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thecoolerliauditore · 3 months ago

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Sorry, not-so-amicable-exes anon here again just cause I saw your big toxic fh breakdown post again cause a friend wanted to read it and we were tlking about it- unimportant, sorry, we just had a thought. Because I've seen some anti-toxic shippers act like this interpretation is out of spite or some intentional thing shippers of other jimmy ships made up (specifically ranchers usually), but the timeline and accusation is all wrong. Like I don't remember ever seeing anyone even talk about this interpretation until post-liml? And it was very hesitantly and apologetically. There was a fic or two before this but most people even the people who enjoyed it expressed discomfort or concern at its existence and that's how most people react to them even to this day.

But I remember when I saw that first post I was like, "Oh thank god, someone else also thought that!" It felt like before that there was scenes in their POV that only happened when I watched 3l because no one talked about them, or wrote them very differently to what happened. And I saw some other people saying the same thing. I think the post even got deleted a few days later, too. It seemed to me like a lot of people had quietly independantly come up with the interpretation as far back as 3l itself, but stayed quiet until recently to avoid upsetting anyone or we all thought we were the only ones who saw it that way. I know I tend to hesitate to write characters negatively because it feels a bit wrong to do that when the ccs are friends, even if I think it would be interesting. I wonder how many people feel that way also?

But I guess what I mean to say is it seems to me that a lot of people independantly have been thinking it since 3l or ll and the only reason it started popping up in dl is because it was the next big Jimmy ship from the big shipping season, and people werent really willing to even talk about it for a whole other season because they were scared of being seen as negative.

But!! I just really think it's neat, I really like this narrative for Scott and Jimmy. It's rare to be able to get stories where people have problems and break up and move on to new relationships and grow from them. It makes sense because they're the first season couple and they've grown further and further apart as seasons go on.

Even people I see who don't like fh don't seem to WANT to talk about it, they only bring it up when asked, and try to be respectful. Maybe I've not seen something happening somewhere else? I just wish I didn't have to spend most of my energy when writing quadruple checking that I'm not making Scott a bad guy and emphasising Jimmy's faults just so people reading know for certain I'm writing it this way because I'm legitimately interested in exploring this interpretation of them, and I'm not one of "those" writers. But I'm starting to wonder how many of "those" writers there actually are. (At the risk of comparing petty fandom drama to a serious topic, but it feels a lot like I'm back on 2016 tumblr assuring people I'm not one of "those" enbies or "those" aces, trying not to get pushed out.)

I'm guessing anyone who doesn't care for toxic fh probably already has you blocked, but if there is anyone like that who does see this: Hi! I also love flower husbands a lot! They just aren't my fluffy comfort ship, I like headcanoning them as divorced and imperfect because I think it makes them more interesting to write. I love being able to write characters who don't find the love of their life immediately but each relationship still shapes them into a new person. Sometimes I like to imagine their relationship as more mild and silly, and sometimes more dramatic and intense, I'm not a one-headcanon person! But their divorce is what really inspired me about them so I like writing about it. I don't want to stop anyone from enjoying them how they enjoy them and have no interest in making people who would be upset by my content to read it, so I try to tag it correctly! I'd like to be able to write my stories without walking on eggshells wondering if someone thinks I only wrote something I worked really hard on and cared a lot about just to spite them or because I'm secretly homophobic while writing about men kissing, just because my interpretation is different. It makes me scared to put Scott in my fics at all and contributed to my writers block for fics with them in it. I think Scott gets treated unfairly by certain people too, but that's not what I'm trying to do, I wouldn't write about him if I did!

(Also sorry if my paragraphs are strange, I'm not used to writing on mobile or pouring my thoughts out.)

Hi hello welcome back!! Please don't apologize I love long asks, especially long asks about scott smahor. The fact that you pulled up that toxic fh post and read it with a friend is so funny to me. Looking back, I wish I'd planned it out better and wrote it more eloquently, but I'm glad it brings people some sense of joy/entertainment/understanding. I hope you and your friend enjoyed it, even in an ironic sense.

It's endlessly entertaining (and fascinating) to me personally how every toxic fh believer seems to undergo the same-ish pipeline of watching the fh pov and being horrified --> looking at fanon fh and disengaging out of fear --> finding other toxic fh posters in the wild and suddenly realising you're not insane after all. I know I personally went into scott's pov expecting wholesomeness and ended up wide-eyed at what I saw before proceeding to slink FH into the back of my mind for awhile.

