I was an asshole peacock and I regret it. There was a break where I got waylaid before the final confrontation in the fic (see reason 4, also a very bad time to get held up in any narrative) and when I returned to the story, i nearly cried because it was such a mess and I didn’t know what I was saying anymore. Finishing it was a struggle and I even remember one JnD fan friend being like “hey this chapter seemed really curt??? short?? not like you” and I was like YEAH THATS NOT ME ANYMORE god i hope

3) there was a sort of ... anti-JxD surge in my little pool from people I really respected and it made me think i was doing something wrong even just remembering it, so I cut off that memory.

4) it coincided with two ugly relationships in my life that marred it, and I just wanted it gone for my own mental health.

So anon, I’m very sorry that you never got to finish it. I had good intentions in mind and gave them a happy ending where they realized they loved each other, even if the journey there was difficult. 

It both touched me and broke a piece of my heart when someone came to me years ago and asked me why I had deleted it, saying the story had given them the courage to come out as gay to their family. In that moment, overwhelmed with how ProblematicTM the whole story was, I was really struck with just ... how subjective our world experience is, and how so many things can mean so many different things to every single soul and how terrifyingly VALID peoples experiences are, no matter how they come by them. We’re all so unique and convoluted, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure -- and one man’s trigger is another man’s key to Becoming. But no matter how inspiring, I couldn’t bring myself to repost it. 

Hopefully this will be the only fic i ever delete with relish. Jak and Daxter will always be a good memory for me, regardless. Thanks for the ask, anon.

(even more) personal stuff below the cut. tw for stalking, harassment, manipulation and emotional abuse.

So.

Im a firm believer in stories living beyond their authors (something that JK rowling doesnt seem to understand iykwim). I don’t normally delete past works, because while I wrote them, I also know that they’ve outgrown me as most narratives do: people are absolutely allowed to enjoy what they want to or need to, not just because I think said thing is reflective of my current work or jives with my current stage of life. 

However, JAM was a particular Thing that Had to Go.

The timeline is hella fuzzy to me because I’ve blocked a lot of it out, but I was coming out of middle school and struggling with my mental health. On the real life side, I was stuck in a situation with a close friend of mine who was very fixated on us being in a relationship and the pining was loud enough to hear from the other side of the country. Wounded people pleaser that I was, I flipped (exhaustingly) back and forth between “i dont like you like that” and “but I want you to be happy so what if I tried liking you like that?” and there was massive amounts of hidden hurt and resentment and tension and abandonment complex activation and just ... a strangling of anything that made our friendship good for either of us. 

Also she was a she. So. Yannoe, gay is difficult.

This definitely burnt me out on the “best friends pining” trope and is probably legit the ONLY reason I’m not equally in the erasermic and erasermight camp haha. That trope feels claustrophobic and draining to me, so I leave it for others to enjoy.

It also coincided with a married 45yo adult man luring me into a “platonic, ecstatic, boundary-breaking, you-are-my-beautiful-young-muse, words cannot express how much I love you” creative type relationship that inevitably turned possessive, domineering and manipulative. Within the bounds of the Renaissance Faire community, I thought he was a safe person and he was not, and his constant reassurance that I wasn’t like other women my age was absolutely hypnotizing to a undeveloped soul who really, really wanted to be special.

We traded poetry and tarot card readings over email. He bought me manga and shared stories about his time overseas and in the service. He made me props to go with my renaissance faire character and showed me where to find cheap leather so I could piece things together myself.

He also stalked me and owned me for the better part of a year and I only realized it once he started harassing a dear friend of mine overseas, whom I was visiting, about a package that he’d sent, which apparently he’d covered in original poetry to let me know how much he loved me But Not In a Hetero or Sexual Way Bro, so of course he didn’t want it to get lost in the postal system. So what is he going to do? Note my friend twice a day asking if its arrived until she inevitably, tearfully spills that this guy is stressing her out and who is he anyway?

My horrible secret was out, which only sounded horrible when I explained it to someone else. I realized this man was trying to follow me wherever i went and I got so fucking angry that he was messing with my friend that I had to stop it.

(He called me a cunt when I broke it off with him on the phone in the dark on the floor of my bedroom in the middle of the night so my parents wouldn’t hear, then sobbed and said he was sorry. I was so dissociated from the rush of anger and helplessness that it took for me to actually MAKE the call that all I could do was wiggle my foot and watch it in the reflection of the mirror on the back of my door, and think maybe I was a cunt but I wasn’t his cunt anymore. So there. 

Afterward I slammed my forehead into the mirror a few times to make sure I’d actually done it and it wasn’t a dream.)

During all of this, I was writing this stupid fic. I think. Honestly, I don’t fucking know, but I can’t think of it without thinking of him and how i was devoured.

The stress of hiding this “totally wonderful but NORMAL PEOPLE DONT UNDERSTAND WHAT WE HAVE!!!!” grooming shit from my parents was gutting me alive, and I was so far gone RE: worthiness/autonomy that I didn’t even consider why I BOTHERED diffusing his petulant accusations over notes on deviantArt again and again as he baited me into shit just to explode over how I didn’t love him and I figured out another way to soothe his engorged and tarry ego without explicitly lying that I loved him too. 

He made me regret my silver tongue and way with words as I used it to defend myself again and again, and crushed my love of writing. I would pace the neighborhood for almost an hour several times a week, claiming I was ‘exercising’ but really trying to understand why i felt so trapped, or where the lines between love and hate lay, or why I wanted to cry all the time, as i low key tried to get hit by a car just to force something to change in my life and jolt me out of his smothering, needy nightmare of constant texting and emails and notes. I couldn’t fucking flinch without him knowing about it, and asking me if I was okay. For this reason, I react very poorly to people fretting over me at length, and loudly. I get angry and feel violated, or just pinned to the floor by someone Performing their love on me with no real regard for my health.

This whole time, I was escaping into fandom. It probably saved my life, in one way or another, because I found friends who supported me and made me laugh in the JnD sphere. Especially the friend whose distress caused me to snap and realize This Couldn’t Continue.

This terrible man was the first one outside of my friend group that I showed my writing to, the first adult as well. It was on the dark side even then, but he said it was wonderful and amazing. He teased me for being stuck up in my authors notes on JAM (one of the reasons I’m just getting over ... talking ...) but said it inspired him to start writing as well. He used that writing to imagine hokey sprawling stories of him being a hot rod racer and me being his sexy girlfriend, Very Totally in Love. Why Couldn’t We have Just Met in a Different Lifetime??? not that its a relevant question for my young 16yo friend lol just something dreamers wonder lol lol here why don’t you take this traditional irish engagement ring aka claddagh i bought for you, lie to your parents and say I bought one for everyone in our renfaire group, and turn it toward your heart, to imply that you’re in love, so that I can keep your heart safe for you until you find a boyfriend?

FUCKER YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKER ok I’m done. Fuck.

JAM was a project of mine that spanned a year or two and is intrinsically tangled in those very bad relationships and very bad lessons. I deleted it because I needed to, for purely personal reasons beyond the fact that it was generally bombastic, over-long, tone-deaf and dealt with very serious issues poorly. Due to these experiences, you won’t catch me in a hot minute writing either best-friends-pining or heavy jealousy/possessiveness fic, but everyone else? Go crazy just tag your shit.

so. anyway. isn’t subjectivity actually terrifying? You never know what something can mean to someone else. So just ask, maybe.

Damn, son. Some fics you just can’t repost.

[chromsai]

The Pendulum Guiding Towards Uniqueness

Oh man. I haven’t done this in a while but...

Let’s talk about something real quick:

Let’s talk about what an important and wholesome message this is.

I know the fandom loves to give Yusho a lot of crap, especially with how he acts during the last arc of the show, among a few other things, but let’s just appreciate that even if Yusho isn’t the best father in Yugioh history, he’s still a good dad overall.

Good especially for Yuya.

Let’s talk about the fact that Yusho isn’t entirely pushing an entertainment persona onto Yuya. I’m certain he’s beyond happy that his son looks up to him and is following in his footsteps, but he’s never wanted Yuya to be like him. He’s wanted Yuya to be like Yuya. 

I mean...

Children of celebrities and public figures like Yusho usually have their work cut out for them. If normal kids are already expected by their parents to be the absolute best at everything, I think celeb kids can have it especially hard because they’re dealing with living up to their parents’ expectations, their own expectations, and lastly...

Society’s expectations.

y’all know where i’m going with this, right? 

*coughszarccoughs*

Yusho supports Yuya no matter which direction he chooses to take for himself, so at the very least Yuya doesn’t have to worry too much about pressure from expectations from his parents.

That leaves just his own expectations and what society expects from him as the only pressures affecting him constantly.

Well the problem is, Yusho isn’t there for most of the story to reassure him of this. To reassure him that there is no pressure on his part at all, something that Yuya, due to Yusho’s prolonged absence, isn’t entirely aware of.... (if you don’t believe me, recall Yuya’s painful breakdown in ep. 135 as proof... the poor boy apologizes to Yusho, even when he’s not there, thinking that Yusho would be disappointed or ashamed in him, even though we, the audience, know that he has nothing to apologize for).

Hell, we saw in the second duel Yuya had against Jack Atlas that it apparently took Yuya years and an intervention from Jack Atlas himself for him to realize what Yusho meant about “preserving his Yuya-ness” and not using his “borrowed words”. He wanted Yuya to find his own words instead.

The pendulum itself is a great symbol for this since it can represent two things: swaying between one thing to another, a.k.a. indecision or uncertainty (specifically, uncertainty in yourself) BUT it can also symbolize a tool for discovery, as Yusho has pointed out before in a different flashback— if Yuya ever gets lost, the Pendulum is there to guide him.

But the Pendulum only swings between two (2) extremes; in this case, since Yusho is gone and with him his expectations of Yuya (if any) as well, what’s left is that, for Yuya, the Pendulum swings between: his own expectations vs. society’s expectations.

We see several times that Yuya is always troubled between either to entertain people and make them happy or to fight to save the world, and of course striking a balance between the two isn’t quite as simple as just stopping the Pendulum in the middle of its tracks, especially not when there are other factors that are in the mix. Thus, we get Arc-V’s story and the conflicts Yuya faces throughout it.