People tend to believe others operate like they do and I think that's where a lot of the discourse originates. Most of the louder voices I've seen that are very against the toxic interpretation are from people who primarily engage in bending the characters to fit specific concepts i.e. the "toxic jimmy" brainstorm that happened awhile back on here where interpretation is less a study and more confirmation bias-ing your way into making an idea work. Which I must reiterate is completely awesome because we're making fanfics here not nukes. But this leads people to assume that everyone who writes about toxic fh is going in with the mindset of "how do i interpret these moments so that scott is an abuser" and not "wow that thing i just watched sure kind of felt like domestic abuse"

Which like. YEAH, if there was a theoretical group of people who went out of their way to interpret everything scott did ever as evil and irredeemable, I too would assume that they had it out for the guy. But that's not what's happening, usually, afaik (at least on here, twitter's situation is a bit different due to the culture and would be its own beast for me to dissect and I honestly don't spend enough time on there to really feel confident making any statement).

For the record, I think a lot of people are on the same boat regarding FH being toxic and just simply don't care enough to voice/explore it, don't want to deal with the fandom nonsense that comes with it or would simply rather shift focus onto other pairs with similar themes. i.e. there is something going on with the toxic fh believer/ethubs shipper overlap I just know there is if anyone would like to do science with me it'd be awesome.

I know that I definitely focused my sights more on Scott and Pearl's relationship following my "wow that was sure something" watchthrough of scott's series, which is ironic considering I now base alot of my thoughts about their dynamic on scott's previous relationship with jimmy.

I think there's like. Something about the DL Pearl fans and the ranchers fans specifically who tended to communicate in code re: Scott's toxicity because for a long time all of us were afraid of saying it outright. So you get a lot of posts where Scott is like. A vaguely unpleasant force in the narrative while not really being a main focus himself, which I think may have contributed to the "ranchers fans only view scott as the villainous ex to push their ship harder" argument that I've seen a lot.

Once I realised from that one Shepscapades comic that there were others who saw the same plot I did, I would go out fishing for signs of agreement/acknowledgement. Hybbat if you're reading this, take this as my apology for sending you anon asks back in the day essentially trying to bait you into posting more FH slander, there was something deeply wrong with me (there still is, I'm just more upfront about it now I think).

There's also just this very like.. us vs them mentality very apparent in the way people talk about The Discourse that kinda sucks. Weirdly enough it's kind of shifted from toxic fh vs healthy fh to fh vs ranchers (or any other jimmy ship for that matter) nowadays. I can't talk on 2016 tumblr but regarding your last point (which I know isn't directed towards me but I think it's worth saying) -- would it matter if you Were one of THOSE fh writers? (or one of THOSE aces or THOSE enbies for that matter). You're not but like. Would it?

(side note rhetorical question do not answer i dont want to know but wtf did the aces/enbies even do lmao)

Not to get too away from the discourse cus I do my fair share of glazing on this blog already, but yes yes yes big agree on fh's storyline being amazing!! I love that we essentially watch them both have to live on after their mutually life-changing marriage.

Scott especially I love because in a lot of stories that feature an abuser they're painted as entirely evil and oftentimes disappear from the story once the relationship is over, but Scott doesn't and will never go anywhere. He's forced to grapple with his previous actions and the destructive way he thinks about himself and relationships has and continues to damage both himself and the people he loves. Just like how irl even when we wish abusers would just "go away" they will still continue being living people as they've always been, not a concept that will simply perish once you overcome the trauma. I love abusive characters who are fully written as human and think they're important. Is all.

#asks #discourse #long post #i was gonna say more about how i think both perpetrators and victims of abusive relationships (cont)#(cont) tend to seek out writing that humanizes abusers more since. the abusive ppl we know irl are people #and oftentimes ppl we loved and continue to love. whereas to outsiders it's a very black/white situation #there's also i think like. a wish fulfillment aspect of it. that you or they can get better and everything can be okay again #which is obviously not like. the most amazingly healthy fantasy wowie but it's a fantasy for a reason #i know i at least have entertained one million here's how scott can get better scenarios in my head. some of them worse than others

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