Going backwards a bit, though, I also want to point out the sad irony that is carried by Yuya repeating the words “preserve my uniqueness...”

This should be a bit more straightforward for a couple of reasons (such as the fact that he isn’t the only Pendulum user anymore, or later on, as stated before, the fact that his entertainment style is based on his father’s “borrowed words”, etc.), but mainly because as the story progresses, we find out that Yuya isn’t quite so unique:

There are 3 other boys who look just like him. Granted, these 3 other boys might look like him, but they act nothing alike (thankfully). But, okay, then it’s revealed that they were once actually all one person.

I’ll repeat that and add onto it:

Yuya and these three other boys who look just like him are actually the same person, and, to top it all off, this person that they once all were (Zarc) had no Pendulum at the time, meaning he had no guidance, and, as a consequence, found himself succumbing to society’s expectations.

So given his ultimate background, how does Yuya, aka a fragment of someone’s soul, as Zarc likes to call him, “preserve his uniqueness...”?

Well, think of it this way: if you break a glass, you end up with fragments of that glass. And although you can gather the pieces and put them all back together to make it into the original whole again, you still have just fragments merged into a whole again. Each fragment has its own unique edges that make up its own unique shape, and I guarantee that none of the other fragments are quite the same, even if they’re all equally important to the whole.

It’s this uniqueness about him that Yusho wants Yuya to preserve, but that Yuya can’t see for himself. It’s why Yuya’s Pendulum is so necessary to him: it’s why when he lost it as a child, he cried, or why when Zarc finally takes over him and Yuya is lost to his darkness, his Pendulum falls to the floor— unswaying and directionless. And it’s why Zarc doesn’t even bother with it either— why would he since he already chose a path— just like he did the first time before Ray split him into four fragments. He said so himself: he made a vow back then to meet the expectations that society thrust upon him for more violent entertainment, and that vow remained unwavering even after his revival...

I suppose it’s, once again, ironic that Yuya doesn’t regain control over Zarc & himself until Reiji points out to Zarc, who denies being Yuya, that he is Yuya... but that he’s also always been Zarc. Always been swaying back and forth between his two extremes: Yuya, the entertainer who ultimately always seems to choose to live up to his own standards of what he believes Entertainment should really be for (which is to bring and protect smiles), and Zarc, the entertainer who lived solely for the purpose of meeting society’s expectations. 

And thus, the Pendulum guides Yuya back to his own heart again...

But what about the other three fragments: Yuto, Yugo, and Yuri? Are they even unique? What can make them unique?

Well of course they’re unique! The nuance here is that they’re parts of Zarc, as Yuya is as well, that make up Zarc’s whole HUMAN entertainer personality. 

Yuto was the part of Zarc that didn’t actually want to hurt anyone but did so because it was expected of him. Yugo was the competitive and obsessive part of Zarc that kept him motivated to continue his violent duels since it was expected of him. And, of course, Yuri was the psychotic, lost part of Zarc that led him to his ultimate endgame: fusing with his dragons to become an ultimate force of destruction, as was expected of him. Leo himself expected Yuri to be reliably unstoppable and used him (since he was a mere child, in fact), much like the Original Dimension’s society did, to meet his expectations of completing Arc-V (the machine).

But then we’re back again to question which part of Zarc Yuya made up. Well, it’s very simple:

Yuya was the part of Zarc that originally just wanted to make the people of the Original Dimension, his monsters, and his opponents smile.

THIS is the uniqueness that Yusho desired for Yuya to preserve about himself.

Yusho, despite the adversity and the reality about Yuya that inevitably presents itself before him...

...has absolute faith in Yuya.

That Yuya, as Yoko would say...

... will surpass Yusho Sakaki in that ability. Thus why Yusho would be at ease if he passed on, knowing that Yuya is still alive and well and would take on his role.

But again, we’re back to an expectation of Yuya. Neither Yoko nor Yusho actually care how he does it, they just know that Yuya will bring smiles to the world. Because they have that much faith in his uniqueness.

But it’s not a far-fetched expectation— Jack Atlas himself knows this is true of him. He knows it’s Yuya’s role to play in his life. That why he pushes Yuya to recognize that his father’s borrowed words about entertainment and smiles aren’t his true dueling, his Pendulum summoning is.

This is why Yusho never led his son into the path that Dennis eventually took as his protege: he had faith that Yuya would eventually found something completely UNIQUE of his own, just as he did, and SURPASS HIM.

The courage to take YOUR OWN step forward.

By the end of Arc V, we see Yusho recognizes this in Yuya, otherwise he wouldn’t have bothered challenging him head on (as he claimed previously within the last few episodes that if Yuya wasn’t able to save Reira, and to an extent the world’s, smiles, then he wouldn’t be a true duelist after all, but Yuya of course did).

In the end, Yuya himself has outgrown his own ambition of becoming like his dad, Yusho. He’s learned that his uniqueness due to his Pendulum has given him the unbound potential to surpass Yusho.

And that truly is a Miracle Drawn by the Pendulum of Uniqueness.